From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. So, last week I talked to a woman who was so tired of doing that awkward dance at the end of a date. Should I pay? Should you pay? Should I pretend I want to pay? Should we split it? She was so sick of that that she asked a guy who she barely knew to open a joint bank account. That was a very unusual solution to a common problem. Money is so hard to talk about in relationships. Figuring out what to spend on, what to save for, who's in charge of making what decisions. It's tricky stuff.

Recently, I asked you to tell me how money issues are showing up in your relationships. You sent us your stories. Thanks for that. And today we have someone here to help.

You might know Rammit Sati from his Netflix show how to get rich or his podcast money for couples. Ratit has a lot of practical advice for couples about how to be smart with money. But even before that he has to get them talking about money without fighting or crying or shutting down. And he does that by figuring out what money means to them emotionally. So today we're meet Sati on how to have a money conversation that actually feels good. He answers your questions and talks about what it takes to live a rich life, whatever rich means to you.

Well, if you think about how we treat money, especially in America, it's actually no surprise. Parents rarely talk about it to their kids. The only phrase that they typically use ever is, "We can't afford it."

And as you grow up, where do you learn about money? From movies, from TV shows, maybe. It's like we create this tapestry and we put this story and that uncle and that aunt, etc. But we rarely have a structured understanding about money.

And then just think about the terms that we hear around us. 401k. I can't think of a more confusing term that's a turnoff. When someone said Roth IRA, I'm like, who's Roth? Yeah, exactly. Totally.

So imagine this. You go to be 25, 35, 40, whatever the number is, and maybe you get into some kind of relationship. You yourself rarely have a point of view on money. Like most of us have a point of view on food. We know what type of food we like or what type of food makes us feel good. We don't have the point of view on money though. Then you partner up with somebody who equally does not have a point of view and suddenly we don't even know what we're actually talking about.

It is a very difficult way to go through life. Almost like you're wearing smudged glasses. So everything you look at is a little confusing maybe a little tinged with scarcity. And that is why so many people I end up eventually maybe making more than they ever thought. They still feel behind with money. Why? Cuz it's not about the numbers. It is about the way that you feel when it comes to money.

And then you, let's say, you get into a relationship, get married, start building a future with someone who has their own smudged glasses on. And this creates even more of a problem.

Yeah. because you're usually not speaking about the money itself. So, one of the most typical disagreements that I will see when I speak to couples on my podcast is one person disagrees with how much the other spends at Target for whatever reason. It's always Target. Like I'm like, "Please, can we not do this again?" And you know, if I can just be very honest with you, your rich life has got to be bigger than Target. Your rich life has got to be bigger than buying a freaking Tide detergent and other commodities. There's got to be and I like Target, but it's got to be more than that. Okay, the other the other disagreement is

why does my partner go to the gas station and buy energy drinks every day? This is outrageous. And you know, I I recall this Instagram DM I got from somebody based in New York who said, "Reit, can you speak to my husband because he wastes money every day he buys an iced tea? Why is there such a disagreement about the iced tea? It is not about the iced tea. It is two different people looking at it two different ways. One person saying, "Hey, I earn a lot of money. I work hard. I'm going to get an iced tea. It's a nice little break in the middle of the day." The other saying, "When I grew up, we did not get iced tea. We made it at home." And those different visions of money, the couples rarely go into that level of detail. How did I grow up? How do I see money? What is our vision together? Instead, they spend 35 years arguing about iced tea.

Let's take a step back just for folks who aren't familiar with this concept. You speak about it a lot. What is a rich life?

A rich life can be traveling two months a year. A rich life can be buying a beautiful cashmere coat. A rich life can be taking your kids to school every morning. So your rich life is yours and my rich life is mine and they are going to be completely different.

Very rarely do we elevate ourselves and ask the big questions. Hey, what is all this for? What kind of life are we building together?

And that could be tangible. Sometimes it like when I was a kid, we could not afford to buy appetizers. We never did. Like it was just like a taboo part of the menu in the once every six weeks that we ate out. Right. And so part of my rich life in my early 20s was to be able to order appetizers.

Okay. First, I I want to suggest a principle called the DTOC principle. And this stands for disparagement to curiosity. Instead of saying why do you do that? That's such a waste of money. Saying like, "Hey, can you tell me about that? I noticed you love it every day." And I just love to know like where do you go when you buy it? What do you feel? Like what does it mean to you? And you might be so surprised that there are so many things to learn about your partner even after 25 years of marriage by going to this level of curiosity.

We have never been genuinely asked out of curiosity not judgment about our money. Whenever someone asks us about money, they're about to judge us. Oh, how much did that handbag cost? Oh, why did you get that car? And we know we're going to get judged. So, we start to shrink. But what we're doing is recalibrating. When I ask somebody, hey, um, it turns out you love to travel 6 months a year. I go, that sounds awesome. Where do you go? How do you stay in shape? What kind of food do you eat? And I am genuinely curious. And that's why people open up.

Let me ask you this. like would the goal be to get this person to stop spending money on the tea or what what's the goal of this kind of conversation?

Maybe maybe it turns out you actually cannot afford it. So by asking the questions of what it means, you can ultimately both together navigate to finding another way to accomplish that goal. That's one possibility. Another possibility is that you have more money than uh iced tea will ever affect. And so it actually is about connecting on a deeper, more emotional level and then going and looking at the numbers and realizing like we could buy 10 iced tea a day and it will affect us zero.

Y'all should go get iced tea together. How sweet would that be? Beautiful.

My parents are huge role models in the way that I look at the world. And um they're immigrants from India and when they came here, you know, they did not have a lot of money. My dad worked, my mom stayed home with us. We have a pretty big family. And I remember lots of little things that really shaped my world. I remember my mom would cook dinner for us every night and we would almost never eat out. Like I'm talking once every 6 weeks when we had a coupon to go to pizza. And those restaurants were really uh memorable for us because one like just getting to eat out was awesome, but it was a big deal. You know, we we would ask our dad for two quarters to play the arcades, but not more than that. Like that's too much. Um, and we knew kind of like what was on limits and what was off limits. And I actually really appreciate

Appetizers, desserts. I have to admit I don't I shouldn't admit this. We would order like two Cokes for our entire family and like share them, you know? I mean, we would water down the lemonade. I totally feel you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's how exactly. Watering down everything, right? Oh, the shampoo's running out. Put some water in it. Boom.

You're also painting a picture of an incredibly happy childhood. I mean, you tell me, but it sounds, you know, overall very warm and beautiful. Like, what did those experiences, what did they teach you about what money was for or what its value was?

You know, my my dad um told me something a few years ago that really it led me on to the fact that he had a a vision that I was not aware of. M so we're talking about a house and he said you know one day when you buy a house don't get too big of a house and I said why I just thought like we didn't have that big of a house cuz we couldn't afford it. That's the reason. And he goes yes okay you know we bought what we could but if you have too big of a house kids go into their own corner and they don't congregate. But if you have a small house everybody gets together and that's how you build a family.

Wow. I thought to myself, like, wow, my dad did the most advanced possible thing you can do, which is turn a weakness into a strength. And the fact that we couldn't buy some mansion, like we didn't care. We're just kids. But actually, we ended up spending a ton of time together. And I'm still very close to my siblings and my parents. And so that is a rich life. Notice that it's not an abundance of money. It's actually working with what you got, but having a beautiful vision, which my dad only kind of recently led me into.

When you met your wife, Cassandra, I'm curious where you were in terms of your relationship to money. Um, and really actually I think the more interesting question is, do you remember the first time money came up with Cassandra early on in your relationship?

This is a great question. Well, I met her in New York. We were both living in New York. And I met her at a barbecue. And I remember it vividly because she had a huge smile, like a um unusually beautiful big smile. A I love just um how vibrant and positive she was. And it's funny because on our first date, we went to the East Village and we went to this um Mexican cocktail bar and I accidentally spilled an entire glass of water on her, like a whole glass. And I I still remember her reaction. She just laughed and I was like, "Oh my god." Like that kind of positivity that was so attractive, so appealing. And so, you know, we began dating seriously and I think probably money came up the first couple of times like when we took a trip, which is actually quite common for couples, you know, like that's the first time you really talk about money and and so there's that. But I think when it became like really serious, when we substantively talked about money was um when we got engaged and we started discussing a prenup and that really changed everything. M bring me into that.

So I don't know anyone growing up who had a prenup. Me neither. And I thought it was cultural, but it was also probably socioeconomic. I just didn't know people who were wealthy. And you know, as as you grow in business, you know, folks, and there's a lot of tacit knowledge that's passed down. And so it's like, hey, what is a prenup? Well, most of us when we think about a prenup, we think it's some rich who's trying to screw over their partner. you know, they're driving outside of a limousine, they throw some papers out, say, "Sign this shit." I'm like, "That's not a pre that's actually just a Richie Rich episode. That's not like a prenup." So, I learned how it works. And I was like, "Oh, this is basically talking about what happens with your pre-marital assets, the stuff that you might have before you get married. So, let's say one partner owns a house or another has a business. M you kind of want to decide in the worst case of separation what would happen to those assets that were acquired before the marriage knowing that in almost all cases anything acquired during the marriage is split.

So I remember we sat down and I'm like my hands are freaking shaking and I said to her you know I have something that's really important to me. You know I've built up this business and this portfolio and it's important for me that we discuss a prenup. And why were you nervous? What were you nervous that she would perceive that as?

These conversations are so filled with like secondary meanings. So I was worried about rejection. I was worried about being misinterpreted. I was just worried about it all. I'd never done it before.

So her response was actually the best response I could have possibly hoped for. She said, "Okay, I didn't expect that. I don't know much about it, but I'm willing to learn."

Great. Yeah. Disparagement to curiosity. Disparagement to curiosity. There you go. Uh-huh.

And that was the beginning of us actually meeting as to what money meant to us. It's not just numbers. It's actually what it means to us. for people who are avoiding these types of conversations or frankly are scared to have them because I think that's a legitimate emotion like what would you say to give them courage?

I'm I'm actually going to tell them exactly what to say and I will call this this is from my book called your first positive money conversation. And I use that term on purpose because most of us actually have never had a positive money conversation. we've only bered or judged or had that happen to us. So, in a positive money conversation, you go to your partner, you say, "Hey, I actually want to talk to you more about money and I want to feel good about it. I want us to feel connected."

So, that's part one of the conversation. Just tell them why it's going to be awesome. That's it. Then next, you say, you know, right now when I think about money, I feel um scared. I feel in the dark and I feel behind. How about you?

Now, notice what you're doing. You're leading with vulnerability and then you're tossing them the ball. This is not a monologue. You want them involved. And if they don't have an answer, that's okay. You don't have to push it, but you're giving them an opportunity.

Third, you say, you know, when it comes to money, I want to feel competent. I want to feel calm, and I want to feel connected. How about you? And then the fourth point is just when should we talk about money next?

That's it. Give each other a big old kiss and call it a day. We don't need to get into your freaking asset allocation on meeting one. All you got to do is give each other a hug and feel good. That's it.

Um here is our first advice seeker. This one is from a woman named Michelle. Okay. So you asked about finances and this argument literally happened last week. I have been talking about opening a Roth IRA for my partner because I had done one over a year ago. So, this last week, I wanted to set one up for him and it turned into an argument because he said I'm treating him like a baby and that this was something he can do. So, I explained that I had brought this up a couple times and he never once tried to do it on his own and I don't understand what the problem is because this is bettering our future or even his future if we ever split up because we aren't married. So, it would be his money. But anyway, it's just been very frustrating and now it's like it's been a week. Do I bring it up again? Do I just leave it alone?

very common and I am so glad that we get to talk about this because there are layers here. The most common response people will often have is like, well, you just got to show them the numbers and show them the math and blah blah blah. Math is not going to solve an emotional problem. I wish I could go back in time and tell 22-year-old Ramit Sati that. I wish I could hear that myself. But that will not move the needle. I can also hear some really interesting um context from Michelle. Michelle says a year ago I opened my Roth IRA and now I'm telling him why don't you open your Roth and it'll be good for us etc. But if we are really candid, if I had come to Michelle 3 years ago and said, "Michelle, why don't you open up a Roth IRA?" You know what she would have said? "Nah, I don't know. It's fine. Whatever."

So, this is so common that when one person goes through a process of self-development, whether it's relationships, fitness, money, we then turn to our partner who has not gone through the same journey and we expect them to meet us where we are. That's not how it works.

That's a really good point. That's where compassion comes in and systems. So, here's here's what I want to point out. I guarantee that the two of the them do not have a shared vision for a rich life. And candidly, she's probably right. Like, technically, he probably should open up a Roth IRA. It's an amazing account. But just going in there is like the equivalent of me, you know, jumping in and saying like, "You need to get new shoelaces." Like, why? What's the context here? like why is a shoelace fixed my and also shoelace is a lot of work and I don't even know where to get a shoelace okay I probably from the way that she's talking I suspect there's probably a bit of parent child dynamic I hear that a lot in couples that I speak to you'll often find one partner who will take on the role of a parent like you need to do this and then guess what the child kind of avoids it so we have a chaser avoider dynamic as well the more they avoid the more you chase and this becomes quite toxic over time.

Therapists deal with this all the time. This is why I recommend my guests see a therapist. It's very, very helpful. But overall, I think that what I would suggest to Michelle is zoom out. Do that first money conversation. Get a little buy in. Realize you don't have to solve everything on the first meeting. This this might actually take 9 months. It might even take 12. But when he is bought in um it is going to be smooth because you will not have to be the convincer that the two of you will actually be doing it as a team. And um so start there. Start with the vision. Ask what what is our rich life? What do we see our life being? How does money fit in? Maybe we should read a book together and learn how this works. Can I do chapter 1? You do chapter two. And then work your way towards a Roth IRA and more.

I guess my sort of final question on this is like how much how involved is too involved in a partner's finances?

Excellent question. For somebody like Michelle, one thing that I want to encourage her to do is to set your expectations. What do you expect from a partner? For example, if if I'm dating, I might say, "Look, I expect that any partner that I'm dating saves and invests at least 10%." That's just important to me. That's a value thing to me. And for Michelle, it might be I expect that a partner that I'm dating is investing X amount for their retirement.

And you're not telling them you're bad or you need to do this, but like this is what I expect from a partner of mine. What do you think about that?

It's interesting. It's like a first step for Michelle here is introspection for herself and then you laid out a a good road map of a compassionate sort of curious and long-term discussion that she and her partner partner can start having about sort of what does the future look like for us? Roth IRA included or Roth IRA not included.

Yeah, the question is really not about a Roth IRA. The goal is to live a rich life together.

Hey, Modern Love. I have been dating someone very seriously for the past 2 years and we are both in our 60s. Ever since day one, because I'm very independent and I can afford my own way, I've always paid for myself. It would be so nice if one night when we're out to dinner, he picked up the check, but he absolutely never does. He has recently gone through a terrible divorce. It was like War of the Roses because they were both very wealthy. And I feel like he has some PTSD maybe where he does not want to spend money on another female.

I would love some advice on how I can bring this up to him or do I just continue paying half?

Wow. A lot there. I mean, I I wonder we did this earlier. I wonder if you could like script almost a way for L to bring it up or or another way into this conversation.

Yeah. Well, first off, L sounds lovely and um this sounds like a very reasonable request. I didn't hear anything unreasonable from that. She said, "We split it. I would like for him to pick up the check occasionally." That seems exceedingly reasonable to me. How to bring it up, particularly with his divorce can be a little tricky. So, what I might say is I let's for ease of use, let's just call him John.

So, you know, John, I just wanted to let you know that I love spending time with you and one of my highlights is when we go out to eat every weekend and I just wanted to have a conversation with you about a topic that might seem uncomfortable, money. And I know until now we have split and that is perfectly fine with me. I, as you know, I'm independent. I'm happy to do it. But it's also important to me that as we go through life more, as we become closer, that we think about what a partnership looks like, a team. And if I can just be really honest, once in a while, it would be nice if you picked up the check. How do you think about that? How does that strike you? So, let's pause right there. A couple of things. That may not be the perfect conversation, but you can adapt it for your needs. L couple of things I want to highlight that I did there for everybody listening. One is I always start with an appreciation. This is a little tip that I learned from my own therapist. Start with an appreciation. Hey, I love being able to talk to you about money. Two, acknowledge that you want to talk about something that might be a little uncomfortable. And give them an out. Give them an out. say, "Hey, if this if this doesn't feel like the right time to talk, let me know. We'll talk about it in a few days. No problem." And then three, just ask for what you want. This is so important. I find this to be a very very I I talked to couples who've been married 22 years and I they're dancing around it, walking on eggshells. I go, "Have you ever asked them what you want?" And they go, "Not that directly." I go, "Not directly at all. Why don't you ask right now?" And they do for the first time in 20 years.

That's incredible. There is so much power in number one being rooted in yourself and saying look it's okay for me to want this. They don't have to give it to me but at least I can ask and then for your partner to listen and hopefully if they are reasonable they might react as Cassandra did and say hey like I don't know anything about that but I'm willing to learn. That's a great answer. Or they might say you know what I never thought about it like that. Like would you mind if I think about it a bit more but I I love you. I would love, of course, I would love to pick up the tab once in a while. That's another way.

Another thing that we that was later on in this um voicemail we couldn't play at all is L told us that her boyfriend makes a lot more money than she does. Several times more. Does that change your thinking about this question at all? Is that or or is that something you Yeah. Okay. 100%. What the hell? How did I not get that bit of intel? All right. Now, we need to adapt things a little bit. Okay. Um things change when there are income differences, particularly when you are not married. So I'll give you an example. Um when Cassandra and I were dating, I was making more money. If I asked her to go 50/50 on some trip or something that we were going to take, that would have been totally unfair because I made more than her. It would have financially drowned her. That's not fair. So one thing that I recommend is to go proportional. Again, if you make three times more, you pay three times more for the joint expenses. I probably wouldn't do that on like dinner out. That's just a bit weird and overly transactional.

But there are so many different ways to apply that. One, you could both say, "Hey, we're going to we're each going to put um put in some money to eat out every month. How much do we think we eat out? Let's just make the math easy. $100 per month." So, the person earning three times more puts in three times more towards that $100, right? Uh, and then whoever wants to physically pick up the check that time could.

So, in terms of L though, I just want to be clear before we move on. So, it's like the fact that he makes so much more. How would that change the conversation that you suggested to her initially? Would it change it?

Yes, I think it would. And I think that this takes some delicacy. Um, but it could be done. So, you know, number one, same thing. Start with an appreciation. Hey, I really appreciate and I love that we can go out, etc. I want us to be a team. um when it comes to us going out to eat and like just for example who pays how do you think about that and he's going to say well you know fine with me it's working and she'll say you know I agree that until now it has worked and again I really love our time together I can't help but notice that you know you make a lot more than I do and so what's 50% to me is a lot higher than what's 50% to you now I'm not here to nitpick over your income. That's yours. But what I really want to try to do with the two of us is to build a partnership together. And for me, a partnership does not make as much sense if we're doing 50/50 when the income is so different. Um, I also think that this might be a candidate for if they already see a therapist. This is a fantastic opportunity to bring this up in therapy because a skilled facilitator can certainly help with this one.

My boyfriend was really clear at the beginning of our relationship that financial security was really important to him. And a year and a half into our relationship, my boyfriend found out that I had been lying about having $18,000 in credit card debt. I remember crying because I knew that I had broken trust and I expected us to be over right then and there. And he stopped and he said, "This is what we're going to do." And he came up with a plan to take care of my debt. And it was a very difficult year, but we managed to pay off my credit cards in that year. And after July, I will be debtree. The problems that we're facing now are we are in our late 20s. We're almost 30 and we are desperately trying to save our money to get a house. and I'm stressed out and upset because I feel like we're behind because of me and he does a great job at not putting the blame on me, but I know that he is not where he wanted to be at this point in his life.

I feel like there's a lot there, but yeah, I'm curious your immediate reactions to that. Um, well, first I just have to recognize the the beautiful way that love shows up with money. I mean, no, I don't think she should have hidden the debt, I think that's a very tough and bad decision in relationships, but the way that her boyfriend stepped up is pretty amazing. And the way that the two of them went through it is quite a quite impressive.

people having debt is one of the things that makes people feel the most ashamed. And Celica, my suggestion for you is that you are more than guilt. You can be somebody who has learned from a bad decision in the past. You do not have to go through the rest of your life atoning for it. You can actually build something beautiful and connective with your boyfriend. And most importantly, you can actually accept that you are more than this one thing that you did in your life. You are so much more than that.

The solution is to take a step back, zoom out, ask each other, what is our rich life? What's our vision? If we want to buy a house, why? How long do we plan to stay there? What are the numbers?

Ooh, you're about to get me riled up on this one. So, I just want to point out some phrases I heard. Um, desperately, we desperately want to buy a house. We are stressed. We are behind. And there is blame. Notice those words. They are what I call hot emotions. They're very hot. like there's a fire. And with money, I want us to bring it down. I want these emotions to be cool, calm, and collected. That is how we want to relate to money. Okay? We do not want to be making hot decisions. Ah, I hate my life. It's so bad. No. Cool. Even if you have credit card debt, you can be cool about it. My debt payoff date is February 2032. Cool.

I'm going to say something that might surprise a lot of listeners, which is sometimes buying a house may not be the right financial decision. I think this is a really interesting sort of tenant of yours. Speak on that. Why?

In America, our primary religion is home ownership. And you can tell it's religious because people don't use actual logic. They use trit little phrases like you're throwing money away on rent or why would you want to pay your landlord's mortgage? It's interesting that we don't use the same phrases when we go eat sushi. Oh, you're throwing money away on sushi. You're paying your sushi owner's mortgage. Why do I care? I'm getting good sushi and they're doing my dishes for me. It's great. But when it comes to home ownership, we genuinely believe that you the only way to create real wealth is to buy a house. And if we don't buy a house, we're a loser. I will share something quite surprising, which is that I have rented, my wife and I have rented, and I've personally rented for over 20 years. And I've made more money renting than I would have owning. A lot more.

so sometimes renting and investing the difference can be a better decision than buying a house. The key principle here is you have to carefully run the numbers. You can run what's called a **买房与租房计算器** (Buy vs. Rent Calculator: 比较购房和租房财务成本的工具). Actually the New York Times has a fantastic calculator which I would highly recommend and you will discover for example in Manhattan just as a very obvious example it actually makes no financial sense to buy. Same thing in Menllo Park or in um Athetherton very expensive PaloAlto but also now in cities like Seattle and even other cities. In fact, it is cheaper to rent than to buy in 100% of the top 50 US metro cities right now.

So why am I sharing this with you? I need you to take the biggest financial decision of your life seriously. I need you to actually run the calculations. You need to understand what an **摊销表** (Amortization table: 显示贷款本金和利息随时间偿还情况的表格) looks like. You need to understand that your total cost of ownership should be primarily less than 28% of gross, but maybe up to 32 or 33. If you don't know what any of those words mean, you're not ready to buy a house.

My wife and I have been fighting bitterly over the last few years about money, but this is about money in terms of estate planning. We're in our young 70s. We're relatively healthy and we have a lot of energy. My wife wants to spend as much money as is possible. Now, while we can enjoy it, I fear that we might outlive our money knowing the catastrophically high cost of long-term care. Uh, also, I want to be able to uh leave as much as possible to our three children. I have this fantasy that they're going to be in Paris uh uncing a bottle of champagne, enjoying fura, and toasting us. Thank you.

What do you think about this? This is not the only voicemail we got of this sort where there is, and I imagine you also get this question a lot, a couple who has these polar opposite approaches to money, the spender versus the saver. What's your input there?

Um, it's very common and I speak to many couples where one has been future oriented for decades. We need to save and typically it goes like this. We need to save enough to get a house. They buy. We need to save enough to do the basement. We need to save enough to send the kids to school. Now, we need to save to send them to college. And meanwhile, the saver is typically accumulating quite a bit of money. It starts to become a little bit absurd. Like, what about actually living for today?

And this is why my work is called I will teach you to be rich. It's not called I will teach you to hoard money in a high yield savings account. The point of money is not to save it. The point of money is to use it to live a rich life. Part of that involves saving and investing diligently. I agree. But part of it involves building the skill of spending money. And that is something that I would be willing to bet most listeners have not worked on.

So there's there's three real skills. The first skill when it comes to money is earning money. That's your career, your job, that kind of thing. Most people, they're decent at it. You know, they think about it a lot. Okay, cool. The next skill is managing your money. That is saving and investing and setting up the right structures and accounts. Yeah, I think some people are pretty good at this. They spend some time on it. The third skill is the skill of spending money meaningfully. And almost nobody does this. Now to Stuart's question.

I do agree that you should be planning and know that you're not going to run out of money. But I want to also point out that I also consider it a tragedy to end your life with way too much money, having never built the skill of spending it. And in fact, Stuart says, "I have a dream of my three kids popping champagne in Paris." Hey, Stuart, why don't you take your kids to Paris? What are you talking about? you you want to be looking down from heaven. Take them with you. Take them with you and show them what it's like to have spent a lifetime working and saving and now to be able to share this with your loved ones. And while you're there, Stuart, take your wife on a little trip and tell her, "Babe, I love you. And yes, I know that I want to save money and sometimes I might be a little bit in the spreadsheets, but that's because I love you. But I'm also listening and I know that it is our time to experience these things around the world. That is why I brought the kids here and that's why I'm also spending time just you and me.

That is really quite full circle to me actually because we started off with that example of the guy who's buying the tease and we said one thing that they could do is buy the tease together. And I really like that suggestion. Stuart, take the kids and why not stop at that. You and your wife go on a wonderful trip to a place that you've wanted to go to. Do that together. Be connected.

Stuart, send us a picture. This is the kind of stuff I love is seeing couples using their money and creating these magical experiences. Life is not a rich life is not lived in a spreadsheet.

That is so important for all of us to understand. You know what I will also say, Reie, before we head to the close, is like the way that you respond to these questions that are deeply vulnerable is incredibly soothing because you're able to say with real sincerity like this is normal or I've seen this or yes, here's a plan, here's a script. and the kind of black box that finances, money and emotions can become like I find your approach very calming which is and and grounded and connected.

Thank you. And for you to use the word connected is to me the highest praise. So I really appreciate that.

Reit thank you so much for this conversation and thank you for your advice to our listeners. I'm sure it will resonate. Thank you.