Episode #189: “People definitely called me out”: Nate & Serena return 2 years later

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[00:00:49] Ramit: I think that if you don’t change anything, you will find yourself continuing to argue and to spin about money and it will become even more painful.

[00:00:56] Serena: I really don’t like the sound of that. I love Nate. He’s my person. We’re engaged, and I’m thrilled. So why is it so hard for me to do this?

[00:01:09] Ramit: I’m curious, why did you come back? 

[00:01:12] Serena: When I think back at that conversation, I didn’t realize how much trauma I carried without really thinking and evaluating if that made sense for my life with Nate. 

[00:01:24] Nate: Things are going to start changing. After four years of med school, it will be four years of residency and one year of fellowship. I’m about seven months from relative freedom.

[00:01:34] Serena: When I talked about money, it was never empowering. It was always a sense of stress or shame. 

[00:01:40] Nate: It’s interesting from our perspective, seeing similar but different takes on the same problems. It really gave me a lot more peace of mind.

[00:01:49] Serena: Achieving financial goals is a really empowering feeling. I never thought I would say that sentence.

 [Narration]

[00:01:56] Ramit: This week we are back with part two of Nate and Serena’s follow-ups. This is one of my favorite original episodes ever, and it is pretty rare that I get a chance to speak to a couple after the episode airs. So I’m excited to learn what changes they’ve made and how our first conversation affected them. Join me as I revisit moments from their first episode with them and we go through their new conscious spending plan two years later. I think you’re going to be surprised.

[Interview]

[00:02:24] Ramit: Welcome back. Oh my gosh. I’m so happy to see you both. It’s been a while, and I’ve always wondered how you’re doing. So yes, I want to get into all the numbers and everything, but first of all, welcome back, and how are you both doing?

[00:02:37] Serena: We’re great. 

[00:02:38] Nate: Thank you, thank you.

[00:02:39] Serena: Yeah, we’re excited to be back, excited that people liked our episode. In general, we are really good. I think the last time we had spoken, we had recently gotten engaged and now we are getting married in May, so we’re six months out.

[00:02:55] Ramit: Congratulations.

[00:02:56] Serena: Thank you very much. We’re really excited. Funding a wedding has been definitely a challenge, but lots of really great learnings and something we are really excited to invest in. But yeah, no, we’re really good.

[00:03:10] Ramit: Awesome. Nate, how about you? How are you doing?

[00:03:13] Nate: I’ve been doing great. In my last year of residency, so I’m about seven months from relative freedom. We moved a little closer to where I work, so I’m not commuting quite as much on a day-to-day basis. So after four years of med school, it will be four years of residency and one year of fellowship. 

[00:03:32] So I am going to get some really particular skills that I can bring into a career after that, that I don’t necessarily have just from residency alone. So I’m going to go do a really intensive surgical fellowship and then I’ll be free. So just happier, maybe a little healthier. And yeah, ready for the next chapter.

[00:04:00] Ramit: And Serena, are you at the same company you were when we talked?

[00:04:03] Serena: Yeah, yeah. So I’m still at my role in media. I’m a full-time writer. And yeah, things are great. I’m full-time remote. And I don’t know if Nate had mentioned, but we’ll be moving. His fellowship is in Dallas, so we will be moving next year to Texas, and I’ll just, yeah, continue to be remote. But yeah, things are wonderful.

[00:04:25] Ramit: Awesome. Okay, great. I have to know, what was it like being on the show last time?

[00:04:35] Serena: It was a revelation I wasn’t expecting at all. It really shifted a lot of fundamental ways that I thought about not just my finances but finances that we share as a couple. When I think back at that conversation, I didn’t realize maybe like how much trauma I carried from the way I was raised and the way my parents dealt with money around the household. 

[00:05:08] And I didn’t realize how much I was bringing that without really thinking and evaluating if that made sense for my life and my life with Nate. But I still had these very firmly held beliefs. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for sure, being on the show.

[00:05:28] Ramit: What’s an example of a firmly held belief that you had that you didn’t realize you were breaking?

[00:05:33] Serena: For sure, I think we talked a lot about how we split rent. And I was like, well, yeah, 50-50. I’m not getting 75% of the apartment. I own all the bedrooms or whatever and then Nate is– yeah, the closet is debatable, but I feel like that’s par for the course.

[00:05:54] I was like, “I’m not getting more apartment than Nate is. Why should I have to pay more in rent?” And I was only making that decision based on those facts alone, but that’s not how life works. And if I’m making double of what he is making, it seems so obvious. I totally get that, and I feel like people definitely commented about it, and called me out.

[00:06:21] Nate: Don’t read the comments. Never read the comments.

[00:06:22] Serena: I know. They don’t exist. They don’t exist. But no, it was something I really had to be like, “Oh, I didn’t think of it that way.” And also, a huge revelation that came out of that was how much stress it was actually causing Nate, which honestly was, in a lot of ways, even more of a wake-up call for sure.

[00:06:44] Ramit: Wow, wow.

[00:06:46] Serena: Ramit, you’re just out here doing the Lord’s work and saving couples all over America.

[00:06:53] Ramit: That’s what I like to say, but it’s nice to hear it from the couple. That’s amazing. I loved our conversation, but I love what you just said even more, the realizations you had, the fact that you took the feedback constructively, and honestly, the fact that you’re back here to talk more. I’m like, “You two are awesome.”

[00:07:18] I love it. We all have things that we’re not doing optimally, things we bring from a past history, or just things we don’t know. And it’s hard to hear that you might be doing something in a way that’s not optimal or even hurtful. But to be able to take that feedback and make changes, to my mind, it’s incredibly impressive. Nate, how about you? What was it like being on the episode when we first talked?

[00:07:46] Nate: So definitely was really enlightening just in a lot of overarching ways, taking the bird’s eye view of the entire relationship from a more financial perspective, but also generally speaking. So a lot of the anxieties that I personally had about my own finances being in this stasis for essentially a decade basically before I’m going to actually be earning a salary that’s commensurate with the amount of debt I have and all of these other issues, that it was not an unreasonable situation to be in. 

[00:08:31] That things were going to be okay, that it is just a pretty crazy environment financially for a few years, but then things do improve after that. As with a lot of people who go into medicine, there’s a lot of delaying gratification and a lot of anxiety about delaying that gratification and not being necessarily as on top of having all of your ducks in a row financially in the meantime, but understanding that things are heading in the right direction, going to be okay.

[00:09:09] It really gave me, again, a lot of peace of mind just in terms of on a day-to-day basis saying, I’m not about to be homeless tomorrow. I can afford rent. I can afford food. Be on top of things, but not to stress as much about it because that improvement is on the horizon.

[00:09:33] Ramit: Yeah, I agree. What about the relationship dynamic and the dynamic around money for the two of you? What was that like, hearing how the conversation unfolded? What do you remember feeling at the time?

[00:09:47] Nate: I remember basically being, first of all, very surprised just at the emotional base that so much of that conversation was built on, because a lot of particularly Serena’s relationship with money and the anxieties and concerns surrounding it were from an emotional place, not from necessarily a pragmatic or an economic place. And so it was really interesting just to understand the extent of that as opposed to it purely being a financial question. So that was really interesting in real time to see that unravel.

[00:10:39] Serena: Yeah. I vaguely remember us interrupting the call to, I think I went into the other room and gave you a hug because I think we were both feeling really just vulnerable. And it’s interesting because if you think about finances, so much of it feels unemotional. 

[00:10:59] But the truth is I realized I wasn’t being generous at all with the way I used my money and spent my money in this relationship. It sounds awful. I used to never think to treat Nate to a coffee or take him out for lunch.

[00:11:26] Nate: She bought me a coffee today.

[00:11:28] Serena: I did. That’s improvement. But no, it was like, in my mind, the idea of me being generous was like, we can go 50-50. And I mentioned that if it’s a nice date, or if it’s my birthday or whatever, I do like being treated. It makes me feel like a priority and something that Nate is wanting to invest in. 

[00:12:01] But I wasn’t even doing the same for him. And I didn’t realize that because I was like, I’m already so great and I do all these other things to show him that I care. But the biggest thing I wasn’t doing was like one of the top things I was asking for.

[00:12:22] And again, I never saw money as something that could be used to foment closeness or show your partner that you care. I was just like, it’s transactional. And it was honestly really empowering, and it feels good to do those things. I found that out. And if it makes Nate happy, it makes me happy.

[Narration]

[00:12:43] Ramit: Honestly, I love watching their reactions right now. I feel very proud of how far they have come, and I’m so impressed with both of them. Do you notice how them watching that original conversation allows them to zoom out and see things they didn’t see at the time?

[00:13:00] For example, Nate was feeling trapped when he was talking about his financial situation. He just felt this mounting student loan debt, no end in sight. Now he’s shifted his perspective. He’s zoomed out. He knows that medical school debt is temporary, and he knows that with his incoming salary, he’s going to be able to wipe that slate clean.

[00:13:21] That is a simple but very powerful shift in perspective. It can also apply to you. If you have credit card debt, it can feel overwhelming, daunting. But if you zoom out, if you run your numbers in a debt payoff calculator, suddenly you realize, this is temporary. I’m in control. If I pay 50 bucks a month more, I can shave it down by years.

[00:13:42] Suddenly, you don’t have to feel so out of control. Second, it’s fascinating to hear Serena talk about her own perceived generosity. Before our first conversation, she perceived herself as generous, but Nate didn’t really agree. And remember, she believed splitting rent 50-50 was generous because that’s how she experienced money as a child.

[00:14:09] But now she shifted her perspective around on generosity, and I think she’s actually truly generous with Nate, which brings them closer, which deepens their relationship. This is why I do this show. Let’s watch as I show them a clip of our first conversation where Serena had a revelation around her lack of generosity and watch what happens.

[Interview]

[00:14:30] Ramit: I love that. Wow. You mentioned that you took a break when you were talking to me and you both got up and gave each other a hug. I remember that moment. I wonder if we can take a look at it.

[Playback]

[00:15:33] Serena: This so cheesy, but I just want to run over and give you a hug right now.

[00:15:38] Ramit: Are you talking to him or me?

[00:15:40] Serena: Oh, both of you, guys.

[00:15:41] Ramit: Go. Go give him a hug. You guys can give each other a hug. You’re next door to each other. Go ahead.

[00:15:45] Nate: Okay. I’m taking a hug break.

[00:15:45] Ramit: Go ahead. Wait, do this on camera. Hey, I want to see this. If it doesn’t happen on camera, it doesn’t– what a nice hug. Look at that. I love that.

[End of Playback]

[00:15:57] Serena: Oh man.

[00:15:58] Ramit: What do you notice about that beautiful moment?

[00:16:06] Serena: That was not something we planned. We felt it in the moment. And I think, that’s how I’m showing me like, I see you. I understand that this has really been affecting you in ways I didn’t know. And it’s like that physical touch, that moment of closeness and reassurance, oh my gosh, I love that you just played that for us. I haven’t seen that since the episode first aired.

[00:16:33] Nate: Yeah, I look so young and happy then.

[00:16:35] Serena: I know. So much collagen.

[00:16:39] Ramit: The thing that I noticed about it was none of us knew it was going to happen. It was totally impromptu. And there was just this moment that, Serena, you were like, I want to give you a hug. And the thing that I love is when people are really intuitive about something. And I’m not this way. I’m not intuitive about a lot of things. I’m cerebral and I plan stuff and I model it out. 

[00:17:03] But sometimes I meet a really creative person and they’re just like, “Oh, I put this outfit on today because I just felt like it.” And I’m like, “What? What word is that? Felt? What does that mean? And I have been trying to learn how to be more intuitive. And there are a couple of areas of life where I’m super intuitive.

[00:17:23] Travel, I just know what I feel like, and I can create this experience. Money is one where I love seeing people be intuitive. And so to see the two of you get up, give each other a hug while we’re talking about this complex topic, felt so good for me because it’s so natural. It was like there’s nothing else you can do but give each other a hug. And I really appreciated that moment.

[00:17:50] Serena: Aw. Thank you for sharing it again with us. I’m so glad that we captured that.

[Narration]

[00:17:55] Ramit: We’ll get back to our follow-up with Nate and Serena after a quick break to support our sponsors.

[00:18:00] And now back to the show.

[Interview]

[00:18:02] Ramit: Did you both watch the episode after it went up?

[00:18:06] Serena: Mm-hmm. I did right when it came out, so it’s been a while, but yeah.

[00:18:10] Nate: I think I did, but I think I had to break it up into a few different sessions. Just hearing my own voice.

[00:18:16] Ramit: What was it like watching and hearing yourself on camera?

[00:18:21] Serena: It was kind of tough for me, I’m not going to lie. I lived through that conversation. I knew what I said at the beginning, and then I knew where we ended up by the end of the conversation. But definitely hearing at least like what I was saying at first, like, I sounded like a [Bleep], and it was a little hard for me to hear.

[00:18:47] I think, again, you asked us, what’s an adjective that you would want people to describe you as? And I remember, again, mine was definitely– I think I said generous. And I was like, “This is not a generous person, the way that I was talking about money.

[00:19:02] And I know it came from a place of fear and deep anxiety that I was raised with. I wasn’t trying to be selfish. I love Nate more than anything, but you wouldn’t tell it by some of the things I feel like I was saying and how firmly held those like beliefs were.

[00:19:25] Ramit: What did you do after we hung up? Do you remember what you did right after the episode?

[00:19:33] Nate: So we sat on the couch where I was and debriefed a little bit. We just had a conversation about where we want to go, where we want to be in the future in terms of our own interpersonal relationship and what was important and what’s not important. It sparked that conversation. But I think more played out over the next few days, but that was the initial, I think, thing we did afterwards.

[00:20:07] Serena: I feel like rent was due really soon after this conversation. So we definitely reevaluated those numbers and that split. So that was definitely a big, I would say, change that took place pretty soon after. I think we’ve always been pretty open with talking about money, but I feel like we were both now a lot more empathetic to where each other was coming from. 

[00:20:35] He will understand if I’m being a little cautious and know that it’s not because I am not wanting to be generous. It’s because I have this latent fear. And once he reassured me that things were okay and then also after I was paying more in rent and realized I wasn’t bankrupting myself, I felt like I could breathe and rest easy and be like, “Oh, I can afford a lot more than I thought I could and not have those fears that I worried about actually happen.” 

[00:21:08] And so I feel like we were both just a lot more understanding of each other. If he said he couldn’t treat me, it suddenly wasn’t something that would result in a fight or something. Those things, I feel like, just didn’t really happen as much. 

[00:21:22] Ramit: Nate, how about for you? I remember at the time you were commuting far, you had a high gas cost, salary was low. What changed for you about the way you talked about money?

[00:21:34] Nate: The only thing I have to edit with what Serena just said is we have always been open with each other, but we may not have been before the initial conversation we had, really clear-eyed about why the conversations we were having had the sort of emotional tenor or whatever sort of tone that they had.

[00:21:58] And so just going forward, being able to approach conversations about money and also add on a tag at the end of, and I love you and we’re going to be okay, being able to understand the anxiety that was inherent in those conversations ahead of time and being able to communicate to that anxiety on Serena’s end really did help keep things on an even platform when we were having those conversations going forward pretty much immediately. 

[00:22:38] And to this day, I think we had a conversation about wedding planning recently where I literally ended it with, “and I love you”, “and we’re on the same team”, “and we got this”, “and it’s going to be okay”, “and we’ll be fine”, “and we’ll get through this”, “and we’re going to have a good time”. Just be being a little bit more conscious about that.

[00:22:59] Ramit: Oh my God. Hold on. Amazing. You two, that’s so good.

[00:23:05] Serena: I agree with everything. I agree with everything he said for sure.

[00:23:07] Ramit: We’re on the same page. We’re talking about money. It might be hard right now. Maybe the numbers don’t make sense. Maybe one of us feels anxious. We’re going to get through this. We are on the same team.

[00:23:19] Serena: I think it was very hard for me to seem we’re on the same team financially when it’s like, this is my money and then this is your money. This is how much you’re making. This is how much I’m making. And I have to say it’s very empowering to be able to talk about money in a way that is bringing us closer, again, reinforcing the strength of us as a unit. And yeah, I wonder when we might’ve gotten there if it weren’t for this conversation and stuff.

[Narration]

[00:23:49] Ramit: I just have to say, I love watching these updates. So often, when I speak to couples, they are like two boxers in a ring who have each gone to their own corner. They are not a team. They are not partners. They are in their own corners saying, “I can’t believe you spend that much at the gas station. I can’t believe you spend that much at Target.”

[00:24:09] And after a while, it becomes simply a ritual. We argue about money. We fight about it. It’s uncomfortable. Frankly, it’s unhealthy. But when we take a step back and we realize it’s not you versus me, it’s us as a team, suddenly we can start to make changes together. Let’s watch, as I remind Nate and Serena how they talked about money during our first conversation.

[Interview]

[00:24:36] Ramit: I loved how honest you both were when we talked. Serena, especially you, you had some killer lines when we talked.

[00:24:44] Serena: Oh, no. I’m scared.

[00:24:46] Ramit: I’d love to get your thoughts on one of these. Let’s take a look. At this point we were talking about Nate occasionally running low on money and I think he needed to ask you for help paying for something. Let’s take a look.

[00:25:02] Ramit: He used the word groveling.

[00:25:04] Serena: Oh, no.

[00:25:05] Ramit: That’s the word [Inaudible]. Take a look.

[00:25:06] Serena: No, no, no.

[Playback]

[00:25:36] Nate is really saying– the word groveling, that’s not a word you want to hear your partner say in any scenario. Doesn’t matter if they’re earning $0. They should not be groveling the other partner for anything. So when my partner says groveling, what should my reaction be?

[00:25:56] Serena: My reaction?

[00:25:57] Ramit: Yeah. What should your reaction be when your partner says groveling?

[00:26:00] Serena: No groveling allowed

[00:26:02] Ramit: God damn. I thought I was harsh, but Serena is absolutely savage.

[End of Playback]

[00:26:07] Serena: Oh my God. That’s terrible. Oh man. [Inaudible].

[00:26:16] Nate: That’s so good.

[00:26:20] Serena: Nate’s enjoying this a little too much.

[00:26:23] Ramit: Nate, I have to hear from you. What do you think about that answer? That was off the cuff, by the way.

[00:26:33] Serena: We’ve come a long way.

[00:26:35] Nate: We’ve come a long way. The perspective that you go into those conversations with is the perspective that most people come out of the conversation with. And credit do where it’s due to Serena. Because changing somebody’s mind is hard. Changing your own mind is maybe harder.

[00:27:00] And for her to come in with those ideas of what basically we should be talking about, how we should be talking about things that didn’t maybe necessarily always match reality and to recognize some erroneous beliefs or thought patterns and to do work, real work to actually approach them, it’s why I am marrying her. 

[00:27:31] Because that’s the kind of person you want to be with, somebody who’s actually going to do the necessary work in relationship. Because nobody’s going to be 100% perfect except for whatever crush she had in third grade. But they’re not real. That’s not real. None of it’s real life. And so I really appreciate that ability that she has to– even if it takes a couple of conversations, will understand and try to grow from it.

[00:28:06] Serena: My face is so hot right now, Ramit. I did not expect those receipts to come out. And I am floored.

[00:28:14] Ramit: What do you see when you see that clip, Serena?

[00:28:16] Serena: I am cringing so hard at myself right now because it’s not the person I want to be at all. If I could answer that question again in 2024, I definitely would want to say, if that is how you’re feeling, then that is something that I need to work on and understand why that is the way that you are feeling and figure out what I can do so that you don’t feel that way.

[00:28:44] That is not a team player. It’s hard to watch. It’s definitely embarrassing. I’m glad that it’s out there because hopefully if one person could relate to that and it made them rethink the way that they are, then I’ll be really, really happy and excited that that could help someone.

[00:29:09] Ramit: Wait, wait. Serena, you helped a lot more than one person, just so you know.

[00:28:13] Serena: Really?

[00:28:14] Ramit: Yes, there are a lot of people out there who have the same beliefs you had. They like to believe that they are generous, but they’re not. They’re focused on their own fears, letting them guide their relationship with money and with their partner, not thinking about the impact that it’s having.

[00:29:35] And maybe their partner isn’t particularly skilled at speaking up and articulating these things. Maybe their partner’s really busy and doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to grapple with this. But I will say, I love that clip because, first of all, it’s just so funny. But also, what I really love about it is that you were so honest. And that was the thing I appreciated about both of you.

[00:29:57] You came on, you were not trying to have some persona for you two. You literally were as honest as you could possibly be. And I think that’s why people resonated with our conversation. Now, some of it was uncomfortable to hear. I think Serena, you’ve acknowledged that, and that’s okay.

[00:30:18] Part of the reason that I have these conversations is that the stuff we talk about behind closed doors sometimes is uncomfortable. But my God, you were as honest as possible. And then what is even more amazing is here we are a couple of years later. The way you both talk about money is transformed.

[00:30:37] Nate: It’s not just money too. We’ve started doing this exchange where even if we don’t believe that I did something that was particularly hurtful, or something wasn’t necessarily my fault, or the reaction isn’t necessarily what your intention was, it incited a negative reaction.

[00:31:02] Being able to stop and say, “Okay, well, regardless of the intention, regardless of where I was coming from, I’ll explain that mindset, but it still made you feel a certain way.” And so it’s real how you are feeling regardless of whether or not I believe that’s what my actions are trying to foment. It’s actually happening. So you have to acknowledge those feelings as they exist. You can’t just brush past often a extreme emotional reaction or intense and emotional reaction and ignore it.

[00:31:40] Ramit: Have you two gone to therapy since we talked?

[00:31:44] Serena: Yeah, actually.

[00:31:44] Nate: Yeah, actually.

[00:31:45] Ramit: It sounds like it. That’s a compliment. I love it. Were you doing that before we talked?

[00:31:52] Serena: We individually were, but we see a couples therapist currently. I’m not the first person to say that couples therapy can be scary. It can bring up feelings like, is there something wrong with my relationship? Is this not the person I should be with? But I think for us, it’s like I am treating the relationship with the amount of effort and resources that reflect how important it is to me, if that makes sense.

[00:32:298] And yeah, it helps in every aspect of our relationship. Especially I think, I’ll speak for myself, going into this step, we’re getting married, and we’ve been together for a very long time. We celebrated nine years a few weeks ago. But that doesn’t mean that we’re hosting by any means.

[00:32:48] Conversations like the one that we had a few years ago are kind of proof that just getting out in the open and having these conversations is something that really just make sure that we are hearing each other.

[00:33:01] Ramit: Good. You’re building the tools. You’re treating your relationship with the respect it deserves. Anything important deserves respect, time, and possibly money.

[00:33:10] Serena: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:11] Ramit: I think this is a great example of doing that. Serena, did your friends watch?

[00:33:18] Serena: Oh, that’s a good question. I have no idea actually.

[00:33:21] Ramit: Oh, did you ever hear anybody say like, “Hey, Serena, I saw you on this thing?” 

[00:33:25] Serena: No. 

[00:33:26] Ramit: Whoa.

[00:33:27] Serena: I think I might have sent it to my sister, but I honestly don’t remember.

[00:33:32] Ramit: Okay, okay. Can I ask you another question then? Now that you’ve changed your relationship with money, what do you think of some of your friends’ relationships with money?

[00:33:43] Serena: I don’t see the same amount of stress, I guess, an unwillingness to spend, treat money as something that enables them to go have fun or have an experience and just enjoy that for what it is, whereas for me, I could go out for drinks with a friend, but l I feel like before I would still be stressing out about a 20-dollar cocktail. 

[00:34:13] Even if I said I was going to go do this thing or buy this pair of shoes or go to this wedding or whatever, I would torture myself in the process, which at that point it’s like, why am I doing it?

[00:34:27] But now I feel like I’ve set these boundaries in place where if I’m committing to doing something or if I am committing to taking Nate out to dinner to celebrate a win that he’s had, then I’m trying to allow myself to just enjoy that moment and not let my anxiety, I guess, get in the way of that or prevent me from even doing those things in the first place. I guess that’s probably the biggest difference between me and I see my friends as far as their spending habits.

[00:35:02] Ramit: We had a big discussion about, I believe it was a trip to another country to visit your family, Serena.

[00:35:08] Serena: Oh yeah, Japan.

[00:35:11] Ramit: To Japan. And there was a whole thing about, I want you to come, but then you need to pay me back. First of all, what happened with the debt?

[00:35:17] Serena: I don’t think I paid the entirety of it, but it did contribute to a decent extent. I totally forget the details unfortunately. It didn’t really end up impacting the trip as much as it could have or anything like that. It was really a nice experience, and whatever that mix of me paying back and having some of the debt forgiven, it was fun because we communicated about it.

[00:35:47] Ramit: Great.

[00:35:47] Nate: In whatever way. Again, barely remember.

[00:35:50] Ramit: Isn’t it funny how some of the things that are so existential to us at the time then become forgotten later on?

[00:35:57] Serena: Yeah. I can’t believe I felt that strongly about it in the moment looking back on it now with a fresh perspective.

[00:36:04] Ramit: Yeah. It’s funny, in our financial lives, there’s thousands of decisions we will make, everything from should we get the cheap bread to the nicer sourdough bread, all the way up to should we buy a house, should we retire at age 62? I never wanted to drown in those decisions because if I want really nice bread, then I’m going to fight for the really nice bread. And I know that about myself. I don’t want to get in that place. So I decided there are a few key things that matter to me– our savings rate, our investments, just a few big things, the things that are going to be worth a lot of money.

[00:36:46] Serena: Mm-hmm

[00:36:47] Ramit: And then I wanted to create a life where I don’t have to let the dark side out when it comes to what type of pineapple brand should we buy. And I find that to be such a relief, I think, for me, definitely for my wife– the idea that there’s a few things that matter, let’s talk about them. Let’s be honest about why. Let’s make sure we hit those.

[00:37:09] And for the most part, let’s build a life where we don’t have to worry about the price of, can we get a cheeseburger right now? Sounds like you’ve come to that concept as well. There are things that matter and maybe things that we can be a little looser about.

[Narration]

[00:37:27] Ramit: We’ll continue our conversation with Nate and Serena and hear about their wedding plans after a quick break to support our sponsors.

[00:37:35] And now back to the show.

[Interview]

[00:37:36] Ramit: I want to talk about wedding planning. Congratulations on the wedding. That’s awesome.

[00:37:40] Serena: Thank you.

[00:37:41] Ramit: When did you decide that you were going to get married?

[00:37:44] Nate: I think we had gotten engaged before the initial conversation we had. Going from then we knew we wanted to not have a wedding in the state we’re currently in. And that just immediately throws a pretty big wrench into ability to plan and get things together. It is just not easy to do those things from a distance. So it did take a little bit of time.

[00:38:17] Ramit: What’s it been like planning the wedding together?

[00:38:21] Nate: It’s been really nice. We intentionally tried to pick a venue that had some of the stuff included, so we didn’t have to deal with choosing everything. So there’s a few things that we still have to narrow down, but we’re doing really well in terms of actually checking things off the list. We know we have deposits that are going in, but overall the decision making itself hasn’t been too difficult.

[00:38:50] Ramit: Are you having fun planning it?

[00:38:53] Serena: It’s really fun, at least for me. There are a lot of moving parts. I feel like up there with my college degree and future house, this is one of those big life expenses. I personally I think have tried to not let the stress of planning a wedding get in the way of why we’re doing it. 

[00:39:11] I feel like in a lot of ways it has brought us closer and it feels very natural for us. It doesn’t feel like it’s not the right time. I say this now. Check back with me in six months, but I’m not really nervous. I feel like it’s just been exciting to plan what this day will look like for us and our guests.

[00:39:33] Ramit: And honestly, what a blessing. Really to see how far you’ve come, not just financially, but relationally is really amazing, and just to have a little part in that feels so good. How did you decide on how much you were going to spend?

[00:39:51] Serena: I’ve been in a couple weddings, did a lot of research online, got some books, really dove in. But again, I wasn’t about to make this like my whole personality or anything. It started with like, well, what would be like our dream wedding? And then scaled it back to like a responsible version of that.

[00:40:09] And then, again, looked at what our finances are going to look like in the year leading up to it. What do I think we’ll be able to realistically, comfortably afford in, it’s March, April of 2023? So it was a lot of, again, projecting and looking at the finances and seeing what we can make work.

[00:40:31] Ramit: Did you involve family money? Did you take part of your savings and put it towards the wedding? And how did you think about how far to go?

[00:40:42] Nate: So I actually came in initially from a different perspective, which is looking around at different venues and seeing what they cost. So there are cheaper venues that you need to hire outside catering, which is larger costs, and figuring out that the cheapest venue on paper might have other hidden costs inherent to it.

[00:41:05] And so figuring out overall, again, what is the granular amount that a realistic wedding is going to cost regardless of where it’s held, and from there, essentially going to the, what can we do? What do our finances look like?

[00:41:22] Serena: We learned a lot about just how expensive the wedding industry is, period. It’s like $30,000 is a shoestring budget, which is insane. It’s insane. But yeah, I agree with Nate. We looked at the venues. And also we’re like, okay, what are the most– we didn’t write this down necessarily, but we came up with, what’s the most important aspects of the wedding?

[00:41:47] Ramit: What are they? What are your top three?

[00:41:49] Serena: I would say like the venue/ambiance/physical space was probably the most important. Below that, we’re wanting to invest in photography. Because I feel like I’ve, again, read, and it makes sense, of couples that skimped on the photographer and then ended up regretting it.

[00:42:12] And then maybe third would be right now we’re figuring out our DJ/sound because we’re getting married outdoors. We want to make sure people can hear us. I don’t want to scream my vows into Nate’s face. That’s not romantic.

[00:42:24] Ramit: Plenty of decisions. I’ll tell you, we went through all of this. The reason I asked, are you having fun, Nate, I think this is especially true for guys. I talked to a lot of friends and married people and loved ones, and there were two reactions. One was, “Oh God, it’s going to be the longest year of your life.” And then the second one was, “Wow, you’re going to have an awesome time planning the wedding.” 

[00:42:56] And I just intuitively loved the idea that I’m going to have fun. We’re going to have fun. And we decided to make it the most fun year of our life. And so we made that choice. We went through it. We got the opportunity to build something together. And I love the way you’re talking. We have these trade-offs. We have a certain amount we can spend. We better find the thing that fits.

[00:43:16] It’s like your first big project as a married couple. And also I just want to say I’m glad that we got a great photographer because we look at our photos. Every anniversary, at the very least, we look at our videos. We look at our photos. We pull them up. We watch them. We learn new things. It’s such a beautiful ritual that we have, and I’m so glad that we had our photo video team. So I’m so excited that the two of you are going to have a beautiful space.

[00:43:43] Serena: I think ironically for me, the dress, yeah, it’s important and I want to feel great in it, but it’s like a white dress is a white dress is a white dress.

[00:43:56] Nate: You might get some pushback on that, but I’d agree.

[00:43:58] Serena: I know, I know. But yes, I want it to be nice, but it doesn’t have to be– some of the bridal wedding dresses are just insane. I would go with less–

[00:44:07] Ramit: You know what I love? I love your point of view. I love anybody who has a point of view. You might have a different point of view than me, but I love a person or certainly a couple that’s like, this is our point of view. We want, I don’t know, this DJ or this thing, because it’s important to us. Amazing. That’s what a Rich Life is. It’s turning that dial until it feels right for you. So I think that’s amazing. Okay.

[00:44:34] Serena: To answer your question though, I did use a pretty significant chunk of savings for some of the upfront costs. Nate’s parents are generously giving us quite a large chunk of the overall costs as well. And my parent are contributing a little as well.

[00:44:53] Ramit: Did you talk to them about this? Like how did the parent contributing help come in?

[00:44:59] Nate: So I had a grandparent pass. There was some money that had been set aside from them to go towards a wedding already. And so that was something that I was supposed to be gifted by them, but unfortunately wasn’t the case. But that still exists.

[00:45:21] And then my parents also wanted to contribute. And knowing financially where I am right now and knowing that at some point I’m going to be the one taking my family on vacation somewhere, I think that was not a difficult thing for them to want to contribute.

[00:45:45] Ramit: Were your parents like, “Hey, we’ll give you $20,000, but according to my calculations in the S&P 500, that money doubles every seven years on a nominal basis. So therefore, we expect when you take us on the cruise, we’re not going on a Carnival Cruise.” They laid it out for you. Did they treat it like an investment? Tell the truth.

[00:46:09] Nate: No. So this is not my parents’ style. My mother just retired actually a few months ago, which has been a long time coming. Semi-retired, mostly retired. So it’s been a big change and it’s interesting because it’s actually brought out some of my parents’ own– what’s the word I’m looking for? Maladjusted views of money themselves.

[00:46:40] Ramit: Oh, tell me.

[00:46:42] Nate: They’ve always been frugal my whole life. And so it’s similar to Serena’s not being able to buy nice things. I hope they don’t think I’m throwing them under a bus or anything. But this is a huge single expenditure that completely goes against their relative frugality, and it’s definitely been a bit nerve wracking for them to be spending the money, even though they do want to be treating us. But it’s interesting from our perspective, seeing similar but different takes on the same problems [Inaudible].

[00:47:22] Ramit: So in other words, they have the money, they want to help, but it’s hard for them to pay all of that at once probably because your mom’s retired. The income’s not coming in. And will we ever get it? What if we don’t have enough? Etc. Correct?

[00:47:37] Nate: Yeah. The retirement funds are there. They’re ready to retire financially, and this is something that they were planning for. But yeah, just the anxiety about making a big purchase that’s a one-time thing, there’s been a lot of concern that we’re not going–

[00:47:55] Ramit: It’s scary. It’s scary buying anything big. Well, I don’t own a lot of assets except for clothes. I think my most expensive asset is a coat. But the first time you buy something expensive, it’s like, oh my God, this car or this, whatever, this trip could really– you go to the worst. It could ruin me. Probably not going to ruin you, but it’s scary.

[00:48:24] Congratulations on planning the wedding. Congratulations on getting married. I’m so excited for both of you. I love that you have your family involved. I love that you’re thinking about it together and planning it out. That’s the way it should be. So beautiful. I want to look at your numbers. Are you cool if we take a look?

[00:48:39] Serena: Definitely.

[00:48:40] Ramit: All right. So you did the CSP again. What was it like?

[00:48:46] Serena: I made a lot of money in my 401K that I did not realize, and that was really cool.

[00:48:52] Ramit: That’s pretty good.

[00:48:53] Serena: I’m still at the age where, to me, it’s almost like monopoly money because I’m not touching it. I’m not using it. I think there’s a way for me to access it, but I feel like Uncle Sam will get really pissed at me if I do. So it’s just money that is just like hidden away somewhere that I honestly don’t even think about. 

[00:49:14] My company got acquired since our last conversation and there was a match program that I wasn’t taking advantage of, which I did now. And I think my 401K doubled in the time that I last filled this out. So that was really awesome.

[00:49:29] Nate: I had no idea, by the way.

[00:49:31] Serena: Yeah, dude. It’s awesome.

[00:49:33] Nate: I’m marrying into wealth. Yes. Just kidding.

[00:49:37] Serena: Not really. It’s good. It’s good. It’s solid. But then, yeah, looking at my savings for example, I did take a large chunk of that out, and so I am rocking with like less than I normally would have. But I’m, again, trying to not freak out about it because hopefully I’m only getting married once and I’m okay with it being a large expense at this point in my life, knowing that it’ll even out. 

[00:50:069] We won’t be paying rent for a few months at the end of the residency program, and then we’ll be moving to a relatively low-cost city compared to the last two places we have lived. And so, again, it’s something that I’m not really worried about it right now.

[00:50:23] Ramit: Love hearing that. Love that. That’s a more sophisticated understanding of money, that you’ve planned for it, you have money in savings. Sometimes savings get used for specific purposes, and you know what’s happening in the future. You know specifically, these months, we’re not going to pay rent. That means we’re going to save X dollars. This thing is going to happen. Income is going to go up from Nate’s side, and on and on and on. So you’re looking at the full picture.

[00:50:53] Serena: I’m glad to hear that because I’ve felt this way, but there’s a tiny piece in the back of my head that’s like, am I just being really naive about the situation and Ramit is going to tell me like, Serena, you need to get your [Bleep] together or something.

[00:51:10] Ramit: Hold on. Hold on. We haven’t looked at the CSP yet. Let’s look at the numbers. But just in general, the way you talk about it, what I like is that it’s multidimensional. One dimensional is, ah, the money is going away. That’s so one dimensional. That’s very childlike. 

[00:51:26] But multidimensional is, I take account for all of my money, net worth, 401K, cashflow, all of it. And I know that some can go down, time can make up some of it, etc., etc. So I think that’s really sophisticated. All right. Let’s take a look at the CSP.

[00:51:43] All right. So partner one, assets are zero; investments, 43,000; savings 5,000; and debt 68,000, for a total net worth of negative 20,000. Partner two, that’s Nate, 18,000 in assets; investments are 3,000; savings are 1,000, and debt is 460,000, for a total net worth of negative 438,000. Okay, fine. So you’re in the negatives.

[00:52:09] Serena: You’re very chill about that.

[00:52:11] Ramit: Yeah. So just so everybody listening, everyone’s like, why is this guy just like skipping over it? Let me tell you [Bleep]. So what is that? Student loan debt.

[00:52:21] Serena: It’s just student loan debt. It’s not credit card debt.

[00:52:23] Ramit: Okay. And you’re paying that off to the tune of $900 a month. Is that extra or minimum?

[00:52:29] Serena: It’s extra.

[00:52:30] Ramit: What’s your minimum?

[00:52:31] Serena: I think my minimum is around 600.

[00:52:33] Ramit: Okay. So you’re paying 900 a month. You’re paying extra. Okay, fine.

[00:52:38] Serena: That interest is a real [Bleep]. So I am trying to–

[00:52:41] Ramit: What’s your interest rate? 7 or 8%?

[00:52:43] Serena: Yeah, it’s 7. I think it’s right in the middle. It’s brutal.

[00:52:46] Ramit: [Bleep] hate that. Okay. Nate, you have $460,000 of debt, which is medical school. Correct? Anything else? You got 200,000-dollar truck in there or something I didn’t know about?

[00:52:59] Nate: Oh, I wish. No. So that’s some left from undergrad, about, I think 17,000 from undergrad, but then almost exclusively, yeah, four years of medical school in New York City. Very high cost of living, and so a lot of, yeah, extra loan from there.

[00:53:19] Ramit: All right. So everyone’s wondering like, why am I not freaking out? Why am I so calm about this? In fact, why are they so calm about this? Can anyone tell me why?

[00:53:27] Nate: Good question.

[00:53:28] Serena: We’re very calm about it.

[00:53:30] Ramit: Why is that?

[00:53:32] Nate: So I am going to be a doctor in a lucrative subspecialty, and I am going to be able to aggressively pay that down, aggressively by the tune of even as much as 100,000 or more per year. Hopefully in the next 18 months that’s going to start.

[00:53:56] Ramit: Hell yeah.

[00:53:56] Nate: So yeah, getting there.

[00:53:59] Ramit: Listen up, all you American freaks out there who don’t understand how it works. Yes, you should be careful of debt. Yes, of course. But also a very high income solves a lot of financial problems. Nate, what kind of income are you going to make ballpark?

[00:54:16] Nate: I think average salary right now is around 350s, and my subspecialty is going to be higher than that most likely.

[00:54:27] Ramit: Like how much?

[00:54:29] Nate: It depends on how much stake in ownership of surgical centers, things like that. Probably going to end up in the realm of, this is a generous estimation, 5 to 600,000, to upwards of a million if I am invested in property and practices that are doing well.

[00:54:51] Ramit: What the hell? All right. So you can see why no one’s really concerned. It’s like, make sure you don’t lose your job, and keep your hands fine. But aside from that, you can have a tremendous amount of debt as Nate does. But if you have the corresponding tremendous salary, then it is just a matter of extra zeros.

[00:55:10] We might as well have this be $46,000 in debt and Nate could pay it off, which he’s going to do. And you seem to be pretty reasonable about keeping your expenses low. I don’t think the two of you’re going to go crazy. Pay it off aggressively. You’ll be set for the rest of your life.

[00:55:26] Serena: It’s a very fortunate position for both of us to be in. And I, as his future wife, we both are 100% in the same page. Honestly, we don’t need a bigger space than what we currently have. We don’t need to be wearing head to toe Gucci every day. We really want to tackle Nate’s dad primarily in those immediate months years of when he’s making more money. That’s 100% our goal, I would say that. And then maybe like a down payment with our finances combined would be the first steps.

[00:56:05] Ramit: When one or two people go through a massive salary increase, I always encourage them to talk about it. What are we going to do? Let’s make our decisions before it comes in. Because when you suddenly see $50,000 a month coming in, you actually get really sloppy.

[00:56:21] So I like to make the decisions before and we go like, “Okay, these are our priorities.” And I actually encourage couples to increase your spending in certain areas. If you like the dinner out, go for it. That’s not going to affect you anymore. But also, I like to have one central focus for the money, like, want to pay our debt off aggressively. We know the exact month and year it’s going to be paid off. We’re going to focus on that. Of course, we’ll take a trip, of course we’re going to go out to a biweekly dinner or weekly, but this is going to be our focus. Let’s do it. 

[00:56:55] And then when that date comes, you’re about to pay off the debt, three to six months ahead, you sit down and you have another conversation. Oh my God, what are we going to do with these thousands of extra dollars we’re going to have per month? And then you raise your standard of living, get a nice shirt, a nice trip, keep investing aggressively, etc. All right, you guys are great. Let’s keep moving. 

[00:57:16] So we need to keep in mind that your income is about to increase, but as of currently it’s jointly $131,000. That’s $7,000 a month from Serena and $4,000 a month from Nate. Okay. 131k. With that said, let’s look at your fixed costs. What’s this number here, Serena? Fixed cost percentage.

[00:57:40] Serena: 59%.

[00:57:42] Ramit: Okay, 59%. Not bad. Not bad. 59%. All right. Good. Taking a look here, you’re within my parameters, so I have no comments. I will note that we have $900 of debt payments from Serena. Nate, you’re not yet paying off your debt because you’re still going through it, correct?

[00:58:02] Nate: I am signed up for the save plan, which is currently on hold in the courts, and so all of my debt is in deferments and just racking up interest, but again, it’s going to be racking up interest because I can’t pay down the interest right now. At some point that’ll restart. Hopefully not for 18 months, but we’ll see.

[00:58:24] Ramit: All right. How are you only paying $400 a month in groceries?

[00:58:27] Serena: I don’t know how Nate is paying more in groceries than I am. That doesn’t seem right.

[00:58:36] Nate: You got to bump that up.

[00:58:37] Serena: Maybe I meant to do 250.

[00:58:40] Ramit: So I change it?

[00:58:41] Serena: Yeah, let’s do that. Thank you.

[00:58:43] Ramit: All right.

[00:58:43] Nate: I think that’s more accurate.

[00:58:44] Serena: Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like we have a couple of our standby meals that we can make that we love that are like quick, easy, healthy, inexpensive.

[00:58:55] Ramit: Well, what is it? Tell America because they need to know.

[00:58:57] Serena: Oh, my God. Can I blow the lid off of Martha Tacos, Nate?

[00:59:05] Ramit: Okay. What’s happening right now?

[00:59:06] Serena: We call them Martha Tacos because the Queen herself, Martha Stewart, we found this recipe because I had actually tried and reviewed Martha Stewart’s like meal delivery service. It’s called Marley Spoon Free Plug. It was great. 

[00:59:27] We’re not gifted chefs. We’re both fine, but we can make the most fantastic taco dinner in 20 minutes flat, and it caught– I wish I could price this out, but it has to be maybe $15 total.

[00:59:49] Ramit: Hold on. How is it possible that the two of you are doing a better plug than I’ve ever done for any of my sponsors on this show right now? How is that possible?

[00:59:58] Serena: We’re available, Ramit.

[00:59:59] Nate: We’re available.

[01:00:00] Serena: For a small fee.

[01:00:00] Nate: Yeah.
[01:00:01] Ramit: Jesus. I’m going to tell my producer. We got to hire you all because I think you’re way better than I am.

[01:00:08] Serena: Yeah, no. And I love to order in food. We love to go and get dinner once a week. I would say it’s about once a week.

[01:00:16] Ramit: Where do you eat? What kind of place do you go to on a weekly basis?

[01:00:20] Serena: I feel like we will usually do something like middle range/divey whenever we sort of feel like it.

[01:00:28] Nate: Sports bar that we could go and watch a football game or something on Sunday, have a dare to burger.

[01:00:33] Serena: And then maybe once a month we’ll do something nice.

[01:00:35] Nate: And that’s that. Yeah.

[01:00:37] Ramit: Okay. Who pays?

[01:00:40] Serena: I think we’ve been alternating lately. What do you think, Nate? Or just splitting?

[01:00:45] Nate: Mostly splitting probably. From having those conversations previously, it feels less onerous to split it because I know that in the near term, if I get to the point where, okay, I just had to pay for an oil change or my car repairs or whatever it is, and I can’t split this meal or whatever, I am confident, I trust that Serena will actually say, “Oh yeah, makes sense,” and will help out. Or vice versa. She’s feeling particularly anxious and relapsing anxiety wise, then I don’t mind covering it because I know that basically we’re coming at it from a point of cumulative equity, or over time equaling things out.

[01:01:39] Serena: And it’s a lot easier for us to have the conversations of like, do you actually mind getting this one? Nate has said that to me. And I’ll say, “You know what? Sure, I got this.” I put my card down, and that’s kind of the end of that.

[01:01:55] Ramit: That’s awesome

[01:01:56] Nate: The apocalypse doesn’t happen. Life goes on.

[01:01:58] Serena: Yeah, yeah. Literally, my credit score doesn’t just plummet as a result. So things like that that, again, I would agonize over it, it might be a point of contention, now is like, yeah, we’re fine. He’s not trying to use me as a sugar-mama, although I love that for me.

[01:02:21] Nate: You’d be a terrible sugar-mama.

[01:02:22] Serena: I would be so bad.

[01:02:23] Ramit: Okay. Let’s keep looking at the CSP here. So we’re at 60%. Let’s keep moving along. Investments are at 3%. Now, Serena, I believe you are doing some pre-tax stuff. Is that correct?

[01:02:37] Serena: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:38] Ramit: How much do you know you’re doing per month?

[01:02:41] Serena: Ooh, I do not know.

[01:02:45] Ramit: Do you have a sense of your percentage from your paycheck?

[01:02:49] Serena: I believe it is 6%.

[01:02:51] Ramit: Okay. And they match it what?

[01:02:54] Serena: They match up to 4%, I think.

[01:02:58] Ramit: So let’s just ballpark it to make it easy math. Let’s just say 700 a month. Whoa. Ballpark. I just put basically 10% of your income in there. So that’s 12%. That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good. Great. Okay. And that’s mostly yours, but let’s keep moving along. Savings goals are at 12%. So you have an emergency fund at $1,000 a month.

[01:03:27] Serena: Mm-hmm. I feel like these numbers maybe shifted quite a bit just because we’re dialed in on paying for our wedding now, so things like vacations and gifts are just less of a priority.

[01:03:41] Ramit: Yeah. Good. That’s how it should be. You have a big expense. You got to cut somewhere. That’s great. And then finally you have guilt-free spending at 17– well, not really. 17%, actually 25%, which is 2,000 bucks a month. Are you spending this much on guilt-free spending?

[01:03:56] Serena: I don’t think so.

[01:03:58] Ramit: Yeah, I don’t think so either. I suspect most of it’s going towards the wedding.

[01:04:02] Serena: Yeah.

[01:04:03] Ramit: How much did you take out of your savings for the wedding?

[01:04:06] Serena: I think I took out around $5,000 or $6,000.

[01:04:13] Ramit: Okay. And Nate?

[01:04:16] Nate: All of it.

[01:04:18] Ramit: How much was that?

[01:04:19] Nate: 1,000 to 2,000, I think, at this point.

[01:04:22] Ramit: Okay, got it. All right. Cool. Well, here’s what I have to say. I’m really glad your salary’s about to go way up, Nate, because otherwise we’d be having a very different conversation. Okay?

[01:04:34] Nate: Yeah. Yeah, me too.

[01:04:36] Serena: We know.

[01:04:37] Ramit: But this is good.

[01:04:38] Nate: I’m getting a bump in six months. I get a 60% bump in six months, and then after that [Inaudible].

[01:04:43] Ramit: Oh, that’s good. Okay. So you’ll go up to 10K. Okay, good, good. That’s going to make a substantial difference. Massive.

[01:04:51] Serena: Yeah.

[01:04:52] Ramit: You want to see?

[01:04:53] Nate: The difference between–

[01:04:54] Serena: Let’s play with the numbers. Yeah.

[01:04:56] Ramit: All right. So you’re going to go up to like 10k a month? Nate, is that right?

[01:05:01] Nate: No, it’s going to be around 6.5k.

[01:05:04] Ramit: All right.

[01:05:05] Serena: I think pretty close to what I’m making currently.

[01:05:08] Ramit: All right. Let’s just match in it just for easy math. Oh my God. All right, so what I did–

[01:05:14] Serena: Whoa, that’s crazy.

[01:05:15] Ramit: I changed his income. They’re basically making the same income. What just happened to your fixed cost number? It went from 60% to what?

[01:05:24] Serena: 47.

[01:05:25] Nate: 47.

[01:05:25] Ramit: 47%.

[01:05:26] Nate: This is signed. My name is on paper. This is happening. So this is real right now.

[01:05:32] Ramit: Okay, so look at this, everybody. 47%, which means you have margin. You have a lot of margin. Means if you want to get an extra taco, go ahead. But more importantly, the way I look at it is I would then begin saving more. That’s actually the first place I would put because you’ve got a relatively low amount in savings. You’ve got 6,000. And hopefully everything goes great, but you could suddenly be putting multiple thousands of dollars per month in your savings just in case something goes wrong.

[01:06:05] Serena: I would love that.

[01:06:06] Ramit: Yeah. And you can do that. And then, of course, you can also start paying off debt a little bit more aggressively. As you both know, if you ever run a debt payoff calculator, especially with your balances and interest rates, even an extra 100 bucks a month is amazing. But an extra 500 can shave off years from your debt payment. So you have the ability to do that soon. That’s fantastic. Question, do you combine your money into a joint account or not?

[01:06:34] Serena: We don’t currently, but it’s something we’re right now actually talking about. I feel like it was just something we weren’t going to do before we get married. Even though I know some couples do it once they move in with each other, which we’ve been living together for a long time–

[01:06:48] Ramit: If only there was a book, chapter 9, which shows you the exact account set up, that’s called Money for Couples.

[01:06:55] Serena: We’ll have to give that a read because, yeah, it’s something that we are currently looking at. We just don’t want to get screwed over because I think you may have talked about your distaste for Bank of America, and I’ve had the same Bank of America account since I was– it was my first bank account when I was 15.

[01:07:13] Ramit: This is a good time to start a fresh start.

[01:07:15] Serena: Yeah. And so I just want to make sure we are making the smartest decision with where we end up.

[01:07:22] Ramit: It’s working fine. And honestly, you two are not married yet. So if you came to me and asked, I would say no. Don’t put it together until you get married. But I do think after you get married, there’s a couple of reasons I would encourage you to combine your money. One, simplicity. It’s going to make things a lot simple if the two of you as a unit don’t have to be Venmoing back and forth and this and that. Just simple. 

[01:07:44] But two, there’s actually good research showing that couples who combine their finances actually feel more satisfied. And in my own experience with my wife, when we combined our finances, almost immediately overnight, it was, we are teammates. It’s not his money and her money, it’s our money. In your case, you probably want to have some conversations about premarital debt, things like that. Are you all signing a prenup or no?

[01:08:13] Nate: That’s the plan. We haven’t really looked into it.

[01:08:16] Serena: We’re both very open to it.

[01:08:19] Ramit: Good. Can I make a suggestion? I think it makes a lot of sense, particularly with all this premarital debt and maybe there’s some family stuff. You should do it now and not wait because it takes months, and you really don’t want to be talking about this right up before the wedding.

[01:08:34] So I would highly recommend you get into it now, have your lawyers, etc., etc. It’ll be good. It’ll be fairly straightforward. I love the approach you both are taking. Yeah. We have some stuff to talk about. Let’s get a prenup. Fantastic.

[01:08:48] Serena: My parents, to this day, they’ve been married for over 30 years, and I am 99% sure that they do not have combined finances because–

[01:08:57] Ramit: Whoa.

[01:08:57] Serena: Yeah. 

[01:08:59] Ramit: Do you ever ask them?

[01:09:00] Serena: I’ve not asked them because, as I mentioned in the last episode, I feel like a lot of my own trauma and how I viewed money, especially in a couple or familial setting was with what I was raised. I would be down to ask.

[01:09:21] Ramit: Why don’t you just text them right now? What if you did? What if you’re just like, “Hey, mom,” or, “Hey dad, do you have combined finances?” What do you think they would say? 

[01:09:29] Serena: They would say no.

[01:09:30] Nate: They would say, why are you texting me this?

[01:09:32] Serena: I’m 99% sure. Because like I still see them splitting grocery. They keep receipts and they still like to, I think, even things up, which is not the life I want for me.

[01:09:48] Ramit: Can I ask you, what does that make you feel when you see your parents doing that at this age?

[01:09:56] Serena: It seems like transactional, honestly. It seems like an unnecessary chore to deal with. I don’t want to be at that age– and my parents love each other. They’re obsessed with each other. But I also don’t see the point in it. They’ve been married for as long as I’ve been alive. My sister and I moved out almost a decade ago when we went to college. No, over a decade ago. 

[01:10:27] So they’ve been empty nesters for so long at this point that I just am like, “Does this really–” it’s like that thing where it’s like if you weave in and out of traffic, you end up getting to the destination at the same-ish time as someone that just stayed in the lane that they were in. So I am like, you’re nickel and dimming each other and for what.

[01:10:55] Ramit: Isn’t so much of how we treat money that way; it’s we’re simply repeating our own behavior for many years, far beyond what even makes sense. Often that behavior came from our parents in a time that doesn’t make any more sense for us anymore, and it’s not getting us what we want. I love the way you described it.

[01:11:16] It feels transactional. I agree. And in some parts of life, sure. We need to be transactional. If I’m doing a business deal, I need to have records, etc. If I’m buying graham crackers for my wife– I don’t know why I came up with that example. I haven’t bought graham crackers in 25 years. But if I’m buying something–

[01:11:35] Nate: S’mores. S’mores are good.

[01:11:36] Ramit: Yeah. It doesn’t feel like a team. And I want everybody to hear feelings matter in money. Money isn’t just about dollars and cents. It’s about how we feel. It brings us together or it splits us apart. So I love your observation about that. Also, Serena, I love that you’re creating your own path for yourself.

[01:11:56] Your parents love each other. They have their own way of doing things. That’s okay. That’s their life. That’s okay. But for you, and for you and Nate, this new family, you can choose how the two of you want to relate to money. Very cool.
[01:12:12] Serena: Thank you.

[01:12:14] Ramit: All right. The wedding is budgeted. How much are you over budget already?

[01:12:21] Nate: Yes.

[01:12:22] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:12:23] Nate: I don’t know how much.

[01:12:24] Ramit: How much do you think it will end up being. Let’s just pretend that the original budget was $100 for the wedding. How much do you think it’s going to end up costing?

[01:12:37] Nate: It’s going to be–

[01:12:39] Serena: Realistically, we have a spreadsheet that tabulates our current costs. I think we’re 45.

[01:12:47] Ramit: 145?

[01:12:59] Serena: 45.

[01:12:50] Nate: 4, 5.

[01:12:51] Serena: No, we’re at $45,000.

[01:12:53] Ramit: Oh, okay. What’s the budget?

[01:12:56] Serena: I think we started out at 35.

[01:12:59] Ramit: Okay.

[01:12:59] Nate: But that’s basically the venue. That was basically the venue. 

[01:13:02] Ramit: Oh.

[01:13:03] Serena: And then I think we loftly were hoping to keep it under 40, but then we have been like, it’s not going to happen. It’s fine.

[01:13:11] Nate: Realistically, we be wanted 40.

[01:13:13] Serena: Realistically. And I would love for photographers to not be $6,000. But also, like I said, it is one of the biggest components that we are prioritizing financially. And I’m also of the mind where it’s like, as someone that has been freelance, I understand the gig economy from having lived it in New York. I’m never going to be the person to tell someone what their work is worth. And again, it’s like with the rest of the numbers in our CSP where I’m not sweating it right now. I’m not worried about being able to afford it in a couple of months’ time.

[01:13:56] Ramit: Okay, great. Can I ask you? When you got on the calls with the photographers, did they do that thing where they were like, what’s your love story?

[01:14:05] Serena: The first one did. The first one did, and we ended up not going with her even though she was really nice. 

[01:14:12] Nate: Very nice person.

[01:14:12] Serena: But yeah, they did hit us with that. 

[01:14:18] Ramit: Okay, hold on. Have I told you about [Inaudible] wedding?

[01:14:20] Nate: I’m very triggered right now. I just want to–

[01:14:23] Serena: Nate was like, “What is going on?”

[01:14:25] Ramit: Yo, me too, Nate. You know what? Forget this podcast. Let me tell everybody. I have a few things to tell America. Okay, listen, when we sat down to plan our wedding, I told my wife, I said, “Listen, I’m going to build a project management model. You’re not going to be able to understand the complexity of it. Just enjoy, just enjoy.”

[01:14:45] And she goes, “What the hell are you talking about?” I was like, “Sit back and watch.” I freaking took my laptop, put my headphones on, smoke started coming out of the screen. I built this freaking model for us to plan all this stuff.

[01:14:55] And then we get on calls. I set up all these calls with all these photographers. I was like, I’ll take the call. She’s on the call, but I’m driving it. The first thing all these photographers say, I guess they attended the same [Bleep] class, “What’s your love story?”

[01:15:10] Serena: How did he propose?

[01:15:12] Ramit: Yeah. I’m like, “You got 28 minutes left. Are you sure you want to ask that question?” So already the energy was so weird. And my answer was like, “Ah, we met in New York, and it was great, and she’s beautiful and so cool. Anyway, let’s talk about your photography.” It was weird. They didn’t like it. I was like, these people don’t know how to run a meeting.

[01:15:32] But then one day I was sick and I said, “Babe, can you like take the lead on this? Because I can’t even talk.” She goes, “Yeah.” That was the best photographer meeting of all. They were connected. They were feeling each other. And I realized something.

[01:15:49] In the financial industry, there’s a big complaint that a lot of financial advisors only talk to the men. Sometimes they don’t even look at the wives. They only talk to the men. It’s very sexist. Hey, guess what? Wedding photography industry of America, this is a sexist industry that only talks to the women. I wanted to participate. I wanted to drive it, but nobody would talk to me correctly. Nobody wanted to pay attention until my wife, very talented, came along and locked the deal down.

[01:16:16] Serena: Love it.

[01:16:19] Nate: It’s a good complimentary system there. Yeah.

[01:16:21] Ramit: I guess it is. I guess we really do need teammates in this process, because when the guys try to speak up, we get rebuffed. Okay, so they asked you that terrible question. What’s your love story? God, stop asking that.

[01:16:36] Nate: Every single time I just get a little shiver down my spine.

[01:16:40] Ramit: Dude, yes. This needs to be talked about and investigated more. Oh, okay. Here’s what I want to talk about. Let’s just look at the CSP again because I want to compare to the old CSP. I’ve got a few questions for you. Okay. This is the old CSP, right? So first off, let’s just point out a couple of things. It used to be negative 51,000 and negative 432,000. Now the net worth is negative 20,000 and negative 438. Wow. Serena, you paid off a lot of debt.

[01:17:07] Serena: Yeah.

[01:17:08] Ramit: Good job.

[01:17:10] Serena: The numbers pretty much reflect this, but yeah, I don’t know if I was paying 900 a month originally, but this was something that, like in the previous CSP– but yeah, my student loan debt has been something I’ve been trying to chip away–

[01:17:30] Ramit: Good job.

[01:17:31] Serena: For a long time. And it’s my primary financial goal.

[01:17:34] Ramit: All right. Just so everybody who’s not watching on YouTube can understand, when we talked a couple of years ago, Serena had $81,300 of debt. Today she has 68,600, which is extremely good. Good job. Keep it up. And let’s remember, she makes 6,900 bucks a month. That’s very impressive. In addition, her 401K used to be $19,900. Today it’s $43,000.

[01:18:06] Are you all ready to listen to me when I talk about the power of compound interest? Start investing. All right. Let’s keep going. Now there is something that is a little peculiar to me. Hey, Serena, how come you’re actually paying less in rent today? How is that possible? Explain that to me.

[01:18:25] Serena: So we moved since we last talked to you, and our total, our net rent went down slightly. So I’m still paying more than Nate is, and it was a very easy yes to do so. Yeah, I think we went from maybe 26 or 2,700 to 25. And then that decreased basically– it reflected in my contribution, not Nate’s. So Nate’s still paying the same amount.

[01:18:58] Ramit: Well, Nate’s paying about a hundred dollars more, it looks like.

[01:19:02] Nate: We very much are lucky to be in this apartment. It’s owned by a friend of mine, so we’re basically paying rent by– we’ve also been doing a lot of maintenance around the apartment, things like that. So we’re not paying much in utilities currently, actually.

[01:19:22] At the same time that we were moving, Serena was feeling a little bit more stressed about money, and so altogether I felt comfortable essentially paying 100 more in rent knowing that I wouldn’t be necessarily putting that directly into utilities. It just worked out that way.

[01:19:42] Serena: I think the first month that I was here, I might have paid a little bit more. It’s an ongoing conversation. We’re not married to these numbers the way that I strongly felt at the beginning of our last conversation where it’s like, if– December, rent’s coming up soon. Yeah. So it’s like, if Nate is feeling like 1.1 is a lot, then honestly, I’m more than fine tacking that onto my contribution every month.

[01:20:16] Nate: So on top of that is that she has been paying down pretty aggressively student loans and things like that. And so from my end, I am looking this longitudinally where I’m not paying down debts right now and she is, so that extra 100 bucks a month, whatever it is, actually does end up saving us a lot in the long term. But it’s not in one account; it’s in two separate accounts, so it has to be bowers from somewhere. So that’s the overall thinking.

[01:20:50] Ramit: Let’s look at the rest. What do you want to flag for me as changes from last time to today? I think we covered the net worth. Income is a little bit higher. Last time your fixed costs were at 77% together. Now they’re at 60% together. That’s quite a drop, right?

[01:21:09] Serena: Yeah, for sure.

[01:21:10] Ramit: What happened?

[01:21:11] Serena: Rent went down a little bit. Gas went down a lot a bit.

[01:21:15] Ramit: You used to pay 650 for your car. Now you’re paying 450. Okay. What else?

[01:21:19] Serena: Yeah, the car payments

[01:21:20] Nate: Even a little lower than that, to be honest, too. This is all estimated.

[01:21:25] Serena: Nate, I don’t think you’re doing that $200 in debt payments anymore.

[01:21:29] Ramit: That’s correct. He’s not.

[01:21:31] Serena: Yeah.

[01:21:32] Ramit: Anything else? Let’s look at utilities. We’re at 160. Now they’re at zero.

[01:21:38] Nate: Which is nice if you can get it, but will never happen again.

[01:21:40] Ramit: All right.

[01:21:41] Serena: Yeah, will never happen again. But yeah, our landlord essentially is covering utilities for us as a favor.

[01:21:50] Ramit: What’s the clothes that you’re paying 160 a month on?

[01:21:54] Serena: I feel like that’s probably an average over 12 months. There’ll be some months where I’ll buy like a couple of things and one or two months where I don’t buy anything literally as far as clothes go. So that’s probably like an average.

[Narration]

[01:22:07] Ramit: So many good things to notice here. Consider that Nate is still in his residency and that he’s been able to pay anything back towards his debt. The fact that they’ve dropped their fixed costs from 77% to 60% while Serena’s 401k more than doubled is outstanding. I’m a little surprised to hear that Nate increased his contributions towards rent after our first conversation, but it was his decision, and Serena is contributing a larger overall percentage towards household costs. So that’s up to them to make that decision. Let’s watch as I remind them how they used to divide their household costs.

[Interview]

[01:22:47] Ramit: All right. Fine. I got a couple of other things I wanted to show you. I want to get your reaction when you talked about how you split rent. Take a look.

[01:22:59] Serena: Oh God.

[Playback]

[01:25:12] Serena: It’s 1,260 combined. I pay a little bit more than half.

[01:25:22] Nate: No, it’s 2,560 total.

[01:25:25] Serena: Damn it, I’m terrible at math.

[01:25:28] Nate: Yes.

[01:25:30] Serena: It’s 2,560, so I pay a little more than half just because I make more. Nate pays 1,200 to my 1,360.

[01:25:37] Ramit: How’d you come up with those numbers? I know this was a juicy conversation. Don’t lie to me.

[01:25:44] Nate: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was a negotiation.

[01:25:46] Ramit: Okay. Tell me. I got to hear this.

[01:25:548] Nate: So rent prices as well as everything in the last year have skyrocketed where we lived. So last year we were paying the same. We were both paying about $1,000 each per month. This year our rent went up almost 30%. And so I could not really afford to split the rent at all.

[01:26:16] And on the other hand, Serena really wanted to stay in the area that we’re in. She really liked the area. I love the area too, don’t get me wrong. But as opposed to moving elsewhere slightly where there would’ve been slightly cheaper rent, but maybe not that substantial. So she wanted to stay in the area, and the rent was too much for me to afford. So basically it took a long time of me saying, I can’t really afford this. Can we balance this a little bit in a direction based on what we make?

[01:26:57] Ramit: Let me make sure I understand. So you’re each paying $1,000. Your rent went up. That made it very difficult for you, Nate, to afford it. Serena, you wanted to stay in this particular area, so you had a back and forth, and you concluded with Serena, you’re paying a little bit more, like $160 more month for this apartment.

[01:27:18] Serena: Yeah.

[01:27:19] Ramit: Okay. All right. What do you both think about how you are splitting your rent?

[01:27:27] Serena: At first I was not thrilled at the prospect of spending more when we’re both splitting the apartment.

[End of Playback]

[01:27:34] Ramit: What do you notice as you watch that again?

[01:27:43] Serena: You can tell it’s a point of tension between us, I think.

[01:27:50] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:27:51] Serena: And I get the impression that it’s something that Nate was still struggling with and I was just like really holding firm to– I feel like I was just really stubborn.

[01:28:08] Ramit: Nate, what do you notice?

[01:28:11] Nate: So I am remembering some of those conversations that we had, and yeah, the word negotiation was absolutely there, front of mind. And it’s a different mindset than we approach things now. 

[01:28:35] Serena: I feel like it’s two different people.

[01:28:37] Ramit: Yeah. Nate, it’s different in what way? What would the conversation be like now rather than in the past when it was a negotiation?

[01:28:47] Nate: For lack of a better term, it would start from basically, here’s how I’m feeling this month financially, and this is stressing me out. Help. More from the point of mutual support and trying to make each other feel comfortable in our own lives and just, okay, you’re stressed out this month. I get it.

[01:29:19] And realistically, if you pay $50 less in rent this month, you’re going to feel less stressed. You may not solve everything. You’ll feel a little stressed out. It’s not going to affect much. It’ll even out next month because we’re doing it in equal measure on both sides.

[01:29:37] It’s both of us coming at the equation from a point of view where we need these things to feel financially solvent, even if that’s not necessarily a rational thing, but it’s something where we can communicate about our underlying emotions on a subject and bring that into how we talked about a subject.

[01:30:00] Ramit: One of the things I noticed in the prior conversation, Nate, is that you didn’t often advocate for yourself. And there were times where you had mentioned you’re really busy and you come home from work and you didn’t have the mental bandwidth for it. But I also think it was probably deeper than time, although I know time is real. Do you find that you advocate more for yourself the same or less when it comes to money now?

[01:30:31] Nate: I think initially I advocated more for myself. Though I also think that it has to do with growing professionally and personally and things like that. So I think some of that was included into the big picture. But after a while I felt like I didn’t necessarily have to advocate for myself.

[01:30:58] There weren’t a lot of points where I was feeling as if my needs were being unheated or ignored or cast aside. And so once we got into a habit, a rhythm of actually paying attention to each other’s needs, to kind of think actively about each other, made it so that wasn’t a necessary thing.

[01:31:24] Ramit: Okay. Serena, what do you think hearing that?

[01:31:27] Serena: It makes you really happy, honestly, to hear that he feels as though he doesn’t need to advocate as much. It really truly means a lot to me. Because again, looking back at the previous conversation a few years back, I don’t like what I’m seeing for myself. 

[01:31:45] And I agree that it took work. Again, was a lot of rewiring how I moved about in the relationship, how I viewed money in this relationship. And I think I’m proud of us. I’m proud of our progress. I want Nate to feel as though he doesn’t have to always speak up and that rather I am paying attention and making sure that he’s good and that he’s not stressed.

[01:32:17] If I’m picking up on something, I can then proactively sort of be like, okay, let me offer to cover this week’s of groceries or something. And it’s, again, something that I wasn’t dialed into before, but something I’m really trying to do going forward.

[01:32:41] Ramit: Cool.

[01:32:43] Nate: I actually want to slightly change my answer just briefly. I think maybe I am advocating for myself more, but I think also how that advocating for myself looks has changed where I can just say something like, communicate a need, and it’s not where I feel like I even am advocating for myself, even if I’m expressing something that I want or need.

[01:33:07] It doesn’t feel like it because the understanding that it’s not coming from an adversarial point of view and that how we’re both approaching these situations is important. And so it doesn’t necessarily feel like advocacy or advocating for myself per se, but that has more to do just with how we’re holding the conversations that we hold on a day-to-day basis.

[01:33:33] Ramit: I don’t think that it should be adversarial. I think that even if the two of you have different priorities for money, you can most of the time come up with a solution that works for both of you. And sometimes it’s okay if you don’t agree. Maybe we’re in semantics here, but when I think about advocating for myself and my wife advocating for herself, in general, I think it’s a good thing.

[01:33:57] I don’t find it to be adversarial. I also don’t associate it with negotiating, which becomes very tiresome in a relationship. That’s not what I’m talking about. Advocating for yourself is often like, what is it that you need? What is it that you want? Maybe you need some time alone because it was a crazy week at work and you just need to be alone on Saturday.

[01:34:17] Or maybe it is, I need a hug when you get home. Or maybe I need for us to eat out once a week because I do not want to cook. And the reason I ask Nate, and the reason I wouldn’t actually encourage you to think about advocating as a positive thing, every individual in a relationship needs things, and they change. And that’s okay. 

[01:34:42] In particular, I talk to a lot of men and women who lose themselves in their relationship because they put the other person first. They’re always dancing around their partner’s needs. And they may have a lot of money, but they don’t even know what they like anymore.

[01:34:59] No hobbies, no nothing. I don’t want that for either of you. And I just want to encourage you to both continue to stay grounded in what you want. It will actually make your relationship better. I’ve learned that myself. My wife has helped me advocate for myself. And I think that that’s just a very powerful skill. I’m curious, why did you come back to speak to me? I’m thrilled you are here. I really am. But why did you want to come back?

[01:35:28] Serena: This is fun. I learned a lot in the first chat that we had. I think now is a good time also for us to be having some more of these conversations. When we chatted last, a lot of the numbers and goals that we had were still in the hypothetical.

[01:35:50] Now they feel a lot closer and tangible and we’re making this big step. And I think just want to also continue just doing the work for our relationship. I think it’s clear what a big difference having these like really frank, candid, vulnerable conversations about money changed so much for us in just our day-to-day, big picture and day-to-day, honestly.

[01:36:26] And I didn’t realize I had paid off as much of my student loan debt and doubled my 401K. Again, I know I should really keep an eye on these things, but I’m sorry, I don’t. And so it’s also nice to celebrate the wins for both of us. It’s a good feeling.

[01:36:49] Ramit: I love that. Nate, how about you?

[01:36:53] Nate: Absolutely. Just with things on the horizon, there’s granular day-to-day, small number of addition, subtraction problems. But it’s just become increasingly important to not lose sight of keeping your view pointed forward. And as I come to the end of this impoverished, relatively, and a lot of debt that ended that chapter, things are going to start changing. 

[01:37:33] And I just place a lot of importance on making sure I’m good, we’re good, as those changes happen. Because you don’t always know exactly what that’s going to look like until you’re in the situation or until something has happened.

[01:37:55] Serena: I really want to not make the mistakes that I saw growing up. That is something that is really important to me. And also coming from someone that– I still have a lot of questions about finances and those big, big decisions, and I don’t want to be making these mindlessly and not realizing if there’s money left on the table or if there’s like flexibility that I didn’t know of that I could be using to make our lives richer. I didn’t know I had as much money to spend on dinners or treating Nate until I had this conversation. So things like that are also really helpful. And we just love talking to you.

[01:38:49] Ramit: Aw, I love it too. First of all, you guys are great. It’s fun to talk to you. I love the things you tell me, and I love how honest you both are. That’s one of the things that just stands out to me every time I talk to you. Honestly, to see the journey you took from where you came the first time.

[01:39:10] I know our team reached out to you, like, “Hey, just want to let you know what’s up, the comments.” And I remember your comment back was like, yeah, yeah, we don’t mind. It’s okay. And I thought that was so cool. But you were our first video podcast, and it was a whole new thing we did, and it was so cool watching you both. And then seeing where you came in two years is quite amazing.

[01:39:35] The thing that I especially love is that you both talk about “doing the work”, and it’s clear that you have put in a lot of work. You’ve mentioned a therapist. You talk about money. You’ve rediscovered a way of interacting. When I think about my own relationship, I think, when you get married and you’re together for years, you realize that there are certain things you look for in a partner that maybe you didn’t think about when you were dating.

[01:40:01] And definitely for me, the ability for someone to take feedback is important, and to develop themselves because life is going to change. It’s going to throw lots of stuff our way. We got to be able to take it, accept it, make changes, and I feel like the two of you are a perfect example of doing that. So I’m really impressed.

[01:40:25] I’m so proud of you. Yeah, it’s awesome to see. I love having these videos of the older, the younger you, and then we could just see it and look how far you’ve come. It’s such a celebration. Do you have any questions that I can answer for you? I just want to make sure if you do that, I have a chance to answer them for you.

[01:40:44] Serena: I had a question about savings accounts.

[01:40:47] Ramit: Okay. Go ahead.

[01:40:48] Serena: So I don’t know much about savings accounts, like I mentioned. I still have the same checking account and savings account from when I was a teenager. I am wondering if there’s a way for when I’m able to build back my savings and invest more. Should I be looking for different things in a savings account? Because right now I think I get literally 2 cents, which thank you Bank of America so much.

[01:41:17] Ramit: I’ll tell you. So your account structure is a pretty simple one. This isn’t complicated at all. You can open them up. It’s quite easy. You can do it online, and you can even transfer money from one account to another all online. There are lots of great savings accounts.

[01:41:33] Ally Bank has a great one. Capital One has a great one. They’re all free. They all have high interest compared to what you’re getting. Roughly four, four and a half percent approximately. There’s several others. You can find them if you just search for my name savings account. And those are great.

[01:41:52] One of the cool things you can do with capital One and a couple of other accounts is you can open up multiple savings accounts or multiple sub-savings accounts. So you can have one for wedding down payment, emergency fund. You can even name them. 

[01:42:08] So in chapter 9 of my book, I talk about how to name them and how many– you want to five or fewer. That would be super cool. So that’s what I would do. Checking account, I would get out of Bank of America. I personally like Schwab, I think they’re great. They have a lot of awesome things you can do. And if you travel, you don’t have to worry about ATM withdrawal fees. You can take it out at 7-Eleven or internationally. So lots of stuff you can do there.

[01:42:35] Again, those all connect with each other. Money transfers. What I might consider is for the two of you, when the time is right, to take some time. You don’t have to rush it, but plan out, “Hey, we’re going to get married. We’re probably going to combine accounts. Let’s go through the book and read it and see what’s going to make sense for us.”

[01:42:57] We probably don’t want to co-mingle certain things because we’re going to sign a prenup, but day-to-day, the amount that we’re each making, probably it makes sense to go into the same joint checking account and then from there to go to various different places. 

[01:42:12] Serena: Yeah, I think the overarching concern that I have is like, once I have built up my savings, I want that money to still be working for me in some small way because right now it’s just not.

[01:43:28] Ramit: Yeah, it’ll make 4% as of right now. It’ll change over time. But sure it should be earning a little bit more. I think more importantly, you don’t make much on interest in savings, but it is good to have the right account so you don’t have to think about it.

[01:43:44] Serena: Yeah, totally.

[01:43:45] Ramit: Cool. Nate?

[01:43:47] Nate: So I recently, for interviews, had to fly all over the country, stay in hotels, and put it on my card. And now I’m trying to put that over on a 0% APR for 18 months card. My credit score is decent, and I’m still getting rejected because I have $460,000 of debt.

[01:44:13] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:44:14] Nate: I am a little bit out at a loss of how to get around that right now because yeah, I’m just racking up interest at this point as opposed to transferring a balance and actually saving money, but obviously, it’s difficult.

[01:44:34] Ramit: I have a couple of suggestions. This is where I think that stepping in as a team can be really helpful. So first, Nate, I’m looking at your CSP, and I’m looking for some amount of liquid savings that would make this okay. How much do you have on that credit card?

[01:44:50] Nate: 1,000 something.

[01:44:52] Ramit: Yeah. Okay. So right off the bat you only have $1,000 in savings. So even if you took all of it out, you don’t even have enough to pay for that trip. So then I come down here and I look and I go, “Okay, wait a second.” Your fixed costs Nate are 72%. And then Serena, if you see yours, are 53%. So it’s considerable difference. Nate, you are saving 10 bucks a month, and you’re investing a little bit, 100 bucks a month. So it’s tough. There’s not a pot of cash sitting around.

[01:45:31] So here are your options, Nate. You could, one, put it on whatever credit card you have. If you need, I guess you could open up an easier credit card, one that they might give you a secured credit card where you could put $1,000 down and slowly pay up, but it won’t be 0% interest. You’ll pay. 

[01:45:52] Alternatively, the two of you could have a conversation. I think this would be one where I might say, Nate, I might advocate for myself and say, “Hey, here’s the situation. I have to pay this. I don’t have a pot of money right now to draw from. It would be really helpful if you could help me. Here’s specifically what I would be looking for.” 

[01:46:13] And of course, I know, Nate, that you would take money from your own situation and put it towards it as much as you could. But “Hey, if you have some money, it would be very helpful for me because otherwise I’m about to pay 27% interest on this trip.” 

[01:46:28] The two of you could talk about it and maybe Serena says, “Yes, I can help with all of it. I can pay all of it.” That would be the furthest end of the spectrum. I’ll pay it all. Just send me the bill. Next she might say, “I could loan you the money.” That would be up to you. Maybe she would say, “I can help you with 1,000. That’s what I’m able to do.” 

[01:46:48] And you would say, “Thank you so much. That means a lot. I love you, and I will handle the rest on my own.” But you can see that you start to talk about, here’s the situation. Here’s what I’m asking for. And then Serena has the right to decide how she wants to do it herself. How do y’all feel that that conversation– would it go in a constructive way?

[01:47:08] Serena: Yeah. I think now the biggest thing is everything has options. Everything is a conversation. And also, again, I didn’t see the emotion or I guess emotional impact or benefit that money can bring. Again, I came at it from as transactional as one can get. I feel like now we have options. It feels good, and it feels empowering for us to know that we can figure it out, whatever we end up settling on. And also great to know that I can help him. As a partner, that’s a great feeling to know that you’re there for someone. And Nate knows I have his back.

[01:47:59] Ramit: These are the times, times like this where it’s not that Nate is spending on some crazy expense. It’s like he had to do it for work and he doesn’t have the financial means for reasons that are based on where he is in his career. But it’s going to change. And these are the times where a partner can be like, “Let me help.”

[01:48:17] Serena: Yeah.

[01:48:17] Ramit: And wow, it goes a long way. People really remember those moments. Anything else I can answer for you?

[01:48:24] Serena: Is there anything you wish that you knew before you got married or any financial advice you would give to a couple in our shoes? We haven’t bought a home. We want to. We want to pay off student debt, which that’s another big financial goal. But yeah, is there anything that you don’t see people talking about that is actually a very solid, game-changing piece of advice?

[01:48:55] Ramit: The best thing for you, I will give you personalized feedback for your exact situation, which is I’m so glad that you have worked on the fundamentals of money and your relationship over the last two years because as Nate puts it, things are about to change. And the amount that you made in a year is going to be coming into your accounts in about two months, maybe three.

[01:49:26] And that really changes everything. And just like you’ve gone through the process of planning your wedding and enjoying it, that’s actually the same thing you get to do, and it’s even better. Hey, our finances are about to change in a massive way. What does it mean for us? Of course, we’re going to pay our debt off.

[01:49:47] Yes, we’re going to put the majority of the extra money towards that. Yes. But what does it mean for us? And dream. And really say, for me, it’s important that we go out to dinner once a week. Once a month, I want to go to that place. And then once a quarter, I want to go to that awesome place. I want to see our family X, Y, Z times a year. And you get to have these dreams. And because of the hard work and the partnership the two of you have put in, get to live it. Don’t skip that part. That’s actually the best part.

[01:50:18] Serena: Yeah, I’m excited– 

[01:50:18] Nate: I appreciate that.

[01:50:20] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:50:21] Serena: All that, and I’m excited to plan it with him specifically.

[01:50:27] Ramit: Yeah. Yes. The two of you. I love that. I feel so lucky. You are the first video podcast I did, and you are the first follow-up that I’ve gotten to do. And I truly did not expect to hear what I heard today. I’m so glad that I did. Last question for you. What has been the most surprising part of this experience of talking to me and learning about money on Money for Couples?

[01:50:58] Serena: When I talked about money, it was never empowering. It was always a sense of stress or shame, and now I can afford to pay off my student loan, pay rent, get groceries, and be relatively comfortable. But even so, it’s like, even with what I have, I’m able to make it work and understand how to make it work in a way that is having a positive impact on my life and Nate’s. 

[01:51:37] I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to use my money in order to actually enrich our lives. Nate and I aren’t the people that are just like, “Oh, we just feel like buying something for no real reason.” I feel like I’ve learned how to be a lot more intentional with my spending, and it’s a great feeling because like for a long time I was just going through life and not really thinking about spending. 

[01:52:10] I’m not understanding these things. And I’m going through life and hoping I don’t get audited basically. And now we have these goals, and I can see tangibly like, oh, yeah, I am making and achieving financial goals, is a really empowering feeling, I think. I never thought I would say that sentence.

[01:52:37] Ramit: Amazing. Congratulations. That’s awesome. Nate, how about you?

[01:52:42] Nate: The realization of conversations about money and conversations about your relationship are built on the same structure of how to hold a productive and good conversation. If you can’t talk about your boundaries and relationship or whatever other issue, then there’s no way you’re going to be able to talk about your boundaries and finance.

[01:53:09] So all of those skills are completely mutually intertwined. And a lot of us being better about talking about money has also bled over into us talking about other decisions, other plans, things in our relationship that once you have the tools and the structure to talk about import things, it applies to everything that’s important, not just one thing, not just money. It does go beyond that. And it’s been pretty critical in terms of changing how we approach a lot of things in life. Thank you so much.

[01:53:55] Serena: And if I can gas Nate up for a second, he has put so much work in achieving his career goals from the beginning of our relationship. I’ve been in my career and growing in my career right out of college, whereas it is the slowest of slow burns, and Nate is so patient, and it makes me so proud to see him achieve this, not just because it will affect our future family and myself, but I know this is something he has worked so hard for, and it’s been a pleasure and honor to have a front row seat and to support us through this stage. 

[01:54:44] Even through all the ups and downs, and there were many, Ramit has them on tape, it’s like I can’t wait to look back on this chapter of our lives and know we did that work and got through it together. That’s a really good feeling.

[01:55:03] Ramit: Well, I’m super happy to get a chance to catch up with you. It’s great to see you. You both look great. The way that you communicate is truly at a different level, and I’m really proud of both of you. Congratulations.

[Narration]

[01:55:19] Ramit: I want to thank Nate and Serena for speaking with me. Our first conversation was one of my favorite episodes, and this one makes me even happier. What I noticed is they took this seriously. Money went from a source of stress and frustration, something that was driving them apart through resentment to something that could actually bring them together. 

[01:55:39] That is exactly why I wrote my new book, Money for Couples, and that is what I want for you. Money should not be something that divides you. Money should be something that brings you together. For a lot of couples, when they see money, they see confusion, overwhelm, and a confusing spreadsheet with a bunch of decimal places.

[01:55:56] I see convenience. I see being able to take a date night once a month. I see being able to take a family trip to Disneyland. And if you use the techniques in my new book, you will know exactly what to say, when to say it, even how to say it so that you can begin living your Rich Life together.