rewrite this title Episode 215. “He wants a house, I don’t want to go bankrupt.”



Athena (31) and Arie (30) are newly married and dreaming of buying a home, starting a family, and traveling the world. But their finances—and philosophies—don’t align. Athena’s upbringing was defined by instability and strict religious messaging around money; Arie’s was middle-class and frugal. Now, they’re realizing that love alone isn’t enough—they need a shared plan. Can Ramit help them define their values, shift their dynamic, and start building a future as true partners?

In this episode we uncover:

The subtle financial tension that’s been building—and how it’s showing up in everything from gift-giving to debt.
Why Arie is laser-focused on buying a home, while Athena worries about losing her freedom.
The real reason Athena keeps her finances separate—and how her upbringing shaped that decision.
How Arie’s savings mindset clashes with Athena’s more flexible approach to money.
A surprising admission about holiday spending.
What it really means to feel “safe” with money.
The power struggle hiding beneath their shared bank account.
How financial shame from childhood still influences their present-day relationship.
Their unspoken fears—and how Ramit pushes them to define their shared Rich Life

Chapters:

(00:00:00) “It’s a dream”—but what if your partner doesn’t share it?

(00:08:30) They don’t fight—but is that actually the problem?

(00:21:19) “I don’t know if I can say yes if I have debt”

(00:24:44) Ramit breaks down their numbers

(00:37:36) Dreaming big while avoiding the details

(00:45:32) “What kind of person doesn’t own a house?”

(00:55:33) The moral script keeping Athena stuck

(01:14:39) “If you want something for yourself, you’re greedy”

(01:22:57) Getting honest about a future they can’t afford

(01:33:15) Where are they now? Athena and Arie’s follow-ups

This episode is brought to you by:

DeleteMe | If you want to get your personal information removed from the web, go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit for 20% off.

Leesa | During Leesa’s 4th of July Sale, get 30% off plus an extra $50 off at https://leesa.com with promo code RAMIT.

Factor | Get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box at https://factormeals.com/RAMIT50OFF with code RAMIT50OFF.

Rocket Money | Cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way at https://rocketmoney.com/ramit.

Trust & Will | Protect what matters most in minutes at https://trustandwill.com/ramit and get 10% off plus free shipping.

Links mentioned in this episode 

Get Ramit’s 3 Step Guide to Buying a House

Transcript 

Download the full transcript PDF 

[00:00:05] Arie: If I don’t own a house by the time I’m 40, I will have felt like I’ve made a mistake somewhere.

[00:00:09] Athena: The house dream– I just feel like if I don’t do that for Arie, it’s going to let him down. So I feel like if I’m not scrimping, then I’m going to feel bad.

[00:00:20] Ramit: There’s got to be more to life than just saving for some utilitarian thing that your parents did 50 years ago.

[00:00:27] Athena: We also were a part of a different sect of Christianity that some would consider to be like a cult.

[00:00:35] Ramit: Really?

[00:00:35] Athena: Yeah. The love of money is the root of all evil. It’s something I’m working on rewriting in my mind, but it is hard when I have felt so constricted financially.

[00:00:47] Arie: I feel like we’re so honest with each other.

[00:00:49] Ramit: Huh? Definitely not. You two are incredibly polite to each other, so polite that you are not honest with each other.

[Narration]

[00:00:57] Ramit: This episode is going to be a little different. There are no dramatic fights or emotional outbursts. In fact, it’s the quiet tone that makes it stand out. Today I’m talking to Athena and Arie. Athena applied because Arie wants to buy a house, and she can’t see a path towards making that dream a reality. And as we talked, I noticed their answers felt almost too polite, like they had practiced. And that made this conversation really hard for me.

[00:01:26] And when that happens, which is very rarely, I start to pay attention. Because sometimes the hardest part is not just fixing your spending, it’s actually being honest with each other. So as you listen today, ask yourself this question, what are you avoiding? What are you avoiding bringing up? What are you avoiding talking about? What are you avoiding sharing that you’re holding in, deep down?

[00:01:51] Now I’m going to look at their conscious spending plan, their CSP. You can download your own for free at iwt.com/csp. It’s the exact same tool I use in every episode.

[00:02:02] Their numbers? Well, their combined income is roughly $100,000. Arie earns about 6,500 a month or almost four times as much as Athena, who earns about $1,650 per month. Their fixed costs are high, 77%. Post-tax investments at $0. Savings are at 11%. Guilt-free spending is at 12%. It’s a pretty tight plan, which you will know if you’ve filled out your own CSP. Doesn’t really leave much margin for anything unexpected.

[00:02:34] But here’s what really stood out. The top of their conscious spending plan has four columns. Not one, not two, four. It’s broken out into combined, partner 1, partner 2, and joint. This is not how the CSP is supposed to look. It’s way more complicated than my template, and that is a very big clue. It suggests a lot of overcomplication and maybe some separation of the finances, like mine, yours, and sometimes ours. Now let’s meet Athena and Arie.

[Interview]

[00:03:20] Ramit: Athena, on your application, you wrote, “My husband’s dream is to buy a house. He mentions it almost every day. I don’t see how we will ever be able to buy a house and have kids– our dream, and travel– my dream. We can work hard, but I’m not sure what we need to do to make both dreams a reality.” Do you remember where you were when you were writing that?

[00:03:47] Athena: Yes. I was in my home office, and we had had another discussion about how we weren’t saving enough money, how I wasn’t earning enough, and, Arie wishing we didn’t have to live in our apartment.

[00:04:00] Ramit: What’s the origin of the house? Why is it so important to you, Arie?

[00:04:05] Arie: A house always represented, to me, a great place to raise a family. A family is something that Athena and I both really want one day. It represents freedom, privacy, a safe place.

[00:04:19] Ramit: The house represents freedom and privacy to you. Can you tell me more about those?

[00:04:26] Arie: I love my car, so I would love to have a garage where I could fit my car and ideally Athena’s car too. I love fixing things and working with my hands when I can, and doing that in an apartment is severely limiting. So there are a lot of physical reasons I want a house. I’ve also always believed it to be a great investment.

[00:04:50] Ramit: All right. And do you feel the same way?

[00:04:53] Athena: No. I want to support Arie’s dreams, and I think a house could be really great for children and a family. And all the things that Arie mentioned about modifications and having space and privacy, I don’t think that those things should outweigh other things, like being house rich, but also poor with other things.

[00:05:14] I feel like sometimes when you buy a house too early, you feel so restricted in every other area. There are so many things that are out of your control. So again, that powerless feeling like stuff could break at any time, and you’re going to have these big expenses. So no, I don’t feel that way.

[00:05:30] Ramit: Have you two had this conversation like 100 times?

[00:05:34] Arie: 50.

[00:05:37] Ramit: What did each of you feel in this conversation?

[00:05:40] Arie: I remember feeling like there’s just so much against us, the market being one, Athena’s income, which I know she’s working every day to get to some stable situation. During most of these discussions, we’re feeling pretty troubled because we don’t know how to reach these goals.

[00:06:00] Ramit: Who’s the one bringing it up?

[00:06:01] Arie: Me.

[00:06:02] Ramit: Okay. So you’re bringing it up. Athena, what were you feeling when this conversation gets brought up over and over?

[00:06:08] Athena: Powerless. I look into the numbers and think about where we are now, what our dreams are, and I don’t see how it can all happen, even when I earn more or he earns more. So I feel like I have no ability to help change our situation.

[00:06:24] Ramit: Got it. How long have you been married?

[00:06:26] Athena: Almost nine months.

[00:06:27] Ramit: Oh, congratulations.

[00:06:29] Arie: Thank you.

[00:06:29] Ramit: Awesome. Okay. And had you been talking about a house before you got married and now after you’ve gotten married?

[00:06:36] Arie: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:36] Ramit: Okay. Is it the same thing, like, I want a house because it’s freedom. It’s for a future, potentially growing family. I want to be able to repair things. And then you, Athena, saying like, “But what about repairs and what about being house poor?” Is that how it goes?

[00:06:53] Athena: I would say for the majority, 75% of the time, they have been in that cadence.

[00:06:57] Ramit: And then what happens at the end of the conversation?

[00:06:59] Athena: Arie normally says something hopeful, like, “Well, maybe when you earn more, these things will be possible, or maybe the market will take a turn and we’ll be able to afford a house on one income.” We don’t like fight, so it’s very amicable, our differences.

[00:07:16] Ramit: You did say he mentions a house almost every day.

[00:07:19] Athena: Yes.

[00:07:21] Ramit: That’s a lot.

[00:07:21] Athena: It is.

[00:07:22] Arie: It’s a dream.

[00:07:23] Ramit: Yeah, I can hear that. I have a lot of dreams. I don’t know that I bring them up every day, especially if my partner doesn’t agree with the dream. What do you think about that?

[00:07:32] Arie: Yeah. That would probably get old. I think Athena wants a house one day in the future. I just don’t think that time is right now. And like I said before, over the last year, nine months, I’ve been trying to grapple with that reality. We are on the same page that a house is not worth filing bankruptcy over.

[00:07:59] Ramit: Yeah.

[00:07:59] Arie: A house is not worth stressing out every two weeks over groceries. It may be a dream, but that dream could turn into a nightmare really quickly.

[00:08:09] Narration: [Narration]

[00:08:10] Ramit: The way Athena and Arie communicate is a major clue. Here’s what I notice. They clearly disagree about buying a house, but then Athena says, “We don’t fight. Our differences are amicable.” But you can amicable yourself into 50 years of not having an honest conversation about money.

[00:08:29] What she’s really saying is we don’t see eye to eye, but we’re polite about it. This is one of the biggest clues in their dynamic, the way that they are overly polite, overly careful. Sometimes it’s okay to disagree. Sometimes it’s even okay to fight. Because when you spend all your time focused on the other person’s needs, never your own, never being honest about what you really want, it doesn’t actually create connection. It creates resentment. So listen as I start to dig deeper.

[Interview]

[00:09:01] Ramit: When was the first time you had a substantive conversation about money?

[00:09:06] Athena: December 2021, right after we started dating. We met in August and started dating in November. We worked at the same company, and I like talking about money, and so I said, “This is what I make. What do you make?” Because I wanted to have us rotate who pays for dates. Because I think it’s important for there to be some back and forth in a relationship. I don’t want the man paying for everything.

[00:09:31] Ramit: And what was your reaction to the question?

[00:09:34] Arie: I was fine with that.

[00:09:37] Ramit: It’s pretty impressive, honestly. You talked about money earlier than I talked about it with my wife. And I love the way you were so forthright about it. Hey, here’s my vision with money. I like to talk about it. I want to put a light on it. And then I like your response to it. Yeah, let’s talk about it.

[00:09:57] Arie: I saw a future with Athena pretty early on, so I was prepared to talk about things that would represent a solid foundation.

[00:10:06] Ramit: Okay. That’s cool. So what were the next couple of substantive conversations about money?

[00:10:13] Athena: We talked about how much we each had in savings, how we’d like to make decisions about money. Arie had bought one of his dream cars and paid it off in three years and had worked really hard, and I thought that was really cool. So I was curious, how does he have two cars? How does he make that work?

[00:10:30] So we talked about actual decisions. I was starting graduate school. How I was going to pay for that came up. Normal conversations about your living expenses. When we go out, who picks up the tab? And then we started having more discussions about a house and down payments and debt and that kind of thing.

[00:10:50] Ramit: Hold on. What’s with the tone talking about down payments? I notice there’s a little voice that came out there. What’s that?

[00:10:57] Athena: When we were starting to talk about this, he felt like, if I wasn’t able to match him on a down payment, my name should not be on the house even if we were married. So that would not be a joint asset.

[00:11:07] Arie: I was stuck in this 50-50 mindset. I related 50-50 to being fair. Everything down the middle. That was wrong. Athena and I didn’t have equal incomes.

[00:11:20] Ramit: Were you making more?

[00:11:21] Arie: Yeah.

[00:11:22] Ramit: Okay.

[00:11:22] Arie: It wasn’t by an astronomical margin or anything, but Athena was still in school, paying her way through school and accruing debt.

[00:11:33] Ramit: Got it. So you had a belief until then that fair is 50-50.

[00:11:38] Arie: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:39] Ramit: And then it sounds like the two of you talked about it a lot.

[00:11:42] Arie: We spoke about it. We had some disagreements about what does fair actually mean to us. Because it might not always mean cutting things down the middle.

[00:11:52] Athena: Yeah. So I was like, “Okay, so are you going to have half a baby?” There are certain things that you can’t do. There are certain things I can’t do. And if we’re going to be fair about all of this, then it’s important that we understand the bigger picture of what that looks like.

[00:12:09] Ramit: Wow. That’s a very mature conversation.

[00:12:12] Arie: Athena is very forthright.

[00:12:14] Athena: And you’re very mature.

[00:12:17] Ramit: It’s pretty cool to hear because 50-50, that’s a invisible script that many people grow up having. 50-50 is fair. Where did we learn it from? I don’t know, but it just got absorbed. And to hear somebody challenge that view, are you going to have 50% of a baby? It’s like, whoa.

[00:12:37] You probably never thought about that. I don’t think most men grow up thinking about the logistics of having a baby, especially as it relates to finances and childcare and all kinds of stuff. How long did it take you to adapt your view?

[00:12:52] Arie: Nine to 12 months at least. You think longer? Yeah. I was going to say, it’s hard to answer that because still doing that every day.

[00:13:03] Ramit: How so?

[00:13:05] Arie: Athena challenges my views on a healthy, consistent basis.

[00:13:11] Athena: Maybe like a year and a half ago it started becoming less prevalent because we were having a lot more serious discussions about getting married and our future and those kinds of things. So I would say when we moved in together, that became a little bit more punctuated, our differences and my criteria.

[00:13:31] Ramit: What happened?

[00:13:32] Arie: We were talking about how to split rent. 50-50 sounds fair to me.

[00:13:36] Athena: My rent was less than half what our joint rent was going to be together, and I didn’t see why I would have to move and pay more and be in school, even though at that time we were making the same amount. Why would I want to do that?

[00:13:51] Ramit: If anything, why doesn’t he move to you and then he can save money? But I’m guessing you didn’t want to move to probably what was a smaller place.

[00:13:59] Arie: Yeah.

[00:14:00] Athena: Apparently.

[00:14:01] Ramit: It sounds very familiar to me, honestly.

[00:14:04] Athena: Yeah, it is.

[00:14:05] Ramit: This is exactly what the conversation was with my wife. And to do 50-50 would not have been fair to her. Because the place I was living in was more expensive. But to your point, Arie, 50-50 sometimes can be fair, but other times is not. So are you currently 50-50 splitting rent?

[00:14:25] Arie: No.

[00:14:25] Athena: Not even close.

[00:14:26] Ramit: Okay.

[00:14:27] Athena: Yeah.

[00:14:27] Ramit: Should we take a look at the numbers?

[00:14:29] Athena: Yeah, let’s do it.

[00:14:29] Ramit: Okay. Let’s put them on screen. As I throw them up there, what was it like to do the conscious spending plan together?

[00:14:36] Athena: We were talking about what our  Rich Life would look like if we had this amount of money. Or like what were some of the ways in the last year that we really enjoyed spending money. When was a good time that we loved spending money? So those sorts of things like, what could we see money doing for us?

[00:14:50] Ramit: Honestly, great job, because oftentimes when people do the CSP, the first mistake they make is they don’t do it together. Right there, that’s a mistake. The point as a couple is to do it together. The second mistake people make is they think the goal is to do it as efficiently as possible. It’s weird.

[00:15:11] It’s not really the way it works. We want to take time. Sometimes actually slowing down is the most powerful thing we can do. So I love what you did where you said, “Hey, what did we enjoy spending money on? What if we had this much?” That’s the real point of it. The numbers are just the output. And we can always change the numbers. Okay. Let’s take a look. So let’s see here. Athena, can you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to it?

[00:15:38] Athena: Assets at $63,000.

[00:15:41] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:41] Athena: Do you want me to read over to the side or just–

[00:15:44] Ramit: Actually, why are these numbers split out? I have never seen this before.

[00:15:48] Athena: I’m sorry.

[00:15:49] Ramit: What did you do to my CSP?

[00:15:50] Athena: So Arie and I don’t have fully joint finances right now. We have very much his and hers and theirs. So in the joint money is money that we have saved together or money from our wedding. And then partner 1 is Arie and partner 2 is Athena. So everything that you see in those partner one and two columns are separated.

[00:16:10] Ramit: Why have you not combined your income?

[00:16:12] Arie: Great question, Ramit. That’s what married couples do. I want to get to that point.

[00:16:19] Ramit: What’s stopping you?

[00:16:20] Arie: Athena has debt, and I want to help her pay that off, but if I start paying off her debt now, I’m convinced we’ll both be in a worse position because I’ll have drained my savings. To me, that feels like starting from zero.

[00:16:39] Ramit: And how will she be in a worse position?

[00:16:41] Arie: If we were to then combine, then our savings would be so much less. I would love for Athena to secure some stable income before I start helping her pay off her debt.

[00:16:54] Ramit: Can I ask you? Do both of you want to combine incomes at some point?

[00:16:58] Athena: Yes.

[00:16:58] Arie: Yes.

[00:16:59] Ramit: Okay. Does anybody want to combine it right now?

[00:17:02] Arie: I don’t.

[00:17:03] Ramit: Okay, you don’t because of the debt. Athena?

[00:17:06] Athena: I think it would streamline a lot of our discussions if we had joint finances, but I also think that it’s nice that we don’t, because we avoid certain conversations by not having it joint. There are certain purchases that we can make independently of each other that we don’t have to confer about, and that is a nice thing.

[Narration]

[00:17:25] Ramit: I really appreciate the vulnerability in this moment. Arie admits that he’s hesitant to combine finances because of Athena’s debt. That is not easy to say, especially sitting in a studio on a podcast, knowing that I’m going to ask a lot of questions to dig in. I could tell he didn’t want to hurt her, and I respect that.

[00:17:43] But what stood out even more was how Athena responded. Remember, she has repeatedly said she wants to combine finances, but the moment Arie hesitated, she backed off, saying, “Well, it would streamline our discussions, but it’s also nice that we don’t.” That struck me as not being honest.

[00:18:05] I would’ve rather she said, “No, I really want us to combine our finances. Here’s why.” What I’m seeing is agreeableness taken to an extreme where you rewrite your own needs to fit someone else’s comfort, to make sure that nobody rocks the boat.

[00:18:23] And I’ve seen this before. When someone is used to walking on eggshells, when they have been trained consciously or unconsciously to keep things calm, they often start to lose track of what they themselves really want. There’s a reason that Athena responds this way. I think you’re going to be surprised by her why. I will tell you I was shocked. For now, let’s get back to the CSP.

[Interview]

[00:18:49] Ramit: Let me go through the rest of the numbers so that I can understand entire picture. So assets combined are 63,000, and they’re roughly equal. One has 36. One has 26. Investments are $136,000. Here we see a disparity. Partner 1, I believe that’s you, Arie, you have 84,000 invested. Partner 2, Athena, you have 50,000 invested.

[00:19:14] Savings, 50,000. Arie has 28,000, and Athena, you have 3,000. Another disparity there. And then finally, debt, Arie has zero and Athena has $20,000. Notably, you have $18,000 in joint savings. First of all, does any of this surprise you, seeing it?

[00:19:36] Arie: No.

[00:19:37] Ramit: What’s the story here? It sounds like Arie has more money. I think you have a higher income. And Athena, you have been in grad school, so you have some debt, and relatively less investments. Although $50,000 is still solid.

[00:19:53] Athena: I’ve worked full-time up until August, and so for three full years of graduate school, doing full-time of both. And so I slowed down investing to pay for school. So school total has been about 60,000 plus or minus some fees. So 14 of my debt is school and 6,000 is a car.

[00:20:15] Ramit: Wow. So just so I understand, you’ve been working full-time while being in grad school full-time as well?

[00:20:21] Athena: Correct.

[00:20:21] Ramit: Wow. Pretty impressive. Well done.

[00:20:25] Athena: Thank you.

[00:20:26] Ramit: And you mentioned that your grad school in total will cost approximately 60k, but you only have $20,000 of debt. So you’ve been paying it off gone through.

[00:20:36] Athena: So I’ve paid 45 towards school out of pocket, and then 14 in debt.

[00:20:40] Ramit: What do you make of this? Do you think that you are good with money?

[00:20:46] Athena: I don’t know if I can say yes if I have debt.

[00:20:48] Ramit: Because debt is?

[00:20:50] Athena: Bad.

[00:20:50] Ramit: Is it?

[00:20:52] Athena: Yeah. I grew up that way, but I don’t know how I feel about debt now. I feel bad having it. I feel like it holds us back to have it. It seems to come up a lot. I feel very proud of how little debt I’ve gone into and worked so hard to pay so much towards school and my living expenses and all of that. Plus we’ve been able to travel some, so I feel proud of that. I’m very thrifty. What do you make of it?

[00:21:19] Ramit: I am extremely impressed.

[00:21:21] Athena: Really? Aw, thank you.

[00:21:23] Ramit: Very. To hear, first of all, you have $50,000 in investments. That’s not an accident. Nobody trips and falls and gets 50k. You obviously did that consistently. You had 60k of grad school debt plus cars, and your current debt is only $20,000, and that’s while being in grad school and working full-time.

[00:21:46] That’s incredible workload. I understand that there’s differences of opinion on what is fair. But just looking at this, I’m very impressed. And also I note that you have this reflexive feeling about debt being bad. I’m not so sure. In general, okay, I don’t love debt, but that’s not the worst thing in the world.

[00:22:08] Athena: I’m trying to rewrite some of the scripts that I grew up with. That’s a big part of what I believe is important in life, is growing.

[00:22:16] Ramit: I love that. Let’s take a look at the income. Arie, can you read off the combined gross monthly income?

[00:22:24] Arie: $8,158.

[00:22:27] Ramit: Okay, great. And what do you make of that number?

[00:22:30] Arie: It’s gross, so it’s a little surprising to see almost six figures combined income while our accounts are static in terms of growth.

[00:22:42] Ramit: Ah.

[00:22:43] Athena: Let me just be clear. Arie’s personal account is static in terms of growth. We have a joint savings account that’s specifically for a house that has been consistently growing since we moved in together. That’s what you’ll see in the savings account for the $18,000. That grows because that’s automatic. We don’t touch it. But Arie’s personal savings account doesn’t grow like it used to because some of that money is being put specifically towards a house.

[00:23:07] Ramit: What you’re saying is very common. A lot of people, they feel anxiety about their money, and often people derive their feelings about money from what’s in their checking account. Literally, that is where the vast majority of people get their information. What’s going on right now? Is that true? Is that what happens in this relationship?

[00:23:29] Arie: Yeah. And that could be why I bring up my goals and my dreams so often.

[00:23:34] Ramit: So your savings account is growing by a lot, the one for the down payment, which you want to get a house one day. Your checking account is fairly stagnant, and your conclusion is our finances are stagnant.

[00:23:46] Arie: Yes.

[00:23:47] Ramit: Okay. This sounds very familiar. 90% of people I talk to, they don’t take the whole picture into account. What do you think about that?

[00:23:55] Athena: The feelings are different than the facts.

[00:23:57] Arie: Filling up the CSP was a really great process because it did shed light on the gross income, for example.

[00:24:06] Ramit: Higher than you thought?

[00:24:07] Arie: Higher than I thought. Athena’s investment’s higher than I thought. Net worth, for what it’s worth, higher than I thought.

[00:24:17] Ramit: Your net worth combined is $229,000 in your early 30s.

[00:24:22] Arie: Yeah.

[00:24:22] Ramit: What do you guys think about that number?

[00:24:23] Arie: That’s impressive.

[00:24:25] Athena: Arie’s worked very hard.

[00:24:26] Ramit: Just Arie?

[00:24:28] Arie: Not just Arie.

[00:24:29] Athena: I think the majority comes from him. Yeah.

[00:24:32] Ramit: Interesting. If my wife and I were talking about our net worth, I would say we’ve worked very hard. We. We’re married, We. Do y’all see that with your money? Is it we, or is it my partner and me?

[00:24:45] Athena: We want it to be more from me to we.

[00:24:47] Ramit: Okay.

[00:24:48] Athena: Yeah.

[00:24:49] Ramit: It’s not there yet?

[00:24:49] Athena: No.

[00:24:50] Ramit: All right. Let’s keep going. So you make $97,000 a year. Fixed costs, 77%. What do you think about that?

[00:24:57] Athena: Very high.

[00:24:58] Arie: Very high.

[00:24:58] Ramit: Okay, I agree. We’ll come back to that. Investments are at zero. Are you taking any deductions, 401(k)?

[00:25:05] Athena: I’m not right now. Arie is.

[00:25:07] Ramit: You are. Okay. How much?

[00:25:08] Arie: 6% plus employer match.

[00:25:11] Ramit: Okay, great. Savings are at 11%, and it looks like a house fund makes up most of that. 500 bucks a month. That’s where the savings growth is coming from. And then guilt free spending is at 13%. When I looked at this first, I wasn’t sure I believe that number, but talking to you, I actually do believe it. Is that number accurate?

[00:25:29] Athena: Yes.

[00:25:29] Arie: Yes.

[00:25:30] Ramit: Okay.

[00:25:31] Athena: Yeah.

[00:25:31] Ramit: Because you are talking about money frequently, you are not surprised by some of these key numbers in here. You know that your fixed costs are high. That’s why I’m getting the conclusion. So let’s talk about your costs. 77%.

[00:25:47] Athena: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:48] Ramit: This right here explains a lot of the feelings of stress and constant conversations about certain things. So why is it high?

[00:25:58] Athena: Because I make so little right now.

[00:26:00] Ramit: Okay.

[00:26:00] Athena: I think we’ve done a pretty good job of keeping most of our expenses reasonable. I make very little right now because I am interning, and I work only part-time. I graduate in three weeks, and then I’m currently interviewing for jobs.

[00:26:14] Ramit: Okay. So you make $1,650 a month. We know that that is temporary. How much are you going to make when you get a job?

[00:26:22] Athena: Realistically, in the next two years, it’ll be between 45 and 60, probably right around 53. And then after two years, it’ll bump from 70 to 90, and then from there on out, it’s much as I want to work.

[00:26:37] Ramit: Okay. For planning purposes, what’s the number?

[00:26:41] Athena: 53.

[00:26:42] Ramit: Okay, great.

[00:26:42] Athena: Yeah.

[00:26:43] Ramit: All right. Y’all looking forward to making some more money?

[00:26:46] Athena: I don’t know if it’s going to change that much because it’s going to be going to debt repayment and savings, so we’re not really going to feel that different.

[00:26:54] Ramit: Damn, so depressing. You’re going to quadruple your income. It’s like, oh, I don’t know.

[00:27:00] Athena: I don’t want to be that way. I’m sorry.

[00:27:02] Arie: Maybe another reason Athena’s guilt-free spending is so low is because it’s hard for her to not feel guilty spending money right now.

[00:27:12] Ramit: Yeah. Fair enough.

[00:27:13] Athena: Thank you, babe.

[00:27:15] Ramit: So you said that the fixed costs are high because your income is low.

[00:27:19] Athena: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:19] Ramit: I agree. Is there any other expenses that are disproportionately high?

[00:27:24] Athena: I don’t think so.

[00:27:26] Ramit: I agree. Your rent is within parameters. You have insurance and a car payment. Those two are $1,000. In a higher income couple, you could make that work. That disproportionately affects you because your income is less than 100k. Then you have groceries, normal 550. You have a 270 for therapy and 211 for subscriptions. So look, we could cut some of this down.

[00:27:52] Let’s just play for a second. We’ll drop the subscriptions by half. We’ll drop it to 100. Your fixed cost drop from 77 to 75%. It’s not a huge difference. Really the key driver here is income. Arie, what’s your take on this? When the income increases in a matter of weeks, what’s going to change?

[00:28:11] Arie: First and most importantly, our outlook and our attitudes will change because I’m really hoping that we feel a lot more freedom, a lot less burden.

[00:28:23] Ramit: Where would that freedom come from? If the money’s all going to savings and debt, how would you feel freer?

[00:28:29] Arie: The fixed costs are around 77% right now. If we can get that down to 40%, that would add a lot of relief.

[00:28:42] Athena: Arie also in the last two weeks, very proud, he got a 9% raise at work, and that is not reflected on the CSP right now. I forgot to update that last night.

[00:28:52] Ramit: It’s okay. Should we so it right now?

[00:28:52] Athena: That would be great.

[00:28:53] Ramit: All right. So what’s the net going to change? Right now it’s 4,060.

[00:28:56] Arie: You can just add about $550 to that.

[00:29:00] Ramit: All right. Watch the number. Wow, that’s a big drop from 77% to 70%. That’s really good. Great job.

[00:29:09] Arie: Thank you.

[00:29:10] Ramit: Okay. Let’s add the rest of this. What’s the net going to be on your pay?

[00:29:14] Athena: Yeah. It should be, 33, I think after taxes and–

[00:29:19] Ramit: 3,300?

[00:29:19] Athena: Yeah.

[00:29:19] Ramit: All right, let’s take a look. Whoa. What’d that number drop down to?

[00:29:24] Athena: 55%.

[00:29:26] Ramit: First of all, congratulations. Amazing work. Really shows the power of a dual income couple, especially as your income start to increase. That’s amazing. You went from 77 to 55%. It’s incredible. What will change on a day-to-day basis for you?

[00:29:42] Athena: The debt payments are also going to kickstart in six months, so that will be important. Now, bare minimum, which I’m not going to do, is $250 a month.

[00:29:52] Ramit: You’re going to do more?

[00:29:53] Athena: Yes. I want to do 800 a month for that. And then the same for our house fund. And then I’ll cut back on other things.

[00:30:01] Ramit: How do you both feel about this?

[00:30:03] Athena: Well, it’s heavy. It’s a lot of work to continue doing. It doesn’t feel like there’s going to be a break anytime soon, but in order to reach goals, you have to work hard. So you sacrifice now for the future.

[00:30:16] Ramit: Okay. So it feels purposeful. It feels gratifying because you both have a goal.

[00:30:22] Athena: It feels like the right thing to do.

[00:30:24] Ramit: Oh. You agree, Ari?

[00:30:26] Arie: Even though a house is what I really want, it doesn’t feel right if Athena is contributing that much more than I am to the house.

[00:30:35] Athena: Back to that 50-50.

[00:30:38] Ramit: Hmm. What do you make of that? Does it need to be 50-50 for it to be fair, even though years ago you talked about that?

[00:30:45] Arie: No.

[00:30:46] Ramit: Okay. So if she’s paying more or saving more towards the house, what’s the problem?

[00:30:52] Athena: Do you feel like I would make you feel a certain way if I was contributing more to our savings?

[00:30:59] Arie: That’s a lot of money towards the house.

[00:31:02] Athena: Yeah. But we’ll be saving approximately $15,000 a year for a house, which is great. And we’ll still have guilt-free spending, and I’ll be aggressively putting over $1,000, so the 800 going to school loans and 250 like I have been doing for my car. That’ll be taking care of debt, and we will get through it now.

[00:31:25] Arie: Sounds good.

[Narration]

[00:31:26] Ramit: I want to jump in here because something about this exchange just doesn’t sit right with me. Athena has said clearly, “I don’t think we can afford a house.” She feels guilty spending money, but now she’s doubling down on making Arie’s dream happen. And then Arie rightfully gets uncomfortable with her trying to contribute even more. She admits it’ll be hard that she won’t get a break, and then they both smile and agree. It’ll be fine.

[00:31:53] Do you see how they are not arguing? They’re actually doing the opposite. It’s like two magnets repelling each other. This pattern where one person downplays their struggle and the other person pretends to accept it just to keep the peace is actually exhausting to watch. It’s not politeness anymore. It’s actually contradiction. It’s inauthentic, and it’s actually making it really hard for me to understand what anybody in this conversation really wants. Listen now as I challenge them to stop avoiding the real issues.

[Interview]

[00:32:26] Ramit: One thing I noticed is that the two of you are very considerate of each other, almost overly considerate. I don’t actually know what each of you wants for yourself. Have you noticed that?

[00:32:38] Athena: Yes.

[00:32:39] Ramit: Have you thought about what you both want? Wave a magic wand, what would you want?

[00:32:44] Arie: I want to be with Athena. I want, above all, for us to feel comfortable, whether that’s in house or renting. Also, I want a garage for my car. I want a yard. I want to continue to invest, and I want our accounts to grow steadily.

[00:33:07] Ramit: Great. What about for you, Athena?

[00:33:10] Athena: What I really want is if we’re going to have a house, to not feel tight. So I want to be able to buy socks, buy a throw pillow, not have it to all be microscopically looking at prices, which is currently what I do. So to have a little bit more flexibility. I think money can be great when it gives you more options. I would like to have family with Arie. A house would be great if we’re able to afford it. And then I would like one international trip per year and one trip stateside.

[00:33:39] Ramit: Love it. Both powerful visions. I like it. Do you think that the way that you are planning to allocate your new incomes matches what you both just said you want?

[00:33:51] Athena: The short answer is no.

[00:33:52] Ramit: Okay. Arie?

[00:33:55] Arie: I would say yes. Just need to add a plan for debt.

[00:34:00] Ramit: Isn’t the plan for her to pay it off 800 bucks a month?

[00:34:03] Arie: Yeah.

[00:34:04] Ramit: Hmm. All right. What’s going on right now? What do you guys want out of this conversation?

[00:34:12] Arie: We want to make sure our next step when Athena finds an income can be our best step. It took a lot of adjustment and conversations, and it was difficult to get to the point where I accepted that a house isn’t possible right now. So if a house isn’t possible, then what can we change? What can we learn from today’s show to make sure that the future is the one that we both want, even if it doesn’t include a house.

[00:34:41] Athena: This is about how far our conversation goes. If this is not going to be the way that gets us there, what do we need to do to build the infrastructure for that bridge to get to the place where we want to be? And then specifically for this conversation here, we wanted to talk one year, two year, five year.

[00:34:58] So where would we’d like to be financially? Ideally, we would like to have kids in the next five years. Arie has asked that I stay home with the kids for a first couple of years, so there are certain things that would need to be anticipated, costs, with that. I’m not saying that we need to put 800 down to my loans. I know that they are ranging from 6.38% to 8% interest. So there’s no point in putting off paying them down, in my opinion.

[00:35:28] Ramit: Does it feel like there’s a lot of different variables when you’re talking about money?

[00:35:33] Athena: Definitely.

[00:35:33] Ramit: It feels a little overwhelming.

[00:35:34] Athena: Very much.

[00:35:35] Ramit: It feels like you both spin a lot.

[00:35:39] Athena: Yeah.

[00:35:39] Ramit: We have this, but then there’s debt, but we have our finances separate, but we want to combine them, but there’s a 6% all the way up to a 12%, and also kids. But then he wants me to stay home, and I’m going to be doing training.

[00:35:53] Athena: Yeah. It’s a lot of different things happening.

[00:35:55] Ramit: How do you make a decision when you have that many things floating in your heads?

[00:35:59] Athena: We’re definitely still working on that. So I think that’s where we’re trying to do what’s the next right decision? And so that is me getting a job and us incorporating our finances together. So what would it look like for us to have more shared finances? Simplify the process there.

[00:36:13] Ramit: Do you like complexity?

[00:36:14] Athena: Yes, of course.

[00:36:16] Ramit: Do you?

[00:36:16] Arie: No.

[00:36:17] Ramit: Sure? It’s pretty complex to me. Okay. Athena, you mentioned microscopically looking at prices. What’s an example?

[00:36:25] Athena: Yesterday I was grocery shopping for us and I noticed the price of lettuce was $2 at one produce store. And then it was 3.29 at the other one. And I was so grateful I bought it for $2 because I had a thought it would be cheaper there. So I saved a $1.40.

[00:36:42] Ramit: Did you grow up religious?

[00:36:43] Athena: Yes.

[00:36:44] Ramit: Ah. Which religion?

[00:36:46] Athena: My family is Protestant, and so we grew up in the Baptist and Presbyterian faith. We also were a part of different a sect of Christianity that some would consider to be like a cult.

[00:37:02] Ramit: Really?

[00:37:03] Athena: Yeah.

[00:37:03] Ramit: Wow.

[00:37:04] Athena: Yeah.

[00:37:05] Ramit: Big family?

[00:37:07] Athena: There are seven children and two parents.

[00:37:09] Ramit: Wow. Interesting. Are you still religious?

[00:37:13] Athena: No. I’m a faith-based person, but I don’t attend church regularly.

[00:37:18] Ramit: Got it. Okay. How do you think that your religious upbringing and cultural upbringing affects the way you see money?

[00:37:27] Athena: Very moralistic. So many rules about money. I was going through different bible verses I was taught and how they applied to debt.

[00:37:36] Ramit: What’s an example?

[00:37:37] Athena: The borrower is servant to the lender. That’s in Proverbs. And then whenever someone asks and you’re able to give to them, you should out of the abundance of your heart. That’s Matthew. The importance of tithing, putting yourself last.

[00:37:48] Ramit: I can see direct correlations to so many of those right here.

[00:37:52] Athena: Yeah.

[Narration]

[00:37:52] Ramit: Okay, now things are starting to make more sense. Up until this moment, the whole conversation has felt a little foggy, like I’ve been trying to find my way through a haze. Athena tells me that she grew up in a religion that has been compared to a cult. Now I’m starting to understand.

[00:38:11] Every so often I talk to someone who grew up in a very conservative religious background, and you can see the clues in how they handle money, how they talk to their partner about money, how they even think about money and feel about it themselves. As Athena said, it shows up for her in the smallest ways, shopping for groceries, buying a cup of coffee, even just talking about buying a house.

[00:38:34] The message that we’re seeing is don’t stir the pot. Be quiet, be polite. There are rules, and you have to follow them. Now, in a minute we’re going to come back to Athena’s story, but first I want to know a little bit about Arie’s background. How did he learn to think about money?

[Interview]

[00:38:52] Ramit: Arie, what do you think?

[00:38:53] Arie: We probably couldn’t have had more different childhoods.

[00:38:57] Ramit: What do you remember about money as a kid? What did they say?

[00:39:01] Arie: Just save. If you get money for your birthday, just put it in the savings account and just let it grow.

[00:39:08] Ramit: Okay. Did you like it?

[00:39:09] Arie: As a young boy, no, because the money in the card just disappeared to me.

[00:39:13] Ramit: Yeah.

[00:39:14] Arie: But when I was older, I was able to trust my parents and listen to the lessons that they were trying to teach me, and one day it paid off.

[00:39:23] Ramit: Would you describe them as middle class or lower, upper middle class, poor? How would you describe it?

[00:39:29] Arie: Upper middle.

[00:39:30] Ramit: Upper middle. Okay. That’s interesting. And what lessons do you bring from your childhood into your financial relationship today?

[00:39:38] Arie: Saving. That was the biggest one. And I think that could be why the checking account number is so influential towards me and my marriage.

[00:39:47] Ramit: What if you just put $5,000 more in your checking account? What would happen?

[00:39:51] Arie: That would be a bad idea.

[00:39:52] Ramit: Oh really? How come?

[00:39:53] Arie: Because the 5k from our HYSA has higher interest.

[00:39:58] Ramit: Highet interest.

[00:39:59] Athena: Yeah.

[00:39:59] Ramit: You’d be losing interest. 5,000 times 0.04 divided by 12. That’s how much we’d be losing every month. Ah. Even though you would open up your checking account and feel so much better every single time you looked in it, that would be unacceptable to you because of the 15 bucks a month that you’d be losing in interest.

[00:40:19] Arie: Yeah.

[00:40:20] Ramit: Okay. So you bring that into your financial relationship, which is save a lot. Optimize your money. Anything else?

[00:40:29] Arie: Athena said house. A house was ingrained in– back in 2005, a house was like the greatest asset that you could own. Plus, most of the times, if one person had a decent salary, then a house was a possibility and could be a reality. Times have changed.

[00:40:46] Ramit: What does it mean if you don’t own a house?

[00:40:49] Arie: If I don’t own a house by the time I’m 40, I will have felt like I’ve made a mistake somewhere.

[00:40:54] Ramit: Okay.

[00:40:55] Arie: I’d rather not go further down the line, like 50.

[00:40:58] Ramit: What kind of person is 50 and doesn’t own a house?

[00:41:01] Arie: Someone who’s perfectly content with maybe living alone. Maybe they prefer smaller square footage.

[00:41:09] Ramit: Anything else? What kind of person are you if you don’t own a house?

[00:41:14] Arie: That’s a great question. Like I said before, a house is a material thing.

[00:41:19] Ramit: So? I like material things. Don’t you?

[00:41:21] Arie: I do. I prefer if it didn’t affect how I view myself.

[00:41:26] Ramit: What does that mean?

[00:41:27] Arie: I don’t like to put material things over my wife, for example. I don’t want to do that to myself out of respect.

[00:41:36] Ramit: Didn’t you talk about a house every single day?

[00:41:38] Arie: Yeah.

[00:41:39] Ramit: A house is a material thing. Isn’t that talking about a material thing every single day?

[00:41:43] Arie: Yes. Yeah, it is.

[00:41:45] Ramit: You know what? I don’t mind the contradictions. I don’t mind. Humans are contradictory. That’s one of the joys I get in talking to us. It’s like I’ll talk to people. They’re like, “I want this, this, this.” And then I look at their numbers and they’re literally doing none of those things.

[00:41:59] That’s happening here as well. You mentioned you want travel. There’s almost no money put aside for travel. There’s all this money put aside for a house and potentially thousands and thousands more. But Arie is saying like, “Oh, I’ve realized we actually can’t have a house anytime soon.

[00:42:16] So there’s a lot of incongruence happening. Think of the scripts that you’re both sharing from childhood. Like materialism is bad, but getting a house is good. We have to be honest with ourselves. I want a house. Not having a house makes me feel like a failure, or it makes me feel poor.

[00:42:34] Athena: Or like people are going to judge me. I’m not going to be as much of a man. I’m not going to be able to provide for my family.

[00:42:40] Ramit: And then there must be some of that because there was a conversation about you staying home with the children, which is a very traditional perspective. And in a traditional perspective where you are earning the money, Arie, then surely you must be able to provide a house for your family. How much of that is happening here?

[00:42:58] Arie: I’m growing into that role, starting with the rent.

[00:43:02] Ramit: Meaning you’re paying more rent.

[00:43:03] Arie: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:03] Ramit: Okay. I’m curious. Sometimes the partners know best. They can read each other better than can read ourselves.

[00:43:10] Arie: Yeah.

[00:43:11] Ramit: Athena, what do you make of the way Arie was raised and how he brings those messages into to financial relationship?

[00:43:19] Athena: I think that Arie was raised very comfortably. Both his parents worked and are very hard workers. And I think even though his mom stayed home for a bit when they were younger, he was given a very hopeful, idealistic view of what could be, how great it is to own a house, how manly it is to own a house. I think his parents worked very hard and a house was one of the ways that they were building wealth.

[00:43:46] And I think that when you’re growing as an adult, you want to show that to your children, and you want them to follow that path, even if person’s path might be a bit different. So I think the differentiation of what path Arie chooses to go on is where we are.

[00:44:00] Ramit: Oftentimes we will follow our parents’ scripts. Think about the kind of advice that parents often give. Go door to door. Hand out your resume. Get a job. Stay there for 30 years, get a pension. And you’re like, “None of those things exist anymore. And buying a house, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It can be a good thing.

[00:44:17] Arie: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:18] Ramit: The numbers are vastly different. And the economic systems are vastly different than when our parents were growing up. Often on one income, they could comfortably afford a middle-class house. Do we all agree that financial situation is different for our generation than for our parents?

[00:44:35] Arie: Wholeheartedly.

[00:44:36] Ramit: Okay, great. So we may be able to follow the vision, maybe even the values of our parents, but copying their exact approach probably doesn’t work the same way. I want to go back to you, Athena. I want to know, how did your parents treat money when you were growing up?

[00:44:54] Athena: My parents never went into debt except for a mortgage. My dad was the only person working. My mom took care of all of us kids and homeschooled us. How did they handle money? Very strangely. That’s a really hard question to answer. One of my sisters used to do all of their downloads for financials when she was 10.

[00:45:17] My sister, when she was a teenager, did their taxes. My mom tried to use cash for most of the purchases but was usually tight. She’d go back if she was overcharged a dollar. So she’s very good at mental math. She would borrow money from us kids.

[00:45:33] She’s also very thrifty. My parents, I would give a lot of credit. They raised seven, very hardworking– everyone is a hardworking kid. And they did it on one income without debt. They’d never have had a credit card, thank goodness.

[00:45:46] Arie: Were they transparent with you?

[00:45:49] Athena: Too transparent, I would say. Yeah, we always knew that we were tight with money. We knew that we had to wait until Friday to get groceries or certain things.

[00:45:57] Ramit: How do you think that that upbringing shaped your view of money today?

[00:46:03] Athena: Sometimes I am concerned that I have a very small mind when it comes to money and earning potential because not only was it really tight, it was also seen that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So you didn’t love God enough if you were materially wealthy or you had possessions. And if your heart isn’t with the Lord, then you’re not saved and then you’re going to hell.

[00:46:28] Ramit: I see. Very moralistic.

[00:46:29] Athena: Very.

[00:46:29] Ramit: Arguably, values based. If you put your money here, we can see who you are and what you value. I get that.

[00:46:37] Athena: The love of money is the root of all evil, that kind of stuff.

[00:46:40] Ramit: Yeah. So do you bring that to this relationship?

[00:46:43] Athena: I think I do unintentionally. It’s something I’m working on rewriting in my mind, but it is hard when I have felt so constricted financially because I have chosen not to go into more debt. I’ll second guess if we can get coffee. First thing I do when I look at a menu is look at all the prices. I want to make sure I get the cheapest thing because I’m worried we don’t have enough,

[00:47:08] Ramit: You clearly have enough to order a hamburger or something.

[00:47:12] Athena: But we also have bigger dreams that we need to cut back in order to save for, because they’re not possible unless we make sacrifices now. And I am concerned that that is a script of mine, that sacrifice is required for anything good.

[Narration]

[00:47:24] Ramit: I’m struck by the way that Athena talks about her upbringing. It shines a light on her relationship with money and her relationship with her partner. I can understand many religions are patriarchal, so it’s not a surprise that she is perhaps overly considerate of Arie’s wants and needs. But I’m also struck by the way she so casually speaks about her experience as a child. These are obviously some pretty unusual experiences.

[00:47:52] Since I’m focused on money, I don’t really think it’s my place to probe more, but I want to say one thing. When she shared her story, in some ways I could relate to it myself, specifically the part about growing up in an Indian family. Indian culture and my family, not a cult, but there is a strong cultural belief of keep it in the family.

[00:48:15] No matter what happens in the family, somebody gets a bad grade or gets suspended or there’s an illness, you keep it in the family. Many of us grew up with some type of cultural value that is never written down anywhere, but it is nonetheless incredibly powerful. And they affect us. They can affect us decades later.

[00:48:35] I’m wondering, does she realize how deeply her upbringing has affected her? Because I don’t know if I even fully understand the ways that my culture affects me to this day. So when I hear Athena talk about her childhood, you and I realize there is something very, very unusual about it, but I’m not sure she truly gets it. And from the way that she walks on eggshells around money and in her relationship, I really hope that she can continue exploring her past to understand how that affects her today.

[Interview]

[00:49:07] Ramit: Ah. Wow. It goes layers and layers deep.

[00:49:10] Athena: Yeah.

[00:49:11] Ramit: It’s a powerful admission, honestly, the idea that you’re proudly comparing the prices of heads of lettuce.

[00:49:18] Athena: Which is so silly. Yeah. And in the grand scheme of things, what difference does $3 on your bill make? But I was brought up that like it would make a difference. Mom did need the $3. We didn’t have that to spare.

[00:49:29] Ramit: Do you now? Does $3 make a difference?

[00:49:32] Athena: I’ve thought of you every time I allow myself to buy coffee.

[00:49:35] Ramit: Oh, allow myself.

[00:49:36] Athena: Yeah.

[00:49:37] Ramit: As if you have a cage around you and once in a while you have to reach outside and unlock it and say, “I’m free to buy a 5-dollar cup of coffee.”

[00:49:49] Athena: Yeah.

[00:49:50] Ramit: Wow. That’s quite a metaphor. Allowing yourself. Is that how everybody buys coffee?

[00:49:55] Athena: I hope not. I once ordered espresso. I didn’t know what it was, but it was the cheapest thing on the menu. So I thought it’s 2.50 and regular coffee is 3.15. Someone else was treating me, and I didn’t want to be an imposition.

[00:50:09] Ramit: Right. So where’s the reward? Because surely you must be doing something good if you order the cheapest.

[00:50:15] Athena: No, I’m just not doing something bad. That is something that is still a challenge for me because I’m thinking through the filter of what is right, what is correct, rather than like, well, what do I want. With Arie, what do we want to build together that maybe isn’t going to be that correct, perfect morally?

[00:50:36] Arie: When we talk about what we want with each other, we try to speak in positives, as in, I want to have this. I want to have that. Compared to, I don’t want this to happen, or I don’t want this outcome if we go down this path.

[00:50:53] Ramit: That’s good, but it can also become very airy fairy. I want world love. Specifically, what do you want? I want to stay at a hotel where we have a view of the ocean. Whoa. Have you all ever said anything like that?

[00:51:07] Arie: I’ve said I won a garage a million times.

[00:51:10] Ramit: That’s a good one. I want a garage so I can put my cars in there. But that’s so utilitarian as well. It seems like there’s an invisible script that materialism is bad, that wanting more is bad, and that we have to take all the money we make, and we have to do X, Y, Z, A, B, C before we can live our  Rich Life.

[00:51:28] Athena: We got to earn the life we live.

[00:51:30] Ramit: Yeah. Well, you do earn it. You make 100k, and you’re about to make 130-plus-k. So what’s the day where the heavens open up and says like, “Okay, you have earned it. Now you can buy a 5-dollar cup of coffee?”

[00:51:44] Arie: I don’t know if seeing the numbers will allow the heavens to open up.

[00:51:49] Ramit: Agreed. So what causes it?

[00:51:51] Arie: Communication and honesty about what it is we want.

[00:51:57] Athena: I think knowing what we want and making a plan to get there. So for instance, we had a very clear idea of what we wanted for our honeymoon, and we ended up going scuba diving, which was so cool. It was like being in outer space, and that was expensive. And we had the cash. We’d planned ahead, so it didn’t feel bad to spend it because it had a pre-designated purpose.

[00:52:16] And I like doing that, and I think that helps us. The same for Arie’s birthday, I wanted to do something really special for his 30th. He’s always talked about wanting to fly. I got him a flight lesson. We went and we flew to his parents. That, I knew how much it would cost, I was able to save it up, and then we used that. So that felt good.

[00:52:36] Ramit: I love that. I do want to reflect that in your savings goals right now, you are currently saving $60 a month for vacations and $50 a month for gifts. Meanwhile, according to the CSP, you’re putting aside $1,300 a month for a house, which will take you at least five years, probably longer to save.

[00:52:55] Athena: We really focused on a more of the saving for the future rather than looking at what trip we want to take next year. And I think that’s something that we want, but it just feels less important.

[00:53:07] Ramit: Athena, a lot of religions are patriarchal. Would you say that that was a situation for you growing up?

[00:53:14] Athena: So much. Yes. In the subsect in which I was raised, everything goes through the dad and then the leader of this group. And so what you wear, what you eat. A woman couldn’t cut her hair without her dad’s permission. Your dad was going to pick out who you were going to marry. My dad told us we weren’t going to get married till we were 25 at least. So no dating, no boys, no interaction with a lot of other people. But we were still all musicians, and we still performed a lot of places, but we didn’t interact with peers.

[00:53:52] Ramit: Were you homeschooled until college?

[00:53:54] Athena: Yes, all of us were.

[00:53:56] Ramit: Would you homeschool your kids?

[00:53:58] Athena: Probably not.

[00:53:59] Ramit: Okay, got it. And reflecting on how you grew up, it makes it to me even more remarkable that you sat down and talked about money early on and said, “Hey, how much do you make? Here’s how much I make. I want us to talk about who pays for dates. That seems quite unusual for somebody raised in a patriarchal culture. What do you make of that?

[00:54:24] Athena: I have really great siblings, and I went away to school, which was very uncharacteristic. All my other siblings lived at home, except one, and paid their way through college. I got to go away and live in Canada for a year, and I went to a program that was about critical thinking and really having those beliefs for yourself and making those decisions independently.

[00:54:49] And so because I was away from my parents and my family and pretty isolated there, I got to be challenged in a new way. And then I was like, “I need to take more charge.” Wanted to be proactive. Plus my sisters weren’t too keen on the whole patriarchal thing.

[00:55:06] Ramit: Mm.

[00:55:06] Athena: So even though parents may have a certain view that they want to have, there’s only so much you can really do enforcing the thought police.

[00:55:14] Ramit: Okay. Let’s go back to the CSP for a minute. You’ve been leaning on your husband financially speaking as you’ve been in grad school. How has that felt to you?

[00:55:24] Athena: Terrible. I hate relying on other people financially specifically.

[00:55:28] Ramit: Even your husband?

[00:55:31] Athena: Yes.

[00:55:31] Ramit: Okay. That’s interesting. And what about one day if you have children, and you’ve even mentioned potentially staying home? You would be relying on him financially, right?

[00:55:39] Athena: Yes, but that still is a little shaky. In the back of my mind, I’m like, how am I going to work while I am pregnant or when the kids are little? What am I going to be doing to make sure that I’m supporting us but also having some autonomy? Yeah.

[00:55:53] Ramit: Your mom stayed home, right, with the kids? So you don’t want to do that. Is that the reaction to how your mom was financially?

[00:56:01] Athena: I think money can give you a choice in your life, and I want to have choices. I tell this to Arie. I choose him each day. Even though we’re married, you still have a choice to stay with your partner. So I think having the money gives you choices.

[00:56:16] Ramit: Got it. And do you today feel squeezed with money?

[00:56:20] Athena: Yes.

[00:56:20] Ramit: Yeah?

[00:56:21] Athena: Yeah.

[00:56:22] Ramit: How does it show up? You mentioned you go to the grocery store and you look at every unit price. How else does it show?

[00:56:27] Athena: I’ll call places for refunds. I’ll make sure that we get student discounts on everything possible from our internet to any kind of media that we’re watching. So being very meticulous about every dollar spent.

[00:56:43] Ramit: Yeah. Does it feel good?

[00:56:44] Athena: No.

[00:56:45] Ramit: Does it prevent you from feeling bad?

[00:56:48] Athena: I don’t know. I also don’t know how else I could feel because I’ve not ever not felt that way. I’ve always felt this squeezed, like, can you buy a new pair of socks?

[00:57:00] Ramit: You mentioned socks twice now.

[00:57:02] Athena: Yeah.

[00:57:02] Ramit: How many socks do you have?

[00:57:05] Athena: Probably 10 pairs. I run, so I need to have two pairs a day.

[00:57:09] Ramit: Okay, so you have 10 socks. And if we were at the store and you saw a pack of socks, what would go through your mind?

[00:57:16] Athena: You could sew up the ones you have at home.

[00:57:19] Ramit: Wow. Yeah.

[00:57:21] Athena: Or socks aren’t that important.

[00:57:24] Ramit: Right.

[00:57:24] Athena: You can use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. You know what I’m saying?

[00:57:28] Arie: That’s a more realistic mindset because it lets you just close that option off pretty quickly and move on.

[00:57:35] Ramit: Something psychologically rewarding about telling yourself, “I don’t need that.” It feel like you scratch a bit of an itch. Like, I’m not like them. I can do with less. I can be thrifty. I can call around. I can sew it up. I’m resourceful. I’m seeing a lot of nods from both of you.

[00:57:56] Arie: Independence.

[00:57:57] Ramit: Yeah.

[00:57:58] Athena: Yeah. Knowing that if everything went South, you would still be fine.

[00:58:02] Ramit: I think you could probably go through life exactly as you are right now. I think that the two of you– oh, shaking your head already.

[00:58:08] Athena: I don’t want to do that. That’s not much of a life. That’s why we’re here. It’s such a survival mechanism though, right now, and I don’t want that. I love when people are generous. I love being able to treat my friends to a 45-dollar brunch.

[00:58:23] Ramit: What if I told you, you could?

[00:58:25] Athena: I’m not sure I’d believe you.

[00:58:27] Ramit: That’s a great answer. I love the honesty. Well, the two of you make $100,000 a year. If you wanted to treat a friend to a 45-dollar brunch once every three months, you could do it. You don’t even have to look at the numbers to know that it’s possible.

[00:58:42] Athena: Okay. Frequency. Yes.

[00:58:43] Ramit: Would you do it?

[00:58:45] Athena: Yeah.

[00:58:46] Ramit: Okay. Walk me through the situation. You don’t have to tell me the name of the place, but visualize the brunch place.

[00:58:52] Athena: It’s super cheap. Yeah.

[00:58:54] Ramit: Okay. How much is it?

[00:58:55] Athena: I spent 11.13 for my breakfast on Saturday with them.

[00:58:59] Ramit: So you go into this place for brunch, you take–

[00:59:03] Athena: Your friends. Yeah.

[00:59:04] Ramit: Two friends, and they’re each ordering $7 for–

[00:59:10] Athena: No, $15 for a breakfast platter instead a 5-dollar breakfast sandwich.

[00:59:15] Ramit: Hmm.

[00:59:15] Athena: Yeah.

[00:59:16] Ramit: And then the bill comes in, what would you do?

[00:59:18] Athena: Oh no, I’d go to the bathroom in the middle of the meal, and I’d tell the waiter that I’m taking care of it. So they wouldn’t even bring us the check. And then when we’re ready to go, we just leave.

[00:59:28] Ramit: Hmm. But your friends would ask, “Hey, we got to pay the bill. Right?” What would you say?

[00:59:33] Athena: And then I get to say, “It’s on me. Let’s do this again sometime.”

[00:59:36] Ramit: Wow.

[00:59:38] Athena: Yeah. I would love to be that. I see people who do that, and I want to be like them.

[00:59:42] Ramit: Okay. You could be. So that was nice and theoretical, but let’s now make it real.

[00:59:47] Athena: Okay. Yeah.

[00:59:49] Ramit: What would it take for you to do that?

[00:59:51] Athena: I feel like the house dream, if I don’t do that for Arie it’s going to let him down. So I feel like if I’m not scrimping, then I’m going to feel bad, let’s say only putting $500 a month to the house.

[01:00:04] Ramit: Versus 800.

[01:00:06] Athena: Right. And so that 300 would go towards taking our friends out.

[01:00:11] Ramit: Arie, what do you make of that?

[01:00:12] Arie: The house isn’t worth it if Athena had to sacrifice so much more than just part of her paycheck to get it. Once we’re living in the house, it’s not like her mindset would necessarily change towards money. There’d be more costs.

[01:00:28] Ramit: We have a AC thing that might break, and our roof one day is going to break, so let’s keep scrimping and then we’ll feel better when we have this much in savings and that much in investments, which the day never comes.

[01:00:39] Arie: And now that we’re living in a house, we can have children.

[01:00:42] Ramit: Right. Which will cost even more.

[01:00:44] Arie: Yeah.

[01:00:46] Ramit: What’s the pattern that you notice as you talk about money and these purchases?

[01:00:51] Arie: I keep trying to look into the future that I think we both want.

[01:00:55] Athena: Moving the finish line.

[01:00:57] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:00:57] Arie: Moving the finish line.

[01:00:59] Ramit: So the number always increases. The goals always increase. You move the finish line. You’re never there. And like I said, you could go through life doing that. That’s actually how most people go through life. They go through life feeling bad about money.

[01:01:12] Athena: I really don’t want that for us.

[01:01:14] Arie: I don’t want that for us either. It seems like we’re there right now.

[01:01:19] Athena: Yeah.

[01:01:19] Ramit: Not only are you there right now, you’ve actually created a structure, a crystalline structure where when anything happens, it pulls tighter, and it makes you even more scarce with money. Oh, we saved up this much for a house. Let’s buy a house. Now we have to be even more scarce. Oh we had kids, more scarce. Oh, now you’re going to stay home with the kids because– more scarce. Do you see how the more you succeed, the more you actually lose?

[01:01:50] Athena: We’ve designed a very sad trap.

[01:01:52] Ramit: Yes. Hence the idea of unlocking your own cage. I can open the door for you, but actually you two can unlock it yourselves. So let’s step out of the crystalline structure you’ve built for yourself. Let’s just erase it for the time being. What would it look like to have the most amazing memories created over the next 12 months?

[01:02:20] Athena: Where I used to live was in the center of town, and I think our dream, if we didn’t buy a house, would be to spend a little bit more on where we live and actually enjoy it. So part of the reason Arie brings up a house so much is because he really doesn’t like our current apartment. And if we were to move to an apartment that we liked with a garage that maybe cost more, we’d have so much more fun.

[01:02:44] Ramit: Cool. What’s next?

[01:02:45] Arie: I would love to travel.

[01:02:48] Ramit: Where?

[01:02:48] Arie: To Greece.

[01:02:51] Ramit: Okay. How long do you want to go for?

[01:02:53] Arie: I don’t know, two weeks.

[01:02:55] Ramit: Sounds good. What are you going to do there?

[01:02:57] Arie: Eat.

[01:02:58] Ramit: Nice.

[01:03:00] Arie: And look at the ocean and have dinner together. We could have a room that looks out over the water with the sunrise.

[01:03:08] Ramit: Great. We got move, very vivid trip to Greece, and you’re going to eat and look at the ocean. I love it.

[01:04:24] Athena: So we’re talking about rewriting the script, narrative for what our money’s going to look like in a year. Sometimes I think it would be beneficial for us because we’re both long rage thinkers to be more in the present and be like, what would make us more satisfied in today.

[01:04:38] Ramit: Trust me, I know. Right now you are only living for the future, and your future orientation is highly utilitarian. It’s pay off debt, get a house, kids, logistically stay home for two years. You could check the box on all those things and you won’t feel any different. That’s life for so many. And like I said, you’re on track for that to be the life for you.

[01:04:58] On the other hand, you mentioned going scuba. You saved for it. It was incredibly memorable. You both lit up. We could do that. The tradeoff is some of the check boxes you want to check off as quickly as possible might not get checked in the way you thought. Sometimes I think that maybe for you life is about efficiency. The faster we pay off the debt, the better people we are.

[01:05:22] The faster we buy a house, the more successful we are. And if you want to, we could put every single dollar you make towards buying a new house. You can do it. You can put every single dollar you have towards paying off student loans. You could knock them out fast. Is that the life you want?

[01:05:39] Athena: I don’t think so. I think you could put a good chunk of money towards debt and still live a good life. I don’t think that it needs to be at the detriment of all these other wonderful things to have no debt.

[01:05:53] Ramit: Debt does not make you a morally bad person. I think you can be extremely successful and live a  Rich Life today with debt and a richer life tomorrow. There’s only one catch. You just have to have a debt payoff plan.

[01:06:07] Athena: Yes.

[01:06:07] Ramit: I like to take feelings about money, especially negative ones, from hot to cool. Hot is anxious, worried. I’m behind, I feel depressed. I like to cool those down. I have debt. I went into debt purposefully so that I could pursue this career option, which I love, I’m good at, and I’m going to increase my income. I’ve made a debt payoff plan. This is the right reasonable amount which allows me to become debt free, us to build up our savings and investments and to live life. What’s the difference?

[01:06:42] Athena: I love what you’re saying because it also gives us time to start reprogramming some of these scripts about always being tight and always moving the goalpost farther and farther and farther away.

[01:06:52] Ramit: So let’s map that out because somebody making $100,000, to be 130k as a young couple, no kids, they probably don’t compare unit prices at the grocery store. Look surprised.

[01:07:04] Athena: Because I’ve never not done that.

[01:07:06] Ramit: Yeah. So what would it be like?

[01:07:07] Athena: I start experiencing what it is to want something. Maybe choose organic over something else, and not feel so limited in our options, and may maybe even try cooking something new with something that’s a little more expensive.

[01:07:23] Ramit: You could probably accomplish all this by adding $50 a month to your grocery expense. $50 a month would allow you to get an organic packet of crackers and a couple of other things. And you would spend marginally more on some produce.

[01:07:40] Arie: It’s shocking that we’re worried about crackers when our gross income is so healthy compared to our spending.

[01:07:48] Athena: It is healthy, but the way we talk about it is like, it’s so bad, and we have no money because we have a house and we don’t have a growing checking account.

[Narration]

[01:07:59] Ramit: This is becoming painful. It’s been too vague for too long, so imagine my surprise to find myself talking about the price of crackers. Now, normally this would be a special moment in hell for me, but I’m actually okay that we are here. That’s because I’m trying to find a path, any path that gets Athena and Arie to let me in.

[01:08:19] In every episode, I’m like a detective. I’m trying to poke down different paths and open up doors and see what’s behind the curtain. And usually, people let me in. They invited me here, so they genuinely want me to come inside. And this actually happened a couple of times today, like when Athena talked about her religious upbringing and when Arie talked about wanting to own a house.

[01:08:40] But it hasn’t happened a lot today. For a couple that applied and went through screening and came to New York from out of town, this all feels very unsatisfying. It feels like I’m being blocked at every turn. And at this point, my feeling is they actually did come here genuinely wanting help, but they can’t get over their own dynamic of being polite to really talk about the real issues.

[01:09:07] You can polite yourself into a conversation where everybody says very nice things, and then three days later you realize you didn’t actually ask the things you wanted to talk about. Truthfully, I love working with guests on this show. I love what I do. I’ve actually enjoyed talking to Athena and Arie, but I can’t help people who won’t let me help, so I’m going to try something different. I’m going to stop taking the burden on myself. I’m going to shift that burden back onto them. Watch what happens.

[Interview]

[01:09:37] Ramit: I don’t own a house.

[01:09:39] Athena: Yes. I love that.

[01:09:41] Ramit: And so can you me all the things that you tell yourself about how behind you are, how bad you are? Also, I don’t compare the price of Ritz crackers. So I want you to tell me what goes through your head, because I do all of those things wrong.

[01:09:58] Athena: You don’t earn enough to have this, and you could do better with less. And you need to make more room for the other things that are more important in your life because other people want them more than you want this special cheese or this particular coffee. Because other people’s needs are more important than yours.

[01:10:17] I would never endorse someone thinking that way to themselves. I think some of the thoughts that I think or the way that I talk to myself is very twisted and comes from a darker spot. And I would hate for someone else to have that. So it’s painful for me to say it out loud to you because I don’t want you to hear that. You shouldn’t have to hear that. You are important. Your wants and needs are important. If you want the cheese and you can afford it, go for it.

[01:10:49] Ramit: What else do you tell yourself that you didn’t say to me?

[01:10:51] Athena: If you want anything for yourself, you’re greedy. I cut it off there because I don’t like anything more. The sooner I shut something down in my head, I won’t go through all of that.

[01:11:04] Ramit: So you put an end to those conversations, and you’re saying, “I don’t want to go into that dark place.”

[01:11:09] Athena: Yeah.

[01:11:10] Ramit: Okay. How often do you do that with yourself?

[01:11:12] Athena: Well, I don’t always cut it off. I’ve gotten the ability to travel, and I’ve seen people who live in far worse conditions than I do. And I think about them, and I think, what am I doing? How am I not grateful for this? Why is this not enough?

[01:11:26] Arie: Athena, is there anything that you hear me saying to you when you’re looking at the crackers?

[01:11:32] Athena: If I earn more than you, I wouldn’t have to think like that. That’s why sometimes it surprises me when you come home with so many groceries that we don’t technically need. They’re not a part of the meal plan.

[01:11:42] Arie: I got two packs of chicken.

[01:11:43] Athena: Yeah. Or you got chips and cookies.

[01:11:47] Ramit: What’s the culture in your household around money? 

[01:11:49] Athena: Scarcity.

[01:11:49] Ramit: Okay. 

[01:11:50] Arie: Scarcity.

[01:11:51] Athena: Yeah.

[01:11:52] Ramit: Is it worry or joy?

[01:11:54] Athena: Worry.

[01:11:55] Ramit: Is it utilitarian or beauty?

[01:11:59] Athena: Utilitarian.

[01:12:01] Ramit: Okay.

[01:12:02] Arie: Yeah.

[01:12:02] Ramit: You’ve created a culture. People create a culture. Whether they do it intentionally or not, it happens. Is that the culture you want?

[01:12:09] Athena: No.

[01:12:10] Arie: No, it’s not the culture I– it’s not a happy culture and the one that I really want for us and the kind of culture I want to raise a family in either.

[01:12:21] Ramit: Let’s fast forward, say, 10 years. You have one, two, however many kids. They’re five years old, six, seven years old. Who knows? I ask them, “What kind of culture around money have your parents created?” What would they tell me?

[01:12:39] Athena: I would want them to say that we don’t really think that much about money, but when we do, we get to choose how we spend. We get to have some autonomy with that, even though we’re young. And money is a part of life. It’s not the only thing.

[01:12:55] Ramit: Do they see mom and dad fighting about money?

[01:12:58] Athena: No.

[01:12:58] Ramit: No?

[01:13:00] Athena: They see mom and dad discussing money and planning money, and having kids be a part of some of the discussions, but yeah.

[01:13:06] Ramit: Do they see mom and dad smiling and laughing over money?

[01:13:10] Arie: Yeah. Celebrating money.

[01:13:12] Ramit: When was the last time the two of you celebrated money?

[01:13:15] Arie: When I got my raise.

[01:13:16] Ramit: Oh, recently.

[01:13:17] Athena: I took him out two weeks ago.

[01:13:18] Ramit: Oh, good.

[01:13:19] Athena: Yeah, use some of that $33 for a happy hour. We went out, and we cheers to Arie working so hard.

[01:13:25] Ramit: Ah, great job. Okay, so they see mom and dad celebrating money, talking about money, discussing it. That’s awesome. What else, Arie?

[01:13:34] Arie: They’ve seen mom and dad invest money intelligently. Mom and dad have rules around money that they both respect, and they trust each other.

[01:13:47] Athena: I think whether or not you have a lot of money or not a lot of money, it’s so important for children to know how you can stretch a dollar and what it’s worth.

[01:13:57] Ramit: Great. What’s different about the way you want your kids to understand your money culture versus your actual money culture today?

[01:14:05] Arie: A lot.

[01:14:08] Athena: It’s so much more focused on positive hope and making those things a reality than it is about guilt, shame, control, fear.

[01:14:21] Ramit: Kids like to win, but so do adults. And the map that you have given yourself is that you are losing today, and actually you can never win.

[01:14:33] Athena: You sound like my therapist.

[01:14:35] Ramit: The key is to apply it to the money. You can never win if you must have a house and every day that you don’t own a house, you’re losing. You must pay the minimum at the grocery store and the minimum at the coffee shop because if you don’t, you’re losing. You must take all the money from this considerable amount of raise and new income that you’re going to make, and you must commit all of it to paying off your debt and to saving for a house. Because if you don’t, you’re losing.

[01:15:05] Oh, and even when you do all these things, you’re still losing because you didn’t accomplish it five years ago. Adults like to win, so we have to change the way you look at money and behave with money to ultimately change the way you feel about money so that you can win today and win even more tomorrow.

[01:15:59] Arie: I feel like you were able to accurately identify where our hangups were and where they are right now as a couple, and it wasn’t necessarily in the CSP that we made.

[01:16:24] Ramit: CSP is just the output. The numbers just reflect how you both feel and don’t communicate effectively about money. I also think there’s a lot brought from both of your childhoods into the application and the CSP. Can you see that? The idea of we need a house, we need to put everything we have towards a house.

[01:16:42] We need to be debt free. Maybe. Maybe not. You choose if a house is your number one goal as a couple, especially when it means putting aside most of your discretionary income and saving for years and years and years to get a house. Also the idea of how you were raised, Athena, in a religious family and you alluded to your mom borrowing money from kids. How do you think that that shows up your relationship today with money?

[01:17:11] Athena: I don’t want to ask Arie for money.

[01:17:13] Ramit: Yes. What else?

[01:17:14] Athena: I don’t want to rely on him.

[01:17:16] Ramit: Yes, yes. Although you two are married, he’s not your financial partner. You don’t see him like that.

[01:17:23] Athena: No.

[01:17:23] Ramit: Actually, vice versa as well. She has debt. I wish she didn’t have debt. She needs to take care of her debt. We can combine income later. So operating independently. What else? How much of the patriarchal culture that you were raised in do you think shows up today?

[01:17:38] Athena: I think I’m resistant to letting that become the norm, and I’m concerned the more reliant on him I am, the more that that would ring true.

[01:17:48] Ramit: Mm. Okay. That’s interesting. I don’t think that, Arie, you’re necessarily trying to control things. I certainly don’t think you’re telling her when she can cut her hair. I don’t think that’s happening. I do think, Athena, probably deferring a lot to what Arie’s desire for a house entails.

[01:18:06] Have you ever been explicit to say, “Okay, if you want a house, it means that I have to spend hours every week, examining the price of cheese, and we can’t take a trip for another X years. And when we do, I am spending all this time preparing lunches, etc., and we’re not going to be able to do X, Y, and Z? You ever said that?

[01:18:26] Athena: No.

[01:18:26] Ramit: Would you?

[01:18:27] Athena: I don’t want him to feel bad.

[01:18:29] Ramit: Right. What about you feeling good?

[01:18:31] Athena: That’s really hard.

[01:18:33] Ramit: It’s really hard.

[01:18:36] Athena: Yeah.

[01:18:36] Ramit: When I ask somebody like you, what do you want? A lot of times the answer is, I don’t know. I know I want him to feel good and not be worried, and to get a house. And part of that is the way you were raised and probably the way your parents were raised. It passes down. But in order to live a  Rich Life together, both of you have to know what you want. If your money is separate, especially because one person has debt, then you already have a wedge between the two of you.

[01:19:06] Athena: Hmm.

[01:19:07] Ramit: So at the deepest level, Arie, you don’t feel it’s fair for both of you to have this burden of debt. Do you notice that? Look at the layers, even in that sentence. Debt is assumed to be a burden. Why? Aren’t you going to make more with this debt that you incurred? So is it a burden or is it a way of increasing your earnings and learning something new?

[01:19:28] And then the idea that your money can’t be put together while there’s debt, that’s just not true. You could combine your finances, and one person, the one who incurred the debt, could still pay for that debt. But you can simplify it. It’s very difficult to create a healthy culture of money in a marriage when your money is totally separate because it was naturally his and hers.

[01:19:47] I found the same thing in my own relationship. We combined our income, but because we have a business, two businesses, prenup, all this stuff, we had all these different things. When we finally combined much more closely, just literally that night, everything felt simpler. Putting your money together will be super helpful.

[01:20:05] If you both believe it’s fair that Athena took on the debt, so Athena should pay it off, I totally respect that. I don’t mind that. And Athena would have the money to be able to do it. It would be Athena’s call on how aggressively to pay off that debt. You could do it over a course of two years. You could do over the course of eight years, 10 years. It’s up to you.

[01:20:26] In terms of your savings, I find the savings are all very one dimensional, house or nothing. That’s because the question you’ve asked is how do we buy a house? But I’m not so sure that’s the right question. If you ask the wrong question, you’re going to get a very smart answer to the wrong question. There’s got to be more to life than just saving for some utilitarian thing that your parents did 50 years ago.

[01:20:52] What’s the thing that each of you is not saying that when you go home and it’s two days, three days from now, you’re going to look back and say, “I wish I said that?”

[01:21:03] Athena: Arie, would it be possible for us to defer a house to a set period where we don’t even have that as the main focus? What do you think of that? If we found an apartment that was a larger, that we both liked, that was suitable to your car, what would that be like for you?

[01:21:21] Arie: If we do that and make changes in our culture, in the way we view money as a team, we can do that. We can defer the house for a set amount of time.

[01:21:33] Athena: What changes are you thinking?

[01:21:36] Arie: We should combine finances a lot sooner. Will you feel guilty until it’s house time?

[01:21:45] Athena: No.

[01:21:45] Arie: Because that’s going to be a large part of a healthy culture too.

[01:21:50] Athena: I think if we found a place that we really liked and you had a garage, I don’t think that you would be thinking so much about a house. I think we’d get to enjoy more of where we are today and not so fixated on all the stuff. I think if you had a place for your car, I think you’d be super happy. I don’t hear you saying you want to mow the lawn or install shelves. I hear, I want a garage.

[01:22:14] Ramit: What if you just try it for a year?

[01:22:17] Athena: I love that.

[01:22:18] Ramit: This isn’t life or death. Try it for a year. You don’t like it, move somewhere else. These aren’t existential decisions. You’re not buying a house. You’re renting. So lower the stakes. Few things in life that are that serious. Buying a house is one of them. Having children is another. Major career decisions are a third. But these, do it, and if you don’t like it, change.

[01:22:39] Part of changing your entire dynamic around money will be actually building in opportunities to lower the stakes. Maybe that means adding $100 to the amount you spend on groceries. Maybe that means making sure for your guilt-free spending, each of you has your own guilt-free spending money, and you are required– you have to use it every single month, or save it. It’s up to you.

[01:23:01] But that means you have to start developing those skills. Athena, I liked your question. Arie, what’s the question that you’re not asking that you two weeks from now will wish you had asked? What’s the thing you’re not saying that you really deep down want to say or ask?

[01:23:18] Arie: I feel like we’re so honest with each other.

[01:23:21] Ramit: Huh?

[01:23:22] Arie: I feel like we’re so honest with each other.

[01:23:25] Ramit: Definitely not. Definitely not. You two are incredibly polite to each other. So polite that you are not honest with each other. Being honest with each other would be Arie saying, “I want a house because here’s what it means to me.” It could be, “I want a traditional relationship. I want to be the provider. My cars are important to put in the garage, and I want to be able to decorate X, Y, and Z houses, and I’m willing to work extra to get that. And I really resent that you have debt.” That would be honest. That hasn’t showed up, but that’s a lot of the clues that I’ve picked up.

[01:23:59] Athena: I think you’re picking up on something that is somewhat true. I think we are very polite to each other, and Arie tends to be very honest with me. I’m a little bit more delicate in how I articulate my wishes.

[01:24:14] Ramit: Yeah. You being direct would be, “Arie, do you realize I spend nine hours a week just finding ways to save money on socks and lettuce and I keep doing it, and it actually drives me crazy, but I don’t know how we can stop. Because if I spend $3 extra here, that’s $3 we can’t spend towards a house 15 years from now.

[01:24:34] “And I don’t like that. And the last time we went scuba diving was eight years ago, and I want to do it again, but we have no possibility of doing it right now because all our money goes towards a house, etc.” That would be honest.

[01:24:47] Athena: Yeah.

[01:24:48] Ramit: By walking on eggshells around each other, you’re actually not doing each other a service. You’re basically creating the shadow of in your relationship. And that shadow doesn’t usually work out well. One person or both become resentful. Kids definitely pick up on it. Parents are not being honest with each other.

[01:25:05] And honestly, the only way to grow is to be direct and cognizant of what you yourself want. Here’s what I want. What do we want? Tell me what you want. Let’s hash it out. We might not be able to get it all, but let’s at least put it out on the table. There’s nothing wrong with articulating desire. There’s nothing wrong with that.

[01:25:23] Arie: Okay. Athena, do you resent my dream of winding a house in the near future?

[01:25:31] Athena: No, but it is a very firm dream. It’s not a closed reality. And I think that you need to recognize that.

[01:25:37] Arie: Should I stop bringing it up?

[01:25:39] Athena: That’s up to you. But I’ve crunched the numbers more than you have, and if you want a house, you have to do all the things that are required to get there. What we need for a down payment, what we need for closing costs, and then being able to budget each month on one income for all the things that could go wrong with the house, plus taking care of kids, that’s a lot to ask. That’s a big thing. We’d need to triple your income and still have us under 400,000-dollar house.

[01:26:05] Ramit: That was direct. I like that. Also, I would tell my partner if they brought up a house every day that was not realistic, I’d be like, “Stop bringing that up.” There is a time and a place to think about getting a house. In early 30s, when one partner is still in grad school with debt is probably not the time. Can we have a dream, but put it on hold for a little while while we work some other things off? Of course, we can. And I love that you’re so receptive to that, Arie.

[01:26:29] There’s a time and a place. We can bring it up at our six-month check-in. Certainly at our annual  Rich Life Review in December. We can talk about that. Where are we? I just want to reiterate, here’s what a house means to me. I’m super interested. I want to put aside a little bit more, but I also understand this isn’t the only part of our relationship. It’s just one part.

[01:26:48] Arie: It’s just one part.

[01:26:51] Ramit: Okay. In our conversation today, what surprised you?

[01:26:56] Athena: How open Arie is to adjusting some of his viewpoints and that he really wants to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to making changes in our future. And to live for today and not forget that life is important now.

[01:27:10] Ramit: Beautiful. Arie, how about you? What surprised you?

[01:27:13] Arie: Some of the feelings that Athena still carries are prevalent every day. That affects both of us, but now we can address those feelings, and hopefully in the six months or the 12 month checkup, those feelings won’t be up here. I hope they’re down here.

[01:27:35] Ramit: Yeah, it’s really good. I love that. Those feelings are probably always going to be there to some extent. That’s okay. They were how you were raised. They were what you were and observed for decades. They won’t disappear, but you will become stronger. What is now a battle at the grocery store will become much calmer and cooler.

[01:27:56] What a relief. And you know it’s possible because all of us have had that experience in our life, something that was existential at the time, now it’s a Tuesday. But it takes talking about it a lot and de-stigmatizing it Like, “Hey, I understand that a house is something really important to you. Nothing wrong with that.

[01:28:16] “I also want a house one day. I also understand that going to the restaurant for brunch provokes a lot of feelings and anxiety. That’s okay. Let’s talk about it. My hope is that we can cool about these. We can still feel what we feel, but it won’t control us.” The word that I think of when I think of both of you is empowered, empowered individually to live a better life today. And that could mean moving to a place where you have a garage. It could mean thriving in your career and reducing some of the focus on saving 1 or $2 here or there.

[01:29:54] Also empowered together talk about what is our vision. Not our parents’ vision, not our religion’s vision, but what is our vision? That takes creativity because it means blank slate. What if we could do anything? Well, we have these deep beliefs, but what is our vision? We get to create it ourselves and for our children. So empowered individually, empowered together.

[Narration]

[01:30:17] Ramit: I want to thank Athena and Arie for joining me today. This was a challenging conversation. And from hearing how Athena grew up, I can only start to understand some of those dynamics that are still taking place today. Now, they did make some progress, but I think the truth is that the real work here has very little to do with numbers. It’s about understanding the past and probably shedding some of that past.

[01:30:42] That obviously doesn’t happen in one conversation, but at least you can plant the seeds for long-term change. What stood out to me most was not what they said, but what they couldn’t bring themselves to say. When I asked about their hopes or fears or dreams or even simple spending choices, the answers stayed vague and rehearsed and safe.

[01:31:04] Now, maybe they have real reasons for staying vague, but I also suspect that when you grow up in an environment where your desires don’t matter or where they are even punished, you learn to suppress them. You survive by being agreeable. I’m glad Athena is doing the work. She’s seeing a therapist. She’s trying to untangle those patterns. That is some of the most important work that anybody can do.

[01:31:27] I think that today even she realized just how deeply those lessons run. And Arie is steady. He’s thoughtful. But he alone is not equipped to help Athena with her journey. The question I wish I’d asked is, what are you avoiding? Do you want a house? If so, do you have the courage to say what you want?

[01:31:50] By the way, if you are thinking about buying a house and you want to know if it’s the right decision for you, I put together a free guide that walks you through the numbers and the questions and the trade-offs. You can download it for free at iwt.com/house. Now let’s hear the follow-ups from Athena and Arie.

[01:33:55] Arie: I was probably a little too obsessed with buying a house in the near term, and it was causing a lot of stress in the relationship. So I’m willing to put that dream aside if it means that I can live more fully and in the present with Athena.

[01:34:16] Athena: I got a job and graduated, so our fixed costs go from 77% to, I think, 58% with changing nothing. We’re looking at apartments that have criteria that we both like. For the foreseeable future, we have a designated account that we’ll be putting aside a certain percentage each month for a trip to Greece.

[01:34:39] Arie: We are financially literate. We’re doing well together, and we’ll be okay in the future as long as we keep living within our means and we keep doing what we’re doing.

[01:34:53] Athena: This has definitely been a important step in our relationship and allowed both of us to feel that empowerment, to be more direct, but still in a kind way with money and with other things.

[01:35:06] Arie: Going forward, I’m not going to worry as much about just being polite. I want to be completely honest, and I trust that Athena will be able to hear me, and we can have more direct, meaningful conversations about our short and long-term goals moving forward.

[01:35:29] Athena: So we’re very conscious about what kind of culture we want to create and live in the now while still planning for the future. So thank you so much. We’re very grateful.

[01:35:37] Arie: All in all, feeling really positive and really confident with the direction that we’re heading. And I just want to say thank you to Ramit and his team. I really appreciate it. Thank you.