{"id":1964,"date":"2025-09-04T01:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T01:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:32:09","slug":"episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 224. \u201cI took on debt to help my family. Now she won\u2019t marry me.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u201cI took on debt to help my family. Now she won\u2019t marry me.\u201d\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0O7eEL1P_2M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe data-testid=\"embed-iframe\" style=\"border-radius:12px\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/1cz8r1WJoEbksijz2oi4QT\/video?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Rachel (31) and Pierre (42) have been together for four years, building a loving and stable life in Brooklyn. But one issue is holding everything back: Pierre\u2019s $60,000 in debt from a failed business he started to support his family. His plan is to wait it out, hoping the problem disappears. But Rachel is unwilling to move forward towards marriage until there\u2019s a plan in place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">To her, his passive approach feels like a warning sign for their future together. Can Ramit help them face the reality of this debt, make a plan, and build a shared vision?<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Turinys:<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/#In_this_episode_we_uncover\" >In this episode we uncover:<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/#Chapters\" >Chapters:<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/#This_episode_is_brought_to_you_by\" >This episode is brought to you by:<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/#Links_mentioned_in_this_episode\" >Links mentioned in this episode\u00a0<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/episode-224-i-took-on-debt-to-help-my-family-now-she-wont-marry-me\/#Transcript\" >Transcript\u00a0<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"In_this_episode_we_uncover\"><\/span><b>In this episode we uncover:<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Why Rachel vowed never to date someone with debt\u2014and why she chose to date Pierre anyway<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Pierre\u2019s family vape shop business collapse and the $60,000 in debt he took on to try to save it<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">The stark difference in how each partner views the debt<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Why Pierre believes ignoring the judgment is a valid strategy<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Rachel\u2019s habit of minimizing her own fears<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">How Pierre\u2019s family history shaped his own sense of obligation<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Rachel\u2019s painful history with her mother being scammed out of $60,000<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">The tension between investing for the future versus paying off past mistakes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">How cultural expectations and family loyalty complicate Pierre\u2019s decision-making around money<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">The breaking point: Rachel admits she cannot say yes to a proposal without a clear plan for the debt<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 300;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Ramit\u2019s game plan to get the debt paid off\u2014the right way<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Chapters\"><\/span><b>Chapters:<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(00:00:00) \u201cIf you don\u2019t handle this debt, I won\u2019t marry you\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(00:19:50) Ramit breaks down their numbers<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(00:27:25) \u201cHappy wife, happy life\u201d \u2014 but what about the debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(00:41:53) He took on debt for his family \u2014 but at what cost to his future?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(00:55:01) \u201cI don\u2019t ask my dad for money\u2026 and I don\u2019t ask Pierre either\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(01:07:31) How small sacrifices can open the door to big changes<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(01:23:21) Logistics are a big turn on<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">(01:30:50) Where are they now? Rachel and Pierre\u2019s follow-ups<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"This_episode_is_brought_to_you_by\"><\/span><b>This episode is brought to you by:<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">SonderMind | Go to <\/span><strong>https:\/\/sondermind.com<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\"> to get matched with the right therapist in less than a week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Doola | Go to <\/span><strong>https:\/\/doola.com\/ramit<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\"> and use code RAMIT for 10% off LLC formation and bookkeeping.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to <\/span><strong>https:\/\/masterclass.com\/ramit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Rocket Money | Cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way at <\/span><strong>https:\/\/rocketmoney.com\/ramit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Notion | Try Notion for free at <\/span><strong>https:\/\/notion.com\/ramit<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\"> and experience the powerful, easy-to-use Notion AI today.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Links_mentioned_in_this_episode\"><\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">Links mentioned in this episode<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;134245418&quot;:true,&quot;134245529&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559685&quot;:0,&quot;335559737&quot;:450,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:768}\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 300;\">Get tickets for my next live events\u2014September 14 in Atlanta and September 26 in Los Angeles\u2014at <\/span><strong>https:\/\/iwt.com\/events<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Transcript\"><\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">Transcript<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;134245418&quot;:true,&quot;134245529&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559685&quot;:2010,&quot;335559737&quot;:2010,&quot;335559738&quot;:375,&quot;335559739&quot;:375,&quot;335559740&quot;:768}\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Download the full transcript PDF<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;335559685&quot;:2010,&quot;335559737&quot;:2010,&quot;335559738&quot;:150,&quot;335559739&quot;:150}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I told myself that I wasn&#8217;t going to date anyone who has debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I had to shut the business down, and I had to accumulate all this debt because I felt obligated to take care of my family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He told me what happened and how it was just sitting there. I said, &#8222;Are you going to do anything about it?&#8221; And he just brushed it off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:25)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I spoke to a financial advisor about it. He said just wait it out, because after seven years it&#8217;s removed from your credit report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0At some point, honestly, it was starting to piss me off a little bit. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn&#8217;t know their\u00a0(Bleep)?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have enough to pay for it, but if I don&#8217;t have to pay for it, why would I?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:00:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s just every time I try to bring up this debt, that&#8217;s where things just go downhill. So I think it&#8217;s like a sore spot for the both of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:01:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If your partner said they would not get married to you unless you paid off your debt, what would you do? Today I&#8217;m speaking with Rachel and Pierre.\u00a0They&#8217;re 31 and 42 years old. They&#8217;ve been together for four years,\u00a0and they live together in Brooklyn. Their goal is to get married and start a family, but one thing is stopping them,\u00a0Pierre&#8217;s $60,000 business debt from before they met. He&#8217;s basically written off paying it, and\u00a0Rachel says she will not say yes to a proposal unless there&#8217;s a plan for that debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:01:37)\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0look at their conscious spending plan right now, or their CSP so we can see their actual numbers.\u00a0You can download your own template of the\u00a0conscious\u00a0spending\u00a0plan for free at iwt.com\/csp.\u00a0They have $0 in assets, $134,000 in investments, $35,000 saved,\u00a0$60,000 in debt\u00a0for a total net worth of $109,000. They make a combined $183,000 per year. Fixed costs are 48%. It&#8217;s quite low.\u00a015%,\u00a0investments.\u00a011%,\u00a0savings.\u00a026%,\u00a0guilt-free spending.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:02:19)\u00a0Now,\u00a0if we don&#8217;t count the debt, their numbers look pretty solid. But if you&#8217;ve listened to this podcast before, you know that the numbers alone never tell the whole story.\u00a0Let&#8217;s meet Rachel and Pierre.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:02:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rachel, in your application, you said something that really caught my eye. You said, you&#8217;re both working towards marriage, but you will not accept a proposal unless this debt is handled. Is that still true?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:02:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Not necessarily that it has to be paid off in full, but at least there&#8217;s some solution that this is being worked on, or that there&#8217;s&#8211; let&#8217;s say the solution is paying it off. Then that&#8217;s considered handled to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:03:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I got it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:03:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0There&#8217;s a solution to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:03:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. So we&#8217;re here because of Pierre&#8217;s debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:03:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;ve known about this debt probably early on, before we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I&#8217;ve known about it, and I told myself that I wasn&#8217;t going to date anyone who has debt because I don&#8217;t to have to deal with that. At the time I was in my late 20s, and I don&#8217;t want that burden on me. I didn&#8217;t want to have to deal with that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:03:48)\u00a0When he told me what happened with his debt and how it was just sitting there, I asked him about it, and I said, &#8222;Are you going to do anything about it?&#8221; And he just brushed it off. And over, I want to say maybe two years ago I brought it up again, and asked him, I said, &#8222;How much debt do you have?&#8221; And he&#8217;s like, &#8222;Oh, I think I have some stuff here, some stuff there.&#8221; And at some point, honestly, it was starting to piss me off a little bit because I thought, why would I want to be with someone who doesn&#8217;t know their\u00a0(Bleep)?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:04:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What happened?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:04:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s a business credit card debt. It wasn&#8217;t anything personal. It had nothing with personal debt. Before that, I never had debt. Of 30 something years of my life, I was debt-free. My credit score was between 760 and 780. And then I opened a vape shop. It was a shared space with family, and they couldn&#8217;t cover their share of the rent, so I ended up covering their rent and not paying off the credit cards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:05:09)\u00a0And then when New York passed all this legislation regarding flavored e-juice and what can be sold or can&#8217;t and not being able to move my license, it hit me hard, and I gave up. I was like, &#8222;You know what?&#8221; I knew that it would be on my credit score for seven years, and after that it would be off the credit score. And from there I figured I could start rebuilding my credit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:05:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What do you think made this different, where you went 30-plus years of no debt, of being quite responsible with debt, to suddenly accumulating a larger amount of debt and then not paying it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:05:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Number one, I didn&#8217;t find a job afterwards. I did a little later on, but, for a couple of months I was just upset that I had to give up the space. I had to shut the business down. Because at the time when I shut it down, it was the number one rated vape shop in New York City, or one of the top ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:06:11)\u00a0And I was doing well. So losing that really hurt. I felt like I had an obligation to help families. So a big part of that also contributed to it. I&#8217;m the eldest child, and I have two little sisters. My dad passed away when I was 20, so for the longest time, I tried to grow and find my own path, but at the same time, I had to take into consideration I was man of the house, or I had to help my mom with the business, with the taxes and any administrative work with her business for years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:06:54)\u00a0And when I finally found something and I was good at it, it was a successful business, and then I had to shut it down, I had to accumulate all this debt because I felt obligated to take care of my family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What did you feel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I felt angry. I felt upset. I felt heartbroken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Angry at whom?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0At myself, at having or feeling the responsibility of being there for my family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. Did you feel angry at your family?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No. During that time, before I shut down the business, I felt good because my mom sacrificed so much and gave me so much, and this was the least I can do for her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Rachel, how many times have you brought up this debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Definitely at least five, maybe six or seven times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:07:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. And how many times has Pierre brought up the debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think zero, maybe one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. When these conversations come up, when you bring up the debt, Rachel, how do the conversations go?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The first time was not fun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What happened?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s started in tears. It ended in tears.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:25)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0This conversation happened like over a year ago. Right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, happened over a year ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We can take a break. We can pause. It&#8217;s no problem at all. But I&#8217;m just noticing the second you start thinking about it, you begin to cry. Almost like it just happened. And I&#8217;m wondering, why is it so vivid for you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it&#8217;s because we don&#8217;t really ever argue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:08:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. I think Pierre is coming to hand her a nice box of tissues. Thank you, Pierre. Very nice of you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:09:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, we don&#8217;t really fight. We don&#8217;t argue about anything. It&#8217;s just every time I try to bring up this debt, that&#8217;s where things just go downhill. So I think it&#8217;s like a sore spot for the both of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:09:22)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. It can feel tender, talking about whatever topic. Every couple&#8217;s got something. Money&#8217;s often the one that ends up making its way to me, and it&#8217;s like a really tender spot. The rest of your body might feel perfectly fine, but you just brush this little area on your arm, and it feels incredibly painful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:09:45)\u00a0And it&#8217;s interesting, if that happened on our own body, we would know. We should probably get that checked out. We should probably do something about that. But it&#8217;s interesting that with money, a lot of times we just shuffle it off to the side because we can paper it over and we can avoid those conversations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:10:04)\u00a0And when they come up and they feel incredibly tender, we fight, we cry, we go to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, and then we wake up in the morning, and we try to forget about it. So what you&#8217;re feeling is very normal. Okay, let&#8217;s try it again. The first time you had this conversation, what happened?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:10:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I remember we were sitting in the bedroom, and I asked him. I was like, &#8222;Oh, how much is your debt? And then I asked him, I said, &#8222;Log into&#8211;&#8221; I think it was Experian or TransUnion, Equifax, whatever it is, because it lists everything. And then from there, that&#8217;s just where we started going through the list.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:10:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What was the gist of it? You were asking him questions. He was responding to your questions. And then? What was the general gist of that conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:10:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just figuring out how much debt he has.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:10:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And what was your reaction?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just thinking, damn, that&#8217;s a lot. But it&#8217;s manageable. You deal with people that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. For something like his, I think it&#8217;s like 60, 60-some thousand in debt. So it&#8217;s not horrible, and it&#8217;s not accumulating interest. My biggest concern was, is this debt accumulating interest?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you find yourself minimizing your own problems a lot?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Possibly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. Pierre&#8217;s nodding his head yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Striking that you&#8217;re discovering your live-in boyfriend of many years has $60,000 of debt, which you had to &#8222;bug&#8221; him to share, and your first response is, &#8222;Oh, it&#8217;s actually not that bad because other people have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.&#8221; What do you make of that, Rachel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:11:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I guess I could be blowing it out of proportion a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:01)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Which part are you blowing out of proportion?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The amount of debt that he has.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You think you&#8217;re blowing his amount of debt out of proportion?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Possibly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. When were you taught to put the feelings of others before your own?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s how I was raised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh, really.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Sorry. Yeah, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. We&#8217;ll get to that. Can we role play the conversation or conversations that you have about this debt? Because I think I have a general sense of how the conversation goes, but I&#8217;d like to try to almost observe it like a fly on the wall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:12:47)\u00a0So what I&#8217;d like to do is I would like to sit here, and I would like for the two of you to recreate one of those conversations as closely as possible using the exact words, using the person who starts the conversation, they respond the way they did, and the other person responds the way they did. Put yourself in the mental space of that conversation, and let&#8217;s pick it up at one of the times you talked about debt. Go ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:13:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hey, babe. Can you find a way to figure out how much debt you actually have?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:13:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I actually looked it up, and it&#8217;s about $60,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:13:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you know if there&#8217;s any interest on it, or do you know where exactly it is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:13:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No. It hasn&#8217;t shown any interest. It hasn&#8217;t risen in years. I spoke to a financial advisor about it, and he said that if it was the first or second year of the debt and you didn&#8217;t plan to pay for it, you could have filed for bankruptcy. But this far into it, he said just wait it out because after seven years it, it&#8217;s removed from your credit report. I have enough to pay for it, but if I don&#8217;t have to pay for it, why would I?\u200a<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:14:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So what about the Amex? That&#8217;s about 33,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:14:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0They want a judgment on it. And after 10 years, I was told that they would probably try to sue me again to get another 10 years to collect. And when that happens, I&#8217;ll reach out to my lawyer, depending on where I&#8217;m working, and see if we could do a settlement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:14:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wouldn&#8217;t it just be better to try and figure it out now? I feel like there&#8217;s a bigger risk of waiting to see if they try to sue you. Because if it&#8217;s Amex, it&#8217;s not a small amount. It&#8217;s about $33,000. And I feel like if it&#8217;s going to be, let&#8217;s say, what is it, another four years from now, wouldn&#8217;t it mean more or be easier to pay off now than it would be in the future if we decide to, let&#8217;s say, have kids?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:15:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I had a really late start to, putting money into my retirement, so now, any extra money that I have is going towards that. And if I had to settle it in five years, I&#8217;ll be making more money. So let&#8217;s say that $38,000, the settlement is 25. 25,000 now is worth a lot more than what 25,000 will be five years from now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:16:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. This is where the conversation ended at that point because I didn&#8217;t know how to respond to that afterwards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:16:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0First of all, well done. Thank you. That actually took me right into that conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:16:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let me jump in here because the first few minutes of this conversation are incredibly revealing. My antenna are going up\u00a0because\u00a0Rachel says she and Pierre hardly ever argue. That&#8217;s a huge clue.\u00a0As if arguing is bad.\u00a0I don&#8217;t actually consider it a virtue when somebody says, we hardly ever argue. In fact, a lot of people who say this actually avoid conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:16:51)\u00a0And then we see what happens when the debt comes up. Rachel cries.\u00a0Listen to how she talks about it. One moment she says the debt is terrible.\u00a0The next,\u00a0&#8222;Well, some people have hundreds of thousands of debts, so this is manageable.&#8221;\u00a0She&#8217;s immediately minimizing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:17:07)\u00a0I suspect she probably doesn&#8217;t talk about this with anyone else. And when she finally brings it up with Pierre, did you notice his reaction? He basically shrugs.\u00a0He changes his subject. If I were Rachel,\u00a0seeing that, I would feel incredibly lonely.\u00a0Because this isn&#8217;t just about money.\u00a0It&#8217;s really about what the debt represents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:17:27)\u00a0In life,\u00a0we are all\u00a0going to\u00a0face challenges.\u00a0And if your partner can&#8217;t deal with debt, if they won&#8217;t even talk about it, that is an ominous sign of how they&#8217;ll handle other difficulties.\u00a0Deep down, I bet Rachel knows this.\u00a0But we need to go deeper into the why.\u00a0To Rachel,\u00a0debt is bad. Doesn&#8217;t matter why you have it. If it&#8217;s there, it&#8217;s bad. You deal with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:17:50)\u00a0To Pierre, the debt feels quite different. He took it on to help his family. He lost a business over it. It represents sacrifice. It represents doing the right thing.\u00a0So they&#8217;re not even talking about $60,000. They are talking about two different concepts of something they each just happened to call debt. Rachel wants a plan right now. Pierre&#8217;s just hoping the problem goes away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:18:18)\u00a0Now,\u00a0I\u00a0want to\u00a0help them see each other&#8217;s perspective, but I also know that Rachel has made it clear there is no future for them as a couple if they cannot agree on this debt.\u00a0After this break, we&#8217;re\u00a0going to\u00a0get into their numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:18:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I have questions, but first, I want to look at your numbers. All right. Let&#8217;s see. Rachel, why don&#8217;t you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to it for this entire net worth box please?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:18:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.\u00a0Assets, $0. Investments, 134,000. Savings, 35,000.\u00a0Debt, 60,000.\u00a0With a total net worth of 109,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:03)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. What do you think about that number?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Pretty good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All things considered. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Pierre, what do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I like it, but I know it could be up 60,000 more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Got it. All right. Let&#8217;s take a look at the income. This time, Pierre, I&#8217;d like you to give me the number of your combined monthly gross income, please.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Our combined gross income is 15,292.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All\u00a0right.\u00a0So that means that combined, the two of you make $183,500. Who knew that, by a show of hands? Rachel&#8217;s putting her hand up. Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:19:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, great. All right. Both of you knew. Damn. I&#8217;m going to give you a round of applause. That&#8217;s very rare on this show or in America. Interestingly, your incomes are quite similar. One of you, Pierre, makes 7,000 a month gross. Rachel makes 8,200 a month gross. So a little bit more, but in general in the same ballpark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:09)\u00a0So that&#8217;s helpful as we go down the list. All right. Can we take a look at the rest of the numbers here on the CSP?\u00a0Let&#8217;s see here. Rachel, what is that fixed cost percentage that you have?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a048%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:21)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Good. Very good. One of the lower numbers I&#8217;ve seen. Don&#8217;t you both live in New York?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes, we do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wow. Very impressive. So you mentioned you have a rent-controlled apartment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rent-stabilized.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:20:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rent-stabilized. All right. So your rent is 26%, which is good. But in New York, it&#8217;s excellent. Because New York is the most, very high cost of living city in America in general. So well done on that.\u00a0Let&#8217;s move on to the next one. Investments are at 15%. That&#8217;s good. And are you doing some 401(k) as well?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m not. She is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You are, Rachel. Okay.\u00a0Savings are at 11%. You have a vacation fund.\u00a0You have a gifts fund.\u00a0You have an emergency fund and a wedding fund. Okay. And your savings are currently $35,000, which is about six months. All right. Good.\u00a0And then finally down to\u00a0guilt-free\u00a0spending, which is at 26%. Would you say this number is accurate,\u00a0$2,627 a month on\u00a0guilt-free\u00a0spending?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0For me, I would say yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Sounds about&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:21:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You have fixed costs at 48%. First thing I think when I see that is fantastic. What are they doing with the extra money? That&#8217;s the first thing that goes to my mind. Then I move down to investments. I see 15%. I go, &#8222;Oh, that explains it.&#8221; They&#8217;re actually investing fairly aggressively, exactly the numbers that I would expect for somebody making a high income, no kids. All right. You have something on here that says, mom, $300 a month. What&#8217;s that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I give my mom $300 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What does she do with it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m guessing what she always does with money, is save it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And also, I love that you never even asked her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I don&#8217;t need to. I know her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:21)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Okay, fine. How do you send it? You write a check, or you give her cash, or what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I Zelle it. I used to give her cash, but now I just send it to her phone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And then does she reply when you send it, or no?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0She&#8217;ll send me a text.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:38)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What does it say?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Thank you. Good boy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh my God. Adorable. God, I love moms. All right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:22:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. She doesn&#8217;t live too far from my work, and she&#8217;ll make food and bring it to me so I could bring it home to Rachel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:23:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I love that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:23:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, yeah, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:23:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So then your savings is at 11%, and you have a fairly healthy amount. You&#8217;ve got 500 bucks a month for vacations. You&#8217;ve got a gift fund, almost 300 bucks a month, etc. And a wedding fund of $100 a month. Okay. And then the remainder is going to guilt-free spending at 26%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:23:24)\u00a0So all of this to me, looking at it, I go, yeah, it looks pretty straightforward. In general, just looking at it, the biggest thing I notice is your fixed costs are low, and some of the money that would ordinarily go towards housing and cars, you&#8217;ve diverted it towards investments and savings. Okay. All right. Can you break down the 60k of debt for me?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:23:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So 38 of it is to Amex, and that,\u00a0they got a judgment on.\u00a0So that&#8217;s the only one that&#8211;\u00a0there&#8217;s another four grand or 4,800 with Amex. They&#8217;ve sent letters saying, if you pay 1,400, they&#8217;ll cover the debt, but you can&#8217;t get an Amex card anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:24:07)\u00a0There is another, I think eight grand that was&#8211;\u00a0that one&#8217;s in collections.\u00a0And there was a 10 grand from Squarespace where it was like a business loan. I never got any other documentation from them since the business closed and I had stopped paying.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:24:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. What do you think about those breakdown of the four sources of debt totaling 60k?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:24:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Damn, that&#8217;s a lot, and I don&#8217;t want to pay that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:24:44)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let&#8217;s\u00a0pause here because I think this is really important.\u00a0Pierre&#8217;s got $4,800 with Amex that he can settle for $1,400. He&#8217;s got $8,000 in collections, $10,000 from a business loan he stopped paying after that business closed, and $38,000 from two Amex cards with a court judgment already in place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:25:04)\u00a0Pierre thinks if he ignores this debt, it will just disappear. It won&#8217;t. Now,\u00a0yes, in the US some unpaid debts fall off your credit report after seven years. But that doesn&#8217;t mean they vanish. Creditors can still try to collect, and in New York a judgment like Pierre&#8217;s is enforceable for 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:25:24)\u00a0With a judgment,\u00a0the court has already decided he owes the money,\u00a0so the creditor can garnish wages, freeze bank accounts, even put liens on property, and the balance racks up interest. If Pierre waits five years, that 38k grows to 58k.\u00a0Wait another five years, it&#8217;s close to 90k. Basically doing nothing is not really an option.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:25:45)\u00a0But I can&#8217;t just sit here and give Pierre all these numbers\u00a0and\u00a0rattle\u00a0them\u00a0off. He&#8217;s avoided debt for years, so me coming and sharing a bunch of large, scary, confusing numbers will only make him retreat further. It would make anyone do that. So instead I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0focus on meeting him where he is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:26:03)\u00a0This is an important lesson if you ever find yourself trying to help someone change something, whether it be their relationship with money or food or anything else.\u00a0Your temptation will be to jump in and give them all the technical facts. Hey, it&#8217;s so scary. Look at this interest rate. It&#8217;s actually compounding.\u00a0Time is working&#8211;\u00a0no wonder you see their eyes glaze over. I used to do it right when I was in college and right\u00a0out of\u00a0college.\u00a0&#8222;Hey, you really need to do a Roth IRA. Don&#8217;t you know about the five-year rule?&#8221;\u00a0It never works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:26:33)\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0start with how he feels about his debt, and I want to invite you to share this with somebody.\u00a0If you know somebody who&#8217;s in a relationship with one partner is avoiding their debt, maybe they think it&#8217;ll just go away,\u00a0send them this episode. It could actually be the wake-up call they need to finally face that debt head on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:26:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What would it be like? I feel resentment? I feel defensive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:26:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I do feel a little resentment. But when I feel that, I think about all the good and positive things that came from it, and that balances it out or cancels it out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:27:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. When you feel negative emotions, is your first instinct to find a way to wipe those negative emotions away?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:27:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Part of it. I like to be a positive person, so I like to be a problem solver.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:27:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Ah. Let&#8217;s talk about the problem solving then. What is the plan for that debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:27:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So outside of the judgment, I&#8217;m just planning the way to those other debts outside of the big Amex to come off and then see what Amex would do regarding the 38.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:27:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hmm. Can we take a look at Rachel&#8217;s expression right now? What do you see, Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Frustration and annoyance. Yeah, I think that was why she submitted the application.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. And?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I feel more comfortable or I wanted to do it my way versus paying&#8211; like I said earlier, 20 grand now is worth more than 20 grand five years from now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a020 grand is about three months of your gross income or four months of your net income.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How&#8217;s that sound to you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:28:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s barring if you don&#8217;t pay for our living expenses and investments. But that 20 grand, I would rather invest it because if my interest is not going up, I would rather invest that 20 grand into a portfolio or whatnot and see what happens in five years and take that risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Or take that chance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So you both see this debt differently. I think we can all agree on that. What do you think is the path forward? Because Rachel asked you, what&#8217;s going on with the debt? What&#8217;s the amount. What&#8217;s the plan? And Pierre, you had a series of responses. You had a plan in your own head. This is what I&#8217;m going to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:38)\u00a0I&#8217;d rather make more by investing it. 20k is worth more to me now than later. You had a series of responses. I can see why you say those responses. It didn&#8217;t seem to comfort Rachel to hear that. Would you agree?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:29:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. So you both have an idea of this debt, but neither one of you is really reaching the other. What do you think is a way to move forward?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Happy wife, happy life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh my God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:10)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do we believe that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0First of all, I\u00a0(Bleep)\u00a0hate that phrase. I hate that phrase. I (Bleep) hate&#8211; I detest that phrase, but I&#8217;m going to go with it for just a second. Okay, if that&#8217;s true, happy wife, happy life, then technically wouldn&#8217;t you just do what she said and pay off the debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:30:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s one way to go about it. When that happens is like, so I should just&#8211; I think my way would cost the least. She&#8217;s worried about renting, finding a new apartment, if our family gets bigger and we need to find another apartment. And one of the solutions for that is to&#8211; because right now our, my name isn&#8217;t on the lease, so there&#8217;s no record of me paying rent aside from me sending her money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:01)\u00a0But if we can put my name on the lease and we pay everything on time for a year, at least a year, when we go and apartment hunt, it wouldn&#8217;t be an issue because there&#8217;s proof showing that are responsible rent payers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So option one is happy wife, happy life. Pay it all off. Option two is put Pierre&#8217;s name on the lease, hopefully build up his credit enough that if and when you go to find another apartment, you can both do it together. Okay. Are there any other options of how you might come together?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Aside from me just not paying and just waiting it out, which she&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, that&#8217;s the third option.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on right now. Right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s a default option.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:31:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0There&#8217;s only one problem with these options, which is, from what, Rachel, you told me in your application, your relationship is at a standstill. You will not accept a marriage proposal unless there is some kind of plan from Pierre to address the debt. Is that correct?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Correct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Which of those plans would allow you to move forward in your relationship? Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When you say plan, is my waiting it out plan considered a plan?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Ask her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Is that a plan?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:32:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If it&#8217;s the best option&#8211; I&#8217;ve come to realize that just because it&#8217;s not what I like to hear doesn&#8217;t mean that it&#8217;s not the best option for us. I think because, for the longest time I kept thinking, oh, okay, you have to pay off this debt. Because if you don&#8217;t pay off this debt, then your credit is not going to get any better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:05)\u00a0That&#8217;s my biggest concern. I have to put your name on the lease. That&#8217;s fine. I have no problem with that. I&#8217;m trying to think of other ways that we could help boost your credit. And again, if this debt is still hindering that or hindering any way to build your credit, that&#8217;s just my concern.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m lost, and I do this for a living.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I guarantee Pierre is lost too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Does anybody even remember what the question was?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:33:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Would we still be able to forward in our relationship if I decide to go with my plan and at least wait two years so that a portion of it will be off of the credit report, and then maybe reach out to Amex after that, or&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think by now it&#8217;s probably going to be less than two years for the ones that are currently in collections to fall off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Guys, way too many words. And neither of you can see the dynamic. You&#8217;re talking yourself into spinning and doing nothing right now. Do you all realize that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does anybody even remember what the question was?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Would we still be able to forward in our relationship if I decide to go with my plan and at least wait two years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think by now it&#8217;s probably going to be less than two years for the ones that are currently in collections to fall off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Guys, way too many words, and neither of you can see the dynamic. You&#8217;re talking yourself into spinning and doing nothing right now. Do you all realize that? Pierre, you&#8217;re asking a question that has 30 sub questions in it. Pierre, do you want to get married to Rachel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:34:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, great. Let&#8217;s start there. The only question that matters is Pierre asking, if I did this strategy, would you be open to getting married? And it&#8217;s a yes or no question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Let&#8217;s try it with each case in turn. Pierre, go ahead. Take the first example. If I asked you to marry me and we did blank, would you say yes? Go ahead. Step by step.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:21)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If I asked you to marry me and I chose to wait it out, would you still marry?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m trying to be as black and white with this as I can because I feel like it&#8217;s still going to affect your&#8211; I don&#8217;t know. I feel like it&#8217;s still going to affect your credit score.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:35:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So it affects my credit score, but if it doesn&#8217;t affect us renting an apartment, buying a house, the only other thing is if it&#8217;s a car loan, which we live in New York City. We won&#8217;t need one. But if we go somewhere else, I don&#8217;t need a new car. I feel like we would be able to buy something a little more affordable where we don&#8217;t need a big loan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:36:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Is maybe an answer?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:36:25)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When you both gave me the gift of role-playing how your conversations go, I immediately saw the roles that each of you play when it comes to talking about money. Rachel, you are thrust into the role of being the person who brings it up, and you are furthermore thrust into the role of being the person who has to increasingly ask with increasing specificity and intensity, what about this? What about that? What about this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:36:58)\u00a0You use the word bug. I have to bug him. And I hate hearing somebody describe their own totally legit questions as bugging. Other people often call it nagging. I hate that word. It&#8217;s very gendered. But that is the role that you have both been thrust into and accepted being thrust into. You accepted it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:37:21)\u00a0Pierre, you have a very nice countenance. You answer the questions. You&#8217;re not trying to evade on purpose, at least as far as I can tell. But you&#8217;re essentially doing this. Watch my body language. 6, 4, 2 years from now. You are answering questions as if there&#8217;s a gun to your head and your only job is to answer questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:37:45)\u00a0But Rachel is not actually asking you like, what month and year is the debt going to be paid off? And have you considered&#8211; you know what she&#8217;s really asking you? She&#8217;s asking you to handle this. Take care of this\u00a0(Bleep)\u00a0debt because it&#8217;s driving a wedge between us. But she doesn&#8217;t or won&#8217;t say exactly that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:38:09)\u00a0Her approach is to simply ask a series of increasingly tiny questions. And Pierre, you&#8217;re just accepting it because it&#8217;s easy. Oh, I can answer this question. I have this reason, and I have this reason. But she doesn&#8217;t care about that. She actually just wants the debt to be taken care of. Let me pause and see if I&#8217;m getting this correct. I want to check in with you, Rachel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:38:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Honestly, I don&#8217;t care how it&#8217;s handled. Yeah, you explained it perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:38:38)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0But you&#8217;ve never said that, have you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:38:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:38:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You put yourself in the role of asking question after question, and Pierre, you accepted the role of, oh, she&#8217;s asking questions. I&#8217;ll answer her questions. And the more I answer, the more she&#8217;ll leave me alone. But she doesn&#8217;t want that. She doesn&#8217;t actually even care about the answer to some esoteric question. What she&#8217;s saying, which she has not said until now, is I want you to take care of this debt. Pierre, how does that strike you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:39:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I knew that&#8217;s what she meant when she would it up, but I&#8217;ll handle it is different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:39:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I agree. I agree. And in order to make a decision that works to help you both move forward together, we need to understand why you see money the way you do. So will you stick with me as I go a little bit back in time with each of you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:39:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:39:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Pierre, you mentioned that you took on debt to help your family out with this business, right? I want to understand more about how you experienced money growing up. Let&#8217;s go back to your childhood. What do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:40:01)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I remember hearing my mom saying that money can&#8217;t buy you love. Growing up in my mind, we didn&#8217;t have a lot of money. I remember coming home on Allen and&#8211; I used to live on Remington Street, and we would come home, open the doors, and we would see literally hundreds of cockroaches crawling underneath the refrigerator, the couch, the kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:40:34)\u00a0So I remember that. But at the same time, I remember traveling a lot as a kid. It made me feel like I had a lot, but at the same time I didn&#8217;t. I remember when our family didn&#8217;t have a lot of money, we were very close. And then once the siblings, my aunts and uncles started making money, all these other problems arose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:41:01)\u00a0Some people moved out of New York. The ones that are in New York don&#8217;t talk. And then at the same time with my dad&#8217;s side of the family&#8211; my parents came from Vietnam. So when my dad came over, he came over by himself. My mom was able to come over with her family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:41:24)\u00a0So he had his family in Vietnam, and I remember him sponsoring his family over and us still living in our cockroach-infested apartment. My dad gave them money to buy a house or put a down payment on a house and start a business. And then they went and told the community, my dad didn&#8217;t do anything for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:41:48)\u00a0So then from there my dad started getting sick and eventually passed away when I was 20. So as far as money goes, part of me doesn&#8217;t care for it, because of the bad experience. But at the same time, I was able to travel and see the world and experience different views on life and people. So it was like good and bad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:42:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm. Wow. It sounds like a lot of mixed messages about money. I&#8217;m trying to interpret everything you told me. You said tons of cockroaches in your apartment and yet you traveled.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:42:28)\u00a0Your dad came here alone, didn&#8217;t have family support, and you were living in a, sounds like a pretty rundown place, and yet when he was able to bring his family over, he gave them a lot of money to get a house, which they then did not appreciate him for. When you think of the word money, when you think of the concept of money, what do you feel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:42:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That I wish I had more of it. That it caused a lot of problems in the family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you love it, or do you hate it, or both, or none at all?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Both. More love than hate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just because it provides, it gives me more opportunity to do things I do enjoy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. When you think of the times that you love money, what comes to mind for you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Being able to spend it on family and friends, going off for drinks, covering the tab, able to take my family out to dinner. Growing up we didn&#8217;t go out to dinner often. For birthdays, we went to Dallas BBQs. That was the big thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:43:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And now, I could take back&#8211; then we didn&#8217;t order appetizers. We just order a meal. Now I love it when I could take my mom to a nice place and like, &#8222;Order whatever you want, mom. Hope you like it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:03)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. And what about the times where you hate it, when you hate money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When it broke apart the family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When it becomes master instead of a tool where it controls people versus allowing people to do things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Does your debt control you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t think so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How much of your relationship with your debt is out of sight out of mind?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:39)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. If you were to bring it insight, if you were to actually look at the envelopes and calculate certain things and take a more assertive approach with it, how do you think you would feel about that debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:44:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would feel annoyed that I have to pay it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So therefore, you what instead?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Just ignore it and don&#8217;t pay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you see any relationship with how your dad gave lots of money to his family even while perhaps not living in a nicer place yourself and your relationship with money today?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I can see that correlation with putting that money towards the debt versus spending that money on people I care about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Did you ever think of it before, that connection?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:46)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that we&#8217;re talking about it, how does it strike you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:45:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It makes a lot of sense because that was really when my dad&#8217;s health started to deteriorate. Because while he was here for 15, 16 years while his family was over, he sent money back too. They never appreciated it. We found out that his cousin or his aunt, actually, instead of giving out the money, she kept it for herself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:46:22)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Damn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:46:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Yeah, my dad ended up having colon cancer, but I remember it wasn&#8217;t&#8211; my mom almost divorced my dad over it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:46:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:46:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0She almost left them because she&#8217;s like, &#8222;You got to take care of your own family. We don&#8217;t make that much.&#8221; So I remember seeing his being from a healthy person that worked seven days a week, no problem, to literally skin and bones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:46:51)\u00a0So that really affected me for years. It wasn&#8217;t really until like maybe my mid-30s where I really got over it or accepted or was able to on. So no, I do remember trying to be like him, at the same time being an Asian American and trying to find my way in society and in the culture.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:47:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It sounds really hard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:47:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:47:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It sounds like you went through some really tough stuff. Most people don&#8217;t grow up on Rivington with cockroaches. Most people don&#8217;t grow up with mixed messages about money. Most people don&#8217;t grow up seeing their dad pass away in their 20s. I didn&#8217;t. I can&#8217;t imagine how difficult that would be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:47:46)\u00a0And that shapes life and relationships and money. I can&#8217;t help but point out the striking similarities in the story about your parents and what is happening right in front of us. You said that your mom almost left your dad. What is Rachel saying? What is the origin of us all talking today? Is Rachel saying, I will not accept your marriage proposal if you don&#8217;t address this financial issue. You see the similarity? They&#8217;re almost identical.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:48:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. My dad, when he was here, his cousin also ended up coming over here, and they actually took a loan now or got some money or inventory and used his name. So that actually gave him bad credit for seven&#8211; I&#8217;m just remembering it now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:48:51)\u00a0So he had bad credit for 10 years or so. And same thing. They took the money and ran. I know that they&#8217;re living in Jersey last&#8211; I remember hearing that they had a liquor store somewhere and never repaid my dad for anything. So I see a lot of money go out and not a lot of appreciation coming back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:49:22)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:49:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Like with this debt, if I pay it off, what appreciation am I seeing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:49:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wow. That&#8217;s actually a profound realization, that for generations in your family, the debt may have been taken out for a very good reason. There may have been a reason. But think of all the problems that it generated. And even when it was paid back or somebody was generous to another person, no appreciation. In fact, betrayal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:49:59)\u00a0And so this debt, which isn&#8217;t by a family&#8211; well, it&#8217;s based on a family member, family business. You took it on. If you paid off, what are you going to get out of it? Nobody&#8217;s going to say thank you. As far as they&#8217;re concerned, it&#8217;s whatever. It&#8217;s gone. But it&#8217;s actually on your back right now, and you&#8217;ve simply chosen to ignore it. I can see the generations just repeating. Do you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:50:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Now, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:50:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rachel, are you surprised by any of this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:50:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I am, actually. I knew stuff about his family and most of that stuff, but some of that was actually news to me. But the pattern of generational stuff, I had not even thought of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:50:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it may have been news to you as well, Pierre.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:50:59)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, it was.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:51:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0This is truthfully why I feel so honored to be able to speak to you and to other guests that come on this show. I certainly did not know this. I don&#8217;t think any of us realized it, but sometimes it takes a little bit of gentle probing and all of us participating to find out what actually happened.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:51:27)\u00a0And it is so common that we go through our entire lives simply just operating on instinct and never pausing to go beneath the surface and go, &#8222;Why do I feel this way about&#8211; why am I resentful about my debt? Why am I avoiding all this debt, which, how did I even run up in the first place when I was debt-free into my 30s?&#8221; There&#8217;s something here, but sometimes we need somebody to help us chip away at the ice and go deeper. So Pierre, I appreciate you going on that journey with me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:51:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0One of the reasons I love doing this show is what seems absurd from the surface actually starts to make a lot more sense once you look deeper.\u00a0Pierre&#8217;s dad spent heavily on family,\u00a0bringing over relatives from Vietnam, so much so that his mom nearly left him over it, and now decades later, Pierre is following the same story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:52:21)\u00a0When you grow up watching a certain dynamic, you absorb a lot of unconscious lessons. Things become normalized to you in a way that someone else who didn&#8217;t grow up with that would never think.\u00a0Like helping family no matter what the cost is, feels normal.\u00a0You would never even think of saying no. It wouldn&#8217;t even occur to\u00a0you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:52:42)\u00a0The way we handle money today as adults is often shaped from these early experiences,\u00a0and your parents don&#8217;t have to be from a different country for you to have a deep set of invisible scripts about money.\u00a0Just ask yourself, what did I learn about money growing up?\u00a0What lessons did I take away?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:53:00)\u00a0And if you really\u00a0want to\u00a0get into this,\u00a0get a copy of my, I Will Teach You to Be Rich journal, which will help you probe your deep beliefs about money.\u00a0Basically, it&#8217;ll help you understand why you treat money the way you do. Now, let&#8217;s hear how Rachel&#8217;s upbringing shaped her view of money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:53:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rachel, I would love to go back in time to your family. And if you are going back in time and you&#8217;re thinking about when you were young, what did your family say about money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:53:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Similar to Pierre, mixed messages. Both of my parents are also immigrants. Growing up, my parents divorced when I was six years old, and my mom wasn&#8217;t able to work after I was born, basically. So when my parents got divorced, my dad was paying alimony to her, and the amount covered rent. It covered rent and a little.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:54:02)\u00a0And I kept thinking to myself, I was like, okay, my mom doesn&#8217;t have to work, so I guess whatever money she&#8217;s getting from my dad, it&#8217;s enough. And as I got older, I learned that my mom actually had investments in Vietnam. And she had a very close family friend that was living there and handling the investments for her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:54:29)\u00a0And so at one point, she could get money sent to her at any time. And today, it&#8217;s basically pissed away, but that&#8217;s a separate story. But for my dad, I think he came to America with maybe not even $1,000 in his pocket. And he worked his way up with the business. I don&#8217;t know where he learned it from because he and his family grew up poor. But yeah, even today my dad, he&#8217;s doing well. He&#8217;s not wealthy by any means, but he has investments. He&#8217;s doing okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Both your parents are alive, I take it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And do you have a relationship with both of them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I do not have a relationship with my mom at the moment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. With your dad, do you ever talk to him about money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0From time to time, it&#8217;s not very detailed. He&#8217;ll usually ask me, &#8222;Oh, do you have enough money in your bank account?&#8221; When I was in high school, he actually started a Roth for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I had no clue what it was. I did not look into it as a kid, but he started one for me. And that from that point on, it&#8217;s actually steadily grown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:55:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. You said your dad is now fine with money. He&#8217;s not wealthy, but he&#8217;s not poor. Say like middle class, upper middle class, something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:56:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I would say probably middle class to upper middle class.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:56:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, cool. Okay, Rachel, I&#8217;m going to ask a question. Feel free. If you don&#8217;t feel comfortable with it, we can totally pass. But out of curiosity, why don&#8217;t you have a relationship with your mom?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:56:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So she had investments in Vietnam where it could set her up. She pissed all that money away. The internet is probably going to have a field day with us. A few years ago, she got scammed by a Nigerian prince.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:56:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Whoa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:56:43)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. I have gotten into many, many arguments with her about it because, back in the day, I was not making a lot of money, and she started asking me to send her money. I got into so many arguments with her saying, &#8222;If you&#8217;re getting scammed, why are you talking to this person? You shouldn&#8217;t be talking to them. You shouldn&#8217;t be giving money to them.&#8221; And she started asking our other family members for money. And to this day, it&#8217;s still going on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:57:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:57:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s happened where she is opened and closed multiple bank accounts. I will never forget, there was one day where I called Chase Bank and I said, &#8222;I am letting you know my mom is coming to your bank to send a check to someone in Africa. She does not know anyone in Africa. She&#8217;s an Asian woman. She does not know anyone in Africa. Please block this.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:57:39)\u00a0And so because they blocked it, she closed the bank account with them, and then she opened another one somewhere else. So all that money that she had, she could have moved back to Vietnam. She could have been totally covered. She could have been fine. Instead she just decided to give all of this money away. I think she&#8217;s probably given about maybe $60,000 to this person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:03)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh my God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Maybe even more. I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s gone on for years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m so sorry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:10)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Could have paid my debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0She could have paid his debt. Honestly. It&#8217;s crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m so sorry. I know people personally whose parents, often moms, are in the midst of being scammed, and it is so difficult. It&#8217;s almost like no matter what you show them, it doesn&#8217;t matter. They are just captured. How does that make you feel about money, Rachel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:58:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Frustrated. Just really, really frustrated. For the longest time, the money relationship I have with my dad is very different than the money relationship I have with my mom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:03)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I say that because growing up my mom always told me, &#8222;Oh, just ask your dad for money.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Because my mom would just always get monthly checks from my dad. And I never, ever felt comfortable asking my dad for money, never even for an allowance. Even to this day, I don&#8217;t ask my dad for money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(00:59:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it&#8217;s because when my parents got divorced, my mom really pitted me against him. And I think for so many years I really held a grudge against him. And she made him seem like such a bad guy. I don&#8217;t know. I never felt comfortable asking my dad for anything. I remember he would always try to make up for it by buying me things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:06)\u00a0And that&#8217;s never really what I wanted from him. My dad, I think his love language is gift giving because he doesn&#8217;t really know how to communicate in other ways. Especially when it comes to&#8211; I think what I really want with him is quality time, but he doesn&#8217;t know how to do that. So for me&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Where&#8217;s your dad from?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He&#8217;s from Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, okay, okay. So the love language you wanted to receive was not gifts. It was quality time with your dad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:43)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think so. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:44)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. You mentioned that you never asked him for things. Even today, you still don&#8217;t ask him for things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you ever ask Pierre for things?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, I don&#8217;t think so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:00:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. Do you think it&#8217;s the same reason?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:03)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. Have you ever asked him clearly and concisely, directly, to pay off his debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t think clearly and concisely, no.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Pierre, any surprises hearing Rachel talk about her history with money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Really the only one is that she was&#8211; the last point that you brought up that she never asked me directly to pay off the debt. As you said that, my thought was, what&#8217;s the benefit of paying off at this point? How does it benefit paying it off? Because it&#8217;s still going to be on my credit report for X amount of years. And the financial advisor said they could renew if they sue me. So don&#8217;t draw attention to yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:01:59)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We&#8217;ll get to the financial part of it. Can I ask you something, Pierre? What do you do for a living?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m a director at a phone office.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:06)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. First of all, Rachel has not even asked you even after I pointed it out to pay off your debt. So that&#8217;s not anything she&#8217;s asking. We should be very clear about that. But what&#8217;s interesting is when you started to explore that concept in your head, your first reaction was what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:25)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What&#8217;s the benefit?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What&#8217;s the benefit? To retreat to logic and dollars and ROI, which I find ironic for two reasons. Number one, I&#8217;m not sure you&#8217;re particularly good at it. Then the second thing is you are retreating to the comfort of what some financial advisor told you, but you&#8217;re ignoring the very person who&#8217;s 1,000 times more important than Chet. Who is that person?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Rachel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:02:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I&#8217;ve made decisions about our family finances that I wouldn&#8217;t do myself. Financially speaking, I don&#8217;t think they were the perfect move. And yet my wife wanted to do them. And I was like, I&#8217;m hearing her. She wants to do something in a way that I wouldn&#8217;t do. But sometimes there are bigger, more important virtues than ROI.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:03:27)\u00a0And I think, Pierre, in your situation where you&#8217;ve mentioned you want to get married, and Rachel for the first time today has said, I will not get married unless there is a clear plan for that debt, a plan, I think that might be a higher virtue to start thinking about than pure ROI. How does that strike you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:03:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Makes sense. I get it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:03:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. All right. Rachel, what patterns do you see in how you handle money today based on your family upbringing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:03:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t ask. I don&#8217;t ask Pierre for things because I don&#8217;t ask my dad for things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. What else? What&#8217;s your greatest fear with money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:10)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Greatest fear. I was in a situation before where I didn&#8217;t have any savings, I didn&#8217;t have a job, and I almost didn&#8217;t have a place to live. So I think my greatest fear is getting back to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Which is why I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll ever get back to that spot, but that was definitely the lowest point in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:44)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It must be scary to entertain the idea of getting married to somebody who seems quite lackadaisical with tens of thousands of dollars of debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:04:58)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If that debt grows, if it accumulates interest, or if something were to happen similar in the future, that could put you in the position of your greatest fear. I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m thinking out loud. What do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:05:12)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:05:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Isn&#8217;t it amazing how you can almost draw a straight line between how we treat money today and what we saw growing up? I am always fascinated by these parallels. We saw it with Pierre, and now hearing Rachel&#8217;s backstory, we see it again. Her dad was careful, deliberate with money. He even opened up a Roth IRA for her in high school, and that&#8217;s where her methodical approach comes from.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:05:37)\u00a0But then she watched her mom get swindled out of tens of thousands of dollars. No wonder she is totally averse to debt. One lesson that she took away seems to be you can stay safe by never relying on anyone else. Maybe that&#8217;s why she&#8217;s never asked her dad for money. Not even today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:05:56)\u00a0With Pierre,\u00a0she&#8217;s never directly said,\u00a0&#8222;I want you to pay off this debt.&#8221;\u00a0She&#8217;s hinted. She hoped he&#8217;d get the message, but she&#8217;s never actually made a clear ask. But we have to be very honest that when you don&#8217;t set clear expectations, can&#8217;t really be surprised when they&#8217;re not met.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:06:13)\u00a0A\u00a0Rich Life\u00a0is more than money in the bank.\u00a0It&#8217;s about being honest with yourself and the people around you, what you want and what you need. Rachel hasn&#8217;t done that. When I point this out, Pierre retreats into his comfort zone, numbers, ROI, some financial advisor&#8217;s opinion. Okay. That&#8217;s safer than facing the emotional truth that the person he calls his number one priority is telling him as clearly as she can that she feels unsafe with his debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:06:45)\u00a0Rachel avoids asking for what she wants. Pierre doesn&#8217;t allow himself to truly hear what she&#8217;s saying.\u00a0And until they break that pattern, they are stuck. If you have ever struggled to talk about money with your partner, sometimes it turns into a fight or just a dead end,\u00a0I want that to change. I got a free guide for you. You can download it at iwt.com\/partner.\u00a0Now, I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0see if we can get them to create a new dynamic.\u00a0But before we go on, if you were me right now, what would you do with Rachel and Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:07:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Can you imagine a relationship where you were crystal clear about your expectations? Like in my relationship, this is what I expect. My wife once told me&#8211; not once. She told me this multiple times. My wife said, &#8222;When we are out in public, I expect that we support each other. We are not rolling our eyes. We&#8217;re not jabbing at each other. We are always having each other&#8217;s back.&#8221; She said it point blank. That is my expectation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:07:48)\u00a0I was like, &#8222;God damn, I love that.&#8221; It&#8217;s so direct. It&#8217;s so honest. It&#8217;s just setting, here&#8217;s my standard. It&#8217;s up here, and this is what I expect. Rachel, what would it feel like to be so clear about your expectations in a relationship that you just said them? No caveats. No equivocation. No minimization. Just simply, &#8222;This is what I expect in our relationship.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It would be great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What if you did that for your financial situation? What would that look like?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it would clear things up a lot. I think it would be better for where we are now and for future conversations surrounding money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. You are both dating. You&#8217;re both living together, and you both mentioned that you would like to get married. What is the timeline on that decision?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That&#8217;s a great question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Are we talking six months, two years. What are we talking about here?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:08:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would like to be married within the next couple of years, for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, so that means engaged within a year, married a year after that, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:10)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Not to hold you guys to some date, but I&#8217;m just trying to get a sense for what&#8217;s the universe we&#8217;re talking about here. Pierre, do you think that Rachel&#8217;s concerns about your debt are valid?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. But at the same time, I feel that, I guess I&#8217;m not afraid of it being too much of a negative impact because I look at it as it&#8217;s our money. Money that we could spend in other ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What about it&#8217;s Pierre&#8217;s debt, and if you got married, it would be both of your debts?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:09:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If I needed to, I could take a loan out and pay it off tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:01)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0But for me is, is that money well spent? Aside from making her feel better. And that&#8217;s number one thing. I want her to be happy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm. Is that true? I don&#8217;t think so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I believe that you want her to be happy. I believe you guys have a pretty healthy relationship. It is pretty obvious. But money is a big part of a healthy relationship. And while I&#8217;m not trying to argue that you should pay off your debt all today&#8211; I&#8217;m not arguing that. We haven&#8217;t even gotten to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0But I don&#8217;t think your financial behaviors are matching up with the concept of, I want Rachel to be happy. I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ve actually had one substantive conversation about this debt. I think your conversations, Pierre, have basically been you figuratively crossing your arms and just answering her questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:10:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think a big part of that has to do with most of my life, having to figure things out myself. And I haven&#8217;t had too much help with finding answers a lot. Part of that is probably I grew up not asking for help. It was the man thing to do, figure it out. Figure it out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Keep going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So in this situation, it&#8217;s figure out. I&#8217;ve always been, all right, this is my plan. Execute it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Do you think you have figured out the solution to your debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. I agree. And Rachel is saying, &#8222;I don&#8217;t feel you&#8217;ve figured it out either.&#8221; So Pierre, I think that your strategy of trying to figure it out on your own is not working effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:11:50)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Oh, that&#8217;s why I reached out to employee assistance program and see what we can do. And I&#8217;m going to be meeting someone to talk about the insurance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Who was the financial advisor who you reached out to that gave you this advice?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So it was a employee assistance program. I get on a phone call and ask whatever questions that I have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm. And what did they tell you specifically?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:16)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The main line he said was time is your friend, because I&#8217;m five years into it already, and it comes off of my credit report in seven years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:27)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When you talked to this person, two questions for you. Number one, did you tell them that you have a judgment against you from your Amex card?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:38)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0And did they talk about statute of limitations<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0He said 10 years. 10 years to go.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What happens after the 10 years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0They have to take me back to court and sue me again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:12:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. And the second question, I want to ask about this conversation. Did you get it in writing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0No, it was a phone call<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Knowing those two things, put yourself in Rachel&#8217;s position. How do you think Rachel feels about your research about debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:13)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That I should have gotten more something in writing or some type of&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:21)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Don&#8217;t tell me what you should have done. Just answer the question about how do you think Rachel feels about your relationship with this debt and your proposed solution?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0She hates it, and she thinks I&#8217;m too nonchalant about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:33)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes. Rachel, would you like to add anything?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That pretty much covers it. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:13:38)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Pierre, if I were Rachel, I would be super frustrated because it feels like you have avoided it. Actually, why am I saying it feels like. You have avoided the debt. You&#8217;re not on top of it. When Rachel asked you to come up with a plan, your plan was halfhearted, if we&#8217;re honest. You called up some random person through your employer. We don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;re qualified or not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:14:09)\u00a0And you told them the situation, and they did give you some advice that&#8217;s good, but also some of the advice is a little bit incomplete, and none of it&#8217;s in writing. So it&#8217;s like, how do we even know how reliable of a narrator you are? Did they share some nuance that you are not capturing here?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:14:26)\u00a0Do you have all the explicit plans of if this happens, then I&#8217;m going to do this. If that happens, I&#8217;m going to do that. Or is it just like, &#8222;Hey, they told me it was cool, so just let&#8217;s chill for five, 10 years. In the meantime, let&#8217;s get married.&#8221; Do you see how she might not be comfortable accepting that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:14:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:14:48)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I wouldn&#8217;t. I would find that totally unacceptable, completely. And the fact is, in the state of New York, yeah, there is a statute of limitations on some of your debt. But since you have a judgment, that changes everything. You got the mention of it from this advisor. We have, it&#8217;s enforceable for 20 years, as 10 plus the next 10, which they&#8217;re probably going to come after you. Interest can accrue, and it&#8217;s a lot of interest, especially on a balance like this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:15:20)\u00a0I don&#8217;t know how likely or unlikely it is that it&#8217;s going to get wiped off, but they can come after you, and they can take money from you. As Rachel, how could I walk into a financial situation with that much risk, especially knowing that we might have kids? We might move housing. How could I go into it knowing that there&#8217;s this tens of thousands of dollars looming over our head with no real plan to take care of it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:15:46)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0That wouldn&#8217;t be fair.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:15:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Especially when you consider Rachel&#8217;s financial history. It&#8217;s just way too much risk. It&#8217;s scary. People don&#8217;t talk in terms of risk. They just say it&#8217;s scary. And sometimes people can&#8217;t articulate their fears, but they&#8217;re just like, &#8222;Something doesn&#8217;t feel right.&#8221; And that&#8217;s what Rachel has been trying to say. Rachel, would you agree?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:11)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;s one thing if you have a bunch of debt. Okay. It&#8217;s another thing if you are like, &#8222;Hey,\u00a0(Bleep), I don&#8217;t know what to do about all this, but I&#8217;m going to go make a plan, and Rachel, I would actually like for you to come to these conversations because I need your help to try to figure out what&#8217;s the right decision to make.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:29)\u00a0That would be great. But making a random phone call and then just playing telephone and sharing what this rando told you, and the conclusion is basically like, just chill. Don&#8217;t do anything, and just wait. It doesn&#8217;t make anybody, including me, feel comforted. Pierre, what&#8217;s your take?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It makes complete sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What do you want to do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:54)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Start trying to at least knock off this big Amex debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:16:59)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Maybe, maybe. Before that, I think there are some steps. We want to come up with a plan before you start just randomly paying the debt off. So I think there are steps before that. But what&#8217;s the first step in your relationship? It involves Rachel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:22)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I am right here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:24)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How are we going to do this, babe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;ve been waiting for you to ask me. You have no idea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wait, wait. What the\u00a0(Bleep)? What is not going to happen is Pierre delegating the strategy to Rachel. And Rachel&#8217;s ready to pick up the thing and go, &#8222;Oh, I got a\u00a0(Bleep)\u00a0plan. I&#8217;ve been looking on ChatGPT.&#8221; That&#8217;s not going to happen. This is Pierre&#8217;s debt. Pierre will take the lead on it. So Pierre, I love how you tried to toss the ball to Rachel. Rachel, go ahead and toss it right back to him. Go ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:17:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Actually, I&#8217;m so glad you asked for my help, but I would really appreciate if you took the lead on this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:18:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Beautiful. Round of applause. Okay, great. Go ahead, Pierre. Pick the ball back up and give us your overview.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:18:10)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I guess the first step I can take is to see what lawyer I can get through my job to reach out to Amex to figure out some type of payment or a plan to tackle this debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:18:38)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Why does this feel so awkward? What the\u00a0(Bleep)\u00a0is going on right now? You know why? Because Pierre, you&#8217;re not driving this decision. You&#8217;re waiting for her to give you commentary, but you&#8217;re not even asking her a question. Let&#8217;s do that again. Do it again. Just think about what you want to say before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:18:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So babe, I think my first plan is to reach out to a lawyer and have them see if they can reach out to Amex and come to some type of settlement or payment plan. What do you think about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. I think that would be a good start. I&#8217;m trying to think of&#8211; so that would just be for the big Amex one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:30)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Stop taking the ball.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:34)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What&#8217;s next?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0For the other debt that is in collections, my plan is to just wait for it to come off of my credit report. what do you think about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:19:53)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think it&#8217;d be interesting to see how much time is left, but I&#8217;m not mad at that. Is there anything else that you would want to look into?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:20:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;m not sure. What else would there be to look into? Or are you talking about off that debt as well?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:20:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think the most important thing would be to see what the lawyer would say first about Amex, since that&#8217;s probably the most important and biggest payment at the moment. And then maybe we can go from there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:20:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I can go with that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:20:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. I love this. This is good stuff. I just want to give you a little tool that you can use. So Rachel, let&#8217;s see what happens if you ask a hypothetical. Say, &#8222;Pierre, let&#8217;s assume that the attorney says we should do this for one loan and we should wait for another but one loan, you should pay it off as quickly as possible. And just to make up a artificial number, the loan&#8217;s going to be $10,000. What would you do?&#8221; Go ahead, Rachel. Ask the question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:14)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Babe, what if the lawyer says that you have to pay off one loan as soon as possible and the amount would be $10,000?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:26)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I would sell some stocks and tap into my savings and pay that 10 grand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Don&#8217;t you make a ton of money? You make $100,000. Right, Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Close.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a085.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:43)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0$85,000, and combine the two, you make $183,500. I&#8217;m sure if you need to pay off, let&#8217;s say 10 grand in a year or two, you could find the money for that. What do you say?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I can do that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:21:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. What if it meant you couldn&#8217;t go on one of the trips you were going to take?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:01)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, we&#8217;ll just take a cheaper trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:04)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Or no trip?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What&#8217;s happening right now? I feel like we&#8217;re on different dimensions. Pierre, have you ever not done something you want to because of debt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:19)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I don&#8217;t spend more than what I have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:22)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Well, you have $60,000 in debt, so that&#8217;s not true.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:25)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. I could pay it off. I have enough to pay it off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:31)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. Where&#8217;s the money that you have to pay it off? In your investments?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:36)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:37)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. What do you think of this, Rachel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think selling off investments is probably not the best choice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If I could not take one trip and cover my debt, for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:22:52)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Wait a minute. That&#8217;s the first time I&#8217;ve heard you say that. That&#8217;s actually awesome. That&#8217;s how savvy people think about it. Sometimes even the savviest of people can get into a debt situation. Business flops, medical expense, etc. Everybody&#8217;s going to go through some type of crisis in their life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:23:11)\u00a0I don&#8217;t blame them for that. What is important is to be able to adapt. And for most people, they have not had to turn down something they want in order to pay off debt that they hate. You hate this debt, Pierre. You&#8217;re resentful of it. You told me that. And so it feels even more painful to not do the things you want to do, like take a trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:23:32)\u00a0So what I&#8217;m trying to show you is there&#8217;s a psychological element here. It&#8217;s not just math. Like yeah, you have money to pay for it, and yet you haven&#8217;t paid for your debt in years. And what I&#8217;m trying to get at, and what I think we&#8217;re starting to crack the code on is if you could make a huge dent in some of the debt that you owe by not taking a trip or two, or eating out less, maybe you&#8217;d be willing to do it. Is that true or not?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:23:57)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I have no problem with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:24:00)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Awesome. That&#8217;s a breakthrough. Round of applause. That&#8217;s big. That&#8217;s really big. That&#8217;s awesome. Rachel, how do you feel about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:24:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think that great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:24:08)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Pierre started this conversation by handing the ball over to Rachel over and over again.\u00a0What do you think about that? Is there anything else you&#8217;d\u00a0want to\u00a0look into? It sounds polite,\u00a0like he&#8217;s including her, but it&#8217;s actually a way of him avoiding responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:24:23)\u00a0I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0be really blunt. When you are the one with $60,000 of debt, you need to be the one leading the conversation, not waiting for your partner to do it for you.\u00a0And every time you hand off the decision making, you&#8217;re essentially telling them,\u00a0&#8222;This is your problem too.&#8221;\u00a0No, that&#8217;s not how it works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:24:43)\u00a0But fortunately,\u00a0we have a breakthrough because by the end, Pierre stopped tossing the ball back and he kept it for himself. He started driving. He came up with the ideas.\u00a0He acknowledged Rachel&#8217;s frustration.\u00a0For the first time he said he would give something up that he wants in order to make progress on the debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:25:01)\u00a0That&#8217;s the shift I look for,\u00a0from avoidance to ownership.\u00a0That kind of shift is something I can work with. So now that Pierre is finally taking ownership, I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0get really direct about what I think he should do next and exactly how to show Rachel that he&#8217;s serious about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Interview)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:25:17)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All\u00a0right.\u00a0Can I be very crisp with what I think you should do about this debt? I just\u00a0want to\u00a0be a little bit directive here. Do not pay a single cent until you talk to a debt settlement attorney.\u00a0When you go to this debt settlement attorney, which you will find&#8211;\u00a0you can look through your workplace, but you might just\u00a0want to\u00a0find somebody else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:25:35)\u00a0In general, I don&#8217;t like going to attorneys through my workplace. They have a lot of heavy workload and\u00a0it&#8217;s unclear the incentive structure and all kinds of stuff.\u00a0You have money to pay for a debt settlement attorney.\u00a0Find one.\u00a0Interview two or three. I always interview five vendors whenever I&#8217;m looking for somebody important. Five.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:25:58)\u00a0And Pierre, I think this is an awesome opportunity for you to begin showing Rachel how seriously you are taking it. I would set up a spreadsheet.\u00a0I would tell Rachel my first step is to find a debt settlement attorney. Here&#8217;s the link to my spreadsheet. I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0be tracking my calls.\u00a0And by the end of, next Friday I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0pick somebody who I&#8217;m then\u00a0going to\u00a0hire and engage. Now,\u00a0how do you think Rachel will feel about you making a plan and starting to execute on that within a matter of days,\u00a0Pierre?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:26:28)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0She would probably pop on a knee and propose to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:26:35)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Very good. Listen up,\u00a0all you freaking nerds listening to this podcast. Logistics are a big turn on. I don&#8217;t care what anybody says.\u00a0You heard it here first. Okay, so make it a plan and executing,\u00a0great. Next, you get the debt settlement attorney. You hire them.\u00a0You call them.\u00a0And instead of doing what y&#8217;all started to do, y&#8217;all started to self-diagnose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:26:55)\u00a0Well, we only really need to talk to them about the Amex debt. How do you know?\u00a0You&#8217;re not a debt settlement attorney? So don&#8217;t try to do their job for them. Just come prepared with your entire spreadsheet. This is the interest. This is when it started. This is the balance. All the relevant information on one page.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:11)\u00a0Make their job easy because you&#8217;re paying them probably by the hour or whatever engagement. Make it easy.\u00a0And let them tell you what to do. Don&#8217;t do their job for them. I remember when I was taking driver&#8217;s ed in like 10th, 11th grade, and they were like,\u00a0&#8222;If you have some pinging on your car, don&#8217;t go into the freaking car guy and tell\u00a0them\u00a0like, oh, I think it&#8217;s my carburetor.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:30)\u00a0Just shut the\u00a0(Bleep)\u00a0up. Go in there and say,\u00a0&#8222;There&#8217;s pinging in my car.&#8221;\u00a0And let them diagnose it. Don&#8217;t do it yourself. Same thing with working with an attorney. Tell them what you know. Ask them what you should do. Follow their advice. How do you feel about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, sounds about right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All\u00a0right.\u00a0Rachel, how do you feel about that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:49)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Sounds good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All\u00a0right.\u00a0Can we look at the CSP and take a look at some of the numbers?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:27:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So currently you have $134,000 in investments. You have $35,000 in savings, which is about seven months of savings.\u00a0$60,000 in debt,\u00a0as we discussed. As a reminder, you make $183,500,\u00a0and your fixed costs are low, 48%, which is allowing you extra money that you currently have focused by investing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:28:26)\u00a0So you&#8217;re investing about $1,461 a month.\u00a0And you&#8217;re saving 11% or $1,125 a month. You&#8217;re also spending 2,627 or 26% on guilt-free spending. So in general, things look pretty good. I don&#8217;t really have any comments on your fixed costs since they&#8217;re at 48%. I do want to ask, can we just set some money aside proactively for the debt? Can we just find some money? Because I assume you&#8217;re going to have to pay off some of this debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:02)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0So where would the money come from?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:05)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It&#8217;d be from my guilt-free spending.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:07)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. That would be you currently, Pierre, spend $1,196 a month on guilt-free spending.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:15)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0What do you want to do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:18)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I could put an additional 300, 400.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:21)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0So we&#8217;ll take you down to 796. 796 here.\u00a0And for debt,\u00a0we would take you up to 400.\u00a0It&#8217;s not bad. What do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:41)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0How much can I put it for my wedding?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, you tell me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:46)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;ll take one less vacation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0All right. So what do we drop this 250 a month on vacations to?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We can do\u00a0150.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:29:59)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, so you&#8217;re dropping it by\u00a0100\u00a0bucks. That&#8217;s perfect.\u00a0That takes you right down to\u00a0100\u00a0bucks towards the wedding. Nice work. Great. And then these gifts, I know you like to be generous. Just ask yourself, is it part of your invisible script that you have to be giving gifts, or is there another place you might rather put that money? Or do you just want to keep doing it? It&#8217;s totally up to you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:29)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I&#8217;d still have to give gifts. I can&#8217;t give no gifts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:32)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. So you tell me. Right now you are giving $125 a month in gifts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:40)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Over the course of a year, that&#8217;s what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:42)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a01,500.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:44)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I could be less generous with the gifts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:30:47)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Or let&#8217;s put it another way. I could be more responsible with my immediate family&#8217;s finances. See the difference? Profound different positioning. Very important.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:01)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I could do 75 a month. So that comes down to 900 a year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:09)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah. Love it. That&#8217;s great. We&#8217;re talking about relatively small numbers, but it&#8217;s important. What I&#8217;m seeing is you, Pierre, putting your immediate family, that is Rachel, first. And you can still be generous with your extended family, with your mom. You can still be generous with others, your nieces. Yes, of course. But what I&#8217;m starting to see you naturally doing here is to actually prioritize your relationship first. And to me, that is awesome. How do you feel about it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:44)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay, great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:45)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Awesome. Okay. 75 bucks. What do you want to do with the remainder of that money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Split it between wedding and debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:31:55)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Nice. Good answer.\u00a0So I&#8217;m\u00a0going to\u00a0put 125 towards the wedding. Pierre is now exceeding Rachel in contributions on a monthly basis. That&#8217;s pretty cool. Even though we know Rachel&#8217;s been doing this quietly for a while. I appreciate both. I like that.\u00a0And then debt payments now at $425 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:32:16)\u00a0That&#8217;s pretty good. That&#8217;s pretty good. That&#8217;s very impressive. We&#8217;re talking 5,000 bucks a year in debt payments. And if you needed to, you could increase that number. Let&#8217;s see here. It&#8217;s possible you could contribute a little less to post-tax retirement. I wouldn&#8217;t necessarily start there because I love seeing you get aggressive now about your retirement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:32:41)\u00a0And then we have some other stuff. Like we have subscriptions. You could drop a little bit clothes. You could probably drop a little bit&#8211; I&#8217;m not going to tell you to cut back on your mom if you want to, but you could if you had to. It&#8217;s important to know. So you basically have cards to play, and of course, you\u00a0can always work on the upside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:33:03)\u00a0In\u00a0Earnable,\u00a0our business program, we always teach people how to earn more money.\u00a0So there&#8217;s lots of different ways you can play it. Pierre, do you feel fairly equipped to be able to speak to that debt settlement attorney, to be able to find out about whole life insurance, and then to make some moves, financially speaking, to bring you closer together with Rachel?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:33:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:33:20)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Okay. Awesome. That plan, again, is not just a plan about debt. It&#8217;s actually a plan about how the two of you work together with money. It&#8217;s like that first year of engagement that my wife and I planned. We really sent a signal to ourselves. This is how we tackle big projects together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:33:38)\u00a0And gosh, I&#8217;m so glad we did it with a positive attitude together. Because that sets the precedent for the rest of our lives together. I have a lot of confidence in you two. Keep me updated, and I can&#8217;t wait to hear what decisions you make.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Narration)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:33:51)\u00a0<\/span><b>Ramit:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When we started this conversation, Pierre basically shrugged at his $60,000 debt.\u00a0He had no urgency, no plan. It was like to him, the debt didn&#8217;t really exist. Rachel, on the other hand, comes from a childhood filled with mixed money messages and high stakes mistakes from her parents. She wants stability, but she also never directly asked for what she wants Pierre to do with that debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:34:17)\u00a0But did you notice by the end of our talk something had shifted? Pierre went from defensive and detached to engaged and proactive. He admitted he&#8217;d been avoiding it. He acknowledged the effect on Rachel.\u00a0And for the first time,\u00a0he said he would be willing to cut back, even skip a trip to start paying it down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:34:36)\u00a0So I gave him a clear plan.\u00a0Step one, do not pay a cent until you talk to a qualified debt settlement attorney, not some random guy on the phone. I want him to interview a few and get real advice. Step two, gather every detail of the debt in one place so you can actually make good decisions. Step three, adjust your spending to show Rachel\u00a0that\u00a0your shared future comes first.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:34:58)\u00a0Yes, the debt needs to be paid down, but Rachel also needs to know that she&#8217;s not the only one carrying the responsibility. If they can follow through on this plan, they won&#8217;t just have a debt strategy. They will have a much stronger foundation for the next chapter of their relationship, one that is built on clarity and accountability and mutual respect. Now, what do you say we take a look at their follow-ups?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:35:23)\u00a0<\/span><b>Rachel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hi,\u00a0Ramit. So since our conversation, one of the biggest surprises was how emotional I am with money. No surprise there. Definitely the relationships that I had with my dad, my mom, and my last relationship was really eye-opening for me, and I definitely don&#8217;t want that to affect my current relationship and definitely\u00a0how I pass that down to my kids. So that&#8217;s definitely one of the biggest surprises for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:35:56)\u00a0One of the takeaways is me definitely being more straightforward in conversations with money and being more direct with Pierre, and just asking for what I need from him when it comes to money, because I&#8217;m able to ask him for anything else that I need from him.\u00a0So it&#8217;s just getting used to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:36:21)\u00a0And any changes that I plan on making is definitely just honing in on what I&#8217;d like our\u00a0Rich Life\u00a0to be. We were actually able to do that this past week with our grocery bill. We were able to cut down a little bit for our Costco bill since\u00a0that was something that we didn&#8217;t necessarily really care about, and that way we can actually put more money towards vacations since that&#8217;s more of a priority to us.\u00a0So looking forward to more updates in the future. Thanks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:36:56)\u00a0<\/span><b>Pierre:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Hi,\u00a0Ramit, the biggest surprise\u00a0from the conversation was that me and my dad had very similar challenges despite having different stories.\u00a0He got bad credit and got into debt trying to help his family. I got into debt, got bad credit, trying to help my family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:37:27)\u00a0The takeaway from that\u00a0I found is that we learn a lot from our parents, good and bad&#8211; how they handle debt, how they show love,\u00a0and how that really impacts us without knowing. Another way I took away was that in order to live a\u00a0Rich Life, you really need to treat your finances like work.\u00a0Not homework, but actual work work. If I don&#8217;t do that, or if you don&#8217;t do that,\u00a0then it&#8217;s really a lose-lose situation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(01:38:01)\u00a0Since our conversation, I have found five lawyers.\u00a0I&#8217;m going to reach out to this week. I also have a script\u00a0with a bunch of questions to ask them, thanks to\u00a0ChatGPT. And so I will be letting you know by the end of the week where we&#8217;re at.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\nif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\nn.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);\ns.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '259290718675278');\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/224-rachel-pierre\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=224-rachel-pierre\"> Nuoroda \u012f informacijos \u0161altin\u012f <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rachel (31) and Pierre (42) have been together for four years, building a loving and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3677,3521,3678,3680,3679],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sekmes-istorijos-patarimai","tag-debt","tag-episode","tag-family","tag-marry","tag-wont"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sekmesreceptai.lt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}