{"id":118916,"date":"2024-04-02T12:54:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T16:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/?p=118916"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:32:23","slug":"149-elizabeth-jonathan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/149-elizabeth-jonathan\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 149. \u201cWe have no savings but bought our kid a $500 toy for Christmas\u201d (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"\u201cWe have no savings\u2026but bought our kid a $500 toy\u201d\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C2HYVNkfyqg\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border-radius: 12px;\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/5q1Hlx5wbui8XmVyZcybsf?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth and Jonathan are in their mid-thirties, have been married for 13 years, and share a young daughter. They bought a starter home after getting married, but expensive renovations are still underway. They struggle with debt and spend a lot on their child. They\u2019re wondering\u2014is this it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>This episode is brought to you by:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Viator | Download the Viator app and use code VIATOR10 for 10% off your first travel experience with Viator.<\/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<p>Facet | Get affordable, accessible financial planning with a flat fee membership. For a limited time, the $250 enrollment fee will be waived when you sign up at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/facet.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/facet.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>.<\/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>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<h2><strong>Links mentioned in this episode<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/150-elizabeth-jonathan\">\u201cWe\u2019re broke, but I spend $350\/mo on clothes\u201d (Part 2)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Show Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[00:00:05]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re still in the same house that we bought when we first got married. It was supposed to be a starter house, and here we are 13 years later, still in the same house, still in the middle of renovating it. I thought we would be done with renovations. I thought we would be not living paycheck to paycheck.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:23]\u00a0We couldn\u2019t save $1,000, which is pathetic, but we needed the money. I would save $100, and something would come up or $50, and something else would come up again. We could never get past that step<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:37]\u00a0I\u2019ve failed our, I don\u2019t want to say our marriage, but I\u2019ve failed to provide us a life that we deserve. Technically we\u2019ve made it. We\u2019re making way more than we made when we first got married. But still in the same place that we were 13 years ago, but worse.<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Meet Elizabeth and\u00a0Jon. They\u2019re in their mid 30s. They\u2019ve married for 13 years with an 8-year-old daughter, and they spend way too much.\u00a0They\u2019re stuck. They\u2019re in debt. They admit to being impulsive with their money, but they can\u2019t figure out what to do to make a change.<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:18]\u00a0They told me in their application that they have a 10 out of 10 problem and that within one year they\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0reach a breaking point. But when I talk to them, I\u2019m surprised at how casual they sound about the severity of their situation.<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:36]\u00a0\u00a0Listen in as you meet Elizabeth and\u00a0Jon.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:39]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0For me, Christmas is a huge thing. We\u2019re huge on giving gifts. We\u2019re huge on family. We\u2019re huge on food. And usually, Christmas is the time where we are overly strapped. We overspend. We want to give the best gifts for our daughter. She\u2019s our only child. She\u2019s obviously very special to us. She\u2019s our miracle baby, so we like to spoil her. We like to give her everything she\u2019s asking for. That usually requires us borrowing against every little thing we can possibly borrow against.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Like what?<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:16]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019ve used the prepay apps like Klarna and Sezzle. There\u2019s a whole bunch of them where you pay in increments, like your credit card, but not really. You\u2019re still charged interest rate, and it\u2019s like payments in four or payments in six months. So I used those apps basically to fund our Christmas this year.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What did you get your daughter for gifts?<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:44]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Her big gift was a ride on pony. it was like $500. So for us, that was a huge spend.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wait a minute. This is one ride on a pony?<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:56]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No, no, sorry. It is a toy. You ride on it, like a hoverboard and a pony put together.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How big is a 500-dollar pony hoverboard?<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:10]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s pretty big. It lives in our living room right now. There\u2019s no place to put it, so yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:15]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Like any kid, she had a big list, and we could have bought her any number of other things off of it, and she\u2019d have been just as happy about it than the pony. When I asked about did we really need to spend $500 on a pony, it was, I\u2019ll make it work. And I felt pushed aside because what I said just didn\u2019t seem to matter.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you decide the financial part of that purchase? Did you say, oh, this is how much we can afford, or was it more like, she wants this, and so we\u2019re going to find a way to get her that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:59]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0More that, yes. More I will find a way. I will make it work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you make it work?<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:06]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0By borrowing against money that I didn\u2019t have. Yeah. Once January rolled around, the payments started coming in, and once those payments started hitting, I realized we couldn\u2019t afford those payments, utilities, house payments, car payments, all of that in one month.<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:24]\u00a0So then I have a nice little system where I\u2019ll pay this this month, not that, and then catch up when I can, wherever I can save a few bucks. So I have this wonderful\u2013 I\u2019ll show you\u2013 little diary that I write everything down within a two-week period that our paycheck covers, the bills that are due within those two weeks. And I just keep track and hopefully by the\u2013 right now we\u2019re $200 away from paying off Christmas, and it\u2019s February<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If you were to describe how that notepad makes you feel, what words would you use?<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:07]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, anxious, for sure, sad because I have to use it. I would say doubly sad because it\u2019s been going on for so long. We started this when we got married, and I haven\u2019t seen the end of it. I thought this was going to be a stop gap for when we started making more money, because when we first got married, we were dirt poor. We were making minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:36]\u00a0We had just bought a house. We just paid for the wedding out of pocket. Between the two of us making no money, we couldn\u2019t afford to go on a honeymoon. We couldn\u2019t afford to take vacation days. Married young and poor, so I thought, surely, by the time we get to our 30s, things would be great. And obviously it\u2019s continued on and on. And here we are in our late 30s. It\u2019s the same process.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Jon, what do you think hearing Elizabeth describe the notebook and how she manages one account to another every single month?<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:14]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s a bit chaotic to me. I\u2019ve always been the more structured person. I may not pay the bill on time, but it\u2019s getting paid this month. I would give up luxuries or other things to make sure like the electric bill, or the gas bill, or the house payment was paid.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:34]\u00a0It makes me sad to see how much that book just beats her down because there\u2019s times in the book where it\u2019ll look like we\u2019re going to finally start to outpace it and get ahead. But then life in its funny way comes up and kicks dirt in your eye. And we\u2019ve gotten just about there to start outpacing it, and then we fall back into where we were at and fall right back into the rut.<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What is your role in the finances in your family?<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:10]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Moral support. I started out with being the one paying the bills because of the way that I handled money. Our spending tendencies started to get away from us, and it started to frustrate me, and so we started to split the bills.<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:33]\u00a0We started to fall into the position then where we would get paid and one of us would pay all of our bills because we got paid, but then the other person didn\u2019t have money to pay their bills that were due because we weren\u2019t really talking about who needed to pay what and when. Our communication was just non-existent about what needed to be paid when. Elizabeth said, I\u2019ll take it all. Just give it to me. I will start doing it. And that\u2019s when the book started.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a010, 12 years ago. Is that correct?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:06]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:07]\u00a0Jonathan:\u00a0Yeah, probably about 10, 12 years ago. I\u2019d ask questions. If we were going to go do something, I would say, hey, are you sure we have money to go do this?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What would she say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:16]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0The phrase that I feared the most, I\u2019ll make it work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:19]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0He doesn\u2019t see the numbers every day. I wake up and check everything every day.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. I\u2019ll make it work. And when did you stop asking that question, Jon?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:30]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I never stopped asking.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you ask it about the pony?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:34]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. What\u2019d she say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:36]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll make it work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is she making it work?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:43]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Are you making it work?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:48]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re still here, but no.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0The big clue here is a lot of chaos, chaos in the way that she manages money, chaos in the way that they make decisions about money. Even physical chaos in having a huge toy pony in the middle of their living room. When you think of your money, it\u2019s very common for people to say overwhelmed or reactive, both of which are trouble signs.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:14]\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019d like for you to think about something in your life where you\u2019re really good at. It might be your workouts, your cooking, your job. How would you describe yourself? Maybe confident, maybe competent, maybe calm, relaxed. When it comes to your money,\u00a0think about the way that you describe yourself today and think about what you might like to describe yourself as.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0For me, the ideal words with money might be calm, cool, collected, present, safe, future-focused, even indulgent, luxurious, and prudent. You choose, but I want you to notice what it sounds like to be in control of your money.\u00a0It\u2019s not this,<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:57]\u00a0We\u2019ll be right back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:59]\u00a0Now back to Elizabeth and\u00a0Jon.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:01]\u00a0I don\u2019t have any guidelines in the way that I do the finance, I guess. I don\u2019t have any guardrails. Whatever I can make work, I can make work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you mean make work, though? It\u2019s not working.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:14]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s not working, no, but whatever I can pay with the money I have, I pay. And if I don\u2019t have the money, I borrow.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:22]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So can you say that to me in a complete sentence? Because it\u2019s not working, and it\u2019s not the money you have. So how do you decide if you\u2019re going to buy something?<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:31]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Complete impulse. It\u2019s, I want it, I buy it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:36]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Now we can work with that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:39]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Are you in a better or worse financial situation than when you first got married?<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:45]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Worse.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because?<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:49]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re in debt.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What was the first thing you got into debt for?<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:53]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0House, and then car, or truck, I should say. I know your feelings on trucks.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What are my feelings on trucks?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:05]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s just an F-150. It\u2019s an F-150.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. You need it. You need that. You need it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:11]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0it was used. It was used. We didn\u2019t pay full price.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:15]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Uh-huh.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:16]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0But at the time we probably couldn\u2019t afford the car payments anyways, but we needed a second vehicle, and that\u2019s what he picked.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:24]\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I needed the four-wheel drive.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:28]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I work in maintenance at a retirement community, and I need to be able\u2013 it was during the winter. If we get a lot of snow around here, I still need to be able to get into the facility to clear the parking lot and stuff like that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:45]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I will give him the benefit of the doubt here. When other people are snowbound, it is his responsibility to go out and pick them up.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because of his job?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:56]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Because of his job, yes. That it falls on the maintenance crew to go collect people when they\u2019re stuck.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Does the company pay for that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:07]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No. On company time.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:11]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:12]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0But they don\u2019t pay for the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:13]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0What if he just told them like, I have a little car. What would they say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:16]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s a good question.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:18]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s never really come up.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It never occurred to you, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:23]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:23]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:24]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I need to cut in here. That was a major, major clue. Did you catch it? Elizabeth and Jonathan just calmly told me that he needed a truck, which they admit he couldn\u2019t afford because he has to clean the roads and pick up stranded people at work. But it literally never occurred to them that their job\u00a0should pay for this.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:46]\u00a0This is very common among people who grew up poor or work in low-wage industries. Basically, jobs where employees don\u2019t have a lot of power. The invisible script\u00a0here is the job tells me what to do, and I do it. That is the power dynamic.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:03]\u00a0But in industries where employees have a lot of power and among communities where there\u2019s a lot of agency, this would never happen. For example, if this interview were held in San Mateo and I were interviewing for the job, I would literally say, well, I expect you\u2019ll be providing a work vehicle, and they would.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:23]\u00a0\u00a0Already, we can see how they view the world,\u00a0profoundly differently. There\u2019s a lot of passivity, a lot of accepting that that\u2019s just the way it is. And one of my dreams with my book, and my podcast, and my show is to show you that you have power to change the situation that you are\u00a0in.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:46]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0What\u2019s the status today? When do you talk about money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:48]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I show him my little notebook, and I show him what bills we have due within that two weeks. I show him which ones we can afford to pay, and I show him which ones are getting bumped.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And what does he say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:03]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0And why. And he usually just says, okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When you are going through the process of showing him, what are you really trying to accomplish there?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:16]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m trying to engage him maybe a little more with the finances, to prove that what I\u2019m doing is correct. But no, no, he doesn\u2019t. He just says, okay. And that\u2019s usually the end of it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Can I tell you I love talking about Rich Life, and personal finance, and stuff? Even I would not be engaged by that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:38]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, fair enough.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0But I did think you were pretty perceptive there about the second thing you said, the idea that I\u2019m trying to prove to him that what I\u2019m doing is right, because if you were doing it wrong, what would that mean?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:58]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I would hope that he would point it out and correct it or help give me a better idea of what to do.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When was the last time he\u2019s done that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:07]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Never.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So can I ask again? If you were doing your finances wrong, what would that mean to you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:25]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0That I\u2019m responsible for putting us in the position that we are in now. I am the reason we\u2019re in debt. I\u2019m the reason that we can\u2019t pay our bills, because it\u2019s all on me. That I\u2019ve failed our, I don\u2019t want to say our marriage, but I\u2019ve failed to provide us a life that we deserve.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What does that mean, deserve?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:55]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re still in the same house that we bought when we first got married, and when we bought the house, it was supposed to be a starter house, and here we are 13 years later, still in the same house, still in the middle of renovating it. None of the renovations are done.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:12]\u00a0I thought we would be in a nicer place. I thought we would be done with renovations. I thought we would be not living paycheck to paycheck. Technically, we\u2019ve made it. We\u2019re making way more than we made when we first got married, but we haven\u2019t. We\u2019re still in the same place that we were 13 years ago, but worse, actually, because we\u2019re so much in debt. So it feels counter counterintuitive to, you know what, I thought we would be where I thought we would be.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. We\u2019re going to have money to be able to\u2013 what? Tell me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:52]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Go on a vacation, a honeymoon. We\u2019ve never done that, ever.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.\u00a0What else? Tell me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:58]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Honestly, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve dreamed past vacation as far as money goes, because we\u2019re so in debt.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:05]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m with her on it. I would\u2019ve thought since we both started out making minimum wage and all we had to worry about was making sure the utilities were paid, we had gas in the cars and our home. We\u2019re making considerably more than we\u2019d made then, but we find ourself in the same circumstances. I wouldn\u2019t have necessarily said that we deserve to be better off, but I would\u2019ve hoped that we would\u2019ve been in a better position to just enjoy the simpler things.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0There\u2019s a recurring theme on this podcast, where people say what they deserve, and usually it\u2019s them describing things they want, a truck, an expensive mattress, all kinds of stuff for their kids. I think you deserve to have a good education, healthcare, a safe place to live, which is why I vote for progressive politicians who\u00a0want to\u00a0build more housing and expand access to public education and healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:10]\u00a0But too many of us have twisted the concept of deserving into random desires, which are coincidentally the very same things we see advertised all over TV and social media. Is it any wonder that American consumers love to spend the majority of their money and they have very low savings rates?<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:28]\u00a0Personally, I would like you to banish the word deserve from your vocabulary when it comes to money. You and I can set big ambitious goals, but if we want something, we have to work hard for it. We have to save money, and yes, we even have to incorporate a bit of luck.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:45]\u00a0If we are lucky, and if we work hard and save money, then we can buy the truck, or the trip, or new clothes. In fact, I support it. I want you to. But if you begin with the idea that you deserve certain things, it\u2019s very likely that you\u2019ll find yourself in financial trouble because you\u2019ll add more and more things to that deserve category without ever focusing on the hard work and habits that actually let you comfortably afford them.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0One thing that I hear when you describe the situation you\u2019re in is it sounds like you both are passengers on the ride of life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:25]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0It feels like it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I bet it does. You wake up first thing you do, think about bills. Go to work, maybe get the paycheck. That\u2019s not even going to cover what we need to. Sit down every two weeks, talk about money, but it\u2019s never a positive conversation. It\u2019s never, oh, we\u2019re going to save this much, or we\u2019re going to do\u2013 it\u2019s, okay, we\u2019re going to pay this, but not that. And then every so often, spend a whole bunch to feel good for that moment.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:54]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Very accurate. Very accurate. Yeah. Because we\u2019re living so down on ourselves for weeks and weeks at a time. I feel like we need to have that spending spree or whatever have you. Buy that pair of shoes, or buy that movie, or whatever, to make us feel good, to feel like we\u2019re not complete failures at life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think you\u2019re a failure at life?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:29]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0It feels a little bit like it right now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:32]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Just financially I feel like I\u2019ve failed at providing for my family, providing for my daughter. I hustle at work a lot to try and hustle my way up the corporate ladder to try and make up for my lack of financial sense, I guess. You\u2019d call it. I try and do a lot of side hustles. I fail at them, but I try, but I feel like it\u2019s my responsibility to fix it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:10]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Her work allows her to do overtime. They\u2019re constantly busy. Even if I could do overtime, she\u2019s usually doing overtime. So our daughter dances, so I take her to a lot of her dance stuff, and I try and help around the house, make sure it stays picked up, and dinner gets made, and everybody gets to eat.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:33]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0With my maintenance background, I fix things around the house.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Well, that\u2019s valuable.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:41]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. It is. It is. 100%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:46]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0So that\u2019s why I took on the financial side of it. He has his value in the household things, and I try and use my position to do what I can to help with the finances. Well, I will say I have tried to make changes. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m not aware that it\u2019s not working. I\u2019m very aware of it. I\u2019m very conscious of it. It is more so that I\u2019ve tried many different things, and I always come back to the notebook.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What else have you tried?<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:25]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0The Dave Ramsey, we\u2019ve done tried that. That didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why not?<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:32]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We couldn\u2019t get past the first step. We couldn\u2019t save $1,000, which is pathetic, but we couldn\u2019t save $1,000.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on, hold on, hold on. Step one, save $1,000. What happened?<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:47]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. We needed the money. I would save $100, and something would come up, and the money would be needed for something. $20 or $50, and something else would come up again. We could never get past that step because I couldn\u2019t save more than 100 bucks, if that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What does that tell you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:07]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0That we\u2019re spending too much. Jon, what do you think? Why do you think we couldn\u2019t save 100 bucks?<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:21]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0We couldn\u2019t say no to things.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:23]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:23]\u00a0Jonathan:\u00a0It didn\u2019t matter whether it was something we wanted or needed. We couldn\u2019t say no, and we would spend the $100.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0The way you describe your situation is something is always happening to you. It\u2019s coming at you, a bill, an expense. But when I dig down into it, a lot of it, maybe not all of it, but a lot of it is we couldn\u2019t say no. We couldn\u2019t change our own behavior. It\u2019s not the world. The world is going to always throw things your way. We couldn\u2019t change our behavior.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:00]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You notice that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:03]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. Unfortunately, yes.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I have a lot of sympathy for people who overspend, and it can sound infuriating to others to hear people overspending when they\u2019re in obvious financial trouble. But one of the reasons I started this podcast was that I want you to hear the stories underneath the spending. For example, Elizabeth said, we\u2019re so down on ourselves.\u00a0Sometimes we need to have a spending spree to feel good.\u00a0People are not robots. When people feel bad, we will do almost anything to stop that feeling. And the reason I can see this is how I was raise,d with my immigrant parents taking us to India every few years and studying psychology and persuasion.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:47]\u00a0Now, because of that, I also believe we can make changes. I believe in personal responsibility, but I also understand why people make irrational decisions.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:58]\u00a0We\u2019ll be back after these messages.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:01]\u00a0Let\u2019s get back to the show.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:02]\u00a0I suspected part of their behavior came from how they grew up, so I asked Elizabeth to tell me about her childhood.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:08]\u00a0I grew up in a very conservative Christian family, and I rebelled against a lot of the things and didn\u2019t end well for me a lot of the times. So I always felt out of control in my life, like I didn\u2019t have control over anything. So obviously, as soon as I went to college, I immediately got a credit card and lost control of finances.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You said it didn\u2019t go well for you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:43]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No, I was constantly in trouble, constantly grounded, constantly pushing back, constantly fighting, constantly being shamed for everything.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I hate that for you. It\u2019s okay. Take as much time as you need today. We have plenty of time. I\u2019m sorry you had to go through this. Nobody, no adult, no kid should have to go through that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:14]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0As far as money goes, my horrible spending habits, I know that I need to do this, and I rebel against all rules. I know we need to save, so I spend. I know we need to buckle down and do a no-spend month, and immediately I can think of five things that we need right this second.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. What is that phrase you use to explain how you\u2019re going to make it all work? What do you say?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:50]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll make it work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll make it work. And if you do make it work, then who do you become? Who are you in that scenario where you made it all work against all odds?<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:04]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m the hero of my own story.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. We all love to be the hero, but in your case, you\u2019re the hero of a story you\u2019ve created, where the hero only buys one more month before they have to go back into turmoil again.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:26]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:26]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0I understand that you speak to a therapist.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:34]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I would imagine this is one of many topics you\u2019ve talked about.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:39]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, for sure.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, good, good. I\u2019m glad. This is exactly the kind of thing that I always encourage my guests to go. This is something that does not get changed in one conversation. So I\u2019m happy to hear that. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:51]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When you were younger, what do you remember your parents saying about money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:59]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We never had enough. When I was young, my mom was working minimum wage job. My dad was still in college, and then he got a job. Things were looking great, and then he was laid off, and I think he was laid off for probably two years, so that was really hard. Lights would get turned off. We would have to move to grandma\u2019s house for a week or two if we needed to, food bank, that whole nine yards, for a while. And then things would get back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Can I ask a question?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:38]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0When the times would get really tough, what would your parents say to you about money, about the things that were going on around you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:49]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0They didn\u2019t. They would ignore it, very much so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm. How would they explain that you don\u2019t live in your apartment or house anymore and you\u2019re moving to grandma\u2019s?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:59]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We were just going to go visit grandma for a while, for a couple weeks. It was just a visit. But I was just aware enough to know what was going on. I knew fully why we were\u2013 at that age, I think it was, I was eight or nine. I knew the lights weren\u2019t on. I knew we didn\u2019t have electricity. It wasn\u2019t hard to put two and two together. When the money came in, you got what you got because we could finally afford it. So get it now or forever hold for peace, because who knows when that\u2019s going to come back?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is classic from people who grew up poor. Hurry up, eat what you can when it\u2019s there. Spend what you can when it\u2019s there because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s even going to be here tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:46]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:46]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And you\u2019ve carried that with you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:48]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Very much so. Yeah. I still live in that mentality. Hurry up and get what you want now when you have the money because\u2013 and honestly, that\u2019s one of the major reasons we\u2019re in the position we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s right. That was extremely insightful. What I love about that example is you connected it to your childhood, but you also took responsibility for your behavior.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:11]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I spend, we spend. That is powerful.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:18]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:19]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0How many people in your family?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:21]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I have the two younger sisters, so there\u2019s three girls, and then my parents.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I see. And what general area did you grow up in?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:31]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Indiana, at a small town.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So it\u2019s like already we\u2019re in a community where probably money\u2019s not really talked about with kids.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:40]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:41]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. And them it\u2019s religious. Okay. And then there\u2019s a lot of income instability. So 1, 2, 3. All right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:49]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Like I said, my dad was in college when I was young, and he made sure that he got his degree in engineering, and he wanted to make sure that his family was taken care of. My mom went back to school in her 30s to become a nurse.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:08]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0So they made progress, as far as financially to make sure they could take care of their family. So they were very adamant that I get an education and that I get a good job, so that I could thrive later in life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you end up going to college and graduating?<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:29]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. I went to college. I did not graduate.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You did not. How many years were you in there?<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:36]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I was there three years.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:38]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0And I didn\u2019t get as much financial aid as I needed, and I was going to have to borrow a lot more, and I didn\u2019t want to do that. They also discontinued my program at the school that I was going to. I went to school for a library. I got to remember the name of it. It\u2019s library science basically, but for education. So it should be a librarian at a school.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:06]\u00a0And mind you, this is around 2008. So at the time, all of the librarians and schools were being laid off. The professor that was teaching the program was in her 70s and wanted to retire.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:23]\u00a0And so they discontinued the program. So I left, and I did eventually go back online, but I am literally one class away from graduating.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why don\u2019t you do it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:36]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Because I\u2019m in $50,000 worth of debt for school, and I don\u2019t want to go into more. For me it\u2019s almost like, what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I understand. Your two sisters, how are they with money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:52]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. They\u2019re both really bad at it as well.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-Hmm. Bad means what?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:57]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably the same situation that we\u2019re in, living paycheck to paycheck. Lots of credit debt.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hmm. What about your parents? How are they with money now?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:06]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0They were living paycheck to paycheck for a really long time, and in lots of credit card debt. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m assuming they\u2019re much better off now. All of us are out of the house. That changes financials there.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you not have a relationship with them?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:23]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I do, but we do not talk about money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:26]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0Oh. Have you ever?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:27]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0No. When we got engaged, Jon and I, my dad told him that never to let me get a credit card because I\u2019m really bad with money and to always use cash. That was his preface to whether or not he could marry me, was if he could reign me in because I\u2019m so bad with money. That was the running joke.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you make of that? Is it funny?<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:07]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s hurtful, but it\u2019s honest. I\u2019m not great with money, I feel.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:16]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:16]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0Yeah. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m afraid of the other side, because I do this to myself a lot. I self-sabotage. Things are going great, and I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m supposed to do, and then I self-sabotage, and I\u2019m back at square one.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why do you do it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:36]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Why do I self-sabotage? That\u2019s not something I\u2019ve completely figured out, but I\u2019m assuming I just don\u2019t feel the greatest about myself, I would assume.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s probably true.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:51]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because if\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:54]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I sabotage myself.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Maybe you just don\u2019t care that much to change.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:58]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I fought with myself about that thought. Maybe I\u2019m just comfortable living in this cycle because it\u2019s my comfort zone. It may suck, but it\u2019s comfortable, but I know that that\u2019s not where I need to stay.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:17]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u00a0want to\u00a0reiterate how happy I am that Elizabeth is seeing a therapist, something that I want to de-stigmatize. I get the chance to spend a few hours with couples here, but sometimes there\u2019s a lot of work that needs to be done with a therapist, and I\u2019m really glad that Elizabeth is doing that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:34]\u00a0Elizabeth mentioned self-sabotage, which happens with her finances, and I would be willing to bet almost certainly other parts of her life. Imagine if you grew up in a chaotic childhood. Imagine if you came to expect chaos, almost like a familiar sweatshirt.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:51]\u00a0And if things started going well, suddenly it would feel weird, unfamiliar, even uncomfortable. And what do a lot of people do in that situation? They self-sabotage. They\u2019re used to a lifetime of chaos, or when it relates to money, money scarcity. And so when they finally see money in their savings account, they quickly spend it\u00a0because\u00a0who knows if it\u2019ll be here tomorrow. Chaos.\u00a0You can see how deep this goes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:19]\u00a0We\u2019ll be right back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:21]\u00a0Now listen to Jonathan describe his childhood<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:24]\u00a0Jonathan:\u00a0Well, growing up you weren\u2019t allowed to have a job. Your job was the farm, going to school. I was born and raised on a farm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Midwest, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:37]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, Indiana.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:39]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0There was always something to do on the farm. My dad worked and still to this day, works, 12 to 14 hours days. He\u2019s a workhorse. When we would have the weekends to do stuff, that was the time that we got stuff done on the farm with my dad. And we also took care of my grandparents\u2019 farm further north, so we would go up there on Sundays and do farm stuff up there. They had an old, wood-burning furnace, so in the wintertime we\u2019d go up there, and we\u2019d chop trees for an entire Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:19]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you like it, looking back?<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:21]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I enjoyed it. Yeah. It was just time spent with my dad and that. And as far as money went, my parents never talked about money. We were poor in the sense of having money because it was just my dad working and my mom stayed home and took care of\u2013 I have four siblings. And at some point in time she ended up going back to work. She was a medical transcriptionist.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:45]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0But as kids, you ask for things and it was constantly no.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019d they say after that? We can\u2019t afford it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:56]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re just not getting it. It was just a hard no.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:59]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0We were poor, but there was still food on the table. We still had clothes. We had roof over our head. My parents had debt. I knew they had tons of debt because they had five kids to put through school, buy clothes for, and all of that. I knew we had debt, but I just never knew how much.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did they help you with your college loans?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:29]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, they did.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:31]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0How much?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:32]\u00a0Jonathan:\u00a0All of them.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much was that ballpark?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:34]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, I went to a technical school. I\u2019d say probably about $25,000 maybe.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:41]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, so let\u2019s just assume that all your siblings were the same ballpark. That\u2019s $125,000 in debt your elderly parents have helped out with and are helping out. That\u2019s a lot, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:53]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:54]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. They\u2019ll help the kids with whatever they need no matter what. They\u2019re so giving of themselves. They watch our kids for free. They provide us with meat from the farm for free. They will pay truck payments when we need truck payments paid. They will pay for our gas if we don\u2019t have gas.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:19]\u00a0To them that\u2019s their way of showing love, is whatever they can give of themselves, they will give. And they have given us an immense amount of just everything in the context of free childcare for one is an insane financial help.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:38]\u00a0If we didn\u2019t have that free childcare, we would be even worse position than we already are in, because childcare is insane. Yeah, his family, his parents are just all about whatever they can do for family, they will do. And it\u2019s been very much of a giant blessing for us financially as well as\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. I love hearing that. I think from a family perspective, they sound like lovely people. So you sound lucky to have them in your lives.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:08]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:09]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re very lucky. Very lucky.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I wanted to move to the present day and try to understand exactly where all of their money was going. I asked Elizabeth to give me a tour of their house. Here we are in her closet. What do you notice?<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:22]\u00a0It\u2019s literally just a hole in the wall, but it\u2019s jam packed full.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Go in tight on that. Let\u2019s look at these clothes. Describe them for us. Would you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:33]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0They\u2019re just clothes, nothing very exciting.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:37]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t grow up with a lot of options when it came to clothes because we were poor. So clothes are my outlet, where I go crazy, because I didn\u2019t have a lot of options as a bigger girl as well. So now there\u2019s a store in my area that carries clothes that I actually like to wear that fit me. And so I overspend there.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:10]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Her clothes, that\u2019s her pitfall. That\u2019s usually her go-to. The other day, she had a Target run, and she likes to shop the clearance stuff. I think it adds up faster than she realizes at times. Generally, if we have to do grocery shopping of any kind or have to run to the store, I do it because I go in, get what we need, and walk out.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:40]\u00a0If Elizabeth goes in, she thinks of 50 other things that we could use, but we don\u2019t necessarily need in the moment. Or she runs across something that she likes that we don\u2019t need, but it\u2019s grabbed her attention enough to want it and gets it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you think about that, Elizabeth?<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:11]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s accurate. I do like the rush of finding that good deal. And I do like to buy clothes for my daughter. That\u2019s probably where the other big portion of it is, clothes for my daughter.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:29]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you think that that\u2019s cost you? I don\u2019t mean financially.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:34]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh. Probably trust. My husband doesn\u2019t trust me to go to the store on my own without coming back with five other things that we didn\u2019t need, but I wanted, or I wanted for the family.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0The way he described it, it sounded like he treated you like a child.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:59]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think you could change it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:05]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. I have tried to change it in the past. I do try to\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Sorry. Not could you try to change it? Could you change it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:14]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, I could change it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If you keep going the way you\u2019ve been going with your finances, where do you end up a year from now, two years, five years from now?<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:28]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0In the same position and-or worse than we are now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. You have a house. You have a roof. I think I saw a TV, piano, got kid\u2019s toys and clothes. What\u2019s so bad about that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:48]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Nothing\u2019s bad about it, but are we guaranteed to keep the house? Are we guaranteed to keep all these nice things? If bills are paid or not paid, there\u2019s no guarantee we get to keep the house. We could end up living back with his or my parents.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:09]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0At this point in the conversation, I was getting frustrated. The stakes are dire. There are bad habits, deep family histories, a daughter who\u2019s being spoiled, debt. Even with all this, I was getting very little engagement from them, and remember they called me.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:26]\u00a0Do you both realize that you cannot get out of this with just one of you doing it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:29]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:29]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because if you did, both of you would be engaged in this conversation. Jon, you\u2019d be asking me questions. The two of you would be talking back and forth. What\u2019s up with the dynamic here? I\u2019m curious.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:45]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why are you disengaged with money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:54]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0I never really had much money, so I never really had to deal with it. I went from having a minimum wage job, living with my parents, straight into us being married, and it\u2019s all new territory for me, and I\u2019m just trying to gain footing where I can, but it all seems like it moves so fast. I\u2019m trying to play catch up with the things that are going on.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Jon, it\u2019s been 13 years.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:47]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0And I was disengaged for most of them.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What happens if nothing changes, Jon?<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:55]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0We stay stuck in the cycle we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:58]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. And what happens with your daughter?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:02]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0She learns the same cycle.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:04]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Because she asks us all the time. She\u2019ll say, mommy, do we have money for this? Or mommy, do we have money for that? She knows. She already knows what we\u2019re doing. She\u2019s smart enough. She\u2019s caught on.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So the cycle repeats.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:22]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:22]\u00a0Jonathan:\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:25]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0What do you think happens as she gets older?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:27]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Just continue to get more expensive.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:29]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. Or she\u2019ll be asking for more things. Fine. What will you two be doing when she asks for more expensive stuff?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:37]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably saying yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:39]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s honest. I agree.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:40]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Making it work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Making it work. Okay. This sounds familiar, doesn\u2019t it? Making it work. She goes off to college. Let\u2019s say she\u2019s in her mid 20s. What\u2019s happening in her life, financially speaking?<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:53]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0She\u2019s going to get a credit card because she\u2019s going to want what she wants, and it\u2019s going to start the process all over again.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm. And when she has an eight-year-old daughter?<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:05]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0She teaches it to her children.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:09]\u00a0Elizabeth:\u00a0She\u2019s going to continue the cycle.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:09]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0You want to keep doing it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:10]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0No, not at all.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s really hard, but it can be done. I\u2019m not going to give up on you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:18]\u00a0<strong>Jonathan:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:19]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay?<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:19]\u00a0<strong>Elizabeth:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:20]\u00a0[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:21]\u00a0Ramit:\u00a0Well, as you can tell, we have just scratched the surface. In part two of this conversation, next week, I\u2019m\u00a0going to\u00a0go much deeper on their numbers, and I think you will be surprised by what you find.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth and Jonathan are in their mid-thirties, have been married for 13 years, and share a young daughter. They bought a starter home after getting married, but expensive renovations are still underway. They struggle with debt and spend a lot on their child. They\u2019re wondering\u2014is this it? This episode is brought to you by: Viator [&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-118916","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\/118916","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=118916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}