How to Get Rich (2023) s01e01 Episode Script
Design Your Rich Life
1
When you hear the word "rich,"
what comes to mind for you?
Being able to do what you want to do
without stressing over money.
Money controls us.
The numbers matter, always.
I don't want to feel guilty
when spending money.
I definitely spend a minimum
of a half a million a year in shopping.
It causes fights
in our relationship.
The more money she's made,
the less valuable I am.
Go work if it's such a big deal for you.
I feel inferior.
I don't like that.
But it doesn't
have to be that way.
I'm Ramit Sethi.
I'm a New York Times bestselling author,
and I teach people how
to live their rich life.
I don't know how to start.
My philosophy
is to spend extravagantly
on the things you love,
but cut costs mercilessly
on the things you don't.
Oh, wait, hold on now.
I never really learned about money.
I'm paying for it now.
You can't get a rich life
without taking control of your money.
You have a checking account for your dog
and not a retirement account.
You don't need to call me out like that,
even though that's why you're here.
I'll have six weeks to help people
fix their financial problems.
We're going to talk about
credit card debt, buying a house,
retirement, and even
multi-level marketing schemes,
and together, we'll uncover money secrets.
- You went from 100K
- Now it's worth about 20,000.
- He never told me.
- You didn't know till now?
When it comes to money,
people are desperate to hear the truth.
I think my biggest fear is like,
"What if I'm not fixable?"
I'm scared. I'm overwhelmed.
I just want to do everything right.
I don't think I can.
I'll give them tools
to fix how they think about money.
Design your rich life.
Thank you so much.
I went through a rollercoaster
to finally get to this point.
I know how to talk about money now.
I'm not scared of it.
If you really, really want
to make a change, don't give up.
No matter how much you earn,
I know you can live your rich life.
- To the rich life.
- To the rich life!
Let me teach you how to get rich.
Hi, Ramit.
Let's do it!
Slate. Prime mark.
Have you ever wondered
how much people make?
How much they spend?
What is in their checking account?
I have in my hand the personal information
of Matt and Amani.
I've never met 'em,
I don't know anything about 'em,
but I love seeing this information
because it tells me
where they spend their money,
what they prioritize,
and even who they are.
I'm going to start
with an Amazon credit card.
They had a balance
of 3,000 bucks last month.
A lot of random stuff.
A Fisher-Price jumper,
so probably they have children.
We have Capital One.
The balance last month was $1,300.
Chase Sapphire Card.
On this one, the balance was $4,000.
I'm looking now at their checking account.
A checking account leaves lots of clues.
It's like fingerprints everywhere.
And it tells me a lot.
In this month, they contributed
$24,000 to this checking account
and they spent
$27,000.
They spent more than they made.
This is a huge red flag for me.
Oh, wow. I see overdraft protection.
Overdraft protection means you spent more
than you had in your checking account.
If you're making $24,000 in a month,
you do not need to be
paying these kinds of fees.
So they've got the 401,
balance of $94,000,
88% stocks.
This is a typically aggressive portfolio.
It tells me they're probably
on the younger side.
This is good. I'm happy to see it.
I'm excited to meet Matt and Amani.
I get a chance to take all these numbers
and all these guesses
I have about the clues,
and see if it lines up
with who they really are.
- Hi!
- Hi.
Hi, I'm Amani.
- Amani, nice to meet you.
- This is my daughter Delilah.
- My name is Amani.
- And I'm Matthew.
We've been married
for almost six years now,
and we have two beautiful daughters.
- You want to show him around?
- Can you give me a tour of your house?
She's so proud of her house.
How are you feeling
about having someone intervene?
It's so weird.
And very uncomfortable.
Because it's weird to have
this stranger that you're telling
all your vulnerabilities and weaknesses
and personal things to.
Wow. What a beautiful house.
- Thank you.
- I like your house.
We have a high-income couple here.
The big misconception is that
if you make a lot of money,
you're gonna magically know
how to manage your money.
But that is not true.
I'm pretty confident that one of
the things we're gonna talk about is,
where's all this money going?
If that's the case,
I think I can help them.
So, how did you meet? I'm so curious.
- Tinder.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Originally, yeah.
Oh, and it's even crazier.
We eloped, like, in Vegas,
during Spring Break. So.
How long had you dated before you eloped?
- Three months, right?
- Yeah.
- Wait, what?
- Three months.
- Wanna put her for a nap?
- Yeah.
Okay. Come on, baby, let's go.
Bye.
I'm an account executive
at a software company.
You know,
I'm lucky to be making six figures.
I'm taking care of my family,
and I work very hard to provide
the best life I can for them.
I was a traveling electrical engineer.
But now I'm a stay-at-home dad.
The wind is blowing so hard.
- We have to hide from the wind.
- Yeah!
The time of travel just,
you know, didn't correspond well
with with my responsibilities at home.
Okay, so how big of a problem
is finances between you two?
Money is how how this brain works.
- Meaning what?
- I'm in sales.
So if there's a financial problem,
it is the root of all evil.
She'll come in yelling.
I can't sleep if I'm stressed about money.
- Why?
- I end up avoiding it,
like, not wanting to talk about it.
Um, and then we end up fighting about it.
So, I end up avoiding it
because I'm literally taking care of him,
my two daughters, myself.
I have so much expenses.
I'm only, like, 27 years old,
and I feel like I'm carrying
the world on my shoulders.
I feel like my finances control me,
while I'm supposed
to be controlling finances.
I never know every month,
like, how much really I'm spending.
Some months I'm in negative,
where my expenses are more
than the money I'm bringing.
That's where I fall
I fall to credit cards.
Half of my pay is, you know, commissions,
and some months it's great,
some months it's not.
It varies. It goes up and down.
Then I keep using credit cards until, uh,
the money picks back up
and I can even out again.
All right, Matthew,
I want to hear from you.
What are the financial challenges
between the two of you?
The more money she's made,
the less valuable I am.
That's a very strong statement.
It's That's how I feel, though.
When I was working, I had the freedoms to
do the things that I wanted to
with my own money.
- Okay, and you were working as what?
- I'm I'm an electrical engineer.
- An electrical engineer?
- Correct.
Okay. And so, what changed?
When I stopped working,
I didn't intentionally say that
I'm going to be the stay-at-home dad,
but, I mean, we more and more
relied on me being at home.
Okay. That sounds like
a lot of responsibility.
It is, it is. I work harder now
than I did when I was an engineer.
- Well
- And I get less respect and less reward.
What does that mean?
That I literally have absolutely
no decisions in anything to do with money.
Like what? What does that mean?
Nothing. I mean, you name it.
I'm working very hard.
If you're gonna spend something,
I don't want to be surprised by it.
I want to know what it is
and why we're spending it.
She definitely devalues
what I do for the house,
rather than what I used to
do for employment.
Do you trust him?
- Financially, or
- Financially.
No, I don't.
He hasn't proven himself to me yet,
where I can trust him financially.
Sorry, just a second.
How many kids did I see you had
when I walked in the door?
I mean, you got to trust
somebody to have kids.
But women have been doing it forever.
Women who are stay-at-home with kids,
they have to ask for money,
they have to ask for allowance,
for access.
Honey, a lot of the women
that are in my position
end up, like, miserable,
and getting out of their relationship.
- And I tell you these things
- What about the ones that don't?
I'm the one who works,
so it's okay for me to decide, like,
who has access, who does not.
I quit my job so you
- Women do it too for their children.
- I understand. And they're not cut off.
I mean, I've made a lot of sacrifices
so you could make this money, honey.
- How?
- So compensate me for that. You won't.
Do you two have separate accounts?
- At the time, when I worked
- Yeah. We have separate
- I had a joint account for us.
- For bills.
- Then I quit my job.
- No.
One at a time. Let me try again.
Do you have separate accounts?
- We have separate accounts.
- We do, yes.
Okay.
- You ever have a joint account?
- Yes.
When I supported us,
we had a joint account.
I'm gonna check out of this conversation
because I've heard this,
like, 10,000 times already just today.
That's the end
of the conversation.
I'm just tired.
It's, like, emotionally draining.
You fight about money,
you spin about money,
and then what ends up happening?
I get defensive.
- And then?
- I get mad.
- She
- Eh, eh. Let me just talk to her.
Trust me, you're not doing yourself
any favors by cutting in. Trust me.
I don't understand
why she doesn't understand what I mean.
And I don't understand why you're like,
"Oh, when I worked I felt this and this."
Well, then, go work then
if it's such a big deal for you.
You both have a lot to say, and I feel
like you've said it to each other a lot.
- Has it gotten you anywhere?
- No.
We have
a reverse role situation here.
There are gender expectations,
there are income expectations,
and there's a lot left unspoken.
My process is to bring
those unspoken beliefs to the surface.
Once they're there,
then we can deal with them.
Can I get your permission, both of you,
to maybe help you see
a different way of looking at this?
I have a journal that I would like
you to work on together.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. The first section is
"Design Your Rich Life."
- What's my rich life?
- Mm-hmm.
What's your rich life?
What could our rich life be?
I wonder how long it's been since you
really articulated that vision together.
Here's the journal.
Awesome. Thank you.
- For both of you.
- Nice.
That's just the first of many steps
that we're gonna take together.
I give everyone homework
when I first meet them.
That's a beautiful, gentle way
to get people comfortable
talking about money.
- Thank you so much. We'll talk very soon.
- Yes, thank you.
Thank you so much.
So the first step I want them to do
is to start talking about money,
getting positive with it, dreaming.
This is a great opportunity for them
to start asking questions
instead of judging each other.
How could you say
all these things about me?
Aw, man.
When you hear the world "rich,"
what comes to mind for you?
Like you have to be eating fancy food
at some long table,
being driven around by a chauffeur
to your country club?
But I think "rich" means
something very different.
"Rich" can be picking up your kids
from school every day.
Or traveling three months a year.
Your rich life is yours.
When my wife and I started talking
about money, it got a little heated.
And I went online
and I was looking around for advice,
like, "How are you supposed
to talk about money?"
And all of the advice said,
"Have the conversation."
I was like, "What conversation?"
What I just want to know what to say.
I wanted to show people
what these conversations
actually sound like.
So I started a podcast,
and you hear real people
having real money conversations.
I wanna take you behind the scenes.
I actually have a couple
that I'm ready to talk to on my podcast.
Donnell and Monique.
They are 37 and 40 years old.
They have three kids and one grandchild.
Monique says, "Our biggest challenge
is that we want to buy a house,
but we had credit hiccups."
"We need to work on our splurging habits."
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
"I know we can afford a mortgage payment"
Notice the fixation on a house.
"We need a mortgage.
We need to buy a house."
"It's the American Dream, right?"
"That's what everybody told me."
It drives me crazy how
many of us believe
that if we don't own a home,
we are failures.
This is something I want
to change people's beliefs around.
If you want to buy a house
because you want to decorate,
or because you want
a certain school district,
you have my blessing.
But you need to run the numbers,
you need to understand
what your other options are,
and I don't want you making decisions
because somebody somewhere
told you that you're a failure
if you don't own a house.
In fact, renting can be
a great financial decision,
if that's what your rich life is.
Now let's look at the numbers.
They make $93,000 total
in their household income.
Wow, this is interesting.
She has $400 in savings,
$350 in stocks,
and $8,000 in a 401K.
Donnell has about $1,000 in stocks
and 500 bucks in savings.
So already I'm going,
what's with the obsession
about owning a house if you have
a relatively small amount in savings?
It doesn't make sense to me.
Total debt Uh-oh.
Oh no.
Monique has $7,000 in credit card debt,
$88,000 in student loans,
$27,000 in auto loans,
and 1,500 bucks in collections.
Okay, that's a lot of debt.
Over $100,000.
Donnell has $63,000 in student loans,
$4,500 in credit cards,
and $3,800 in various collections.
The numbers,
they don't tell me the whole story.
I need to understand where they come from.
What is this idea about home ownership?
What do they really want
in their rich life?
Who knows? We'll find out.
Let's get Monique and Donnell on the line.
Recording in progress.
Donnell and Monique, here we go.
All right! How you doing?
- Hi!
- Hi, how are you?
Does it feel weird
to talk about these numbers
like you've probably never
talked about before?
I think it's gonna be more weird
talking with him about it.
Really? Why is that?
- 'Cause we don't talk about it.
- Yeah.
In the last month or two,
can you think of a time where you
were not on the same financial page?
Um
I think we're No, I'm lying.
We're not always on the same page.
What do you both do for work?
Donnell is in retail.
I quit my job in September
to pursue my business full-time.
- I do woodwork.
- Custom woodwork.
Custom woodwork.
Whatever you need.
If you can picture it, I can build it.
Okay, cool.
So, you both mentioned one big thing
that you both have as a goal.
What is that thing?
- Buying a house.
- Buying a house.
What's that about?
I want to own a home,
where the kids have somewhere to come.
I want them to have, like, what I had
growing up. Like, a home base.
Okay, so how do you think
that I can help you?
I I don't know. I just hope any
and every way you can help
Uh, I really do,
because I I look at it like,
how can you help somebody that's broke
not be broke?
Like, so I don't I don't know.
I appreciate you being so candid.
It sounds like you wanna learn some skills
about what to do with your money.
I'm getting excited for when we get
a chance to meet in person. All right?
- I hope so.
- I'll see you soon.
I had a great time talking
to Monique and Donnell on my podcast.
But there's nothing like
meeting them in real life.
That's gonna help me understand
how they think about money,
how they spend their money,
and how they can use it
to live a rich life.
- Move.
- Right now I'm nervous.
I changed my mind.
I don't want to do this anymore.
You guys, how did you
find out about the show?
Um, I got an email.
I found out when they called
to ask him questions.
- You didn't know?
- No.
I never tell her
if I fill out for something.
But I don't think I really understood
this particular show.
You guys wanna know stuff.
Like, y'all wanna go deep,
y'all wanna ask questions.
And you're like, "Do I really wanna tell?"
- Hello.
- Sorry, you caught me working.
- Is this the woodworking?
- Yes.
- Well, I remember from when we talked.
- Working on an order.
- What is this, uh, called?
- A scroll saw.
Oh, I can't wait to see more.
- Hello. Hey. I'm Ramit. Nice to meet you.
- Oh! What's going on? How are you?
Finish this sentence for me.
Conversations about finance and money
are normally considered
Oh, I know the word,
but I can't think of it.
- What, "taboo"?
- Yes.
What are the two things
you wanna get out of this?
For me and Donnell to have better
communication about money.
You don't go on a first date and say,
"What's your bank account like?"
Like, "You got a 401?"
Like, no, you don't do that.
Like, you know,
so, it is a sensitive subject.
We've been married for 17 years.
She doesn't talk about her checking
account, I don't talk to her about mine.
- No idea what's holding us back.
- No idea what's holding us back.
- We Oh, sorry.
- Like No, go ahead.
Every time we think
we're doing something right
- Mm-hmm.
- it's like,
somebody throws a ball at us
and knocks us off.
Bam! Right in the face.
And you be like, "Yo!"
What's your rich life, now that you've
had some time to think about it?
I think for me,
to be able to pay down my debt
so that we'll be able
to get the house that we want.
I think being comfortable, you know.
To to be at a certain level with money.
- Love it. Monique, you used to make 50K
- Yes.
but you switched to woodworking,
which I saw coming in here. That was cool.
So, how much does your business make?
- In February, I made like $2,500
- Okay.
and then this month,
I'm up to like $8,000.
- Whoa!
- Yeah.
- That's a big jump.
- It is.
Am I the only one who's excited
about $8,000 in a single month?
I did great, but that doesn't mean
that I'll do great next month.
You're never gonna be happy about money
unless you change
the way you think about it.
- Yeah.
- Donnell, I had you making $78,000.
- Yes.
- You both make a good income.
It's impressive.
You say that, but I don't see that, like
Where do you think the money's going?
I'll tell you right now.
If I remember correctly,
you had about 200K of debt.
Yeah. Like some of my bad habits
from my personal finances
- still come into my business finances.
- Like what?
Like, I've been doing
really good in my business,
so I did just buy a purse.
How much did this purse cost?
Before taxes?
- $1,350.
- Wow.
I said the same thing, "Wow."
I just like nice things, unfortunately.
I don't do it on purpose.
I can look at it and it'll be like $1,500,
and I'll pick that one
instead of the $20 one.
But not knowing the price.
I just I like what I like.
You know how I justified it?
It's a purse in a purse,
so I got two bags for the price of one.
You didn't buy that
because you get two bags.
It's not a bargain. It's a luxury product.
You're gonna make up
any reason to justify it, and you did.
But in order to live a rich life,
you have to be honest.
It's common in society
to judge people who buy expensive bags.
I don't.
If you like a bag,
and if you can afford it,
I want you to get it.
But one of the things
I'm gonna teach Monique and Donnell
is how to know
when you are ready to buy it.
I want to build my credit score back.
I've seen my credit go down to a 409.
And then when I get like that,
I I just kind of give up.
- I'm like, "Whatever."
- That's common.
- You see the trap they got you in.
- Yeah.
- And you willingly put yourself in it.
- Yes, absolutely.
On a day-to-day basis,
nobody cares about their credit score.
But it becomes very important
when you make a major purchase,
like a car or a house.
Imagine someone
who has a good credit score,
goes to buy a car, maybe they pay 4%.
Somebody who has terrible credit
might have a 13% interest rate
that will cost you
thousands of dollars more.
720 to 850, excellent.
Double thumbs up, you're doing great.
Anything below 630,
that's the danger zone.
You are paying a lot more
because of your poor credit.
Hopefully you can help me understand why
we keep going through the same pattern.
Like, for years.
Doing the same thing,
trying different little things,
and we still end up in the same boat.
There's almost always a way,
but you have to go through the fire.
- Hmm.
- That's the hardest thing of all.
That will be your challenge.
Let's see here.
How many checking accounts?
I have five now.
- And how many savings accounts?
- I have one with each checking account.
So five.
- You have five savings accounts?
- Mm-hmm.
- Donnell, what about you?
- I probably got about nine, ten accounts.
- That's just checking and savings.
- Why?
Who taught you this?
I feel as though
if I spread my money around,
it makes it look like I have more.
Like if I go buy fries,
and I have the fries sitting here,
and then I'm like, "Hang on a second,
I know how to have more fries."
"I'm gonna take some fries and put them
in the bathroom." That's a lot of fries!
- But who wants bathroom fries?
- Yeah, exactly! Exactly!
Twenty accounts is too many.
You start off in your early 20s,
you've got one checking account,
one savings account,
don't know why you have this credit card,
and suddenly you wake up
and you're burdened and overwhelmed
with all these accounts.
You don't even know how they fit together.
We need to fight for simplicity.
Donnell, you mention that you make money,
but it doesn't feel like it.
That's because
it's spread all over the place.
- Your accounts
- Mm-hmm.
there's just too many!
It's it's stressing me out,
so we got to fix that.
I'm gonna show you
how to treat your money,
and if you stick with me,
I think the way you think about it
is gonna be completely different.
- Okay.
- I look forward to it.
Okay.
I have a little bit of homework for you.
Organize your accounts, so that you
know exactly where your money is flowing.
Yes. Doable.
That's how we get started.
In every couple,
two people come into a relationship
with different philosophies on money.
Most people don't even know
what their philosophy on money is.
I wanna start by simplifying all
of their accounts and their credit cards.
Then I wanna get them on a plan
to pay that debt off.
Something where they go
"I can do this."
And that makes it so much easier
to keep moving forward.
I've been chatting about your book
with some of my friends.
Oh, cool.
I'm trying to figure out
how to describe you.
It would be easy
to call me a financial advisor,
but I go much deeper than that.
Nobody wants to sit around
and talk about money because
they think money is a negative thing.
I listen to what your rich life is,
I wanna know what you love
to spend money on.
Celebrate, let's start off
with something positive.
Some of us spend
on whatever's in front of us.
But most of us don't actually understand
why we treat money the way we do.
That's where money psychology comes in.
Money psychology is about
the way you grew up with money
and those invisible scripts
that you absorbed.
And once you can understand
your money psychology,
you can master it, and you can change it.
I help people earn money,
manage their money,
and master their money psychology.
People hit me up
on social media all the time
to ask their money questions.
And I recently got a message
from a young woman named Nicole,
who is worried about her
mother Nathalie's spending habits.
Okay, Nathalie.
Ah, first thing, right off the bat.
You see this logo? Chase Private Client.
That means that she's probably wealthy,
or comes from a wealthy family.
She has a $25,000 deposit
from a trust.
Okay, maybe she has a trust
that her family was a part of. We'll see.
Okay, this is pretty interesting.
So she started the month
with $4,000 in savings,
and by the end of the month,
she was left with $5.04.
Her spending seems crazy.
Nathalie has a hundred bucks
in her checking account,
and she just casually deposited $374,000.
That's a good month.
She withdrew $37,000,
as we all do on a given month.
And then withdrew $271,000.
She lives paycheck to paycheck.
Let's look at some of this spending.
Boy, there's a lot of expenses here. Okay.
You know, like this hotel in Europe, $700.
Let's see what else we got.
Let's take a look at her mortgage.
She's got $957,000 left on her mortgage.
She's paying about 5,000 bucks a month.
Okay.
Right now, the interesting thing
is that she gets these big cash infusions.
So I'm curious if she's the executor
of her family's estate,
or something like that.
I wanna know where
the money's coming from.
I came, I c c came to party ♪
Roll up in my Ferrari
I bring the baddest ♪
Rodeo Drive is fascinating.
We've all seen it in the movies.
It's the land of excess.
You have Rolls-Royces
and Bentleys everywhere.
You have some of the most
expensive clothing in the world.
And the people-watching
is absolutely amazing.
Oh, look at this.
What you guys filming, man?
You'll see it soon.
I doubt it.
- Nathalie?
- Hi, bonjour.
Hi, how are you?
- Welcome to Beverly Hills.
- Nice to meet you.
- Can I, uh, swing around?
- Please, come over.
Wow, all right.
Now this is a car.
- You like it?
- Oh, I love it.
So, we're here at Rodeo.
All I know is that
you wanted to meet here.
Why? Tell me.
Because this
is my favorite place.
I just love fashion.
Growing up in Paris,
I grew up with fashion.
I definitely spend a minimum
of a half a million a year in shopping.
I believe money's meant to be spent.
If I want to burn it, it's up to me,
but I don't think you can burn money.
It's illegal.
Okay, take it back. No burning money.
So, Nathalie,
where are we going right now?
We're out of Rodeo, I see.
Yes, so now we're going
to my dream project.
So, I opened a French rotisserie.
You had a restaurant or were building one?
No, no, I had it. I had it, it was open.
- Wow.
- It was I branded it.
I must say, I'm very proud of myself
because I went into a business,
like, blindfolded.
I knew nothing,
nothing about this business.
But I believed. I had a vision
that this business will have,
like, a line around the corner.
And it would have happened,
but COVID hit
Mmm.
and it put me upside down.
When you started this restaurant,
tell me about the finances behind it.
Were you thinking this will be
very profitable? How'd you think about it?
Uh, to me,
I saw this a billion-dollar company.
Why? Because it's not
about one restaurant.
I saw it as a franchising.
I saw Coco Queen
being everywhere in the world.
That billion-dollar comment
is a little bit of a red flag.
For 99.999% of people,
they are never gonna have
a billion-dollar restaurant.
So I'm starting to suspect
that she might be more of a dreamer
than someone who deals with the numbers.
How much money
do you think you put in?
I do know how much money,
let me tell you.
I thought I was going to put $250,000,
this was the budget.
And I was so busy building this,
that I didn't even see
how many checks I was writing.
Later, 1.5 million.
- From $250,000 to 1.5 million?
- Don't ask me how.
- Wait, of course I have to ask you how.
- Don't ask. I don't even know how.
- But that's six, seven times more.
- I know.
At 1.5 million, when did you realize,
"Uh-oh, this is in trouble"?
When I couldn't pay $40,000 overhead
every month anymore,
and I'm like,
"How much more can I get in the hole?"
- Yeah.
- You know?
I, like, basically
my house had no mortgage,
so I mortgaged my house
to do this venture.
But I didn't realize it
will cost me so much.
Oh wow! I don't believe,
they they colored the building!
- This one?
- That was my building.
- The blue one?
- It wasn't blue!
- They took it away!
- It's a beautiful building.
- They took off my sign.
- Great location.
It was amazing location.
I mean, when I grew up, we had no money.
My father was very rich.
My mother was very poor.
- Were they married or divorced?
- No, divorced.
So I grew up with my mother,
which was very poor.
So I saw two sides of life.
And I I knew, I remember,
I said, "I don't want to be poor."
And my mom's like, "Why? We have God,
we have food, and a roof over our head."
I said, "But life is not just about that."
I had dreams.
You know, of course,
money's not everything, everything,
- but money brings comfort.
- Mmm.
Did it change for you, comfort, when
From when you were young, until now?
- Yes, of course. I have more now.
- Mm-hmm.
But, uh I could have had way more
if I was more reasonable.
Reasonable?
- Yes, like if I didn't spend as much.
- Okay.
Now I'm starting to understand
why Nicole asked me to come in here.
Nathalie spends a lot of money,
but what's more troubling to me
is the way she doesn't really respect it.
Being knowledgeable about money,
being confident about money,
having a vision of a rich life.
All basic things
that I'm gonna create with Nathalie.
- Welcome to my house.
- Thank you.
Bienvenue.
As the French will say.
It's too early for me to tell
how sophisticated Nathalie is
with business,
but I do know her spending
has had an effect on her daughter.
- You must be Nicole.
- Hi. Yes, I'm Nicole.
Ramit. Nice to meet you.
I've seen my mom throw away
a lot of her money.
She'll really quickly and really easily
buy an expensive handbag
or a ton of clothing.
And then it was difficult for her
to pay for my college tuition.
We had a nice drive today
in your mom's second home, Rodeo Drive.
Sounds about right.
A lot of people come in and they say,
"Stop spending." That's the first thing.
And have you ever told your mom
that she should stop spending?
- All the time.
- Does it work?
No. Not at all.
She's gonna spend,
whether she has the money or it's tight.
She'll find a way to spend the money.
How much do you have in savings?
In savings right now, I don't
- I looked at your bank account.
- Yeah.
You have this much.
- What's that?
- Not five thousand, five dollars.
In the savings account.
So, where does your income come from now?
Uh, now it comes from child support.
- Child support.
- Yes.
And how much is that per month?
It's $25,000.
- $25,000? Okay.
- Yeah.
Okay, that makes sense.
And how much does it cost,
just to live for you, on a given month?
With this house, it costs a lot.
Probably like $15,000.
$15,000 just to keep the lights on?
Yeah. But I'm selling my house now.
- This house?
- Yes.
Okay, why now?
You know, it's very big for me,
and it's a lot, a lot of maintenance.
Okay. Your situation
is different than a lot of people's,
so, the usual advice doesn't apply to you.
But I have a feeling that deep down,
there is something you want to change.
- Right now, you have a great life.
- Yeah.
- It's a rich life for you today.
- Yes.
But you're so young.
So, what else?
There's got to be something more.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
Yes. I think I need a lot of help
with the business side,
to start it again
and do it right this time.
Because I know
the potential of this business.
And where will you get the money
to launch another restaurant from?
I don't know. I'll have to see.
What do you love more,
buying another dress,
or starting the restaurant?
Starting the restaurant,
I think, for sure.
- Really?
- Yeah, for sure.
Because the restaurant
will buy me a hundred dresses.
Now that's a good way to think about it.
I like that!
I don't think Nathalie
has ever thought of herself
as someone who doesn't have the money.
But she doesn't have the money
to start another restaurant.
She lives paycheck to paycheck!
Yeah, she's got a big paycheck,
but she's still spending
everything she makes.
If she wants
to make the restaurant a reality,
then she's gonna have to cut her spending
and put in the work to make sure
that this restaurant can thrive.
All right, I have
a bit of homework for you.
- Okay.
- It's easy. No numbers.
Homework.
- I want you to just start here.
- Okay, number one?
"Design Your Rich Life."
So if it's a restaurant, what does it
look like when you open the restaurant?
- How much does it cost?
- Yeah, that I don't know.
It's okay. I don't need you
to run a million financial models.
- I don't need that right now.
- Yeah.
But I do want you to be
more specific about the numbers.
- Okay.
- How's it sound?
- Sounds really good.
- I'll hand this to you.
Thank you.
It matches your outfit.
- Yes, it does.
- Yes.
She's a puzzle.
She has a shield around her.
It's almost like this impenetrable bubble.
And I don't want to pop it, not that.
What I do want is just to poke
a slight hole in it and connect with her.
I hope you listen to him.
This is a
- Honestly, this is a good opportunity.
- I agree.
- Don't blow it.
- Do not blow it, my darling.
Like all the money.
Pshh!
I've worked with people
like Nathalie in the past.
They make a lot of money,
and sometimes they think
that the usual problems
don't apply to them.
It turns out she receives
child support payments every month.
If that went away,
then it would be catastrophe for her.
Like, she's got nothing to fall back on.
I want Nathalie to have control
over her own financial future.
So here's my game plan.
I want to help her get
her spending under control.
Next, I want to talk more about
her restaurant business idea with her.
I think I can help, but it probably
won't be a billion-dollar restaurant.
And finally,
I want to change her money psychology.
This part's gonna be hard for Nathalie.
- See you soon. Thank you. Bye.
- Thank you. Have a good evening.
About to do the homework.
All right, so we got my pay,
plus Monique's pay.
Seven thousand a month
going into the checking account.
We've never done homework.
- Like homework as far as our financials.
- We've never done No.
I didn't even do homework in college.
I passed with my personality. Like, so
- You did.
- I did.
All right, this is our plan.
Hopefully you'll see
that we are pushing through, 'cause
we have goals.
So, we'll talk to y'all.
Hashtag bathroom fries.
So I started my homework.
It's very nice, this journal, actually,
so I put my name, my company name.
And, uh, I started designing my rich life.
I don't like doing homework,
I'm not gonna lie,
but, you know,
I got to make Ramit happy.
The idea to write in my journal
and creating my rich life
is exciting and motivating.
I mean, money motivates me.
Always has, will always do.
In a good way.
So you're on.
All right, "Fill in the blank."
Um, "How would you spend it
tonight in a rich life?"
- A thousand dollars.
- Oh, I would pay bills with it.
- I need it.
- Pay bills.
I would probably buy myself
some nice hiking gear.
Okay. What's next?
Um
- Relationship.
- Relationships?
I mean, it's part of the travel if I want
to start to build our relationship.
You don't spend money on our relationship,
unless it's all for you
My God!
- Like what? What do you want?
- Well, I mean
Traveling, for me,
is part of building our relationship,
and, like, growing a relationship.
- But
- That's why I spend the money I spend.
Honey, that's your love language.
Okay, what is your love language?
Absolutely nothing,
because you ain't bought me shit.
Because I take care of the kids
and if I spend your money you get pissed,
that's why.
I'm going to go if you're going to
go back to being an ass!
You know, I mean, we talked about
you being with the kids.
You can decide.
All right.
That's where we go
And we don't do it together.
Are you gonna go back
to being an ass to me on the show?
Just cancel the show.
Do we talk about it
Or do we dance around it? ♪
We both know what's up ♪
Keep doing what you're doing
Keep it moving ♪
Are you getting
The real measure of me? ♪
When you hear the word "rich,"
what comes to mind for you?
Being able to do what you want to do
without stressing over money.
Money controls us.
The numbers matter, always.
I don't want to feel guilty
when spending money.
I definitely spend a minimum
of a half a million a year in shopping.
It causes fights
in our relationship.
The more money she's made,
the less valuable I am.
Go work if it's such a big deal for you.
I feel inferior.
I don't like that.
But it doesn't
have to be that way.
I'm Ramit Sethi.
I'm a New York Times bestselling author,
and I teach people how
to live their rich life.
I don't know how to start.
My philosophy
is to spend extravagantly
on the things you love,
but cut costs mercilessly
on the things you don't.
Oh, wait, hold on now.
I never really learned about money.
I'm paying for it now.
You can't get a rich life
without taking control of your money.
You have a checking account for your dog
and not a retirement account.
You don't need to call me out like that,
even though that's why you're here.
I'll have six weeks to help people
fix their financial problems.
We're going to talk about
credit card debt, buying a house,
retirement, and even
multi-level marketing schemes,
and together, we'll uncover money secrets.
- You went from 100K
- Now it's worth about 20,000.
- He never told me.
- You didn't know till now?
When it comes to money,
people are desperate to hear the truth.
I think my biggest fear is like,
"What if I'm not fixable?"
I'm scared. I'm overwhelmed.
I just want to do everything right.
I don't think I can.
I'll give them tools
to fix how they think about money.
Design your rich life.
Thank you so much.
I went through a rollercoaster
to finally get to this point.
I know how to talk about money now.
I'm not scared of it.
If you really, really want
to make a change, don't give up.
No matter how much you earn,
I know you can live your rich life.
- To the rich life.
- To the rich life!
Let me teach you how to get rich.
Hi, Ramit.
Let's do it!
Slate. Prime mark.
Have you ever wondered
how much people make?
How much they spend?
What is in their checking account?
I have in my hand the personal information
of Matt and Amani.
I've never met 'em,
I don't know anything about 'em,
but I love seeing this information
because it tells me
where they spend their money,
what they prioritize,
and even who they are.
I'm going to start
with an Amazon credit card.
They had a balance
of 3,000 bucks last month.
A lot of random stuff.
A Fisher-Price jumper,
so probably they have children.
We have Capital One.
The balance last month was $1,300.
Chase Sapphire Card.
On this one, the balance was $4,000.
I'm looking now at their checking account.
A checking account leaves lots of clues.
It's like fingerprints everywhere.
And it tells me a lot.
In this month, they contributed
$24,000 to this checking account
and they spent
$27,000.
They spent more than they made.
This is a huge red flag for me.
Oh, wow. I see overdraft protection.
Overdraft protection means you spent more
than you had in your checking account.
If you're making $24,000 in a month,
you do not need to be
paying these kinds of fees.
So they've got the 401,
balance of $94,000,
88% stocks.
This is a typically aggressive portfolio.
It tells me they're probably
on the younger side.
This is good. I'm happy to see it.
I'm excited to meet Matt and Amani.
I get a chance to take all these numbers
and all these guesses
I have about the clues,
and see if it lines up
with who they really are.
- Hi!
- Hi.
Hi, I'm Amani.
- Amani, nice to meet you.
- This is my daughter Delilah.
- My name is Amani.
- And I'm Matthew.
We've been married
for almost six years now,
and we have two beautiful daughters.
- You want to show him around?
- Can you give me a tour of your house?
She's so proud of her house.
How are you feeling
about having someone intervene?
It's so weird.
And very uncomfortable.
Because it's weird to have
this stranger that you're telling
all your vulnerabilities and weaknesses
and personal things to.
Wow. What a beautiful house.
- Thank you.
- I like your house.
We have a high-income couple here.
The big misconception is that
if you make a lot of money,
you're gonna magically know
how to manage your money.
But that is not true.
I'm pretty confident that one of
the things we're gonna talk about is,
where's all this money going?
If that's the case,
I think I can help them.
So, how did you meet? I'm so curious.
- Tinder.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Originally, yeah.
Oh, and it's even crazier.
We eloped, like, in Vegas,
during Spring Break. So.
How long had you dated before you eloped?
- Three months, right?
- Yeah.
- Wait, what?
- Three months.
- Wanna put her for a nap?
- Yeah.
Okay. Come on, baby, let's go.
Bye.
I'm an account executive
at a software company.
You know,
I'm lucky to be making six figures.
I'm taking care of my family,
and I work very hard to provide
the best life I can for them.
I was a traveling electrical engineer.
But now I'm a stay-at-home dad.
The wind is blowing so hard.
- We have to hide from the wind.
- Yeah!
The time of travel just,
you know, didn't correspond well
with with my responsibilities at home.
Okay, so how big of a problem
is finances between you two?
Money is how how this brain works.
- Meaning what?
- I'm in sales.
So if there's a financial problem,
it is the root of all evil.
She'll come in yelling.
I can't sleep if I'm stressed about money.
- Why?
- I end up avoiding it,
like, not wanting to talk about it.
Um, and then we end up fighting about it.
So, I end up avoiding it
because I'm literally taking care of him,
my two daughters, myself.
I have so much expenses.
I'm only, like, 27 years old,
and I feel like I'm carrying
the world on my shoulders.
I feel like my finances control me,
while I'm supposed
to be controlling finances.
I never know every month,
like, how much really I'm spending.
Some months I'm in negative,
where my expenses are more
than the money I'm bringing.
That's where I fall
I fall to credit cards.
Half of my pay is, you know, commissions,
and some months it's great,
some months it's not.
It varies. It goes up and down.
Then I keep using credit cards until, uh,
the money picks back up
and I can even out again.
All right, Matthew,
I want to hear from you.
What are the financial challenges
between the two of you?
The more money she's made,
the less valuable I am.
That's a very strong statement.
It's That's how I feel, though.
When I was working, I had the freedoms to
do the things that I wanted to
with my own money.
- Okay, and you were working as what?
- I'm I'm an electrical engineer.
- An electrical engineer?
- Correct.
Okay. And so, what changed?
When I stopped working,
I didn't intentionally say that
I'm going to be the stay-at-home dad,
but, I mean, we more and more
relied on me being at home.
Okay. That sounds like
a lot of responsibility.
It is, it is. I work harder now
than I did when I was an engineer.
- Well
- And I get less respect and less reward.
What does that mean?
That I literally have absolutely
no decisions in anything to do with money.
Like what? What does that mean?
Nothing. I mean, you name it.
I'm working very hard.
If you're gonna spend something,
I don't want to be surprised by it.
I want to know what it is
and why we're spending it.
She definitely devalues
what I do for the house,
rather than what I used to
do for employment.
Do you trust him?
- Financially, or
- Financially.
No, I don't.
He hasn't proven himself to me yet,
where I can trust him financially.
Sorry, just a second.
How many kids did I see you had
when I walked in the door?
I mean, you got to trust
somebody to have kids.
But women have been doing it forever.
Women who are stay-at-home with kids,
they have to ask for money,
they have to ask for allowance,
for access.
Honey, a lot of the women
that are in my position
end up, like, miserable,
and getting out of their relationship.
- And I tell you these things
- What about the ones that don't?
I'm the one who works,
so it's okay for me to decide, like,
who has access, who does not.
I quit my job so you
- Women do it too for their children.
- I understand. And they're not cut off.
I mean, I've made a lot of sacrifices
so you could make this money, honey.
- How?
- So compensate me for that. You won't.
Do you two have separate accounts?
- At the time, when I worked
- Yeah. We have separate
- I had a joint account for us.
- For bills.
- Then I quit my job.
- No.
One at a time. Let me try again.
Do you have separate accounts?
- We have separate accounts.
- We do, yes.
Okay.
- You ever have a joint account?
- Yes.
When I supported us,
we had a joint account.
I'm gonna check out of this conversation
because I've heard this,
like, 10,000 times already just today.
That's the end
of the conversation.
I'm just tired.
It's, like, emotionally draining.
You fight about money,
you spin about money,
and then what ends up happening?
I get defensive.
- And then?
- I get mad.
- She
- Eh, eh. Let me just talk to her.
Trust me, you're not doing yourself
any favors by cutting in. Trust me.
I don't understand
why she doesn't understand what I mean.
And I don't understand why you're like,
"Oh, when I worked I felt this and this."
Well, then, go work then
if it's such a big deal for you.
You both have a lot to say, and I feel
like you've said it to each other a lot.
- Has it gotten you anywhere?
- No.
We have
a reverse role situation here.
There are gender expectations,
there are income expectations,
and there's a lot left unspoken.
My process is to bring
those unspoken beliefs to the surface.
Once they're there,
then we can deal with them.
Can I get your permission, both of you,
to maybe help you see
a different way of looking at this?
I have a journal that I would like
you to work on together.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. The first section is
"Design Your Rich Life."
- What's my rich life?
- Mm-hmm.
What's your rich life?
What could our rich life be?
I wonder how long it's been since you
really articulated that vision together.
Here's the journal.
Awesome. Thank you.
- For both of you.
- Nice.
That's just the first of many steps
that we're gonna take together.
I give everyone homework
when I first meet them.
That's a beautiful, gentle way
to get people comfortable
talking about money.
- Thank you so much. We'll talk very soon.
- Yes, thank you.
Thank you so much.
So the first step I want them to do
is to start talking about money,
getting positive with it, dreaming.
This is a great opportunity for them
to start asking questions
instead of judging each other.
How could you say
all these things about me?
Aw, man.
When you hear the world "rich,"
what comes to mind for you?
Like you have to be eating fancy food
at some long table,
being driven around by a chauffeur
to your country club?
But I think "rich" means
something very different.
"Rich" can be picking up your kids
from school every day.
Or traveling three months a year.
Your rich life is yours.
When my wife and I started talking
about money, it got a little heated.
And I went online
and I was looking around for advice,
like, "How are you supposed
to talk about money?"
And all of the advice said,
"Have the conversation."
I was like, "What conversation?"
What I just want to know what to say.
I wanted to show people
what these conversations
actually sound like.
So I started a podcast,
and you hear real people
having real money conversations.
I wanna take you behind the scenes.
I actually have a couple
that I'm ready to talk to on my podcast.
Donnell and Monique.
They are 37 and 40 years old.
They have three kids and one grandchild.
Monique says, "Our biggest challenge
is that we want to buy a house,
but we had credit hiccups."
"We need to work on our splurging habits."
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
"I know we can afford a mortgage payment"
Notice the fixation on a house.
"We need a mortgage.
We need to buy a house."
"It's the American Dream, right?"
"That's what everybody told me."
It drives me crazy how
many of us believe
that if we don't own a home,
we are failures.
This is something I want
to change people's beliefs around.
If you want to buy a house
because you want to decorate,
or because you want
a certain school district,
you have my blessing.
But you need to run the numbers,
you need to understand
what your other options are,
and I don't want you making decisions
because somebody somewhere
told you that you're a failure
if you don't own a house.
In fact, renting can be
a great financial decision,
if that's what your rich life is.
Now let's look at the numbers.
They make $93,000 total
in their household income.
Wow, this is interesting.
She has $400 in savings,
$350 in stocks,
and $8,000 in a 401K.
Donnell has about $1,000 in stocks
and 500 bucks in savings.
So already I'm going,
what's with the obsession
about owning a house if you have
a relatively small amount in savings?
It doesn't make sense to me.
Total debt Uh-oh.
Oh no.
Monique has $7,000 in credit card debt,
$88,000 in student loans,
$27,000 in auto loans,
and 1,500 bucks in collections.
Okay, that's a lot of debt.
Over $100,000.
Donnell has $63,000 in student loans,
$4,500 in credit cards,
and $3,800 in various collections.
The numbers,
they don't tell me the whole story.
I need to understand where they come from.
What is this idea about home ownership?
What do they really want
in their rich life?
Who knows? We'll find out.
Let's get Monique and Donnell on the line.
Recording in progress.
Donnell and Monique, here we go.
All right! How you doing?
- Hi!
- Hi, how are you?
Does it feel weird
to talk about these numbers
like you've probably never
talked about before?
I think it's gonna be more weird
talking with him about it.
Really? Why is that?
- 'Cause we don't talk about it.
- Yeah.
In the last month or two,
can you think of a time where you
were not on the same financial page?
Um
I think we're No, I'm lying.
We're not always on the same page.
What do you both do for work?
Donnell is in retail.
I quit my job in September
to pursue my business full-time.
- I do woodwork.
- Custom woodwork.
Custom woodwork.
Whatever you need.
If you can picture it, I can build it.
Okay, cool.
So, you both mentioned one big thing
that you both have as a goal.
What is that thing?
- Buying a house.
- Buying a house.
What's that about?
I want to own a home,
where the kids have somewhere to come.
I want them to have, like, what I had
growing up. Like, a home base.
Okay, so how do you think
that I can help you?
I I don't know. I just hope any
and every way you can help
Uh, I really do,
because I I look at it like,
how can you help somebody that's broke
not be broke?
Like, so I don't I don't know.
I appreciate you being so candid.
It sounds like you wanna learn some skills
about what to do with your money.
I'm getting excited for when we get
a chance to meet in person. All right?
- I hope so.
- I'll see you soon.
I had a great time talking
to Monique and Donnell on my podcast.
But there's nothing like
meeting them in real life.
That's gonna help me understand
how they think about money,
how they spend their money,
and how they can use it
to live a rich life.
- Move.
- Right now I'm nervous.
I changed my mind.
I don't want to do this anymore.
You guys, how did you
find out about the show?
Um, I got an email.
I found out when they called
to ask him questions.
- You didn't know?
- No.
I never tell her
if I fill out for something.
But I don't think I really understood
this particular show.
You guys wanna know stuff.
Like, y'all wanna go deep,
y'all wanna ask questions.
And you're like, "Do I really wanna tell?"
- Hello.
- Sorry, you caught me working.
- Is this the woodworking?
- Yes.
- Well, I remember from when we talked.
- Working on an order.
- What is this, uh, called?
- A scroll saw.
Oh, I can't wait to see more.
- Hello. Hey. I'm Ramit. Nice to meet you.
- Oh! What's going on? How are you?
Finish this sentence for me.
Conversations about finance and money
are normally considered
Oh, I know the word,
but I can't think of it.
- What, "taboo"?
- Yes.
What are the two things
you wanna get out of this?
For me and Donnell to have better
communication about money.
You don't go on a first date and say,
"What's your bank account like?"
Like, "You got a 401?"
Like, no, you don't do that.
Like, you know,
so, it is a sensitive subject.
We've been married for 17 years.
She doesn't talk about her checking
account, I don't talk to her about mine.
- No idea what's holding us back.
- No idea what's holding us back.
- We Oh, sorry.
- Like No, go ahead.
Every time we think
we're doing something right
- Mm-hmm.
- it's like,
somebody throws a ball at us
and knocks us off.
Bam! Right in the face.
And you be like, "Yo!"
What's your rich life, now that you've
had some time to think about it?
I think for me,
to be able to pay down my debt
so that we'll be able
to get the house that we want.
I think being comfortable, you know.
To to be at a certain level with money.
- Love it. Monique, you used to make 50K
- Yes.
but you switched to woodworking,
which I saw coming in here. That was cool.
So, how much does your business make?
- In February, I made like $2,500
- Okay.
and then this month,
I'm up to like $8,000.
- Whoa!
- Yeah.
- That's a big jump.
- It is.
Am I the only one who's excited
about $8,000 in a single month?
I did great, but that doesn't mean
that I'll do great next month.
You're never gonna be happy about money
unless you change
the way you think about it.
- Yeah.
- Donnell, I had you making $78,000.
- Yes.
- You both make a good income.
It's impressive.
You say that, but I don't see that, like
Where do you think the money's going?
I'll tell you right now.
If I remember correctly,
you had about 200K of debt.
Yeah. Like some of my bad habits
from my personal finances
- still come into my business finances.
- Like what?
Like, I've been doing
really good in my business,
so I did just buy a purse.
How much did this purse cost?
Before taxes?
- $1,350.
- Wow.
I said the same thing, "Wow."
I just like nice things, unfortunately.
I don't do it on purpose.
I can look at it and it'll be like $1,500,
and I'll pick that one
instead of the $20 one.
But not knowing the price.
I just I like what I like.
You know how I justified it?
It's a purse in a purse,
so I got two bags for the price of one.
You didn't buy that
because you get two bags.
It's not a bargain. It's a luxury product.
You're gonna make up
any reason to justify it, and you did.
But in order to live a rich life,
you have to be honest.
It's common in society
to judge people who buy expensive bags.
I don't.
If you like a bag,
and if you can afford it,
I want you to get it.
But one of the things
I'm gonna teach Monique and Donnell
is how to know
when you are ready to buy it.
I want to build my credit score back.
I've seen my credit go down to a 409.
And then when I get like that,
I I just kind of give up.
- I'm like, "Whatever."
- That's common.
- You see the trap they got you in.
- Yeah.
- And you willingly put yourself in it.
- Yes, absolutely.
On a day-to-day basis,
nobody cares about their credit score.
But it becomes very important
when you make a major purchase,
like a car or a house.
Imagine someone
who has a good credit score,
goes to buy a car, maybe they pay 4%.
Somebody who has terrible credit
might have a 13% interest rate
that will cost you
thousands of dollars more.
720 to 850, excellent.
Double thumbs up, you're doing great.
Anything below 630,
that's the danger zone.
You are paying a lot more
because of your poor credit.
Hopefully you can help me understand why
we keep going through the same pattern.
Like, for years.
Doing the same thing,
trying different little things,
and we still end up in the same boat.
There's almost always a way,
but you have to go through the fire.
- Hmm.
- That's the hardest thing of all.
That will be your challenge.
Let's see here.
How many checking accounts?
I have five now.
- And how many savings accounts?
- I have one with each checking account.
So five.
- You have five savings accounts?
- Mm-hmm.
- Donnell, what about you?
- I probably got about nine, ten accounts.
- That's just checking and savings.
- Why?
Who taught you this?
I feel as though
if I spread my money around,
it makes it look like I have more.
Like if I go buy fries,
and I have the fries sitting here,
and then I'm like, "Hang on a second,
I know how to have more fries."
"I'm gonna take some fries and put them
in the bathroom." That's a lot of fries!
- But who wants bathroom fries?
- Yeah, exactly! Exactly!
Twenty accounts is too many.
You start off in your early 20s,
you've got one checking account,
one savings account,
don't know why you have this credit card,
and suddenly you wake up
and you're burdened and overwhelmed
with all these accounts.
You don't even know how they fit together.
We need to fight for simplicity.
Donnell, you mention that you make money,
but it doesn't feel like it.
That's because
it's spread all over the place.
- Your accounts
- Mm-hmm.
there's just too many!
It's it's stressing me out,
so we got to fix that.
I'm gonna show you
how to treat your money,
and if you stick with me,
I think the way you think about it
is gonna be completely different.
- Okay.
- I look forward to it.
Okay.
I have a little bit of homework for you.
Organize your accounts, so that you
know exactly where your money is flowing.
Yes. Doable.
That's how we get started.
In every couple,
two people come into a relationship
with different philosophies on money.
Most people don't even know
what their philosophy on money is.
I wanna start by simplifying all
of their accounts and their credit cards.
Then I wanna get them on a plan
to pay that debt off.
Something where they go
"I can do this."
And that makes it so much easier
to keep moving forward.
I've been chatting about your book
with some of my friends.
Oh, cool.
I'm trying to figure out
how to describe you.
It would be easy
to call me a financial advisor,
but I go much deeper than that.
Nobody wants to sit around
and talk about money because
they think money is a negative thing.
I listen to what your rich life is,
I wanna know what you love
to spend money on.
Celebrate, let's start off
with something positive.
Some of us spend
on whatever's in front of us.
But most of us don't actually understand
why we treat money the way we do.
That's where money psychology comes in.
Money psychology is about
the way you grew up with money
and those invisible scripts
that you absorbed.
And once you can understand
your money psychology,
you can master it, and you can change it.
I help people earn money,
manage their money,
and master their money psychology.
People hit me up
on social media all the time
to ask their money questions.
And I recently got a message
from a young woman named Nicole,
who is worried about her
mother Nathalie's spending habits.
Okay, Nathalie.
Ah, first thing, right off the bat.
You see this logo? Chase Private Client.
That means that she's probably wealthy,
or comes from a wealthy family.
She has a $25,000 deposit
from a trust.
Okay, maybe she has a trust
that her family was a part of. We'll see.
Okay, this is pretty interesting.
So she started the month
with $4,000 in savings,
and by the end of the month,
she was left with $5.04.
Her spending seems crazy.
Nathalie has a hundred bucks
in her checking account,
and she just casually deposited $374,000.
That's a good month.
She withdrew $37,000,
as we all do on a given month.
And then withdrew $271,000.
She lives paycheck to paycheck.
Let's look at some of this spending.
Boy, there's a lot of expenses here. Okay.
You know, like this hotel in Europe, $700.
Let's see what else we got.
Let's take a look at her mortgage.
She's got $957,000 left on her mortgage.
She's paying about 5,000 bucks a month.
Okay.
Right now, the interesting thing
is that she gets these big cash infusions.
So I'm curious if she's the executor
of her family's estate,
or something like that.
I wanna know where
the money's coming from.
I came, I c c came to party ♪
Roll up in my Ferrari
I bring the baddest ♪
Rodeo Drive is fascinating.
We've all seen it in the movies.
It's the land of excess.
You have Rolls-Royces
and Bentleys everywhere.
You have some of the most
expensive clothing in the world.
And the people-watching
is absolutely amazing.
Oh, look at this.
What you guys filming, man?
You'll see it soon.
I doubt it.
- Nathalie?
- Hi, bonjour.
Hi, how are you?
- Welcome to Beverly Hills.
- Nice to meet you.
- Can I, uh, swing around?
- Please, come over.
Wow, all right.
Now this is a car.
- You like it?
- Oh, I love it.
So, we're here at Rodeo.
All I know is that
you wanted to meet here.
Why? Tell me.
Because this
is my favorite place.
I just love fashion.
Growing up in Paris,
I grew up with fashion.
I definitely spend a minimum
of a half a million a year in shopping.
I believe money's meant to be spent.
If I want to burn it, it's up to me,
but I don't think you can burn money.
It's illegal.
Okay, take it back. No burning money.
So, Nathalie,
where are we going right now?
We're out of Rodeo, I see.
Yes, so now we're going
to my dream project.
So, I opened a French rotisserie.
You had a restaurant or were building one?
No, no, I had it. I had it, it was open.
- Wow.
- It was I branded it.
I must say, I'm very proud of myself
because I went into a business,
like, blindfolded.
I knew nothing,
nothing about this business.
But I believed. I had a vision
that this business will have,
like, a line around the corner.
And it would have happened,
but COVID hit
Mmm.
and it put me upside down.
When you started this restaurant,
tell me about the finances behind it.
Were you thinking this will be
very profitable? How'd you think about it?
Uh, to me,
I saw this a billion-dollar company.
Why? Because it's not
about one restaurant.
I saw it as a franchising.
I saw Coco Queen
being everywhere in the world.
That billion-dollar comment
is a little bit of a red flag.
For 99.999% of people,
they are never gonna have
a billion-dollar restaurant.
So I'm starting to suspect
that she might be more of a dreamer
than someone who deals with the numbers.
How much money
do you think you put in?
I do know how much money,
let me tell you.
I thought I was going to put $250,000,
this was the budget.
And I was so busy building this,
that I didn't even see
how many checks I was writing.
Later, 1.5 million.
- From $250,000 to 1.5 million?
- Don't ask me how.
- Wait, of course I have to ask you how.
- Don't ask. I don't even know how.
- But that's six, seven times more.
- I know.
At 1.5 million, when did you realize,
"Uh-oh, this is in trouble"?
When I couldn't pay $40,000 overhead
every month anymore,
and I'm like,
"How much more can I get in the hole?"
- Yeah.
- You know?
I, like, basically
my house had no mortgage,
so I mortgaged my house
to do this venture.
But I didn't realize it
will cost me so much.
Oh wow! I don't believe,
they they colored the building!
- This one?
- That was my building.
- The blue one?
- It wasn't blue!
- They took it away!
- It's a beautiful building.
- They took off my sign.
- Great location.
It was amazing location.
I mean, when I grew up, we had no money.
My father was very rich.
My mother was very poor.
- Were they married or divorced?
- No, divorced.
So I grew up with my mother,
which was very poor.
So I saw two sides of life.
And I I knew, I remember,
I said, "I don't want to be poor."
And my mom's like, "Why? We have God,
we have food, and a roof over our head."
I said, "But life is not just about that."
I had dreams.
You know, of course,
money's not everything, everything,
- but money brings comfort.
- Mmm.
Did it change for you, comfort, when
From when you were young, until now?
- Yes, of course. I have more now.
- Mm-hmm.
But, uh I could have had way more
if I was more reasonable.
Reasonable?
- Yes, like if I didn't spend as much.
- Okay.
Now I'm starting to understand
why Nicole asked me to come in here.
Nathalie spends a lot of money,
but what's more troubling to me
is the way she doesn't really respect it.
Being knowledgeable about money,
being confident about money,
having a vision of a rich life.
All basic things
that I'm gonna create with Nathalie.
- Welcome to my house.
- Thank you.
Bienvenue.
As the French will say.
It's too early for me to tell
how sophisticated Nathalie is
with business,
but I do know her spending
has had an effect on her daughter.
- You must be Nicole.
- Hi. Yes, I'm Nicole.
Ramit. Nice to meet you.
I've seen my mom throw away
a lot of her money.
She'll really quickly and really easily
buy an expensive handbag
or a ton of clothing.
And then it was difficult for her
to pay for my college tuition.
We had a nice drive today
in your mom's second home, Rodeo Drive.
Sounds about right.
A lot of people come in and they say,
"Stop spending." That's the first thing.
And have you ever told your mom
that she should stop spending?
- All the time.
- Does it work?
No. Not at all.
She's gonna spend,
whether she has the money or it's tight.
She'll find a way to spend the money.
How much do you have in savings?
In savings right now, I don't
- I looked at your bank account.
- Yeah.
You have this much.
- What's that?
- Not five thousand, five dollars.
In the savings account.
So, where does your income come from now?
Uh, now it comes from child support.
- Child support.
- Yes.
And how much is that per month?
It's $25,000.
- $25,000? Okay.
- Yeah.
Okay, that makes sense.
And how much does it cost,
just to live for you, on a given month?
With this house, it costs a lot.
Probably like $15,000.
$15,000 just to keep the lights on?
Yeah. But I'm selling my house now.
- This house?
- Yes.
Okay, why now?
You know, it's very big for me,
and it's a lot, a lot of maintenance.
Okay. Your situation
is different than a lot of people's,
so, the usual advice doesn't apply to you.
But I have a feeling that deep down,
there is something you want to change.
- Right now, you have a great life.
- Yeah.
- It's a rich life for you today.
- Yes.
But you're so young.
So, what else?
There's got to be something more.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
Yes. I think I need a lot of help
with the business side,
to start it again
and do it right this time.
Because I know
the potential of this business.
And where will you get the money
to launch another restaurant from?
I don't know. I'll have to see.
What do you love more,
buying another dress,
or starting the restaurant?
Starting the restaurant,
I think, for sure.
- Really?
- Yeah, for sure.
Because the restaurant
will buy me a hundred dresses.
Now that's a good way to think about it.
I like that!
I don't think Nathalie
has ever thought of herself
as someone who doesn't have the money.
But she doesn't have the money
to start another restaurant.
She lives paycheck to paycheck!
Yeah, she's got a big paycheck,
but she's still spending
everything she makes.
If she wants
to make the restaurant a reality,
then she's gonna have to cut her spending
and put in the work to make sure
that this restaurant can thrive.
All right, I have
a bit of homework for you.
- Okay.
- It's easy. No numbers.
Homework.
- I want you to just start here.
- Okay, number one?
"Design Your Rich Life."
So if it's a restaurant, what does it
look like when you open the restaurant?
- How much does it cost?
- Yeah, that I don't know.
It's okay. I don't need you
to run a million financial models.
- I don't need that right now.
- Yeah.
But I do want you to be
more specific about the numbers.
- Okay.
- How's it sound?
- Sounds really good.
- I'll hand this to you.
Thank you.
It matches your outfit.
- Yes, it does.
- Yes.
She's a puzzle.
She has a shield around her.
It's almost like this impenetrable bubble.
And I don't want to pop it, not that.
What I do want is just to poke
a slight hole in it and connect with her.
I hope you listen to him.
This is a
- Honestly, this is a good opportunity.
- I agree.
- Don't blow it.
- Do not blow it, my darling.
Like all the money.
Pshh!
I've worked with people
like Nathalie in the past.
They make a lot of money,
and sometimes they think
that the usual problems
don't apply to them.
It turns out she receives
child support payments every month.
If that went away,
then it would be catastrophe for her.
Like, she's got nothing to fall back on.
I want Nathalie to have control
over her own financial future.
So here's my game plan.
I want to help her get
her spending under control.
Next, I want to talk more about
her restaurant business idea with her.
I think I can help, but it probably
won't be a billion-dollar restaurant.
And finally,
I want to change her money psychology.
This part's gonna be hard for Nathalie.
- See you soon. Thank you. Bye.
- Thank you. Have a good evening.
About to do the homework.
All right, so we got my pay,
plus Monique's pay.
Seven thousand a month
going into the checking account.
We've never done homework.
- Like homework as far as our financials.
- We've never done No.
I didn't even do homework in college.
I passed with my personality. Like, so
- You did.
- I did.
All right, this is our plan.
Hopefully you'll see
that we are pushing through, 'cause
we have goals.
So, we'll talk to y'all.
Hashtag bathroom fries.
So I started my homework.
It's very nice, this journal, actually,
so I put my name, my company name.
And, uh, I started designing my rich life.
I don't like doing homework,
I'm not gonna lie,
but, you know,
I got to make Ramit happy.
The idea to write in my journal
and creating my rich life
is exciting and motivating.
I mean, money motivates me.
Always has, will always do.
In a good way.
So you're on.
All right, "Fill in the blank."
Um, "How would you spend it
tonight in a rich life?"
- A thousand dollars.
- Oh, I would pay bills with it.
- I need it.
- Pay bills.
I would probably buy myself
some nice hiking gear.
Okay. What's next?
Um
- Relationship.
- Relationships?
I mean, it's part of the travel if I want
to start to build our relationship.
You don't spend money on our relationship,
unless it's all for you
My God!
- Like what? What do you want?
- Well, I mean
Traveling, for me,
is part of building our relationship,
and, like, growing a relationship.
- But
- That's why I spend the money I spend.
Honey, that's your love language.
Okay, what is your love language?
Absolutely nothing,
because you ain't bought me shit.
Because I take care of the kids
and if I spend your money you get pissed,
that's why.
I'm going to go if you're going to
go back to being an ass!
You know, I mean, we talked about
you being with the kids.
You can decide.
All right.
That's where we go
And we don't do it together.
Are you gonna go back
to being an ass to me on the show?
Just cancel the show.
Do we talk about it
Or do we dance around it? ♪
We both know what's up ♪
Keep doing what you're doing
Keep it moving ♪
Are you getting
The real measure of me? ♪