A $100,000 Debt Before Marriage: Ramit Sethi on Trust, Avoidance, and Splitting Costs Fairly

Overview

Randy, 31, and Mack, 33, have been together for almost four years, live together, and talk about getting married. Their finances are very different. Randy has a net worth of about $102,000. Mack's is roughly negative $56,000, mostly because he owes about $100,000. Randy applied to Ramit Sethi's podcast and wrote that he felt "handcuffed into funding his rich life with my wallet." He added that "the deeper roadblock is we haven't aligned on what we're actually building."

25 min read

Ramit called that a perceptive line. His reading was that the mechanics of their money might work while the dynamic underneath did not. Over the conversation he concludes that the debt itself is not the core problem. Mack already has a solid payoff plan. The problems are Mack's avoidance of money, Randy's indirect way of voicing distrust, and a 50/50 arrangement that no longer matches their incomes.

"Handcuffed": what Randy meant

Randy explained that he currently earns more than Mack and feels "without me, it's not possible." Everything seemed to depend on him succeeding rather than on the two of them succeeding together. By "handcuffed" he meant that if he left, the problem would become Mack's alone, which would put Mack in a bad position, and he didn't want that. So he stays in "this together" while feeling he carries most of the load for "the fun parts of life."

Mack said he was "pretty offended" when he first read the line. It made him feel his whole self was a net burden. After more conversations he conceded "there is an element of truth to that." That helped, but it also made it hard not to conclude, "wow, like I really am a problem." He described himself as "financially complicated," not a financial problem. He said he didn't want his debt to become Randy's problem, but it couldn't be fixed quickly.

Mack said his original plan had been "to keep this my problem for as long as I could." He also admitted he needed help: "everybody brings something they need help with to a relationship. Mine just happens to have numbers on it." His payments left no room for a faster payoff, so the debt had become "this unanswered question that's just sitting in every conversation."

How the money currently moves

Their finances are separate. They can see each other's balances, and they have a joint account they plan to use after an upcoming move to a corporate apartment. For now they each Venmo the landlord half the rent and send each other roughly a dozen Venmo payments a month for groceries, dining, electricity and similar costs. Mack said it "generally feels pretty fair."

Randy has a system he summed up as "pay yourself first": money goes automatically to his 401(k), then a Roth, then savings, and he spends the rest. He called it "set it and forget it." Asked how Mack's finances fit into it, he said "They don't." He blamed Mack's lack of a system and the clumsiness of separate accounts that have to be tracked by hand. He first called this "inefficient." When Ramit suggested "irritation," Randy accepted the word. Asked about his own system, Mack said: "Just hope and a prayer."

The app, and "how fast can we pay this off?"

Randy had written that in the past month he "kind of demanded to have a clear picture." After starting a new job he wanted to start "living life," and he couldn't operate "in a black box," especially when solving a problem requires knowing the mechanics. He asked that they share an app that aggregates both of their finances. He said it helped because it showed where they stood without manual work.

Mack said this was when the debt stopped being something he managed quietly and became something to share with a partner. He had sensed it "was going to become a much bigger problem once it was out in the open," and it did. Randy's reaction was, "how fast can we pay this off? Like, let's, you know, put a fire under this."

Ramit pressed on the word "we." Had Randy become part of the payoff? Randy said no. He was involved emotionally but not financially. The debt still took an emotional toll on him because it was "not building towards something. It's actually just an anchor." Ramit pointed out that "how fast can we pay it off" really meant "how fast can you," and Randy agreed. He said he tends to frame money as "your problem versus my problem." Ramit called this a mixed message.

Mack said the conversation changed. Before, the debt was his own issue, and he was glad to have someone to talk to about it. Once marriage and combined finances came up, it became Randy's problem too. Mack described a physical reaction to money talks: he gets hot, his heart rate rises, and "in fight or flight, I just choose flight." He said he felt it a little even during the recording.

Roles: "solutions" and "dependent"

Randy said the app gave him relief to have answers, "even if they were all wrong and everything's broken," because you can work backward to a solution. Asked whether his role was "solutions," he quickly said yes. Mack explained why: "I have not wanted to deal with it." He called his own role "a little dependent" and said Randy's ideal would be for Mack to hand everything over and be told what he can spend.

Mack added that when he thought about what would actually make him comfortable, he wanted the opposite. He would like to join friends' conversations about money strategy. Right now he checks out because he'd feel "really uncomfortable" and "really embarrassed" about the debt. He also said he felt some resentment. Part of the debt came from being "young and stupid," but much of it came from events outside his control. Talking about money brings back a rough, out-of-control period that he wants behind him, "but now I still pay two grand a month to keep thinking about it."

Randy described a pattern of minimizing: "if I don't acknowledge the problem, the problem doesn't exist." Mack agreed in part. The "soft emotional" side of him feels the setup is fine, since it will be paid off in about five years. The "adult brain" knows it isn't working because he isn't tracking much. He said he isn't dumb; thinking about it is too stressful, so he sets things up twice a year and tries not to look.

Ramit told Mack he had an invisible script that his goal is to not have to think about money. His view is that getting good at money requires paying a lot of attention to it and finding a way to enjoy it.

Budgets at work, avoidance at home

Mack is a project manager who handles budgets constantly. He enjoys being the person who can answer any question about a project, including exactly what a given invoice was for. Asked what that would look like at home, he said it would be "really fun" to know what's in each account, where it's going, what the targets are, such as a 2027 vacation or retiring at 62, and where they stand. He admitted he doesn't do this for his own money.

He offered an explanation. His whole career has been in some part of finance, often with very large transactions. "I have $100,000 in debt, but I spent $150 million last week at work." He understands the math, but the number doesn't hit him the way it hits Randy, so his instinct is that it "could be worse." Work money is also someone else's money and feels more abstract. His own feels overwhelming: "this is too much. I really don't want to like go do it."

Ramit compared this to a past guest who taught personal finance in high school while struggling with their own finances. He said Mack clearly has the skills but sees himself at home as passive, not good with money, and someone who has made many mistakes. Ramit's aim was to get him to apply his work skills to his own finances.

The numbers

On their Conscious Spending Plan, the couple had investments of $141,645, savings of $17,184, debt of $112,939, and a combined net worth of $45,890. Randy said he disliked the minus sign in front of his number, meaning Mack's. Randy felt sad that combining them let the debt eat up much of what they had built. Ramit put it this way: the combined number doesn't represent their work; "it's representative of the trauma that you've kind of accumulated and are trying to pay down."

Individually, Ramit read Mack's investments at about $38,000 and his savings at $5,000, against $12,000 in savings for Randy. Debt was the main difference: $100,000 for Mack, $12,000 for Randy. Mack said he hadn't realized he had about $40,000 in 401(k)s. It had sat there while he avoided looking. Ramit said the script "I should not have to look at money" hurt Mack on the downside with debt, on the upside with his 401(k), and in the relationship.

Their combined gross monthly income was $25,833, about $309,000 a year. Both of them knew this, which Ramit said is unusual; he claimed about half of people don't know their own household income. Asked how couples in their early 30s at that income talk about money, they said "confidently," "competently," and "proudly." Mack added that their friends all seem to have houses to fix, which he doesn't want to do.

Randy earns $15,000 a month gross and takes home $10,000. Mack earns $10,000 gross and takes home $7,000. Ramit called both high incomes, with one about 50% higher. Combined fixed costs were 63%, above his preferred ceiling of 60%. The biggest line after rent was debt payments of $2,238. Investments (4%) and savings (3%) were almost entirely Randy's. Combined guilt-free spending was 31%. Randy's alone was $4,394 a month, or 42%, spent on bike parts, helmets, expensive coffee and similar things. Ramit said he has no problem with high earners spending that much once other goals are met.

Randy's current income was only about a month old. He had gone from about $60,000–65,000 to $113,000, then to $150,000, then to about $185,000 within roughly five years. His advice: "Find the next job you want and gain the skills to get there." Ramit said this matched how high earners tend to talk: solution-oriented and black-and-white.

Asked to assess the plan, Mack said the combined picture "is really not so bad," but individually "there's one person who's doing great and there's one person who is stuck." His fixed costs were 87%, manageable on their own "but not to be sharing a life with the person in the first column." Ramit compared Randy's 47%, which means no financial stress, to Mack's 87%, which feels like drowning. He said the mismatch feels odd for a couple living together.

Where the $100,000 came from

About $15,000 of Mack's debt is student loans. The rest is two consolidation loans of about $11,000 and about $70,000, which rolled up what had once been eight or nine separate debts. When Ramit kept asking what the original debts were for, Mack described a career that ran opposite to Randy's. In his 20s he earned $180,000–200,000 as a commercial real estate broker, mostly on commission. He had no training in handling lumpy income. He might have $1,000 in the bank, then a $50,000 check, then nothing for six months. He said he wasn't in a good place mentally and didn't plan well.

He eventually decided the career and the people in it weren't right for him. He planned three months off and assumed he'd find a job quickly. It took another three or four months. During the planned break he kept his expensive apartment, kept spending as if he had a regular income, and burned through his savings. Looking back, he said some of it was within his control and some was not, and it felt unfair that it could come between them. Ramit agreed it was unfair, then asked what came next.

Speaking to the audience, Ramit summarized Mack's path: a large but volatile commission income, which he said leaves many people feeling unstable, then leaving that job, then more job losses through layoffs. Later in the episode it came out that Mack was laid off the same week Randy started a new job. Ramit said anyone in that situation would feel out of control and incompetent, and possibly worse watching a partner who once earned less steadily earn more. For most of a decade, in Ramit's view, money had meant stress, overwhelm and confusion for Mack.

Whose problem is it, and the mixed message

Ramit asked who the debt was a bigger problem for. Mack said it was technically his on paper, but his reaction differed from Randy's. Randy said his teamwork side sees it as theirs to solve, and that it scared him when Mack didn't seem to treat it as a big problem. He also admitted an intrusive thought: "this isn't my problem if I'm not here." Ramit called this another mixed message: "I want to be a partner... but also it's your problem because if I'm not here—good luck."

Randy said the new job and more money had him thinking about how they could spend it, and he felt hamstrung seeing so much go to Mack's debt. Their money conversations, he said, "tend to end with us going our separate ways," because Mack gets emotionally charged and Randy doesn't like pushing people past their comfort. Ramit replied that pushing past comfort was the whole point of coming to him. Randy said the issue was a shutdown rather than a conversation, and pushing someone past where they've decided not to go isn't productive. Ramit said that was fair.

Mack then said the problem was new to Randy but not to him. He had already done the anxiety and processing. He had a five-year consolidation loan and would be debt-free in February 2030, about four years away. Ramit applauded; he said a debt-free date is rare. Mack said he had accepted that he wouldn't be able to save until then and would fall behind Randy's savings, but he also felt excited, because "it feels like something we could do together."

Ramit asked whether you can be excited about money while $100,000 in debt. Mack said he hadn't been able to. Ramit said you can. He argued that Mack had built a world in which he must feel horrible about money until 2030, and people ignore what makes them feel horrible. Ignoring it was rational given that worldview, but the worldview was wrong. An aggressive payoff plan alone, Ramit said, was not fixing the relationship and was making it worse, because the underlying stance was still "I don't want to talk about money."

"A problem to solve rather than a person to support"

Mack said his relationship with money had gone "from poor planning to ignoring to anxiety" to managing the anxiety by planning and then leaving things alone. When he first told Randy about the debt, Randy's response was "amazing," and he felt supported. Back then it was a Mack issue. When it became an "us" issue, "there's a little bit of whiplash of feeling supported and understood to suddenly being like judged and like I've become a problem to solve rather than a person to support." Over the past few months he had felt like a net negative in the relationship.

Randy joked, "I like a good problem to solve," and said that was his default. He said he was disheartened because it meant he hadn't been a very good partner, that he was oddly excited to have something to improve, and he apologized.

The real issue: trust

Ramit asked what Randy was really asking for when he pushed for the app. Randy said "more control," then went further: "I just don't trust that it's not going to continue to snowball in a way that's uncontrollable." He hadn't said this to Mack directly. He had instead made rules like not using several payment plans and having the cash before buying something expensive.

Ramit said these requests danced around the core point. What Randy needed to say was that he felt a lack of trust, didn't sense from Mack the alarm he'd feel with that much debt, and wasn't sure whether the feeling was fair. Randy said that was accurate. Mack said he had seen the app as a helpful tool and hadn't realized trust was involved, though he understood it.

Ramit also spoke to indirect communicators generally. If you're constantly monitoring your partner's feelings and keep a mental list of things you can't say, he argued, you aren't communicating effectively. You can be direct and respectful. You will sometimes hurt your partner's feelings, and that's acceptable. He suggested openings like, "I'm not even sure if I'm saying this the right way, but here's what's been on my mind."

Randy clarified that Mack's speed wasn't the issue. Ramit thought four years was good and said maybe it could be three and a half. What Randy lacked was a plan to keep it from happening again: "once you're out you can get back in." Mack acknowledged that most of the debt predated their relationship, so Randy didn't know how it happened, and that if it happened once it could happen again, "especially if I'm consistently coming off as it not being a big deal." Randy said he wished they could treat it as a game and celebrate when Mack crosses zero.

Ramit gave Randy language he could use: support Mack, but state the expectation that he pays aggressively, follows his plan, and explains how he'll make sure it doesn't recur. Mack offered to be more transparent about what he does each month and what he's thinking, since the shared accounts show numbers but not his head. He said he had "some level of control." Ramit corrected him: "You have complete control over this debt. You incurred it. You have a debt payoff plan. You have an income." He suggested a monthly transparency report, framed as what a partner does, like at work, not as something punitive. Mack said this made him realize how out of control he had felt.

Ramit summarized the dynamic. Mack is competent at executing a strong plan, faster than the decades many people take to pay off $100,000, but his mindset hadn't caught up, so he wasn't confident. Randy picks up on that lack of confidence and avoidance and responds with distrust and demands for an app. "The irony is you actually have a nice plan, but neither of you have re-calibrated your relationship."

The rich life, and why 50/50 stopped fitting

Randy daydreams about having no debt, each putting away $1,000 a month for four months, and taking an $8,000 trip three times a year. He mentioned Vancouver, Brussels, and a guided mountain-biking trip in Austria. Mack wants to explore Mexico and its tequila culture. They already travel and split costs 50/50. That split started when Mack earned more and had more control of his money. As the gap reversed and grew, they never revisited it.

Ramit linked this to Mack's past. After his income dropped, he didn't adjust and ended up with a decade of debt. Failing to adjust to changed circumstances, whether income falls or rises, has serious consequences, and Ramit said almost nobody does it. Mack said paying to buy back time, like cleaning and laundry, matters more to Randy than to him. If they were hitting savings goals he wouldn't police Randy's choices, even if he didn't always understand them.

On identity, Mack said he needed to be more like his work self, "hyper organized and on top of everything," and more confident, both in telling Randy "I've got this" and in showing it. He imagined looking back in a decade and saying, "Boy, that sucked. Glad we got through it." Ramit praised this. Randy first said he wanted to be "a champion of your successes" and "a better pillar." Ramit instead suggested he needed to be more direct, because "the mixed messages are killing you," and state clearly what's Mack's job, what's shared, and what he expects. Randy said that was doable.

Ramit proposed dropping 50/50 when one partner earns 50% more. He suggested flexible norms: Randy might cover a trip that matters to him, and Mack could accept graciously. Randy mentioned he sometimes wants to pay and Mack won't let him, and that he'd been annoyed the night before when Mack insisted on buying dinner.

Rebuilding the spending plan

Ramit said Mack's 87% fixed costs weren't feasible. He proposed proportional rent, since they live together. Randy said he was fine with it, and they had already discussed it. Mack said he felt "very uncomfortable" because the debt was his to handle and he didn't want to cut into Randy's enjoyment. Ramit said proportionality has nothing to do with the debt: Randy earns more and wants to pay more. Mack found it "hard for me to believe that you actually want to." Randy said the mixed messaging explained that doubt, but proportionality "makes fair feel fair versus equal." Ramit agreed that equitable matters more than equal. No couple is equal in earnings or housework, and money shouldn't be overvalued compared with emotional labor, household work or planning just because it fits in a spreadsheet.

Randy added a condition. If he pays, say, an extra $1,000 in rent and that money goes to more of Mack's spending instead of his goals, "that would be a hard stop." Ramit asked Mack whether he'd give up some vacations and restaurants for a few years. Mack said yes.

The changes they made:

Rent: proportional, $2,282 for Randy and $1,556 for Mack. Mack's fixed costs fell from 87% to 81%.
Subscriptions: $140, mostly a $109 gym membership plus Spotify and Netflix. Ramit said to share streaming within the household and cut it to $110.
Miscellaneous: Mack had left it at the default 15%, $743. Ramit said that's fine for high earners but not for someone in debt. Mack suggested $250; Ramit set it at $150.
Investing and emergency fund: $100 a month each. Mack preferred to clear high-interest debt first. Ramit said a small amount "keeps the factory on" and tells yourself saving matters.

These changes left Mack with 25% of take-home pay, $1,793 a month, unallocated. Mack wanted a buffer in case something happened to the relationship or to either of them. He has about $6,000 saved and would feel comfortable with $20,000–25,000. They added $500 a month to savings, making $600 and a savings rate of about 8%. Ramit said guilt-free spending should normally be 20–35% but lower with debt, and aimed for 12–15%. They raised the debt payment from $2,238 to $2,400. Mack's guilt-free spending ended at 13%, about $931, rising to $955 after proportional utilities of $149 for Randy and $101 for Mack.

Ramit noted that together their guilt-free money was about $4,900 a month. Randy would need to remember that Mack's share covers everything, including travel. If Randy wants something expensive, he should pay or not suggest it. Mack, a self-described homebody, said he was confident. Ramit roughly estimated payoff at around 3.6 years instead of four, with thousands more in savings and investments by then. Mack said the hardest part would be believing Randy was really okay with it. He committed to working on his reaction to money conversations and said the plan felt "less like something is hunting me and almost more like I'm doing the hunting."

Ramit said coming for help before marriage was a strong sign. He hoped they would see themselves as a unit, whether or not they keep separate accounts. That means proportional joint costs, Mack driving the debt payoff, and frank, sometimes contentious conversations about priorities, such as whether being debt-free matters more than a September trip.

Follow-ups: 60/40, "who has the puck," and a shared fixed-cost account

After one week, Randy said the biggest surprise was that equitable and even aren't the same. The first thing they did was split all shared finances 60/40 by income. Mack had taken ownership of planning, which freed Randy "to stop being the bad guy." Mack said he was surprised his payoff plan was "actually not that bad" and had room for more. The real change was learning Randy was excited to split proportionally once he knew Mack had the strategy. Mack said keeping the debt to himself had made things worse. It made Randy defensive of his own money and eroded his trust. As hockey fans, they renamed Ramit's "who has the ball" as "who has the puck," and Mack now leads their money meetings, sets the agenda, and asks the questions. He moved the revised plan into their apps so meetings feel like solving small and medium problems instead of confronting a huge one. They have also begun discussing a realistic marriage timeline.

At four weeks, Randy reported that they had moved to a different apartment than planned, with three months free, worth about $10,000. They are using that to build a shared buffer and individual savings. They opened a joint fixed-cost account funded 60/40, which ended the Venmo back-and-forth. Randy also decided to save an amount equal to what Mack puts toward debt each month. After the first round, they each texted the other about how good it felt.

At six weeks, Mack said proportional splitting had let him focus on the debt, grow his emergency fund, and feel he was pulling his weight. He had gotten better at saying "this is not the month for me" to bigger purchases or trips, and at accepting when Randy decides to pay. They can see each other's accounts, including Mack's falling balances, but neither feels a need to police them. They meet once a month, and he said the meetings have become "pretty fun." For the move, they met at least weekly for a month to plan furniture, movers and other costs and decide who would pay for what. Mack said that made the process collaborative and "even a little bit fun."

I have $100,000 in debt. As we're talking about eventually getting married, I just had this feeling that this was going to become a much bigger problem. It became an emotional toll on me. It's a negative. It's not building towards something. It's actually just an anchor. I was like, how fast can we pay this off?

How fast can we pay this off? Did you become part of the debt payoff?

No, I didn't.

It's a bit of a mixed message.

There's a little bit of whiplash of feeling supported and understood to suddenly being judged. I've become a problem to solve. Our money conversations tend to end with us going our separate ways. Emotionally, you get very charged up about it. I even feel it right now. It's just like this is too much. I really don't want to do it.

The way you've constructed your world is that I need to feel horrible about money. And when people feel horrible about something, they don't engage in it. Neither of you have recalibrated your relationship. What's going on there?

I just don't trust that it's not going to continue to snowball in a way that's uncontrollable if we're going to have a future together. There's an element of it's not possible.

Today I'm speaking with Randy and Mack, 31 and 33 years old. They are in a relationship and they are talking about getting married soon. Randy is the one who applied. Here's what he wrote: "We're not married yet, but plan to combine finances when we are. A meaningful chunk of my income ends up going towards his debt and our shared fund, and I feel handcuffed into funding his rich life with my wallet. The deeper roadblock is we haven't aligned on what we're actually building."

That's a pretty perceptive comment. The idea that the mechanics may be working functionally, but the dynamic underneath is not. I'm going to pull up their Conscious Spending Plan. Let's take a look. We have a total net worth of $45,000, but it's quite different. Randy has a net worth of $102,000. Mack has a net worth of negative $56,000. Debt is where things really become different. Randy has $12,000 of debt. Mack has $100,000 of debt. Wow.

Combined monthly income, $25,833. For a couple in their early 30s, that's a lot of money. We have Randy making 15K a month gross. Mack is making 10K a month gross. That's great. Fixed costs at 63%. But if you break it down individually, Randy's at 47% and Mack is at 87%.

I got to say, I'm really glad that I get to talk to Randy and Mack before they get married. Doing things preventatively with your money can make all the difference. Question I have is, do they have a compatible vision of a rich life? Let's find out. Let's meet Randy and Mack.

I took a look at the application. You filled it out, right, Randy? Okay. You wrote in there, quote, "I feel handcuffed into funding his rich life with my wallet." Tell me about that.

I do make more than Mack right at the moment. And I do think that there's an element of without me, it's not possible. And it feels a little bit like everything is kind of reliant on me to be successful and not necessarily us to be successful.

You use the word handcuffed. What does that mean?

The feeling ultimately is that if I were to leave, the problem becomes his, but that also puts him in a bad spot, and I don't want to do that. So, handcuffed in the sense that we're in this together, but you kind of are the only one carrying the load as far as—

You're the only one.

As far as the fun parts of life, yes.

What's your take on it, Mack?

When I first read that line, I was pretty offended by it.

Why?

It feels very much like the whole of me is a net burden, and that's kind of how I felt. But now that we've had more chances to talk about that, I understand, and there is an element of truth to that. So that both feels good and then it's like, okay, yeah, that was a good point. We need to figure that out. But also feels bad because then it's hard for me to not internalize that even more of, wow, I really am a problem.

And do you think that you are a financial problem?

I'm certainly financially complicated.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.

Yeah. I think we both are in a spot where the amount of debt that I have, I don't particularly want it to be Randy's problem.

Got it.

But it's also not something that can just be fixed like that.

How long have the two of you been together?

Going on four years.

Four years. Okay. And is there a plan to be married one day?

I would like to. Yeah.

Yeah. Has there been this discussion that you have to pay your debt off before you get married?

Maybe not in so many words, but I think originally that was your plan.

Yes. My plan was to keep this my problem for as long as I could.

And why did it get so quiet in here?

I am also feeling very much like I need some help. And while that's not your job, it is something where it's like, okay, everybody brings something they need help with to a relationship. Mine just happens to have numbers on it. And we can probably be getting a lot closer to what we would want to have together if we work together on it.

But it's hard to have that conversation because where I am, I can't put more than what I'm already doing. The numbers don't really work for me to be doing a rapid payoff or anything like that. So, it kind of becomes this unanswered question that's just sitting in every conversation of I don't particularly want Randy to feel like he has to be contributing. And I don't think you want to. I don't know who would, but at the same time, if we're going to have a life together, it's going to be something that's there in the way always.

Are your finances combined?

No. At least not in the practical sense. We're aware of how much we have in each other's bank accounts, but they're not combined right now. We do have a joint account which I actually am going to put our money into so we can just withdraw from that, so it stops being so chaotic.

What about the rent? How's that paid?

Right now we just split it in half.

Yeah.

50/50.

Yeah.

Okay. And so the money goes into some account which then pays the rent. Is that how it works?

No, currently it's Venmo, but we are moving. So the combined account is intended to be for when we do move. We're moving into more of a corporate apartment. So there's a bit better system. Right now we just have a landlord.

So one person pays it, the other one Venmos.

We both Venmo our landlord half of the rent to every house.

Okay, got it. And what about other joint expenses? Groceries, eating out. How does that work?

I think we just pass back and forth the same Venmo transactions.

Ad infinitum.

How many per month Venmo transactions do you have between the two of you?

A dozen total things including electricity and whatnot.

Okay.

Yeah. Sometimes it'll be a month where it's like, oh, this came up. It was about $100. Oh, I spent $100 over here. Okay, cool. That cancels out. Generally, it feels pretty fair.

Okay. Now, Randy, I understand that you have a financial system. I love a good system. Can you describe the financial system that you've built?

Yeah. I can kind of sum it up in one sentence. Pay yourself first and then do whatever else you want to do with it.

Okay. So, you have money automatically going into savings, investing, that kind of thing.

Yeah. 401(k) and then Roth and then savings and then the rest kind of trickles down.

How does his finances slot into this system of yours?

They don't. I think largely due to the lack of a system that's in there. I think there's also just the cumbersome nature of having disjoint accounts that don't exactly all merge in one place and then spread out. They're siloed off and you have to keep track of each other's numbers. And in that—

Irritating to you?

It's inefficient.

And that sounds like irritation. I love systems and if I had to deal with some orphan account over here, I'd be like, "This sucks. I'll be irritated."

Yeah, I guess irritation might be a good word for it then.

Okay. Well, then how do you deal with it right now? It seems like Venmo is the way. But do you spend a lot of time on your own financial system?

No, not anymore. No, I kind of set it and forget it.

Okay. What about you, Mack?

Just hope and a prayer.

Really?

Very little fazes me about money, but I still cannot get over how the majority of couples do not have a single substantive conversation about money, often for years at a time. And just take your own relationship because I'm genuinely curious. When was the first time that you had a substantive conversation about money? Not a five-minute conversation about who's paying, a substantive conversation about money. Put it in the comments. I read every single one.

Randy, in your application, you mentioned something. You said, "In the last month, I kind of demanded to have a clear picture." What does that mean?

I got a new job and I wanted to start kind of living life and through that I wanted to know what was happening. Operating in a black box about stuff doesn't work for me, especially when the mechanics of how to solve a problem are 100% going to have to be known and you can't do it in a black box.

So, what did you do?

I just asked if we could share an app that would allow us to add our finances and see where we're at, and we did. And it's been helpful in the sense that we know where we are and it doesn't feel very manual. It doesn't feel like a task to do. It's just there. I think that's the genesis of me wanting to understand his finances.

Okay.

That was where it left from being this thing that I was just trying to manage in the background and not think about too much to being like, "Oh, wow. This is something I need to share with my partner." We were getting very serious at that point, and also something that I just had this feeling that this was going to become a much bigger problem once it was out in the open.

And it did.

It did. You were right.

Yeah.

And when I realized what it was and how to do it, I very much was on the team of how fast can we pay this off? Let's put a fire under this and get it out of the way.

How fast can we pay this off? Did you become part of the debt payoff?

No, I didn't. At least I emotionally did, but I didn't physically contribute to it. But it became an emotional toll on me.

Why?

Because debt is one of those things where it can be a utility, but the problem with it the way it's done here is it's a kind of negative. It's not building towards something. It's actually just an anchor.

Okay. So, you asked him, "How fast can we pay it off?" Even though, it seems to me, what you meant is how fast can you pay it off?

Yeah.

Okay. Is that a common thing?

I think so. Through some of the experiences we've had recently, I've realized that a lot of the way I approach money is this is your problem versus my problem. And I'm not necessarily all set, but I'm definitely in a spot where I'm able to flex and move a little bit better and not really concern myself with the ins and outs of managing it.

I'm curious about, it's a bit of a mixed message. Would you say that you've experienced mixed messages around money?

For sure. Yeah.

You said, "How are we going to pay this debt off?" implying, "How are you going to pay this debt off?" What was your reaction to it?

I think this time it was the first time it had been talked about in a context of the logistics of us having combined finances. In the past, it had been more about this is a thing that I'm dealing with as a person and I'm so glad I have somebody here that I can talk to about it. But then it was suddenly becoming actually your problem in that. So it gave you—

Your problem?

Well, my problem. It always had been my problem, but as we're talking about the potential of eventually getting married, combining finances, it becomes his problem, too. And so, the feeling—I have a very visceral feeling to talking about money.

Which is what?

I get very hot and my heart rate goes up and typically I just end up checking out because it's like in fight or flight, I just choose flight because—

Feel that right now?

Yeah, a little bit.

Okay. If you need to take a break, we take a break. But—

No, I'm all right.

Okay. Well, good to know. What did it get you when you had that app set up?

It gave me some relief to know just the answers that were happening, even if they were all wrong and everything's broken. We at least have an answer to operate with because you can kind of backwards your way into a solution. And I'm very solution-oriented. So, we have debt. How do we pay it off? Avalanche, snowball, doesn't matter. What's the fastest way to get there?

Is that your role with money in this relationship? Solutions.

Yes.

Mack says yes. That was a quick reaction. Why?

Because I have not wanted to deal with it.

Oh, what is your role with money?

His ideal would be for me to take it all on and tell him what he can spend.

How would you describe that in a word, Mack?

Probably a little dependent.

Dependent. That's interesting. So we have solutions and dependent. What do you think?

That is the way we talk about it. But even now, that's not honestly how it's set up because everything's still separate. In an ideal world, it would be something that I don't have to think about. But as we've talked more about what I actually want out of my life, our financial picture, what it would actually feel like for me to be comfortable, is actually kind of the opposite. I would like to be involved in those discussions. I want to be able to talk with my friends about strategies or whatever. It's kind of fun when people just talk about those things. And right now people start talking about that and I have to check out.

Why?

If I participate in the conversation I'm going to feel really uncomfortable and really embarrassed.

Because you have debt.

Yeah. And I can't help but feel a little bit resentful of that. Not toward other people or you or our friends, but just in general. I feel like the reason that I have debt in the first place was not—some of it was just that I was young and stupid, but a lot of it was because a lot of things happened that were a little bit out of my control. And so every time we're talking about debt or finances, all that comes up is a pretty rough period of my life where I felt really not in control. And it's behind me and I just want it all to be behind me so I don't have to think about it anymore. But now I still pay two grand a month to keep thinking about it.

Randy.

I agree. Yeah. I think one of the problems I also see is the mitigation of a problem.

Minimizing it.

Yeah. It seems to be a common pattern that if I don't acknowledge the problem, the problem doesn't exist. Therefore it's not something I have to think about.

Do you think that the strategy you are using is working for you?

I think the soft emotional Mack is like, yeah, this is great. We've got everything set up so that in five years it's going to be paid off and we don't have to think about it anymore and then it's not going to be a big deal.

I think the adult brain in me is like, no, this is not working because I'm not really keeping track of a lot of things. I'm just kind of going hope and a prayer, not because I'm dumb, it's because it's just too stressful to have to think about it. So, if I can spend twice a year putting everything in place and then just never have to look at it and just kind of assume things are going to be okay, then I'm not dealing with that anxiety on a regular basis.

I'm going to be pretty direct. I think you have this invisible script that your ultimate goal is to not have to

Think about money. And the fact is, if you want to get good at money, you have to pay attention to it a lot, and you actually have to find a way to enjoy it. What would that look like for you?

Well, in my job, I do that a lot. I'm a project manager, so I'm dealing with a lot of budgets all the time. And one of the things I enjoy is that I'm the person who knows all of the things that are happening at any point in time with a project. And somebody comes to me and says, "I need to know what this invoice was." And I can respond immediately and say, "I know exactly what that was and what it came from."

What would it look like for you to do that with your finances?

I think it would actually be really fun to be able to say, "I know exactly what's in this account and where it's going. I know exactly what the target is. I know that we want to save for a vacation that we're going to take in 2027, and we're going to retire at 62 years, and this is where we are on that journey." I do a lot of tracking and managing projects, and I find that fun, and I don't really do that with my own finances.

Why?

I think one thing that I didn't notice until we started talking about it a little bit more is I've been in some level of the finance world my whole career, often with extremely large transactions. I think there is a little bit of a skew that I still have of, okay, yeah, I have $100,000 in debt, but I spent $150 million last week at work. So I understand, obviously, mathematically how much that is, but I don't think it has the same impact as it does you because I am used to dealing with numbers. And it's like, wow, that's a lot. That's going to take some time to pay off, but...

Finish the sentence.

Could be worse.

Yeah. Right.

Also a little bit of it's someone else's money at work, so it's a little more, I don't know, esoteric. Whereas when it comes down to me, it's just like, yeah, I even feel it right now where it's just like this is too much. I really don't want to go do it. And it's just an overwhelm factor.

Okay.

This happens every so often on this podcast. I remember speaking to somebody who was struggling with their own personal finances, and you know what they do for a job? They teach personal finance in high school. Mack obviously has the skills to know this stuff about personal finance or learn it, but when he comes home, he sees himself as passive with money, also not particularly good with money, and somebody who's made a lot of mistakes, and he doesn't really want to pay attention to it anymore.

So it's one thing from the outside to look at this person and say, "Look, you have the skills, obviously," but it's quite another to take those skills and transfer them to your own personal life. I hope I can get him to connect the skills he already has to this issue with his personal finances.

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I want to take a look at the numbers. What was it like to put the Conscious Spending Plan together?

I don't know that it was enlightening because we've done it. We've tried to do it so many different ways that we've, you know, flavor of the week at this point. So none of the numbers particularly surprising, but they side by side showed a pretty stark discrepancy.

Okay. Did you know this discrepancy?

Yeah, at least I did.

I think intellectually we knew, but seeing it right there, the actual numbers, is like, okay. Yep, that's what I was feeling, but this is definitely different.

Yeah. All right, let's take a look at the numbers. Randy, can you read off the word in bold and then the combined number next to each of these cells for this total box?

Yeah. Assets, zero. Investments, 141,645. Savings, 17,184. Debt, 112,939. Total net worth, 45,890.

Okay, cool. Just looking at those numbers, what are your reactions?

I don't like the extra little symbol that's on the left side of my number.

The negative. Okay, good catch. Yes. What else?

I feel a little saddened by that when you combine it because a lot of the investment side and the things that we have going for us are eaten up by the debt. And so that number isn't representative of the work. It's representative of the trauma that you've accumulated and are trying to pay down.

So to clarify, we see that Mack, you have 38K of investments versus Randy's $12,000. It's quite a discrepancy there. $5,000 of savings for Mack versus 12,000 for Randy. And then the big difference here is the debt. Mack, $100,000 of debt and $12,000 of debt for Randy. So the numbers on average look one way, but when you dig in beneath, you see quite a difference. Okay. Did you know these numbers? Randy says yes. Mack?

I will be honest. I did not realize that I had $40,000 in 401(k)s, so that was actually kind of a positive.

How do you think that happened, that you have 40K now? That's a lot of money.

Well, mathematically, I know exactly how it happened. It's been sitting around in a 401(k) for a while. I think it's just one of those things where I was aware of it, but I just didn't want to be looking at it, and so I wasn't paying attention to that number at all.

This invisible script, "I should not have to look at money." You see how many different ways it affects you? It affects you on the downside with debt. It affects you on the upside with 401(k). It affects you in your relationship, the two of you. And a healthy relationship with money is actually like, "Oh, I like this. Oh, what a gift that I get to manage my money because that is how I live my Rich Life. That's how we live our Rich Life."

Okay, let's go down to the income. Mack, can you read off the combined gross monthly income, please?

25,833.

What do you guys think about that number?

It's a lot of money. It's a pretty big number.

Yeah. And you're in your early 30s. That's a lot of money. So that's a total of $309,000 per year. By a show of hands, who knew that? Both. Oh my God. Okay, round of applause. This does not happen very often on the show. Wow. How did you know that? Because 50% of people do not even know their own household income.

Because we've talked about it.

Yeah. Great.

We have talked about that. Yeah.

Wow. What does a couple in their early 30s that makes over $300,000, what do they do? How do they behave when it comes to money?

I think about a lot of our friends are in somewhat similar situations. Actually, a lot of our friends are pretty open about talking, not necessarily about income and stuff, but how are you doing on this kind of investing thing? It's not the number one topic of conversation, but it's something I think everybody's interested in for the most part in our group.

How do they talk?

Confidently.

What else?

Competently.

Nice.

Yeah.

Nice. Good. What else?

It seems like they all have houses to fix, which I don't want to do.

Okay, got it. Yeah.

I think at that point the way I would talk is proud.

Proudly.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. It's something that they have accomplished. Nobody trips and falls into a $309,000 household income. You got to be very good at your job, both of you. It's impressive.

Okay. I just want to point out the differential in income here. 15,000 a month for Randy, 10,000 a month for Mack. We have Randy taking home 10,000 a month, Mack taking home 7,000 a month. So again, my assessment, generally pretty similar incomes. Of course, one is like 50% higher, but they're both high incomes. Great. Let's go down to the rest of it. Fixed costs. What's that number?

63%.

Great. I'd like to see it below 60%, but okay. I will say, especially with a very high income, when the number is above 60%, I'm kind of like, what's going on? And we know what's going on because the highest number here is the debt payments, 2,238, of course, aside from your rent. So we'll get into that. Investments are at 4%, but that's really Randy's investments. Savings are at 3%, but that's really Randy's savings. And then finally, this one is very interesting to me. Guilt-free spending. What's this number?

It's 31%.

Randy, $4,394 a month. That's 42%. Now, I don't mind. I love seeing a high earner spend a ton of money on guilt-free spending if they're hitting all their other numbers. I don't mind. What is that money going towards?

Kind of you name it. It's fun. Buying new bike parts, helmets, stuff like that. I don't know. It goes to expensive coffee when I go out. I don't really have to think about a no situation because it just is there.

You have the money. Okay.

This income is new for me.

Oh. As of when?

Like a month ago.

Oh, so you're rolling in it. You're like, "I got more money than I've ever had."

Yeah. I have an extra $25,000-ish roughly a month.

What were you making before?

150.

Wow.

And I was only there for a year and a half, and prior to that was 113, and then prior to that was 60. And I did. So in five years, I've gone from 65,000 to 185.

What's your advice for America? Tell them, how'd you do it?

Find the next job you want and gain the skills to get there.

Wow, I like it. It's actually very aligned with how high earners talk about it. It's very solutions-oriented. It's very black and white. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but that is the path to do it. Well said. All right. What is your assessment of this Conscious Spending Plan when you look at it? If you had to analyze it, what would you say you notice about this CSP?

Combined is really not so bad. There's some things that can probably be polished, but it seems pretty good. Individual, there's one person who's doing great, and there's one person who is stuck.

Stuck. Be more descriptive.

My fixed costs are at 87% on an individual level. It's manageable, but not to be sharing a life with the person in the first column.

Yeah, they're kind of completely different. If we look at one person, Randy has 47% fixed costs. That's extremely low. There's no stress at all. At 87%, you feel like you're drowning. So there's an incongruity there, and that feels odd in a relationship. Especially in a married relationship, which I know you're not, but in an intimate relationship when you're living together, it can feel a little weird. Does it feel like that to you?

Yeah, it definitely does on my end.

Okay, here's my approach. First, I want to spend a little bit more time with Mack to understand his view of money, especially where this debt came from. But then I need to talk to Randy. I need him to start to understand how he has co-created this dynamic that they have around money and get him to see the effect of it on Mack.

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You both have debt, but I want to talk, Mack, about your debt, which is $100,000. What is included in that debt?

It's about 15,000 of student loans, and then the rest is debt consolidation loans that I did over time. It's really just two big ones.

What were those?

One is for 11,000, the other's around 70,000.

And what were those loans for?

Those were consolidating some loans that were over here and over here. I think at some point there was probably eight or nine different spots where money—

Keep asking till you tell me what those loans were. What were they for? The eight or nine loans.

My trajectory has been very much the opposite of Randy's when it comes to income. I started off making a lot more money than I probably should have young.

How much?

I was probably making 180 up to 200 in my 20s.

Wow.

But that was at a time when mentally I was not in a great space. I was in a career that was primarily commissions based. I did not really have any kind of education around what to do when your income comes in chunks like that. It would be a bank account of $1,000 and then suddenly $50,000 check, and then I wouldn't get paid again for six months. And so I think that whiplash for somebody who was just not that practiced at what that looks like. The debt came from not really planning very well when that was going.

I did a lot of personal discovery toward the end of that career and realized this is not something I wanted. The people I was interacting with were not people that I wanted to interact with.

Were you—hold on, just to guess. Were you an insurance broker?

Commercial real estate broker.

Ah, that was going to be my number three guess.

Okay. Yes. Good call. Okay. So, you walked away from that industry.

I did. And at that point, I had savings. I hadn't really thought about it that hard, but I was like, "Oh, sure. I could live on this." And I needed a real reset, which I don't regret doing, but I took three months off, which was planned, and I had it in my head that, okay, three months off, I'll go get a job like that. And it took another three or four months after that to get a job. And so during those three months that I had planned for, I didn't make any adjustments and had pretty much burned through what I had.

How would you describe it? How do you feel about your career?

Those early times when it was a lot of money coming in, real estate market was booming. I was pretty good at my job. I had a lot of opportunities really young. I was not setting that aside really. I was pretty much hoarding cash. I think also when I initially took that time off from work, I should have planned that to be a time of some level of scarcity.

I was not going to have an income. I was living in a very expensive apartment. I didn't change that. I just kept spending like I still had a regular income. And it didn't feel like that big of a deal for those three months because I planned for it, but then it became a much bigger deal. So I think looking back, there's some elements of getting here that I could control, a lot that I couldn't. And so I end up in this spot where this is what I have, and it feels unfair at times that this could be a thing that gets in between us.

It is unfair. Okay. So let's acknowledge that you have $100,000 of debt. Your partner is making—well, you're both making big salary. He's making a very large salary, and he's like, "We're going to be in our 30s. I want to be able to ball out, and we have this debt. It's unfair." Okay, now what?

You got to put yourself in Mack's shoes for just a minute. In his early 20s, he's making a huge amount of money, but it's commission based, so it's really up and down. Every time I talk to people who make incomes like this, they feel a lack of stability. They don't know that there's actually a way to stably manage their up and down income. Next, he loses that job, and then he proceeds to subsequently lose multiple other jobs through layoffs. How would you feel if this happened to you? You'd probably be like, "Fuck, I don't even know what's happening, but I know I'm not in control." You'd probably feel a little bit incompetent.

And then you might feel even worse when you see your partner who used to earn less than you start to steadily make more. You can start to understand why Mack does not have a healthy, engaged relationship with money. Because for most of the last 10 years, money has been a source of negativity, stress, overwhelm, and confusion. And I hope that I can show him why this is important and then how to do it.

Who is this debt a problem for? Raise your hand if this debt is a problem for you. Okay, cool. Keep your hands up. I like they're both at the same level. But let me ask the question again. Of this debt, who does it represent a bigger problem for, by a show of your hand going high?

It's quite interesting.

I guess it's technically mine on paper, but I think my reaction to it is a lot different from yours.

The teamwork side of me definitely leans into the idea that it's our problem to solve. And I see it's a scary thing to hear when somebody doesn't want to acknowledge that it's a big problem for them. And I think in this scenario, it's actually one of the ones where it's like, well, this isn't my problem if I'm not here. It's one of those things that does pop into my head, kind of like an intrusive thought in that way where it's—

Yeah, I don't mind that you want to be cooperative, but I will say it's hard to interpret the mixed messages that you're sending. It's like, I want to be a partner, I want to help, et cetera. What are we going to do? But also it's your problem because if I'm not here, good luck.

I think there's two parts to it. I think one, there's a buy-in problem from you in this scenario where it feels like I'm taking this far more seriously as a problem to solve and something that we should not have as a problem because I got this new job. And once you have that comboed with the comfort of more money, you start to think about how could we spend it? Where could we spend it?

And you felt hamstrung.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because, hey, I'm now making way more than I ever thought, but yet looking at our numbers, so much of the money is going to debt. Your debt.

Yeah.

Okay. So, what was the end of that entire paragraph?

Our money conversations tend to end with us going our separate ways because emotionally you get very charged up about it. And I don't like to push people past where they're willing to be comfortable.

Huh? Is that why you came to me? Because I love it. What the hell? That's the whole point. You're supposed to push people past comfort to get where they want to go.

What's that?

I think the difference in this scenario is it's more of a shutdown rather than a conversation.

Okay.

And I know that from personal experience, just in general, if you try to push somebody past where they've already decided they're not going to go—

Yeah.

That's not productive.

Fair enough. We always want to be sensitive to where our limits are. At the same time, this is a problem. Both of you at least put your hands up halfway. We know that it's a problem. So, what do you both think is the solution to this? Because if one person cannot engage in the conversation, then it kind of gets shut down.

It's not that I don't see this as a problem, it's that this is not a new problem for me. It's a new problem for you because we've only just recently been talking about it in the context of our relationship. But this is something that's been on my back for a while. So, the anxiety and processing of how I'm going to deal with this, I've kind of already done.

You have a debt payoff plan?

Yeah.

You know the date?

It'll be February of 2030.

Wow. What? Really? Okay. Round of applause for that. First of all, it's very rare. You say February 2030.

Be four years from now.

You're debt-free.

Yeah. I did a five-year consolidation loan. I've come to terms with what it is in terms of I'm going to have this payment. I know when I'm going to be out of having that payment. I also know that that's the point when I'm going to be able to actually start saving again. I also know that barring large life changes, that's putting me out from being able to be on par with what you have saved because during this entire time, call it seven years like you were talking about, your 100,000 is going to be growing and growing and mine growing a little bit, but not—

Mhm.

I won't be able to get there. I've had to come to terms with that already. But I think the emotional side of it is also excited. It feels like something we could do together.

Nice. Can you be excited about money if you are $100,000 in debt?

I have not been able to.

You can. You can. This is interesting. So, if your entire worldview is like, "Oh, no. You can't be excited. I don't know anyone who's done that. The two seem completely at odds," then of course you're going to feel like about money. And the way you've constructed your world is that I need to feel horrible about money until 2030. And guess what? When people feel horrible about something, they don't engage in it. They simply ignore it. So you're doing a very rational thing. The problem is you have the wrong view of the world.

Here's the truth. Mack is not going to be successful with money unless he completely changes his worldview around it. It's not as simple as paying off the debt. He thought, "All right, I created this debt payoff plan. Check the box. Good." But as you can see, even having an aggressive debt payoff plan is not solving the relationship problem. It's actually making it worse because Mack's worldview is I don't want to talk about money. That is why I was so direct with him. I said, "Look, you're going to need to talk about money a lot, and you're going to need to find a way to enjoy it."

Have you talked to Randy about the debt and about your plan and your feelings toward money?

Yeah.

What have you said?

I've admitted that my relationship went from poor planning to ignoring to anxiety to kind of just trying to manage the anxiety I have around it by planning things out and kind of having it sit. I've also told you about how now that it feels like it's more a part of our relationship. It went from being like a roommate that just has to be around all the time because it's there to being right in the middle, and that's felt like a whole new world different.

Bad.

Yeah.

Okay. And when Randy says the debt payoff plan is good, of course, I would prefer if it happened faster, but from my perspective, it's a pretty solid plan. Okay. What do you think he's really saying? Is he critiquing your debt payoff plan or is there something else?

I feel a lot like at that moment when I first told you, I became a burden, and since we've talked about it more, it's felt a little bit more like the last few months I've felt more like a net negative in our relationship because of it, because it's become more of a real conversation.

When I first brought it up with you, it was a little bit more of, "Hey, here's this thing you should know about me. I'm figuring it out." And your response was amazing. It was like, "Yeah, I totally understand how that would happen. I've been here with you through some of that." And I felt really good after that because I felt really supported. But I think at that point for both of us, this was a Mack thing and not a Randy thing. And then when it became an us thing, it feels like there's a little bit of whiplash of feeling supported and understood to suddenly being judged, and I've become a problem to solve rather than a person to support.

Mhm.

Have you said that before?

Maybe not in so many words, but—

What's your reaction?

I like a good problem to solve, I think, is my default. I'm a little disheartened by some of that because it means I haven't been a very good partner, and it's something I can work on. Absolutely. And I'm kind of excited to now, weirdly. As much as I don't like admitting that I have faults, when I do have something to improve upon, that is almost a better thing than admitting you have a fault. It's something new to get better at. And I am sorry.

I appreciate that from both of you. It's nice to be able to share the way that you feel about money and to be able to almost take a fresh look at what's happened in the last few months and saying, I don't want to be a net negative. I don't want to be the problem to be solved, and remembering that it felt good to be supported when you first brought it up. Sure would be nice to feel that way again.

At the same time, when I think about what you're asking for when it comes to as recently as a few weeks ago, put the thing on the app, what's going on there? What are you really asking for?

More control.

Mhm.

There might be an element of trust associated with it that I just don't trust that it's not going to continue to snowball in a way that's uncontrollable.

Have you told him that?

No. And yes, I haven't said it in those words. But I have mentioned we shouldn't be going and doing pay over four different payment plans. If we buy something expensive, we should have the money in our pocket for it kind of situation.

Do you notice that when you say all these things like we shouldn't do this, we should do this, we should set up an app, it's dancing around the core thing, which is, "Hey, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I'm kind of feeling a lack of trust here. This debt has been here for a long time. I don't feel the alarm from you that I would feel if I had this much debt. And we're in a relationship. We're living together. We're going through life together. I don't know if I should feel this way or not, but I feel this lack of trust right now." That's the crux of this, not can you set up an app? How does that strike you?

Accurate. I think that's the core of it.

I think the way that you specifically had talked about it when we got it was that this was going to be something to be helpful for us to figure out the path forward. And I was pretty excited about it because I saw it more as, okay, maybe this isn't something that's going to be existential to our relationship, and I can be into it too if Randy can be into it too. I don't think I realized until now that there was an element of trust in there, which I can understand.

Randy is indirect. Do you notice it? He doesn't often say exactly what he is feeling. In part, I think because he may not actually have access to it. So instead of doing the work to find out

What's truly troubling him, he might suggest things like, "We need to have an app." But the app doesn't really solve the real problem because nobody actually knows what the real problem is.

There's also something I want to point out to all the people who are indirect in their communication. You know that you're indirect if you are constantly monitoring how your partner feels. If you have a mental checklist of all the things that you are not allowed to say or talk about because it might hurt their feelings, you're actually not being effective in your communication. You can be direct and you can be respectful.

Notice that I am not telling you you're never going to hurt your partner's feelings. You are. Life involves you hurting your partner's feelings sometimes. That's okay. We are not in a relationship to protect our delicate partner's feelings. Oh, they're such a flower petal. Don't do anything that would damage them. No, we're here to live a rich life. And that means sometimes we need to raise uncomfortable questions. We need to be direct. We need to have these conversations. We do it lovingly. We acknowledge, "Hey, this is going to be difficult. I'm not even sure if I'm saying this the right way, but here's what's been on my mind." And if we can have the courage to have those conversations, then we can get to a much better place. That's the path to a rich life.

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Let me try to understand more about your relationship with money today. Randy, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were growing up?

I grew up as an only kid with an only parent. So, my mom was kind of independently successful and always taught me the value of a dollar and where it goes.

What'd she say?

She always said, "Take care of your pennies and nickels because your dollars will take care of themselves." But in the exact same breath, she also never told me to not go and experience life, which was a great thing to have in a parent. I didn't have a lot of the normal money conversations, but she definitely taught me the value of trading time for items.

Oh, how'd she do that?

When I was a kid, I would get a $20 allowance, and if I wanted anything more, I had to figure out how to come up with that.

Okay.

And through that process, I obviously learned, go mow lawns, go clean gutters, go figure it out. And by doing that, you are effectively trading time for items. And that extended to my adult life where now I appreciate my time and will trade dollars for getting my time back.

Okay. So, you're happy to spend money now to buy back your time. What are some examples of how you do that now?

Recently, we opted into having food delivery.

Okay. What else do you remember about money? Actually, would you say your mom was upper middle class, wealthy? How would you describe that?

Probably upper middle class. Definitely. I also grew up in a pretty affordable area, so that made it a little bit easier to feel upper middle class.

Got it. Any vivid memories about money?

I guess in my early 20s, I was very much conflicted with what I wanted to do in college and started off as a data engineering degree.

Okay.

And was hoping to be a quant. So, got real accustomed to the idea of how money worked and what its levers were. And I think that's where I got my appreciation for money.

Do you like money?

I like the game.

Ah, that's very helpful. Thank you. Mack, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were growing up?

I also grew up pretty middle middle class, but we lived in a much more blue-collar area. So, that felt pretty upper class up through middle school. And then I went to high school in the fancy town over, and then really bumped that up by going to the fancy private school for college. So, a lot of the messages that I got from my parents was, "Oh, we aren't those people." That's very different.

What'd they say?

Anytime I'd be hanging out with my friends in high school, it would be in the fancy neighborhoods, and my parents would always make jokes about, "Oh yeah, well, time to come home to where we live."

Implying?

Implying that we don't belong there, kind of thing. And we were never people who were buying things all the time. We lived in the same house my entire upbringing, but it wasn't necessarily scarcity. I would say my parents are extremely frugal. My dad could pinch the copper off a penny.

Mhm.

And my mom's spending is entirely guilt-ridden for anything. Yes. They're very, very Midwestern, very religious.

Both?

Yes.

Oh my God. All right.

Yeah.

All right.

The free things.

They do their own lawn work.

Yes.

Of course. Midwesterners love to do their own lawn work. They would never hire somebody to do it.

Yeah.

That's definitely true.

Amazing. And then you go to private school for college. What was that like from a financial perspective and looking at the world differently?

That was my first time really interacting with a lot of people who had real wealth, not just they live in the nicer town next door, but people whose parents were owners of corporations and who you could Google someone's dad or mom and you're going to find out their net worth. That kind of thing was very different for me. I'd never interacted with that before. And I felt very out of place, but a need to be in place, if that makes sense.

How did it show up?

Going into finance with a finance degree from a private school and being around people who had been around a whole lot more wealth and money discussions, more that early 20s was, "I have to prove that I'm supposed to be here." Which I think probably fed into a lot of not saving because I always wanted to be living in a nice apartment, have a nice car. I never really wanted to talk about money because I knew my picture was going to be different than anybody else's.

Would it have been embarrassing?

I don't know what I thought it would be. It just maybe felt more like if everyone around me had more insight into what my background actually was, that I wouldn't be accepted in the groups that I was in.

Yeah. What does it feel like now to know that your partner, who used to make a much more modest income, is now one of those people who makes a ton of money?

I think I know you well enough that I don't see it as, "Oh no, we don't belong here." But when we first started dating, I was the one making a lot more money. And so I'm only a little bit older than you, but my career has been a lot longer than yours. And so it felt a little bit more like I had this idea I was slightly more mature in the career, a little bit more mature in the money. I had more money coming in.

And then as you have excelled, it's been awesome to watch. And there's no jealousy or resentment from me on that side. It's pure pride. I love bragging about the stuff that you've done. But it does feel weird of, "Oh, I am not the one who knows what's going on." Just because I have more years, not only has my salary gone down, which, I made a career change, that's going to happen. We talked about that. It kind of is what it is. But it does feel a little bit weird that that role has flipped pretty much, and much more dramatically because even when I felt like I was the more mature one, I was not. And so I'm also realizing that while we flipped and just moved further apart in terms of our knowledge and control and comfortability with finances.

That's quite insightful. Have you thought of that before today?

We've always known how much each other makes. So, yeah, I guess intellectually I was aware that mine went down and went up. Yeah. I'd never really thought about it in that way.

How do you think that it shows up for you? Because that's a change in identity.

Before, when it was other people I was interacting with, I never would want to talk about money because I didn't want there to be, "The secret's out that I'm not supposed to be here."

Yeah. You're the freshman in college again.

Yeah.

Coming from the blue-collar world and everybody else seems to have more money. And in fact, you used to be the person who had more money and more maturity, and now you're at the, quote, bottom of the pecking order.

Yeah, I had not really thought about it that way, but yeah, that is how that feels.

Randy, what's your take on this? Did you realize this?

No, I'm torn because on one hand, I can totally understand what that feels like from the perspective of going to college and competing to be at a rank in your college class and all of that stuff. And I have a very different mindset on scenarios like that where it's a problem of finding an optimization, which I know is an optimizer thing. But I didn't know that it was that impactful to watch me do that.

Do what?

You watched me get a new job three separate times. You literally got laid off in the same week I got a new job. So, it's on even an average week.

What do you think that feels like? What do you think that causes in a relationship?

Tension.

Yep.

For sure. Obviously an imbalance. It's been said as much, but I also think there's an element of you're no longer allowed to be in the conversation, which is not the intent.

Mhm.

But after hearing what you've said, it sounds like you don't feel like you're privileged enough to be in the conversation and that it just happens to you rather than making it happen.

The conversation of money now is a little bit more for looking into the future. It's like you're the one who has the bigger future. So, it's kind of like I'm not—it is kind of happening to me in a way because we're together, but it also feels like it's not—

Listen, I see you're about to get ready to respond. Just listen to what he's saying. It's very powerful.

Yeah, it's you. You have the savings now. Can see it on the CSP. I'm the one who has the negative in front, which means that I'm working to get to neutral and then I'm still going to have work to do to be positive. So, I haven't had the experience to be able to talk about what we do with the money, and now it feels almost pointless to be learning about it because what am I going to do with that information now? You get to make those choices. It is the money that you're earning, and you do deserve to have that money.

And for me, I want to check out because it doesn't even really matter what I'm going to say. And frankly, I don't know that I would have anything to say that's even better than what you have. It's obvious that you're better at it than me. So, I'm going to get stressed out and feel really terrible. And I also don't really have much to contribute here anyway. So, why do I have to feel this negative and this bad when there's not even really anything for me to contribute in the first place?

What do you think, Randy?

Disheartened. I feel like I'm kind of bummed you don't feel like you can come talk to me and ask me questions.

I don't know if it's that I don't feel like I can ask you questions. And it's not that I don't know how these things work. I do. I have a degree in it. But just getting to talk about it, I'm either going to be feeling not really part of it and just awful or, at best, just kind of a little disinterested because it doesn't matter. This is going to be a you thing.

Does it matter?

Yeah.

Tell them.

It does matter. We're solving for we, not me. And I don't think that it's just a me problem, especially if we're going to have a future together. And I would like it if you were a part of that conversation.

I think there's an interesting dynamic here, and I think you are both really starting to get to the core of it. So what I just heard from you, Mack, was a lot of really honest, vulnerable sharing of, "It doesn't really feel like this matters. It doesn't feel like anything I do is really going to change it, and you're the one making more money. And so if we're talking about money, it's going to be about you and your ability to save." Obviously, that's hard to hear. Randy, your response was, "I'm disheartened that you feel you can't come to me and ask questions."

But in human nature, we do not ask people questions when we feel bad about something. You know what we do? We hide and we try to avoid paying attention to it at all. That's the way it works. So the job of both of you is to create a healthy culture where by default you get the opportunity to talk about it. Not just get it, but you are actually compelled to talk about it. Just the same way as if a couple had kids. "Oh, I don't like to talk about kids." Well, we have a kid. We got to talk about kids. That's how it works, right? Money is actually the same thing. It's just a little bit more convenient to avoid it.

I see how you have both co-created this dynamic, Randy. I think there's some resentment here, especially as your income has steadily increased and you're looking at this debt payoff plan. And implicit in what you're saying is, "How do you do it faster? I know you have the numbers in this plan, but how does it go faster?" And I'm over here like, "Is speed the thing that we need to worry about here?" Because four years to pay off $100K to me is pretty good. Maybe we can make it three and a half. I could play with some numbers with you, but is that really the issue?

No.

What is it?

The trust element that we had talked about. It's just so, I guess, paramount to what I'm concerned about, and it feels like there is no plan around it, as you mentioned.

Plan being? Because you got a debt payoff plan.

Well, the plan around not having it happen again.

Okay.

It very much feels like it's still something that can happen again and again and again, and it's not going to change the pattern because once you're out, you can get back in. You know how to solve the problem. Now we can go in this loop, and I don't want to be stuck in the loop.

I think that is fair. You were there for some of that accumulation, but most of it happened before we had even met. And so there's a little bit of, I have the understanding of how I got there. You don't. And I can totally see how that's, if it happened once, it can absolutely happen again. Especially if I'm consistently coming off as it not being a big deal.

There you go.

I don't know. I kind of see it as a game, and I wish we could treat it as a thing to tackle and get excited about it so that once you're out of the zeros and just start going up, we can celebrate that win in a very different way.

Yes, I absolutely can do that. I think that, Randy, it is perfectly acceptable for you to ask tough questions and to say, "Look, we're building this relationship together, and we are a high-earning couple. And I understand that you've got debt, and I want to support in the way that you need to be supported, but my expectation is that you pay this off aggressively. You follow the debt payoff plan. I think it's a great plan, and I want to know how you are going to make sure that this doesn't happen again." Go ahead, Mack.

I think I've got to be transparent about what I'm actually doing every month with you. Even though we have all the accounts and things, it's like you're just looking. You're not looking inside my head. I need to tell you more about what I'm feeling and where it's going and what I'm trying to do so that you know that this is something that's on my mind. It is something that, yes, I get a little emotional about it for a lot of different reasons, but it's not something that I don't have some level of control over.

You have total control over this. Don't say some control. You have complete control over this debt. You incurred it. You have a debt payoff plan. You have an income. That's all you need. You have complete control over it. Own that. And I love what you just said: I need to provide transparency. Literally write up your monthly transparency report. It's not punitive. It's not like you're a child. It's actually you're a partner. It's what you do at work. Here's what's going on. Here are the numbers. Here's what the numbers mean. So I think you're totally on the right track. What is your reaction? I notice a bit of a reaction when I say you own the debt. You have control over it.

I think it was that moment it dawned on me that I didn't realize how not in control I felt.

Yeah. I'm glad to be able to provide a little perspective because when I see a debt payoff plan that's that aggressive, many people take decades to pay off 100K. You're knocking it out in less than four years. And I'm like, all right, that's great. But you are able to do the math, but you have not yet transitioned your mindset to realizing I'm doing this. And because you're not transitioning your mindset, you're not confident, even though you are relatively competent at the debt payoff plan. That energy is rubbing off on Randy. And so Randy sees this lack of confidence, not talking about it, avoiding it, not carrying the ball openly, and he goes, "I don't trust you. What's going on? Fill out this app." And the irony is you actually have a nice plan, but neither of you have recalibrated your relationship.

Okay, cool. Let's keep going on this. The rich life for the two of you. Would the two of you say you live a very nice life? Okay, so you eat out, you travel, etc., etc. Cool. I get it. I like talking to people who like to spend money on the things they love. I think that's great. High earners especially, you've often earned the ability to do that. Great.

I kind of daydream about the day we don't have any debt to think about.

Mhm.

And how we can put away each of us $1,000 for four months and go on an $8,000 trip three times a year.

Ooh. Okay. Where would you go?

Vancouver, Brussels. I don't know. There's a bunch of places we can go.

We got a list for sure.

Okay, cool. I want to go on a mountain biking trip that's guided by somebody cool in Austria.

I would like to go explore Mexico and go do all the tequila tastings down there and understand culturally what they do.

Yeah.

Do you travel now?

I'm not as experienced as Mack, but it's something I do like to do. Yes.

What about the two of you? Do you currently travel?

Yeah.

And then how does the money work with that?

50/50 for the most part.

Yeah. Why?

50/50.

I think that's where we just naturally landed because originally when we started dating, he made more, but I also had much more control over my finances. So it just kind of worked.

Yeah.

And as the delta has gotten further and further apart, we just have not revisited that conversation because it's kind of a familiar thing, right?

Yeah. Think about, Mack, when your income dropped when you were laid off and you did not adjust. And what was the consequence of that?

Spending more than I had.

Yeah.

It was like a decade of debt.

Yeah.

Because of that. Do you all see that there are severe consequences for not adjusting to the reality of changing situations? It's actually so important. Almost nobody does it. They lose their job. They keep spending the same, or they make a ton more, they keep things the same. Obviously, one way is worse, but it has severe consequences.

So we're going to fix that as well because if one person is earning way more, we need to adjust things. Okay. In your rich life, do you have a vision of your finances?

I think you have a lot more that's involved in spending money to buy back time. And for me, that's a little bit less important. I think with the cooking one, that often did fall to you because you work remote and I work in an office. So you really want to be able to have someone who does the cleaning, and if we've got it all set aside, we've got someone doing laundry and someone fixing a lot of those things. I think that's less important to me.

How would you reconcile that, assuming the two of you get married and you combine your money?

I think I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of if we're hitting our goals on our savings, I don't really feel the need to be policing what's there. If it's combined and that's something that fits in and we still have room for the other stuff that's important to us, then I might sit there and be like, I don't know why you're doing that, but that's not that big of a problem.

Let me ask about your identities. Mack, who do you need to become in order to live this vision of a rich life?

I think I need to become a little bit more of the person I'm at work.

Mhm.

I have to be hyper-organized and on top of everything all the time. I'm pretty good at that at work. I need to be that at home, too.

Nice. What else?

I have to be more confident as well. I need to be communicating to you that I've got this, and I need to also be showing you that I've got this. And that once we're together and kind of a decade past where we are now and looking back on it, I think I need to be the person who can separate that and be like, "Boy, that sucked. Glad we got through it. Super happy about where we are now."

Beautiful. That was amazing. The ability for you to future pace yourself and see what you're going to look back on and how you're going to tell that story. Incredible. I can feel that because you're right. Oh, that sucked. I'm proud of what we did. I'm proud of what I did. You already are seeing that pride. It just needs a little time to cook. Amazing. I love that. Randy, what about you? Who do you need to become in order to live this rich life?

A champion of your successes. I think a better pillar.

Can I make a couple suggestions? I think you need to be more direct. I think the mixed messages are killing you. So it's very clear what you need to do, and it's very clear what we need to do. Those need to be explicit. I can cheer you on, but this is your thing, and here's what I expect. How's that strike you?

Doable.

Great. I love that. One other thing, I want to take a look at your numbers in a second, but I suspect you may need to change some dynamics on your CSP. The 50/50 thing doesn't work when one of you is earning 50% more than the other. I'm going to propose that we change that. You all can discuss. Maybe at some point Randy goes, "Look, I really want us to take this trip together. Let me cover this one. It means a lot to me." Great. You can gracefully accept. Maybe you're just like, "Yeah, anything below a hundred bucks, okay, fine. It's not really going to affect anything." But you've got to also be able to change the way you look at spending in your relationship. Randy, you're nodding.

Even coming here, I like the idea of being able to be the payer of that in some scenarios, and you just don't want me to sometimes.

Yeah, I was pretty pissed off about you buying dinner last night.

I think these are good conversations for the two of you to have. You will have to come up with a new way of treating money because the facts of the matter are one of you earns 50% more than the other. Okay? One of you is in $100,000 of debt and is on an aggressive debt payoff plan, and you still want to enjoy life. I'm not saying don't do anything, but you're probably going to have to adjust what you spend money on, how you spend money, and how frequently you do.

So I'm going to put the CSP up, and I want to take a look at some of the numbers, and let's make some adjustments. So as we can see right now, we have one partner, Randy, with 47% fixed costs and another, Mack, with 87% fixed costs. That's simply not feasible. The one thing that immediately jumps out to me is your rent. It's 50/50. Now, y'all, you are not married, but you are living together. In my opinion, it makes sense for your joint expenses to be proportional. How do you feel about that?

That's a conversation that we've had.

Oh, what?

I'm okay with that.

What's your take?

Yeah, I feel very uncomfortable.

Why?

I don't know. Again, it's my thing to be dealing with. I don't really want to be cutting into what you're enjoying because of that.

What does that have? What? He makes more money.

Yeah.

Look at me. I make more money. I pay more taxes than somebody who is making $35,000 a year. I should. He makes more money. He should proportionally pay more of joint expenses. It actually has nothing to do with your debt. He has the ability to do it. He actually said he wants to. What's the objection?

That's hard for me to believe that you actually want to.

I could see why. And I know there's obviously mixed messaging. We've talked about it. I think the realization I've come to, though, is that the proportionality is important because it makes fair feel fair versus equal.

Nice. Fair or equitable, much more important than equal. Y'all are never going to be equal in your relationship. No couple is equal. Not with stuff around the house, not with earnings, none of it. But if we make it equitable, if we make it fair, and we discuss it, that can be great.

It would certainly make me feel like I have a lot more space to either be more aggressive or to be able to keep up with some of the stuff that we like doing.

I was a little surprised that Mack was resistant to doing proportionality for their joint expenses. After all, there's a disparity in their income and they live together. To me, this is a perfect recipe for proportional spending on joint expenses. But this idea that we have, which is quite unexamined, of equality, everything should be equal. Why would it be? Am I equal to freaking Michael Jordan on the basketball court? Of course not. And yet, in arbitrary parts of life, usually the most unexamined ones, we go, "It's all got to be equal." How can it be equal if one person earns 50% more? It can be fair, but it probably will not be equal.

And how do we do that? We have discussions. We talk about what are we contributing to this relationship. We never overvalue the contribution of money. Just because you can put it in a spreadsheet doesn't mean it's more valuable. There are lots of ways to be valuable in a relationship, including emotional labor, labor at home, money, planning. There's so many different ways, but we need to shine a light on these, and we need to be honest about them, and we need to be open to changing those as situations change.

I think the hardest part for me is there's always going to be a little bit of a doubt in the back of, are you actually okay with it? Is this actually something that—am I just being the burden again?

I guess I think it comes back to a plan. I don't want to fund the fun money if you have debt to pay off. That would be a hard stop for me if that were the case where I'm paying, let's say, $1,000 extra in rent, and that extra $1,000, rather than it going to a place that's going to get us where we want to be faster, it's going to more spending on things you want. That doesn't feel fair.

Are you then willing to not go on certain vacations and restaurants for the next few years?

Yeah.

Take the win. So let's make the changes in the CSP and see what it looks like. Okay, cool. Proportional payments, we are going to have Randy pay $2,282, and Mack is going to pay $1,556. Notice the number drop from 87% to 81%. That's a bit of relief. Subscriptions. What is this? What's $140 of subscriptions when you have $100,000 of debt?

The largest part of that is a gym membership at, what is it, 109?

Yeah, 109.

109. All right. What's the other 30?

Spotify, Netflix.

Live in the same place. Why don't you just share it?

Sorry, Netflix, guys.

It's literally the same household. What's the problem? Eliminate this. I'm going to do it for you. I don't want to talk about this anymore. 110. Miscellaneous. Oh, yeah. What? You just let this be 15%, right? You didn't change this.

Okay. Here's the deal. When you're making a ton of money, then the 15%, I sort of don't care because I found a lot of people have 15% fixed costs extra. I put it in there. It's remarkably consistent. But when you are in debt, you can't allow that to happen. You have to be dialed in. So in your case, I would say because now your identity has changed, taking the ball, owning it, being meticulous the same way you are at work about your own personal finances, this 743, not acceptable. What do you want to make it?

250 bucks.

Better. Wait, you have $100,000 of debt. I'm taking that down to 150. You need to be dialed in. I'm raising the bar on expectations, and actually this is what I want you to do because we have a mission, and it's for me, first and foremost, for Mack, but it's also for us. Take that energy and communicate that to your partner. He wants and needs to see that as well.

Okay, we have $0 in investments. I sure would like to see that number change a bit. What do you think? Randy's nodding his head furiously.

I don't know the right balance of putting money into investments versus high-interest debt. I'd rather just get rid of the debt and then worry about investing in things later.

I like to see people, even if they're paying off debt, to have a little bit going towards savings and investing. It's kind of like keeping the factory on. It keeps the widgets moving. So even a hundred bucks a month is actually meaningful, and it just sends a message to yourself. Saving is important to me. Investing is important to me. So let's take a look here. I'm just going to arbitrarily pick a number. Okay. I'm going to say $100 a month for investing, and I'm going to say $100 a month for an emergency fund. Wow. Okay. This is quite amazing. Look at the bottom here. What do you see?

Yeah, that went down to, or up to, 25%. Went up by, what is that, $800.

It's crazy. Yeah. So I see you have 25% of net pay available to do whatever you want with. And that is $1,793 a month. That's a lot of money. Now, the question is, what do you want to do with that money?

I want it to be going into something long-term, whether that be increasing the investing side. I think I am in a spot where if something happened to our relationship or to you or to me, I would not have any kind of buffer. So—

Put some in savings then.

Yeah, for sure.

Let's take some of that. How much?

I have about 6,000 or so today in savings. I probably need

More like $20,000–$25,000 to feel like that's comfortable.

Call it $300.

Let's go a little higher.

$500.

Yeah, I think 500 is good. Plus, the 100 you already have is 600. Watch what happens to the numbers.

You're now at 8% savings rate. That's pretty good. I like to see that number 5 to 10%, maybe a little higher. Your guilt-free spending, I like to see that number at 20 to 35%. But that's for somebody with no debt. If you have debt, should that number be higher or lower?

Oh, it should definitely be lower.

For sure lower. So, at 18%, you're still kind of at 20%. So, what it's telling me is you got money still to reduce on guilt-free spending and to allocate elsewhere. Now, again, this would depend on the two of you. Because if you all are going out to freaking Masa in New York or something, that's not going to work. But that means you probably need to change the dynamic of your relationship. Number one, you may need to reduce the frequency of how often you go to these nice places. And two, you may need to reconsider who pays for them for a while.

Okay, let's take this number down. I'd like to see this number at somewhere like 12 to 15%. So, we got a few hundred bucks to play with. Where do you want the money to go?

Probably increasing the debt payment.

Okay.

It's up there. Principal.

Why not? All right. So, it's at 238. How about we say 2,400 just to play games? 24. Whoa. We're now at 13% guilt-free spending, or $931 a month. If you combine that with your guilt-free spending, Randy, that is $4,900 a month.

Now, I understand the two of you are not married, so you may want to keep your guilt-free spending separate, or you may want to combine it because you're like, "Hey, we do everything together. We enjoy it." But the important part here is you both look individually and together to realize that's a load of money every month.

So, that means if Randy goes, "Hey, I really want to eat at this restaurant. This one is going to be on me. It's important." And Randy would have to be aware that Mack has $931 a month total for everything: guilt-free spending, self-care, travel, all of it. So, if you want to do other stuff, then you probably either need to pick up the tab or don't suggest it. How do you feel about that?

Confident I can do that. I'm a homebody.

Great. And then the times that you want to travel, you can discuss it, and that's an honest discussion. So, I would suggest that most of the time, Mack, you're going to be like, "Look, of course I'd love to take this trip, but right now I'm on a mission to pay this debt off, so I can't do it." Or, "Hey, I'd really like to do this. Right now, I'm on a mission. Can't do it." And then, Randy, you might go, "You know what? I totally understand that. It's important for me that both of us do this. This one is on me." And you two can hash it out. Would that be okay?

Yeah.

Might be harder a little bit. Might feel a little weird, but I don't care if it's weird. I want success. Okay, we have some utilities changes, by the way. Let's take a look here. 149, 101. You go and make the adjustments proportionally, and it starts to go into all parts of the CSP, and it makes things much more equitable. Somebody who's earning 50% more should be paying more proportionally for joint expenses.

You're up to 955 a month in guilt-free spending. Your savings is growing back at $600 a month. That's pretty cool. You got a hundred bucks a month going to investing, not to mention your 401(k). And the debt is paid off in how many years?

In four years from now.

Four years. Actually, sooner than that.

Yeah, because we increased it.

Yeah, exactly.

I can't do the math off the top of my head, but it would probably be something like 3.6 years. It's fast. By the time that ends, you will have thousands more in your savings account. You'll have thousands more in your investing account. You two will have lived a very nice life, and you will be debt-free. What do you think?

I'm excited by it.

I am also excited about that. I think the hardest part is going to be me believing you that you're okay with it. Not that I think you're lying, but that—

How can I show that?

I think we just need to be talking about it and how we're feeling about it. And I can commit to working on my reaction to talking about these things. In this mode, it feels less like something is hunting me and almost more like I'm doing the hunting, which feels pretty good.

Okay. Yeah, I like that. I like that metaphor. Yeah, you are doing the hunting. You're in charge.

I feel really good about Randy and Mack. I think the fact that they came to ask for help before they get married is a huge sign that they take this seriously. These are not easy conversations to have. So, the fact that they're doing it, going through this tough stuff and these realizations, is a really positive sign for me.

My wish for them is that they start to see themselves as a unit. They can keep their finances separate. They can be more proportional on the joint expenses. They can have a plan where Mack is the one driving the debt payoff, as he should. But more importantly, they start to talk together as partners about what should our money do today and tomorrow. What do we enjoy doing? Is it more important for us to be debt-free as a couple than for us to go on this trip in September? I want them to have those vivid, sometimes contentious discussions as partners. If they can do that, I feel very good about where they're going. And now, let's take a look at their follow-ups.

Hey, Ramit. Hey, team, it's Randy calling in with a one-week update. Mack and I have had the opportunity to really work through the homework you sent home with us. I think the most surprising thing for me with that experience was that the idea of equitable and even aren't necessarily the same thing, and in our scenario they're not. That has turned out to be one of the very first things we implemented as a couple, was to go ahead and split all of our finances 60/40, right down based on how much income we have.

I think one of the biggest things that has changed in our communication, and also the way we talk about finances, actually is largely Mack taking ownership over the process of planning finances and really being involved from the get-go in what we do, how we tackle finances, and more importantly, how much ownership he feels like he has. So it's no longer him riding along, but it's actually more of him being in charge and leading that.

One of the outcomes of that is that I've gotten the freedom and the mental bandwidth to stop being the bad guy. And instead we get to enjoy the process of where we're at. It'll definitely be one of those things where we can look back at it a decade from now and say, "That really sucked, but boy did it put us ahead." And it gives us some excitement to look forward to the future. So, I appreciate the time. See you guys later.

Hi, wanting to give you a quick update from our conversation last week. It really shifted our mindset when it comes to our individual finances and what we're building together. The biggest surprise for me was realizing that my debt payoff plan is actually not that bad. And there's realistically room to put even more toward it. But the real game changer was learning that Randy wasn't just willing to split expenses proportionally with me, that he was actually excited to do it once he knew that I was the one with the strategy.

I realized that by trying so hard to keep my financial challenges to myself and not make them Randy's problems, I actually made things worse for the both of us. It made him feel defensive of his own savings and spending and eroded his trust that I was also working hard on my own finances, too. I spent so much time worrying about how Randy felt about things that we weren't really having honest conversations, and we lost sight of the main goal: crushing the debt and building the life that we want together.

Your analogy about who has the ball really stuck with us. Although we're big hockey fans, so we're calling it who has the puck, and I've officially taken the puck in our regular money conversations. I'm not only building the agenda, but leading the topics, asking the questions, and still creating space for Randy to give his own input as well.

I've set up our refined CSP in our own savings and tracking apps so that when we do have our money conversations, it feels less like confronting the really big problems every single time and more like solving the small and medium ones. Makes it much more fulfilling to be engaged and easier to take some of the bad emotions out of the conversation and replace them with feelings of accomplishment each time we sit down to tackle a problem.

We definitely came out of this experience with a better understanding of each other and what we want in our relationship. We even haven't talked realistically about a timeline to get married once we're ready. Don't worry, we'll be sure to send you an invite to the party.

Hey team, this is Randy calling in with my four-week update. Things have been going really good. We moved to an apartment, and actually not even the same one that we intended to. We found a better deal that gave us three months free.

We set up a joint fixed cost account that allows us to put everything that we would naturally spend anyway into an account together, split the same way we planned on, which was 60/40. And it gets rid of the problem of Venmoing each other back and forth, who owes who, and instead just allows the money to come out of our accounts organically, which feels really good.

That apartment that we ended up changing over to has three months free, which nets out to $10,000. So, that allows us to very quickly, in the next three months, build up a shared buffer for us just in case anything were to ever happen. And then it allows both of us to individually also save up money, which feels really good. It feels like we're on the right path.

Along that, Mack and I have definitely aligned our expectations and helped each other understand what we are aiming for long term. One of the things I decided to do was put in the same amount of effort he is in paying debt down, and I'm going to save an equivalent amount, which feels really good. We did our first version of that in the last couple of weeks and immediately texted each other individually and said how good that felt. So long term, things are looking up, and I'm really excited for the future. Hope you guys are doing good. I'll see you on the flip side.

It's been about six weeks since we first met, and we definitely made some big changes, and I think it's been really great for the two of us. I think one of the biggest changes that I've seen is Randy's been a lot more comfortable with being able to split a lot of our fixed expenses proportionally every month. And I've gotten more comfortable with that, too. It's really given me a lot more flexibility to focus on my own debt payoff plan, but also to be able to boost my own savings, see that emergency fund grow a little bit, and feel a little bit more like I'm pulling my own weight for the stuff that we're sharing.

I think I've gotten a lot better about setting boundaries for certain things. Whether that is some bigger purchase comes up and I say, "This is not the month for me. Can we wait?" Or maybe it's a trip for something that we decide to put off a little bit longer. And there's been a few times when it's been worth it for Randy to just go ahead and do it or pay for it. And I've had to get comfortable with that. But it's been a great way for us to be able to have those conversations and to feel like we're making the decisions together, which is really nice.

We have set up in various apps the way that we can see each other's accounts, obviously our shared account, but also our individual savings and checking accounts. It gives a lot more visibility so that we can see where everything is going. Randy can see where I'm paying to every month and can see the balances go down at the same time that I do. But interestingly, I don't think either of us have really felt the need to police that. We check in with each other every month during our monthly meetings, but we haven't felt the need to actually be tracking along and seeing how each other's doing. It's built a lot of trust for both of us and has made the financing discussions be once a month and pretty fun, actually, which has been great.

We just had one of the bigger stressors that any relationship can have, which is moving into a new house. It is obviously a lot, but we sat down at least once every week for the month leading up to figure out what expenses we were going to have, if we needed to get any new furniture or anything, paying for movers, all of that. Decided what felt fair for each of us to pay for what. And it made it so that the day of the move was a little stressful, as any move can be, but we were able to make the whole process overall actually feel a lot more comfortable, collaborative, even a little bit fun, which has been great.

So, we're really excited to be able to have some new skills and some new comfort with how we can build our life together. And we're really grateful for the chance to be on your show and be able to talk about it. And we're excited to see where it goes. Thanks.

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Article published September 29, 2026