{"id":322417,"date":"2025-05-13T07:38:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T12:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/episode-208-we-make-157k-at-22-but-were-afraid-to-spend-money"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:41:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T12:41:20","slug":"episode-208-we-make-157k-at-22-but-were-afraid-to-spend-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/episode-208-we-make-157k-at-22-but-were-afraid-to-spend-money","title":{"rendered":"Episode 208. \u201cWe make $157K at 22, however we\u2019re afraid to spend cash\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div readability=\"2445.13016515\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O_vkYamQeBw?si=otLMdxCl1YVycrDn\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Javier (22) and Marco (22) are young, ambitious, and financially disciplined\u2014but the future they dream about together is being challenged by how they handle money today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">They earn a combined income of $157,000, already have more than $60k invested, and live in New York City with shockingly low fixed costs. But despite their impressive financial habits, they\u2019re stuck in a cycle of miscommunication. Javier wants to be cautious now to make big moves later, while Marco wants to split everything 50\/50, even if it slows down their long-term progress.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">With their income gap and no shared plan for spending, saving, or investing, can they plan for a wedding and build their future together?<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>This episode is brought to you by:<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/masterclass.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/masterclass.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">LMNT | Right now, LMNT is offering 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. This is a great way to try all 8 flavors. Get yours at <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/drinklmnt.com\/RAMIT\">https:\/\/drinklmnt.com\/RAMIT<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Facet | Facet is waiving their $250 enrollment fee for new annual members, and for my audience, Facet is offering $300 into your brokerage account if you invest and maintain $5,000 within your first 90 days. Head to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/facet.com\/ramit\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\"><strong>https:\/\/facet.com\/ramit<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\"> to learn more about which membership option is best for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Fabric by Gerber Life | Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/meetfabric.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/meetfabric.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\"><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">Links mentioned in this episode<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;134245418&quot;:true,&quot;134245529&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559685&quot;:0,&quot;335559737&quot;:450,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:768}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;335559685&quot;:2010,&quot;335559737&quot;:2010,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0}\"><a href=\"https:\/\/iwt.com\/moneyforcouples\">Order my new book: Money for Couples<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\"><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">Transcript<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;134245418&quot;:true,&quot;134245529&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559685&quot;:2010,&quot;335559737&quot;:2010,&quot;335559738&quot;:375,&quot;335559739&quot;:375,&quot;335559740&quot;:768}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1uLTeV4L5gu0zvZBveAh2GZVTXRPF6KJD\/view?usp=sharing\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Download the full transcript PDF<\/span><\/a><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;335559685&quot;:2010,&quot;335559737&quot;:2010,&quot;335559738&quot;:150,&quot;335559739&quot;:150}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just the classic, we can&#8217;t afford that. It&#8217;s too expensive. How much can we actually spend right now? Because you&#8217;re saying if we invest and save, yes, we&#8217;ll reach that. But if we scale things back, who knows?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:11]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What the\u00a0[Bleep]? Hold on. Are you taking away the complete\u00a0wrong message from this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:14]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He is actually the one that says he is so behind, not making enough, doesn&#8217;t have enough saved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:20]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I had an ex tell me that I was really bad with money, so out of spite, I wanted to learn a lot more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Some people, they get a revenge body. You got a revenge portfolio.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0In my mind, I started saving my money late.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just tell everyone how old you are again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:00:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay,\u00a0this episode is\u00a0going to\u00a0blow your mind. This couple is young, and\u00a0they are disciplined in a way that I have not seen before.\u00a0I&#8217;m looking at their CSP right now. You can download your own conscious spending plan at iwt.com\/csp.\u00a0This couple&#8217;s 22 years old.\u00a0They have $0 in assets, a combined gross income of $157,000 and they already have over $68,000 invested. And listen to this, their fixed costs\u00a0are\u00a032% in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:01:19]\u00a0The application they wrote says,\u00a0&#8220;We love to talk about our future life, but we talk in circles about our near-term goals. It becomes really difficult for us to talk about money. I think if we can&#8217;t figure this out now, our dreams will be crushed, and that will result in a large source of conflict for the rest of our relationship.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:01:39]\u00a0Looking at their numbers and their application, I am really excited to dive in because for 22 years old, their numbers are extremely impressive, and it&#8217;s a gift to be able to talk to couples when they are at the beginning of their financial journey. So let&#8217;s get started.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:01:58]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Javi, in your application, you wrote, &#8220;We love to talk about our future life, but we talk in circles about our near-term goals. I think it&#8217;s exhausting for both of us, and it becomes really difficult for us to talk about money. I can be weird about certain purchases, and I know that Marco gets frustrated with my views.&#8221; Is that an accurate representation? Marco, do you sometimes get frustrated with Javi&#8217;s views?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:02:27]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes, 1,000%. We have a lot of the same shared goals, and I think it&#8217;s just a matter of how we&#8217;re executing them. I want to make sure we&#8217;re doing the right things, but I also want to make sure we&#8217;re doing what we want to do now and enjoy where we&#8217;re at in life while also doing the right things for the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:02:48]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Can you think of an example recently where you got frustrated with his financial views?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:02:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. This is something that we&#8217;ve talked about a lot, and it has to do with Spotify and subscriptions. So I have my own Spotify account and Javi is on a family plan, and it&#8217;s $0 because it&#8217;s his friend&#8217;s family. So he&#8217;s just a freeloader. So I pay for my own plan, but Spotify has a plan where you can do a duo subscription for 16 bucks. So it&#8217;d only be $8 a person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:03:21]\u00a0And so in my head I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Oh, great.&#8221; I could shave off a couple of dollars each month, and he&#8217;s not paying anything right now, so wouldn&#8217;t it be a huge lift for him to go on this subscription? But he didn&#8217;t want to because he&#8217;s on this plan where he doesn&#8217;t have to pay for it right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:03:36]\u00a0I don&#8217;t really see how that $8 would have a huge financial burden on him to pitch in. I don&#8217;t know. It just didn&#8217;t really make sense in my head because it&#8217;s something that is so small in the grand scheme of things that it frustrated me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:03:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How many times have you talked about it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:03:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We&#8217;ve probably talked about it between, I&#8217;d say, 7 and 10 times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:03:59]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. How often do you find yourself talking about small amounts of money like this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say a lot. There&#8217;s a few other examples of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Give it to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We pay our rent every month through a portal. That portal accepts credit cards, and we love to get the points, or at least I do. So it&#8217;s always a battle on whether&#8211; because I&#8217;m always going to pay for that. There&#8217;s a 15-dollar fee on top of it, but Marco doesn&#8217;t want to pay for that fee. So we both talk about whether it&#8217;s worth it to pay for the credit card processing fee to pay our rent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. So let&#8217;s hear the conversation. Go ahead. Role play it for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It probably starts with me. I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Is it worth it to add the extra $15 and get the credit card points? Or should I just do the bank transfer and just not get the points, but save that $15?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We barely pay anything in rent now. It&#8217;s not going to be a big difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:50]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0But is it worth it to pay that extra $15?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, you&#8217;ll get the points. And we can use them. It&#8217;s only $15 really. It&#8217;s not going to affect that much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:04:59]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And that&#8217;s usually how it goes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. You guys like this conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:04]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t like this conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Are you sure? It sounds like hell to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0But you&#8217;re both smiling. Deep down, do you actually enjoy it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:11]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s just laughable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it&#8217;s just so stupid and every single month we do it, and I don&#8217;t know why.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It could be that you fundamentally see money differently. We&#8217;ll find out. But I can see a lot of smiles, a lot of teasing. There&#8217;s a lot of affection. And the amounts are small, so it&#8217;s like, ah, you do it this way, you do it that, it&#8217;s not really a big deal, but it seems maybe it&#8217;s become a ritual. Okay, rent&#8217;s due. Let&#8217;s have this conversation. Have a little fun and then it&#8217;s all good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I would say there&#8217;s a little bit of truth to that for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:45]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, absolutely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:05:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Let me understand a little bit more about the financial picture. Your income. I understand that there&#8217;s a discrepancy in the income. One of you makes more than the other. Do you think that the income discrepancy plays into how the two of you talk about money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Completely. I think that that plays a big part in it, honestly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Marco, what about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:06]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it affects us more in the long term and how we&#8217;re planning for our future. Our lease is up in August in our current apartment, and we&#8217;re trying to move on into a place on our own. So we&#8217;ve had a lot of conversations about what our max rent is going to be, how we&#8217;re going to split the rent when it&#8217;s just the two of us. It&#8217;s funny because he makes more than me, significant amount more than me, but I often feel like I am more willing to do more with my income, if that makes sense, than he is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:41]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. So let&#8217;s talk about the rent. Your lease is coming up. The two of you live together. And do you live with roommates right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, we live with roommates currently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:51]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So what? You&#8217;re talking about maybe getting your own place?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right. How&#8217;s that conversation going?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:06:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s the part where the income discrepancy really comes into play, where I think we get frustrated on just all the aspects of trying to move in together. Whether that&#8217;s the actual rent or the phantom costs that go into moving.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Well, there&#8217;s nothing I like more than hearing two people spin in circles right in front of me. Can we just recreate the conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:17]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, so our max rent is 2,200. How are we splitting it? Evenly, like how we&#8217;re doing now, or?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, I think we definitely should split that equitably, give you more room to breathe. And if anything, that&#8217;ll help us even out some of the costs. And yeah, that&#8217;s really it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0There&#8217;s such a big discrepancy in our incomes. I feel like I am not contributing enough and you would be paying such a significant amount more, and I am too prideful to accept that to let that happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. I just don&#8217;t want to put you in a bad financial state by making you pay more. Or even if you want to pay more, I don&#8217;t want to basically stress you out because we&#8217;re paying more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I understand that, and I appreciate that, but I wish we could come to a compromise where I feel like I&#8217;m contributing enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Completely. That makes sense, and I want you to feel that way, but I also want to make sure that we&#8217;re trying to save and invest for our future goals that we want to do. And I don&#8217;t want to push you down from that by making you pay more on things you shouldn&#8217;t have to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:21]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I understand that. I understand. I do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Is this where it stops?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Most of the time, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Y&#8217;all ever make a decision?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, we have not reached a decision yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So what does it feel like to have this conversation, not reach a decision, walk away from the conversation and then come back and do it again 2, 3, 6 weeks later? What does that feel like?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hell, like you said earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What else?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:48]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Uncomfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Who&#8217;s the more decisive out of the two of you in general?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wow. Okay. And what makes you not as decisive during money conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:08:59]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He does make more money than me, and so I feel like it&#8217;s hard for me to make decisions in a space where like I feel like I shouldn&#8217;t be calling the shots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Ah. So in your mind, the invisible script is he who makes more money calls the shots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, I don&#8217;t believe that, but&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let&#8217;s take another scenario. Let&#8217;s say that one of you gets sick. Let&#8217;s say Javi gets sick. Now Marco is earning more. Marco, do you suddenly call the shots when it comes to money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, I wouldn&#8217;t feel comfortable doing that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. All right. So maybe that&#8217;s an invisible script or a belief that could be interrogated a little bit. Javi, what do you think? Marco is more decisive in real life, but less decisive around money. Why do you think that is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:41]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Us having these conversations about money is newer to Marco, and so I think he just feels a little bit more uncomfortable to be confident and decisive in that when it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s still new to him and that we&#8217;re navigating together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Marco, true?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0True.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:09:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. I can see that. There&#8217;s one element I noticed in the couple of examples we&#8217;ve done together. Marco, each time you talk about money, your first instinct is to ask a question. Have you noticed that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:10:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have noticed that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:10:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. It&#8217;s like, what do you think we should do? Or how should we do that? Which I don&#8217;t mind. I like a good question. I love the curiosity. I think asking a question&#8217;s a nice way to break the ice. However, sometimes asking a question, especially in this dynamic, invites the other person to ask a question and then you&#8217;re just asking questions for the next 40 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:10:30]\u00a0I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Can somebody take the first step in this dance and say, I think we should do this?&#8221; Kind of scary. Maybe you&#8217;re wrong. Maybe your partner&#8217;s going to disagree. But with a good partnership, they can say, &#8220;Hey, I hear where you&#8217;re coming from. Maybe let&#8217;s try it this way.&#8221; And that starts moving you towards a solution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:10:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Now, I have to tell you, I especially love talking to young couples.\u00a0Javi and Marco are 22 years old, but they&#8217;re already asking the kinds of questions that most couples avoid for decades.\u00a0How do we make decisions when one person earns a lot more than the other? What does power look like in a relationship where there&#8217;s a huge income differential? What about fairness when it comes to money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:11:10]\u00a0And this income disparity is something that I see all the time. One person makes more\u00a0and\u00a0suddenly the other feels like they have lost their seat at the table. They feel like they have to justify everything. They become obsessed with the C word,\u00a0contribution. Am I contributing enough? I know it doesn&#8217;t show up in the spreadsheet, but am I contributing enough?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:11:31]\u00a0The thing is, that&#8217;s not unusual.\u00a0That is human. In America, we value that which is quantifiable. And for some reason, if we can&#8217;t see it as a number in black and white on a spreadsheet, we think it&#8217;s not valuable. Wrong. That&#8217;s been the point of this podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:11:49]\u00a0There&#8217;s so many ways to contribute.\u00a0With Javi and Marco, what&#8217;s rare is them having these conversations early.\u00a0It&#8217;s not perfect. They&#8217;re spinning in lots of ways. They&#8217;re still figuring it out.\u00a0But the fact that they are here talking about money openly,\u00a0amazing. Now I&#8217;m curious.\u00a0How did they land on $2,200 as their target rent? Let&#8217;s take a look.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So the $2,200 budget, is that a real number?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. Who came up with the $2,200 rent budget?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think I did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:21]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And how did you choose that number?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:23]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We actually went through our own conscious spending plan. I went through the percentages and was like, &#8220;What&#8217;s going to be good for our income together?&#8221; All of that. But also&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I [Bleep] love it. Hold on. I need to take a moment to enjoy this. Someone I&#8217;m talking to actually ran a single number in their life. Guys, this is a first. This is a [Bleep] first. I can&#8217;t believe it. And aren&#8217;t you guys like 22 years old?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:48]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Holy [Bleep].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:12:50]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Listen up all you freak Money for Couple listeners. 40 years old, sitting around earning all this money. Oh, I don&#8217;t know. Boohoo. Why do I feel this way? Because you never ran a [Bleep] number. Here we have two 22-year-old guys pulling up a CSP and running some calculations. Learn something. Okay, so you ran some numbers, and you came up with $2,200.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:11]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it&#8217;s also based on the areas that we want to live, because obviously we wanted somewhere that&#8217;s within our means, but also somewhere that&#8217;s accessible in terms of our jobs and where we want to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I get it. What general vicinity are you in, just so I understand?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. And what are you guys paying right now for your rent?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We pay 540 each.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:37]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0$540. I [Bleep] love you guys. That&#8217;s so awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, we got lucky.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:45]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wait, this is so crazy. We need to explain this to people because everyone&#8217;s like, New York City, it&#8217;s so expensive. And it is expensive. That&#8217;s for sure. But can you explain to everybody, how are you able to live for $540 each?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:13:58]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say the first step is the fact that we&#8217;re a couple. We can share a room. So that obviously knocks it down a bunch. But I would say in general, living in New York City, I would say doesn&#8217;t define you to Manhattan. So we didn&#8217;t really look in Manhattan. We live in Brooklyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:11]\u00a0We love our area, and we just had to compromise in that sense. And we feel like we found a good spot in just finding roommates. I&#8217;m still trying to convince him to have roommates moving forward still. Because I still believe in the cost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:23]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, that&#8217;s an open discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And Marco, what do you say to that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say I don&#8217;t want roommates because I&#8217;ve had bad roommates in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Got you. I&#8217;m just reflecting on how much rent I paid and how long I had a roommate for. [Bleep], I think I had a roommate until I was 27 years old. And I liked it. I enjoyed it. And then once I went to have my own place, I never had a roommate after that. Okay. Just cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:14:49]\u00a0It&#8217;s awesome to hear you guys at 22, how you&#8217;re thinking about your costs and how you&#8217;re navigating these decisions. I think it&#8217;s really cool. Okay. When was the first time that you had a real substantive conversation about money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:03]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I feel like probably when we decided to move in together, because we moved in together when we moved to New York. So obviously, those are two really big financial shifts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:14]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What came up in that conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think a lot of, how are we going to live in New York, and how are we going to live together, and then how are we going to look at money moving forward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what did you decide?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We came up with a few just ground rules on things. For example, like groceries, we go every week. We switch who&#8217;s going to pay for that. We set our own rules, like $30 or less, like, we&#8217;re not going to pay each other for that. What&#8217;s another one that we have, Marco? I&#8217;m trying to think of others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We split everything pretty much equally when it comes to the house, I think&#8211; like rent, utilities, all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:15:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. All right. I got to say, I love that you created a few rules. It&#8217;s a great sign. I think a lot of us have a negative view of the word rules, usually because rules were imposed upon us. But as adults, we get to create rules for ourself. And rules aren&#8217;t always bad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:11]\u00a0I love the freeing rule that you have. Anything below 30 bucks, it&#8217;s fine. That&#8217;s an awesome rule. I don&#8217;t want to sit there freaking log into Venmo. Waste of time. Waste of life. And then also, I like that you came up with these other rules. That&#8217;s really cool. Something you can carry throughout life and also adapt as your financial situation changes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We&#8217;re in the process of that right now, actually, adapting to our new changes, kind of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Like what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:36]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He just got a raise. I just got a new job. So we&#8217;re trying to navigate that and that also plays a big part in everything that we&#8217;re talking about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh, wow. I didn&#8217;t know that. So are you both together making a lot more money than you used to make?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:51]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:16:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Now we&#8217;ve heard how Javi and Marco talk about money. I&#8217;m really starting to see how they think differently about it.\u00a0One of them is super structured, loves a good spreadsheet. The other is still figuring out how to feel confident making money decisions. That contrast is very common, but again, this is the time to deal with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:17:16]\u00a0Now, because they&#8217;re in the midst of big changes, new jobs, possibly a new place to live, a new phase of life, one makes more than the other, imagine if they didn&#8217;t change a thing. Imagine if they didn&#8217;t talk about this. The difference between them would become greater and greater, and we&#8217;ve seen this with lots of couples. It leads to communication problems. It can lead to resentment and even worse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:17:42]\u00a0But if we can tackle this now, we can actually get them talking about money, making\u00a0decisions together.\u00a0If we do that, we can change the trajectory of their lives. Imagine as you&#8217;re listening and watching this, you could do the same thing too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:17:56]\u00a0When we come back, I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0open up their conscious spending plan, and trust me, the numbers are\u00a0going to\u00a0blow your mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:04]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I want to take a look at your numbers. What was it like doing the CSP together?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It was really good, really productive. But honestly, I don&#8217;t even know completely for the current spending if that reflects true spending for sure because of our new jobs and all that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We can adjust the numbers. Don&#8217;t worry about that. That&#8217;s actually the beauty of the CSP, is I encourage people to try something out. Let&#8217;s plug it in and see what would happen. And then if we don&#8217;t like it, command Z. Go back. It&#8217;s all good. All right. Marco, what was it like for you to do the CSP together?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m a very visual person, so I enjoyed being able to see it all on paper and see it physically divvied up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I feel the same way. It&#8217;s like all these concepts in my head. I just need to see the numbers in a very simple one pager. It just gives me so much clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:53]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Me too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:18:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. Let&#8217;s play it out. I&#8217;m going to put these on screen.\u00a0Javi, can you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to it for this entire first box?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:02]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Assets, 0. Investments,\u00a068,400. Savings,\u00a047,600.\u00a0Debt, 0, for a total net worth of $116,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How do you both feel about those numbers?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:17]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I feel good about them. I feel very lucky and grateful that we don&#8217;t have any debt. That&#8217;s something a lot of people struggle with, especially at this age. So I feel good about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:27]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Great. Javi, how about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I think in terms of debt, I feel the same way. Very lucky and privileged that we&#8217;re in this position with no debt and have the ability to save and invest. Although I think that we could be doing more in some ways to increase that further and make sure we&#8217;re hitting the goals we want to in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:45]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Cool. All right. We will talk about what those are.\u00a0Let&#8217;s look at the income. Marco, what is your combined gross monthly income?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a013,166.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:19:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. That means your household income is $157,000. Did you guys know that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:03]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Did not know that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I knew that. I knew that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m sure he did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a050%. Okay. Love it. 50% of people do not know their household income. And Marco, just so everybody knows, how could you not know your household income?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think part of me still views us separately because we&#8217;re not married or anything like that. So I think I still view some of our finances as individuals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that&#8217;s a fair comment. You two are not married. You do live together. But if we were to break out your income, at least the one on the CSP, you would make $48,000 a year, which is considerably different than $157,000 household income. I think it&#8217;s important to know your household income for a couple of reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:20:52]\u00a0One, you got to know your numbers. In order to live a Rich Life, one of the two key tenets, you got to know your numbers. The other is you got to master your psychology. I also think sometimes people play small. They often just have a feeling about how much they make or how much things cost, and they don&#8217;t adjust their psychology when the numbers change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:12]\u00a0We have to stay in tune with the numbers just like we have to stay in tune with fashion changes and all kinds of stuff. So to know, hey, I make 48,000, we, if we were to combine it all, make 157,000. How should a couple that makes $157,000 act? It&#8217;s probably a good question. A couple who makes almost $160,000, should they be talking about Spotify every week? Probably not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Right? There&#8217;s something incongruous there. It doesn&#8217;t make sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. And also there&#8217;s technically more in that income that we didn&#8217;t account for as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:21:48]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh, let&#8217;s do it right now. I know. We&#8217;re going to do it right now. All right, let&#8217;s fix it. Everybody knows Javi&#8217;s very, very excited to adjust this income and reflect the current numbers. Go ahead, Javi. Tell me. What changed?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s not actual money that we have right now because my job is base plus commission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How much more ballpark?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0My on-target earnings will be around 45,000 more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Goddammit. I was like, &#8220;Finally, we have some people who are not making hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and then it turns out, oh, I&#8217;m going to make an extra 45 grand&#8221;. [Bleep]. I&#8217;m going to get in so much trouble on the Internet now. All right. Fine, Javi. I&#8217;ll add an extra 45,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:29]\u00a0And then what about you, Marco? Is there an extra 200 grand sitting around in your pocket?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, but I base it off 40 hours a week. I typically work 45 to 50. And I make overtime. So it&#8217;s a splash more, but nothing crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Well, a splash more would mean, instead of 3,000 a month, you&#8217;re making 4,000 a month net ballpark. That&#8217;s a lot, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:22:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You guys want to see what happens if we adjust it? Let&#8217;s just play it. I&#8217;ll just show you something. All right, for everybody listening, first, let me just give you the baseline numbers because they&#8217;re [Bleep] crazy.\u00a0Your fixed costs are 32%.\u00a0That&#8217;s one of the lowest numbers I&#8217;ve ever seen. What do you guys think about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:11]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s low, but I heard someone on your Boston show they had 28% or something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wow. Okay. All right. You&#8217;re very competitive. I like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:21]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh my God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All\u00a0right.\u00a0Everybody listening, listen.\u00a0Let\u00a0me tell you their numbers. Your rent is $1,112.\u00a0Phenomenal. Now,\u00a0that&#8217;s because you guys have roommates among other things. Your car payment, you don&#8217;t have a car probably.\u00a0You have train pass.\u00a0300 bucks a month.\u00a0That&#8217;s the benefit of living in a city. You often don&#8217;t have to have a very expensive car. Amazing.\u00a0Groceries are 500 bucks. Is that true?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:50]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I said it was more. I said it was more like 600.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:23:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0adjust this number to 600.\u00a0The number goes from 32% to 34%. Wow. We&#8217;re in the danger zone now. Rest of your fixed costs here,\u00a0clothes are\u00a0100\u00a0bucks a month.\u00a0Phone,\u00a075. One of you&#8217;s not paying for a phone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Well, I&#8217;m on my family plan, so I don&#8217;t pay for my phone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What the\u00a0[Bleep]?\u00a0All right.\u00a0Get off that. Subscriptions are $135 a month. Fine. 34%. You have so much margin to play with. Let&#8217;s keep going down.\u00a0Your investments are at 30% of take-home pay. So first off, anybody doing any pre-tax, 401(k)s or anything like that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I&#8217;m trying to max out my 401(k) in this new job, so I think that&#8217;s why my post-tax is pretty low, I would say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Great. Currently, your gross is 9,100 bucks, and your take home is $4,500.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:24:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, great. So that&#8217;s 25,000 plus right there. And then\u00a0you&#8217;re investing an additional $1,830 a month, which is great.\u00a0That&#8217;s over 20k there.\u00a0Marco, you&#8217;re doing 13%, 400 bucks a month. Nice. Savings are at 15%.\u00a0So you&#8217;ve got $1,100 a\u00a0month going towards an emergency fund. I want to point out that you currently have $47,000 in a savings account. That&#8217;s a couple of years of your fixed cost expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:25:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I\u00a0got to\u00a0give Javi and Marco some serious props.\u00a0Their savings and investment numbers are amazing. Over $68,000 invested at age 22, that&#8217;s not luck. That is consistent, boring,\u00a0discipline. Also, I just have to ask a question. Why are they even thinking about moving out of their place? They pay $540 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:25:42]\u00a0Listen, sometimes when I&#8217;m talking to people, I tell them there are these golden moments you have with money.\u00a0And when you have those moments, you hold onto them as long as possible. As an example, when your car payment ends,\u00a0hold onto that moment. Do not run out and get a new car. If you pay off your mortgage, stay there. Don&#8217;t go and get a new house immediately. And in their case, they have $540 a month for rent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:26:11]\u00a0If you can do it, I don&#8217;t care if the ceiling caves in.\u00a0Slap a tar on that thing.\u00a0Use some duct tape and just stack that cash.\u00a0But okay, I understand.\u00a0Not everybody wants to stay in the same place forever. I get it. Life is not just about keeping your expenses low. I just want you to know these golden moments don&#8217;t come around that often. So when you have\u00a0them, take\u00a0them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:26:32]\u00a0All\u00a0right, fine. They&#8217;re thinking about moving.\u00a0We can make that happen. What&#8217;s interesting to me also is the dynamic when they talk about money.\u00a0Did you catch it? They spin.\u00a0They talk through the same issues over and over&#8211; rent,\u00a0Spotify, how to split bills&#8211; and then they walk away never having decided anything. This is incredibly frustrating. It&#8217;s frustrating to listen to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:26:55]\u00a0It&#8217;s also frustrating to be in that situation. I actually think being indecisive is one of the most frustrating qualities to have.\u00a0You talk and talk and talk but get nowhere. So I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0work with them on how to become more decisive. It&#8217;s one of the best skills you can ever build.\u00a0Next up\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0talk to\u00a0them about their guilt-free spending, which actually gives me a huge clue on what&#8217;s going on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And then finally your guilt-free spending is at 22%, which is $1,668 a month. Is that accurate? You guys spend that much on guilt-free stuff?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I can&#8217;t imagine we do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say it&#8217;s more, to be honest, or maybe that&#8217;s just on my end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:36]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think there&#8217;s no way we&#8217;re spending&#8211; yes, we live in New York, so things are expensive, but at the same time, I think we&#8217;re super conscious of that and we&#8217;re not going out to dinner every single weekend. If there&#8217;s a special occasion, we&#8217;ll go to dinner, but that&#8217;s what? 150 bucks here and there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You ever take a trip?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:27:58]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, we take many trips. That&#8217;s the other thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Well, not many, but&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:03]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What&#8217;s the last trip you took?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:04]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We went to San Francisco in February, but that was partly paid for by my parents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What&#8217;s the trip that the two of you took where you paid for it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think San Diego.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:14]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So ballpark, what do you think you spent there total&#8211; transportation, tax, tip, eating out, everything?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:20]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0400 maybe each of us though. So 800, 1,000 total. Not including the flights, though. The flights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Put those in there too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We went to a music festival, so the tickets for that too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How much on the drugs? Don&#8217;t forget about that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We don&#8217;t do drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:36]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:36]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m just kidding with you. Also, I got to tell you, I&#8217;m very, very, very out of touch with how much drugs cost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:42]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Honestly, cheaper than you&#8217;d expect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:28:44]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, that&#8217;s what I learned. I&#8217;m still in like RoboCop days. I thought everything&#8217;s $25,000. And my friends are like, &#8220;You&#8217;re so [Bleep] stupid, dude.&#8221; I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Oh, capitalism is so efficient.&#8221; All right. So what do we say? Including airplanes, everything, how much?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:29:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;d say maybe 5 or 600<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:29:04]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. Let&#8217;s just say 1,500 bucks total. So 1500 bucks total is an extra $120 a month on your guilt-free spending. And that&#8217;s just one trip. So you can see if you take four or five, six trips, maybe one of them or two of them are more expensive, it sets your floor higher. So I don&#8217;t know how much you guys spend on guilt-free spending, but I can tell a couple of things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:29:25]\u00a0Number one, this number is not right, which is okay. It almost never is the first time. That&#8217;s fine. I&#8217;m actually not sure which direction it&#8217;s right. Is it higher or lower? I don&#8217;t know. But I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re spending $5,000 a month on guilt-free spending. I think you&#8217;re plus or minus a few percentage points. And you could track it down. You should. But it&#8217;s reasonable. And the fact is you have tons of margin to play with because your fixed costs are so low.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:29:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We&#8217;re not necessarily tracking certain things like that closely. I think during the week we&#8217;re really good. But then on the weekend we might go out to dinner or go out with friends and get drinks or whatever. And then we also might have trips or concerts. So that on top of we want to move in together into our own place, to me, that&#8217;s where the ballooning, the lifestyle inflation goes. And that&#8217;s what worries me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Lifestyle inflation. You worried about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:11]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I say, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Marco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I am not worried about that because I think we&#8217;re both very conscious about wanting to save. And I think right now there&#8217;s much more that we could be doing that we don&#8217;t do because we are putting that money away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Can I tell you guys? I don&#8217;t believe in lifestyle inflation. I know the phrases out there. I know all the personal finance folks will try to scare you. Take every dollar of raise you get and put it into the market. Don&#8217;t inflate your lifestyle. I don&#8217;t believe that. When I spend money on expensive stuff or stuff that&#8217;s meaningful to me, I didn&#8217;t trip and fall and accidentally swipe my credit card. I know what I&#8217;m doing&#8211; eyes wide open.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:30:53]\u00a0So one of the goals that I have for everybody who reads my material or I get a chance to help is to help them gain the confidence and knowledge to say, I&#8217;m not worried about this ephemeral phrase, lifestyle inflation happening to me because I cause things to happen to the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:31:13]\u00a0Can I tell you what I see looking at these numbers? Honestly, I think they&#8217;re pretty [Bleep] awesome. At 22 years old, [Bleep], you could be 30 years old. I would be impressed. You have a nice household income and potentially even more with a bonus. You have extremely low fixed costs. Oh my God. Having those low fixed costs allow you so much buffer, so much margin to play with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:31:40]\u00a0It&#8217;s like you have thousands of extra dollars every single month. And then what really impresses me is that you chose to invest and save aggressively. Now, I love that. I want you to spend money on the things you love. I love that you went to San Diego. In fact, we could find a way for you all to spend more if you want to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:31:57]\u00a0But when I was 22 and 24 and 26 and I was basically living with a roommate, my expenses were relatively low, by putting a bunch of money into investments, I knew that it was my golden age in terms of investing. Because life gets more expensive. I got a little bit nicer tastes in things, and eventually I got engaged and got married, and I wanted to spend more on my fixed costs. And so the fact that the two of you are so aggressive about saving and investing, I find amazing and very inspiring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:32:33]\u00a0Okay,\u00a0yes, Javi and Marco are crushing it financially speaking, but I&#8217;ve learned something about optimizers. The very habits that make them good with money can also box them in. That&#8217;s why optimizers, taken\u00a0to the logical extreme, become unbearably cheap.\u00a0They&#8217;re always planning for the future, preparing for what can go wrong, and then that joy and spontaneity that money should provide disappears. They lose the ability to say,\u00a0&#8220;Yeah, let&#8217;s do this\u00a0now.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:33:05]\u00a0They can&#8217;t even buy lunch out because that sourdough bread could be invested\u00a0and\u00a0compound for 35 more years. Ooh, put the cheese aside. We can buy five slices of cheese when we&#8217;re 92 years old.\u00a0What the\u00a0[Bleep]?\u00a0We need to blend art and science.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:33:22]\u00a0We need to know that money involves numbers, and yes, we should have a healthy savings and investing rate, but it&#8217;s not here to simply be accumulated or hoarded.\u00a0Money is here to provide us a\u00a0Rich Life. I can already see this happening with Javi, worrying about lifestyle inflation, hesitant to spend,\u00a0out planning every possibility. As it turns out, lifestyle inflation is not the only thing Javi&#8217;s worried about. There&#8217;s something deeper going on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:33:50]\u00a0After this break, we&#8217;re\u00a0going to\u00a0get into it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:33:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Javi, you wrote something on your application, which I&#8217;ve been thinking about since I read it. You wrote, &#8220;Our biggest challenge is aligning today&#8217;s vision for tomorrow&#8217;s future. We have a lot of big goals in the next few years, but we spend a lot and live in a high-cost area. I don&#8217;t know if we&#8217;ll ever reach those goals.&#8221; What do you mean by that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:34:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think we&#8217;re really trying to find the balance of enjoying our life right now and then also investing for the future. I know you mentioned we save and invest aggressively, but I think there&#8217;s still room for trying to do more in some ways because before we&#8217;re 30, we want to do certain things together, and those are expensive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:34:36]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Like what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:34:37]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Like getting married for example, marriage is a huge, I would say, cost. We would love to have a big wedding. And then also, after a certain age we&#8217;re going to move back to California because we&#8217;re both from California. But we&#8217;d either move to one of the bigger cities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:34:51]\u00a0So either LA where Marco&#8217;s from, or SF, which is closer to me. So what I was thinking is that we buy property in a town where I&#8217;m from, so I can have a property closer to my parents. It&#8217;s cheaper, whatever. But to be able to have that later down the line if I need to be closer to them at some point. And then also, if we ever got priced out of the big cities, we can go back to that property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And right now you&#8217;re not sure if you&#8217;ll be able to accomplish that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, accomplish both of those and also retire. And also support our parents if we need to when they retire. So just a lot of things on the line, I guess, in a way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What if you went through life for the next 70 years, feeling behind?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, that would suck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Marco, what do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that he very well could do that. But I have that shared goal, where I do want to end up back in California. But it&#8217;s difficult picturing those big numbers right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:35:50]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Because I&#8217;m still thinking of it in an individual mindset. It&#8217;s hard to imagine that I&#8217;ll get there one day. So I think it&#8217;s just more of a mental thing in terms of aligning and making sure that we&#8217;re both working towards those goals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:36:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that&#8217;s pretty honest. I think, 22 years old, you all have been together, what, two years, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:36:14]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:36:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. So I think that that&#8217;s a valid thing. It&#8217;s like, hey, we are actually not married. We&#8217;re 22. Of course, we have shared goals, and we don&#8217;t know where life is going to take us. From 22 to 30, a lot of things change. Okay. We can accept that change might happen, and we can still talk about a shared vision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:36:36]\u00a0We can create the structure for that shared vision to happen, and we can independently save and invest money so that at some point if we combine our incomes, it&#8217;s like merging onto the freeway at the same speed as everybody. Everyone&#8217;s already going 65 and you can just merge smoothly. And if not, that&#8217;s okay too. Things change. 22 years old. But you know what? I sure would like the two of you to be set up and be driving the same speed in the same direction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:37:02]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hearing Javi talk about his future goals was a big insight into his money psychology. He&#8217;s doing all the right things&#8211; saving, investing, planning&#8211; but he&#8217;s still consumed by this feeling that he&#8217;s behind. That\u00a0it&#8217;s not enough.\u00a0I know a lot of people like this.\u00a0They go through life disguising their anxiety with logic. Ooh, need to plan for a wedding. Ooh,\u00a0got to\u00a0plan for a down payment. Ooh, kid.\u00a0Ooh, travel, retirement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:37:35]\u00a0At a certain point, it becomes comical. They realize even they cannot justify saving at the rate they are because making all the money they&#8217;ve made and then complaining about the price of a coffee just sounds absurd.\u00a0And so what do they do? There&#8217;s always one thing in America you can point to that nobody can argue with you. What about long-term care? What about it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:37:57]\u00a0That just is the perfect politically correct excuse to be able to save and save. And suddenly you&#8217;re 82 years old, you spent your entire life worrying about something as small as coffee or something as large as long-term care, and you never actually enjoyed the process.\u00a0What a waste. What a waste of a\u00a0Rich Life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:38:17]\u00a0I don&#8217;t want anybody, including my guests, including you, to go through life like that. Yes,\u00a0I want you to save prudently. Yes,\u00a0I want you to invest aggressively.\u00a0But the point is to enjoy our\u00a0Rich Life. So where does this feeling of being behind come from? I\u00a0want to\u00a0understand how Javi and Marco both grew up with money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:38:37]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let&#8217;s see. Javi, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:38:42]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s interesting because it was very split. My dad on one side was very much like, save and work hard for your money. And he would always tell me that Rolling Stone song. You can&#8217;t always get what you want, but if you try so hard you might get what you need. So just always a reminder of that type of thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:38:59]\u00a0And I think there was a lot of good lessons there, honestly, because for things I wanted, I worked towards. I remember, I wanted my first iPod when I was younger, and I was too young for a job at this point, so I recycled cans to get that iPod. So I feel like those were good lessons there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How much did that iPod cost? Do you remember?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:20]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, it was $200.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:21]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0[Bleep], that&#8217;s a lot of money for a kid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What did it feel like getting that iPod finally?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It felt way more rewarding, I think, than just receiving it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And did you actually earn enough recycling $200 to buy the iPod yourself?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. It took a while, but yes. There was a lot of cans involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:42]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I love hearing this story because I have similar stories growing up, especially in the last 15 or so years. Same principle. For me, it was just a honeymoon. That I wanted to have an amazing honeymoon or a big wedding. And I saved as well. Now, I wasn&#8217;t out there getting cans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:39:59]\u00a0The numbers were a little bigger, but the principle was exactly the same. It&#8217;s like, oh my God. When I finally got it, I appreciated it 10 times more than just writing a check. It was like I know every single thing I did to be able to do this today, and that makes me really proud of myself. It sounds like you had the same experience with the cans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:40:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, completely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:40:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What was the takeaway now as an adult? So you look back on that iPod can story. What lessons do you take away from that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:40:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that, one, I just have to be patient about things. Sometimes I can be impulsive, but sometimes I definitely want to make sure that I&#8217;m building the right blocks to any goal that I have, especially financially. I think that was a really good lesson to learn about that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:40:42]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Great. Okay. Anything else happen regarding money in your family as you grew up?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:40:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, completely. I think the other side of the aisle was my mom, I would say, who&#8217;s a little bit more spendy, but she&#8217;s also very, I would say, focused on experiences more so. She&#8217;s like, &#8220;Yes, we can have a couple of these items at Marshalls, but if anything.&#8221; That was most important.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:03]\u00a0So she was more the spender. My dad was more the saver. But sometimes those collided for me and sometimes there was a lot of guilt around money. For example, I was playing soccer when I grew up and my dad would tell me how expensive it was for him to invest in this. And I asked to switch a sport one time, and he was like, no, you could never switch sports because you&#8217;re going to invest so much money, all this stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:23]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Did they teach you about investing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No. Actually, the other thing I was going to say is my parents thought for the most part that investing was gambling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Investing was gambling. Did they invest themselves?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0My dad has a pension, and they don&#8217;t view their 401(k) as investing, [Inaudible].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, that&#8217;s what a lot of people think. I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Put all your investments down.&#8221; They&#8217;re like, &#8220;What about a 401(k)?&#8221; I&#8217;m like, &#8220;That&#8217;s a [Bleep] investment.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0They think it&#8217;s retirement. They see it in a total mental bucket differently. Yes. Okay, so did they say to you, ever investing is gambling?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:41:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I remember I had my first job or something where I was getting money and I was saying like, &#8220;Oh, I just saw this thing on investing.&#8221; He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Don&#8217;t invest.&#8221; You&#8217;re going to lose your money. That&#8217;s gambling. Stuff like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:42:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When your family believes investing is gambling, it tells me a lot. It signals that your family is probably fearful of things they don&#8217;t understand. It tells me that throughout your family tree,\u00a0there probably have not been a lot of people who have been savvy with money, and it tells me that it&#8217;s easier to stigmatize or shun or say,\u00a0&#8220;Ugh, we don&#8217;t do that in our family.&#8221;\u00a0Rather than saying,\u00a0&#8220;Hmm, how are other people doing that? I wonder if we could learn something from that.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:42:40]\u00a0Investing is not gambling. It&#8217;s not. But if you don&#8217;t understand the basics of compound interest, if you don&#8217;t have anybody in your family or community that talks openly about investing, then it can seem like that.\u00a0That would be like somebody saying, flying is magic.\u00a0We shouldn&#8217;t do that. No. Flying on an airplane is not magic. It&#8217;s engineering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:43:02]\u00a0People who grew up hearing that investing equals gambling, they tend to internalize it, and it teaches them to be afraid to play small, certainly not to invest.\u00a0Javi tells me a story about how he confronted his money beliefs\u00a0that is quite illuminating. Listen up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:43:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When I got to college, I had an ex tell me that I was really bad with money, so out of spite I wanted to learn a lot more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:43:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Some people, they get a revenge body. You got a revenge portfolio. That&#8217;s crazy. I never heard that before in my life. That&#8217;s amazing. All right. Good for you. And good for that ex. If you&#8217;re going to drop a bomb, you might as well drop that. You [Bleep] suck at money. And then you leave. There&#8217;s like a crater with smoke coming out of it and you just hope, oh, I hope they take that and learn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:43:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0They don&#8217;t know what my numbers are, but to me, it feels good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:43:50]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hell yeah. All right. Good job. Very impressive. Especially the fact that you grew up being told investing is like gambling. People who grew up in families like that, they really believe it because they&#8217;ve heard it 1,000 times. The fact that you have learned that that&#8217;s not true and that investing actually can be a skill, especially with a long-time horizon, very impressive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:11]\u00a0Marco, I want to ask you, what do you remember about money in your family when you were a kid? Were there any phrases they used?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just the classic, we can&#8217;t afford that. It&#8217;s too expensive. To this day, my parents don&#8217;t talk about their money and don&#8217;t talk about their finances, so it was all very foreign to be growing up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. All right. What else, Marco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I grew up with two older brothers. They&#8217;re four and five years older than me. So when I was younger, they were going through high school and college. So I think a lot of the times, when they were in school, I didn&#8217;t get to do a lot of the same things that they did when they were in school because a lot of the money was going towards paying for their tuition and their expenses and things like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Did you go to college?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And did they pay for that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:44:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I had a scholarship for school, so I actually got free tuition during my schooling, which was awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:02]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Good for you. That&#8217;s awesome. Okay. How are your parents doing with money now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:07]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have no idea. They mention things, concepts of retirement, but when it gets really down the nitty gritty of it, I have no clue where they stand financially. My dad wouldn&#8217;t even tell me how much they paid for our house when they bought it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Really?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I have no clue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:27]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0[Bleep]. We&#8217;re about to do some Zillow research right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I know, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:31]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So Marco, did you go through a process where you learned about money in college and things like that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:45:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It wasn&#8217;t until I met Javi, and we started dating that I really started to learn a lot about money, because I didn&#8217;t have a credit card till my junior year of college. I didn&#8217;t have a savings. I didn&#8217;t have really anything except for just a bank account. I still feel like I&#8217;m in the baby stages of learning about personal finance, but yeah, I&#8217;m definitely getting more of a hold on it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:46:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What was that like for you, Javi, being in a relationship with Marco and you were very interested in money. And when you met Marco, he didn&#8217;t even have a credit card. What was that like for you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:46:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it was exciting because it&#8217;s an interest of mine. I love listening to money podcasts or TikToks or whatever. And I got to share that with him, and he was pretty open about it, but the money psychology around it has been the challenging part, trying to navigate that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:46:27]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Marco, does the fact that Javi taught you about money affect the way that you make decisions about money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:46:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Somewhat. When it comes to where I spend my money, if it&#8217;s a big purchase, I&#8217;ll always consult him and ask him, what would you do? Do you think this is a good choice? And he always gives me pretty constructive advice, I think. And I also think it&#8217;s just a fun project for him to oversee someone else and give them advice. So I think we both enjoy it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:46:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I love that there&#8217;s a good sharing of knowledge going on about money. I love that. And in any relationship, whatever the topic may be, there&#8217;s usually one person who maybe has more experience or some different type of experience. Do you think, Marco, that&#8211; you remember how I commented on you asking a lot of questions about money versus saying, &#8220;I think this.&#8221;?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:47:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:47:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When do you think you get to the point where you have an opinion about money and it&#8217;s not a question? It&#8217;s a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:47:23]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think once I feel confident enough in my knowledge of money, that&#8217;s when I&#8217;ll be able to be more decisive about where it goes. But right now, I think a lot of what I struggle with is putting money in certain places versus using it. Because in my mind, I started saving my money late. And so I&#8217;m always thinking I could be putting this away to make up for the times when I like didn&#8217;t even know that I was supposed to have a savings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:47:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just tell everyone how old you are again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:47:59]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:48:05]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0[Bleep] amazing. I just spoke to a mid-40s couple and one of them goes, &#8220;I&#8217;m behind. We should have done this, da da, da, da.&#8221; And actually they were doing fine. They were not behind. They were fine. And then I just love hearing from a 22-year-old like, &#8220;I&#8217;m behind.&#8221; What it really shows me is that it has nothing to do with age. That the way we feel about our money is highly uncorrelated to the amount in the bank and the day we were born. It&#8217;s irrelevant. Is it possible you&#8217;re not behind, Marco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:48:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0100%. And Javi&#8217;s laughing because he is actually always the one that says he is so behind and he&#8217;s not making enough, and he doesn&#8217;t have enough saved. When in reality, I could only dream of having what he has in the bank.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:48:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And then by contrast, everyone listening and watching this podcast could only dream about being 22 years old and talking about this kind of stuff. So I guess there&#8217;s always somebody we can compare ourselves to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:49:09]\u00a0Listening to Marco talk about his childhood, the silence, the guesswork, the sense that money was always just out of reach explains a lot about why he still feels like he&#8217;s behind. Do you see the problem? You can be extremely successful on paper,\u00a0and you can still feel behind.\u00a0Most people in that situation, they don&#8217;t tackle their feelings. They simply double down and try to make more money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:49:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Please remember the way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in your bank account.\u00a0That explains why Javi is hustling, trying to outrun that feeling. Let me save more, let me invest more.\u00a0Doing everything except the very thing that will change the way he feels,\u00a0confronting those feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:49:59]\u00a0And this is also the danger of growing up without a clear money model.\u00a0For all the parents listening, the ones who don&#8217;t talk about money because you\u00a0want to\u00a0protect your kids,\u00a0this is often what happens.\u00a0Kids are left without a clear model of what does money mean, and they just pick up on tiny little clues. Mom worrying about money. Dad sitting at the kitchen table looking down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:50:21]\u00a0You want to fill that vacuum and provide the meaning of what money is. But I\u00a0got to\u00a0tell you something, you can&#8217;t provide that message to kids unless you yourself truly know it and internalize it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:50:34]\u00a0With Javi, he feels like he&#8217;s not enough.\u00a0And over time, that mindset sticks with you. It pervades everything when it comes to your finances.\u00a0But we&#8217;re\u00a0going to\u00a0flip that script. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m here.\u00a0Because when you actually run the numbers and when you start seeing the numbers on paper and you internalize and interpret those numbers, you can change the way you feel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:50:56]\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0run their retirement projection for them. Obviously, they&#8217;re not behind, not even close, but I think they&#8217;re reaction will surprise you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:06]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Shall we take a look at your projections for the future? Because I think that tells us a lot. All right. So your current investments are at 68 here. I&#8217;m going to show you this on screen. How many years should you plan to invest for?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t know. 40. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I love dragging this thing all the way to the right. [Bleep] crazy. You&#8217;re currently adding, let&#8217;s just say, 26,000 a year. And that&#8217;s just post-tax. Post-tax without even factoring in a 401(k). What does this number in the bottom left say? How much are you going to have at retirement?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Little under 7.7 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:37]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, $7.7 million. That already accounts for inflation. So please don&#8217;t write me a comment saying, &#8220;What about inflation?&#8221; I [Bleep] accounted for that in my math. But let&#8217;s add a little bit more, shall we? How about your 401(k)? What are we talking? Roughly 25,000 a year?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I think it&#8217;s a little less than that, but yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:51:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let&#8217;s just put 20,000 to be conservative. And I know there&#8217;s like a pre-tax post tax thing, but for the grand scheme, it doesn&#8217;t really matter that much. So instead of 26,000, it&#8217;s going to be 46,000. Look at this number on the bottom left. What&#8217;s that number right there? Javi, you better say that number loud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s 12,652,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a012.6 million [Bleep] dollars. Who cares about Spotify? The Spotify thing, we should solve that. We will solve it. But you can realize how absurd it is, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0$12 million. What do you guys think of that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:32]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It doesn&#8217;t sound real, to be honest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I can&#8217;t even fathom that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, it&#8217;s a lot of money. Would you even know what to do with $12 million?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:52:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. You guys spend $1,100 on rent right now. That&#8217;s a lot more zeros in 12 million. But I want to say this. I&#8217;m not guaranteeing you, you&#8217;re going to have $12.6 million. If you continue doing what you are doing today, you could certainly have that number plus or minus whatever minor aberrations might happen over the next 43 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:53:00]\u00a0I actually think that number is actually a big low ball. I think if you two continue on the path you are on, and you&#8217;re both obviously very smart and disciplined, you have great support for each other, I think you end up, my guess is 16, 17, 18 million. That&#8217;s a crazy amount of money. And that&#8217;s just at 65. By that point, you can&#8217;t stop at compounding. It&#8217;s growing like crazy every year. So before I tell you what I would do, what do you make of this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:53:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it puts it into perspective a lot and puts my mind at ease, I guess, a little bit. I really can&#8217;t like even fathom that amount of money. It&#8217;s like hard to conceptualize. So I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s interesting to think that way because I don&#8217;t see my money growing a lot now, and so I think as the years go on, I know obviously it&#8217;ll start to compound and grow and grow and grow. So I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s hard to see that within the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:53:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I hear you. It doesn&#8217;t feel real. It doesn&#8217;t feel like it&#8217;s you. And that number, while it&#8217;s interesting, and I&#8217;m sure you trust the math, it doesn&#8217;t reconcile with your current view of your reality. I totally get that. Javi, let me check in with you. What meaning do you take away from that example?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We got to just keep hustling and pushing. I think that&#8217;s the thing, is like, how much can we actually spend more though right now? Because you&#8217;re saying if we invest and save this amount right now, yes, we&#8217;ll reach that. But if we scale things back, who knows what that&#8217;s actually going to look like?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:30]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What the [Bleep]? Hold on. Are you taking away the complete wrong message from this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you see?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Wait. What? This is not the message.&#8221; I think what you&#8217;re saying, Javi, is, okay, 13 million, but if we spend an extra $30 eating out, then we might only have 12.889 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No. I&#8217;m more like, if we spend like 17, $1,800 each on rent, then we won&#8217;t be able to invest and save that much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you need $13 million?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:58]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:54:59]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh. How much do you need?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a04 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. 4 million bucks investible assets that are earning you like 7%. Let&#8217;s take a look. So you&#8217;d be making about $160,000 a year from investments. How do you guys feel about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0At that age, that&#8217;s enough, I think. I&#8217;m pretty sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:17]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0God, I love talking to you guys because it&#8217;s like when I was in college, I had this little group of friends and we would be like, &#8220;What&#8217;s your number?&#8221; And we would come up with a number. It is like the number means how much do you want to have liquid in investments so that it&#8217;s just generating money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:35]\u00a0And our number at the time was like 4.2 million. Basically, we wanted to be able to make 150k risk-free. And we were like, &#8220;We&#8217;ll be happy.&#8221; Exactly what you&#8217;re saying. 160k, you&#8217;re like, &#8220;Amazing. &#8220;And then what happened was, as I got a little bit older, I started to develop a little bit finer tastes. I wanted to travel more, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:55:52]\u00a0And I was like, yeah, I could definitely live on 150k, no doubt. However, if I have a choice, would I want more? Yeah. I&#8217;m going to actually help you guys dream a little bigger. You can always dial it forward and back. And you&#8217;re only 22, so things change over time. That&#8217;s fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:56:10]\u00a0But maybe it&#8217;s a little more than 160. Maybe it&#8217;s 250. Fine. That&#8217;s a lot of money. That&#8217;s 250 in today&#8217;s dollars. That&#8217;s a lot of money. You guys don&#8217;t need $13 million for that. You need a fraction of $13 million. What do you think I&#8217;m saying, Javi?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:56:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That we&#8217;re doing fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:56:28]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You&#8217;re doing better than fine. You guys are crushing it. I don&#8217;t think the numbers are a problem at all. At 22, you have awesome, awesome future ahead of you. The thing that I think is a bigger challenge is how the two of you relate to money together. Because one of you makes more than twice as much the other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:56:45]\u00a0Javi, you make a lot more. And Marco, you have this belief that he who makes the money calls the shots. Now, right now it&#8217;s fun. We joke around the rent thing every month. Ha ha ha. It becomes less fun when you&#8217;re talking about making big decisions like, what kind of apartment should we get, future family planning, maybe taking care of elderly parents, career decisions, moving to whatever. It becomes less funny and much more serious. So can we talk about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:57:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:57:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What does it look like? Put the amount people earn aside for just a second. What does it look like to have a healthy relationship with money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:57:21]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think being able to have conversations where you actually come to a conclusion, which is something that I think oftentimes we struggle with. And I think our views on money are just generally pretty different. I don&#8217;t want to speak for Javi, but I think from his perspective, you&#8217;re always going to have the opportunity to get more, and if you&#8217;re not getting more, then you&#8217;re missing that opportunity. Whereas for me, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;For where we are right now, I think we&#8217;re doing great.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:57:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Javi, you know that story about the guy goes to the party with all the rich people and somebody says like, &#8220;You must be jealous of this billionaire.&#8221; And then the guy says, &#8220;No, I have something he can never have.&#8221; &#8220;Oh, really?&#8221; &#8220;What is that?&#8221; &#8220;Enough.&#8221; Do you know what enough is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:58:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, I don&#8217;t. I don&#8217;t even know the number. I think for me it&#8217;s just a game to be competitive right now because, yes, we&#8217;re doing fine, but I know I come from a competitive background I know people from my high school that are senior software engineers at Meta at 19 or Google and making $300,000 a year. So for me, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Okay, I&#8217;m really behind.&#8221; So that I think motivates me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:58:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I like competitive people. I like to win. I want to live an awesome lifestyle. But I want to tell you something that I think has been one of the key factors in me living an awesome life from the age of 20 to now and from now until I die. The key factor was I knew what enough was.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:58:55]\u00a0I knew what it was before I had it. I recognized it when I had it, and I celebrated it. And then ever since then I&#8217;m like, &#8220;[Bleep], I have more than enough. And therefore, what kind of changes do I get to make in my lifestyle?&#8221; For example, I don&#8217;t work with people who I don&#8217;t like.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:59:13]\u00a0I just don&#8217;t. I don&#8217;t need it. I get that privilege because I have more than enough.\u00a0What would it look like if the two of you both identified how much enough was, and then you started talking about money together?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:59:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it would look more decisive. We would go to a decision, and we just know because we know the numbers. We know what enough is. We know the rule behind it. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to get us to our goal of enough or going to take us behind that. That&#8217;s all we need to really know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:59:41]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Love that. Marco, how about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:59:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think we&#8217;d be able to enjoy ourselves more and feel more freedom to do the things we want to do without feeling like the money could be better spent elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:59:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Right now, if the only pedal you have in your car is more, then that&#8217;s the only way you&#8217;re going to play the game. And there&#8217;s so many different pedals in life. There&#8217;s more savings. There&#8217;s more fun, more adventure, more spontaneity, more generosity. And I want to give you guys different pedals in your car as opposed to just save more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:00:17]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I agree.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:00:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Marco, you said that, you would be more decisive. You can&#8217;t spin when you got a household income of $157,000 and a potential net worth of $12-plus million. It&#8217;s a waste of time to spin on these things. You guys want to do a little exercise right now with Spotify?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:00:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would love to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:00:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. Here&#8217;s the rules. One, you have to come to a decision before we finish this conversation. And two, it&#8217;s got to be fair. Those are the only two rules. Go ahead and discuss Spotify so that you can come to a conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:00:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What really bothers me the most about the situation is the principle of it and how you are not willing to spend that $8 despite not spending anything right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:01:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. No, that&#8217;s fair. You mentioned earlier I&#8217;m freeloading. I don&#8217;t want to do that. I don&#8217;t want to be proud of freeloading. So yeah, I agree with that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:01:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m just curious. Why were you so turned off at the idea of going in on the account?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:01:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think because I just envisioned myself dropping the ball on everything after that. If I got Spotify, I&#8217;d get Max. I&#8217;d get Netflix. I&#8217;d get every subscription on the book. That&#8217;s, I think, the fear that I had, that I would just feel like I can get anything and then end up spending $700,000 on subscriptions. That was really the thing. I don&#8217;t know why I felt that way, but that&#8217;s what I felt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:01:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. I think that&#8217;s fair, but do you understand where I&#8217;m coming from, though?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:01:45]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Completely, yeah. And if it brought us together, for example, I think it would be good to have a joint account because that would be our first joint account. And I think that would be, I don&#8217;t know, really cute. So I would really consider that. I just don&#8217;t think I was thinking that the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:01]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What&#8217;s the decision? Let&#8217;s be crystal clear about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:04]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would like to have the joint Spotify.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:08]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, let&#8217;s do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0[Bleep] yeah. Okay. That was great. What did y&#8217;all notice about that conversation? That was so good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I noticed a lot of more critical questions being asked rather than just asking why and why not? It was getting to the root of the problem. And that was the first time that I had heard his true reasoning behind it. I didn&#8217;t get into that subscription purgatory. I had never heard that before, so I thought that was a very fruitful comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. Love that. Okay, I want to point some observations out. First of all, I like that you were communicating together. It felt very authentic. Like you said, Marco, you were getting to a level, I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ve gotten to before when it comes to Spotify. I think that&#8217;s amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:02:53]\u00a0And just this little example, although it seems trivial, it&#8217;s actually quite powerful. I think the way that you would now talk about the rent checks, are you paying with this or that? I think that can have a deeper meaning. I think that certainly moving to a new apartment can have a deeper meaning. Amazing. Marco, I noticed you were very assertive at the beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:03:11]\u00a0I thought you just were going to ask your first question and then go for the close. No, you were like, &#8220;Hey, so before we wrap this, tell me why, blah, blah, blah, blah.&#8221; I was like, &#8220;[Bleep] yeah. This guy&#8217;s getting it all out on the table.&#8221; So that was awesome. I want to encourage you to focus, Marco, in your conversations with money, starting off with a statement. What is it you notice? What is it you feel? What is it you want?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:03:33]\u00a0And then I want to encourage you to build that skill of coming to a close. I noticed at the end you were a little hesitant to say, okay, so here is what I think the decision is. Do you agree? Drive it home. We need to have something on paper. We both agreed to this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:03:48]\u00a0And then Javi, I love that you were so honest in your answer and very thoughtful. Like, &#8220;Hey, I actually think that probably the reason I thought that way was I worried I was going to trip and fall and buy $700 worth of subscriptions.&#8221; I think that is a very honest answer, and I think if you continue thinking about it, you&#8217;re probably going to find a lot more where that is. Javi, what if you eat a dessert or something like that? Do you feel like you&#8217;ll trip and fall and eat 20 desserts a day for the next 40 years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:19]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No. How come?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:20]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s just not what I think, I guess. I don&#8217;t know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:24]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, it&#8217;s just like not in you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:27]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s not in me either. I can eat a cheesecake or something and I can enjoy it, and I know that tomorrow I&#8217;m not going to do it. I think the same is true for these incremental purchases, whether it be Spotify or subscription, maybe even a trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Javi and Marco just worked through something pretty small, Spotify subscription, but I really love this tiny little example as a microcosm for how they can talk about money together. It&#8217;s actually a big sign of progress because for a couple that spins on decisions, this was different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:04:59]\u00a0They picked a path.\u00a0They moved forward.\u00a0Do you know how many couples go 30 years without ever making a decision together? They did it.\u00a0Tiny Spotify subscription and they did it. That sets an amazing precedent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:17]\u00a0Now I\u00a0want to\u00a0raise the stakes. Earlier they said they\u00a0want to\u00a0get married.\u00a0Planning for a wedding, an amazing project that many couples go through together, and it&#8217;s bigger than a Spotify subscription.\u00a0Also, it&#8217;s qualitatively different. It&#8217;s not just about numbers. It&#8217;s about a vision. It&#8217;s about joy. It&#8217;s about coming together. So let&#8217;s see if they can take what they just learned and use it on this very, very important decision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Interview]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You&#8217;re planning to get married at some point. Is that accurate?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:48]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you all have money set aside for a wedding?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:51]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, not specifically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:05:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Huh? Do you know how I was able to spend all that money on this beautiful, extravagant wedding? Because I saved before I even met my wife. I was putting money every single month aside. This is the exercise that I would go through. How much do we think our wedding would cost? Do y&#8217;all have an idea in your mind? Oh, this is going to be fun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:13]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I say at least 50,000, probably 60.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a060. Okay, great. Marco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:20]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I honestly would agree with that. I love working a budget, so I definitely think we could make it work and have everything that we want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:29]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Love that. 60k. And ballpark, how many years from now would you do it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:33]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think we&#8217;re thinking late 20.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:35]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So let&#8217;s say eight years from now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Eight years. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So technically you should be putting aside $625 a month. What do you guys think of that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that&#8217;s definitely not been happening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:47]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Definitely not. And that&#8217;s if your wedding is 60k and eight years away. It&#8217;s shocking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:06:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Most people, the numbers are quite shocking. This is in chapter 9 of I Will Teach to Be Rich. I have a table showing how much you should be saving depending on your age. And the numbers are like staggering because we know the average age that men and women get married. We know the average cost of a wedding. So it&#8217;s just simple math.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:07:10]\u00a0In your case, you should technically be saving hundreds of dollars a month. Now, the good news is you actually are saving it. You just have it going to random places. If I were in your situation, I would probably create a savings account called Incredible Wedding, and each person might be putting some money aside into their own version if you&#8217;re keeping it separate. And then if and when the wedding planning starts to happen, boom. You both know exactly how much you have, and you are just so far ahead. You think you could do it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:07:38]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think we could definitely do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:07:40]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What do you think, Javi?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:07:41]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I think we could, but do I put that in cash or do I put that in the market instead? Because you never know. And then people are telling me like, you shouldn&#8217;t have this much cash at this age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:07:52]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s a good question. I noticed that you jumped to the more advanced questions. I&#8217;m going to answer this question for you, but then I&#8217;m going to zoom back to talk about what I think is way more important. When I made these decisions, I had money for a wedding, honeymoon down payment on a house. If the number was over eight plus years, I invested it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:08:11]\u00a0For example, when my wife and I were together, we&#8217;re like, &#8220;Hey, are we planning to buy a house anytime soon?&#8221; The answer was no. I don&#8217;t need this cash right now. Put it in the market. Knowing that I&#8217;m not going to need it for at least eight years. So if it goes up and it goes down, whatever. By the time eight years came by, it was well more than double the amount. That means either a bigger down payment or a nicer house or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:08:33]\u00a0I agree that right now you have too much money just sitting in a lump sum cash account. It&#8217;s sloppy. It&#8217;s like having a junk drawer in your kitchen. We need to organize this a little bit. You guys are a little bit more conservative with your finances, so maybe six to eight months of an emergency fund. You have way more than that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:08:52]\u00a0Above that, I would probably start splitting it up into different accounts for things that I know are coming. I would name the accounts. Incredible Wedding, that should be getting full every month. And you can send money automatically to it, because you don&#8217;t need to send any more to your emergency fund. It&#8217;s full.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:05]\u00a0What&#8217;s the amazing trip you guys want to take? Put that in there. What&#8217;s the anniversary thing you want to celebrate? Put that in there. You want to have roughly five accounts or fewer? Because above that, it starts to become too dilute. If you have extra money, amazing. Invest it, spend it. These are the kind of things you get to decide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:22]\u00a0But I think the larger question beyond how to organize your stuff is, are we actually just pushing the pedal to accumulate more without understanding why? Why are you guys on track for eight to $12 million and you don&#8217;t even know what to do with that? You wouldn&#8217;t even know what to do with half of that. That&#8217;s the question. How do you think you&#8217;ll be able to get to the answers?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, right now I&#8217;m not planning for anything. I haven&#8217;t necessarily ever been putting anything in specific buckets to save towards a specific goal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:54]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Have you read my book?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:56]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have not, no.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:09:57]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. That&#8217;s fine. I think that part of, recalibrating the financial relationship between the two of you is that, Marco, I actually think you have to embrace that it&#8217;s time for you to learn money and not just from Javi. Javi&#8217;s done a great job helping you get educated and learn about this stuff, but now it&#8217;s time for you to actually bring your own knowledge to the table. That is what is going to allow you to start being more definitive and explicit about what you want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:10:24]\u00a0My suggestion is you read my book separately. Start to look at your accounts. You&#8217;re going to be like, &#8220;Oh [Bleep], I didn&#8217;t realize I should have this.&#8221; Or like, &#8220;Oh my God, I have money for that.&#8221; You&#8217;re also going to be able to make more of an educated contribution in terms of, hey, the apartment we&#8217;re talking about, here&#8217;s what I think we should do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:10:41]\u00a0Here&#8217;s how much I think we should spend. And it&#8217;s going to be less, I just want this thing and much more grounded with numbers and a vision of your Rich Life. That&#8217;s the thing that I like about the two of you, is each of you gets to bring your own vision together, and then you get to create something that fits you both. But in order to do that, you each have to have a clear vision yourself. Javi, you said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to have to worry when you retire.&#8221; Don&#8217;t you worry right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:09]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:10]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So maybe 40 years from now you&#8217;ll magically stop worrying. Does that sound realistic?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0From watching your podcast and listening, no.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:18]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If anything, you could start doing the work right now to develop a new skill besides worrying. That would involve the two of you talking. Javi, it would involve you building a really clear vision of what you need. How much is enough? It is not just more. I can guarantee you guys that. What&#8217;s the theme for your conversations going forward? What word would you use to describe how you want your conversations about money to feel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I was going to say fulfilling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:46]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Fulfilling. I love that. Okay, Marco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:49]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would say honest and understanding from both of our perspectives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:11:55]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0These are good words. Fulfilling, honest, understanding. I like it. If I can suggest one, it would be teamwork. It would be that the two of you do this as a team. Each person has a vision. They come ready. I think we should do this. Oh, I think we should do that. Oh, let&#8217;s talk about it. And they collaborate and then they make a decision, and they move forward, and they do it together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:12:17]\u00a0Remember, no teammate is just valued more simply because they earn more money. Important reminder in this relationship. Just because you earn more money does not necessarily make you more valuable. Lots of different ways to contribute in a relationship. Income is just one. Fortunately, the two of you have a very nice, combined income, and your expenses are low. Can I make one suggestion for you to think about?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:12:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:12:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You&#8217;re all talking about spending more on your apartment. I don&#8217;t mind. You can do it. You can easily afford it. When I was in fourth grade, we did those sex ed classes, and a guy who was teaching us, he was talking about puberty and stuff, and he was talking about shaving. And he goes, &#8220;Hold off on shaving for as long as you can because once you start, you can never stop.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:13:00]\u00a0And I still remember that. And he was right. I had a\u00a0little mustache when I was 14. I just let that thing grow because of what he said in fourth grade. I let it grow way too long. Think carefully about going to your own apartment because once you do, you&#8217;ll never go back. And I don&#8217;t mind it. Again, you guys can easily afford it. But in order for you to afford what would come to be more than twice as much on housing, you two will need to be very dialed in about your expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:13:28]\u00a0You&#8217;ll need to have a clear vision. You will both need to reduce the amount you save and invest. A lot of other things downstream will happen. Be very methodical about this decision. And if you want to do it, do it. I did it. I made a decision at a certain point in my late 20s where I was like, &#8220;Okay, cool, I&#8217;m going to be on my own.&#8221; And it was awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:13:47]\u00a0But I knew that once I did that I would never go back. These times where you have low expenses and a relatively high household income, they are so rare. And the good news is you&#8217;ve been taking advantage of it. You are crushing it on your investments. It&#8217;s amazing. I have no notes. I simply want you to think carefully about the ramifications of more than doubling your household expenses. Just do it eyes wide open, and make sure the two of you talk about it as teammates. Cool?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:14:15]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:14:16]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. I have some questions for you. In today&#8217;s conversation, what was the most surprising thing? Javi, let&#8217;s start with you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:14:25]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0One, the investment calculator. I&#8217;ve seen that like once or twice, but I just didn&#8217;t really pay any thought. The other thing, I think just the honesty in this conversation and Marco being direct. I think that was awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:14:39]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s cool. I love that. Okay. Marco, how about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:14:43]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think what was most surprising for me was learning things about myself and how I think about money in ways that I didn&#8217;t know. I really never considered the fact that I had this underlying guiding principle that because he makes more money, I shouldn&#8217;t be calling the shots. But now that I think about it, it makes so much more sense because I&#8217;m very decisive in all other aspects of our relationship except for when it comes to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:15:12]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Great realization. Honestly, I&#8217;m so happy that we get the chance to talk at this stage of life where you have so much ability to choose where you want to go. I&#8217;m so excited. Honestly, I think a lot of people would give anything to be 22, to know what the two of you know, to have the kind of conversations you&#8217;re having. Incredible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:15:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m feeling hopeful, and I think I&#8217;m feeling a lot more grounded in myself and in our relationship and our ability to do the things that we want to do and be more decisive about them. Because I also think sometimes because those things are so far off, it&#8217;s just like, oh, we don&#8217;t have to make a decision right now because it&#8217;s so far in the future. But I think this really put things into perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:16:00]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Awesome. Javi?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:16:02]\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I would basically agree with everything you said and just also add, I feel much more calculated in how we want to do things. It&#8217;s not just we invest more. We save more just because that&#8217;s a good thing to do at this point in your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:16:17]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I love that. You guys can do so many things in your Rich Life, individually and together, and it just has to be something that you calculate and it&#8217;s important to you. I talk to a lot of people. They buy stuff I would never buy. But if they can afford it and they love it, I&#8217;m all for it. Your Rich Life is yours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[Narration]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:16:34]\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have fewer than five friends who tell me that they have enough. That&#8217;s it. Fewer than five.\u00a0Almost nobody knows what enough is. We don&#8217;t know the number.\u00a0We don&#8217;t know the feeling. But if you\u00a0want to\u00a0live a\u00a0Rich Life, you have to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:16:51]\u00a0Javi and Marco are doing everything right, saving, investing, playing the long-term game. But when they see that $12 million retirement projection, it doesn&#8217;t feel real. It doesn&#8217;t feel like them. This is what I mean by talking about your identity with money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:17:11]\u00a0There&#8217;s something beautifully innocent about being an optimizer at age 22.\u00a0When I was young, I was an optimizer as well. I&#8217;ll always be an optimizer to some extent. I knew that I didn&#8217;t have $12 million when I was 22, but I knew the math and I knew that someday it would turn into that much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:17:32]\u00a0And more importantly, I started to embrace the identity\u00a0that\u00a0one day I would have more money. I wasn&#8217;t there yet, but one day I would.\u00a0And that meant that suddenly I was reading different magazines. I was looking at people sitting in first class, and instead of scoffing and saying,\u00a0&#8220;So stupid.&#8221;\u00a0I was like,\u00a0&#8220;Huh,\u00a0why would people who have money choose to spend it sitting there and pay four times the price?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:17:58]\u00a0I wasn&#8217;t there yet, but I was ready to accept a change in my identity. That is what I want for every single person on this podcast, is that who you are today,\u00a0you&#8217;ll always be that to some extent, but you can open yourself up to changing your identity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:18:14]\u00a0And for Javi and Marco, what they&#8217;re seeing is that a\u00a0Rich Life\u00a0is not just a spreadsheet.\u00a0It&#8217;s actually a symphony of all these different things changing together,\u00a0and ultimately,\u00a0your identity can change. That&#8217;s a powerful moment. And in order to get there, you\u00a0got to\u00a0learn how to step back.\u00a0Not just focus on who&#8217;s paying this account and who&#8217;s paying that, but actually what do we want?\u00a0What&#8217;s our vision? Who are we?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:18:40]\u00a0Well, let&#8217;s hear what happened next.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:18:47\u00a0<\/span><b>Javier:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think you&#8217;ll be happy to know that we&#8217;ve been making some really good progress.\u00a0We&#8217;re doing a lot better job at finding the happy medium between saving for our future while also trying to take advantage of where we are right now and our age and living in New York.\u00a0In terms of the subscription that we talked about, that actually didn&#8217;t change,\u00a0but I let Marco\u00a0know that any subscription that does come up, that I would love to be jointly included in that.\u00a0We actually got lucky with a situation where a friend is wanting to move in New York.\u00a0So we&#8217;re moving in with her. I think we just have found some great situations and are still continuing, I think,\u00a0to\u00a0live life and spend and invest smartly, especially in this economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[01:19:26]\u00a0<\/span><b>Marco:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m learning to make more decisions when it comes to our joint finances and be more decisive because\u00a0it&#8217;s a group effort. It&#8217;s a team effort. Yeah, we&#8217;re moving in the right direction, so thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/208-javier-marco\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Javier (22) and Marco (22) are young, ambitious, and financially disciplined\u2014but the future they dream about together is being challenged by how they handle money [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322419,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322417\/revisions\/322419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}