{"id":118932,"date":"2024-01-23T13:32:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T17:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/?p=118932"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:33:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:33:57","slug":"140-sandra-brad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/140-sandra-brad\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 140. \u201cHe put our $1M into one risky investment. Will we lose it all?\u201d (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"\u201cHe put $1M into a risky investment\u2026Will we lose it all?\u201d\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4j0KLedmy5w\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border-radius: 12px;\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/13wvdYOpP7X493c5eZHHp2?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sandra, 46, and Brad, 48, return for Part 2 as we get our hands dirty with their incredible decision to invest $1,000,000\u2014their entire net worth\u2014into one oil operation. It\u2019s paying out $20k a month right now, and Brad\u2019s done his research to feel confident. But Sandra can\u2019t handle the risk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This episode is brought to you by:<\/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<p>Babbel | Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you\u2019ll get an additional 3 months for FREE. Just go to\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/babbel.com\/\">https:\/\/Babbel.com<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and use promo code RAMIT.<\/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>Eight Sleep | For a better, smarter sleep, go to\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/eightsleep.com\/ramit\">https:\/\/eightsleep.com\/ramit<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for $200 and free shipping.<\/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<h2><strong>Links mentioned in this episode<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/139-sandra-brad\/\">\u201cI\u2019m afraid he\u2019ll leave if I don\u2019t stop stressing about the budget\u201d (Part 1)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Show Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[00:00:00]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019ve invested the majority of the money from the house into an oil operation.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You invested one million into one fracking operation?<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:12]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Several different fracking operations. I feel like the system is rigged. Right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Against you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:20]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0With all the IRAs, and 401Ks, and mutual funds, and money advisors, and taxes\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:25]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0No, no, no, not that. The oil game is rigged against you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:28]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0No, see, I don\u2019t see it that\u2013 I see it like when the deck is stacked against you and every now and again you get a perfect hand and you go big with it. And that\u2019s where I\u2019m at. Actually, she has told me I should get a job probably 10 times, and she reminds me about every other week that I\u2019m underemployed. You\u2019re a smart guy. You should be out there making more money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:00:49]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I can\u2019t wrap my brain around why he doesn\u2019t get a job. It\u2019s really hard for me to understand that. I Just want money saved. I want enough to cover everything every month and a little bit of extras. He wants the moon and the stars and all the things in between.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Welcome to part two of my conversation with Sandra and Brad. Sandra\u2019s 46. Brad is 48, and they\u2019ve been fighting about money for almost 25 years. Brad has even contemplated divorce. She agonizes over spending their money every month. She keeps spreadsheet after spreadsheet. He used to earn $800,000 a year, but then their income dropped.<\/p>\n<p>[00:01:28]\u00a0Unfortunately, their spending did not. And they recently realized that the investments they\u2019d been making for about 25 years were only getting them about 3%, and they were being charged crazy fees. As a result, Brad has taken their life savings, about a million bucks, and invested it into an oil operation. I just discovered that at the end of our conversation last week, and so far that investment has been paying out, but Sandra is extremely worried about their finances.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:01]\u00a0Do you want me to analyze your spending? I recently did this for a couple in their mid-50s on my newsletter. I took their conscious spending plan numbers, and I analyzed it. I showed people what I saw, the things that were red flags to me, and also the things they were doing really well.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:17]\u00a0And I\u2019m going to try something new. You\u2019re going to have a chance for me to analyze your conscious spending plan, and I can keep you anonymous if you like. So here\u2019s what you do. Download the Conscious Spending Plan for free at iwt.com\/csp. Fill it out and email it to csp@iwt.com. You may be anonymously selected to have your income and spending analyzed by me in an upcoming newsletter.<\/p>\n<p>[00:02:41]\u00a0I\u2019ll tell you what I see, and I\u2019ll give you some personal recommendations on what I would do if I were in your situation. Of course, you can read my thoughts if you\u2019re signed up for my newsletter at iwt.com\/podcastnewsletter. So again, here are the steps. Download the CSP for free at iwt.com\/csp. Fill it out and email it to csp@iwt.com. And make sure you\u2019re signed up for the newsletter at iwt.com\/podcastnewsletter because I\u2019m going to be breaking down the most interesting examples that I get.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:14]\u00a0What you\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0hear right now is Sandra discussing a deep need for safety, and Brad feeling like he\u2019s been forced to make decision after decision to placate her.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:26]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I never wanted to sell our house, and that was a really hard decision to make because this is something I don\u2019t think was on the application. When we first got married, within four years, we bought 23 rental units.<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What?<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:42]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Because we read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and we wanted to be real estate investors, and we\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:03:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on, hold on. You must own six or 7,000 units by now because all you have to do is buy a few units and then cash flow them, and then you just buy more and then they just print money. It\u2019s free, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:00]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, so free. We only had enough money to buy really old beat up ones, and we are not fix-it people, and so it didn\u2019t go well. Brad had some health challenges, and so when we got to having 23, we had some issues come up, and we sold them all within about six months. We intended to keep them long term, and Brad got Bell\u2019s Palsy, and it was a really, really hard time for us.<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:28]\u00a0And we had two little kids, and it just was too much. And so we sold them and bought just a regular single family home and moved into it. And it was really peaceful, and it was a nice change. But I think I\u2019ve always looked back and wished we\u2019d kept at least a couple of the properties. And so when we had just our one home left and we were renting a house in Wyoming and he\u2019s wanting to sell the one that we still have that has appreciated so much, I just really didn\u2019t want to. I felt very attached to keeping it and keeping this house.<\/p>\n<p>[00:04:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you know why you felt attached to it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:01]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0It felt safe to me. It felt like we\u2019d have a place to go back to. We didn\u2019t owe very much on it. It just felt secure, felt very secure to have this house.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And would you say it\u2019s fair to characterize your desire with money primarily as safety?<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:17]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>100%, yes. Safety, security. I just want money saved. I want enough to cover everything every month and a little bit of extras.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:24]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And then what do you think Brad\u2019s is?<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:26]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0He wants the moon and the stars and all the things in between.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:29]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:31]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0So I\u2019ve had a couple of thoughts through the last 25 years rumbling around my head, but it\u2019s starting to clarify for me maybe a pattern that\u2019s happening here. Sandra\u2019s desire for safety and security are 10 out of 10. The only way to really satisfy that safety and security is with a lot of money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:05:59]\u00a0And that\u2019s been proven out over a relationship together. The only time where there hasn\u2019t been like this constant dread or fear or [Inaudible] our financial situation is when there\u2019s a ton of money, which may lead to some intense desperate acts, i.e., 23 rental units, oil, commission-based jobs, event businesses, etc. And what might be a foolish attempt, but an attempt nonetheless to satisfy safety and security.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad, that was as deep as it gets. Is that the first time that you\u2019ve made that realization?<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:48]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s the first time I wrote it down in that much clarity.<\/p>\n<p>[00:06:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0One thing I really applaud you for beyond making the connection is that you also identified some of your own behavior as risk seeking. I love that you made those connections\u2013 23 rental properties, commission-based jobs, and then oil rigs. All three have a very common thread through them. I love that you did that, and that\u2019s impressive self-awareness. Sandra, zooming out and reflecting, what do you hear from Brad?<\/p>\n<p>[00:07:27]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I hear that he believes that he is doing these things for me and not for him. I hear that he\u2019s up against something that is really challenging, that it\u2019s how can he ever make enough money to make everything peaceful and happy for me? And it\u2019s this losing battle that he takes on things that are probably\u2013 the word you used was risky because he\u2019s trying to seek that magic bullet that\u2019s going to just make it all work.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. You two want to say anything to each other? I definitely want to ask you more questions, Sandra, but I don\u2019t want to get in the way of the two of you\u2013 this seems like a very important moment for the two of you.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:17]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0And I agree it\u2019s important, but it feels like a powder keg. If we start peeling back layers, it\u2019s going to go dark pretty quick.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Would agree with that, Sandra?<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it could, but I also think that it is just pretty awesome that you\u2019ve spent the majority of your life now trying to do something that makes me happy. I think that\u2019s really sweet. I think it shows that you really love me and you love our family, and you just really do want to just take care of us, and that\u2019s awesome. I like that because sometimes I think that there\u2019s a different motivation, but I like that motivation.<\/p>\n<p>[00:08:58]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I like when you two are connective like this. You work with a therapist?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:03]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0We have off and on. We don\u2019t have one right now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0But would you be open to seeing one?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:10]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I think we should always, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:13]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Is there room in the budget?<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Trust me that I can find room for that. Trust me. So Sandra, I wanted to hear what you think about the oil investment.<\/p>\n<p>[00:09:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t want to do it for a really long time. I think I just was tired. I was tired of not having enough. And I was working two jobs, and he was working two jobs, and it was just really, really hard. And his friend\u2019s been doing the investment for a while, so when he wanted to do it, honestly, I felt like I was more, I won\u2019t stop you, but I don\u2019t support it, if that makes sense. But in a way, because I didn\u2019t say no, I feel like I did agree.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is that the thing where it\u2019s like, I\u2019m not going to say no, but when it ends up disastrously, then I\u2019m going to tell you I told you so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:11]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, kind of, which isn\u2019t very nice to hear, but I also decided mentally if we lost all of the money, that it would be okay. It was the only way that I could be okay putting the money in, was to get to a place where I knew that basically we could be kissing a million dollars away.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Would you be okay, just so I know?<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Stoically just figure it out the same way my mom always figured it out when all the money was gone all the time. Because I didn\u2019t know how else to make that decision and be supportive of it because I felt very nervous and still do feel nervous about it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m nervous.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:46]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Putting 100% of a family\u2019s investments into one private deal, that\u2019s terrifying.<\/p>\n<p>[00:10:55]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0My feelings about it were any dividends that come back are not to be touched or spent until everything is returned.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:04]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t want it to turn around and put it back into something else because I wanted to make sure we got our money back if we could.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on. Explain that to me. So you put a million dollars in there.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:14]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re getting paid, let\u2019s just say, 20k a month. So you\u2019re going, I don\u2019t want to use any of this money. I\u2019m going to just let it sit in this account because I want to get all of my money back. What does that mean?<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:28]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Until the initial investment was returned, it didn\u2019t feel like I wanted to spend it. It felt like, I don\u2019t know, retaking your gambling and then you\u2019re taking all your winnings and you keep on gambling with them. I\u2019m like, let\u2019s just get what we can out of it in case the whole thing implodes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:11:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That doesn\u2019t make sense to me, because you\u2019re telling me that every month you\u2019re stressed. For the last several months you\u2019ve been in the red, but meanwhile, you have 20k a month coming in from this oil investment. And because of the way you feel about it, you\u2019re not allowing yourself to use it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:00]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0We have to use it. We don\u2019t have any money to pay the bills if we don\u2019t use it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So isn\u2019t that the worst of all worlds? You are, in your own mind, betraying yourself using the money, and then you feel horrible about it. And meanwhile, Brad\u2019s like, what are you talking about? I got 20k a month coming in from this oil thing. And he\u2019s like, what\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:19]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. It\u2019s exactly what\u2019s going on. The oil is so different to me because it\u2019s everything that we accumulated and worked for our whole lives, and I feel like we blew so much when we did have a lot of money. And now everything that we have that we\u2019ve worked for for our whole lives is all resting in one basket.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, I agree with that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:41]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Freaks me out.<\/p>\n<p>[00:12:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I agree. I\u2019m freaked out by it. I want to talk about that. I agree. However, when we\u2019re talking about the 20k per month, you\u2019re going like, all of that makes me feel bad, so I don\u2019t want to engage with it at all. Leave it alone. Put it over there. I hope it all turns into a 100%, and then, oops, I got to take from that to pay our bills. That\u2019s what you\u2019re feeling, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:12]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. And every month we have to take from it, and so it leaves me feeling just freaked out about it all. I don\u2019t see a logical reason why we don\u2019t earn enough money from earned income as opposed to investment income to just pay our monthly expenses.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Should we talk about that? Should we look at the numbers?<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. Brad, do you have anything else you want to say? I get scared to look at the numbers.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How was it going through this CSP together?<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:38]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0It was fine until we actually started.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Tell me more.<\/p>\n<p>[00:13:47]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, we had it open. We had it planned on the calendar. We had a limited window because I was going to be gone and he was going to be gone, so we had to get it done in that window, and we could not agree on our income. And so it just went downhill from there.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s one of the top numbers.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:03]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Because you have a variable income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:06]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0We have variable income. We didn\u2019t know what we should include, what we shouldn\u2019t include. We went through several of the things. We kept going through the list, and I had my little spreadsheet open, but he was getting madder and madder, and then I can\u2019t remember. Brad, you got up and left. But I don\u2019t remember what the final nail was that precipitated him leaving, but it\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on. I want to know. Brad, what happened?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:28]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So we were going through the lineups. We started with the income number.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is the first number you started with?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:34]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Well, this is an important one. And it goes back to our, I forget the word that Sandra used. The word fair. What was the adjective that you had for fair?<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:45]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. Equitable, equal.<\/p>\n<p>[00:14:47]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Equitable, equal. So I am not contributing at a high level at this point. And when she says that she feels like we should be able to have our income meet our expenses, I interpret that as saying that, Brad, you need to get your crap together and get a full-time job. You need to stop playing around. It\u2019s time for you to go and get some middle management software sales position so that we can meet that delta and have a little bit of extra, so that\u2019ll happen.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Did she ever say any of that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:21]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Actually, she has told me I should get a job probably 10 times, and she reminds me about every other week that I\u2019m underemployed.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Underemployed. What does that mean?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:33]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m not making enough money. You\u2019re a smart guy. You should be out there making more money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Sandra, how often you say that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:41]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably every time we talk about money. I can\u2019t wrap my brain around why he doesn\u2019t get a job. It\u2019s really hard for me to understand that. And so I think it just is a frustration and\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:52]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And so what do you get out of that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:55]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Being right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:15:57]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t want to work a full-time job either. And I haven\u2019t enjoyed it, and it\u2019s not always awesome, but I do it every day. I just don\u2019t understand it. I can\u2019t seem to see it from his point of view with that, why he won\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you need to understand it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:18]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No, but it feels unfair.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, well, that\u2019s different. But the understanding part, there\u2019s a lot of things you don\u2019t understand and probably never going to. What do you need from Brad?<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:34]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0From an emotional point of view or a financial point of view?<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s say financial.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:39]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I need him to bring home $5,500 a month.<\/p>\n<p>[00:16:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. All right. That is something that we could have a discussion about, and I think it could probably go a lot healthier than ever using the word underemployed. Would you agree?<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:00]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. But he is a very smart man, and he is very talented, and he could do something more than what he is doing. So I think that\u2019s why underemployed comes in.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What if he had said you\u2019re under parenting the four kids. How do you think you would\u2019ve responded?<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:16]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I know I\u2019m a boss mom. I\u2019d probably just give him a little swot, but I probably would be offended by it. It would definitely hurt my feelings.<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably especially when times are tough, it\u2019s not always easy. When everything\u2019s going wrong and he said, why don\u2019t you just take control of this? You\u2019re a smart woman. You\u2019re under parenting them. You\u2019re not living up to what I need from you. How do you think you would\u2019ve taken that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:36]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I don\u2019t know how long we would\u2019ve stayed together if he talked like that.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:17:41]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Honestly, this is awful to hear. I hear sarcasm, disdain, and insult after insult. I\u2019ve been married for five years. There are a lot of couples that have been married for a lot longer, but it is hard for me to hear or even imagine a married couple that would talk to each other like this. The conscious spending plan that I give to couples is in many ways a testing ground to see how they come together to talk about money and literally get on the same page.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:15]\u00a0I\u2019m not even particularly concerned if their numbers are right or wrong. Honestly, the first time people do the CSP, most of their numbers are wrong, and that\u2019s okay. What I\u2019m looking for is how they collaborated to write down a few basic numbers from their life. And to hear Sandra and Brad describe their experience is ominous.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:40]\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0going to\u00a0share their numbers with you. If you\u2019d like to download the CSP template to plug in your numbers, you can get it for free at iwt.com\/csp.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:50]\u00a0We\u2019ll be right back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:52]\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s get back to the show<\/p>\n<p>[00:18:54]\u00a0Brad and Sandra\u2019s numbers, their assets are 80,000. Their investments are 1.27 million. Savings, 50,000, and debt is 85,000 for a total net worth of $1.31 million.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad, talk to me about your income. What is your gross household monthly income?<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:17]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0So we started going through the line items, and the way that she had defined income was we could only include fixed income on a monthly basis. So I am grateful in my heart that she has been working for the last year and a half, and it has saved us. It has kept the ship afloat. And I agree to some degree I\u2019m underemployed.<\/p>\n<p>[00:19:43]\u00a0And I start making moves for investments to try to bridge that gap. But that\u2019s another conversation. There\u2019s another side gig that I do. I\u2019m a professional announcer for running event company all over the country, and I love it. And I make about $14,000 a year. Now, our conversation was, well, what did we do?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:02]\u00a0She left it off of the initial document, and I suggested that that should be something that we should account for. But she said, you didn\u2019t actually get paid in this particular month because it\u2019s usually a race season, cyclical contractor-type payment scenario. So she decided that that was not income that we could use. So that was difficult.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:24]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t think I was intending to start a fight with it, and we were writing notes on the side to ask questions of you, and so one of them was the income question. I didn\u2019t really know how to manage that, so I just wanted it to be accurate.<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Just so we know, that\u2019s $113,000 per year. Did either of you know that that\u2019s how much you make as a household?<\/p>\n<p>[00:20:54]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t think I knew that exact number because I knew how much I made. But with Brad being so fluctuating, I wasn\u2019t sure what he made. So that\u2019s actually not horrible.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:06]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I basically am in the middle of a complete career change, so at some point, after mortgages dried up, Sandra came to me and suggested that perhaps you should look at becoming a school teacher. And this was in July or August of 2023, so just several months ago.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:26]\u00a0I thought becoming a teacher would be fantastic. I could enjoy entrepreneurial opportunities and mountains in the summertime, and then I could provide a steady income. It\u2019s the exact opposite. Sandra said that it would be something that she appreciated, and they\u2019ve got a good retirement.<\/p>\n<p>[00:21:43]\u00a0I\u2019ve got 17 years from however many years between 48 and 65 to continue to build a real solid retirement-type of a scenario. I moved heaven and Earth to become a school teacher from July until September. And turns out you have to have licenses to become a school teacher, and it\u2019s a complicated process.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:09]\u00a0I found a nice scenario, teaching community college finance classes. I\u2019ll be teaching accounting down the road, but it was only part-time. And it wasn\u2019t my first move. And I probably wouldn\u2019t have been pursuing this unless Sandra had been like, listen, this is something that I think you should pursue.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:28]\u00a0And I thought, if this is her wish for me, then perhaps I won\u2019t be as underemployed as proceed. The part-time scenario, just not making a lot of money at this point. So with our 113,000 per year, we\u2019re still on the low side. We\u2019re still not making as much fixed income as we do monthly expense, but we are heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>[00:22:50]\u00a0And it\u2019s something that\u2019s just really difficult to wrap my arms around how upset Sandra is with the whole scenario. It\u2019s like, this is something that you asked me to do. You actually whispered in my ear one night. I\u2019m the Brad whisperer because she suggested\u2013 and so it\u2019s\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So what do you want, Brad? Do you want her to understand? Do you want to make more money? What is it that you want?<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:18]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I think my first goal is just to have her satisfied so that she can have peace and so she can be happy and so that she will not be on my back.<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Well, let\u2019s see if we can get there. But I think there\u2019s probably bigger things at play here. I think that you have narrowed your vision down to, what do I need to do to not get those text messages once a month? Because that will mean she\u2019s satisfied. And trust me, that\u2019s not the issue here.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:23:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This is a common pattern where one partner, usually the husband, will do something to \u201cget my wife off my back\u201d. We\u2019ve heard it. I hate it. And when it comes to money, this often involves reassuring her. We\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0be fine. We\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0be fine. Although, as we\u2019ve heard in multiple conversations on this podcast, partners are often looking for certainty, not reassurance.\u00a0Those are two separate things.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:17]\u00a0Second, they will finally engage with money only to stop after a few weeks. And this is common with avoiders, especially ones in debt, or in this case, Brad will take on a job so she will \u201cnot be on his back\u201d when he has previously repeatedly described working a 9 to\u00a05\u00a0like losing at life.<\/p>\n<p>[00:24:43]\u00a0I also notice that they get hung up on how to handle variable income. This is something that paralyzes a huge amount of couples, and to me this is very confusing. It\u2019s like someone who wants to be a good parent, but they\u2019re totally paralyzed with whether they should buy original or Honey Nut Cheerios.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:00]\u00a0They\u2019re obsessed with the decision. They agonize over it, but it honestly takes five minutes to figure out and move on. Choosing your cereal or how to handle variable income is honestly nothing in the grand scheme of creating a rich life. I\u2019ve literally discussed how to handle variable income on this podcast multiple times, in my book, which nobody on this podcast ever reads, and in my money coaching program.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:25]\u00a0The point is they use that as an excuse not to move forward, when in reality, it\u2019s the tiniest of speed bumps. And by using that as an excuse, they get to avoid doing the real substantial, often hard work. Obviously, there\u2019s a lot going on here.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s go ahead and look at your fixed costs. All right. What\u2019s this number here, Sandra?<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:50]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a099%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, so you\u2019re spending 99% of your household income on your fixed costs.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:56]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:25:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So that\u2019s why you\u2019re stressed out about money every single week now. Okay. I understand that. Brad, do you understand that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:04]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, we\u2019ll come to the line items in a minute. Let\u2019s just keep going. Your investments are at 238%. That\u2019s definitely not true. This number, which is $20,500, that\u2019s your monthly average distribution from the oil rig. That needs to count as income. Sandra?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:32]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad\u2019s really happy right now.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What about you? It\u2019s income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:40]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, I know. It is incoming money. I get that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So what\u2019s holding you back here?<\/p>\n<p>[00:26:50]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s just the money coming in and it should be no different than the other money coming in, but it\u2019s like eating and taking a little bit of our struggles and trials and work and all the things we did for 25 years and spending it on toilet paper. That\u2019s how it feels to me.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s the alternative?<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:13]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Not having toilet paper. It\u2019s not a very good alternative.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:19]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It is literally income That\u2019s dividend income. Now, do I think that that oil investment is a good idea? No. Hell no. But do you need to do something with $20,000 a month for the time period that it\u2019s coming in? Yeah, you need to use that money properly.<\/p>\n<p>[00:27:39]\u00a0So let\u2019s separate the two things. First of all, the money\u2019s coming in. Secondly, what are you spending your money on? That\u2019s a separate issue. We\u2019ll tackle that as well. But we\u2019ve got to admit and acknowledge that you\u2019ve got roughly $20,000 a month or more coming in every month. Let\u2019s do something with that while the going\u2019s good. Okay?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:02]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. So where do we put this? It\u2019s got to go up to income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:09]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad, is this you making $2,966 a month?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:14]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, so let\u2019s just say 3,000 for easy math. Your oil number is 20,500. Where does that go? That\u2019s gross?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:28]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:28]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, look, this is not a competition of who makes what. You two are married. Just because I put it under Brad is irrelevant. We could just as well put it under Sandra. I just want to clarify that because I don\u2019t want this to become any type of dynamic. Everybody okay with that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:44]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:44]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:28:44]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. And if you needed to, you could add another category if that makes you feel comfortable. It\u2019s not the point. At 23,000, what do you net off of that? I\u2019m going to just put it at 16,000. Why? Who the hell knows? Is it wrong?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:00]\u00a0It\u2019s definitely wrong. This number is a 100% wrong. However, are you going to get into trouble when you discover the actual number? Probably not. Probably not. All right. 16,000. Okay. That significantly changes\u2013 what the\u00a0fuck? This changes everything. At least we can breathe. Look what just happened. Sandra, what did the number change from 99%? What is your fixed cost now?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:25]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a040%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What am I even doing here? Number one, the source of your stress on a weekly basis has been this number. What\u2019s this number now? 40% instead of 99%. That problem is fixed, at least for the time being.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:46]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t think this number\u2019s going to last forever. But at least for now, we\u2019ve put that fire out. Okay?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:57]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:57]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Are you with me, Sandra?<\/p>\n<p>[00:29:58]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, I totally can see that. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad, are you with me?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:01]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Oh, back to the good old days. What\u2019s that song by Steve Winwood? Back in the High Life Again? Here we are. Oh boy. We got Brad and Sandra netting $12,000 a month. Back in the high life again. What are you guys going to buy with $12,000 a month?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:27]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Nothing. You\u2019re not buying stuff.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:30]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Nothing. Not at all? Not for a family of six?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:33]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, well, things that we need.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. No 25,000-dollar bedroom sets. I\u2019ll tell you what. At least now we\u2019ve got something to work with in the short term. Agreed?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:45]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Agreed.<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s talk about that, and then we\u2019ll talk about what to do about this oil thing and all the money coming in. How about that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:54]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:30:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve seen this phenomenon happen where one partner simply denies the reality of their financial situation. We previously had on guests who didn\u2019t like how they had made money, and they simply refused to acknowledge it. That\u2019s happening here. Sandra hates the oil investment. It worries her, which by the way, remember she agreed to, and her not being able to separate the investment itself from the dividends it\u2019s paying.<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:22]\u00a0The reality is they\u2019re making $20,000 a month in dividends. You have to acknowledge that. You have to account for that. And when we did on the conscious spending plan, it changed everything. The real issue is not the 20k a month.\u00a0The real issue is that they have so many layers of distrust and contempt that they can\u2019t really communicate about this one thing. Let\u2019s keep going.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So your rent is $3,000 a month. Your insurance is $774. Fine. Life insurance, a 100. Okay. All right. You have term life insurance for four kids. Is that it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:31:57]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No, that\u2019s just my term and Brad\u2019s life term. Mine\u2019s a lot more. Mine\u2019s 90 a month, and his is 38.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, good. Well, at least you don\u2019t have some laded up whole life insurance policy. Good.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:09]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No, we decided to not go down that road years ago when it was sold to us.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:13]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How nice. Just for everyone watching, I love that here we have parents of four children, four, and their term life insurance policy is only $132 per month. What does that tell you freaks out there paying $800 a month for some cash value\u00a0bullshit?\u00a0Stop it. All right. Your car payment is a total of $1,600 a month. What the hell\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:38]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, there\u2019s car and gas, so car is 830.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:41]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I added them.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:42]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I know how to add. Why are you paying that much?<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:46]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Because when we were making a lot with loans, I bought a Telluride.<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How nice<\/p>\n<p>[00:32:51]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, it is very nice. My Honda Odyssey that we\u2019d driven for 12 years literally went up in smoke, and that was the car that we bought to replace it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:00]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much did this thing cost?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:01]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0That was the car that we\u00a0bought to replace it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0How much did this\u00a0thing cost?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:04]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0It was 54,000.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on. I\u2019m having a flashback. Just a moment. Deja vu. Somebody recently saying, it\u2019s not like we spend a lot of money on anything. Who is that person?<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:21]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0But if you just spend money on a few big things over 25 years, I don\u2019t think that counts as spending money on a lot of things. I\u2019m wearing clothes that I have had since my daughter was born, and she\u2019s 15, so I just am not into those things.<\/p>\n<p>[00:33:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So here\u2019s my point. My point is not that you couldn\u2019t afford the Telluride. Clearly you could. If you\u2019re making 80,000 a month, okay, fine. I have no problem with that at all. What I\u2019m challenging you is that the identity you have created for yourself around money might not be fully accurate with reality. And on this call, both of you have shared your identities around money a lot. What you will do and what you won\u2019t do. Have you noticed it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:09]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Not till you\u2019ve pointed it out.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:11]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why don\u2019t you tell me what your identity is? Sandra first.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:14]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mine is that I am frugal and careful and not extravagant<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow. All very charitable descriptions of yourself. All frugalistars. I\u2019m selective, and I don\u2019t need anything really fancy. Okay. It might be true in the course of 25 years. It might be true. Might there be another way to describe it?<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:38]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0A little bit on the cheap side with stuff I don\u2019t care about.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, what else?<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:44]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s a little murder-ish.<\/p>\n<p>[00:34:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Uh-huh. You\u2019re a murder. If we can\u2019t do this, I\u2019m not going to do\u2013 I wear my 15-year-old sweater. Look at me. And also, what about the thing about 50 categories and then sending angry comments to your husband? What\u2019s that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:01]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Control. Massive wanting to just control it all and have it all just managed just so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:09]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. And you thrive off of worrying because if you\u2019re not worrying, then what are you doing?<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:14]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not very effective or contributing.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:18]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:18]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s my contribution, is worrying about it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Is there a way to be good at money and not worry?<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:24]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I believe there is. I just have not figured it all the way out yet.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So do you see what I\u2019m saying about your identity?<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s totally constructed. You don\u2019t have to worry about all these things if you don\u2019t want. You get something out of it. It\u2019s now become automatic and habitual. But you\u2019re making $29,000 a month currently. Even though the number is temporary, don\u2019t you think when you were young you thought, oh, when I make $30,000 a month, I\u2019ll stop worrying about money?<\/p>\n<p>[00:35:56]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t think I ever thought I could make that much in a month, so yeah. It was much less. We celebrated my first raise when I went from 19,000 to 23,000 a year. We were so excited.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think it\u2019s time to get rid of your old identity?<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:10]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, it would be nice.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:13]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m trying to take this step by step. There\u2019s an obvious elephant in the room, which is investing their entire life savings in a private oil investment, but I can\u2019t jump right to that. It\u2019s too big. So here was my approach. First, I wanted to hear how they handled the CSP, which was not great, but we talked about it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:32]\u00a0Then it was to help Sandra understand that $20,000 a month of dividends is indeed income. Then it was to help Sandra recognize that she tells herself a lot of stories which are clouding her view of their finances, but we definitely have more work to do.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:48]\u00a0Let\u2019s take a quick pause for a message from our sponsors.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:52]\u00a0Now back to Sandra and Brad.<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:54]\u00a0\u00a0Watch as their responses take us in wildly different directions.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:36:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s keep looking at these numbers here. So assuming we\u2019re working with the money that\u2019s coming in every month, right now you\u2019re\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:07]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0So I don\u2019t know\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0No. Couples who make 30k a month don\u2019t qualify for a Roth, but you have other options.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:11]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I want to max everything out. Meaning if we do an HSA, put as much in as we possibly can. Put as much as we can into the 401K. But there\u2019s a limit to how much Brad wants me to invest every month. So I don\u2019t want to take all of the money and put it in that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:29]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Because I feel like we need to agree on it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Talk about it. This is the crux of the conversation in terms of your CSP. You have 90% of your money in one incredibly risky investment. Now, it\u2019s paying money out right now. Honestly, I don\u2019t know how strategy for how to deal with that money coming in? What is your approach in one sentence each? Brad, what\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n<p>[00:37:59]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Reinvest the returns.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:01]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. And Sandra, what\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:04]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Reinvest it in long-term investments.<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:09]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. I understand both of your perspectives. How are you going to come to a resolution?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:17]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Something that I proposed when we were having\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Why don\u2019t talk to each other?<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:22]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, so Brad, I proposed about splitting the return money that was coming from the dividends, and then we each get to decide how we invest those portions. That\u2019s what I proposed to solve some of this angst that we were having. So once the money is taken care of for the difference between\u2013 so that we paid our expenses for the month, then what\u2019s left, we\u2019re dividing that, and then we each can\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:38:48]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0At this point, I think we\u2019ve actually readdressed it. So the 401K and the IRA in the long-term scenarios, I think there\u2019s definitely a place for it. There\u2019s another investment that I\u2019m still in the middle of researching, which is purchasing another business.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:05]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I am more likely to look at business opportunities, but I do very much appreciate the index funds because Warren Buffet said so.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0But if Warren Buffet said so, do you really respect, or is that sarcastic?<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:25]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0No, that was respect. So that\u2019s what sent me down this rat hole of figuring out the whole financial advisor master and just feeling quite depressed about where our funds had been.<\/p>\n<p>[00:39:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Hold on, sorry. Sorry to cut in. Just a question on that because I think it affects everything else. Question. I\u2019m on that on that because I think you had a bad experience with your investments over the last 20 years or so. I think probably to be fair, you weren\u2019t paying attention to it. You delegated it to a financial advisor. You never really learned how this stuff works, and I totally respect that you have a bad taste in your mouth about it. Do you think that your past is negatively affecting your future?<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:01]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes. So index funds based on the new information that we\u2019ve been learning and studying and researching, I think there\u2019s definitely a good place. Maxing out a 401K, isn\u2019t it 23,000 per year?<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:18]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:18]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0And I\u2019m on board to max them out. With an index fund, I would say probably yes. So do I have an answer at this point? No, because I\u2019m super confused. Literally, my financial advice to myself is do what Warren Buffet told his wife to do when he dies. He said he hopes that she puts it into the S&amp;P 500.<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Wait, do you want to do that? because that\u2019s not what you\u2019re doing right now. You\u2019re doing the opposite of that. Just talk to me about this. What do you want to do with $12,796 per month? How much of that do you want to invest?<\/p>\n<p>[00:40:59]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0In long-term savings or long-term investments, I would say half of that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:02]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Half. All right. 6,000. watch. All right, so that\u2019s 29%. Okay?<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:09]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. This is really good. I think it\u2019s a good step to take.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Why? Do you have any quantitative\u2013 or is it just a feeling?<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:21]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, it\u2019s Just a feeling, but I think it\u2019s a good compromise between the two of us and what we have as our goals because if he wants to invest in a business, then that leaves him with half of it to do something with a business, and then half of it is long-term.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re saying 50-50. And what about the guilt-free spending and savings. What about that? That\u2019s\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:40]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Not accounted. You didn\u2019t account for that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:41]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No. Yeah, I didn\u2019t account for that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:42]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Fine. All right. So what do you think, Brad? $6,000, putting aside each month invested, that\u2019s 29% for your investments. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:54]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0That sounds like a good starting point.<\/p>\n<p>[00:41:56]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, so just so I\u2019m hearing you, clearly, you\u2019re saying whatever\u2019s left after you\u2019re covering your fixed costs, you\u2019re happy to put that towards investments.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:07]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. But now I\u2019m hedging it back because we do need to have a little bit of fun. We haven\u2019t got to talk about our rich life at this point.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Look, let me give you a 1,000 bucks for\u2013 you need some money. I\u2019ll leave it to you to how much your guilt-free spending is. I actually have very little concern that you\u2019re way overspending on guilt-free spending. Sandra, do you have that number under control?<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:30]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, we do not really have much guilt-free spending going on. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:42:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. So I wouldn\u2019t mind if you were to say, hey, let\u2019s give ourselves just a little bit. I\u2019m talking like 250, 500 a month. But just as a number, if I had to ballpark it, it would be like 7%, maybe 10. Maybe. Why? Let me tell you why. I\u2019m going to be very direct in a way that I\u2019m ordinarily not when I have conversations. Because what you have demonstrated to me, what you\u2019ve told me in your conversations, 25 years of disagreeing about money is really, really a long time.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:17]\u00a0And it\u2019s hard to get out of that, especially with the boom and bust habit that you\u2019ve both gone through. For you to actually meet in a place that Sandra, you feel safe, and you feel like there is some consistency in planning, that\u2019s what you need. And Brad, for you to feel respected, that you can be given a goal and then be given free reign to achieve that goal, that\u2019s also challenging.<\/p>\n<p>[00:43:49]\u00a0The fact that you\u2019ve invested all this money in one oil thing terrifies me. I would never do it. Ever, ever. There\u2019s no single investment in my portfolio that represents more than a few percentage points. And even all my individual stocks represent less than 10%. This is the opposite of diversification.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:14]\u00a0I\u2019m happy that you\u2019re making money right now, but I strongly suspect that in a matter of months, the money\u2019s going to stop or it\u2019s going to dry up, and you\u2019re going to hear all kinds of excuses. But these private investments, they love what they call dumb money. It is a bit of a derogatory term. It\u2019s the mom and pop investors, typically, doctors and dentists. That\u2019s how they describe them.<\/p>\n<p>[00:44:41]\u00a0And so these Wall Street guys come and just take them for everything they\u2019re worth. Now, right now you\u2019re getting the money. I hope it continues. I genuinely do. For right now, while the money\u2019s coming in, I would aggressively invest that money in diversified index funds. I\u2019m like, I got to get it out of this oil thing and into simple low cost funds as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:06]\u00a0That is me being as direct as possible. I can\u2019t tell you what to do with your money, but I can tell you that if I\u2019m looking at it, I\u2019m going, oh my God. I\u2019m taking this money while the going\u2019s good. I\u2019m going to invest it aggressively, put it away, and secure our future. How does that strike you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:24]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0It is very direct. The dumb money struck a chord. My initial reaction is to defend myself and to defend the group that we\u2019re into. The average investment into this project is per individual is closer to 40 and $50 million for what it\u2019s worth. That said, investing it into index funds and repositioning it, I think that was always part of the plan.<\/p>\n<p>[00:45:55]\u00a0But we\u2019ve had a big question mark as to what that next investment looks like. And I hear you loud and clear that diversified in index funds sounds\u2013 and to a degree we\u2019re leaning in that direction.<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0The point is, if you want to have additional money for alternative investments, I say start a business. Get a job. You figure that out. But you can put the money in your 401K. You\u2019re going to max that out. You can max that out in a month. You\u2019re going to eventually end up putting money in a taxable account, which you can reach into, but don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[00:46:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0A couple of observations on that lengthy exchange. First of all, kudos to Brad. He was coachable on hearing some of what I had to say, and I appreciate that. Some of this is not easy to hear. I also\u00a0want to\u00a0talk about that phrase, I used dumb money. I hardly ever say anything like that, but this is such an egregious mismanagement of risk that I had to be utterly direct.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:01]\u00a0Nobody wants to be called dumb money. The phrase itself is pretty crass, but the concept, ma and pa investor,\u00a0they are there as marks to take their money. And for private investments, which far more often than not end up underperforming the S&amp;P 500,\u00a0Wall Street is masterful at marketing them as unbeatable.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:25]\u00a0You\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0make tons of money. And people buy into this. This happens in private equity, even happens for really rich, wealthy, sophisticated investors.\u00a0They end up underperforming the S&amp;P 500, but I\u2019m worried about Brad. I\u2019m worried about Brad and Sandra\u2019s life savings being put into a single private oil investment.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:46]\u00a0We\u2019ll be back after this.<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:48]\u00a0Now back to the show.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:49]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Sandra, what do you think about my fairly direct comments regarding your financial situation?<\/p>\n<p>[00:47:56]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s perfect. I want the money somewhere that I know it\u2019s going to be there when we need it, when we\u2019re older. I think it\u2019s a safe gap against ending up in a situation that my parents are in where they don\u2019t have that money. And so I feel like it\u2019s the best of both worlds as far as, hey, Brad, you got to do this awesome, scary investment, and now we can take the first proceeds from that and put it somewhere safe so that we know we\u2019re going to be taken care of and we\u2019re not going to be burdening our kids and making them worry that we don\u2019t have enough to take care of ourselves. So I feel like it\u2019s the best of the options.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:35]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m in on total alignment that it needs to be repositioned as quickly as possible. I can\u2019t even say it. Locking up the whole million, maybe that\u2019s what needs to happen.<\/p>\n<p>[00:48:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s how you build the serious wealth. You got to let it compound. Let\u2019s take a look at some numbers here. I just want to show you because I think the two of you have pretty ambitious goals. You\u2019ve tasted what it\u2019s like to make a lot of money. And once you taste that, you want to go back. In your case, that was a very difficult lesson to learn because if you taste it and you don\u2019t stay at that level, it\u2019s quite devastating to come back down. Would you agree?<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:22]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Definitely. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0But this is your opportunity right now. You\u2019re basically in the same situation, and you\u2019re getting very lucky, so take advantage of it. Let\u2019s take a look at some numbers here for compound interest. How much do you have currently invested in just index funds and other low retirement type accounts?<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:44]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0250.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0$250 or thousand?<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:46]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Thousand.<\/p>\n<p>[00:49:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re talking to a couple with a lot of money when they just throw numbers around, I\u2019m like, are we talking like, are your couch or 250? What are we talking about here? All right. $250,000 is currently invested in index funds?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:02]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:03]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:05]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Mutual funds.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And you\u2019re planning to invest how much per year?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:11]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0If we did 29% of the income, is that what we\u2019re looking at?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:17]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh gosh. I\u2019m not good on the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It was $5,000 per month, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:25]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:26]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Times 12. $60,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:28]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a060 grand.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:29]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. You two, what are you like? How old? Forties?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:34]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a048.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a048. All right. Let\u2019s say 10 years. 58. Just to see. I just want to show you. And then what interest rate should we assume here? It\u2019s definitely not 3.8% per month. What should we assume per year?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:46]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Like seven.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, let\u2019s do seven. All right. What do you think this number\u2019s going to be?<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:54]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I don\u2019t even know. I hope it\u2019s really high. I have no idea.<\/p>\n<p>[00:50:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a01.3 million. Not bad. All right, let\u2019s play it out. Let\u2019s just keep going a little bit. Huh? This assumes no increase. Oh,\u00a0shit. All right. This is a bit aggressive. 5,000 a month? I hope you can keep that up for 10 years. But that is a really high income. All right, let\u2019s do the good and do the bad. Let\u2019s play it out in all different forms.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:22]\u00a0Let\u2019s say that you\u2019re able to keep maintaining $5,000 a month investments, which is 60,000 a year, and instead of 10 years, we keep it at 15 years. Same thing. 2.3 million. Starts to really grow as you go a little bit. 3.5 million after 20 years. Okay, impressive.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:42]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:51:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So first off, right now we are assuming that $20,500 is coming in every single month as an oil dividend. If that comes in, you\u2019ve already created a plan where approximately 6,000 of those dollars go into investments. All right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:09]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0For guilt-free spending, it definitely should not be $6,000 a month. Do you want to just fix this right now? Should we just do this? I hate homework. Let\u2019s just do it. All right. Right now you have $5,796 left over per month. That\u2019s too much to be spending on guilt-free spending. Let\u2019s get aggressive. Let\u2019s play around. Let\u2019s put 4,000 more. Holy\u00a0shit. Oh my God, this is amazing. I just put $4,000 additional in investments. That\u2019s 10,000 a month. Now that\u2019s aggressive. What do y\u2019all think?<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:47]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Definitely aggressive.<\/p>\n<p>[00:52:48]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I like that. But keep in mind it\u2019s paying $20,000 a month. Doesn\u2019t it make sense that half of that should be going to investment? Hell, if it was me, if I didn\u2019t have all these other expenses and stuff, I would take $20,500, take every last cent, and diversify it into the market. That\u2019s what I would do. So the fact that half of this money is being eaten up by other expenses, what does that tell you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:15]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Ugh. That\u2019s the part that I don\u2019t like. Yeah. Just tells me that we have not enough regular income<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:22]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:23]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Just so you know, the two of you look at money totally differently. Brad looks at money as net worth. That is what Brad is concerned with. Brad goes, what are you talking about we don\u2019t have enough money? We have $1.3 million, and we\u2019re drawing from that and it\u2019s paying us. We are millionaires. Net worth. And there\u2019s validity in that.<\/p>\n<p>[00:53:45]\u00a0I personally look at my financial situation by net worth first. Sandra is saying, what do I care how much money\u2019s locked up in some oil thing? We are losing money every single month. It\u2019s in the red. And I\u2019m sitting over here trying to move things around like Tetris, and there\u2019s just not enough money.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:07]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:08]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Both of you can be right, but that doesn\u2019t solve anything just because you feel right. That got you 25 years, but that didn\u2019t solve your financial problems. In my opinion, when you get to a certain level of your finances, net worth starts to become more relevant, more interesting. It\u2019s where you focus more of your time on. Cashflow, you want to keep an eye on it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:35]\u00a0Right now it appears to Brad, he\u2019s like, well, that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We got a million bucks. It\u2019s paying out a huge amount. What do I care about some tiny amount here or there? It\u2019s fine. Sandra says like, I don\u2019t even count the $20,000 a month. We can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s real money. We got to count it as income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:54:53]\u00a0But let\u2019s also play what happens if this doesn\u2019t work out. So let\u2019s say you\u2019re able to do this for one more year, $300,000 in your principle, and then this oil thing vanishes and you lose it all. It\u2019s gone. It\u2019s very real possibility. How much money can you contribute now to your investments?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:18]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0With our current income, none.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Zero. All right. And 10 years to grow. 7%. You have $590,000 by the time you\u2019re 58 years old. What\u2019s the percentage of this actually happening here?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:36]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I hope it\u2019s low, but I don\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:40]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Make it up. Ballpark it.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:44]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a050%. 50-50. Could go either way.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:47]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay. Brad, what do you think?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:48]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0The worst case scenario?<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:50]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a020%.<\/p>\n<p>[00:55:51]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s pretty high. Brad, you can\u2019t control what\u2019s happening with the oil thing. That ship has sailed. Whatever\u2019s going to happen is going to happen. But now what if the money goes to zero? We need to grapple with that. Are you all ready to do this?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:06]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:06]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. So here we are. I am going to take this number. This is in your gross income, and I\u2019m simply going to delete it because I\u2019m going to assume that that money just stopped. All right. So we\u2019re back to 2,966. I\u2019m not even getting into the fact that net and gross are the same. Whatever. And you\u2019re back to 99% fixed cost. These numbers look familiar, right?<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:34]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, this what I look at all the time.<\/p>\n<p>[00:56:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0There are two things you can control. Number one, you can control what you do with the money when it comes in, which I think we\u2019ve agreed you\u2019re going to aggressively invest it in diversified funds, whether through a 401K, HSA, taxable account, whatever. Speak to your account. What\u2019s the second thing you can do, Brad, and Sandra, for that matter, to mitigate against ending up almost 60 years old with $600,000 in the bank?<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:07]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Earn more income.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:10]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:11]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0So it looks like creating a part-time job into a full-time position. Teaching, fully employed, what, 10, 12,000 per month.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, fair enough. Put a pin in that. I\u2019m coming back to you, but I love what you just said. Sandra, what about for you?<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:29]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Right now I do work full-time. I could probably make more. I like what I\u2019m doing, but I could probably do something different. I work remote from home, and it\u2019s a really flexible job, so it\u2019s nice with the kids that we do have here at home to be able to take care of them and such. But I could do something different there.<\/p>\n<p>[00:57:48]\u00a0I was working full-time at the same position, and then I was doing massage at night, and it was very lucrative. And so that\u2019s why I was doing it, because of a lot of tourists. And so making about $100 an hour doing massage.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:00]\u00a0It was a pretty good gig actually, make an extra $1,000 a week just working a couple of nights. That\u2019s an option. And I have a side business that I would love to grow, doing Ayurvedic health coaching, but it\u2019s something I\u2019ve dabbled with for years, and I\u2019ve not ever really seen that grow much. So I don\u2019t have a lot of confidence in that becoming something that\u2019s stable.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:22]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0So how do you decide, out of the two of you, what you\u2019re going to do about your income? Because right now it\u2019s easy to just ignore it. You\u2019re like, what do we care? We\u2019re making 29,000 a month. Let\u2019s just hope that everything goes well. The hope is not a strategy.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:39]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah That\u2019s, I think, the most uncomfortable thing about this whole conversation. When I get stressed about this, I try and figure out all different ways that I can earn more money, and I just don\u2019t want it to become my problem to solve the whole thing by myself. And so I don\u2019t want to keep on trying to find new ways.<\/p>\n<p>[00:58:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What would you say in a way that would be connective to Brad and not a jab?<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:06]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad, I think we need to decide together here\u2019s how much our family needs. How do we want to provide that income? And maybe it\u2019s doing a business together. Maybe it is something like that. But I think it has to be something we\u2019re both comfortable and happy doing and happy with.<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:23]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0So yeah, I think that the full-time teaching scenario is still the right path to take. We don\u2019t have a huge delta or a huge difference that we\u2019re trying to solve, and I know it makes you very uncomfortable, but it still feels like that\u2019s a good way to make this work the best. So the total gross teacher would be 63,000 on year one, which would be 5,250.<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:54]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay.<\/p>\n<p>[00:59:56]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Then plus we would have another 14,000 for the year for the contractor scenario that I got.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:04]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, fine. I added it in. Okay. All right. So here\u2019s what I just changed for everyone listening. Instead of Brad\u2019s gross income being 3,000, it\u2019s now 6,450. They both make the same gross income. They both make the same net, and their combined gross monthly income is $12,950. Your fixed costs are now 75%. That\u2019s high.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:32]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:32]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, you\u2019re definitely not. We got to change all these investments needs to go to 0, 0, 0 savings, and then you got a little bit of money left over.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:50]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I think a little bit of savings maybe.<\/p>\n<p>[01:00:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, you could put like a thousand bucks a month into savings. I agree. Yeah. And you could put 500 a month into investments.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:04]\u00a0You\u2019d be doing 7%, which, let me tell you what I see at 7%. Because I typically say, investments five to 10%, but of course more is better. But if you two were 25 years old, I would say, yeah, 7%. Good. Enjoy Taco Tuesday and put 7% in. And as your income increases, you\u2019re going to compound and all that stuff, but you\u2019re 48 years old, so the consideration changes. What do y\u2019all think about where I\u2019m going with this?<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:41]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Not enough income.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Not enough income, and time is getting short to start compounding.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:47]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Totally agree.<\/p>\n<p>[01:01:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0You know what happens if you put $500 a month at your age? Let\u2019s just take a look.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:01]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019ve got 17 years until we\u2019re 65.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:05]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, let\u2019s play that out. You\u2019d have $987,000. It\u2019s not bad. It\u2019s not bad. Your withdrawal on that, let\u2019s just even say 4%. 40,000 a year. It\u2019s not a lot to live on.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:25]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No, that\u2019s bad. Definitely not enough. Needs to be 4 million to be able to comfortably have a nice life at that point.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:35]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:37]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And every year, starting right now that you\u2019re not contributing a substantial amount to investments becomes harder and harder. You see what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:53]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I do.<\/p>\n<p>[01:02:55]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Might there be a way that you could look at other options while still working part-time?<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:05]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Sure. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Are you interested in that? You don\u2019t sound that interested.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:12]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m not. Yeah, I\u2019m just not.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:21]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0If we\u2019re in the worst case scenario, which we are, the oil thing we\u2019re talking\u2013<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:24]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0If the oil thing died, then I would be bailing on the teaching scenario, and I would be looking for the 10 to $12,000 per year position.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What is that?<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:35]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s whatever I could find for 10 to 12,000. I haven\u2019t explored yet. I don\u2019t know what that would be, but I would say if I\u2019m fully employed, if I\u2019m like making the money, I should be making, it would be in that space, is like a full-time middle manager cubicle scenario. So yeah, if it goes belly up, then I\u2019m absolutely willing to suck it up and head that direction.<\/p>\n<p>[01:03:59]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you want to teach?<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:02]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I would love to teach. I\u2019ve been doing it for the last three months. It\u2019s spectacular.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:06]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you think Sandra?<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:08]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I think that he\u2019s a great teacher. I think it\u2019s a good stable thing for him. I don\u2019t think that the income is as high as what he could do, but if the oil continues, I think it\u2019s the perfect place for him to be. I think him saying he\u2019s willing to do a full-time job is really a good step, if he needed to do that.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:27]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m happy to get a full-time job. I can make that commitment. Sandra, if the oil goes belly up, I will get a full-time job.<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:33]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Hey, I like that. That\u2019s good reassurance there.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:37]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Just to reiterate once more, let me tell you why we\u2019re talking about potentially making more income. Even though their oil investment is currently paying off, it\u2019s giving huge returns, based on pure math, that\u2019s unlikely to continue.\u00a0If it were to continue, it\u2019d be one of the best investments in the history of the world.<\/p>\n<p>[Interview]<\/p>\n<p>[01:04:56]\u00a0But Sandra\u2019s also recognizing that this is a severe risk. This is one individual investment. It could dry up. It could stop paying for whatever reason, regulatory risk. And if this thing goes away, we are sunk. Can we agree that that\u2019s how everyone in this conversation feels? Is that fair?<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:19]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:19]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m not as dire on that conversation, and I appreciate you painting the picture of it. It\u2019s doomed to fail. At this point, it has been performing fantastic. It\u2019s not dumb money. These are 60-million-dollar investors that are putting money to this project. We\u2019re fortunate enough to be tied into these big investors.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:38]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I hope it works, Brad.<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:40]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0So we\u2019re paying a doomsday scenario, and I can appreciate that, and it\u2019s kept me up at night, but I don\u2019t believe that that\u2019s the likely case scenario. What if it\u2019s best case scenario?<\/p>\n<p>[01:05:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019ll talk about that as well. But Brad, I don\u2019t hope that this thing fails. I hope it crushes it, but if it doesn\u2019t, right now, there\u2019s no plan forward, and you\u2019re out of money in a matter of months. I couldn\u2019t run a two-person relationship like this, much less a six-person household.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:13]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:16]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. So we got to plan for the best and the worst case scenarios. All right. We talked about worst. We said, look, right now the money\u2019s coming in. Invest that aggressively. Instead of 20,000, what if you make 40,000 next month in dividends? Because that\u2019s happened, right? You\u2019ve gotten paid 40,000 in a month from this oil thing, right, Brad?<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:44]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:06:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Here\u2019s my suggestion. If you make 40k instead of 20k in a month, literally take all your numbers and double it. Don\u2019t mess with it. Don\u2019t tweak anything. It\u2019s all percentage based. That\u2019s it. So instead of this thing being 10,000 a month, it\u2019s 20,000 in a month for your investments. That\u2019s literally it. What is that huge smile on Sandra\u2019s face? Look at that smile.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:10]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Because I\u2019m like, that would be awesome. It\u2019d be really great.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:15]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, Brad, do you understand the principle, just doubling the percentage?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:19]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Totally get it. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:20]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0All right. Now Sandra, I want to raise something that Brad brought up, which is like, will it be enough?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:28]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:29]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Are you going to feel good about money if you\u2019re executing on this plan?<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:35]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d like to say yes. I don\u2019t know if I would feel good, but I think having a plan is very much still secure to me, knowing that we\u2019re making strides, that we\u2019re working towards it, that it\u2019s not just counting the Costco membership in that line, but this money\u2019s being set aside every month and we know that it\u2019s going to be there for us when we need it.<\/p>\n<p>[01:07:57]\u00a0So that I think is very helpful. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll feel like amazing all the time. I don\u2019t know. I think that would be silly to think that I would, but I think it would give that layer of we\u2019re doing something really good with the dividends from the oil, so I can not worry about them so much now.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:12]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0And how could you continue to work on the way you feel about money?<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:16]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh gosh, I don\u2019t know. Read your book again and get more coaching on money and spend time really working on my mindset around it.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:27]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Of course you can join my coaching program. All that, yes. But also your therapist.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:33]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Where\u2019s the money for that?<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:36]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, that\u2019s true. I should probably put that as a line item, huh?<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:39]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Discretionary spending.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:39]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Discretionary spending.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:41]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0That instead of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:43]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Honestly, it\u2019s one of the most important things the two of you can spend your money on. And if you want to do it individually, do that too.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:49]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, you\u2019re right. That should be spent.<\/p>\n<p>[01:08:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0We often give ourselves these labels, often very charitable. If it doesn\u2019t show up on our calendar and in our CSP, it\u2019s probably not as true as we think. I\u2019ll give you an example from my own life one you might not expect. As I\u2019m talking about generosity, I\u2019m like, no, I\u2019m a hotel guy.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:10]\u00a0I love hotels. Guess what? That shows up big in my spending, and it shows up on my calendar, and it shows up in my CSP. And so should anything that\u2019s important to you. So if in your relationship with four kids in 25 years of marriage, this relationship is important to you, then it should show up in your spending.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:28]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Well said.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:31]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I think when you talk about safety, Sandra, that\u2019s a word. But had you been able to both have the skills of going deeper on that, which you can learn those skills. You could become equipped to do that, then I think Brad would\u2019ve said, hey, I hear you saying safety.<\/p>\n<p>[01:09:49]\u00a0I want you to feel safe. I want to feel safe. Sometimes I\u2019m scared. I want us to both feel safe. Hey, Sandra, what would safety mean to you? And then Sandra would probably say, oh, I don\u2019t know. I\u2019d want to have enough that we could comfortably get by. And then Brad would say like, tell me more. Is there a number?<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:07]\u00a0Because sometimes I feel like, gosh, even when there was a big number, sometimes I worried that that wasn\u2019t enough. But then I think maybe we just didn\u2019t get specific about what we need from each other. So I\u2019d love to know from you, what does safety look like? Tell me. Let\u2019s write it down, and I\u2019ll try to get there. Have you ever had that conversation?<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:31]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0No. No, we\u2019ve not.<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:34]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you notice about how different that is than some of the conversations you have had?<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:41]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0A lot more positive, and it\u2019s a lot more unified, connected. It\u2019s like supporting each other instead of being adversarial.<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:50]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. What do you notice, Brad?<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:52]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Same.<\/p>\n<p>[01:10:53]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0This stuff is hard. If Brad is willing to say, and what I would recommend is you all get a piece of paper and write it down, what are our fears? What are our agreements? And Brad is point blank saying, look, if the oil money stops, I will get a job, and I will make X dollars. What a relief!<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:13]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:14]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0That feels good. And then Sandra is probably going to talk about, here\u2019s what I will do more of, and here\u2019s what I will do less of. And Sandra, I think probably some of that is words like underemployed. It\u2019s got to be off the table.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:32]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s just devastating. There\u2019s got to be some things that are just off limits. And the texts, the frantic texts, there\u2019s probably no reason for that. I understand the fear. I understand that. Being frantic is not going to get you what you want. It\u2019s actually going to be more important for you to connect with Brad.<\/p>\n<p>[01:11:54]\u00a0And I would propose you take that big old budget and throw it in the garbage. I would do it theatrically. I would actually print that thing out and it\u2019d be like, look, we\u2019re going to have a ceremony, and it\u2019s going to be called, bye, bye budget. Toss that thing in. Light it on fire. Have some fun with it. Give each other a high five, and start all over. And you\u2019re both involved. Skin in the game is going to change the dynamic between the two of you. What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:23]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0I love that.<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:25]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Brad?<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:26]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0I can give it a shot. Maybe we should do it very close to our marital counseling meeting.<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:33]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I think that\u2019s an awesome idea.<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:34]\u00a0<strong>Brad:<\/strong>\u00a0Either right before or right after.<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:36]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0Fantastic. I love that. Gosh, it feels like we have some certainty around these things. What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:42]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, that feels good. Feels really good.<\/p>\n<p>[Narration]<\/p>\n<p>[01:12:45]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0I think we made some progress in this conversation, and I\u2019m thankful to Brad and Sandra for having such a candid, difficult conversation with me and with each other. I also think it was pretty hard. There\u2019s so many layers here of resentment and misunderstanding and identities and stories that\u2019s difficult to disentangle them.<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:05]\u00a0What I appreciated was the honesty about how they both felt and some agreements about what they\u2019re\u00a0going to\u00a0do with their money. Now, please listen to their follow-ups. First, let\u2019s hear from Sandra.<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:17]\u00a0<strong>Sandra:<\/strong>\u00a0So I would say the biggest surprise in my call was probably the emphasis that was put on our investments in the oil. I mostly just wanted to resolve how to account for it. I would say my biggest takeaways were that my husband and I are actually more on the same page than we thought, and we\u2019ve made some really good strides as far as setting up some investments and also creating a really clear vision of what we want together.<\/p>\n<p>[01:13:45]\u00a0I think from that call, I was able to see that it\u2019s important that we both. Get involved in the money that we both spend time discussing it and going through it and that we\u2019re more of an active participant and that managing the money does not mean just paying the bills, that it\u2019s having a bigger vision for what we want for our future. So thanks for your time. It was great to visit with you and thanks so much.<\/p>\n<p>[01:14:07]\u00a0<strong>Ramit:<\/strong>\u00a0As for Brad, I received an email from Sandra. She wrote, \u201cBrad will not be sending a follow-up video. He felt very attacked on the podcast and does not want to engage further.\u201d I\u2019m hoping for the best for Brad and Sandra.\u00a0And again, I thank them for coming on and sharing their\u00a0story.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sandra, 46, and Brad, 48, return for Part 2 as we get our hands dirty with their incredible decision to invest $1,000,000\u2014their entire net worth\u2014into one oil operation. It\u2019s paying out $20k a month right now, and Brad\u2019s done his research to feel confident. But Sandra can\u2019t handle the risk. This episode is brought to [&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-118932","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\/118932","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=118932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}