Ramit Sethi Reveals How To Get on the Same Page With Your Partner About Money
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Andrew Lisa
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Levi Leidy
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For couples, money can make or break a relationship — and communication is the key to household financial bliss. The problem is that some couples are just bad at talking — especially about money.
Ramit Sethi of “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” counseled two pairs of partners on his “Money for Couples” podcast during a live event in Seattle. He taught them to work forward from the things they have in common, as well as a few techniques for finding the middle ground where none appears to exist.
Mismatched Money Mindsets: The Opportunist and the Type A
The first couple Sethi interviewed were Sophia, a 41-year-old ultrasound technician, and Charley, a 40-year-old filmmaker. Charley is a self-described “opportunistic” spender.
“When I see it arrive, I use it,” he said.
In one example, he purchased an expensive four-wheeler when Sophia was out of town during a difficult time in his life to fill an emotional “void” — and simply because he had enough open space on a credit card to finance the purchase.
Sophia, on the other hand, says she’s a “Type A personality” who thinks about money analytically, leaves emotions out of her purchasing decisions and approaches her finances with a saver’s mentality.
After a decade of marriage and now in their early 40s, the couple decided to split their finances to avoid friction. However, combined expenditures like vacations and even groceries made financial friction inevitable. Sophia felt like she was picking up the slack, planning for two and paying more than her fair share, while Charley felt overly scrutinized.
Both are reasonable and self-aware. Sophia concedes that she has plenty to learn about personal finance, and Charley admits he had “no pride around how I use money.”
Sethi just thinks they need to talk.
‘A Really Good First Conversation About Money’
Sethi explained that, like so many of the people he counsels, the couple seems to have never had “a healthy, positive conversation about money.”
He started with a “lightning round” with a back-and-forth “brain dump” of the first money questions that came to mind for each to ask the other.
- Sophia: “Can we travel for two years?”
- Charley: “Is there a time when we can bridge our finances to some degree?”
- Sophia: “When will your credit cards be paid off?”
- Charley: “How much do you wish I made?”
- Sophia: “How will we teach our kids about money?”
- Charley: “How will we teach our kids about money?”
- Sophia: “Will you end up with a retirement account?”
- Charley: “Will you help me make a retirement account?”
Sethi explained that those questions would be the basis of future discussions, but their first productive money talk would focus on “why this meeting is going to be awesome.”
The next question was how they feel about money right now. The third was how they wanted to feel about money in the future. The couple got through all three questions without mentioning actual dollars and cents.
“I think that was a really good first conversation about money,” said Sethi. “It has no numbers. It’s all about, ‘Where are we today?’ Take an honest stock. Where do we want to go? And then there’s plenty and plenty of time for you to explore all those questions that you talked about.”
$250? $500? Who Cares? Well, I Do, Actually
Sethi’s next guests were Megan, a 37-year-old dentist, and Ryan, a 36-year-old software engineer. Even though they have a combined net worth of $4.2 million, they still squabble over relatively minor purchases.
For example, when their toddler wanted a bike, Megan conducted exhaustive research and narrowed down the options to a $500 model and one that cost $250. However, she felt that even the cheaper one was too expensive for a small child, so she spent an extra 12 hours finding a used version that was in good condition to save money. However, Ryan felt they had the means to purchase their way out of the tedious drudgery that a lifestyle of deliberate spending requires — after all, what had they studied and worked so hard for, if not to enjoy it?
“I was like, Can we just please buy a bike?” he explained. “I don’t really care anymore which one… We have a net worth of $4.2 million.”
‘Ghosts in Our Head About Money’
Megan and Ryan both approach money from reasonable but conflicting mindsets. To work toward a consensus, Sethi proposed another exercise that he refers to in one of his books, this one called “Rich life — fill in the blanks.”
In this lightning round, Sethi asked Megan and Ryan questions and told them to fill in the blanks with the first thing that came to mind, sort of like a money version of Mad Libs. The idea is that by identifying what they value as it pertains to wealth, they might be able to align their spending priorities and boundaries.
I wish I could spend more money on __
- Megan: Hotels
- Ryan: First-class plane tickets
My dream vacation is __
- Megan: Tahiti
- Ryan: Vietnam
If I could hire a coach for anything, it would be __
- Megan: Dancing
- Ryan: A personal trainer
If I had $100, I would get __
- Megan: My hair done
- Ryan: I’m content and don’t feel the need to do anything with found money
If I had $1,000, I would get __
- Megan: Personal chef
- Ryan: I’d rather cook, so I’d spend it on kitchen gadgets
Wouldn’t it be cool if we did __ together?
- Megan: Went to a fancy spa, which we’re planning for our anniversary
- Ryan: Exclusive, VIP things that aren’t available to everybody
Sethi was delighted with the results, which he believed signaled the first step to better money communication.
“You both seem to light up when I’m asking these questions, which surprises me in a really positive way,” he said. “Because sometimes we have these ghosts in our head about money, like, ‘Oh my God. If I’m talking about wanting to do this, then that means I have to spend money on it.’ But that doesn’t seem to be the case for either of you. You’re both, like, totally playing ball here.”
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