Do you trust each other when it comes to money? Not completely. When was an example where you lost financial trust?
She was like, I got to tell you something. And then she's like, I spent $5,000 on this coaching program. That for me was like, whoa.
I just like the floor dropped out. Like it hurt really bad. The next morning, I had an extreme panic attack and I thought that I was going to die in my sleep because I had made that decision. Like I know that this like tracking system is archaic and doesn't work.
You're at least not counting 20% of the stuff you're spending, which is why your savings account's dwindling, which is why you're going to be in a real financial problem in a matter of months.
God was very much like, this is not what I have for you. We saw the miracles that happened to bring us out of that. It's almost like, oh, it's okay if we're in debt.
Hope is not a financial strategy. God is not a financial strategy. We need to make a plan. Alex and Jackie live in North Dakota. He's 34, she's 33, and they are raising four children under the age of eight. Let's take a second to just acknowledge how amazing it is that they could find a few hours to spend with me today. In his application, Alex said this about Jackie: In 2024, she took us $15,000 into debt for a photography business course so we could make more money. It took 9 months and a lot of miracles to pay it off, and I've had a lot of trouble trusting her financially after that. Now, there are layers here. Today, you're going to hear how their faith shaped their money decisions. Sometimes as guidance, but other times as a crutch to avoid responsibility. And before we dive in, I want to hear from you in the comments. When was a time you lost trust with your partner over money? What happened? And did you ever get it back? Today, the question is whether they can stop repeating the same cycle and finally build a plan that they will both follow. I'm about to open Alex and Jackie's conscious spending plan, which breaks down their net worth, income, and where they spend their money. You can download and create your own CSP for free at iwt.com/csp.
Assets 300,000, investments 98,000, savings 16,000, debt 224,000, which leaves them with a net worth of 189,000. Their gross income is 91,000. But here's the real problem. Their fixed costs are 87%. That means that almost every dollar they earn is already spoken for before they ever get to savings, investment, or guilt-free spending. And with four young children, that is a very dangerous place to be. Can these two learn to trust each other and pull themselves out of this financial hole? Let's get into it right now. When I help people think about their rich lives, the main thing I often say is get more specific. People say, I want to travel more. Okay, this is your rich life. Get more specific. Are we talking about a month-long honeymoon to Europe? Are we going to Disneyland for 3 days? Are we going on a trip to Bhutan? Get more specific. When you're on vacation, who are you bringing? Where are you staying? Are you eating anything in particular? These are all examples of things that my students in my money coaching program have done as part of their rich lives. I want to share the specifics of how other people are spending their money in amazing ways and saving and investing so that you can finally get unstuck. In the program, you get access to a monthly money call where I dive into specific different topics like how to build your rich life, how to break down conscious spending plans, and then I answer your questions live. You also get access to the entire library of past calls, including how to spend money to create magical travel experiences, how to buy back your time, and how to find an extra $1,000 per month. We have tons of virtual events coming up every month in money coaching and you can join right now at iwt.com/moneycoaching. That's iwt.com/moneycoaching to instantly become a member right now.
Alex, in your application, you wrote something that really caught my eye. You wrote constant bickering about spending. Yeah. I track everything meticulously, but we still overspend and I blame Jackie. What's going on there?
I'm able to track things and meticulously organize things and have a lot of trouble with what to do with that and leading in a way that makes us both on the same team instead of me putting myself in this role where I feel like I have to be like a taskmaster or in charge or something.
I see. And what does it feel like to you to be in that role?
It feels like I'm a farmer running after like 20 chickens and nothing works and it just feels like loud chaos.
Who are the chickens in this example?
And in what ways, taking the metaphor and extending it, does it feel like you're chasing after her?
Yeah, I feel like I want and need reassurance of, hey, I'm committed to living within the means that we have right now. And I'm aware of where we're at each month and I care about that and I'm taking that into account as I make purchases.
Do you feel you have that reassurance or no?
Most of the time, no. Sometimes yes.
Okay, Jackie. Curious what your reaction to that is.
I feel sad because like there is some element here where I do feel like he is in control and not in the bad way. It's just I've managed my money in a way that it's like, you know, oh, Alex is the tracker. Alex is in charge. Alex is the one, you know, and I forget to text him sometimes, a lot of the times. And now we're at the point where we're not even texting.
What is texting? What does that have to do? Texting means what?
Yeah. So that's how we track our budget. So whenever we spend something, we text each other how much we spent. So if we're at the grocery store, we just checked out. It's like, okay, I spent $200 at the grocery store and we send it off.
What? Wait a minute. Hold on. What am I in the stone age right now? Can you just pull up your phone? I just want to see like what do the texts say? I know you haven't done it in a while. That's fine. Just go back to the last time you did. I want to see what some of them say. Okay, I live for this. All right, what do you got, Jackie?
$40 groceries, $37 groceries, $26 groceries, $21 Angelic Gardens, $162 Target groceries, $125 like bird curriculum for homeschool.
Bird? What? Oh, you homeschool your kids?
Okay. And you bought a curriculum for how much?
Okay. I notice you're avoiding eye contact as you say that. All right. How often do the two of you talk about money? And we can include these texts, but also talking via the text.
Mhm. And then talking about it. Gosh, I'd love to hear your perspective, too, Jackie.
But I think it's like it was almost every day some sort of comment or something.
Yeah. And then but like in terms of an actual sit-down full conversation about it, we were meeting weekly to talk about budget, vision for the family, homeschool, all the things every Friday, but then sometimes the kids would go down late and we wouldn't do that.
So that's impressive though. How long were those meetings that you used to have every Friday?
An hour to an hour and a half. And we weren't just talking money, we were talking beyond that, but money was a piece of it. It was big vision.
Yeah. Cool. Wow, that sounds great. Honestly, very rare and extremely impressive. Do you trust each other when it comes to money?
I trust that he is not going to spend anything. So, yeah. I mean, yeah.
I have a follow-up to that. Does not spending anything make you good at money?
No. No. It's horrible. No. I'm like, no. But I think that's what I can count on him for. I can count on him not to spend money.
Jackie, what can he count on you for?
To either not know what the budget is, to overspend and to not communicate about money.
Okay, that's pretty interesting. Alex, would you say that that is why you applied to speak to me today?
Yeah, definitely part of it. I definitely know that I've created an environment like I know that this like tracking system is archaic and doesn't work, right? That's why we stopped using it this month. Especially after filling out the conscious spending plan, it was very clear like why have I been wasting all this time? So everything that Jackie just said is part of it. But also I know that I'm 100% responsible and complicit in creating that environment in which she felt like that. Like if I was having kinder, gentler conversations with her, I'm sure it would have went differently. And so I just want to be able to be more compassionate about it and more responsible.
With the old system where Jackie, you would occasionally text the expenses that you had incurred like groceries, etc. You would text Alex and then what would happen next?
He would put them on our budget. He always updated the budget, especially before meetings if we were to have a meeting.
Alex, how often would you edit the budget?
Three or four times a week.
Three or four times a week. And how long would you say you spent per week on that budget?
Probably like an hour a week. Yeah.
Hour a week. And how long have you maintained that budget for?
Wow. Almost 10 years. Do you have it? Can I look at it?
Oh, throw it up. Love a good budget. Okay. Whoa. Hold on. Let me just describe what I see. Okay. This just popped up on my screen. I got to look. So, first of all, I see a lot of numbers. A lot. I see all categories. There are from row seven, which is mortgage. Let's scroll down a bit. Tithe, Zoom. Zoom is a category, by the way, for $17, $18 a month. I do see a lot of colors. So, I see gray, red, and green. I can tell that some of them are just standard automated like Spotify doesn't change. Gym membership appears to be pretty much the same. But then we have these spiky ones which are in red and green like groceries and gifts which cycle red to green. Am I reading this right, Alex?
All right. Are there any other sheets on this? I'm very suspicious. Where's the rest of this stuff on here?
Oh, god. Savings and investing is another row and then there's like scroll down. What is all this?
This is random stuff to remember. So like if this category says kids activities/Jackie business, if any category was like really high, I put like the large purchases here to remember why it was like that.
This is crazy. All right, hold on before we go on. I just want to say I knew it. I knew that it looked too simple. I was like, 10 year budget. This is like pretty simple. Where's the rest? And then we scroll down. There's all these weird notes. And what's on the right? I'm seeing some more numbers.
Sums. So totals. And then so then the goal was here's a budget of what we were trying to hit every month and did not hit ever. And so it was red if it didn't fall within what we had thought it should and green if it did.
I love tracking something for an entire decade that I never actually win at. Really motivates me.
So, what did you do differently after spending an hour a week for 520 weeks of this budget?
We would have conversations about things and try to make adjustments. So, if groceries were really over, we would say, hey, how could we meal plan to do something different next month? Getting actual results from doing that was very hard for us.
Jackie, what's your take on this budget?
Yeah, just to go back to what Alex said, even we meal planned in order to cope with the budget so that next month would be better and the month it was higher.
It was higher. Our systems are broken. The system you build is supposed to guide you, not make you feel overwhelmed and lost. But that's exactly what happened here. I don't think Alex is trying to control Jackie. He's trying to control chaos through a spreadsheet. 10 years of budgets, over 500 hours, and they still feel like they're drowning. Do you see why I hate budgets? How many people have come on this show totally overwhelmed by their financial situation and yet they are meticulously tracking every freaking number and I go, what's the point of this? And it's like they look up, they are visually startled. I don't know. I'm not sure. Why do you do it? I don't know. You do it cuz you crave control. And it's easier to control cell D46 than to actually zoom out and look at the real problem. And I am begging you, put your stupid spreadsheets away. This is exactly why I created the conscious spending plan. Tracking every little tiny detail does nothing for you. It feels good. I got to say this. I'm going to get in trouble from a lot of workout people. I don't give a... It's like people who go to these workout classes and they're like, oh, I feel so good. I'm sweating. Okay, you might be sweating. I could make you sweat right now. Put you in a freaking airport at 72 degrees and walk around with your heavy backpack. You're sweating. That doesn't mean it's a good workout. It's the same thing with the way you manage your money. Just cuz you're tracking 5,000 numbers does not mean you're actually getting ahead. You might feel like you are, but I'm less interested in your feelings sometimes and more interested in objective progress. Hold on. Now I'm sweating. Oh, such a good workout, everybody. Ramit Sethi sweating in his office. It's not a workout. Budgeting is backwards looking. Here's what you spent on Brussels sprouts. Look into my eyes. I do not care. The CSP says, here's what we care about. Here is where our next $100 is going to be allocated. If your system is just making you anxious and guilty and resentful, it's probably time to change the system. Now, I want to hear about why this behavior even started in the first place.
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How long have the two of you been married?
It'll be 11 years in a couple days.
Cool. Congrats. That's awesome. So, before kids, did you like text each other expenses?
No. So, we didn't do that. I don't know. Do you remember, Jackie, when we started that?
That was the last couple years, I think. I didn't know how much money... I've never known. Like, I don't think I knew how much money we had in our budget during that time.
You didn't talk about money in the beginning?
Okay. What was the first time you substantively talked about family finances?
The first time I remember was... So, let's see. We got married in 2014. 2015. I quit my job and I was the sole provider from a financial standpoint and we were a couple hundred away from running out of money completely.
And I was looking at our account on my phone and we were in bed and I turned over to Jackie and said, our rent's due in, I don't remember, 15 days. We have $300. What are we going to do? And she looked at me and she laughed and said, well, there's nothing we can do except for go apply for jobs and go make some money. And the next day she applied for a bunch of jobs and got five job offers and then got a job at a coffee shop and started making money like that week.
Wow. What do you make of that, Alex? What do you make of Jackie's response and her reaction?
Man, she just doesn't have the stress that I have and the need for control that I have. And I admire that freedom and secretly wish that I could be like that. But I also don't see how if both of us were like that, how it would work.
What about you, Jackie? Hearing that story, reflecting back, what do you notice about your reaction?
I haven't been a steward of my finances and like having goals are just like my financial goals have just been kind of pie in the sky dreams and haven't been like, you know, intangible reality being able to be measured.
Okay, that's interesting. My reaction is a little different. Like, okay, I'm sure what you're saying both of you is true, but from that specific story, the fact that Alex, you were like, hey, we're running out of money. I don't know how we're going to pay rent. And Jackie's like, all right, well, we got to find a job. I'll go. And then she goes out and gets one tomorrow. To me, that is a sign of somebody who's pretty resourceful. And I think especially when you're married, you want to know that you can count on your partner. They are going to step up and know what needs to be done and just do it. And to me that is a great example of a resourceful partner.
Absolutely. I really admire that about her and really that story actually makes me happy. Like I feel really good hearing that story.
Yeah. Okay. Alex, when was an example where you lost financial trust in Jackie?
Yep. So, a couple years ago, she had some entrepreneurial dreams. And so, she signed up for a coaching program for a third of what we had in savings. So, it was $5,000 and signed up for that while I was at work. And then I came home, drove, pulled in the garage, got out of the car, and she was like, I got to tell you something. And then she's like, I spent five... I don't remember if it was five or six or something, $1,000 on this coaching program, you know, and I don't remember what you said after that, but that for me was like, whoa.
How did you feel when you heard that?
Yeah. Just like the floor dropped out like, whoa, I didn't know you could do that. Like I didn't know you could do that.
That's cool. Or something else?
Like basically like it hurt really bad.
Yeah. Did you ever use that word and tell Jackie that before?
Now I'm not sure. Yeah, I think I got... Yeah, I definitely got that. The next morning I had an extreme panic attack and I thought that I was going to die in my sleep because I had made that decision.
Mhm. Yeah. What happened next?
I was upset and emotionally affected by that for a while. For months, I think.
Did you ever ask her to cancel the coaching program?
I said no. I said I couldn't cuz I was so depressed. I was, you know, we had had three children at the time. We lived far away from around the middle of nowhere. You know, all my friends were really new, but I just felt so depressed, so without direction, so not able to function as a human being. And I needed someone who, you know, was outside of it all to give me just a broader perspective.
So when you told him, I can't cancel it, were you saying, I can't cancel it because I need this coaching program right now, or, I can't cancel it cuz it's literally not cancelable?
I can't cancel it because I need this right now.
Okay. Alex, did you understand that at the time?
No. I thought it was not cancelable as in like no refunds, can't cancel it.
Did you just learn that just now?
That was the clearest I've ever heard it said. And I actually don't think she's wrong about that. Like it ended up being a really good thing for us because aside from the trust piece of it, it ended up being a good thing for us because we had to have more conversations that were hard. And I think that was a good thing.
I don't think he knew at the time how deeply depressed I was. I don't even think I knew.
Did the coaching program work?
I mean, I signed up for it in order for our finances, but what I got was just that like Jesus loves me. I don't even know how to explain it, but like my coach was more spiritual and it was exactly what I needed for the whole year.
What type of course? What type of coaching was it?
Okay. So, and like when you say I originally signed up for our finances. What do you mean by that?
One of the goals that they had you fill out on the intake form was what's your goal? And I was like, oh, I want to be able to make $40,000 this year. That way I can contribute to our family. Alex doesn't have to stress anymore, you know, about money. I don't have to stress anymore about money. And I can become a new person, you know.
Okay. That's interesting. And since then, just to stick on the earnings part of it, that was several years ago. Have you earned $40,000 a year?
Okay. I understand that programs and coaching can often work in unexpected ways. Like I've had people join my Earnable business program and then they realize like I actually don't want to start a business. I actually find that really valuable. You know, better to know that now, spend a few thousand bucks than to go down two years of heartache. But I also think you got to be able to afford these things. And you certainly have to be able to talk to a partner about a $5,000 purchase. There are two key things here that I want to address. First, did you catch when Jackie said she was depressed? I really paid very close attention to that. We throw that word around a lot. I'm so depressed. But real depression is extremely serious. Jackie said she felt like she could not function, isolated, lost. And instead of talking about it, she signed up for a $5,000 coaching program and then she told Alex after the money was gone. If you are listening and you've felt like that, like you're drowning, directionless, like you have no energy to do anything, then I would highly encourage you to talk to a therapist, get the support you need before the damage becomes even harder to undo. Now, I want to talk about that $5,000 course. Jackie admits that she spent the money because she felt lost. However, she was able to do that because she and Alex did not have an agreed upon number that either of them could spend without discussion. And it also feels like a little act of rebellion by Jackie, too. Oh, you want me to text you every time I spend money? You need to have control. Well, take this. Nobody wants to live their entire life asking permission, especially not from their spouse. There is a simple fix here. Set up a clear spending threshold. If you are below that number at the end of the month, amazing. If you are above that number, well, first of all, don't get above it. But if you do, then it is your responsibility to bring it up and come up with a plan going forward and if necessary discuss why you might want to adjust that number overall. The point is you have to start somewhere more nuanced than simply spend as little as possible.
If I say the word money, how do both of you feel about it? Jackie, in this moment?
You feel sad about money. How come?
Because I don't have enough to give and live the life that I want to live. It's hard. It's a point of contention in me and it's been a point of contention in me for, I mean, essentially since that time where I decided like I was going to try to like hustle and like, you know, and just also being super dishonest about what I wanted to do. You know, it's like I wanted to... I mean, my dream job, right, is to be a songwriter. And yet when I put all of my energy into photography, it was not fulfilling at all.
Yeah. Yeah. I hear that there's like a sorrow in looking at some of the choices that we made. Sometimes the results that they got us, sometimes that we made a choice out of fear instead of what we really wanted to do. I can understand why even bringing up the word money can make you instantly sad. Okay, Alex, how about you? When I say the word money, how do you feel?
Like dizzy. Dizzy and confused and conflicted. Feel like I should want to make a ton more money or care about money a lot, but my emotions don't match that. Like my emotions feel kind of resigned.
Oh, resigned. That's interesting. I wouldn't have expected you to say that. I would have expected the opposite. I would have thought you would have said, I feel like I shouldn't care about money, but I actually do. And I say that because your behavior of tracking money for a decade kind of communicates that. It's very hard for people to spend an hour a week for a long time on something they don't really care about. What do you make of that?
Yeah, I'm open to that for sure. It feels like that I liked the system though and not the money piece of it. That I like just fiddling around with like systems, if you can even call that a system.
It's a hobby. Yeah, I think I understand a bit. Let's take a look at the CSP. Jackie, I would like you to read the word in bold and then the full number next to it for this entire box, please.
Okay, we have assets $300,000, investments $98,358, savings $16,000, and debt $224,953. Total net worth is $189,405.
Okay. What do you think about those numbers, Jackie?
There's regret tied into it. I still think there's a lot of regret tied into these numbers. So that's how I feel.
Just, you know, our first decisions like me not getting a job right away.
You feel like it could be more had you done that?
Okay. All right. Alex, how do you feel about those numbers?
Unsure. Just unsure of whether they're good, bad, what, like how it matters.
Yeah. You know, I really appreciate the honesty in your answers because I think what you both just told me is actually how pretty much 99% of Americans feel about their numbers. First of all, they don't even know what their net worth numbers are. These are four numbers: assets, investments, savings, and debt. You just add them all up. Make sure you subtract the debt, and you have your total net worth. The vast majority of people have never done this. So, that's part one. Part two is all right. What the hell does this mean? We need to turn money into meaning. Just seeing a number whether it's negative 52,000, 189,000 or 1.8 million, what does it mean? We are not taught to think about that. And so we just sort of ignore it like the way Jackie did. You know, your first word was about regret. You kind of went back into this story. I'm like, let's talk about the numbers. But numbers are just numbers to us. They actually don't really change the way we feel unless we are trained on how to think and feel about them. Okay. All right. Let's keep going here. Let's talk about income. Alex, can you give me the combined gross monthly income, please?
All right. So, the household income, which I think is your income exclusively, right, Alex? Okay. At this point, yes. $91,968 per year. And then let's go down to big number on this fixed cost. What's that number?
All right. So 87% of your take-home pay is spent on fixed costs. That's it. That's the ball game. When you're at 87%, I never even need to meet you. I can already tell you're stressed out about money. So let's take a look at the rest of the CSP and see how it plays out. Investments are at 2%. That's $90 a month in post-tax with a 401k contribution of $460 per month. All right. Savings at zero. And your savings amount in the bank is 16,000 which is about 3 months of expenses roughly. Okay. Three months of fixed cost. And then finally down to guilt-free spending. We are at 11% or $651 a month. Is that number true?
It's not. We're spending way more than that.
Exactly. Okay. That's what I thought. So then if we go back up, you're in debt. So I want to ask about the quality of that debt. What is this $224,000 in debt? Break it down for me.
Yep. Everything in that is the mortgage except for we owe $5,000 on our car.
No. To a family member who loaned us money with no interest for the car.
Oh, yeah. No credit card debt. Oh, so you... Hold on. You're telling me you spend way more than $651 a month. Where's the money come from?
Our savings. It just goes down every month.
Ah, you're drawing from your savings like each month.
What did your savings used to be at the peak?
At the peak, right before we bought our house, we had 35,000 in there.
Mhm. How long until you run out of savings?
Right. I haven't run that calculation, but it would eventually... Yeah, a couple years, maybe sooner.
Yeah. Jackie, what do you think about this?
I feel like my attitude is the same as that time. It's like, okay, well, let's go make money. You know, like I'm like, okay, well, let's be resourceful. Okay, well, what are we doing? Like that's why we're having meetings so that we can, you know, really get a bigger vision.
With Alex and Jackie, you can see the pattern. They are reactive instead of proactive. Their fixed costs are too high. Their savings are shrinking every month. And when things go wrong, they retreat into spreadsheets and meetings. It's all so dreary. What they really need is a system to get them off the hamster wheel. And if you are in the same spot, if you're tracking every dollar, you're having endless money talks that just feel so negative and nothing's really changing, you don't have to figure it out alone. I cover exactly how to build a real system inside our money coaching program. You can sign up at iwt.com/moneycoaching.
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Right now you make 91,000 bucks and you are spending more than you make every month. Let's say you made $150,000 a year. Would it change the financial dynamics that we see here?
We would have guilt-free spending with groceries. I feel like every month there's this expectation that it's less than, you know, 1,400 or 1,300, however much, you know, there's that threshold. And it's just not like it really is just around that number each month. Okay. And you know, so that wouldn't be that much. But then we would have the freedom to, you know, redo some of the parts of the house that really stress us out and, you know, that like feel like everything would be organized in a better way. And I feel like right now things are just disorganized because we have this mindset that we don't have enough money.
Wait a minute. Hold on. I asked, if you make 150K, would it change? You were like, absolutely, yes. I was like, how? And then you proceeded to tell me all the ways that you would spend more money. We would spend more on groceries. You would spend more on home renovations. And like, by the way, things would somehow be organized somehow, some way. Isn't this the problem? If they're not organized at 91, how are they going to magically be organized at 150?
Well, I guess we could set a higher savings budget, I guess.
Let's take a look. Net income or take-home pay after taxes and pre-tax withdrawal is $5,692 a month. Your mortgage is $1,567. Your car payment is $370. Okay. Debt zero. Kind of interesting though. Even though you have $5,000 owed to family, you're not making payments on that, right?
Oh, I put that in the wrong category then. So 200 a month is going towards that and then from that 370. So then 170 is gas. I wasn't sure where to put all that stuff.
All right, that's... Let me just fix it. All right, fine. That's fine. Groceries at $1,550 a month. Okay. Clothes at 100, phone at 148, tithing at $569 a month, and subscriptions at $123 a month. What do you all think about those fixed costs?
Groceries sticks out to me as being really high. We have four kids, but still it feels pretty high.
I mean groceries is as much as our mortgage.
Yeah, that's true. Groceries and your mortgage are the same. Yeah. What else? Like if you just zoom out, how do you feel about this? The overall way that you are spending your fixed costs.
Well, I don't like the result.
Because of the tension that it's creating in our marriage.
Uh-huh. You had mentioned earlier, you know, we could save more. It's kind of unclear to me where you would get the money to save more, right?
I think that's where it was like, oh, if we made 150K, we would have more to save more.
Yeah, I think that's probably true. You would probably be able to save a little bit more, but my guess is you would end up spending just as much. Yeah. Do you have a list of things, Jackie, that you want to buy when you're financially able to?
Yeah. I think it would be just a lot more giving, like being able to maybe even open up a storefront or like even I mean something small is like, you know, having the money to record music and...
Yeah. Alex, do you have a similar list?
Not really. Yeah, not really.
That's exactly what I suspected. Alex doesn't have a list because he doesn't dream. He's just a mechanic. He's a money mechanic. Just turning the wrench. But it's an interesting... You know, some people are like, I want to be able to take this type of vacation. Didn't hear that from you, Jackie. I did hear, I want to be able to give more. That's interesting. And maybe I want to be able to spend some on my hobbies, songwriting, things like that. Interesting. What happens in the guilt-free spending? It says $600 and something dollars, $651. What do you all spend each month on discretionary purchases?
Curriculum, homeschool curriculum, kids' extracurricular activities, whether that's like homeschool PE or, you know, co-ops or music or swim lessons.
Is there a limit on how much you spend for kids?
No limit. But there's a limit on a lot of other stuff, huh?
Oh, like did we assign a limit?
Yes, but it's arbitrary because we don't follow it.
That's okay. That's common. But just the idea of like, can you imagine saying no to something for kids, something that they really want or that you think they really need for financial reasons?
You would, Jackie? Would you?
I mean, no. It's been... I think we've talked about, you know, music is a very big expense and I don't know, Alex, where that falls. Where does that fall like in the budget?
Yeah, on our system, kids activities.
Throw that up, Alex. Let's just look at that for a second again. Yeah. Let's look at the single source of truth for the last 10 years. This will be good. Quite an interesting swing here. Some months it's $1,000, other months it's $120. So, if I had to guess, I'm guessing this is like an average of 600 bucks a month just for kids activities. All right, hold on. Hold on a second. Miscellaneous. Holy. $398 in a month. $49. $978.94. What's miscellaneous? I mean, let's look at the footnotes. That's great. These are actually coming in useful even though I made fun of them for like 10 minutes straight. Yeah. Oh, we bought a new couch. A used couch. Garden stuff. Hotel for... Oh, for kids activities. Keep going. The miscellaneous. What else you all spending on miscellaneous?
Homeschool curriculum, plants for the yard.
Yep. Dodgers game. Zoo membership. Okay, these are all like normal family expenses. I get it. But what I notice is there is no strategy. It's just random stuff. And when you're making, you know, a good income, $91,000, those things do add up. They really add up cuz we're not talking about one or two things. We're talking about like every month there's at least $1,000 of expenses that are not accounted for here. And your take-home pay is 5,600 bucks per month. You're at least not counting 20% of the stuff you're spending, which is why your savings account's dwindling, which is why you're going to be in a real financial problem in a matter of months, Jackie.
Oh, no. I don't know. I... See, I don't like that this excites me. I don't like that this excites me. Why does this excite me? Because then I'm like, now we have to go do something. Whereas like Alex, you know, I think that, you know, it's hard when I want to make more money and you don't care about money because I feel like I can't care about money, but I do care about money, but then I work at home and I'm like, I, you know, I stay at home. I don't work at home. I stay at home. But it's like, should I be working? And then it's like, well, I don't want to work, so I want to be with the kids. I don't know. It's just so... That was interesting. Sorry. Sorry. I kind of went on a rant.
Does that happen a lot? This kind of spinning about money or is it only now that we're looking at it?
Now that we're looking at it.
Alex, have you ever wanted Jackie to look at the budget that you kept?
Sometimes she'll look at it and sometimes I can't even think about it, which is kind of sad. I actually don't even know. It hasn't resulted in us really looking at it closely.
Jackie, what did you do when he asked you to look at it?
The last time I was willing to download the app so that I can see how much money we have in our bank account before I spend.
Like how much you have in your checking account, right?
Yeah. Okay. So, what did that tell you? Like it's 200 or 4,000. Like what does that tell you?
