{"id":118914,"date":"2024-04-16T12:47:43","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T16:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/?p=118914"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:31:11","slug":"152-fernando-anushka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/152-fernando-anushka\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 152. \u201cThe world is going to end. So why bother investing?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"\u201cThe world is going to end\u2026so why bother investing?\u201d\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2YlZ5x5AcVM\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border-radius: 12px;\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/6BnP0DWJd6pKKRPqC6HKYb?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fernando and Anushka, 30 and 31, live in San Diego and earn high incomes\u2014matching $135,000 salaries, in fact. They have healthy investment and savings rates, send money to his family back home, and rent a nice apartment. They\u2019re living their Rich Lives, or are they?<\/p>\n<p><strong>This episode is brought to you by:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hatch | A million things don\u2019t want you to sleep, Hatch does. Get $20 off a Hatch Restore and free shipping at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/hatch.co\/ramit\">https:\/\/hatch.co\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions \u2013 and manage your expenses the easy way \u2013 by going to\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/rocketmoney.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/rocketmoney.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>ZocDoc | Download the ZocDoc app for FREE\u00a0 at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/zocdoc.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/zocdoc.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0then find and book a top-rated doctor today.<\/p>\n<p>Superhuman | Get a free month of lightning fast email at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/try.sprh.mn\/ramitsethi\">https:\/\/try.sprh.mn\/ramitsethi<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>LMNT | Right now, LMNT is offering 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. This is a great way to try all 8 flavors. Get yours at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/drinklmnt.com\/RAMIT\">https:\/\/drinklmnt.com\/RAMIT<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Links mentioned in this episode<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/007-maria-barry\/\">\u201cMy parents keep expecting us to pay for them\u201d #7<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Show Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[00:00:00]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I find money, it\u2019s clich\u00e9 to say, but it\u2019s almost like the root of all evil. There\u2019s so much bad that can happen because of money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:06]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Every time I try and have the conversation with him of, okay, this is what you should be investing, he groans. He rolls his eyes at me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:15]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Investing, it feels like gambling. Having lived in many other places, there\u2019s a lot of issues I have with the way that America is set up financially for its citizens.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:26]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s the whole thing that like my self-worth is tied to a number.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And if you don\u2019t max it out, that means?<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:34]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m worthless. And I think part of that for me is my net worth and living the lifestyle that we live and being able to shove it in my mom\u2019s face to be like, I told you I\u2019d still make it.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d like to introduce you to Fernando and Anushka. They\u2019re both in their early 30s. They\u2019re both Sri Lankan immigrants who experienced some challenging childhoods related to the mental health of their parents. They got married, they moved to San Diego, and in many ways, they are living their Rich Life, but still, they can\u2019t seem to connect about money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:13]\u00a0And when I ask them what\u2019s going on, I hear about some very peculiar behavioral issues when it comes to their money from both sides. Just a trigger warning for everyone listening and watching. Today\u2019s episode covers religion, American politics, generational trauma, and we do touch on domestic and emotional abuse. Fernando and Anushka\u2019s story is viscerally real, and I\u2019m so proud to be able to share it with you today.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:40]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0We were in our office where I am right now, and I said, hey, Fernando, can you take a look at these numbers with me? I\u2019ve created our combined budget. He was playing video games at the time, so he was like, not right now. Give me a little bit. And I typically get annoyed when he says that he can\u2019t look at the numbers right away.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:01]\u00a0So I think I probably started off a little annoyed. When it comes to finances, I just always think it\u2019s the most important conversation, so he should be able to put everything else away immediately and then have that conversation with me. But I know that that is not fair.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did he eventually come by and start looking at the numbers?<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:18]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Yes, he did. He scooted over and took a look at my screen, and we just started going down the list of all of the expense categories that I created and looking at the numbers. And I was explaining that these budgeted numbers are based on what we spent last year. And this is actually the first year that we are combining finances, but trying to create a combined budget where we align on all of the numbers for all of the different categories that I had made was very difficult.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Where did the problem come up?<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:53]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0The problem came up when it got down to the actual numbers for the budget that I had set for the specific categories.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Like what? Give me an example category.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:02]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Our savings percentage and our investing percentage was too low for my comfort, which means we have to change our expenses somehow. He was on the same page. He was like, okay, fine, but where are we changing it and by how much?<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:16]\u00a0And so that\u2019s when I went over and I said, we\u2019re spending too much on groceries and eating out. We need to reduce that number. Then he said, I actually like our saving and investing percentage. Why would we need to increase it dramatically, and why is it out of our grocery budget? The fact that it got down to such a silly conversation about how much the carton of just egg is is where it all went wrong, I think.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:41]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0The reason it really got to me is because, from my perspective, we spend way too much money saving, and just based on my experience, that money can evaporate. Something can go wrong, and you can potentially lose all of it. That\u2019s just based on my childhood and how the financial crisis affected us.<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:01]\u00a0So when it comes to setting 40% or whatever that number was of our income towards savings, it\u2019s just such a massive amount to, in my mind, throw away and potentially never see the benefits of. On the other side of that, I\u2019m not spending on video games already. There are other things that I have kept out of this budget to try and make this realistic. Why am I always losing, was the view I had in that conversation?<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How did this conversation get resolved, or did it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:33]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It did get resolved, but it was over eight hours, and then it started around noon, I think, and ended at 8:00 PM with us compromising in her direction, but also her meeting me and understanding like, hey, there are things that Fernando hasn\u2019t accounted for in the budget by just holding out and not pursuing in his life that she was able to also help me place into our budget. So now I do have a video game fund, which I\u2019ve never had in my life before, where I can say, healthily, I can buy 20-dollar game every few months and not feel bad about it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. So problem solved?<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:08]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0The problem persists where every time I try and have the conversation with him of, okay, this is what you should be investing, he groans. He rolls his eyes at me. We have discussions about whether investing the money is really the way to get us generational wealth, something that we had not even thought about before.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:31]\u00a0We talk about our plans for the next year, once a year, but we look at our monthly numbers together. And so I know for a fact we will have this argument again next year, and I want to prevent it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m going to go out on a limb, just a wild guess, and guess that he rarely gives you substantive feedback on the budget.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:58]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you know?<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Shocking. How did I know? Actually, Anushka, how do you think I knew that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:06]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Because I am the one who makes recommendations for us on the changes that I think we should make, and he just goes along with it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And Fernando, you were laughing.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:17]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0That is so accurate. She will be on me for a few days to be like, you need to check that and let me know. So I\u2019ll look at the summary view. You have little pie charts, looks pretty. Finances have always been something that I\u2019m like really bad with in terms of long-term planning in general. So it just gets overwhelming. I\u2019m like, all right, if we\u2019re within the numbers, I\u2019m good. I can just keep pushing along.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Fernando, when you get those monthly reports, what do you feel? Not what do you think, but what do you feel when you get\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:48]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Anxiety. Mad anxiety. Just childhood trauma related to money. Money is just the scariest thing to me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So do you feel that when you have to make a purchase decision?<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:01]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh yeah, all the time.<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How about when you hear people talking about investing, or buying a house, or even traveling? You feel that same anxiety?<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:13]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Generally, when it comes to taking a trip or something like that, I don\u2019t have that kind of anxiety, but I do have that anxiety when it comes to something like gambling. I don\u2019t gamble at all because, in my mind, you are just a few steps away from losing everything. Again, I understand, it\u2019s a moderation thing, but I don\u2019t want to cross that line.<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:32]\u00a0I don\u2019t want to put myself or my family in that kind of situation. And I think another reason that I have a lot of anxiety with money is because Anushka helps me support my family in Michigan. That is a part of the budget. A lot of my monthly income goes towards making sure that they\u2019re fine.<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Uh-huh. And just so I make sure I get this right, you mentioned you don\u2019t like gambling. Is investing gambling to you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:55]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0In a sense, yes. Yeah, I do see it similarly. That\u2019s where the major conflict comes in my mind in investing. It feels like gambling. I know if something\u2019s going to happen to the stock market and all that\u2019s going to go away.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:09]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s interesting. Anushka, what do you think? Are you struck at all by the fact that Fernando feels anxiety every time you send over that monthly report?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:19]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I was, at first, yeah, when he said that. I didn\u2019t think he was immediately anxious about it. I just thought that he would feel like, okay, great. I can see the numbers. Saying it out loud now makes me feel stupid because I should have realized, but I thought he would just feel happy to see that we were on the right track for the goals that we had set together.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Would it surprise you to know that he probably never even gets down to that level of analysis?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:50]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I guess it\u2019s obvious he does not.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s ask because I don\u2019t want to put words in the\u2013 Fernando, do you ever\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:55]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No, you\u2019re absolutely right. I look at it from a very high level. We are inside of the guidelines. That\u2019s all I have. But clicking on that thing beforehand, it feels like I do right now. There\u2019s a pit. Just imagining clicking causes a pit in me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And Anushka, just out of curiosity, when you\u2019re sitting there spending two or three hours analyzing the credit card spend every month, what do you feel doing that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:18]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Control and calm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s like your meditation for the month.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:25]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re like, I don\u2019t need any spending on a massage therapist. I have my spreadsheets. Look at me analyze this. Right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:32]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, yeah. It\u2019s very true.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And what do you feel that moment where you tell him, take a look?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:37]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I feel accomplishment.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. I checked all the boxes. Are you a project manager by chance?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:44]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0He is a product manager, but I am a very type A individual.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you do as a type A individual for a job?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:52]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I am a business analyst.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. That tracks very well.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I noticed this dynamic a lot with couples. One person, the chaser, prepares the financial discussion, crunches the numbers, sends it over, and rubs their hands together in satisfaction. Ah, I did such a great job. And the other partner, who\u2019s usually an avoider, opens their email. Looks at the subject line and goes, ah, hell no.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:21]\u00a0Thus begins the pursuit. The chaser chases. The avoider avoids. The more they avoid, the more the other chases. With Fernando and Anushka, they are classic examples of this chaser, avoider, couples dynamic. Now there are some interesting wrinkles.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:39]\u00a0Fernando references his childhood and the financial crisis in 2008, which has made him afraid to invest\u00a0because\u00a0it feels like gambling. They also support his parents. I noticed that they spent eight hours on a money conversation, which is way too long. But personally, I think the real issues go a lot deeper.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:00]\u00a0We\u2019ll be right back<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:03]\u00a0Now back to the show.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:05]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0When we first started dating, we were in high school, college, and I remember him going to the movies multiple times a year, maybe even twice a month. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, that is so much money you\u2019re spending on something that I could never even imagine. A movie ticket back then was what, $10? I immediately added that up in my head to the amount of money it was per month, per year, and I thought that was too much.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you know it was too much? What would you base that on?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:42]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0On what I spent.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm. And would you say that the two of you grew up similarly socioeconomically?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:48]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I was born in Sri Lanka, so we are immigrants. And my family moved here when I was five. We started off very poor. My parents were scrubbing the bathrooms of the Big Boys. They would often point that Big Boys out in Michigan when we drove past it, and my parents did not have college educations back in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:08]\u00a0So my mom now has some college degrees, but they both worked their way up to middle class, to comfortable middle class. But money was always discussed as we don\u2019t have enough to do certain things, and that you always have to be mindful of money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:26]\u00a0I emulate my mom a lot in terms of financial control. She was the one who led our family. She was the one who made sure we were saving. Yeah, she handled all of the money, and she was very smart. She made sure that we had a beautiful house. At the end of the day, she made sure that we could go on vacations, but when I would ask for certain small things, it would always be, you know we can\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:00]\u00a0And I think very early on, I started working when I was 12 just so that I could have control of myself. For context, I think my mom was a bit of a narcissistic personality, and I became typically in a narcissistic family structure.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:19]\u00a0There\u2019s the scapegoat and the golden child. And I have a younger sister who\u2019s nine years younger than me. She was a little bit of the golden child, and I was the scapegoat. We had just a very bad relationship, my mom and I. From very early on, I realized that money was the only way that I could gain any sort of control in my life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:42]\u00a0Started working when I was 12, babysitting. Then I was a lifeguard. Then I did everything possible to keep my bank account and keep some savings, because then I could send out what I wanted, and I couldn\u2019t have any judgment from anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:57]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you go to a lot of therapy?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:00]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0No. I had a terrible experience with therapy when my mom forced us to go into therapy because my parents were getting a divorce. And she was not the therapist for any of us. She made the situation a lot worse, and it just scarred me, and I\u2019ve never gone back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Would you read books on narcissism?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:25]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I\u2019ve read books, articles, watched videos about people talking about all of this, and, yeah, it describes us very well.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you have a relationship with your mom today?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:38]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Not really. I think she was just a very angry person, and I think that\u2019s a direct cause of her having to take control of everything in the house.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because she had to take control of money, that caused her to become more angry?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:55]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably. I don\u2019t think my dad helped her a lot in those cases, and I\u2019m sure she felt very alone.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:03]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0And she ended up taking it out on me, and that\u2019s probably one of the areas she just didn\u2019t feel supported.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:17]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What similarities do you see with your mom\u2019s handling of money and your handling of it today?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:24]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Both pros and cons. She taught me everything I know about making sure that I and my family are good. And I thank her whenever I get the chance, and I tell her, \u201cYou are the reason that I was able to have a beautiful apartment in Detroit. You are the reason I was able to move to San Diego. Without the knowledge that you gave me, I would have never gotten to where I am.\u201d The part I don\u2019t tell her is that the trauma she has caused me has made me very anxious, very scared that I have enough at all times. And my anxiety seeps through to the conversations that I have with Fernando all the time.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m struck by the example that Anushka shares about how she thought Fernando was spending too much on movies in high school. When I ask, what\u2019s too much, she says, too much compared to what I spent. Think about it. In high school, we\u2019re just scratching the surface of how money works.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:23]\u00a0Hell, most adults I talk to don\u2019t realize that it\u2019s okay if your Rich Life is different than mine, but if you begin looking at the world by judging other people for their spending, it is very, very hard to change. I know because that\u2019s exactly how I started off my life.\u00a0I also noticed how much these early memories shaped Anushka, how much they affected her, and how that has affected Fernando and their relationship.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:49]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Similarly, my family, we were immigrants. We moved to the US in the fifth grade, but we moved a ton. My dad\u2019s goal was to get us to the US. Around like the eighth grade or so, my dad started losing his job. And my dad suffers from a mental illness, which is undiagnosed also.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:03]\u00a0He doesn\u2019t say that he has it, which it not very helpful. Effectively after that point, he was losing his job almost yearly, and that was right around the time of the financial crisis. So we were middle class. At some point, we got up to middle class from lower class, but then after that, it wasn\u2019t really stable.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:20]\u00a0So to me, money is something that could just be gone. And just some of the roles that I had in my household, I was in charge of making sure the bank accounts were balanced, and things like that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:30]\u00a0So to me, even looking at my bank account can be traumatic regardless of the amount that we have in there. So I have to remember the days when the mortgage was going to get taken out and make sure we had the minimum in there for that, and things like that. I think that was the seventh or eighth grade.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:45]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It got hard every two weeks or monthly depending on when the paycheck was coming. And yeah, I didn\u2019t like it. I\u2019ve told this to a few friends as well. I very vividly remember when Reese\u2019s Peanut butter cups went from 55 cents to 75 cents when we were growing up. We didn\u2019t have much money, and I remember thinking like, I\u2019m not going to ask for that again.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Were you the oldest son?<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:10]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I\u2019m the oldest.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. So when you think about even looking at a checking account, that can be traumatic, and you still feel that today?<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:19]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I like constantly live in fear of losing everything. The way I\u2019ve described to people is like, I\u2019ve been poor. I\u2019m not going back, and I want to make sure my family doesn\u2019t. I just want to make sure we set ourselves up to not have that happen.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve been poor, and I\u2019m not going back. I often speak to people who grew up poor, really poor, and one of the phrases that they say very frequently is, I\u2019ve been poor once. I can be poor again. Doesn\u2019t scare me. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:56]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Scares the\u00a0shit\u00a0out of me. To be completely frank, I apologize, but like you mentioned, I\u2019m the oldest son, but just culturally, one of the things I\u2019ve always taken is like, I will take care of my family. That is my job. That\u2019s my responsibility, and I am never going to let them experience that again.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:15]\u00a0I will go through poverty. To be frank, that does not scare me. But I will never put myself in a situation that my family, my wife will be poor like that. They\u2019ll never do that. That\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. That tracks a little bit more. I understand that you send money back regularly. Is it every month?<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:34]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. We pay for certain portions of what\u2019s going on at home.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Can you walk me through how that relationship developed?<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:41]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0So that, I think, really started when my dad was initially hospitalized. That was my freshman year of college. It\u2019s just like whatever expenses I can take off of their hands, I want to do, so they can live a little more free of a life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:57]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much do you think you send every year?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:00]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Honestly, Anushka\u2019s budget could tell us probably precisely, but thousands, probably tens of thousands.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Per year.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:08]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, at least. And it didn\u2019t click at the time that I was doing that, but when I\u2019m there and I see a problem, I fix it. I\u2019ll buy a kitchen sink or something.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. So let\u2019s say about a thousand dollars a month. Would that sound reasonable to you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:22]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:23]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0On average, 1,300 a month, something like that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. And how do you feel about sending that amount of money, Fernando? What word comes to mind about the feeling you have?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:35]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I wish I could do more. We want to get to a point where I can help out more so I can reduce the amount of stress that\u2019s putting on my sister and my mom. I want them to live a simpler life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Unsatisfied?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:50]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh yes. That does pinpoint. Yes, unsatisfied. It motivates me to try and make more money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you feel proud of the amount you\u2019re sending?<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:00]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I used to, but I guess because it\u2019s tapered off, I don\u2019t as much anymore.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. Do you feel proud that you send money at all?<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:11]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Not really. I just find that I just have or should.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:13]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Like it\u2019s just part of your expectation.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:16]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:17]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. All right. Anushka, what\u2019s your take? Did you ever have a discussion about the fact that Fernando sends money, the amount that he sends? Has this ever been a topic?<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:28]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh yeah, absolutely. I always knew that he was going to be supporting his family. That was without question. I want him to do that. I want him to be able to do that. It\u2019s very important to him. It\u2019s very important to me that we support his family.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:41]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0When Anushka was helping with my bank account, at one point, I would have four or $5,000 in my checking account and not putting it into savings. She\u2019d ask like, why don\u2019t you put it into savings? I\u2019m like, you never know. I don\u2019t know if my family\u2019s going to need something. So I\u2019ll always try and have it as liquid as possible just so I can use it if they need it or someone needs it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Is there a number for you that feels good?<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:04]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Not at all.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0No. Okay. It\u2019s just more.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:07]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. Oh, one of the things Anushka helped me with was she had done my family\u2019s budget for a small period of time as well, and I had thought for many, many years, since I was about 18\u2013 I think this went on until I was about 28, so about a decade\u2013 that I had to have $60,000 set aside in savings for my family to get along for six months.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:28]\u00a0And when I finally mentioned it to her, because we were having another one of these arguments over budgeting, within 10 minutes, she took all those numbers, extrapolated them, and said, the number is $15,000. If no one in your house is working for six months, you\u2019ll be fine. And she\u2019s like, you already have that saved. And I lay on the bed, and I was like, I\u2019m going to throw up.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:50]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t realize it, but it felt like for the first time I could breathe in a long time. And I genuinely couldn\u2019t remember when that pressure came in. It just felt like I was existing like that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0One of the reasons I love this podcast is that I get to bring you stories from cultures that you might never, ever otherwise encounter. For example, when was the last time you heard of a son supporting his family? In many cultures, that\u2019s the way it goes. We also saw this same dynamic with Barry from Episode 7 whose parents live in Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:24]\u00a0What\u2019s notable to me isn\u2019t that he did this in seventh grade, or that he still remembers the price of Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups, or even that Anushka is supportive of him supporting his family. What\u2019s striking to me is the moment where she showed him how much money he actually needs, and he just lay on his bed and almost threw up.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:45]\u00a0For me, this is so relatable. It represents how so many of us just get on this raft of life and we start letting the river carry us. We almost never stop to take stock of where we came from and where we are. Do I even\u00a0want to\u00a0be going in this direction? Should I feel good, bad, proud? We mostly just keep doing the same thing that we\u2019ve been doing for decades, which coincidentally is what our parents did, which coincidentally is what their parents did.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:15]\u00a0That\u2019s the other thing I love in my conversations with people on this podcast, that moment when they realize they can change the way they talk about money, behave with money, even the way they feel about money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:26]\u00a0Let\u2019s take a quick pause for a message from our sponsors.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:30]\u00a0Now back to Fernando and Anushka.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Things like eating out. How often did you eat out when you were a kid?<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:37]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Very infrequently.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. You guys probably didn\u2019t order appetizers.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:42]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No, we went to Subway.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Subway, Tuesdays, get the special deal. Yeah. Okay. So I love that when I even throw out the word appetizers, both of you just laugh. It\u2019s so absurd that kids of immigrants would ever even consider appetizers. New country, family. I get that. Is there a point at which you get to feel comfortable about ordering appetizers?<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:13]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, I think we\u2019re at that point. Actually, to be fair, I am at that point. I don\u2019t think he is at that point. We had a recent argument at a restaurant about this, actually. So to use your words, part of my Rich Life is being able to spend money on appetizers and not think twice about it. And we do that now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:36]\u00a0We do that pretty frequently now, but we were at a certain restaurant, and it was right after we had that budget conversation. We had a friend with us, and I was like, okay, well, between the three of us we\u2019re going to order these two appetizers. And he looks over at me and says, didn\u2019t you just say we need to cut down on our budget for eating out?<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:57]\u00a0We don\u2019t need appetizers, and I got like, I don\u2019t know, viscerally mad because part of my Rich Life is being able to afford the appetizers that I could not as a child. But to him, it\u2019s a small amount that\u2019s not necessary, but I know that we can afford it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:17]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It was, I think, more of just a frustration of all of the things I\u2019ve held out on getting for myself over the years, for example, video games or things that I do, where I\u2019ve told myself, you can\u2019t do that. And then understanding now that like she\u2019s at a position we\u2019re making our life to be able to order that appetizer but not necessarily having had structured it previously for me to gratify myself in that same way by buying a video game, or buying an Xbox, or whatever it is.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You guys are married, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:51]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How many years have you been married for?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:54]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Not that long. Two years.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:57]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Where do you two live right now?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:59]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0San Diego.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s a pretty expensive area.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:02]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Very expensive. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0First of all, I deeply understand the visceral nature that appetizers can present for all three of us in this room. I also can understand, Fernando, that this feeling of, how can you justify that when I can\u2019t justify this? Am I understanding both of your perspectives?<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think you hit that nail on the head.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0As married couple, the most critical thing when it comes to your money is to have a shared Rich Life vision. And in your cases, if you were both making $50,000, together, you\u2019d be having to make a lot of trade-offs. I want to do this, but we can\u2019t. I want to do that. Well, we can\u2019t. But the fact is you both make a lot more than that. To have a high savings rate and to order appetizers, you could do both. So we know it\u2019s not the numbers. It\u2019s something else.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:09]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0You know what? That\u2019s a good question. I want to save less so I can spend more.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And what would that change for your family?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:18]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think that would give my sister a lot of freedom. It would allow her to do whatever she wanted, move out or maybe get a better car, whatever it is.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Mm. You don\u2019t know?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Not 100%, but I know for a fact that she spends at least as much as I do. That annoys me that I can\u2019t help her more with that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0She work too?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:40]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, she\u2019s very successful. She\u2019s smart.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh. She make a lot of money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:45]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Relatively, she does.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:46]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, is she asking you for you to pay more?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:50]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No, I don\u2019t think she\u2019s ever done that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:54]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0But I don\u2019t want to even make her feel that she needs to be in that type of position where she needs to ask for help.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm. Okay. And what about with your relationship here, your marriage?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:07]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0When she\u2019s like, I want to go play sports and do this thing and pay whatever the fee is, or go out to eat, I\u2019m like, do it. I want to get new clothes. I\u2019m like, do it. Absolutely spend, even if it takes away from something that I\u2019d budgeted for myself, like my technology budget, or anything like that. I don\u2019t care. I would rather you live life and experience it than me having me putting myself over your habits.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:31]\u00a0When it comes to going out and eating, again, we don\u2019t go to very expensive restaurants. We\u2019ll go to like a Thai food place that we love. But similarly to me spending $30 on that, totally justifiable. That\u2019s your thing. But $10 on a video game, I get anxiety- ridden. I can\u2019t do that regardless of if I\u2019m going to pay that for hundreds of hours. It just seems like a superfluous cost.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When do you get to come into this? I hear you putting your parents first. I hear you putting your sister first, even though she hasn\u2019t asked for it, and she herself makes a lot of money. I hear you saying, Anushka, do whatever you want, even if it takes away from my technology budget. When do you get to say what you want?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:11]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Psychologically, it hurts me a lot to try and do that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:17]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It hurts you to spend because?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:20]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I just feel like I am completely wasting that money. As soon as that return period\u2019s over, I\u2019m screwed.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:25]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. Wow. That\u2019s so funny because when I buy something, I literally do not think about the return period.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:31]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Really?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:33]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0He has always been the one to tell me, yes, spend it, and I have always been the one that has questioned the spending. So it\u2019s sad to hear that he has so much anxiety over things like that. I knew it to be true, but it\u2019s sad to hear it like that.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Usually, when we see people who struggle to spend on themselves, but openly spend on others, it\u2019s women, specifically moms. I\u2019m really glad to be able to talk to Fernando today because this is quite an atypical example. What I notice and what connects with me personally is the struggle to express what he really wants.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:15]\u00a0I find that to be true in my own life and sometimes in my own relationship. I was never really taught how to connect with my emotions, how to ask for what I want. And I think that\u2019s true for a lot of\u00a0men.\u00a0Personally, when it comes to money, I don\u2019t love people who are only selfless with their money. That\u2019s because it\u2019s easy to only play one note with money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:36]\u00a0This is what you see when you have hyper frugalistas who save and save and are totally unable to spend. They actually consider it a virtue. Here, we have Fernando who can give all his money to others, but he struggles to spend it on himself. He also struggles to understand how money and investing actually work,\u00a0neither of which are part of a healthy relationship with money.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:00]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0And I do it. I try and encourage him and tell him like, logically we have the money. You don\u2019t need to feel that way. Even this year, he was saying, oh, I\u2019m going to be spending, whatever, $2,000 on a new monitor for his computer.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:14]\u00a0He\u2019s very into computers. That\u2019s one of his biggest passions. I try and help him logically think about, okay, well, yes, it\u2019s $2,000, but it\u2019s actually this much money over this many months, and also you\u2019re going to use it for this period. We have the money. You can spend it. I know that he doesn\u2019t think of it that way.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think that he\u2019s confused about the numbers?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:42]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0No. It\u2019s like the fact that he remembered that the change of Reese\u2019s price of when he was 10. That is shocking to me that he remembered when it went from 50 cents to 75 cents. It\u2019s the same thing. I think he still has this arbitrary number in his head that he can\u2019t go over, but we make so much money, so much more than his family made when he was 10.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You were roughly in seventh or eighth grade. You had to help start taking over with the family finances, Fernando, but you said something so interesting. You said, I wanted to extricate myself from the family or relieve them of having to pay for me. Fernando, that sounds like you considered yourself a burden to your family?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:33]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. From a financial perspective, I did. Coming from\u2013 I lived in like, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Canada\u2013 countries where college is pretty much paid or there\u2019s certain safety nets for you, when I finally got to junior year and I\u2019m applying to college, I\u2019m like, so dad, how much money do you have saved? It was literally one conversation. And he\u2019s like, what do you mean? I was like, how am I going to get it? He\u2019s like, you need to get a full ride. And I was like, oh, sick.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If you grew up with immigrant parents, you just get it. You get what Fernando is saying. The immigrant experience is something that cannot be replicated unless you went through it. Children of immigrants are told to work hard, harder than anyone else. I personally spent hours practicing from a bright yellow Spelling Bee book.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:16]\u00a0My Indian friend used to read a book called Rapid Math Trick, a book he even brought to college with him. This is the experience of many children of immigrants who know that they have to work incredibly hard to make it in a culture that their parents moved to and did not fully understand.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:34]\u00a0I\u2019m not even mentioning language barriers, cultural differences, how kids at school will complain your family\u2019s food smells bad or make fun of your name or skin color. Those are part of the immigrant experience in America too. I simply\u00a0want to\u00a0share that if you did not grow up as a child of immigrants, you might not realize that an entire world exists right around you, but it\u2019s real,\u00a0and Fernando knows it\u2019s real, and Anushka knows it\u2019s real, because they\u2019ve lived it, and so have I.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:03]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0In my mind, every time I go there, even when I go back to visit, I\u2019m a burden because my mom has to buy extra food for me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. And so when you go back\u2013 look at Anushka\u2019s face. She\u2019s seeing something. We\u2019ll come to you in a second, Anushka. So now when you go back, none of those purchase decisions are subject to the same level of scrutiny that you make for yourself at home. Not one.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why? Because you are still paying back your family.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:34]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve pretty much always thought that of myself. I\u2019ve understood that. I was like, in my mind, I\u2019ve been a burden, and I didn\u2019t want to be. So I want to ensure that I can do whatever I can to ensure my mom and sister are happy.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:51]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Can I say something really fast about this? So both him and his sister feel similarly about being a burden, and I think it\u2019s specifically because they feel that they are the ones that locked their mom into the life that she has as a victim of domestic violence, as a stay-at-home mom, as now a divorcee that is working a minimum-wage job. I think that they both feel that they are the ones that did that to her, and that they will spend the rest of their lives making it up to her.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, the first thing I\u2019ll say, Fernando, is I\u2019m really sorry. I\u2019m sorry you had to grow up like that. I\u2019m sorry that you had the unstable parental structure. It\u2019s hard enough to grow up as a kid, no matter where you grown up. It\u2019s doubly hard to grow up as kid of immigrant parents to add on all the additional things with your mom, your dad, domestic violence, mental illness. I\u2019m really sorry you had to go through that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:06]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Appreciate it. It happens. It\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You chose something so rare, which is you said, I\u2019m going to become the provider for this family, not for one year, not for five years, for the rest of my life. And you\u2019ve told me, I\u2019ll give them anything they ever need. I can be in the poor house, but they never will. So I\u2019m almost speechless because I hardly ever see something like this. I\u2019m moved because it\u2019s incredibly generous, and still, I want to help you live your Rich Life. I suspect that\u2019s what brings us here today.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:59]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is all a lot to take on for any one person, especially to take on alone. I wanted to mention that in most immigrant cultures, the idea of therapy is not really a concept, certainly not as popular as it is in the West.\u00a0I mentioned to Fernando that I hope he will see a therapist, and I genuinely hope he does.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:22]\u00a0Now, if we\u2019re looking at it from a 30,000-foot view, how would you describe this relationship you both have with money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:29]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0The fact that Fernando and I were able to move out by ourselves in our 20s and live in a gorgeous apartment in Detroit, the fact that we were able to still spend money on his family while we were doing that, and then on top of that we moved to one of the highest cost of living cities in the US, we have the best apartment I could possibly think of for our age.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:56]\u00a0I am quite proud of all of these things that we have accomplished. I think that in many ways we are living our Rich Life. When we discuss how we want to live, and I\u2019m talking day to day, I think we are already doing that, so in my mind, that\u2019s the freedom part that comes into it, what we\u2019ve been able to actually accomplish with our money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:18]\u00a0But then we take the 10 steps back whenever we discuss what we need to improve on, and then we have these conversations about how much are we actually spending month to month on groceries, or whatever it is.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019ve accomplished a lot. Pride. Pride in helping family, pride in where you live, pride in the way you live, all that. Pride in just doing well. And you should be proud. But when you\u2019re doing this well, oftentimes I just want it to be a little bit easier. Look at the looks on both your faces, like, yes. It was just a little easier. If we could just save a little bit more easily, if we could be just a little bit more generous with family, if we could have better conversations just a little bit more easily. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all I want. How about you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:14]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:16]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I guess I just always felt that my leading us in the ways I have in the past in terms of creating a budget, sticking to our savings goals, I am the reason, or a lot of the reason that we are able to live the life that we lead now. I\u2019ve said Fernando\u2019s so generous with everything that he does, and he very rarely tells me no. But he doesn\u2019t plan for the long term, whereas I do, so I feel like, why would I stop doing it? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If it\u2019s working and you\u2019re both happy with how it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:54]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s the part.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh yeah, that part. Let\u2019s say you had just produced destruction. Then it be easy for me. I\u2019d be like, look, is it working? You\u2019re like, nah, this sucks. I\u2019d be like, cool, let\u2019s fix it. But in this case, what you\u2019ve done has actually been very helpful, but it\u2019s also not quite serving you in the way that you want it to.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:15]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s super fair.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. And if we fast forward 15, 20, 30 years\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:20]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve seen it play out, and I think Fernando has as well. I think I wrote in the application specifically that I am very afraid of becoming my mother in controlling everything and driving my partner away. And I am very scared of Fernando becoming his mother and letting me do whatever I think is necessary, and then at the end of the day, we don\u2019t agree, and it\u2019s a huge mess of a divorce, just like what happened to our parents.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Fernando, what do you think?<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:59]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think that actually it is very enlightening to me because I didn\u2019t see myself going down that path, but that\u2019s the first time I saw it from that perspective. We have one person that really wants to control the budget and make sure everything\u2019s going well. And another person is very afraid to spend and is constantly checking to make sure that any purchasing decisions make sense. From a long-term planning perspective, it\u2019s definitely something I\u2019d let go of.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:27]\u00a0At work, I can do that, but when I come home, I turn it off, and it\u2019s just like, I just want to play video games or hang out, or whatever else, because I feel like I did that work and it caused me so much stress. But hearing you read that statement, it opened my eyes in just the most devastating way. I did not realize that is what my future could hold. That really, really surprised me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I think the two of you fit together well when you were 17, 18 years old when you got together. And I think that probably there was some discussions you both had about your family structure and things like that. But you\u2019re not the same 18-year-olds you were back then. Can you imagine going back and telling your 18-year-old selves where you\u2019re living right now?<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:20]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely not.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:22]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I talk about that all the time. It\u2019s ridiculous. I am eternally grateful for where we have ended up through sheer luck and\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And?\u00a0What else? Not just\u00a0luck.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:33]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0And work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Exactly. So both of those things. By the way, thank you for saying that. Luck played a huge role. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:39]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And hard work played a huge role. And that\u2019s that pride. And I love seeing that, that I was talking about, that I see in the two of you. But I don\u2019t think those puzzle pieces are the same today. They may have fit together at 18, shared family trauma, immigrants into the country, all that. Okay. Not only do you both change, meaning those puzzle pieces are changing shape, but the way you two fit together.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:10]\u00a0In so many relationships I talk to, they got married, and then one partner decided to embark on some type of self-development journey.\u00a0Could be losing weight, fixing finances, traveling more, whatever. The other one, understandably, might not be interested. And as one partner goes down their journey, the other becomes increasingly disconnected. And in fact, one person may see the other actively trying to prevent them from improving.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:40]\u00a0Personally, one of the key things I was looking for in a partner was someone who liked self-development, who was into improving themselves. Not only is it my business, I think that self-development allows for partners to grow and to change, which is a natural part of life.\u00a0I\u2019m thankful that my wife, Cassandra, loves self-development.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:00]\u00a0We\u2019ll be right back<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:02]\u00a0Now back to the show.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:03]\u00a0For Fernando and Anushka, what brought them together might not be the most important parts of their lives anymore. In fact, where they are today is vastly different than where they are at age 18. I\u2019m not just talking about geographically or financially. I\u2019m talking about where they are, who they are. My question is, have they taken the time to turn the page on their story?<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:26]\u00a0Have they actually sat down and surveyed how far they\u2019ve come and decided what they want the next chapter of their life to be? Almost certainly no, almost none of us do this.\u00a0Now,\u00a0to help me understand where they are today, I pulled up their numbers. Here\u2019s what they added to their conscious spending plan or CSP.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:44]\u00a0By the way, as a reminder, you can download the CSP template for free at iwt.com\/csp. Their assets, $10,000; investments, $253,000; savings, $100,000; 0 debt for a total net worth of $364,000.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:05]\u00a0What do you both think about that number?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:08]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s crazy. Sounds imaginary.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Crazy what? Crazy good, crazy bad?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:13]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s crazy good. And it\u2019s feels like it\u2019s not real. That\u2019s so much money, more money than I ever thought we would ever be able to have.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you believe that this is real?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:22]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you believe that you have access to this money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:25]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Does it make you feel good to see it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Not the investments, which is the problem. It\u2019s in a 401k that we can get Tech, Window, or Roth, or whatever else, that I can access when I retire. And in my mind, I\u2019m like, I\u2019m probably going to die before then. That\u2019s useless towards an emergency that I need to be able to access or use.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When do you think you\u2019re going to die?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:51]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably like 55 or something. Maybe in my mind, I think it was by 55, I will have had to take care of my mom and my sister and make sure they\u2019re all good. And at that point, money doesn\u2019t really mean anything to me anymore. And with Anushka, now that she\u2019s in my life, I\u2019ve put myself in a position of ensuring that she\u2019s able to also be successful and live healthy till that point. And I don\u2019t have any wants beyond that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:17]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I honestly think 55 is the age that he thinks that his mom might not be around any longer. And I think to him that means the burden is lifted and he doesn\u2019t need to, I don\u2019t know, be alive anymore. He doesn\u2019t need to provide for someone anymore, so he\u2019s good. He\u2019s done.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is a very traditional\u2013 you see this in old Indian movies. This is a Sri Lankan thing too. You\u2019re simply here to provide for everyone else, and you\u2019re not here for you. This is a thing, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:53]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s a thing.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0There\u2019s a word\u00a0for it. I don\u2019t know the word that\u2019s coming to mind, but it\u2019s like my body is not important. I\u2019m simply here to provide.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:02]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, we are Buddhist.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0There we go.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:08]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re atheists, but we are culturally Buddhist, so that is very much a part of how we were raised.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:13]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0But it\u2019s one thing if you lived in Sri Lanka and you were saying this. I could get that. But you live in San Diego. You\u2019re literally surrounded by the most western of West beliefs, and you still believe this. Right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. I\u2019m not making fun of you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:32]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No, no. I totally get it. Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m simply expressing my surprise at these beliefs which are very different than I would encounter in 99 out 100 on the street. Okay. All right, let\u2019s continue working down the numbers. Anushka, can you read your combined gross monthly income, please?<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:59]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. Combined gross monthly income is 22,500.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, so you make $270,000 a year, household income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:07]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you think of that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:11]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s good. It could be better.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You two are 31 years old, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:16]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. 30, 31. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:17]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s pretty good. How come you two have exactly the same income? That\u2019s what I want to know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:21]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0In the past couple years, so when we were in Detroit and the pandemic hit, I realized, oh, I can work from home. And so I had asked my old job if I could continue working from home, and they had said no, so then I transitioned to a new job as soon as we moved to San Diego, pretty much.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:39]\u00a0And then a year after that, I got a new job, and so I was just able to keep upping my salary in that way in a very short period of time. And I used his salary to motivate me, and now we make the exact same.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Very impressive. All right. Great. So you two are making 270k gross living in San Diego. Hey, will you do me a favor? I get a lot of people online who say things like, if you make anything less than half a million dollars in California, you\u2019re\u00a0fucking\u00a0broke, bro. Can you please tell everyone listening and watching, how\u2019s life in California on $270,000 a year? Is it good?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:21]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s fantastic.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:21]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0great.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So\u00a0many online losers do this thing where they post 15 comments about how it\u2019s impossible to get by in New York, or LA, or any big city making less than $500,000. I\u2019m like, are you aware that literally millions of people make less than $500,000 in these cities? Do you even know how much it costs to live in these places?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:42]\u00a0And then I look at their profile photo, and it\u2019s a picture of a turnip, and you realize this person lives in the middle of nowhere. They\u2019ve never been to a big city, and they\u2019re basically just repeating the same old anti big city fear mongering that all the people around them say. Ooh, big cities so full of crime.\u00a0So scary. But also you need $500,000 to live there. How am I, a multimillionaire, more in touch with people\u2019s incomes than these online turnips?<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Anushka, what\u2019s this number here, your fixed costs?<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:10]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a053%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, very good. What do y\u2019all think about that number? It\u2019s pretty good. Fernando, why are you smiling?<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:16]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s solid, but in Anushka mind, it should be lower so we can have a higher savings rate.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, well, we\u2019ll get to that. All right. 22% on your housing. Fine. I have no comments. That\u2019s a high cost of living. All right. You\u2019re renting. Great. Car payment is $430. Fine. Debt, zero. Great. Groceries\u2013 what do I care? I don\u2019t care about any. It\u2019s great. I have no comments. If you\u2019re at 53%, I have no notes. Savings. What do you say, Anushka? What number is this?<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:49]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a015%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:50]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. Actually, I\u2019ll rephrase and say I think our investments are too high.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, fine. Because you think that investing is like gambling, and you think that if you invest, you don\u2019t really have access to the money because it\u2019s in a retirement account and you\u2019re going to be dead anyway. Right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:06]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Precisely.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. All right. And then let\u2019s go down to your guilt-free spending, the last category here. What do we see here, Fernando?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:14]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a010%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is this number accurate, 1,666 per month, Anushka?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:19]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I would say so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. I\u00a0fucking\u00a0love the confidence. That\u2019s good. I believe you. I actually believe you. I hardly ever believe anyone when they come on here. It\u2019s okay. I\u2019m not expecting total precision. In this case, I believe every last number on this CSP. Well done. First of all, let\u2019s take the win. Well done. I don\u2019t see it too often. Good job. Anushka, what is your reaction here?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:42]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I feel like I just got that A on the test that I was waiting for.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If, you were looking for my approval, you have it. But I think the most important thing that you\u2019re going to realize is that your Rich Life is not about my approval. Your Rich Life is not even about your approval, Anushka. It is about the two of you coming up with a vision together and then implementing it together. So if you had to critique this CSP, because we know the things that are great about it, almost everything, what\u2019s not working?<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:23]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think from the car payment perspective, I would like to get a car at some point. Currently, the car payments actually go towards car maintenance. It\u2019s really just within the year I expect to spend several thousand on fixing up my car and keeping it in the best shape because I very much value my car. I always looked at it as something I could sell if I needed to and make sure my family was good. That was the entire reason I purchased it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:46]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What the\u00a0fuck?\u00a0What? Why are we talking about having a car as a backup asset? No. Fernando, you realize you\u2019re not 14 years old debating on the 65-cent Reese\u2019s Pieces.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:03]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s how I\u2019ve always looked at it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you want to keep doing that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:07]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Because I\u2019m sitting here looking at a total net worth from a young couple of $364,000, and I just spent five minutes telling you all the things that are amazing. It\u2019s one of the best CSPs I\u2019ve seen in any of my conversations on this podcast. And I asked, what would you do to change it, and your first comment was, I want to maintain my car because if I need to I could sell it. Do you see what you\u2019re doing here?<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:36]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m still looking at everything from a money scarcity perspective.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, you\u2019re playing defense, and you\u2019re going to play defense the rest of your life. You make $11,250 a month? We\u2019re operating at a different level here. Vacation currently is 500 bucks a month. That\u2019s 6,000 bucks a year. Are you taking $6,000 a year of vacations?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:03]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0We are currently not.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Two young successful people making $270,000 a year, yeah, you can\u2019t take a vacation right now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:10]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0We have not.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Maybe one day you\u2019ll be financially successful enough to take a vacation. What do you say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:20]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Hopefully. I think that\u2019s what I really need to better understand about myself and get, is that doing some things or spending towards larger spending goals that I had always aspired to get. For example, I\u2019ve always loved driving, and having a dream car has always been something I wanted to do, but as I\u2019ve gotten older, it\u2019s become harder and harder for me to rationalize it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s the car you want to get one day?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:46]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I told Anushka before. I was like, we can either move to San Diego, or I could get a CT5 Black Wing, which is a 105,000-dollar car.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What brand is that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:55]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Cadillac.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Fine. And then she said, well, we can actually get it. We just need to plan for it. And your reaction was?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:04]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0No, thanks.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Exactly. Because that would be 105k that could go to your family. Right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:08]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:09]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So this zero-sum perspective. You\u2019ve heard about this phrase, zero-sum?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:15]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So if I get this, somebody else loses. Okay. You could go through life with that perspective. It\u2019s actually very convenient for Anushka because she goes, well, this makes zero-based budgeting really easy for me. Fantastic. I know where the 105k goes. Beautiful.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:33]\u00a0Anushka, what is your critique? I\u2019m going to put this up on screen here. What would you critique if you had to? She\u2019s like, critique? This is my\u00a0fucking\u00a0masterpiece. What are you talking about?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:51]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Oh no, I know where she\u2019s going to go.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0She looks so confused. What does this word mean? How can you critique this?<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:00]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Fernando doesn\u2019t have a company-sponsored 401k plan, which is why I want him to do the post tax retirement savings and the stocks a little bit more than I do because I get to contribute to my employer-sponsored 401k. So I would want him to invest more money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What each of you told me you would change here probably won\u2019t actually make you feel better or bring you closer together. Anushka, you look surprised?<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:36]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, it might make me feel better for a little bit, but then we\u2019d get into more arguments.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Do you know why you\u2019d get into more arguments?<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:48]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Because that\u2019s not really a compromise. That\u2019s just me getting my way.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Which is common. I saw that in your screening interview. You both debate this or that, and then oftentimes you get your way, right? Fair?<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:01]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, fair.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0More importantly, when you invest more money, I know you see it with compound interest, and rule of 72, and SWR, and all kinds of these terms. I get that. But he doesn\u2019t see it that way. In fact, do you know how Fernando would see you taking an extra $25,000 and investing money? How would he see that? Describe it in a word.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:30]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Apparently it\u2019s gambling.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Gambling is one. Loss. That money\u2019s being taken away from you. Right, Fernando?<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:41]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0100%. I could have been driving my dream car years ago, but instead it\u2019s going into my retirement. Hopefully I live that long.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You put quotes around retirement as if it\u2019s not a real word. That\u2019s a real word. Retirement is real.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:56]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. Yes, it is real. I find money, in a sense, it\u2019s clich\u00e9 to say, but it\u2019s almost like the root of all evil. There\u2019s so much bad that can happen because of money and there is so much waste because of money. I don\u2019t want to be that guy in a mad car when I\u2019m old because there\u2019s poor people. I don\u2019t like that type of overspending.<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:19]\u00a0That\u2019s one of the things I fight with. Coming from where I have, having lived in many other places, there\u2019s a lot of issues I have with the way that America is set up financially for its citizens. We don\u2019t provide enough in terms of safety nets for old people. It breaks my heart every time I go to a store and I see someone 70 years old working, like an old grandma. I\u2019m like, ma\u2019am, you should not be here. You need to be living your life outside.<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I agree with you, but if you get something, you believe it means someone else cannot, and you don\u2019t want to live in a world where you have something that somebody else does not. Is that fair?<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:02]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. That\u2019s not what I was brought up on.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Meanwhile, Anushka is saying like, I don\u2019t want to end up having to work at Walmart at age 78, and that is why I want you to open up an IRA, and I want to fund it. Right, Anushka?<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:22]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Two ways of looking at money.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:26]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0You brought it up in such an interesting way, especially looking at this and realizing that we were both hitting the exact same thing from completely different angles of me saying, well, I would take away from investments, and from Anushka perspective, she\u2019s like, well, I want to add to investments.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:38]\u00a0And the amount we would be adding or subtracting is some of my dream. That could be the car payment that I could be having if I wanted to live that type of life. It is completely funded by taking away from that specific category.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:53]\u00a0Here\u2019s what I see happening here. Fernando and Anushka have vastly different perspectives on money. I\u2019m talking completely different. She wants to invest aggressively. She has a need for control. She wants more. He thinks investing is gambling. He should give all of his money to his family.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:14]\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0going to\u00a0die at 55. Oh, and also, he wants $105,000 Cadillac. It\u2019s not a very coherent viewpoint, but guess what? Most of us have incoherent viewpoints about money, so I don\u2019t mind. The question that faces us now is, what would they change with their CSP? Asking a couple to critique their own spending,\u00a0not CSP, but spending is basically pointless\u00a0because\u00a0they\u2019ll all say the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:39]\u00a0Well, we should try to eat out less. The average person has no idea where they\u2019re spending money. They have no idea how their spending is related to their savings rate, which is related to their investments, which if you calculate based on a 7% return\u2013 you see what I mean?<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:52]\u00a0Asking the average person to critique their own spending is like asking a golden retriever to critique their exercise regimen. It\u2019s just pointless. But here, we have a couple that has a CSP, and at least one partner deeply understands the numbers. They could invest more. They could invest less. In their critique, they could put more towards a vacation.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:15]\u00a0There are so many things they could do, but when I asked the question, I\u2019m getting nowhere. So I decided to take a different approach, and when I did, suddenly I stumbled into something fascinating from Fernando.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:30]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s more of a mental shift I need to have because I know I don\u2019t have a healthy and realistic perspective on investments in America.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much of it do you think your perspective on investing in America is based around fear?<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:43]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, 100%<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve been hearing this since I started my site in 2004. I would get commenters particularly around \u201908, \u201909, saying, investing is dead. It\u2019s never going to last. Things are different now. And if you basically started investing the day my book came out, March, 2009, you would\u2019ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. You\u2019d be doing extremely well. They didn\u2019t understand how investments work. They didn\u2019t understand the literature.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:17]\u00a0They didn\u2019t understand that 7% returns have persisted through wars, and recessions, and inflation. They simply felt this fear viscerally, and they decided not to invest, and it cost them probably millions of dollars over their lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:33]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Funny, because you saying that actually I think helped it click in my mind in a way that Anushka saying it to me over the last decade has not in that, like, I do have that visceral fear and in my mind, the future is uncertain. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen to this election. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen, etc.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:57]\u00a0What I was telling her, and she\u2019s very well educated on this, is more on\u2013 I\u2019m listening to like NPR politics or whatever else, and they\u2019re like, hey, we\u2019re coming close to the fiscal cliff every few months now. A few years ago, the US\u2019s credit rating was downgraded for the first time ever.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:14]\u00a0And that increased our interest on bonds and things like that. I\u2019m like, we don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening in the political system, and things could get shaky. I don\u2019t know what that means in terms of investing, but what I know is I\u2019m putting money into a system that could potentially be screwing me in the future.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:30]\u00a0And I\u2019d rather use that money now to live and do things than put it into the system that I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow. But to your point, and I think you made it really well, if someone had invested that money in 2009 when I was getting traumatized by the financial market, it would be a completely different lifestyle.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:52]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0But when I tell him that investing in our market will still get us returns, and that has been proven over the long term, he brings up the point that some of the things that we are facing today we\u2019ve never experienced before.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:25]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh. That\u2019s like code for, this time it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:28]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I want someone else to talk to him about this because I don\u2019t listen to the news every single day so maybe I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Well, let\u2019s talk about it. So what is your alternative, Fernando? If you genuinely believe that there\u2019s going to be some type of fiscal cliff or something\u2019s going to go wrong, what is your alternative?<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:49]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It would be spending it now and living more opulent life, for lack of a better term, than saving for an arbitrary future.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If we have money, we better spend it fast because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming around tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:04]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Look at Anushka\u2019s face. Yeah, both. Okay. Yeah. Well, guess what? Good news, if you want to spend a little bit more money today, you can. That\u2019s not a problem. You want to live a more opulent life\u2013 your guilt-free spending is 10%.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:22]\u00a0So if you want to live a little bit more opulent, we can make that happen. No problem. What I\u2019m really hearing you say is, I don\u2019t fundamentally believe in this investment stuff. I want to spend it without having to think, or send it to my family, or whatever, because sooner rather than later, this whole game is over. None of this stuff really matters.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:47]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I think a bit. To be frank, watching what happened during January 6th scared the crap out of me as an immigrant. We stopped that day working. I pulled her off our meeting and we sat there, and then as an immigrant, I remember thinking our parents struggled to get here, and I\u2019m watching it burn, and now people are covering up what happened?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:11]\u00a0And they\u2019re like, it wasn\u2019t that bad. And I\u2019m like, this is how it starts. This is how it happens. I watched it happen everywhere else. And so in my mind, I\u2019m like, we are steps away. We are steps away from it happening again. And if that does happen and we do lose everything, what do I have at the end of the day?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you have?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:32]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0The few dollars in my savings account.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, let\u2019s just play that out. You get on the next plane to somewhere. What do you have? It\u2019s not a few dollars in your savings account. What I currently see is you have $364,000 of net worth. That\u2019s liquid cash. That\u2019s a lot of money.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:53]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I guess in my mind, I think that\u2019s fundamentally a misunderstanding of what does it mean to have something in an investment account versus savings. For example, a Roth or a 401k that\u2019s invested in the stock market, if that goes down similar to 2008, it would be a 20, 30% reduction. Maybe it wasn\u2019t even that large. I apologize. Whatever percentage reduction in value. And really, the only thing I\u2019d quickly take out would be by savings.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why? You can sell your stocks that day. How much of this do you really know?<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:24]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Investments, very little, admittedly.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0While I\u2019m not trying to dismiss your fears, if you have a belief something\u2019s going to happen, I think you should get educated about it. I think you should have a plan for it. Yes, I\u2019m all for that. But you just said two things that are factual things. You can check in two minutes.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:42]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. This is actually very true.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is it possible that you are using what is going on politically as yet another way to avoid money?<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:52]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think so. I think that\u2019s a really good point. And phrasing it as like, you could get very quickly educated on these things, I\u2019m like, yeah, you\u2019re not wrong. This is something I could very quickly just read up on and understand, but every time it comes up, I\u2019m like, break it down for me. I just feel like, what does this mean? Because I don\u2019t want to even spend that 15 minutes to do it.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Why?<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:12]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Because it feels scary. It still really feels like really nerve wracking to think of putting my head back in that space.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:19]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. Fernando\u2019s agreeing with me just a little too easily. What I\u2019m saying should theoretically rock him at his core because it directly contradicts an entire narrative that he\u2019s created and held for decades\u2013 the narrative that money is evil, that geopolitics mean the end of our economy, that he should just spend all of his money. And with one sentence, I point out the logical flaw, and suddenly he goes, I think that\u2019s a really good point.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:51]\u00a0I\u2019m just not buying. Nobody changes an entire logical apparatus that fast. What I can tell is that Fernando has created a story to make sense of a world that\u2019s not in his control. He doesn\u2019t really have any proof. In fact, Anushka has actually tried to show him proof of just the opposite.<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:10]\u00a0But as humans, we love our stories, and stories\u00a0trump proof almost every day. The problem here, of course, is that his story is costing him. It\u2019s costing him satisfaction in his relationship. It\u2019s costing him a financial future. It\u2019s even costing him the ability to spend more money today.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:31]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s helping me confront my understanding that I was struggling with thinking I could be back in that place as that eighth grader looking at money and being like, we don\u2019t have enough. But looking at it, looking at this plan with you, and honestly you say like, this is an amazing plan, is wild to me.<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:48]\u00a0We came from almost nothing, the two of us. To realize like I\u2019ve done so little to help her is\u2013 and I love learning. The fact that I\u2019ve frigging read up on how these things work when it would take seconds is shocking to me.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think your mom would want you to feel bad about money for your whole life?<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:09]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely not. That\u2019s something she tells me all the time.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:13]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Providers inevitably want to smooth over things for everyone around them. They often want to provide reassurance instead of clarity. It\u2019s going to be okay. You\u2019ve been doing that since you were, what, five years old?<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:34]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, older, but yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. Pretty young. Long time ago. How come you don\u2019t do that for your wife when it comes to money?<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:44]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Because she takes care of me.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:46]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. Like her mom.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:48]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0He takes care of me in every other way. We\u2019ve talked about how he\u2019s generous. When he said that he doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s helping me in this, I don\u2019t fault him in any way. This is the role that I\u2019ve also stepped up to do because he does so much else in our lives. I don\u2019t step foot in the kitchen because he does all of that, and he\u2019s great at it, and he loves doing that for us. And he provides a lot of mental stability that I need and I didn\u2019t have at home. He\u2019s so generous in every way, not just financially.<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0The reason that this is so important is that if the two of you cannot come to a shared vision on money, including investments, saving, spending, family, the big stuff, if you can\u2019t come to an agreement on that, you will constantly be perpetuating the pattern that you currently have. Do you see how the way that you have both entrenched your views of money make it very difficult for the two of you to come together?<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:58]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s a good point. I think realizing now that I have the ability to take control of that aspect of my life, which previously I thought, well, every time you plan something, someone else is going to change it. You have no control. Now I realize, no, I do.<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Anushka, by you taking over the finances, you\u2019re doing two things. Number one, you are fulfilling the same role that your mom did, and number two, you have set the expectation that you are the money person, and he is what?<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:38]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh.<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0He\u2019s the avoider, and he\u2019s also the worrier. So he worries and worries and has all these thoughts that are in the clouds about what\u2019s happening in politics, and will we be able to access our money? But he avoids talking about it, learning about it, engaging with money, and you, who have helpfully co-created this dynamic, it\u2019s always two. It\u2019s never just one. You say, oh, it sounds good. I will prepare the documents for next month.<\/p>\n<p>[01:14:08]\u00a0And that pattern actually works. It works enough that, yeah, you get in minor arguments here and there. It works except for the end of the year when you get in fights, and what else? When does it not work? Look at this amount that you\u2019re investing every month. What does it say, Anushka?<\/p>\n<p>[01:14:26]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0$3,625.<\/p>\n<p>[01:14:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. And so right now you have $253,000 invested. You\u2019re going to have tens of thousands of dollars being invested every single year. That number\u2019s going to be 500,000 soon, 600, 700, 800, a million, 2 million, 5 million. What do you think is going to happen when you have $3 million in the bank and you\u2019re arguing over had Thai for $15 at the Thai place?<\/p>\n<p>[01:14:55]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I feel like I would be. We wouldn\u2019t have as much to worry about. I don\u2019t know. We\u2019d have more to fall back on.<\/p>\n<p>[01:15:04]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0This is that one part in all of the discussions that I\u2019ve watched where, you say this, and I\u2019m watching it, and I\u2019m like, of course. Come on, guys, how are you not seeing this? But I just realized like, oh\u00a0shit, it\u2019s us.<\/p>\n<p>[01:15:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Finish the sentence. What do you see?<\/p>\n<p>[01:15:20]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve always thought your first million is easy, 10 million is hard, making those investments, getting to those points. And I don\u2019t see us stopping at that point. I don\u2019t think we\u2019d ever feel comfortable buying appetizers, regardless of us having 10 million investments or whatever else because it doesn\u2019t feel real to say that we had that much money because of this whole perspective we\u2019ve had up until now of looking at this cash and be like, no, we don\u2019t have enough, and it\u2019s never going to feel enough. And I think that\u2019s what this has helped me realize.<\/p>\n<p>[01:15:53]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0So when I say we need to invest more, because I want us to live a bigger life and I want us to save more because I want us to be able to afford, I don\u2019t know, the beautiful bigger apartment or the beautiful house someday, and I want us to be able to donate more money than we are.<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:10]\u00a0And in reality, our goals align because I know he also wants to live a bigger life in the future, but it\u2019s like, I don\u2019t know, the day to day. When we say that 53% of fixed cost is too little, in my head, it doesn\u2019t make sense still. I\u2019m trying to get there.<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s talk about it. I don\u2019t think your goals are aligned. I think that this is something that every couple tells me. Let me just read what you wrote on your application. I\u2019m not sure I have many years left to have the same conversations over and over again.<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:44]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I wrote that on a very low point.<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is it accurate?<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:50]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0At that point, it was. At my lowest, yes, it\u2019s accurate<\/p>\n<p>[01:16:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you think the real problem is here, Anushka? It\u2019s not a percentage problem. That\u2019s a math problem. That\u2019s easy.<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:00]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Fernando, what\u2019s the real problem here?<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:02]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think actually it actually is a percentage problem in the cleanest sense in that she has a number that she thinks we have to hit to be saving the correct amount. And then that leads to us as we gain more and more monthly income, shoving way more into savings and way more into investing.<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:24]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why does she think that she needs to save and invest a certain amount? Have you ever asked her?<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:29]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think I have, and correct me if I\u2019m wrong here, and I feel like my understanding is that\u2019s what the stock template of saving percentages should be to your income<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:40]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0It is in terms of like, okay, we stick to a range of percentages for saving and investing, but it\u2019s more of like, I don\u2019t know. I guess I realized this about myself a couple days ago. I am trying to\u2013 both of our parents wanted us to go to med school.<\/p>\n<p>[01:17:58]\u00a0Obviously we\u2019re brown. And we were both on that track. And we both, because of our own reasons fell away from that. And since then, my parents have never thought I was successful. And I want to prove it to everybody and myself that I will be successful and more successful than anyone ever thought. I want to prove everybody wrong.<\/p>\n<p>[01:18:25]\u00a0And I think part of that for me is my net worth and living the lifestyle that we live and being able to shove it in my mom\u2019s face to be like, I told you I\u2019d still make it.<\/p>\n<p>[01:18:41]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s honest. I appreciate the candor. Anushka, I really do.<\/p>\n<p>[01:18:45]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I never realized that. That was so enlightening. I\u2019m not even kidding. I genuinely didn\u2019t realize wanting to be perceived by your family as being successful was such a driver to her. And that helps me understand so much why she\u2019s so rigid on investing as I am rigid on sending money back to my family, which she supports, to be clear.<\/p>\n<p>[01:19:09]\u00a0It\u2019s like, you have to. The reason we had that large argument is because my investment percentage, I think, was 15%. It was like, you\u2019re just taking my money where you want to put it. But now I have an understanding of, okay, this is something that was core to her and her view image of herself, and that helps me understand why those arguments got so heated.<\/p>\n<p>[01:19:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Anushka, you just shared something pretty candid. Did you realize it before today?<\/p>\n<p>[01:19:39]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I like started to think about it before this conversation, to be quite honest. Why am I so driven by the numbers, the percentages? I was just trying to figure that out by myself. Why it meant so much to me that when he didn\u2019t agree that our investments had to be at 25% why it made me so mad.<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That same anger you felt when he questioned you wanting to get an appetizer. It\u2019s not about the appetizer. It\u2019s about what it represents. So now that you\u2019ve articulated it out loud, maybe for the first time, I want to invest a lot of money, so that?<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:23]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I look successful to my parents. That sounds so ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, sometimes the biggest truths do, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that they feel real to us. So can I ask you a couple questions about success? Are you successful?<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:44]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m going to ask it again. Are you successful?<\/p>\n<p>[01:20:50]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I know that I am, but I have a long way to go. Well, I would feel successful if I was doing something that I truly enjoyed and I was making good money from it.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. What\u2019s going through your head right now?<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:10]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yikes. Calling me like that. That\u2019s what\u2019s going through my head. I guess it\u2019s the whole thing that my self-worth is tied to a number.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And if you don\u2019t max it out, that means?<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:24]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m worthless.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:25]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So like your feelings would just change overnight one day when you had a different job, or a business, or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:36]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0And if I had a million dollars in the bank. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You want to model it out right now?<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:42]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Kind of.<\/p>\n<p>[01:21:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. All right. Let\u2019s do it. Let\u2019s pick some basic numbers here. And I\u2019m going to ask you, Anushka, to give me, what numbers we should use. I know you have these at your fingertips, so it should not be a problem, but let\u2019s take a look here. All right. So your current principle of investment is what, 250,000 bucks?<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:01]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much are you currently adding?<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:06]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a043, something like that.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a043,500. And let\u2019s say you\u2019re going to let it grow for 35 more years. Fair?<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:18]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:19]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. And at 7%. So right now, this is what you currently have if you never got a raise, even though you\u2019re at the beginning of your career. Read that number out, please, Anushka.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:28]\u00a0$9,103,380 and 87 cents.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s going to be enough to get the mango with sticky rice when we\u2019re at the Thai restaurant. What do you guys think? 10 million before you can get a dessert? How much do you need?<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:44]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0So we\u2019ll have 9 million in 30 years. That\u2019s what we said.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Correct.<\/p>\n<p>[01:22:52]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I guess I want to be living a bigger life before then.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is where I stepped in to make a quick suggestion. See, they\u2019ve already accumulated a lot of money. They continue to invest aggressively. What if they kept investing but they cut their investment contributions by half? What would happen? And what I really\u00a0want to\u00a0know is, what would they do with the extra tens of thousands of dollars that they could spend now?<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:24]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s say instead of 43,500, we cut that by half.<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:30]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Whoa, everybody freaking out here. 21, 750 a year. All right, here we go. Instead of 9.1 million, oh my gosh, it\u2019s only going to be 5.88 million.<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:45]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s good. I think it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p>[01:23:49]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s good. It\u2019s probably the understatement of the century. In the long run it was beneficial to have taken it out, and $20,000 more a year potentially in what we could be doing now, I could not even imagine.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:24:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I really enjoyed speaking to Fernando and Anushka. You don\u2019t hear stories like this very often, and I really love that they were so candid in sharing their childhood, their finances, how they feel about money.\u00a0Sometimes even when it may seem irrational, we\u2019re all irrational. Let\u2019s see what Fernando had to say in his follow-up.<\/p>\n<p>[01:24:25]\u00a0<strong>Fernando:<\/strong>\u00a0Honestly, it\u2019s wild to say this, but I had not realized how successful the two of us had become over the last few years and how much that\u2019s impacted both our savings as well as our lifestyle and the financial scarcity perspective that I had in my head.<\/p>\n<p>[01:24:39]\u00a0I think that also goes to the point that you identified about therapy. So it was extremely interesting to hear you say that the CSP that really Anushka has set up for us through her budgeting and planning has been one of the best that you\u2019ve seen, and that we could cut our retirement in half and still be in a great place. That\u2019s really crazy.<\/p>\n<p>[01:24:58]\u00a0We are going to be taking 1,000 out of our retirement account monthly to now allocate more towards my family, 300 more towards a dream car, and some more money for us to do activities and live life here in San Diego and be happy now, as you were saying like, living your Rich Life today and prioritizing that.<\/p>\n<p>[01:25:16]\u00a0The other thing is the fact I need therapy, she needs therapy, we need therapy, and how much that\u2019s really affected how we\u2019re living our life day to day, where we\u2019re putting our money, and what we need to do to be happy.<\/p>\n<p>[01:25:32]\u00a0And beyond that, really, the fact that I\u2019m not financially educated, it\u2019s really holding back my relationship with my partner and causing her undue stress. I will be looking to get better read up on that, better understanding of financial responsibilities, personal finance, retirements, savings, all of that, so that I can be more of a partner when it comes to planning our next five and 10years again together.<\/p>\n<p>[01:25:57]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And now Anushka\u2019s follow-up.<\/p>\n<p>[01:25:59]\u00a0<strong>Anushka:<\/strong>\u00a0One of my biggest takeaways from our conversation was that I truly thought we were doing the bare minimum when it came to saving and investing, and you showed me how that was not the truth and that I was actually over saving and over investing and it was directly leading to my partner\u2019s anxiety and fear of not having enough money and that I really need to work on cutting back in those areas.<\/p>\n<p>[01:26:24]\u00a0One of the biggest surprises was that I really thought I was logical when it came to money talks, and turns out I\u2019m just as emotional as any other human being. I want to work on that in therapy, for sure. I want to be more logical when it comes to my saving and investing goals.<\/p>\n<p>[01:26:43]\u00a0I\u2019m also getting a raise and a bonus coming up shortly. I know we didn\u2019t really discuss that, but I want to put at least 75% of that towards our guilt-free spending as well. So that\u2019s a big goal of mine. And then in the long term, when we continue getting raises and bonuses, I want to try to hit that 75% mark of putting most of that towards our guilt-free spending as well because I know that we are saving and investing a perfectly good amount right now that will set us up for the future. So therapy will help me feel more secure and help redefine what I call success. So thank you so much again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando and Anushka, 30 and 31, live in San Diego and earn high incomes\u2014matching $135,000 salaries, in fact. They have healthy investment and savings rates, send money to his family back home, and rent a nice apartment. They\u2019re living their Rich Lives, or are they? This episode is brought to you by: Hatch | A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"class_list":["post-118914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast-episodes"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"modified_by":"Nasrin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}