271. “He hid $30K of debt a month before our wedding”





Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich speaks with Sana and Arhem, both 27 and newly married. One month before their wedding, Arhem revealed that he had hidden $30,000 of credit card debt. After they both lost their jobs, Sana discovered that he had fallen even further into debt without telling her.

Today, they earn $188,000 a year and have created an aggressive plan to tackle their $165,000 of total debt. But while their numbers are improving, the betrayal has fundamentally changed their relationship. Sana has become the financial orchestrator, while Arhem feels like a student trying to prove that he can be trusted again.

In this episode we uncover:

Why Arhem hid $30,000 of credit card debt before their wedding • How Sana discovered that the debt had grown again • Why the financial betrayal nearly ended their relationship • How they are rebuilding trust after years of secrecy • Their professor-and-student dynamic with money • Why Sana feels responsible for supporting her entire family • How cultural expectations shape her financial decisions • Their $188,000 income and $165,000 of total debt • Why their highly organized financial system still feels joyless • How Arhem accumulated his credit card debt • Why earning more money will not stop Sana from worrying • The danger of postponing happiness until they are debt-free • Why their debt payoff plan may be too aggressive • The connection between joint finances and rebuilding trust • Why Ramit recommends couples therapy • How they can start prioritizing their marriage • The changes Sana and Arhem made after the conversation

Chapters:

(00:00:00) Introduction (00:03:00) Arhem hid $30,000 of debt before their wedding (00:09:00) “If things don’t change, the relationship is done” (00:12:51) Can Sana ever completely trust Arhem again? (00:15:00) Their professor-and-student money dynamic (00:17:47) Why Sana feels responsible for supporting her family (00:23:50) Their $165,000 debt and negative net worth (00:26:29) They earn $188,000—but live like they’re struggling (00:33:00) “When do I actually get to enjoy my life?” (00:39:45) Sana’s childhood money rules (00:50:00) How Arhem accumulated his credit card debt (00:57:43) What does their Rich Life actually look like? (01:05:00) Why their relationship keeps coming second (01:11:00) Ramit reviews their aggressive debt payoff plan (01:20:00) Why they need to start spending on joy now (01:25:00) Joint finances, trust, and couples therapy (01:30:00) Putting their marriage ahead of everyone else (01:41:00) Sana and Arhem’s biggest realizations (01:48:28) Six weeks later: what changed?

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Transcript:

[00:00:00:02] Sana: Our him had told me that he was in debt a month before our wedding.

[00:00:04:15] Ramit: How much debt did he tell you? He was in the first time.

[00:00:07:04] Sana: 30 grand of credit card debt. It was like being stabbed.

[00:00:11:21] Arhem: In my mind. I thought, okay, well, if I don’t tell her, then that means that I don’t burden her with it.

[00:00:16:24] Sana: I worry a.

[00:00:17:13] Arhem: Lot.

[00:00:18:10] Sana: About my family. I worry about my sister. I didn’t think that I would need to worry about my partner.

[00:00:24:04] Arhem: She did have 100% trust in me and I lost it. Essentially what I said. If things don’t change, then the relationship is done.

[00:00:31:05] Ramit: I think that you’ve made a fundamental miscalculation.

[00:00:33:24] Sana: I want to get to a stable place where I can help my family the way I want to, without feeling limited myself.

[00:00:43:11] Ramit: Right now, you have no connection to feeling joy. Your worldview is so deeply embedded in the idea that you need to be in control of everything, that you’ll do that until the day you die.

[00:00:54:05] Sana: It feels like I’m slowly getting crushed under it.

[00:01:00:19] Ramit: What would you do if you were about to get married, and you discovered your partner was hiding tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt? Today I’m speaking to Sunna and Aram. They’re both 27 years old. They’ve been married for about a year, and they wanted to speak to me after a huge betrayal in their financial relationship.

[00:01:18:25] Ramit: They actually both applied to speak to me, Sunna, last September. Hum. Just recently. Just a few months ago. Listen to the difference in their applications. I found out one month before the wedding that my partner is $30,000 in credit card debt, and I felt so hurt and betrayed. I think a lot of us would feel that way.

[00:01:38:16] Ramit: I’m very curious to talk to Sunna and see what was going through her head when she discovered this. Now let’s look at what our home wrote just a couple of months ago. We got very open and honest about my financial mistakes and how it could be a relationship ender. Since then, things have been much better. Where the roadblock comes in for me is that I want my wife to trust that we won’t go back to that low point again.

[00:02:03:22] Ramit: The question is, a year after being married, how do you come back from this and what is the path forward together? Let’s take a look at their conscious spending plan. Assets. $46,000. Investments $80,000. Savings 29,000. And debt $165,000. Kind of interesting. Yes, they have high debt. I’m going to assume student loans. I’d like to find out. What else.

[00:02:29:07] Ramit: Is there some credit card debt that was mentioned? $80,000 in investments already. Pretty considerable in their 20s. Total net worth -$9,019. Fixed costs 75%. That’s higher than I would like to see for sure, especially with that high of an income. I’m almost willing to bet that a huge part of that comes from their debt payments investments. 2%. That’s low savings, 13%.

[00:02:56:12] Ramit: Guilt free spending 11%. I have a lot of questions. Let’s talk to Sunna and I understand that you are both navigating a financial betrayal. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[00:03:10:25] Sana: We got married in December 2024, so we’re a relatively young couple. We talked about finances before we got married, and I remember I had broken down my entire system and our home had told me was like, oh, like, I don’t do it like that, but I haven’t figured out. And so I didn’t question it further. Or home had told me that he was in debt maybe a month before our wedding.

[00:03:36:17] Sana: And then like a week after we had signed our lease. I didn’t know about this. I would have planned about the apartment and the size of our wedding differently if I’d known. But we got married and then our home was all like, I have this debt. I’m not going to go into more debt. But then things got to a really deep pit.

[00:03:56:09] Sana: In the middle of the summer time last year, we were already going through some financial troubles because we both lost our jobs for different reasons and had gone a little bit deeper in his debt. But he hadn’t told me, and so it felt like I was thrown under the bus a second time. I hate the idea of living in debt, and I can’t keep going deeper.

[00:04:19:09] Sana: And you need to take this as seriously as I do.

[00:04:21:18] Ramit: How much debt did he tell you he was in the first time?

[00:04:25:08] Sana: It was about 30 grand of credit card debt.

[00:04:28:09] Ramit: Okay. What did you feel when he told you that?

[00:04:30:09] Sana: It was like being stabbed. If I had known before we had started looking for apartments, we would have gone with a different price point. We could have found a little bit more affordable place. And so I had dreams of where of what our life would look like. And it felt like it’s not the same.

[00:04:49:24] Ramit: And when you say stabbed, what do you mean?

[00:04:52:20] Sana: I have spent my whole life avoiding debt. I know my parents struggled. I’ve. I know how hard my parents worked to pay it off. And so I was in no debt. I went to college on a full ride. I was going to be a teacher, and I had taken out loans and grants, but they all were forgivable if I had served a certain number of years.

[00:05:16:13] Sana: And so I had always calculated my life to be debt free so I wouldn’t feel that same burden. And so it felt like I had gone through so much effort to avoid this point. But I, through no fault of my own, I was still put into debt.

[00:05:35:17] Ramit: When he told you he had $30,000 of credit card debt a month before the wedding. What was your response?

[00:05:43:05] Sana: We had talked about like, what would our timeline look like for kids for buying a home? It’s like, well, the home is out of the question of this point. And I told them then that I am not ready to start a family until that debt is paid off. If that means five years, five years, that means seven years, seven years.

[00:06:01:14] Sana: But it’s not going to be as soon as we both thought.

[00:06:03:23] Ramit: Okay, okay, our home. Go back to that conversation a month before the wedding. What do you remember about that moment?

[00:06:13:16] Arhem: I remember we were buying furniture for the apartment, and I think that’s that was kind of the catalyst that led to this conversation, because I knew that I was about to be let go from the company. And so I was already nervous about that. And the wedding was coming up. And so I didn’t know how long the job search would take.

[00:06:31:11] Arhem: So then that’s why I was nervous about getting this, this furniture. And so then that’s when I asked, like, you know, why do you feel so nervous about it? And then that’s when I shared what was actually causing me this much anxiety.

[00:06:41:29] Ramit: Why didn’t you bring it up earlier?

[00:06:43:15] Arhem: I knew that it was bad, but I guess I wanted to shield her from it, which is why I didn’t want to share it. And so I thought, okay, I’ll come up with a plan on my own. I’ll. I’ll deal with it on my own and handle it on my own, essentially because I didn’t want the burden to be on her.

[00:07:00:28] Arhem: And I guess in my mind I thought, okay, well, if I don’t tell her, then that means that I don’t burden her with it.

[00:07:07:21] Ramit: Where did you get that reasoning from?

[00:07:09:14] Arhem: I feel like that was kind of the behavior that was modeled to me. That’s that’s kind of the dynamic between my parents and that my mom is a warrior. And then my dad is, you know, he he kind of takes on debt. He handles the bigger expenses. And whenever my mom brings up a concern, he sort of hand waves it away, saying, I’ll figure it out.

[00:07:30:18] Arhem: I’ll take care of it. And so that’s kind of what made sense to me, that I don’t really see a point in telling her about it, because it’s not her responsibility to take care of. It’s my problem to solve, I guess, is the way that I reasoned it.

[00:07:45:07] Ramit: What was the.

[00:07:45:22] Arhem: Fallout.

[00:07:46:11] Ramit: From you telling Sana about your debt the first time, and then the second time that you had gotten into more debt?

[00:07:52:18] Arhem: So the first time, I feel like it brought a little bit of a cloud over all of the wedding, because the wedding was then the next month after that, and then after the second conversation, that’s when it was the real low point. That’s and essentially what Sana said, which is what I took to heart, that, you know, if things don’t change, then their relationship is done.

[00:08:14:03] Arhem: Essentially.

[00:08:14:24] Ramit: You said that’s.

[00:08:15:15] Sana: Not always the implication of what I said. Yes.

[00:08:18:28] Ramit: What did you actually say?

[00:08:20:22] Sana: I don’t get panic attacks, but I started like wheezing. Needed to use my inhaler, which I never use. Yeah, it just felt like I’m putting in so much effort on my own and my partner is not matching that energy. And if we are not aligned, then I can’t keep doing the heavy lifting and this relationship won’t last as long as forever.

[00:08:50:12] Ramit: Now, looking back at that second conversation, what do you think Sana was going through when she realized you were in even more debt?

[00:08:59:25] Arhem: Sana as very methodical and she has grown up through hard times, financially difficult times. And it would be one thing if if she put herself in that position. But I think what she felt is that something out of her control now put her in a tough position. And I feel like there was a phrase she said at the time that, like, she’s sinking underneath and she doesn’t know how to do anything about that.

[00:09:26:29] Arhem: And it was primarily because of me that we were in a difficult spot.

[00:09:31:15] Ramit: How accurate is that?

[00:09:32:21] Sana: That’s pretty accurate. I worry a lot about my family. I worry about my sister. I didn’t think that I would need to worry about my partner, and I’ve always wanted to be on a team and approach life together. But it felt like I already have so much on my plate. And I told him that, like, there’s only so much I can handle, and at some point I would break and then that would be the end.

[00:10:06:01] Sana: And so the last summer was difficult, but something clicked for him. I gave him your book, he read it. We started listening to her podcast together. We put together our CSP. We consolidated all of his debt. And so now it’s paying it off as aggressively as possible. I’m very grateful that ARM has learned because he cares about a relationship.

[00:10:37:00] Sana: So I’m glad that piece is there. It’s just it’s going to take us a couple of years to get out of the pit that we’re in. Yeah.

[00:10:45:04] Ramit: Wow. That’s pretty impressive. I just want to say, have you both acknowledged how much has changed in the last few months?

[00:10:54:13] Arhem: I think we tried to I think she does a better job at saying, you know, I’m proud of you and I see what you’re doing. I, I guess I have a tough time in seeing that progress, because I know how bad of a spot we were in before and kind of seeing the way that she was that day.

[00:11:10:27] Arhem: I still see her see it clear as day, like I just didn’t want to go back to that, how she was that day. And so to me, that felt like the thing that clicked that day. Okay.

[00:11:22:07] Ramit: Two things really impressed me about this couple. First, that Sunna said, hey, this is not okay. And if you don’t make changes, then this relationship as it is can’t go on. That takes a lot of courage. That takes standards and boundaries. And so when I heard that, I’m making a mental note of it, saying, wow, she can really call the ball, she saw what was going on.

[00:11:49:14] Ramit: She said, that’s not acceptable. This is what I expect. And especially in the South Asian culture, where ending a new marriage would be a big deal. That takes a huge amount of courage. Then I want to note that Aram also responded to that. He was like, whoa, this is serious. I better fix this right now. And he has done that.

[00:12:12:00] Ramit: You’ll notice that sometimes when people have huge amounts of debt, one partner will not be as clear as Sunao was. They’ll dance around it. They’ll say, it would be nice if she just said, this is what I expect. You’ll also notice that sometimes the people who incurred the debt will come up with excuses. They’ll have reasons. They’ll try to push the ball back to the other person.

[00:12:33:03] Ramit: No, in this case, he said, I messed up. I’m making the plan. And he has stuck with that plan now for months and months. It’s really quite impressive for both of them, if you think about it. So the two of you are here now. You have a plan. You’ve been paying off the debt. What about the trust? Where are you with the trust when it comes to money?

[00:12:55:18] Arhem: I’m operating at a deficit. I’m still not at 100% trust because she did have 100% trust in me and I lost it. So now I have to regain it back. Okay.

[00:13:06:23] Sana: Yeah. And I would say it’s being rebuilt. I, I see where we were last summer and it’s been almost a year since that point. And so we’ve come hundreds of miles here. But I wouldn’t say that I have blind trust. Okay. Yeah.

[00:13:24:07] Ramit: Do you think you ever will?

[00:13:25:20] Sana: I think so, I think it will take time. I think the marker for me, it would be when or have climbed out of that credit card debt and then is able to show that he can stay out of it permanently.

[00:13:38:17] Ramit: Okay. Some people will never have blind trust. I think that’s okay. Some people will. That’s okay too. But I like that you have a vision of what it will take for you to trust him again with the money. How does money flow in your lives? Like, just paint the picture for me. You both get paid. And what happens?

[00:14:00:03] Sana: We have not combined our finances, and so we get paid out from work separately into our own accounts. And then we set up our CSP. And so we automate what goes where. And then after all of that is done is what is left over for us to enjoy.

[00:14:19:17] Ramit: So do you have a joint account at all? No. Okay. So like, somebody might pay the rent. Somebody pays groceries. Is that how it works?

[00:14:28:20] Arhem: Yeah, we designated that. Okay, I’m going to take care of this. You take care of that. But we pay out of our own accounts.

[00:14:34:08] Ramit: Got it. Okay. And how do you feel on a monthly basis about money?

[00:14:40:01] Arhem: I have to be very strict and very vigilant, and it does feel a little bit constrained. But I also feel that it’s helpful for me right now to be somewhat constrained.

[00:14:52:00] Sana: I would say that I’ve never felt like fully free to do whatever I want with my money, but since last year, I’ve been tracking like, everything. And so now I know exactly where my income is going. We’ve cut down how much we have for guilt free spending, but we’re very intentional with what we do with it. And then I’m also working on telling myself that it’s okay if I spend on myself, because I know that’s something that I’ve struggled with my whole life.

[00:15:22:11] Ramit: You say yes to other people before you say yes to yourself. Yes. Yeah. Okay. In your entire relationship, not just in the last six months, but in your entire relationship, what role does each of you play?

[00:15:35:11] Sana: I feel like like an orchestrator or like, sometimes like the Mad Hatter. I feel like I know everything that is expected of me and everything that I have to do. And so I take care of those things first, and then whatever’s left is for me. Oftentimes it’s not enough for me, but I’m okay with that.

[00:16:01:25] Ramit: Got it. Okay. Do you have your hands in too much or just the right amount?

[00:16:07:20] Sana: Leaning on too much. But I can do it.

[00:16:11:10] Ramit: Oh, okay. What’s your role?

[00:16:13:21] Arhem: Before last summer, I felt like she was kind of nagging or nosy about money. And then I was either trying to avoid talking about it or just sort of hand wave it away, like, you know, I’ll figure it out. Why are you being on my case now? I feel like it’s like a professor. Then I’m like a student and I say, hey, like, look at how I did.

[00:16:35:25] Arhem: Did I do good this time? I really want to show her that I am taking. I’m still taking that day seriously in that time. Seriously? Yeah, I do feel like she’s an orchestrator and I guess I’m I yeah, I guess student teacher maybe like.

[00:16:50:04] Ramit: What should the roles be? Because if these are the roles that you want, we can build around that. But if not, tell me, what roles do you think that you would like to both be?

[00:17:01:05] Sana: I would like for both of us to have equal rows and responsibility like a colleague. I don’t want there to be a hierarchy. Okay. And so if he wants to be my co conductor of my orchestra.

[00:17:16:15] Arhem: Yeah, I would like for both of us to act as like, you know, two C-suite members maybe as part of a business like. But I feel like in a successful business, if there are two, two higher ups around the same level, they have a trust in each other and they don’t have to check in on each other so frequently.

[00:17:34:19] Arhem: Got it.

[00:17:35:19] Ramit: Okay, that’s good to know that that’s the vision of where you want to go. You mentioned that you feel that you have to over prepare sometimes. What does that mean? How does it show up?

[00:17:47:05] Sana: I help my parents financially. My dad used to talk about buying a home and he’s like, yeah, we can do it. So I was like, okay, like, I want to help you with that. And so I had saved up a certain amount. We didn’t end up buying a home, but they did move apartment. And so I’ve been helping them financially with that.

[00:18:07:18] Sana: My sister went through some hard times last year and I was helping her financially as well. I also left my profession and so I do have to pay back those grants. I’m in my second master’s program.

[00:18:24:16] Ramit: What are you getting your master’s in undergrad?

[00:18:26:29] Sana: I was so committed to being a teacher. I went to a master’s program, became a teacher, taught for a couple of years. But then I burned out very quickly and I knew that it wasn’t sustainable. And so I stepped away. I went through a little bit of like, a midlife crisis in terms of my career. And so I pivoted.

[00:18:51:26] Sana: I got my undergrad degree in math. I’m a data analyst now. I’m getting my second master’s in data science with the goal of like, getting as proficient as I can in data science, and then with also the goal of maximizing my income as fast as I can, as early as I can, just so I can do everything that I want to do.

[00:19:17:09] Sana: Okay. But I’m taking out loans intentionally for the first time. But it feels like with all of these things, there’s less space for me.

[00:19:30:17] Ramit: Hearing you describe it feels overwhelming to me. I can’t imagine how it feels for you.

[00:19:36:27] Sana: Yeah.

[00:19:37:29] Ramit: What’s going through your head as you think about it? It’s okay if you need to take a minute.

[00:19:42:17] Sana: Yeah. Nobody puts this responsibility on me, but I put it on myself, okay? I know that my parents worked hard. My mom especially. She did a lot for me. And so as they get older, as I get older, I want to take some of their burdens off their shoulder. And so when they had moved apartments, I had agreed, like, I want to support you.

[00:20:10:17] Sana: And so I have been. My sister and I agreed that we would go, we would have a certain amount that we would support our parents with. And then she lost her job. And so I took on her share. And so I was doing double what I had first agreed to. I want to get to a stable place where I can help my family the way I want to without feeling limited myself.

[00:20:39:22] Ramit: Yeah, I can see that. You start off with the best of intentions. You still want to help them things come up. Your sister loses her job suddenly. You’re now responsible for double the amount than you had thought. Do you ever say no to your family?

[00:20:54:24] Sana: They told me not to help them.

[00:20:57:29] Ramit: They tell you not to. And your response is.

[00:21:02:12] Sana: I can’t stop. Because I know what my parents income is. And I know that their apartment would be too much if they paid for it completely on their own. And so I don’t want to put the burden on them. And so right now I can help. And so I want to.

[00:21:23:27] Ramit: Does it feel good?

[00:21:25:17] Sana: Yeah I feel like I can always do more for them.

[00:21:29:26] Ramit: Interesting answer.

[00:21:32:14] Sana: Yeah.

[00:21:33:00] Ramit: Any surprises are I’m hearing what’s on I say.

[00:21:37:09] Arhem: At least what I see is I don’t really know how much more she can do without stretching herself even further out.

[00:21:44:18] Ramit: You don’t have a brother, do you.

[00:21:46:01] Sana: Know we’re two sisters?

[00:21:47:21] Ramit: Are you the oldest? Okay. You know, usually we hear men saying, I can do more. I can take on more, I can take a burden. Whatever. If I have to work seven days a week and get sick, no problem. I’ll do it. Like grind my body into the ground.

[00:22:05:26] Sana: My dad tells me and my sister that we’re like, sense to him. And I laugh it off, but like he says it because we we, the two of us post ourselves as far as we can go. We got it to great schools. We both made sure we’re not going to put a burden financially on our parents to go to college, so we made sure that we had scholarships to cover it.

[00:22:30:09] Sana: And like we’ve gone away further than anyone expected. And so I don’t know. In like South Asian culture, that’s the role of a son.

[00:22:40:23] Ramit: Got it. That’s helpful. Think about what it means to take on more and more burdens from more and more people. If you’re strong, you can take those burdens on. It might actually feel good for a while, but over time, those weights get heavier and heavier. You start to shrink. It’s small, it’s restrictive. It limits what you can do in your own life because you’re simply following what other people have put upon your shoulders.

[00:23:08:15] Ramit: I’m actually really glad that I get to speak to them, because there’s a large cultural role happening as well. Typically, the oldest son is the one who is responsible for his parents, but because Sana does not have brothers, she is the oldest. She has essentially seamlessly stepped into the role of needing to take care of her parents. There’s also dynamics around who’s the responsible one, what do we talk about, what is okay and what is not okay.

[00:23:38:09] Ramit: But if you were raised in the South Asian culture, you invariably know these rules. I know that we’re here because Ram had a ton of credit card debt, and he betrayed her by not being honest about it. That is not okay. But Sana also has a role to play. In fact, when I speak to couples, almost always I find that they have co-created the dynamic that they find themselves in, and we’re going to get into their numbers right after this.

[00:24:13:04] Ramit: Can we take a look at your numbers? Okay. Can you read the word in bold. And then the combined number next to each of these for the whole box? Go ahead.

[00:24:24:13] Sana: Assets are 46,250. Investments are 80,840, savings are 29,460. Debt is 165,569, with a total net worth of -$9,019.

[00:24:44:23] Ramit: Okay. What do you think about those numbers?

[00:24:46:28] Sana: They’re not positive. I would love for them to be positive. I think we have a long way to go. This is the starting line of where we’re beginning.

[00:24:58:10] Ramit: Okay. What do you think about the numbers?

[00:25:00:28] Arhem: I don’t think that they’re reflective of the kind of income or the kind of profession or the high standards I think, that we both hold ourselves to. And so but like I said, they’re a starting point for now.

[00:25:14:04] Ramit: Okay. What’s the 165 K in debt? What makes up that number.

[00:25:18:20] Sana: For my dad? I have about 7000 on my car. And then the rest of it is the student debt that I’m taking on for my master’s program.

[00:25:27:26] Ramit: And then I want to ask the same question to you, our home, let’s just say $100,000 of debt. What makes that up?

[00:25:33:23] Arhem: Yeah. So 52 of it is student loans. 18 of that is a car loan with an interest rate of 3%, like just under a thousand is a medical debt 0% interest. And then the remainder of that is consolidation loans, which are essentially to pay off the credit card debt.

[00:25:54:07] Ramit: Okay. How much. And the in all of that the consolidation.

[00:25:58:22] Arhem: You can say close to 20.

[00:25:59:25] Ramit: Five okay. Great. 25,000 in consolidated. What’s the interest rate on.

[00:26:03:28] Arhem: That one is ten one is 11. So it’s made up of two loans.

[00:26:07:03] Ramit: Okay okay. That helps me understand. I know by the way that we have a disparity in savings. We have $25,000 in savings for $4,400 for our and $80,000 in investments for a $500 in investments for. Let’s go on to the income. Can you read off your combined monthly income, please?

[00:26:33:00] Arhem: 15,738.

[00:26:35:01] Ramit: All right. Cool. So the two of you make $188,000 per year by a show of hands. Who knew that number? Wow. Both. Okay, good, I believe you. You two know your numbers very well. Great job. Okay, what do you think about that number $188,000.

[00:26:52:17] Sana: That’s a fantastic income.

[00:26:55:01] Arhem: Good. Yeah, I think it’s quite good for the age. Right.

[00:26:58:11] Ramit: Right now. 27. Right.

[00:27:00:22] Arhem: 27. We’re just turned 20.

[00:27:02:08] Sana: We’re turning 28.

[00:27:03:02] Ramit: This 2728. Okay. Yeah. Great income. Very good. All right. Let’s take a look at the rest of this. So you all just so we highlight your contributing a combined $778 a month to your 401. Yeah. What does that to get the match? Yeah. Okay. You have 75% fixed costs. What do you think about that number.

[00:27:25:10] Sana: It’s very high. But then we’ve also inflated it a bit because our home is overpaying for his debt to pay it faster.

[00:27:33:06] Ramit: That’s what I suspected. Taking a look at the numbers here you have rent of $3,600, which is 23%. Not bad for the area that you live in, which is expensive car payments at 1020 total two car payments. Yeah. All right. Debt payments at 1976. And I see that’s you paying 1597 a month. That’s over the minimum, I assume.

[00:28:01:10] Arhem: Yeah, a big chunk of that is the consolidation loans. Basically I’m paying two times the amount of payment.

[00:28:07:00] Ramit: That’s right. So that’ll that’ll raise this number considerably just to play with the number. Here. Let me just take this down to let’s just say $1,000. And what would happen. Yeah you’re down to 69%. So there’s quite a bit of wiggle room with an income like that. Looking at the rest of these groceries or only 506. Is that true?

[00:28:26:20] Ramit: Yeah. How is that possible? You eat at work? No. To hell tell. Tell America what you eat.

[00:28:32:15] Sana: Oh, we shop at our local meat market, and we got everything there and so.

[00:28:37:12] Ramit: But go into detail, because I have too many people who come on the show telling me they spend 1500 a month for two people, and there’s no way for me we can cut it down.

[00:28:44:17] Arhem: A lot of it is I feel like they seafood, Asian food.

[00:28:49:06] Sana: Pretty much. It’s chicken and rice.

[00:28:51:10] Ramit: Yeah, yeah. Oh my God. All roads lead back to chicken and rice.

[00:28:55:23] Sana: In different cuisines. Love it in a rice.

[00:28:57:24] Ramit: Okay. I don’t even want to get into my whole rant about food and my chicken and rice theory, but great. Love it. $506 a month for two people and you’re not eating at work for free.

[00:29:10:09] Arhem: And I will say like that also includes sometimes you get like little treats and stuff and like what? Like sometimes we’ll get cookies or like sparkling juices and stuff. So if we really wanted to cut it down to the bone, we could maybe make that for 50, but.

[00:29:25:21] Ramit: Okay, cool. You have cats. Multiple. How many cats?

[00:29:30:02] Sana: Just two.

[00:29:31:14] Ramit: All right. Subscriptions at $21. What is your subscription for $21.

[00:29:36:27] Sana: That’s Spotify family.

[00:29:38:18] Ramit: Amazing. No Netflix, no nothing.

[00:29:41:04] Sana: We leech off of family and friends.

[00:29:43:20] Ramit: Okay, parents, this is you, son. Sending money to your parents?

[00:29:49:14] Sana: Yeah, it’s actually 600W.

[00:29:52:01] Ramit: Why is it not correct here?

[00:29:53:03] Sana: It’s because I have the pool that I had saved up years ago. And so I put in 200 for my paycheck and then 400 from that pool.

[00:30:03:11] Ramit: You’re drawing from that savings? Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right. Miscellaneous. You put it into $160. I actually believe you. I have no comments. Okay, moving on to investments. What’s this number?

[00:30:16:09] Sana: Just 2%.

[00:30:17:06] Ramit: 2%. Fine. Savings are at 13%. You have $200 a month for vacations. You have car maintenance home for 360. This is for you eventually buying a house.

[00:30:28:18] Sana: I just want three months of rent saved up in a home specific account, and then emergency funds for everything else.

[00:30:35:04] Ramit: Great. I like the way that you’ve structured this. I really like that. It’s methodical. You know, you’ve made choices like I wouldn’t make. Well, I wouldn’t own cats, but I like that you. Everything has a rationale for it. It’s like walking into somebody’s house and there’s a nice little organization system for everything that’s really, really helpful. And then finally, down to guilt free spending.

[00:30:56:19] Ramit: 11%, I believe this. What do you spend this $1,143 a month on?

[00:31:02:16] Arhem: I mean, it’s really just eating out every so often. Like maybe I’ll get gifts for family or got it.

[00:31:11:06] Ramit: Okay, I’m going to take this off screen, but I think I have a good understanding of your numbers. How do you both feel looking at that CSP?

[00:31:20:11] Arhem: Honestly, I feel a little bit better about how it looks now than I used to feel about it in the past, but I also feel that it can be better. And that’s what we’re trying to work on, is to make sure that that that we don’t feel stressed about money every month. Okay.

[00:31:37:04] Sana: I’d rather be overprepared that under. And so seeing it all broken out like that and then knowing exactly where things are going makes me feel comfortable.

[00:31:47:21] Ramit: Is there any happiness in money for either of you?

[00:31:51:19] Sana: I think now when we do go out to eat, we don’t feel bad about spending it at a restaurant.

[00:31:59:10] Ramit: Every interesting answer. Is there any happiness in money? Sunna? When we eat out, we don’t feel bad. The lack of feeling bad is not feeling happy. Let me ask it again. Is there any happiness when it comes to your money?

[00:32:17:29] Arhem: I wouldn’t say I feel happy, it’s more like okay, we have structure. So maybe to Sonny’s point, when we go out to eat, it’s like, okay, we’re not worrying about are we making the wrong decision here by eating out now I feels like, well, we plan for this so we can enjoy this, at least for right now. But there’s not a broad happiness.

[00:32:39:25] Arhem: Maybe. To your point.

[00:32:40:25] Ramit: I don’t think there’s a narrow happiness either. It doesn’t feel happy at all. It feels very organized, which I love. Meticulous, yes, I love that too. But interesting that I’m the only one using the word love here. It feels a bit soulless to me. Tell me if I’m reading that wrong. That is the way that it feels to me.

[00:33:03:10] Sana: It feels like we’re grinding right now. Yeah. And so it is very structured and somewhat limited for us now, but there is an end date in sight.

[00:33:15:21] Ramit: And then what will happen?

[00:33:18:25] Sana: Some other things are going to come up, but at least you won’t be in debt.

[00:33:23:01] Ramit: But but I could easily foresee that the debt gets paid off. And then you go, okay, cool, we need to up our three months to six months. We need to up our payments on this, to that, we need to start saving for a car and then for a house and then maybe other things. And it just becomes one series of checklists after another.

[00:33:43:10] Ramit: Does any of this sound familiar?

[00:33:45:16] Sana: Yeah.

[00:33:46:06] Ramit: Like what?

[00:33:48:01] Sana: It’s just delayed gratification. I mean, I’ve joked about it with him, too. It’s like we’re going to pay off this debt. And then like pretty soon after that, I’m going to have my student debt to pay off, and then we’re going to have kids and then there’s childcare. And so all of our debt payments now are going to be replaced with childcare costs.

[00:34:10:08] Sana: And I’m really glad that we’d be able to afford it. But then like, when do I get to enjoy it feels like never. So yeah.

[00:34:20:29] Ramit: What is the answer to that? Because I don’t think a couple making $200,000 in their 20s should be living like subsistence farmers. Is the approach to just grind more.

[00:34:32:09] Sana: That is, for now, I think we’re going to. I’m really glad that we’re going on vacation once a year. And so it feels like, okay, we’re going on vacation in seven months. When we’re there, we won’t have to worry about anything.

[00:34:47:02] Ramit: Well, vacation is good, no doubt, I love it. I don’t think that really solves the systemic root here. Yeah, it’s nice. It’s a trip, but that doesn’t solve what’s going on.

[00:34:58:04] Arhem: I guess when I hear it back, it does sound very robotic and maybe a little soulless, but to me, I don’t feel like our day to day life is that way. And if anything, the way that I feel. You can tell me if I’m wrong. But the way that I feel is I feel like we’re on a project, like we’re working towards a goal and I actually derive some joy day to day seeing, okay, how much of the debt am I at now?

[00:35:22:03] Arhem: I think my personal net worth when we first started this was -82, okay. And now it’s at -69. That’s great. So you know, to me at least, I derive some joy day to day saying, okay, I’ve made all this progress so far. We are making this progress so far. So yes, it is checking off a checklist. But, you know, if we were on a sports team, we’re working towards a championship.

[00:35:45:25] Ramit: I like your pushback and I like a couple that is united in a big, bold goal. I love that and it takes sacrifice which you’re doing I can tell. You know, like the way you describe your groceries, you could easily be spending a lot more, there’s no doubt about that. But I’m getting many clues that while you will achieve your goal, I know you will pay off the debt, that there’s perhaps a lack of meaning behind what is happening here.

[00:36:18:29] Ramit: And I also want to help you create a vision of money that is maybe bigger and more meaningful than we fill up account after account for things that may happen. I see you nodding, Sana.

[00:36:30:17] Sana: Yeah, I think we’re so long I’ve operated where I have to fill up these buckets. For everyone else. It feels like I know I don’t spend on myself as much as I could, and so part of it, it’s like when I do have that, like, what would I spend it on?

[00:36:52:17] Ramit: You don’t even know.

[00:36:53:18] Sana: Yeah.

[00:36:55:22] Ramit: Well, we can figure those out soon. I noticed that you get emotional when you’re talking about your family and about yourself. What do you think is behind that?

[00:37:06:11] Sana: I guess the clearest example I could give if you’ve watched Encanto, there’s the sister Luisa, who is super strong, but she also has a ton of things put on her. She feels like she’s holding the world. It’s a cartoon, but like, I relate to her so well and my family is always talked about me in a way where, like, sonar has things figure it out.

[00:37:34:05] Sana: Son is an overachiever, really smart. So I’ve always pushed myself post, post push, and I know that it took a lot of sacrifices to get here from my family, and I want them to know that I appreciate them. And I guess I would say that, like my income for sure, or combined income is higher than when my parents ever could as hard as they worked.

[00:38:06:15] Sana: And now that I’m moving up in life, I can’t move up and just leave them behind and I have to take them with me. But it’s a lot more effort and work to do that than I had ever anticipated.

[00:38:25:23] Arhem: The word that I had used when I first met someone, and when I was starting to fall for her, is that she’s very impressive. Like everything that she does, she just does it exceptionally well. And I really admired that about her. But now as I’m living with her, I see, I guess maybe the cost of that in that the toll that it takes on her mentally and physically to.

[00:38:49:29] Ramit: Just imagine for a moment that you grew up in the South Asian culture. Imagine that you were the oldest child. Imagine that your parents somewhat struggle with their finances, and you make more money than anybody in your family. Of course, you are going to be expected to help them. And of course, there is no concept of saying no to your family that doesn’t exist.

[00:39:12:08] Ramit: How would you react? You might react the very same way Sanaa is reacting, but deep down she also looks at her own relationship and she’s realizing this isn’t the type of relationship that I thought I would find myself in. What is she supposed to do? That is where the struggle is. Feeling trapped by so many of these external expectations and not knowing where to go next.

[00:39:38:25] Ramit: There is obviously something going on here. And up next I’m going to ask her how she grew up with money. It’s very illuminating.

[00:39:50:12] Ramit: What do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?

[00:39:53:09] Sana: My mom has this notebook. It’s essentially a spreadsheet. She has a spreadsheet on paper where she has years of records and she would like fill it out as she would pay bills every month. And so when I was flipping through a book that I found out that we were in debt my whole childhood, and I didn’t know my sister and I didn’t ask for much, but we got everything that we wanted.

[00:40:19:23] Sana: My mom was able to achieve a lot with the limited resources that she had. And then the biggest culture shock was just going to college.

[00:40:29:03] Ramit: Before we get to college.

[00:40:30:17] Sana: My gosh, I did it. Expect to cry this much.

[00:40:35:16] Ramit: It’s okay. Do you cry when you talk about your family in everyday conversation?

[00:40:41:28] Sana: No.

[00:40:43:11] Ramit: Why do you think today.

[00:40:44:27] Sana: I carry the weight of expectations on me, whether it’s I put them on myself or my family, put them on me and it feels like I’m slowly getting crushed under it. And so this is how it’s released.

[00:41:04:26] Ramit: Helps you express the feeling of having all these expectations put on you.

[00:41:09:26] Sana: Most of the time I’m great. I don’t feel weight. It’s just every once in a while it just piles up. And then this is how it releases.

[00:41:21:22] Ramit: Yeah. How would you describe that?

[00:41:23:10] Sana: That I have a lot of things on my plate, and that I try not to show it to other people, that I try to do everything without looking or sounding stressed.

[00:41:36:25] Ramit: Yeah.

[00:41:37:16] Sana: But it takes a lot of work to do that. And sometimes when I try to hide it from other people, that’s work in itself too.

[00:41:48:27] Ramit: Yeah. You know, I don’t get affected by stress. Like most people. I can take on a lot, like run a company, do all kinds of stuff. And for a long time I, I told myself, like, I don’t feel stress the way that others I just don’t I don’t feel it. And then my company went through a tough time and we had to do serious layoffs.

[00:42:13:11] Ramit: And during that time I found myself waking up gasping for air. I never had this happen in my life, ever. I went to see the doctor doctor look inside my mouth and basically said, nothing’s wrong. Do you have any stress in your life? I laughed like, yeah, I have a huge amount of stress, but I simply never connected the two because I don’t feel stress.

[00:42:38:18] Ramit: And I remember walking out of there. I was in my mid to late 30s and being like for the first time, I realized, as silly as this sounds, oh, I’m just the same as everybody else. I’m just the same. I may have a higher threshold for dealing with certain things, but I’m just the same as everybody else.

[00:43:01:01] Sana: I know I am too.

[00:43:02:19] Ramit: Before you went to college, what was going on with money in your household? With your mom and dad?

[00:43:10:08] Sana: My mom, for as long as I can remember, has always managed the money. In adulthood. I learned that when my sister and I were really young, like my dad had taken out that a very high interest rates, and my mom studied math, and so she understood what the cost of that was. And so she said, you know what?

[00:43:33:27] Sana: Like, you work a lot, so why don’t I take care of this for you? And so she manage things to get us out of the debt.

[00:43:42:24] Ramit: This sounds extremely familiar.

[00:43:45:16] Sana: Yeah.

[00:43:47:12] Ramit: Like identical. I know your mom studied math. What did you study?

[00:43:53:07] Sana: Also math.

[00:43:54:26] Ramit: Your mom managed the money. Made a lot of plans of getting out of debt.

[00:43:58:22] Sana: Yeah, that.

[00:44:00:19] Ramit: Although I will say. Are you made a plan as well?

[00:44:03:09] Sana: Yeah. I wanted to make sure I could solve it for him today. I could pay off his debt today, but it is his. And I do want him to take away the lesson of what it takes to do that. And like I’ve tried my best to hold myself back as much as possible. But at the end of the day, this is our work to do.

[00:44:30:12] Ramit: That’s interesting. It’s quite strong of you creating a boundary, saying it’s important for you to learn this lesson. I could solve it today, but I’m not going to. That’s amazing. Have you ever applied that same thing to your own family?

[00:44:44:04] Sana: No.

[00:44:45:04] Ramit: Why? They disconnect.

[00:44:46:16] Sana: My mom single handedly runs our home and she tries not to show her stress. And I know I learned it from her. I want to do as much as I can to take that stress off of her. And so, even though she tells me not to help them with rent, I know that they can figure it out. But I don’t want I know.

[00:45:11:17] Sana: I also know that my mom would be the one to figure it out instead of my parents together figuring it out. And so I don’t want that extra burden on my mom. And so I try to reduce it for her.

[00:45:26:20] Ramit: Does it work?

[00:45:27:17] Sana: Yes and no. Every single month she tells me that I feel guilty from taking this from you. I, as a parent should be giving to you. But I tell her that no, I want to. That I promised that I would, and I’m going to live to that promise.

[00:45:45:04] Ramit: It’s interesting. After you got married, you effectively told Aram, if you don’t make a plan for this and deal with it, this relationship can’t continue. You said that, right? You said a boundary, maybe even changing the terms of your promise. And what was the result of that? What did he then do?

[00:46:04:15] Sana: Our homes learning now.

[00:46:06:16] Ramit: Yeah. He’s going through some tough times, but he’s made a plan. He’s executing on it. Right. You changed the terms of your promise. And the result has been would you say negative or positive?

[00:46:19:00] Sana: It’s positive.

[00:46:19:22] Ramit: Very positive. And yet you can’t change the terms of your promise with your parents, specifically your mom. Even though your mom has told you every single month. Don’t do this.

[00:46:34:20] Sana: I don’t I don’t know if that’s going to make my sense, but our him and I are partners and so I expect of him what I expect of myself. Okay. But my parents are my parents. They’re above me. I don’t expect my parents to be the same as me and or home.

[00:46:51:20] Ramit: It’s interesting. There is a hierarchy, but we might look at it and say you treat them almost as if they’re below you, below, as if they couldn’t figure things out for themselves like a child. I’m.

[00:47:08:20] Ramit: I don’t mean to insult. Hope it’s not coming across. I’m very sensitive to the South Asian dynamics here. I’m very well aware of them.

[00:47:18:27] Ramit: It’s. You know, it’d be easy for somebody who’s raised here with no cultural knowledge to be like, just cut him off. Obviously, that’s not what I’m saying. But when you say hierarchy, you see them as above you, because that’s what we are taught. Parents are above you, teachers are above you, etc., etc. but in a way, your expectation for our him has raised, his abilities raised, and yet the way that you have built this financial relationship with your parents and your mom especially has not raised their abilities fair.

[00:47:58:19] Sana: I would say that because I’m able to help them every month, they’re quality of life has gone up because they are in a nicer place now than where we live before.

[00:48:14:25] Ramit: I think that’s totally, totally respectable. How about your quality of life?

[00:48:21:04] Sana: My quality of life is also better than where I was as a child, but I’m also under a lot of stress.

[00:48:29:13] Ramit: Thank you for watching me through how you grew up with money. I think it’s very illuminating.

[00:48:36:25] Ramit: What about you? What do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?

[00:48:40:09] Arhem: I feel like it was somewhat conflicting messages in that what I heard from my mom was if we were walking through a store and there was a shirt I wanted to get, for example, my mom would say, I’ll think about it. Or maybe. And I interpreted that as probably no, because if she would, if she was going to get it for me, she would have just gotten it.

[00:48:59:12] Arhem: So a lot of times what I heard from her was that we were scarce with money. But then what I would see from my dad is that, well, no, we can’t get it. We can buy the toys. We can. And I think especially where the showed up is that, like my brothers and I could not have access to a lot of money or a lot of things or toys or whatever, but whenever family or friends or anybody came around, then, you know, let’s get tickets for Disneyland or let’s go to SeaWorld, or based on our income, my parents income, I feel like we were probably middle class, but we were trying to be in the

[00:49:35:21] Arhem: upper middle class level.

[00:49:37:17] Ramit: And how did that come out? Obviously SeaWorld and things like that. But was there other things.

[00:49:42:02] Arhem: Sometimes they would do, like home renovations or home projects. My parents don’t save up the money for it methodically. And so my dad’s philosophy especially is, well, let’s get it on credit. What’s the monthly payment? Okay. I can do that monthly payment and that’s it. That’s the extent to which they think about it.

[00:49:59:00] Ramit: Do you think that your spending behavior came from observing your family’s relationship with money?

[00:50:04:10] Arhem: Yeah, I’m I’m almost positive because and to Sonny’s point from earlier, like pretty much right out of school, my salary was already higher than my dad’s salary. And so in my mind, I thought, well, I have a lot of money and I can spend a lot of this.

[00:50:20:01] Ramit: What did you spend the money on? Just like.

[00:50:23:20] Arhem: Clothes going out to eat. I used to go out with friends a lot, so we would go out and either go out to eat, go watch movies, whatever, and the credit card balance built, because I would just keep the balance on there and either only pay the minimum or not really pay much at all. And I think before I met, I did not treat that with the level of importance and urgency that I should have been treating it.

[00:50:52:28] Arhem: The problems that I sort of brought into our marriage, which is that I had a lot of high interest debt on me and didn’t really have a concrete plan on how to solve it, or maybe didn’t understand the urgency or the importance of it. I think we’re behaviors that were model to me as a kid, because I know that my parents didn’t.

[00:51:12:18] Arhem: I think my mom knew that it was urgent and not good to have credit card debt, but I don’t think my dad really cared about or felt any kind of way about it.

[00:51:22:14] Ramit: Do you see yourself in the same dynamic as your dad before?

[00:51:26:15] Arhem: Yes. I think I’m making a conscious effort now that I don’t want to repeat either about my parents dynamic. Was or her parents dynamic, because I just I think it brings constant stress and anxiety to the point that either it forces a big burden on one parent in her case, that her mom had to take on a huge burden.

[00:51:50:21] Arhem: Or in my parents case, I feel like my mom worries about it kind of to herself. And I don’t want to repeat that kind of dynamic.

[00:51:59:02] Ramit: What messages about money do each of you bring to this relationship?

[00:52:05:17] Arhem: I guess what I would say is that as long as you have money coming in, and so long as the amount of money that’s coming in is like whatever payments you have, if you can make that, then you’re okay as long as you’re not at zero in the checking account.

[00:52:19:16] Ramit: Yes. That’s quite interesting that the idea of as long as we can make our monthly payments, we’re fine. Yeah, that is how a lot of people see money. It’s a very rudimentary way of looking at money. Okay. It’s kind of like saying, as long as we have a roof over our head, we’re okay. It’s like, that’s it. That’s the standard.

[00:52:40:04] Ramit: Like literally something over our head. And we have to go deeper than that. I think that’s a very accurate message you bring to this relationship. Sana, what about you?

[00:52:49:24] Sana: One memory that I have going up whenever we would go grocery shopping with my mom after checkout, she would always check the receipt. And if there was ever anything wrong with it, she would go directly to whoever to get it corrected. And so she’s always been like, super on top of how her money is being spent. And so I still find myself price comparing even when we go to the grocery stores like this.

[00:53:23:01] Sana: This juice is a dollar more than the other. Maybe you should get the cheaper one, but then I’m trying to catch myself. It’s like I don’t need to always do that.

[00:53:33:29] Ramit: Yeah, that’s a great example. That’s a great example for many reasons. One, you directly have modeled what you saw your mom doing checking into everything. But to me, that example goes even deeper, because if you look at the amount of wealth that someone accumulates over their entire lifetime and you add up all the mistakes they ever caught on a grocery receipt, how much is it worth?

[00:54:02:19] Ramit: Negligible $10. $100. It’s essentially meaningless. The idea that some of the activities that some of us do with money, we do them for hours every single week for our entire lives. And if you actually understood money, you would realize it’s meaningless. We would have been better off doing these two things really well, and never worrying about getting overcharged for apples.

[00:54:31:19] Ramit: And we would have been just fine. How much of that is showing up in this relationship? The idea that I need to be in control of everything.

[00:54:42:13] Sana: I know I have that feeling. That’s why I feel like an orchestrator.

[00:54:46:20] Ramit: Yeah. Now that you mention it, what if you were not the orchestrator? Who would you be?

[00:54:52:05] Sana: I would like to be every once in a while, somebody who can let someone else take charge. And I’m just there.

[00:55:00:10] Ramit: You’re just there.

[00:55:01:10] Sana: Being me, being a person, not worrying.

[00:55:07:01] Ramit: You think it’s possible?

[00:55:08:14] Sana: Yeah, I think it’s possible.

[00:55:10:05] Ramit: I know it is. So is it something you would want to do? Maybe change your role?

[00:55:17:19] Sana: Yeah I would. Right now I have, like, vacations to look forward to, because that feels like the only time where I can completely unplug from my day to day. And so I would like to not carry the weight every once in a while. That’s more frequent than just a vacation once a year.

[00:55:40:25] Ramit: Good. I can make it happen if you want. I’m going to start by asking you to change your language. So what you just said was interesting. You said I would like to not carry the weight. It’s kind of passive when you think about it. What is another way to say that that would involve you taking an active role in changing your relationship?

[00:56:03:22] Ramit: Look, I’m carrying the weight. If I want to get this weight off my back, what do I have to do?

[00:56:10:24] Sana: I have to take it off.

[00:56:12:12] Ramit: Yeah, you have to be a little bit more aggressive than that.

[00:56:16:01] Sana: To unload.

[00:56:16:25] Ramit: Yeah. Throw it off. Would you be willing to do that?

[00:56:21:01] Sana: Yeah. Okay. I’d want to. Yeah. If I knew how to, I would. Okay.

[00:56:26:29] Ramit: Well, we can talk about that. There’s a lot of tools and there’s a lot of people you can also get help from who can help you do that. Sometimes there is so much poignancy and even sadness in watching these messages simply get recreated generation after generation. Now there are some things we take away from our parents that we love and we admire, and we want to actively recreate those amazing.

[00:56:56:18] Ramit: But this is not one of them. This idea that I am now sentenced to a life of anxiety, that I constantly have to be looking over my husband’s shoulder and maintaining everything in this relationship. Because if I don’t, it all falls apart. Too many people, especially women, find themselves in exactly the same situation. Not on my podcast. I will not allow it.

[00:57:20:16] Ramit: Especially when you make the kind of money and have the kind of education that she does. So one of the things I want Sanaa to see is that there is a brighter future. There is something that will change, but it has less to do with the numbers and more to do with her looking inside and changing her relationship with others.

[00:57:43:06] Ramit: Have the two of you talked about what your rich life is?

[00:57:46:19] Sana: Neither of us really traveled much as kids, and so there’s a lot of the world that we haven’t seen. Cool. And so you want to hit a different country every year.

[00:57:55:20] Ramit: Keep going. I love this.

[00:57:57:00] Arhem: I do really enjoy traveling, but what would feel more meaningful and fulfilling to me is that I was at a certain wealth level that I could help my parents, I could help my brothers, I could help other family members with, you know, be able to be someone that they can rely on. And it’s not a burden onto me, and it’s not going to hamper us in any way.

[00:58:19:07] Ramit: Okay, I like that. Anything else?

[00:58:22:07] Sana: I, I do want to always support my family. Right now I see it where I have to expand my income so that I can afford helping my family while still expanding my budget for everything else. So I still see that as a part of my vision. And then also something that we joke about right now is I would love to foster cats.

[00:58:46:03] Sana: Right now it’s kitten season. And so there’s a ton being born, but there’s not enough room for them. And so if we could bring in a couple into our home, I think it’s a good way to give back.

[00:58:59:16] Ramit: I like that. I like that you’ve thought about it, I can tell. It seems like you talked about it as well. The vacations, the family. How about the way that the two of you relate to money? What would it look like in a rich life?

[00:59:14:14] Arhem: We have a coffee shop in a bagel shop near where we live in. Every so often we like to. On a Sunday morning we go walk there, spend some time there, and then we walk back. Yeah, and I would love to be able to do that without thinking about, okay, if we do this today, maybe we won’t be able to eat out later in the week or later next week.

[00:59:33:18] Ramit: Okay, so you’d like to do it more often without having to as carefully think about it? Yeah, I think that with the two of you making 188,000 soon to be a lot more, there will be a point where you go anything less than 25 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks. We’re never going to think about it. We’re just going to do it.

[00:59:53:00] Ramit: That’s our worry free number. Even if it’s as low as $5. And you just don’t have to think about it. So you’ll get there, it’s no doubt. Would that solve what you want?

[01:00:05:02] Sana: Right now we track everything. I would love to get to the point where we have the big pieces in place, but how it operates, we don’t have to worry about that.

[01:00:17:13] Ramit: If you made three times the amount of money you made today, would you still worry about money?

[01:00:22:14] Sana: I would like to say no, but I don’t think that’s true because I keep adding things to my plate. And so even though our income would grow, so would the things on my plate. And so if everything grows proportionately, my worry stays the same.

[01:00:42:22] Ramit: No, it’s it’s not a math question. You could keep your expenses where they are today and double your income, and you would still worry why?

[01:00:51:26] Sana: Right now I feel like I have my hands in all the buckets.

[01:00:55:18] Ramit: Yes. And how do you feel about it?

[01:00:58:17] Sana: I feel spread that.

[01:01:00:00] Ramit: Yep. And I would say bad. You don’t feel good about money. I don’t see any joy. Even though you make a lot of money. You have a lot of money invested. You know, it’s going to turn into a whole bunch of money. No, joy. We can’t get to the rich life. You guys can paper it over with vacations.

[01:01:19:28] Ramit: But how many people do you know in America who are unhappy a lot? And then they take one vacation a year and they’re like, how come I’m not happy? Disneyland didn’t make me happy. Do you want to do that? No. Sucks. It’s play acting. The American dream. The idea that let’s overburden ourselves with all these expenses. Let’s never talk about money except to worry about it and fight about it.

[01:01:45:11] Ramit: And then we’ll take a vacation. Surely that will solve everything. And it doesn’t. And then we wonder, why are we so unhappy? Are we going to settle for this?

[01:01:56:00] Sana: No.

[01:01:56:12] Ramit: No, it’s got to be more to it.

[01:01:58:04] Sana: I know that we make a very healthy income. I want to feel good about that income without all the caveats attached to it.

[01:02:10:15] Ramit: Nice.

[01:02:11:21] Sana: Or haven’t I talk about, like, it’d be so fun if we joined the league together and learned in youth sport together, but it always keeps getting delayed.

[01:02:21:22] Ramit: Why?

[01:02:23:00] Sana: Because it feels like I have to take care of everything else first before I can treat myself to that.

[01:02:29:12] Ramit: Sorry. What’s. What am I doing with my body? What am I doing with that?

[01:02:33:18] Sana: I said throw it off.

[01:02:35:12] Ramit: So tell me, what’s one thing you want to throw off?

[01:02:37:28] Sana: I want to create a little bit more unstructured time. Where? And I have a weekly said time of we’re going to both do something.

[01:02:47:24] Ramit: What’s something you do right now that you would be willing to not do anymore?

[01:02:52:29] Sana: I would love to not have to spend one day a week cleaning our apartment.

[01:03:00:06] Ramit: That’s that’s it. That’s the easiest thing. Okay. Love it. How can you make that happen?

[01:03:07:09] Sana: We would love to hire someone to help.

[01:03:10:00] Ramit: That’s one option. What else?

[01:03:12:08] Arhem: I find it a little interesting. I think that she’s saying that she wants more unstructured time. Because when we’ve talked, last year was very unstable, very chaotic. And I think that the reason we’re doing better now is because our weeks are so structured. But now I’m hearing what son is saying, that maybe there can be a little bit more leeway, more unstructured.

[01:03:33:23] Arhem: Exactly. That’s why I’m wondering.

[01:03:35:24] Ramit: Talk to each other. I’ll just listen.

[01:03:37:16] Sana: I mean, our walks are definitely one of those things. I would just like to add to our list of activities that we do together.

[01:03:46:16] Ramit: Can I ask a question I love this, I think you should.

[01:03:49:02] Sana: Yeah.

[01:03:50:08] Ramit: Why do you think that you two are having a discussion about two hours a week for a couple with no children? That makes almost $200,000 a year.

[01:04:03:11] Arhem: The practical answer, I think, for one, is that we both work full time. She goes to the office and she’s also in grad school right now. So a lot of her days really are taken up in work and then school on the weekends, and then we see each other’s families. And then before you know it, the next week starts right there.

[01:04:21:00] Arhem: And so even talking about two hours of unstructured time feels like we have to carve it out of the week because it’s it doesn’t seem to freely be there.

[01:04:30:03] Ramit: You agree?

[01:04:30:27] Sana: Yes. And then also there is a cost of joining the league. It’s not that much. It’s a couple hundred, but it’s just that delay been of gratification where it’s like, let’s pay off this debt and then we can join the league versus I could probably just do it next month.

[01:04:51:08] Ramit: Does it feel good sometimes to restrict yourself?

[01:04:54:12] Sana: Yes. Because then it feels like the reward is bigger at the end. As a student, there’s always more that you can do and you can always be better at what you’re doing. So if I put on an extra three four hours into studying, I can be more prepared and then feel like it’s easier when I walk into the task.

[01:05:17:18] Ramit: Are you seeing the connection with why I’m bringing this up?

[01:05:20:00] Sana: Yes, because I do it with my finances as well. Like, I see the end goal and then I try to put all the work for it, forward thinking. And so I onload myself now rather than.

[01:05:34:01] Ramit: It’s not about your money, it’s about your relationship.

[01:05:37:05] Sana: Oh.

[01:05:37:27] Ramit: You say that you want time together. But when I ask why are we discussing two hours a week for a couple making multiple six figures with no kids? And there’s a very set of logical reasons. We have family, we have work, we have grad school, we have all these things. But ultimately, it’s the same principle you’ve been applying since you were a little kid.

[01:06:03:26] Ramit: I need to work. There’s more I can do. I need to do this, and then this and then this. And finally I will be in the place that I can do it. The same thing is coming up over and over and over again. I don’t know that you see it. So just to put it very bluntly, you two are going to make a lot more money.

[01:06:22:24] Ramit: The debts going to get paid off. No doubt about that. And you are going to recreate some of the exact same dynamics that you saw your parents doing, not just with money, but a lack of connection, a lack of a vision. Your worldview right now is so deeply embedded in the idea that you need to be in control of everything, and that you need to do A, B, C, d all sequentially, that you’ll do that until the day you die.

[01:06:48:22] Ramit: And guess who will observe that? Your kids. And then they’ll just do the exact same thing. What is the rich life? You told me vacations. You told me the bagel shop. What is it with the two of you?

[01:07:00:14] Arhem: I guess I would love to do more things together without a checklist running in the in the back of our head, like, you know, I feel like now, the time that we spent together, it’s stuff like grocery shopping. Or maybe it is going to see our families or it’s to serve some broader functional. Yeah. It’s.

[01:07:20:29] Ramit: Yeah. Okay. So let’s fix it right now. If you both claim you want to have more unstructured time, make it happen for this coming week. What would you do?

[01:07:34:19] Sana: Today we both took the day off. So you’re planning on having lunch together and walking around the area? Great.

[01:07:40:20] Ramit: Next week.

[01:07:41:19] Sana: And then we were talking about joining a bocce ball league. Great. I was debating it, but I’m leaning closer and closer to just getting us those seats.

[01:07:52:02] Ramit: And when you say you were debating it in your head, you were saying time, money, anything else?

[01:07:58:14] Sana: It was those two. Okay. And then also we have my cousin and his brother come over on Thursdays in the week that I’m looking at is on Thursdays. So I was I was going to convince them to join. They might or might not, but I still want us to do it.

[01:08:15:03] Ramit: Great, great. I love that the two of you come first. And if they want to join, great. And if not.

[01:08:21:06] Sana: Push.

[01:08:21:19] Ramit: Off, just say, hey, we’ve decided like we’re going to be doing this. So Thursdays not going to work anymore. It’s totally okay. What else?

[01:08:31:01] Arhem: I love watching movies. I would love to be able to some weeknights during the week. Maybe we go watch a movie and it doesn’t have to be a weekend. It could be like a Tuesday night. Could you do it? I want to say yes, but I still come back to the thing of because she’s in grad school and we both work long hours.

[01:08:50:29] Arhem: I guess the question that I have for you then is how do we reconcile this? Where for someone like Sena, who is so organized and wants to control different factors of their life, and I know that I’m trying to control it because I don’t want to go back to how last year was, how do I put in my head that maybe life could be better, kind of loosening the rope.

[01:09:13:06] Ramit: It’s a good question. Life is better. Now, I, I think you would both agree. You’re you have a debt payoff plan. You’re more in control of the money. I think that’s really good. What I’m hearing that you’ve both expressed in different ways, especially you, Sena, is I want to have a little bit more fun. I want to be more connected with each other.

[01:09:37:24] Ramit: And when I’m asking you, like, what would that look like? It’s actually very simple stuff. It’s playing a sport once a week. It’s seeing a movie maybe once a month. So the way I would do it is first I would just say, can I afford it? Okay. And I think with your numbers even being in debt, you could afford a movie and a sports league.

[01:10:00:07] Ramit: So do we all agree on that?

[01:10:02:09] Sana: Yeah.

[01:10:03:02] Ramit: Okay. The second thing is I would say timewise. When does it work? Look, sometimes grad school is going to make it so that she has to work five days a week in the evenings. Fine. But I might ask her. Hey, I’d like for us to go and spend some time together. I’m thinking Tuesday or the second Thursday of the month.

[01:10:24:01] Ramit: How does it look for you? Plan ahead. Put the time on the calendar. It’s still structured, but you are driving that one and she can just be and then you can do the same, vice versa. That’s how you do it. And if you need to change it at the last minute, change it. But over time, I think that you will be able to make these date nights or whatever you want to call them happen regularly.

[01:10:47:21] Ramit: What I’m trying to get you to do is to maybe realize that the point of life is not to be dialed in on every single thing all the time, until the day you die. That sucks. That’s actually meaningless. It’s just you sitting there exerting control on what’s the next problem in life. You actually do all this stuff so that you can live a rich life.

[01:11:08:02] Ramit: And if that means something as simple as walk into a bagel shop or seeing a movie, great, then you should do that. Can we look at the debt payoff plan? So I understand that you have a debt payoff plan. I’m going to put it on screen here. It’s very impressive. This is a great debt payoff plan. So when you look at this.

[01:11:29:26] Ramit: What does it tell you?

[01:11:30:27] Arhem: I feel like I look at this and I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

[01:11:34:21] Ramit: What is the light?

[01:11:35:18] Arhem: I feel like it’s at the end of 2028 once the car loan is paid off. If we can just get to the end of 2028, because I’m also, once I pay off that first consolidation, then I plan on paying off the other one more aggressively so that pay off date should be a little bit sooner.

[01:11:51:03] Ramit: So according to this, you’re going to pay off one of your loans by the end of 2026. And the longest loan is 2043. But if you take the amount that you’re paying towards the consolidated first loan, and then you just roll it into the next one and the next one and the next one, all of these are paid off by roughly 2030.

[01:12:14:00] Ramit: Did you know that?

[01:12:14:28] Arhem: Yeah. Oh 2030.

[01:12:16:09] Ramit: What’s that reaction?

[01:12:17:18] Arhem: In my mind, I thought it would be 2035 for this.

[01:12:21:01] Ramit: Faster than that.

[01:12:22:04] Arhem: I’m a little shocked. I’m not going to lie.

[01:12:25:13] Ramit: Did you know that?

[01:12:26:23] Sana: No. We only planned it until everything but the student loans is done.

[01:12:33:02] Ramit: Oh. It’s true. It will be paid off faster than you think. And even if it’s 2035. What do you care? You’re in your 30s at that point. Still quite young. I’m like, what’s happening right now? Because to me, I’m feeling joy. And the reaction I’m seeing from you is concrete. It looks like I’m looking at concrete right now.

[01:12:55:22] Ramit: What’s happening?

[01:12:56:22] Arhem: I guess it’s not really going to hit me until it’s done.

[01:12:59:06] Ramit: Oh, so we have to wait another ten years to feel it?

[01:13:01:26] Arhem: No, I see this, like, you know, we’re a sports team working towards a championship, and our championship is. This is going to be paid off.

[01:13:10:15] Ramit: But you guys are not a sports team. Your husband and wife, it’s different. I like goals, I like winning, yes, but I don’t want to only win with my wife. I want to be connected to my wife. I want to feel intimate. I want to feel joy. I even want to feel sadness. I want to feel my wife is not my business partner.

[01:13:33:09] Sana: We do laugh together. We’re not. We’re not only a strictly business all the time. I think just when it comes to money, we end up turning into like these. Emotionless.

[01:13:49:14] Ramit: Yes, keep going.

[01:13:51:01] Sana: And like regimented?

[01:13:54:24] Ramit: Yes.

[01:13:55:28] Sana: But outside of this spreadsheet, we do have fun together.

[01:14:00:10] Ramit: What if money could also be fun? Yeah. What would it look like if it were?

[01:14:04:25] Sana: We can say yes to things without thinking twice about it.

[01:14:08:03] Ramit: Okay. What else?

[01:14:10:00] Arhem: The early part of our marriage, we were prioritizing fun and going out to eat and, you know, having a fun time with each other. But then maybe the message I took away is that the low point that we were at is because I prioritized that rather than this, I would say so, but but maybe not in the way that I think it should be.

[01:14:29:02] Ramit: Okay, so let me ask you this. You wanted to come here and speak to me. Why?

[01:14:34:10] Arhem: I don’t think this is the way that we should be. I think this is fine for us to do till maybe, let’s say, 20, 28, but I don’t know if we should be doing this when we’re, like, 35 years old and on. Okay. I wanted to learn from you how how can we be prepared now to be able to live that way later on?

[01:14:55:01] Ramit: Okay.

[01:14:55:23] Sana: I’d say I wanted to come on here to feel less stressed when it comes to money. I think the joy that we feel when we look at this is like before we were this much under, and now we’re this much under, as in, we’re climbing out of the hole. But I think the true joy doesn’t come from digging yourself out.

[01:15:20:09] Sana: It’s to what you can unlock yourself to do with it.

[01:15:25:11] Ramit: Beautiful, true joy is not linear. True joy, in my experience, is not simply we did this and we got here. Although that is great. It’s a great sense of accomplishment of what you’ve been able to do individually and together. It’s huge, huge. Having this plan is amazing. I rarely see a plan like this. What I am gently suggesting to you is that you have created a life where everything must be functional to earn its way.

[01:15:59:19] Ramit: We have to check this box. We have to achieve ROI on this. We have to have a plan that is paid off in this amount of time. All those things are good. But you didn’t leave time for just being, just enjoying. And actually you’re spending so much time on things like this when it comes to money that there’s no time left for a rich life, for just enjoying each other.

[01:16:28:08] Ramit: What I’m trying to get you to see is that your entire world view of your relationship with money is purely functional.

[01:16:34:16] Sana: Yeah, I know our home brings up every once in a while. It’s like, I know we’re doing better, but, like, do you feel like our life is too structured? And our answer has always been like, we have to do it this way now and then once we get to the light at the end of the tunnel, we can do more.

[01:16:53:08] Ramit: There’s no light.

[01:16:54:07] Sana: But we could do. We could integrate pieces of that joy now.

[01:16:59:07] Ramit: Yes, yes, exactly. You get it. So what do you want to do? The debt payoff plan is solid. You’re going to be paid off in five years. Hell, make it ten according to your own calculations. Either way, you’re in your 30s. Amazing. So it’s done. It just needs time. What else? You have debt as well, right? You made a career change.

[01:17:24:25] Ramit: How much is your debt.

[01:17:26:11] Sana: In total? By the time I’m done with this program, it’s going to be close to 100 K.

[01:17:32:08] Ramit: Where is the debt payoff plan?

[01:17:33:24] Sana: It’s to the right of it.

[01:17:35:09] Ramit: Let’s look. Oh my God, another payoff plan okay.

[01:17:38:28] Sana: I don’t have dates on this because I’m still taking out those loans.

[01:17:44:12] Ramit: But we can estimate.

[01:17:45:19] Sana: Yeah. So my salary is where it’s at right now. Once I finish this program, I can easily increase it by 40 50,000. Wow. And so I want to use a part of that increase to to pay off the debt faster.

[01:18:01:14] Ramit: Okay, fine. Yeah. So do you feel confident that with the salary increase, you’re going to get that you can have an effective debt payoff plan and pay off your debt in, let’s say, ten years?

[01:18:13:04] Sana: I know I can do it in time. I want to do it faster.

[01:18:16:22] Ramit: Why?

[01:18:17:27] Sana: Because I’ve seen my parents struggle with the debt, and I want to not struggle with debt as early as possible.

[01:18:26:11] Ramit: Are you struggling right now with money?

[01:18:28:27] Sana: I would say yes. I struggle to spend outside of responsibility.

[01:18:34:19] Ramit: Yes. And so when you say I want to pay my debt off as quickly as possible. Do you see how that contributes to you not having a healthy relationship with money? How so?

[01:18:46:13] Sana: Because I limit myself. Because my salary is powerful enough, where I could do a lot more with it than I can, but then I try to plan out towards all the buckets. But when it comes to paying out this off this new debt, it doesn’t have to be as rapid as three years. Even if I could do it, it’s okay if I spend a little more on interest.

[01:19:15:01] Ramit: What would you spend the money on anyway?

[01:19:16:28] Sana: Right now we can only travel once a year. I talk about I would love to go multiple times a year. Okay. Internationally, I’d love to travel with family too. And bring them with me.

[01:19:29:08] Ramit: Cool. I love that. Anything else.?

[01:19:33:06] Sana: I’d want us to increase more of what we already do together without feeling the guilt. And so.

[01:19:43:11] Arhem: I would love to.

[01:19:44:11] Ramit: Have you all never heard me say this phrase. The way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated to the amount in your bank account. Do you notice how you’re interchangeably mixing those things? When I make more money, I’d love to not feel guilty. How how would you not feel guilty about money?

[01:20:01:26] Sana: I have to rewire my brain so that it’s okay if it costs me more, if I take a little bit longer to pay it off. If I can use more of my income now for things that I want to do now.

[01:20:20:05] Ramit: Like.

[01:20:21:16] Sana: Like the sports league and I, I wanted to take arts art classes.

[01:20:27:13] Ramit: Yes. Do you see why I’m emphasizing the importance of finding joy with money now? It’s a skill right now. You you have no connection to feeling joy. And even when we talk about what would you do with the money, it’s difficult for you to to think about spending because you see spending as losing. If I’m spending, I’m losing because that money could be going towards filling up some arbitrary bucket.

[01:21:01:04] Ramit: It does take rewiring. How would you rewire your brain.

[01:21:04:17] Sana: By just booking those classes?

[01:21:07:02] Ramit: Yes to that. What else do you see? A therapist?

[01:21:11:03] Sana: I have been on and off.

[01:21:12:25] Ramit: Good. Okay, so maybe a more regular therapist. Good. What else?

[01:21:18:06] Arhem: We really love our apartment, so if we could always light a candle without worrying about, like, do we have enough candles in reserve?

[01:21:27:17] Ramit: Yo, is that true? Do you worry about that?

[01:21:29:18] Sana: I do not.

[01:21:30:08] Arhem: Like candles.

[01:21:33:02] Ramit: She goes even that’s crazy for me. I know it’s kind of surprising that I might tell somebody who has, like, 100 K of debt and their husband has all this credit card debt. Hey, why are you paying off all this debt so fast? It’s very counterintuitive, but I want to emphasize that money is a small but important part of a rich life.

[01:21:57:09] Ramit: They could get their numbers 100% textbook perfect, and they would not be living a rich life because they’re not connected. She feels intense over almost every part of her life. That’s not a healthy relationship. They have a professor student relationship with finances. That’s not healthy either. Sometimes there is value in saying, hey, what are we prioritizing and what’s it costing us if we’re putting $3,000 a month towards debt but we can’t eat out and have a bagel?

[01:22:33:18] Ramit: Then what kind of life have we created for ourselves? Now I get that it’s easier for the vast majority of people to simply be told, do this. Pay everything off on your debt, and don’t ever see the inside of a restaurant. Yeah, that’s easy and it’s simple, but I’m not here to just give you an easy and simple answer.

[01:22:51:28] Ramit: I want you thinking for yourself, what kind of rich life? Am I creating if I always feel bad about money? Because trust me, when you’re debt free, you’re not going to magically feel good. So the most important thing that I am telling this couple is that you cannot wait to feel good about money. It starts today. It is a practice that you work on over and over.

[01:23:14:27] Ramit: And yes. In addition to that, you make sure that your numbers are dialed in. Both of those things can be true. In fact, both of them must be true to live a rich life. I noticed on your CSP that it was clearly delineated whose money is whose and that you mentioned you don’t have combined finances. What do you think about that?

[01:23:41:02] Sana: In my head, I’ve delayed this until our debt is paid off.

[01:23:45:08] Ramit: I see, so when his debt is paid off, then it means what to you.

[01:23:50:12] Sana: That has made those changes on their permanent that that right now is relatively new. And so it’s a new habit and it’s doing like the novelty of it versus when it’s actually paid off. It’s like, no, this is just who he is now.

[01:24:06:08] Ramit: Okay. And you agree?

[01:24:08:28] Arhem: Yeah. I think that’s that would be like graduating to a new step in our relationship. And I feel that I have to earn that graduation to that next step.

[01:24:19:10] Ramit: I see. Is there an agreement that once your debt is paid off, that the two of you combine your finances?

[01:24:26:18] Arhem: Yeah, I guess not. Not so specifically like that.

[01:24:30:00] Ramit: You want to do it now? I’ll listen, but I’d love for you to actually be explicit with each other.

[01:24:37:18] Arhem: I guess I would ask, is there are there certain debts that you want to see paid off before we combine our finances, or is it just.

[01:24:46:07] Sana: It would just be the credit card.

[01:24:48:11] Arhem: Credit card?

[01:24:49:15] Sana: Yeah. Which is two years. Two years.

[01:24:53:21] Ramit: Do you want to combine your money?

[01:24:57:15] Sana: Right now I feel like we are a team, but joining our finances would really solidify that home.

[01:25:04:29] Ramit: Why?

[01:25:05:16] Sana: Because right now, even though we work together, it is still his and hers.

[01:25:11:27] Arhem: Yeah, I think I would like that more as a symbolic gesture, that I regained that trust from her, and that would be reflected by way of us combining accounts together.

[01:25:25:13] Ramit: Yeah. Do you see therapist?

[01:25:30:05] Arhem: I used to, but not.

[01:25:31:15] Ramit: Not currently. And a couple’s therapist. Have you ever done it together?

[01:25:35:04] Sana: We’ve talked about it, but then we didn’t go.

[01:25:38:11] Ramit: Well, first, I think you should see a couples therapists. I think it would be great and individual as needed. But you mentioned that you grew up without a lot of money and that you then went to this elite school and you kind of saw all these different ways that people with money behave. You two now make a lot of money.

[01:26:00:15] Ramit: You make $200,000 a year in your 20s. You’re not behaving like a couple. That does. You’re agonizing over finding two hours a week. You’re debating over, you know, this, this sports bocce ball registration, but most importantly, debating over couples therapy when there are clearly issues to be discussed. Who cares? Find the money. You have it. You have plenty of money.

[01:26:29:18] Ramit: There’s nothing more important in your marriage than the two of you. How does that strike you?

[01:26:35:13] Arhem: I think one of the things that I have sort of realized as we’ve been talking, is that something that it sounds like Sana saying that she would like is a little more whimsy, I guess, day to day. And I feel like I tried to incorporate that last year, but then the situation got really bad. And to me, what I internalized is that what she really prioritizes is security and stability, which is why I think now everything is like bulletproof.

[01:27:04:17] Arhem: And to me, I sort of prioritize that as saying, okay, this is now the number one thing that’s going to make sure that she’s okay is that we’re secure, we’re stable, things are on a schedule. Things are like routine. She doesn’t have to worry about what’s going to happen the next day.

[01:27:19:19] Ramit: I think that you’ve made a fundamental miscalculation. It’s a well-intentioned one, but is a miscalculation. You were irresponsible with your spending. You were not transparent with her. That was inexcusable. She told you very directly, look, either fix this or there’s not going to be a relationship. I think that was very courageous. And I think that you responded to that.

[01:27:42:10] Ramit: You were like, oh, holy, I didn’t realize this. I’m going to fix this. So you made a debt payoff plan. You told yourself she prioritizes safety and security, but do you realize that it all started with you believing, I won’t tell her about this credit card debt, because then she’ll worry. You’ve been trying to make her not worry for years.

[01:28:07:04] Ramit: Does it work? Is she worried?

[01:28:09:17] Arhem: Yeah. I think she still is worried.

[01:28:12:09] Ramit: Correct?

[01:28:13:15] Sana: Yes, I would say that. I know I’ve spent pretty much my whole adulthood prioritizing other people over myself, but my priority should be our relationship. And so if I don’t question supporting my family, why am I questioning whether or not we can afford to go do things together?

[01:28:37:18] Ramit: Should we talk about that?

[01:28:38:22] Sana: Yeah. Tell me. I think I think you are right. And it is a mindset shift to see myself first and not see it as a selfish act. I know you would benefit from couples therapy.

[01:28:58:22] Ramit: What do you think you would get out of it?

[01:29:00:18] Sana: Connection to which is the primary goal?

[01:29:03:24] Ramit: Yes. Good. Maybe an understanding of each other. Maybe the understanding of this dynamic that you’ve created. The one where you worry about others before yourself or hum responds to that worry. What does he do? He. He makes a plan. He follows the plan. He goes, if I if I plan this plan even more than I planned it, then maybe she’ll stop worrying.

[01:29:28:15] Ramit: That doesn’t work. So he doubles down on the plan. And now you’ve both created this dynamic where you’re living for some day, as you put it, with a light at the end of the tunnel. The light’s not coming. You’ll be debt free, there’s no doubt about that. But you will still both worry each of you chasing this feeling.

[01:29:48:23] Ramit: But because you don’t talk about feelings, because you don’t know how, you didn’t see that your parents doing it, having a healthy dynamic, then the only thing you both do is double down on the plan. It’s functional. Your money will grow, but where’s the feeling in it? That’s what couples therapy can get you.

[01:30:12:21] Sana: I know you’re right. I know what you’re saying is true. And I know is my priority. And I have to execute on that rather than just thinking about it.

[01:30:26:02] Ramit: What might you be willing to move on from has agreements you’ve made in the past?

[01:30:34:16] Sana: I think I can still do. Everything that I first set out to do is just rather than seeing everything is equal. I put our home first and our time together comes first before I let the worry consume me with other things.

[01:30:54:19] Ramit: You’ll see your family quite frequently. That’s a lot of time. Would you be willing to reduce the amount of time you see your family?

[01:31:01:14] Sana: We’ve talked about this a lot.

[01:31:03:07] Ramit: I’m less interested in talking about it.

[01:31:05:17] Sana: Yeah.

[01:31:06:05] Ramit: I want action.

[01:31:07:12] Sana: Yeah. I think the way that it has worked in the past is that other people fill in our calendar, and then we find time based on what’s left. But I do want to shift to where we fill our time together first, and then let other people fill it in second.

[01:31:27:17] Ramit: That’s how you send the signal to each other that you are the most important thing. We this unit is the most important thing. We love them, but they come second. So how would you do that?

[01:31:40:19] Arhem: If we look at our calendar, we say, okay, you know, the next four Saturdays we’re going to plan a date. And then if someone else asks, let’s do something on Saturday, we say, oh no, we can’t because we have our date plan. Great for Saturday.

[01:31:56:02] Sana: Yeah, I know what’s happened in the past. We’ll have a plan, but then our plans are flexible. But other people plan an event on Saturday. And so it’s like, well, what if we moved our day to another day and then we go to this commitment and I’ve been pushing back on like, well, if we keep following other people’s schedules, then that leaves very little time for us.

[01:32:21:24] Ramit: This is really common topic for like Asian and South Asian people and their relationship together versus their extended family. This is like point number one. It’s like in every soap opera. You know what I mean? And it’s going to be hard the first few times. And yet it is also necessary. Okay. And what about the money that you’re giving to your parents?

[01:32:45:14] Sana: I don’t want to reduce it, but I think instead of, like, right now, I’m doing a split between what actively comes out of our paycheck, my paycheck versus my savings. I think it’s okay if I just rely on the savings for a little bit to create that extra space for us. It’s spend more time together, okay?

[01:33:05:05] Ramit: We talked about the trust before, like it seems like you’re in the process of earning back son as trust, and that’s good. I agree with that. I just I want to know about the joint. The joint combination. In my opinion, married couples should have joint finances. I do obviously leave room for individual accounts. I think if you have incurred a bunch of debt, then it can make sense for that person to disproportionately pay for that, all of that.

[01:33:38:07] Ramit: I think if the plan is that you’ve been explicit, hey, once the credit card is paid off, we should combine our finances. Great. That’s a couple of years away. Fine. As long as you both know it and you agree to it. Another option is a post. Nope. A post up would be something that you may want to consider, which is hey, even though we’re already married, we should make a legal agreement on what kinds of debt we came into this relationship with and that way.

[01:34:07:06] Ramit: Worst case scenario, we both know exactly what happens and that then frees us up to be unified together. I’m not asking you make a decision today, but I am asking you to think about what would a future look like that is united. Right now, it’s not.

[01:34:24:25] Arhem: A way.

[01:34:25:07] Ramit: That.

[01:34:26:10] Arhem: We could be united. For example, as we open a joint savings account for vacation and we call it like, okay, this is our trip to Switzerland. Do you want to.

[01:34:34:00] Ramit: Do it?

[01:34:35:05] Sana: Yeah, that could happen today.

[01:34:38:02] Ramit: Do you want to do it?

[01:34:39:13] Arhem: I only want to do it if she’s okay with it. Because the reason why is because I know that I broke that trust before, and I don’t want to mishandle it.

[01:34:50:00] Ramit: Okay. So don’t. So don’t mishandle it. I don’t think you are seeing the dynamic here. You’re so eager to please Sunna by deferring to her that you’re simply putting more work on her. When was the last time you said to her, here’s what I want to do with money in our relationship. When was the last time you said something like that?

[01:35:11:19] Arhem: I feel like I say it most weekends, like, hey, we can, like, maybe we can go to the bakery around us and we, you know, maybe we get some pastries from there.

[01:35:22:17] Ramit: Are you telling her or asking her?

[01:35:24:12] Arhem: I feel like usually I’m asking. You are.

[01:35:27:18] Ramit: When you said earlier you would like your dynamic to be co C-level execs, right? In a business, they don’t ask their colleague for their thoughts on every last decision. They have a vision and they have a rationale and they propose things. And sometimes they say like, look, this is what I think we should do. This is what we’re going to do.

[01:35:54:19] Ramit: But right now you don’t feel you can do that, because what.

[01:35:58:16] Arhem: It feels like, the dynamic that’s been established is that she has final say. And so I don’t I guess maybe I don’t feel like I’ve earned finals.

[01:36:08:11] Ramit: Maybe five more years of penance, maybe. Maybe ten.

[01:36:13:18] Sana: I don’t think of myself as the only one who has final say. I don’t want you to feel that way.

[01:36:20:20] Arhem: But that’s what it feels like. And I guess the reason maybe that I’ve been playing into it more is because it feels like it’s been working. Maybe. Maybe she feels better, but now I’m realizing that she’s still worried about it, so maybe it’s not working quite as well.

[01:36:35:27] Sana: I think it would be nice to have things just plan for, and all I have to do is show up.

[01:36:41:27] Arhem: Yeah, maybe this is what couples therapy would be helpful for, because I feel that in the past, and even to this day, when I do try to take the lead on planning things or suggesting things, then then you come in and take control and then it sort of morphs into your vision. And I don’t want to repeatedly push back.

[01:37:03:16] Arhem: So it’s easier for the dynamic overall. If if I start with a suggestion, you morph it to your vision and then and then we go from there.

[01:37:12:17] Sana: I add my opinion because you phrase it like a suggestion, but it is extra work on me to think about it. I, I would enjoy if you just told me what to do every once in a while.

[01:37:30:02] Ramit: You want to practice right now? Yeah. Let’s pick something low stakes. Got something in mind?

[01:37:35:12] Arhem: There are some movies coming out in the summer that I would like to watch. I will decide on the movie. I’ll pick out the seats and what screen we’re going to watch it on. We will eat a dinner before then, and I’ll book the reservation. I’ll find the reservation, make sure it’s appropriate to our dietary limits. Does Saturday work.

[01:37:57:28] Ramit: Or.

[01:37:58:24] Arhem: Does Friday work?

[01:38:00:15] Sana: I would like that.

[01:38:01:21] Ramit: That was good. Okay. What just happened there?

[01:38:03:20] Arhem: I took action, I had the whole plan laid out already from start to finish, and I just all that I asked her essentially was what day works for you to.

[01:38:14:10] Ramit: Do that? That was my favorite part. Does Friday or Saturday I love that. And what did you feel?

[01:38:19:10] Sana: It feels nice to not plan something. Yeah, it feels nice to spend time with someone that I care about. And they’ve got all the logistics figured out.

[01:38:33:26] Ramit: Yeah, that’s. Partnership was really cool. Okay. You mentioned earlier at the beginning today that you’re worried about falling back into old financial habits. Are you worried about that? Because to me, it doesn’t seem like you’re at any risk of that.

[01:38:49:24] Arhem: Maybe 5% worried. Not. Not really that worried.

[01:38:52:27] Ramit: Okay. So keep an eye on it. But in my opinion, from talking to you and from talking to both of you, doesn’t seem like a huge risk. If anything, you have become so structured. To me, the opportunity here is not to spend the next 25 years playing defense, but rather to observe what’s actually going on and go, holy.

[01:39:12:29] Ramit: I’m so deep in the spreadsheet, there’s other things to spend more time on that are more worthy of your time. I think that’s important for you to know. You should be spending time on the things that are important, and you already did a nice job with the debt payoff plan. Now that it’s in effect, it’s happening. It’s going automatically.

[01:39:33:17] Ramit: It should not be taking up all kinds of energy from you. Take that energy and redirected to what’s more important here. What would it feel like for you to put yourself and your relationship first?

[01:39:47:12] Sana: I will start saying yes to what I want now, as opposed to pushing it off another month or two months a year. Plus, it’s okay if I take away from the other buckets, if I feel myself first. Because a lesson that I’m still learning is that if I crush myself, then I’d have nothing left. But if I take care of myself first, what I’m able to give will be more joyful.

[01:40:20:26] Ramit: Yes, I love that you use that word joyful. That, to me is the theme of what you should both be seeking. The default answer in your life has always been get to the next step as quickly as possible. That is your invisible script. Hurry up! Graduate. Hurry up. Get an A+. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up and you will hurry yourself right into the grave.

[01:40:47:09] Ramit: As for the two of you, it actually is an incredible testament that after this financial betrayal of not sharing this credit card debt, that you can even talk about joy. But you can. You have a debt payoff plan. You have two people who both want to be better. So it’s finding joy in daily life, changing the way that you talk to each other, getting some help because it’s not doesn’t come natural, especially after you probably didn’t see your parents doing this and start thinking of yourselves not as, you know, what’s the world going to do to us, but like, oh my God, we’re actually really powerful.

[01:41:24:23] Ramit: Sure, we have some debt to pay off, but we’re a young couple that is making a lot of money and is going to make more. So what do we want to get out of this? What do we get? What surprised you about our conversation today?

[01:41:40:13] Arhem: The thing that was most surprising in the connection you made of the original sin was because I didn’t want to worry her more, and actually me trying to repair that is also worrying her more. And I guess I didn’t put that connection together, that my response was, I think you said a fundamental miscalculation. I didn’t even think of it that way.

[01:42:03:14] Arhem: So that was the biggest surprise.

[01:42:04:28] Ramit: Good.

[01:42:05:21] Sana: I think in the first ten minutes he told us that our spreadsheet was not joyful. I didn’t think it was that apparent. I know that we were have been regimented, but I thought that’s just the way it has to be, but I don’t have to push it until later. I can have that now.

[01:42:24:28] Ramit: That’s just the way it has to be. What a powerful theme that you’ve been operating under for so long. That’s just the way it has to be. Who says? Everybody tells me I have to buy a house. I’ve had to do this. I have to do that. That’s just the way it has to be. And I go, nope, I’m not taking your burden on me.

[01:42:49:06] Ramit: I create my own rich life. And importantly, my wife and I do it together. So we decide what has to be, but nobody else gets to put it on us. Same for you to not even family while you can respect them and love them, but you to decide what you keep joyfully and what’s not for you. I am hopeful that this couple will make changes.

[01:43:22:03] Ramit: Let me tell you what I know for a fact is going to happen. I know that their numbers are going to continue being dialed in. The debts going to be paid off. I have no concern about that at all. What I am less sure about is can they completely change their relationship to money? And that is decades of really hard work.

[01:43:48:01] Ramit: It is seeing a couple’s therapist, probably individual therapists. It is totally changing the dynamics of how they make decisions about things as simple as joining a bocce ball league. It’s everything and everywhere. Can they do it? Of course. They’re both really smart. Both really capable. Will they do it? I hope so because I want them to feel joy.

[01:44:13:03] Ramit: Not just on vacation, but day to day. And I want them to change the patterns that they have seen and observed and inherited from their parents. Because if they choose to have children one day, I don’t want their children to be burdened with this idea of being a martyr or hiding debt from your partner because you don’t want to worry them.

[01:44:31:24] Ramit: No, I want them to be in it as partners are. So that is my hope for them. Can they do it? Yeah. Is it going to be hard? Yeah, but all valuable things are. And now let’s check out their follow ups.

[01:44:47:00] Speaker 4: Then about the week since he met you I think walking in last week, I thought that the our conversation was going to be about why our faith costs are so high and what we can do to reduce it. And so I was very surprised to see a complete 180 from that, where the biggest takeaway was that I should actually be loosening up more and spending more on myself.

[01:45:11:05] Speaker 4: Now, I’ve always seen myself as a protector and an orchestrator, where I need to have my hands in everything just so I can take care of not only myself, but also everyone around me. And so I never considered that I might have taken my being responsible to an extreme where I’ve over planned and stressed myself out more than I needed to be.

[01:45:39:07] Speaker 4: And I especially didn’t consider that I might have taken Aurum to that extreme as well. And so I’ve been very intentional this past week about loosening up and saying yes to things that I would enjoy right now, as opposed to things that I should be doing. And so some examples of that would be that we’ve been having more spontaneous walks, and we’ve gone for dessert and we’ve played sports, and it’s been really nice to decompress that way.

[01:46:14:23] Speaker 4: And I’m looking forward to making more changes to help myself carry less of a load.

[01:46:22:17] Arhem: Thank you for granting us the time to do our session with you. The biggest takeaway for me is that we were not spending our life or spending our time in the way that we should be. For two people in our 20s with no kids and the kind of income that we make. It was really eye opening for me to hear from another outside source that we really do not have to be so involved in the nitty gritty details of life or finances, to the point that it’s detrimental to our relationship and to our time together.

[01:47:01:08] Arhem: It was it was really important, I think, for me to hear that the time that we spent together as husband and wife should be joyous and heartfelt and not, you know, really detailed and like, logistically good, but it’s all very robotic and mechanic. I don’t like thinking that that’s how our time was, but I think it’s pretty clear that that’s how our time has been.

[01:47:26:08] Arhem: In an effort to turn that around. I’ve been taking an initiative to plan more dates together, to prioritize our days together, and to have a lot of unstructured, fun time. And we plan on thinking less about how much something costs and thinking more about, is this something reasonably that we can do and would we enjoy doing it? And the other thing that I have made a conscious effort to do is to tailor my language so that it’s not asking a question, which puts the burden on her.

[01:47:59:20] Arhem: It’s more that I will plan myself and I bring some out along with me, and we have fun together that way. The biggest takeaway for me is that I want our money to be something that makes our life meaningful and fulfilling, rather than just it be something that I accomplish and check off. So I’m really appreciative to remain and the team, and we look forward to implementing these changes in our life together.

[01:48:28:15] Arhem: It’s been about six weeks since our podcast session. For me, I think the biggest thing that has stuck with me is to have a bias for action. So I’ve been trying to be much more mindful about being active, not just in my language, but also in my actions, and not only being active just in how I live my life, but for the both of us together.

[01:48:54:16] Speaker 5: And for me. The.

[01:48:56:15] Speaker 4: Coming out of the coaching call. The first week was very heavy. I’ve always seen myself as the responsible one, but I never considered. And through Remy’s coaching, I realized that maybe I’ve taken being responsible to an unhealthy extreme. And so the biggest skill that I want to work on is spending on myself and so, and teaching myself to lesson that it is possible for me to spend on things that I enjoy, while also taking care of everything that needs to get taken care of.

[01:49:30:11] Speaker 4: And so with that in mind, we have opened up our very first joint account together. This account is strictly for fun things, and so we’re putting aside $400 a month before anything else so that we can prioritize our time together. And not just time, but also quality time specifically.

[01:49:51:06] Arhem: In addition to that, one of the other big concrete changes we’ve made is that we’ve been in couples therapy together. So we’ve done a few sessions already, and I think it’s been really helpful as far as putting language towards putting language to dynamics and maybe some of the conversations that we didn’t know how to navigate with each other.

[01:50:15:28] Arhem: So it’s been really helpful towards that. And finally, the biggest thing I think that we’ve changed about our dynamic is that we’ve been much more intentional in our quality time together. So not just setting aside a day on the weekend for the two of us to be together, but also most days out of the week, we’ve been trying to carve out time in the evening where we can have quality time with each other, and it’s not burdened by responsibilities or anything else.

[01:50:45:16] Arhem: It’s just time for us to enjoy together. And I think we’ve noticed a really big, positive change in our relationship.

[01:50:52:24] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I know into the coaching session I thought that the entire conversation would be about our debt because that there’s that that scares me. But going through the whole call, we realized and I know deep down that we are very competent and confident in our skills and our doubt will get taken care of. And so there’s no need to overthink or overcomplicated.

[01:51:17:19] Speaker 4: We are already on a good plan, and we’re going to be debt free very soon. And so our biggest thing to work on is not clearing the dead, but learning how to use our money intentionally and in a way that’s meaningful to us. So thank you for pushing us outside of our boundaries. We are really excited about what’s ahead of us and we’ll keep in touch.

[01:51:41:24] Arhem: Yeah. Thank you all.

[01:51:42:26] Speaker 4: Bye.