Money Talks: Navigating Uncomfortable Conversations with Loved Ones

00:00:00.000 | Prenups are one of the biggest remaining taboos I feel when it comes to money conversations,

00:00:06.480 | because to just say the word, like people like, "Cursed. How dare you get a prenup?

00:00:11.600 | Your marriage is going to fail. You do not trust and love your spouse if you want a prenup."

00:00:16.880 | All right. Here's my multi-prong attack on people who are currently listening to this

00:00:22.080 | and feeling that way. First and foremost, as my prenup attorney said to me, because yes,

00:00:27.200 | I do indeed have a prenup, is that everyone has a prenup. It's just the default laws of your state.

00:00:33.120 | What a great reframe. So technically there is a prenup in place for you if you didn't get one

00:00:39.440 | yourself, and it's just based on how your state would divide assets in the case of a divorce.

00:00:44.000 | All right. Fair enough. You should look at those state laws prior to getting married to see if

00:00:51.520 | that feels fair to you and the ecosystem of your relationship. And if it doesn't,

00:00:56.240 | you should get a prenup. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:00:59.840 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm so excited

00:01:04.080 | you're here today. Now, as much as we think about money often being like math, turns out money is

00:01:09.440 | often a lot more emotional and about relationships and the mindset you're in and not the actual

00:01:16.080 | dollars and cents. And if that doesn't sound right to you, then definitely go back and listen to my

00:01:20.320 | episode a few weeks ago with Ramit Sethi, or check out his podcast or his Netflix show, and I am

00:01:24.720 | confident it will change your mind. So if money is a lot more emotional than rational, how do you

00:01:29.600 | make sense of it? Well, that is one of the skills of my guest today, Erin Lowry. She calls herself

00:01:34.720 | a financial translator, and she's the writer behind Broke Millennial, the website, and the

00:01:39.200 | book series. She's written and spoken on personal finance issues for more than a decade and focuses

00:01:44.800 | a lot of her effort on helping people have productive and healthy conversations about

00:01:49.040 | money issues with others. Whether it's among friends, parents, or other family members,

00:01:53.840 | or even romantic partners. Now, I know I first read her work many years before starting this

00:01:59.280 | podcast, probably when I was trying to figure out how to stop being a broke millennial myself.

00:02:03.680 | And I've wanted to invite Erin on the show for a while, but I wasn't quite sure what the right

00:02:07.760 | topic would be. Then I was reading her most recent book, Broke Millennial Talks Money,

00:02:12.960 | Scripts, Stories, and Advice to Navigate Awkward Financial Conversations. And I got to chapter

00:02:17.760 | seven and it clicked. The chapter was titled, How to Ask Your Parents if You Need to Take Care of

00:02:22.800 | Them Financially. As soon as I read it, I thought, "Hmm, I haven't had that conversation." And I'm

00:02:27.680 | guessing most other people haven't either. So today we're going to talk about why it is important to

00:02:32.240 | have that conversation with your parents, how to actually have the conversation with some specific

00:02:36.720 | scripts you can use, and what to do next after you have the conversation, depending on how it goes.

00:02:41.680 | But I also want to spend time on a few other topics Erin's an expert on. So we're going to

00:02:45.840 | spend a little bit of time on engagement rings, prenups, and post-nups, how to talk about money

00:02:50.400 | with friends, lending money to others, and a lot more. So let's get into it right after this.

00:02:55.600 | Erin, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

00:03:04.240 | Wonderful to be here.

00:03:05.120 | Yeah. So can you start by just telling people why having this kind of a conversation with

00:03:10.480 | your parents is so important? Well, you know, it's funny that you

00:03:13.840 | mentioned the title of chapter seven in the intro because it's much gentler than what I

00:03:18.640 | really wanted to say. And my greater point here is, are you your parents' retirement plan?

00:03:24.800 | That is really the question that all of us need to get the answer to.

00:03:28.720 | And my editor didn't totally love that strong of language, which I understand,

00:03:34.480 | but that's the critical question for a lot of us is how are your parents doing financially for one?

00:03:42.240 | Two, will they be able to comfortably retire and live out their days with some form of dignity?

00:03:49.440 | And most of us don't want to ask that question. And most of our parents don't want to give us

00:03:55.360 | the answer. Even if the answer is yes, even if it's we're great, we're flush with cash,

00:03:59.600 | they might not feel comfortable talking to you about it, particularly because it can feel like

00:04:04.640 | you're parenting your parent, which is a very delicate balance to be walking. But the big thing

00:04:11.040 | is if you don't have the conversation, what's going to probably happen is at some point there

00:04:16.800 | will be an inciting incident, whether it's a healthcare situation or job loss for your parent

00:04:22.800 | or some sort of disability that happens. And then it will become very apparent whether or not they

00:04:27.600 | can financially support themselves and whether or not you need to step in. And if you don't have

00:04:31.920 | that information and you haven't been laying the financial foundation yourself to do that,

00:04:36.880 | are you able to step in? Do you have the financial freedom to do so, especially if

00:04:41.200 | you've gotten married? Maybe you have kids. Maybe you have an expensive house. Maybe you

00:04:45.680 | have something else that's going on in your life. So that's why we need to talk about it early.

00:04:50.320 | Is it common for people to have to support their parents towards the end of their life?

00:04:57.680 | The thing for you to know is that it's not uncommon. In 2021, which is latest figures

00:05:04.080 | from AARP, $600 billion of unpaid contributions for caregivers. And that's 38 million caregivers

00:05:12.000 | providing an average of 18 hours of care per week, which sounds kind of crazy.

00:05:18.320 | That's how much was unpaid, meaning there was not enough money. Okay.

00:05:21.760 | Not only that there's not enough money, the bigger thing is to think that like that's

00:05:26.560 | 38 million people are stepping in to care for their parents and they are not receiving any

00:05:31.120 | financial compensation for that. So you are doing effectively a job for free in terms of caring for

00:05:39.840 | your parents. And I'm not saying you shouldn't, I mean, a lot of us would step in and care for

00:05:45.760 | our aging parents, but the problem is, can you balance that in with working your job,

00:05:51.520 | taking care of your children, living your life? Do you have the time, the energy and the finances

00:05:57.120 | to be able to balance all of that? Because for some of us, our parents are going to require a

00:06:01.120 | level of care that is not tenable for holding down a full-time job in addition to caring for

00:06:06.240 | our parents. Some of our parents are going to have to have some sort of in-home aid,

00:06:11.280 | or they're going to have to go into a nursing home that can provide stability for them that

00:06:15.120 | we just frankly can't. And the average cost of nursing homes right now in the United States is

00:06:21.120 | about $8,000, depending on what you're looking into needing. Do your parents have that kind

00:06:26.560 | of money to cover that? Do you have that kind of money to cover that? That's a huge sum.

00:06:31.040 | Yeah, and that's monthly plus all of the other expenses, you know, cable bill and all those

00:06:36.640 | kinds of things I assume. Maybe nursing homes include your cable bill, but I am sure there

00:06:40.240 | are other costs per month than that one fee. And that most people over the age of 65,

00:06:46.400 | the majority of people will experience some form of disability at some point.

00:06:50.800 | For some, it'll be short term. It could be that you had shoulder surgery and you needed help for

00:06:55.840 | six weeks afterwards. It could be that you're going through chemotherapy and you need help,

00:07:00.160 | or it could be something long term has happened and you no longer are physically able to do

00:07:05.280 | something, or you've just aged into a place where you no longer are physically able to

00:07:09.200 | handle things yourself. And we're talking about all of the extra costs that might come from

00:07:13.440 | medical issues or disabilities, but there's also just the cost to live, right? If your parents

00:07:19.040 | haven't saved enough for retirement, just rent, food, bills, that kind of stuff, like someone is

00:07:23.760 | going to have to pay them. And if there's not a plan in place, I imagine, you know, I guess any

00:07:28.720 | child could say no, but I imagine the common answer is to try to help out given, you know,

00:07:35.040 | your parents more often than not were the ones that helped you out for so many years.

00:07:38.880 | So it sounds like you're probably going to take on that burden. Are there programs if you find out

00:07:44.240 | your parents don't have any money that can help them out? There can be. A lot of this varies,

00:07:50.080 | speaking specifically to the United States, varies by state. You know, there is Medicaid

00:07:55.120 | that might be able to step in, particularly if you're looking at needing some sort of aid or

00:07:59.280 | long-term health aid or, you know, moving into a nursing home perhaps, but that also means that

00:08:05.120 | they have more or less exhausted all of their own financial resources first. So they have to be in

00:08:10.400 | a very specific position in order to even be eligible for that. And there are a lot of people,

00:08:16.000 | especially if your parents have any sort of pension plan, which our parents might be kind

00:08:20.640 | of the last cohort that had access to a pension. That pension might not really be enough for them

00:08:26.320 | to live on month to month, but it might be just too much for them to qualify for Medicaid.

00:08:32.400 | So that's the other part of this. It gets very tricky as they might have just enough to be

00:08:38.160 | ineligible for the thing that would help them. Therefore, you are also going to need to step in

00:08:42.480 | to provide some sort of support. And you're right to also think about the fact that a lot of what

00:08:48.720 | I'm talking about right now is the doom and gloom and scare tactics of like people are going to get

00:08:52.560 | sick. People are going to physically be unable to do things. And that is true, but maybe your

00:08:57.680 | parents are in excellent health, both physically and mentally, and they're going, you know,

00:09:02.160 | you look at your family lineage and people have lived well into their nineties. And what if your

00:09:07.520 | parent retired at 65 thinking that they were going to have enough? Maybe they at the time did,

00:09:14.400 | perhaps they mismanaged money a little bit. Perhaps they hadn't diversified their investments

00:09:19.040 | enough and took too hard of a hit at a particular time at a vulnerable time at the stock market.

00:09:23.840 | Whatever it is, things happen. Maybe one spouse predeceases the other, and that person gets into

00:09:31.040 | a relationship with somebody who drains their bank account in a particular way. So many things can

00:09:36.400 | happen that can involve then adult children needing to step in and financially support.

00:09:42.800 | Often, some people, you might think it would be hundreds of dollars a month. For some people,

00:09:47.520 | it's going to be thousands of dollars a month. And you need to know whether or not your budget

00:09:52.720 | could actually support that. And we need to be having these conversations very early.

00:09:57.120 | Yeah. I mean, we're already talking about a little bit of the what to do. So let's back up.

00:10:00.720 | And first, you know, I want to talk about how to even have the conversation,

00:10:04.720 | but I'm curious. Is there even data out there about how many people have had this conversation?

00:10:08.800 | How uncommon is it for people to have this conversation?

00:10:12.080 | I don't have a solid data point. All I can say is anecdotally, I don't know very many people

00:10:17.840 | personally. I'd be curious if you know very many people personally who have had this conversation.

00:10:22.640 | I've had it with my parents and my in-laws. I don't know anyone else who has, quite frankly.

00:10:29.680 | Well, hopefully everyone that's read the book has had it.

00:10:32.800 | You know, my first reaction, funny enough, was I read that chapter title. I was like,

00:10:36.240 | "Should I have the conversation or should I do the episode?" And then I was like, "Oh, once I do the

00:10:42.000 | episode, I could just send the episode." And be like, "Hey, take a listen to this. Tell me what

00:10:45.760 | you think." But I know you were saying that even if you have advice, even if you have a financial

00:10:50.400 | advisor, you might not be having this conversation. It's like such a rare thing for even the people

00:10:55.440 | that you pay to help you plan to talk about. So that to me, I was doing research on this

00:11:00.240 | actually just about 6 months ago. And I came across a survey that had done... MIT Age Lab

00:11:07.120 | had come out with this survey. And one, tying into all the doom and gloom that I was bringing

00:11:12.640 | up in the beginning, it's so important because according to this survey, 51.2% of folks who

00:11:21.440 | ended up providing care, they themselves did not financially prepare for the cost of caregiving.

00:11:27.360 | So more than half of people just do not prepare for the potential financial burden. I hate calling

00:11:33.760 | our parents burdens. That's not really what I'm saying, but this can be a financial burden.

00:11:37.520 | But the other big part is of those folks who did have financial advisors, about 41% of them

00:11:46.880 | never brought it up with the financial advisor, never mentioned that they needed to provide care

00:11:51.520 | for the parents, didn't talk about the fact that that needed to be part of their financial plan.

00:11:56.320 | So anyone who's listening to this, who is a financial advisor, my big push in that arena is,

00:12:01.520 | are you asking your clients, both your aging clients with adult children and your younger

00:12:06.160 | clients who might have aging parents, have you talked? Have you shared this information with

00:12:11.840 | each other? Encouraging them to try to open up a dialogue because it is especially for millennial

00:12:18.800 | and Gen X clients. I mean, Gen X is in the sandwich generation. They're already getting

00:12:23.200 | the squeeze of aging parents and raising children, but millennials, we're getting into our forties.

00:12:29.280 | We are rapidly heading to the point of aging parents and young children that we're trying

00:12:35.600 | to raise and feeling the squeeze from both sides. So if you are in the position that you already

00:12:39.920 | have a financial advisor, have you spoken about this potential with them? Is your financial plan

00:12:45.520 | set up to account for that possibility? Just as you were saying this, I was just thinking to

00:12:51.680 | a handful of studies that show that people with lots of money live paycheck to paycheck and that

00:12:55.760 | people who drive nice cars, people who do... I've seen this as a financial planner in the past,

00:13:00.320 | the lifestyle you live is not always correlated to the money you have.

00:13:05.120 | And so one other point that makes me think this conversation is even more important

00:13:10.400 | is that just because your parents might be living like they have their whole financial

00:13:14.160 | lives figured out does not mean that they have their whole financial lives figured out.

00:13:18.240 | And as much as I often think of my peers as the ones who would be maybe spending above their

00:13:24.480 | means and in our minds, we often think our parents, they have it all figured out, they raised us.

00:13:29.200 | I would imagine that if you looked into the financial situation of people approaching or

00:13:35.200 | living in retirement, there would probably be very similar themes to what you see in all other

00:13:39.840 | demographics across the country of people who are spending more than they should or more than they

00:13:44.160 | can, and maybe not managing everything properly. And also think about all the financial vulnerability

00:13:50.240 | points there for folks who are aging into retirement, where perhaps your parent rated

00:13:55.920 | their own retirement account to send you to college, or perhaps you got married and your

00:14:01.680 | parents financially paid for your wedding or significantly contributed to it.

00:14:05.760 | And are you sure that that was money that they had discretionary spending

00:14:10.560 | or that they had saved up for it? Was that maybe financed on credit cards?

00:14:14.640 | Like, do you actually know that just because your parents wrote you a check

00:14:18.560 | or paid for something on a credit card, that was something that they could afford to do?

00:14:22.320 | And there are all these moments, whether it's because of social pressure or just

00:14:25.440 | because our parents love us and want to do nice things for us, that they might

00:14:30.000 | pick up the tab on something that is then to their detriment in the future.

00:14:34.320 | But my question becomes, if they're rating their retirement plan for you, again,

00:14:40.320 | are you then the retirement plan in the future? And you have a right to know that.

00:14:44.560 | I guess, how do you have this question? It seems like if almost everyone doesn't know the answer,

00:14:49.920 | there's probably got to be at least a few reasons why our parents haven't just volunteered up this

00:14:54.720 | information one night at dinner. "Hey, let's go through our books."

00:14:57.200 | Yeah, why aren't we having the conversation? And how can we have the conversation?

00:15:03.920 | I mean, the subtitle of the book says it all, "Navigate Awkward Financial Conversations."

00:15:08.400 | We don't want to have the conversation because it feels uncomfortable. And particularly

00:15:12.640 | for parents, especially for those who are listening, who are parents to adult children,

00:15:17.360 | I fully acknowledge that this is an incredibly uncomfortable thing to talk to your adult child

00:15:22.240 | about. Especially if maybe there have either been missteps of your own or because just things

00:15:28.000 | happened and life happened, and your financial situation aging into retirement is not what you

00:15:33.040 | hoped and wanted it to be. And now you're having to figure out either do I work for maybe a decade

00:15:39.760 | longer than I wanted to? Am I physically able to keep doing that? Or do I need to have a frank

00:15:44.160 | conversation with my child about the help that I might need at some point? That's an incredibly

00:15:52.080 | vulnerable thing for a parent to talk to a child about. And that's also why adult children... Yes,

00:15:58.960 | we have a right to know some of this information, particularly if it's going to impact us, but

00:16:03.760 | our parents are adults. At the end of the day, they can make their own decisions. You cannot

00:16:08.880 | force them to take your help and you can't force them to open up about this, which is why sometimes

00:16:14.480 | it takes a little bit of a delicate dancing and footwork and context clue picking up that you need

00:16:19.760 | to do over potentially years, which all comes back to why I say start this conversation early

00:16:26.080 | and don't wait for the inciting incident to happen so that when the inciting incident does happen,

00:16:32.320 | it doesn't have to be as stressful. The fact that if you start it early, it can be slow.

00:16:37.840 | You can do this gently. You can bring it up multiple times in different ways. You can have

00:16:44.560 | multiple people deployed to have this conversation because it's incredibly important to also remember

00:16:50.800 | parents do not have the same relationship with each of their children. So one of you might be

00:16:56.080 | the better point person for this talk, or, and this might be crazy to folks, in-laws.

00:17:01.440 | Because if you have a healthy relationship with a in-law dynamic, it is quite possible

00:17:09.920 | that your mother or father-in-law might feel more comfortable talking to you than to their own

00:17:14.320 | children. You're a valued member of the family. They love you, but they didn't raise you. And so

00:17:19.680 | the connection is a little bit different. They might be willing to be vulnerable,

00:17:23.600 | but maybe it doesn't feel quite as whether it's embarrassing or nerve wracking or what have you.

00:17:29.680 | I'm in a very privileged position with my own in-laws that I can have very frank conversations

00:17:34.640 | around a lot of this stuff that honestly, they don't really have with my husband or

00:17:38.800 | their other two children. It mostly gets had with me.

00:17:41.040 | Wow. Okay. So how... Let's get tactical. How do you actually broach these conversations?

00:17:46.720 | Let's say someone listening is like, "You've sold me. I need to have this conversation.

00:17:50.240 | I am going to call my parents tonight, or I'm going to see them next weekend or whenever.

00:17:53.760 | How do I start?"

00:17:55.520 | All right. We have a few different strategies. So buckle up, because it depends on your

00:17:59.280 | relationship and how your parents operate. Step one, I always love the advice route.

00:18:04.480 | We all know parents love to give advice. It's like one of their number one favorite hobbies.

00:18:08.240 | So going from the angle of, "Mom and dad, X thing is happening in my life. What would you do?"

00:18:15.520 | sort of strategy. So one that I use often is... This is a little bit for maybe the younger

00:18:21.520 | millennial or the Gen Z-er who is listening. Perhaps you're early on in your career,

00:18:26.080 | get access to a retirement plan. "Mom, dad, I started a new job. I have access to a 401k.

00:18:32.000 | Not totally sure how to handle it. What would you do?"

00:18:34.880 | Very telling answers and something like, "Oh, I never had to worry about that. Oh,

00:18:39.920 | I have a pension. Oh, I don't have one of those. Oh, that was really overwhelming."

00:18:45.920 | Or, "Oh, here's exactly what I did. Here's my investment portfolio."

00:18:49.840 | You might be able to get really helpful information back.

00:18:52.320 | The advice asking, though, needs to be authentic to you, what your parents know about you,

00:18:58.560 | the dynamic. Obviously, if you're 35, you've been in the workforce for a long time,

00:19:03.280 | your parents know that you're very successful. Trying to go the 401k route might read as like,

00:19:08.160 | "Hmm, this is a weird question. They're clearly trying to get something out of me."

00:19:11.840 | So seeing about different phases of whether it is estate planning or caregiving, bringing up

00:19:18.240 | something like, "Hey, Joe and I are thinking about having kids. And we're realizing in that that we

00:19:25.360 | should probably have a will and we probably need to look at updating beneficiaries across our

00:19:30.160 | accounts. I was just wondering, when did you guys create a will? When was the last time you updated

00:19:36.160 | it? Have you updated your beneficiaries?" There's lots of follow-up question opportunities here.

00:19:40.320 | But it could also be great advice your parents might have a guy that they recommend that you

00:19:46.320 | actually do need. And then it's a win-win for everybody. And now you know your parents have a

00:19:49.760 | will or an estate plan. So the advice strategy in a way that reads authentic to you and your

00:19:56.400 | relationship with your parents can be incredibly helpful. Even if it's not the answer that you

00:20:02.080 | want, or not all of the information up front, and it won't be, I'm gonna be honest with you,

00:20:07.200 | you're not going to get all the information that you need from one advice-seeking question.

00:20:11.200 | But again, the context clues here can give you a lot of insight and be something to file away

00:20:16.800 | for later. The other thing on the advice front, maybe you're not the one that could go and ask

00:20:23.280 | the advice question, but a sibling could. And then you can also be having this conversation

00:20:28.880 | with your siblings if you have them at the same time. "What do you think about mom and dad aging?

00:20:34.800 | Have you had conversations with them about that? I think we should start asking them some of these

00:20:39.200 | questions. I think it would make more sense for you to go ask XYZ question based on a situation

00:20:45.440 | that that sibling is having in their life." So great. Somebody else can go start to try to get

00:20:50.640 | the information. So advice, I would say step one. Have you heard anyone use like an aunt or an

00:20:57.520 | uncle as a tactic here? Because I feel like I know some people whose relationships with their

00:21:01.760 | aunts and uncles are so good. And then they have like a sibling relationship with your parents.

00:21:06.640 | Is that a strategy? Oh, bringing in third party players can be very effective. So whether that's

00:21:12.640 | aunt and uncle, just make sure that you understand the family food chain in terms of gossip.

00:21:17.760 | That's the only thing you have to be really careful about. Like if you try to bring somebody

00:21:21.200 | else in who's in the family, how is that going to get back? Is your question going to get maybe

00:21:27.360 | misinterpreted or shared or you know how your family operates. So just really think it through.

00:21:32.400 | But maybe it's not an aunt and uncle. Maybe it is a religious figure or a community leader or

00:21:36.880 | somebody else that your parents are really comfortable with and close to that you could

00:21:40.800 | also talk to. That's also really helpful if you're worried about a medical related incident with your

00:21:46.400 | parents. You know, if you notice that maybe your parents seem to be forgetting things a lot lately,

00:21:52.480 | you maybe want somebody to get tested, maybe Alzheimer's runs in your family or dementia does,

00:21:57.920 | and you're feeling like red flags seem to be popping up here, and they're not listening to

00:22:01.760 | you, the child. That's also when another person might be the right person to step in, particularly

00:22:07.920 | because you can't always go to their doctor. They have, you know, confidentiality that they

00:22:12.560 | can't come talk to you about. And just to be clear, a handful of these in your book, you have

00:22:17.040 | the actual like word for word scripts here. So like, we're not going to go and read them all.

00:22:21.680 | You sent me some in advance. And I'm like, "Oh, can we make like a PDF and send it to people?"

00:22:24.960 | And if we do, we'll put it in the show notes. But you have a whole book where it's like,

00:22:28.400 | here's how to have this conversation, right? Yes, the book has all the scripts, word for word,

00:22:34.160 | many different strategies depending on the situation. So speaking of advice,

00:22:37.840 | we started with that, which is one of my personal favorites. If you're like,

00:22:41.440 | "We're past that point. My parents know me too well. I can't come to them for advice."

00:22:45.520 | We are very clear on that. It's not going to work. Maybe you don't have siblings,

00:22:49.120 | or maybe your siblings also like totally have it together. They can't go.

00:22:52.000 | Just asking open-ended questions can be huge. So bringing up situations that have happened

00:22:58.480 | either to your friends, if it's not a friend, I don't know, TV shows, pop culture, there are

00:23:04.320 | things that you can pull to. Usually every year a celebrity dies without a will and their estate

00:23:09.120 | is a mess. So even not asking a direct question of your parents, but saying, "So-and-so died.

00:23:15.360 | And it turns out they did not have a will and an estate plan. And the family is fighting like

00:23:19.280 | crazy." Can you imagine? What would you do? What would you think about that? Just open-ended,

00:23:27.360 | see what they say. Also bringing up things like, "Oh, my friend's dad recently passed away.

00:23:34.480 | He had been remarried. He had kids from both marriages. He had not updated a will or had

00:23:39.040 | any sort of an estate plan. And it is just a nightmare. And our family situation, honestly,

00:23:44.240 | is a little similar. So it was making me wonder, 'Do you have a will?' Or it could be our family

00:23:50.400 | situation is different, but it still really just got me thinking, 'Do you have a will?'"

00:23:54.720 | And again, I'm talking estate planning, but it could also be caregiving. Plugging that in.

00:24:01.120 | One thing I'm hearing is that it's probably not the best tactic to jump straight to,

00:24:06.320 | "When are you going to run out of money? How am I going to support you?"

00:24:10.240 | It sounds like we're trying to pick up clues first. Is that intentional?

00:24:15.760 | Yeah. And listen, you can be direct. I do not have a problem with you being direct. However,

00:24:21.040 | again, know your parents, know your relationship. How are they going to react to that?

00:24:26.880 | I mean, I don't know about you, but if somebody came up to me, spouse, sibling, parent, child,

00:24:32.720 | and was like, "Hey, do you think you're going to outlive your money?" I don't know that I

00:24:37.360 | would react great to that type of a question. So bringing it up in a little bit of a more nuanced

00:24:44.160 | way or hearkening to things that you have seen happen in your family dynamic, particularly if

00:24:49.760 | you saw your parents care for your aging grandparents, how is that not just a perfect

00:24:55.040 | open door to be able to say, "I saw a lot of what you had to do to take care of grandma at

00:25:01.760 | the end of her life. And I also know that dementia runs in our family and that got really stressful.

00:25:08.160 | And that's something that has started to give me a little bit of anxiety as both of us are aging.

00:25:14.160 | You don't have to throw them under the bus. You're getting older too. Let's be in this together."

00:25:18.880 | And then following it up with something like, "Have you started creating the proper paperwork

00:25:25.200 | that we would need if something were to ever happen, just so I don't have to be guessing

00:25:29.520 | and you immediately can get cared for?" A lot of people, even if they themselves have

00:25:36.560 | been through the negative experience, are going to assume that they'll be okay,

00:25:41.200 | which is why so often people get into a position where the health scare happens,

00:25:47.760 | where the inciting incident happens, and they're not prepared for it, even if they saw their

00:25:51.520 | parents went through it, even if their siblings went through it, because still in their mind,

00:25:55.600 | "Well, that's not going to happen to me." And that puts all of us at a massive disadvantage.

00:26:00.480 | Yeah. On the estate planning front, I think the open door that worked really well in both of our

00:26:06.080 | families was that we had to go do this, right? We have two small children. So we went through

00:26:09.920 | the estate planning process. We set up our will, our trust, our healthcare directives.

00:26:13.440 | And then I just was like, "Oh, let's talk about this. Hey, we're going through this."

00:26:16.720 | You have to make these decisions for anyone who hasn't done it. It's like,

00:26:21.440 | how much support do you want? Do you want to be on life support? Do you not? Who makes the

00:26:27.600 | decisions for you? Who doesn't? Even things like who's going to manage your money if you're not

00:26:32.880 | there? And so we just shared, "Hey, this is what we're thinking about. This is how we decided.

00:26:39.120 | This is what we want." And just remind everyone that it's important. And depending on your

00:26:44.880 | parents' relationship, sometimes they're like, "Well, our kids are doing this. We can't let our

00:26:48.320 | kids be more prepared than we are. So we have to do this too." But that didn't... In my situation,

00:26:56.160 | it didn't lead to a natural conversation about money. It did lead to a, "We're going to make

00:27:03.360 | sure our will and our trust and our estate plan and our healthcare directors are all set up."

00:27:07.920 | I still don't have a great answer on whether my parents will outlive their finances.

00:27:15.360 | So how do you keep this going? How do you continue that conversation?

00:27:19.840 | One of the things that I would ask, again, with the open-ended question

00:27:24.960 | is, "How do you see retirement looking for you?" And just see what they think.

00:27:32.800 | If you could dream your ideal day in retirement, what does that look like?

00:27:36.800 | And the thing that's also very important is to bring up where they live,

00:27:40.960 | which I know sounds a bit sensitive. But I live in New York City. If my parents had

00:27:46.960 | been born and raised in New York City and didn't want to move, but retired with a lump sum that

00:27:53.520 | maybe meant New York was not going to be the option for them for the next 20, 30 years,

00:27:59.360 | then that's a hard conversation you have to bring up about, "I love you. And I want to make sure

00:28:03.600 | that you have the best possible life. And I know that you love where you're from, but we do have

00:28:09.040 | to face facts that are you going to be able to sustain a high quality of life in this high cost

00:28:14.000 | of living area?" Or if you don't live there anymore in the high cost of living area your

00:28:19.200 | parents live in, "We'd love if you came down and lived near us." If that's true, don't offer it if

00:28:23.680 | it's not true. That's the other big part of this. Don't offer things that you don't want to have

00:28:28.400 | happen. But it is really critical that you give your parents the space to talk about what they

00:28:34.880 | want. That this is not you coming in, taking charge, trying to parent them, trying to ram

00:28:41.680 | them into whatever version of life that you want them to live based on what you think they can do

00:28:46.720 | and what you could maybe do for them. This really needs to be a dynamic conversation

00:28:51.120 | that their opinion matters because it is their life at the end of the day.

00:28:55.440 | So, it is critical that they are part of the conversation. And as long as they are able to

00:29:02.000 | care for themselves, that's where this conversation can get a little bit more complicated as if they

00:29:06.640 | can't. But if they can, this needs to be about them and their wishes and not just you and what's

00:29:12.480 | easiest for you. And it's funny because as I'm thinking, I'm playing through these conversations

00:29:16.880 | in my head while we're talking and where they go and how they go. And I was thinking along

00:29:20.720 | the lines of, "Will someone outlive their savings?" And I went back to, in my mind,

00:29:26.800 | to making financial plans for a living, which I've done in my past.

00:29:30.480 | And I realized, when you're making a financial plan for a millennial client,

00:29:35.360 | there's so much time that you don't need to get that specific. And they're earning money,

00:29:40.880 | so it's really about this saving for the future. I imagine, and I don't know, but making a financial

00:29:47.360 | plan for someone in retirement needs a bit more precision. There's a little bit more exact science

00:29:53.680 | because the money is being spent and the income is... Maybe it's there in the form of Social

00:29:58.320 | Security, and maybe it's there in the form of dividends and interest, but it's probably not

00:30:03.040 | there in the form of a W-2 paycheck. And so it's no longer about save a lot and there's a lot of

00:30:11.760 | variability in how the market will grow this pot. It's more about "Is there enough? Am I doing the

00:30:16.240 | right things? Is it in something that matches the risk I'm willing to take given the amount of

00:30:21.520 | years I'm trying to make this money last?" I don't even know if I, without a bunch of

00:30:27.600 | extra research, would feel good at answering that question. If my parents even said,

00:30:32.800 | "Here is exactly how much money we have." I don't even think I could answer that question today,

00:30:37.360 | "Is it enough?" So when you see these conversations come up, obviously, if the number is $100 million,

00:30:43.760 | it's probably enough. If the number is zero, it's probably not enough. And then in between,

00:30:47.200 | there's a lot of open questions. But is this something that is probably worth having your

00:30:54.320 | parents --or maybe not encouraging them-- bringing in a financial planner to make a financial plan

00:31:00.560 | who maybe specializes in retirement? Because even as a financially savvy millennial,

00:31:06.320 | I don't think I could answer that question in the right way without a lot of homework.

00:31:10.000 | Oh, gosh. Yes, please. Do not take on the full responsibility for creating your parents'

00:31:15.760 | retirement plan unless you are a financial planner who has in-depth experience with

00:31:22.080 | working with this particular clientele. And I say that because first of all,

00:31:26.720 | you don't want the liability on your conscience of like, "Oh, no, I screwed something up. And now

00:31:31.520 | my parents do have to live off of me and/or with me because I messed up." No shot at your ability

00:31:39.680 | to figure out your parents' retirement plan. But getting into the previous question being about how

00:31:45.920 | we ask and me saying open-ended questions, I do think we can reach a point in this, again,

00:31:51.840 | progressive conversation where you do say, "What does your retirement look like? And if you don't

00:31:57.120 | want to share a number with me, you don't have to. But I am curious how it's distributed to you."

00:32:03.360 | That is actually pertinent information potentially for you to have. Because for some folks,

00:32:08.320 | your parents might get a lump sum distribution at some point. And that to me is very scary.

00:32:14.720 | Because if your parents get a lump sum and are not entirely sure how to handle it and then don't

00:32:20.080 | hire somebody who can appropriately figure out how to either have it invested or in some sort of

00:32:27.040 | fixed income asset or what have you that's best for your parents, maybe they go buy a house that

00:32:32.640 | they shouldn't be buying. Maybe they use it to take a big trip for the family that maybe they

00:32:37.760 | shouldn't have been doing or what have you. Because to them, it's all of a sudden getting

00:32:41.520 | this huge lump sum of money, not necessarily thinking about the fact that this amount might

00:32:46.400 | need to last me for the next 2 decades of my life. So asking about how the money is distributed

00:32:52.080 | instead of how much money is there, that could actually be very helpful information for you to

00:32:57.200 | find out and give you a lot of insight. And then yes, please hire a financial planner for your

00:33:02.560 | parents or encourage them to hire one, depending on the dynamic, depending on if they can afford

00:33:07.520 | one. One resource that I would recommend, I love X, Y, P, N. There's a bunch of different ones.

00:33:13.040 | But let's be honest, they're more for the millennial Gen X cohort. If you want to find

00:33:17.760 | somebody who maybe has a few more gray hairs that match your parents that they would feel

00:33:21.920 | more comfortable with, the CFP board has letsmakeaplan.org that has a filter on there

00:33:27.920 | that you can search for estate planning, you can search for retirement planning,

00:33:30.960 | whatever it is your parents need, and you can find somebody that's a CFP vetted all of that.

00:33:35.840 | Maybe you go to some of the meetings with them if they feel uncomfortable with vetting someone

00:33:40.560 | themselves, or if you might feel more comfortable and they're willing to let you in on that process,

00:33:46.080 | that could also be really helpful.

00:33:47.360 | And for people who aren't familiar, CFP is a certified financial planner.

00:33:51.280 | One of the requirements is that they act as a fiduciary, which means that they are legally

00:33:56.320 | bound to act in the best interest of their clients, which we've talked about this in the

00:34:00.880 | past, but maybe not for a handful of months. Many financial advisors, the majority of them,

00:34:07.040 | there's a great John Oliver segment about this, are not fiduciaries.

00:34:11.600 | They do not have to act in someone's best interest.

00:34:14.720 | And they generally have to do something suitable. So if you say, "I want to invest in the stock

00:34:19.600 | market," they can't just take your money and do something else. But they could put you in a stock

00:34:24.720 | market fund that has a 2% fee to them. They aren't required to weigh the cost of the fees and the

00:34:31.040 | cost of the services. So that's one thing to keep in mind. I think anytime someone's seeking

00:34:35.120 | financial advice, I am a big, big, big fan of fiduciary-bound financial advice and certified

00:34:40.080 | financial planners offer that. The other big thing is that so often we conflate, "I have a financial

00:34:48.960 | advisor, they're managing my money." One of the things that many financial planners do is prepare

00:34:55.120 | financial plans. And that can be a one-time service that does not require managing someone's finances

00:35:02.240 | on an ongoing basis. So I know that many of our parents have a financial advisor managing their

00:35:08.640 | money. And so presenting it not as, "You should talk to another person, but maybe you should get

00:35:14.640 | a financial plan, which might be a service that your financial advisor doesn't provide. Let's get

00:35:20.480 | a fiduciary to come in and make a one-time plan," is something. And then the other thing that just

00:35:25.520 | came to mind as we were talking is, if you look at the expected return of a lot of investment

00:35:30.720 | portfolios, when you're young, they're really heavily weighted with the stock market, which

00:35:35.280 | has a higher expected return. As you get older, you reduce the risk of that portfolio, which

00:35:40.720 | inherently reduces the expected return. So that if your parents have had a financial advisor for

00:35:46.160 | many years, paying them 1%, with an expectation of earning 7%, it's one-seventh of their portfolio is

00:35:53.360 | going to fees. But if now as they're getting older and older, that's coming down to maybe

00:35:57.600 | they're in such a low-risk portfolio that they're expecting 3% or 4%. Well, now a third to 25% to 30%

00:36:04.800 | of their portfolio could be going to fees. So I think as you reduce the risk of your portfolio,

00:36:10.560 | fees can come into play as an important factor. So just something to think about.

00:36:15.760 | I mean, you have to be pretty far along in the conversation with your parents to be

00:36:18.960 | talking about their financial advisor's fees. But to tag in on this too, the other thing

00:36:24.720 | that if your parents, for whatever reason, would like to handle it themselves, don't necessarily

00:36:29.520 | want you involved with the finding or the meeting or what have you. In addition to all of that,

00:36:35.280 | I would also bring up to them, "How does this person get paid?" And obviously,

00:36:40.960 | fees, assets under management could be one, but asking, "Does this person get a commission?"

00:36:46.400 | Which is also how you can suss out the fiduciary versus suitability standard depending on

00:36:52.160 | the situation. Are they fee-based? Are they fee-only? This can also give you a lot of insight.

00:36:57.120 | And not making a statement one way or the other, but just saying fee-only tends to be the cleanest,

00:37:03.920 | easiest relationship dynamic as well. So making sure that your parents have all the information

00:37:10.000 | on how to vet somebody, share the John Oliver clip with them. Share the things that you're

00:37:14.240 | finding. Share the articles that you're reading. That's the other part of this is that maybe

00:37:19.280 | they're not hearing it from you, but they will hear it from someone else. And you'll just find

00:37:23.520 | the thing that will connect for them at some point. Okay. So we've kind of walked through

00:37:28.560 | this process. Here's why it's important. Here's how to start the conversation. Here's some things

00:37:32.400 | to think about. Let's say you've gotten your parents through that, and it's not looking great.

00:37:38.480 | Are there things that you would recommend? I was thinking off the top of my head, "Okay,

00:37:44.960 | maybe you could travel less." Do you start helping them budget? What do you kind of recommend if you

00:37:50.160 | are in that state where you're like, "Well, I'm probably going to have to come in and help at

00:37:54.400 | some point." Do you just accept that that's going to happen and save for it? Or do you try to course

00:37:59.680 | correct to potentially make their savings last longer? I mean, yeah, that's a great option.

00:38:05.760 | If your parents will accept that level of help for you to come in and try to help overhaul their

00:38:10.720 | month-to-month financial plan and spending, and maybe getting them on a debt repayment strategy,

00:38:16.000 | depending on what the overall situation is, wonderful. I know a lot of parents are going

00:38:22.240 | to be really resistant to letting their adult child do that. And it's one thing you can offer.

00:38:28.080 | Or, again, if they're not taking the help from you, sharing the podcast, sharing the books,

00:38:33.600 | sharing the YouTube videos, whatever it is that you think might personally connect with them,

00:38:38.960 | and might make them feel encouraged to be able to take the control.

00:38:42.240 | But it is a conversation that needs to be had that if they've shifted from earning income to

00:38:47.920 | now having to live off of their assets, their lifestyle probably needs to pivot a little bit.

00:38:52.960 | And what does that look like? And how do they feel about that? And is it little things day-to-day or

00:38:58.960 | is it a really big thing? Like the house needs to get downsized because that's a huge expense.

00:39:03.200 | And maybe all of a sudden, we don't need to be paying for that much house.

00:39:06.800 | And there might be pushback of like, "Oh, but grandkids come over and you come to visit or

00:39:11.760 | whatever." And you can be like, "You need to take the us out of it. And we need to be doing what's

00:39:16.640 | best for you." Again, if they're completely resistant to you getting that level of involved,

00:39:21.920 | then yeah, you can probably take back control to a degree in the sense of talking to your siblings,

00:39:28.960 | if you have them, about what feels fair and equitable amongst you about how to handle this.

00:39:34.080 | Is somebody going to be financially contributing a little bit more, but the other person is perhaps

00:39:39.440 | more boots on the ground to be able to handle day-to-day stuff with mom and dad when they're

00:39:43.200 | going to need help? Is it that you're setting aside an emergency savings fund that years in

00:39:48.800 | advance of a problem, all of you start contributing to so that there has been money set aside in order

00:39:54.000 | to be able to support your parents? Is it that you just put into your financial plan and earmark an

00:39:59.840 | amount of money that is being set aside to care for your parents or to at some point buy a home

00:40:04.720 | that you can move them into with you if you need to? There are so many different options.

00:40:10.080 | And also cultural expectations play a huge factor in this conversation. For some people listening to

00:40:16.960 | this this far and they're like, "I don't know why we're talking about this this way. My parents

00:40:21.120 | obviously know I'm going to take care of them. That's how we do things." And for some people,

00:40:26.720 | that's true. And for others, it's not. So also, who did you marry and what do their parents expect?

00:40:33.440 | Absolutely another fun part of this conversation as well.

00:40:36.240 | I'm now speaking to the parents of the average listener or the listener who is a parent with

00:40:42.560 | adult children. What advice would you give them to how they can make this situation better for

00:40:50.000 | their children and their family? You might be the parent who's like,

00:40:53.120 | "I wish I could get my adult child to engage in this conversation. They will not talk to me about

00:40:57.920 | these things because they don't like to think about me being in a situation that's tough or

00:41:01.680 | to think about me dying or what have you." But first of all, I'm so glad you'll initiate this

00:41:06.400 | conversation. That's wonderful. And if you're listening and you're like, "Heck no, I'm not

00:41:10.400 | having this conversation with my child." My first question is why? What is the knee-jerk reaction

00:41:16.640 | that you're having that's making you not want to engage in this conversation? Is it the sense of

00:41:22.560 | vulnerability that it might take to be able to talk to your adult child about this? Is it maybe

00:41:28.320 | a sense of embarrassment about what the situation is? Or is it that you feel like there's too much

00:41:33.440 | money and you're not entirely sure you want your child to know that at some point, they might

00:41:38.400 | inherit X amount of money? There's myriad reasons why parents might not want to have this conversation.

00:41:44.400 | But to at least lay out the information about, "This is a plan I have. This is what it looks

00:41:51.520 | like. Also, by the way, we do have a will. We do have an estate plan. We do have advanced healthcare

00:41:56.240 | directives. Here's where all of that stuff is stored. Here's the executor of my will.

00:42:00.320 | Here's the person that's my power of attorney." Pertinent information for adult children to know

00:42:06.000 | because to me, caregiving/especially estate planning, having that planned, taking care of

00:42:15.120 | that, and letting people know the actual information, that is such a great act of love.

00:42:20.640 | It is one of the kindest things you can do for your family because it is incredibly important

00:42:27.440 | that in a time of intense stress and grief, people are also not scrambling to try to figure out

00:42:33.680 | what you would have wanted or scrambling to figure out how to pay the bills or whatever else it is.

00:42:41.040 | And just making sure that that information is handled. And it's not just you and your spouse

00:42:46.160 | because what happens is something happens to both of you at the same time. Your adult children are

00:42:50.240 | also looped in on this information. So bringing up, "We have these documents. They're prepared.

00:42:56.960 | I want to make sure that you're prepared if something ever happens to me.

00:43:00.640 | Here is where all of this is kept." Or, "Here's the guy that you need to call

00:43:04.480 | in case something does happen who has all of the information. And don't worry about it."

00:43:09.360 | It's a beautiful gift that you can give somebody. And if there is some form of inheritance and you

00:43:16.000 | feel uncomfortable talking to your adult child about it, I think that that also could be really

00:43:20.960 | telling about everybody's relationship with money at this phase and what conversations maybe should

00:43:26.320 | also be happening in order to foster better, more positive relationships with money and

00:43:31.920 | potentially with each other, depending on family dynamics.

00:43:35.040 | Yeah. One thing that you just said that made me think about is, if you're uncomfortable talking

00:43:39.600 | about this with your children because there's too much money and you're not ready to tell them

00:43:43.600 | about that, at a minimum, you could say, "Hey, I just want to let you know we've done a financial

00:43:47.760 | plan and we're very confident that we have enough money saved that we're going to be able to cover

00:43:52.000 | our costs. We've thought through it." You don't necessarily need to let them into the calculations,

00:43:58.160 | but at least letting them know where it is so they're not worried could be a thing.

00:44:01.360 | So that was just one thing. Also, if you are having interesting thoughts about that conversation,

00:44:08.720 | I did an episode with Bill Perkins. He wrote a book called Die With Zero.

00:44:12.560 | And it changed my perspective on inheritance. Not that I'm even at a point where my children

00:44:17.280 | are old enough to even spend money. But he had this idea where he said, "My goal is to die with

00:44:23.200 | zero." And a lot of the criticism he had was that if you die with zero, you don't leave anything to

00:44:28.000 | any future generations. And his answer was, "No. But if I'm going to leave money to my future

00:44:32.720 | generations, I want to do it while I'm alive. I want to see what it can bring to their lives,

00:44:37.440 | what things they can do with it, the education it might provide, etc."

00:44:41.280 | So if you're struggling with how to think about that, there's a couple interesting lessons from

00:44:47.040 | that episode that hopefully, one day, I get to use.

00:44:50.160 | -I would also bring up, in addition to we're set for XYZ reasons, bringing up any sort of

00:44:58.800 | proper planning you've done such as we have life insurance policies. Here's where they are. Here's

00:45:03.440 | how to make sure the bills keep getting paid in case something happens to me and I end up in the

00:45:06.880 | hospital and it's not on auto pay. And then my spouse is cared for or you guys need to know that

00:45:13.680 | there's this life insurance policy or we bought a long-term care insurance policy.

00:45:17.520 | Again, also going back to the way that adult children who perhaps have parents who are not

00:45:24.320 | in a financially stable situation, depending on the age of your parents and longevity prospects,

00:45:31.520 | looking into a long-term care insurance policy if they're not quite what they used to be.

00:45:36.880 | So looking in to see whether it makes sense financially, whether you'd rather just be

00:45:41.600 | putting that money into an investment yourself, whether a hybrid life insurance policy and

00:45:46.240 | long-term care insurance policy works for you. Again, this is a great opportunity to talk to

00:45:50.880 | a professional. Talk to a professional who has all the knowledge and all of the information and can

00:45:55.840 | look at the specifics of your and your parents' situation. But just knowing too that there are

00:46:01.360 | strategies beyond how can I just save and scrimp my way to making this successful for my parents

00:46:06.640 | and vice versa.

00:46:07.360 | -So I've been trying to take notes. I'm going to try to recap all the things. It's like,

00:46:10.960 | okay, beneficiaries on accounts are important. Setting up a will, setting up a power of attorney

00:46:18.560 | or a healthcare proxy, healthcare directives, all of which are common components of an estate plan.

00:46:24.960 | I think anyone listening knows that I used a product called Trust & Will

00:46:28.800 | to set up our estate plan for our family. If you've listened in the last few weeks,

00:46:33.520 | you know that all the Hacks members get 50% off Trust & Will, which is pretty cool.

00:46:37.680 | Thank you, Cody, the CEO, if you're listening for offering that to members.

00:46:40.800 | But your parents might be more comfortable with someone in person. And there's plenty

00:46:45.440 | of estate planning attorneys they can talk to. Insurance coverage, especially long-term

00:46:51.840 | care insurance, whether that's there, any other types of insurance policies or life insurance.

00:46:55.840 | Not just all of those things, but when they've last been updated.

00:46:59.840 | Usernames, passwords. I'm a big fan of 1Password. I went through what I'll call a medium painful

00:47:06.880 | process one holiday of getting my parents all set up and moving every single password they had

00:47:12.880 | in their head in their notebooks. Maybe it was just they didn't... They had 1Password and I

00:47:18.800 | switched it so that... Or I helped them go and create new passwords on lots of different services

00:47:23.920 | so that they were less vulnerable to someone learning 1Password and getting access to

00:47:28.400 | everything. Where are all these important things? Also, where it is?

00:47:31.520 | Yeah. Is it in a safe? Does it have a combo? Where is all of it stored? Yeah, absolutely.

00:47:36.160 | I mean, let's be honest. It's great if our parents are using a digital storage option for passwords.

00:47:42.880 | How many of them have it written down on a piece of paper somewhere in the house?

00:47:46.800 | Where is that piece of paper in the house? And that is very critical for you to know.

00:47:52.320 | Again, with these conversations, I will also say, and I got to be honest, my dad might be

00:47:59.360 | listening to this, so I'll be careful about exactly what I share. But I was in the incredibly fortunate

00:48:05.920 | situation that my parents sat down with me. There was a full list of all the assets where everything

00:48:13.840 | was, who I would need to talk to. My sister and I, for well over a decade, have had basically a

00:48:21.040 | call sheet, I would call it, about "If this happens to this person, then this is the triggering

00:48:26.400 | situation. If this happens to this person, then this is the triggering situation. Here's who you

00:48:30.560 | call if this happens to this person." The peace of mind that that provides,

00:48:36.800 | and is it hard to think about a situation where my parents either incapacitated or no longer with us?

00:48:42.240 | Yeah, it's painful. I don't enjoy that part of it. But the fact that I know exactly how to very

00:48:49.120 | painlessly settle in a state and a time where I'm already going to be in a lot of pain, again,

00:48:54.560 | greatest act of love. It is such a kind thing to do. And I know not everyone's parents is going to

00:49:00.080 | write out the list and slide it across the dining room table and have a three-hour

00:49:03.600 | long conversation about everything and have a basically org chart about the flow of where

00:49:08.640 | everything is and who to call and who to get in touch with. But if you're a parent and listening,

00:49:13.360 | please do it. It is so kind and so wonderful. And on the flip side, on the other side of my family,

00:49:21.040 | when two months ago, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and she's fine now,

00:49:26.080 | thank goodness, but pre-surgery, you know, I had to be the one that was like,

00:49:31.120 | "Do we have a will? Do we have an updated power of attorney, advanced healthcare directives?

00:49:38.960 | Does your husband know how to log into all the bank accounts and pay the bills?"

00:49:42.240 | And did I get some elbows from my husband about bringing this up

00:49:47.600 | moments after we started having this intimate conversation about cancer?

00:49:51.360 | Yeah. But also, my mother-in-law like, "No, you're right. I have to get all of this done."

00:49:56.480 | You know, I pointed her to resources and directions and ways to get it handled. But

00:50:01.760 | if you're not going to ask the hard questions, especially in a moment of an inciting incident,

00:50:06.480 | what if something had gone wrong and we hadn't have settled all of that?

00:50:11.280 | It would have been hugely difficult and painful for the family. And thank goodness,

00:50:16.560 | everything's okay, but that's not always what happens. And that's why someone has to ask the

00:50:21.840 | awkward, uncomfortable question. Yeah. I haven't gone through all of

00:50:25.920 | these. I've gone through some of them. I've encouraged my parents also to sign up. There's

00:50:30.400 | a product that I worked with a while ago I still use called Trustworthy, which is basically online,

00:50:36.080 | you basically a place to put all of these things. And the thing I liked was it has a great onboarding

00:50:40.400 | where it's like, "Do you have your insurance documents? Do you have a contact for your

00:50:43.520 | financial advisor? What are your bank accounts?" The other great thing is it doesn't actually get

00:50:48.000 | into the dollar value of accounts. It's more about where are they and who do I contact,

00:50:53.440 | not how much is in there. So Trustworthy is another option. I think the discount they gave

00:50:59.760 | is still good at allthehacks.com/trustworthy if anyone's interested. I love that product.

00:51:04.640 | There's plenty of options. Just finding something that can help organize this and make it easy

00:51:12.080 | offline, online, in a safe, just get the access. I feel like we went through the flow. It's like

00:51:17.840 | you have the conversation. Why do we have the conversation? How do we do it? What's the

00:51:21.920 | important stuff to do? The good news is once all of this is gone, there's a little bit of relief,

00:51:26.880 | right? You could just not worry about any of these things and just be in the moment.

00:51:30.880 | Talk about the health situation, be supportive, not be stressed out about all the other components.

00:51:35.120 | And if you're a parent or the parent of adult children or small children,

00:51:40.800 | these are all really important things still, right? My 2-year-old and 9-month-old does not

00:51:46.720 | need to know how to access the bank account, but someone does. Because for something to happen to

00:51:51.680 | my wife and I, someone needs to be able to figure it out. So for us, we've identified who that

00:51:56.400 | person is. We've gone in on Trustworthy and said, "Hey, if something happens, let this person have

00:52:01.840 | access." We've put our one password emergency kit in a folder, in an estate plan, in a safe in our

00:52:08.240 | house, and they know the combination to that safe. So we've tried to do these things already,

00:52:12.320 | even though I think we're not really faced with the same kind of health potential.

00:52:17.600 | Anyone could have a health problem at any time. But it doesn't feel like we're approaching end

00:52:23.840 | of life right now, but we're still prepared. And it just gives us a lot of peace of mind.

00:52:28.240 | And it's not that hard. Creating your estate plan, you can do it in hours. If anything,

00:52:35.520 | the hardest thing is figuring out who to name as the caregivers and the trustees,

00:52:40.400 | that kind of stuff is harder. But actually, just putting the docs together and signing them

00:52:43.840 | was actually the easy part. Well, and that's also why checking in on this information

00:52:49.840 | and making that a practice to do every couple of years, particularly if you have young children,

00:52:55.200 | because the named guardian very easily could shift over a couple of year period.

00:53:01.600 | So making sure that that is always up to date and accurate, what really no matter your age,

00:53:07.280 | is incredibly important. And also, I know some people will think that this is a little bit

00:53:12.640 | bonkers, but sometimes it gets brought up like age-appropriate ways to talk about this with kids.

00:53:16.880 | And like, listen, if you have adult children who are fully into their like 20s, 30s, 40s, like,

00:53:22.320 | yeah, let's have this conversation. When I was 10, was the first time that I had any sort of

00:53:28.480 | version of this conversation, which might sound crazy, but hear me out. We were living in Japan

00:53:34.720 | at the time and obviously not near any of my family. So it was my parents, me and my little

00:53:42.160 | sister, we're the only family around. And my parents were traveling together and my sister

00:53:46.240 | and I were staying behind. Now we were obviously being left with a guardian, but my mom said right

00:53:52.000 | before they left, if anything were to ever happen, you just need to call your uncle Kevin and he'll

00:53:57.920 | know what to do. I was 10, but the level of peace that that gave me to just know like, this is the

00:54:04.240 | adult that I would need to contact if something were to happen. Now, I did not know at the time

00:54:08.560 | that my uncle Kevin is who would have been our guardian and we would have just been moving back

00:54:12.480 | to America. And that would have been the course of action if something happened. I didn't know

00:54:16.480 | that piece, but I just knew that like, this is the adult who we should get in touch with if something

00:54:22.160 | ever were to happen to my parents. And for me, there was a level of peace to that. Now all kids

00:54:26.880 | are different. Your kid might be really anxious in a way that like, that's not helpful information

00:54:30.800 | to share, but at least make sure to know that the person watching them knows who to call if

00:54:36.320 | something were to happen. Like sharing information also on that level. We never want to think about

00:54:41.200 | it because we don't want to think about something happening to us, but it's really important.

00:54:45.280 | Maybe not my two-year-old, but our au pair should know what to do if something were to

00:54:48.560 | happen when we're out of town or my sister for sure. Okay. As long as we're on the topic

00:54:54.240 | of uncomfortable conversations we can have about money, there is another topic in the book that I

00:54:59.680 | feel like it would do justice to cover. Maybe not as in-depth because it probably doesn't come up

00:55:07.040 | for everyone or many of us listening might have already gotten past it.

00:55:11.040 | But let's talk about the conversation around money and your partner. We've already covered

00:55:16.240 | the emotional side of it in my conversation with Ramit. But I haven't had any conversation on this

00:55:21.680 | show ever about pre-nups and post-nups and that whole can of worms. And I know you have and have

00:55:27.680 | lots of opinions. So for anyone who's either in that situation, will be in it, regrets not having

00:55:34.160 | been in it, what advice do you have for people to think about? Man, we need to stop making the

00:55:40.080 | pre-nup a big deal. That is my first and foremost soapbox on this topic is that pre-nups are one of

00:55:47.440 | the biggest remaining taboos I feel when it comes to money conversations. Because to just say the

00:55:53.440 | word, like people are like, "Cursed. How dare you get a pre-nup? Your marriage is going to fail.

00:55:58.720 | You do not trust and love your spouse if you want a pre-nup." All right. Here's my multi-prong attack

00:56:06.080 | on people who are currently listening to this and feeling that way. First and foremost, as my pre-nup

00:56:11.360 | attorney said to me, because yes, I do indeed have a pre-nup is that everyone has a pre-nup.

00:56:17.360 | It's just the default laws of your state. What a great reframe. So technically there is a pre-nup

00:56:23.840 | in place for you if you didn't get one yourself. And it's just based on how your state would divide

00:56:28.400 | assets in the case of a divorce. All right. Fair enough. You should look at those state laws prior

00:56:35.600 | to getting married to see if that feels fair to you and the ecosystem of your relationship.

00:56:40.560 | And if it doesn't, you should get a pre-nup because that'll account for what actually

00:56:44.880 | feels fair to you within reason. You can't just do like anything you want in a pre-nup. There

00:56:51.120 | are rules and stipulations, but within reason, you can take back some level of control.

00:56:56.400 | The other thing is I really just think of it as marital insurance. And I think of it that way,

00:57:03.360 | because again, a lot of times people will say like, "Oh, if you get a pre-nup, it means that

00:57:07.360 | you don't love or trust your partner." Well, I don't have renter's insurance because I think

00:57:11.200 | that I'm going to get burglarized. I don't have car insurance because I think I'm going

00:57:16.080 | to get into an accident. I have those things just in case the bad thing does happen,

00:57:20.320 | then I'm protected. So again, I kind of think of pre-nups in a very similar way,

00:57:24.480 | that it is an insurance policy on my marriage. I didn't get married thinking, "Well,

00:57:29.520 | this could go sideways and we could get divorced." I got married thinking this is my person forever,

00:57:35.040 | but life is long. And if something happens and we're no longer happy being married,

00:57:40.160 | then I have an insurance policy that will make it much easier to get divorced. And we will

00:57:45.760 | have made decisions about what feels fair and equitable at a point where we're very much in

00:57:50.880 | love and we'll have been kind to each other. And it will save so much money on the cost of a divorce.

00:57:56.320 | Divorce can be so expensive. And also no one talks about that part. And then finally,

00:58:03.440 | for those of you listening who are thinking, "Well, I just never leave my spouse."

00:58:06.640 | Listen, people think that for myriad reasons. It could be religiously, societal pressure,

00:58:12.320 | cultural pressure, personal feelings. You just would never leave this person no matter what

00:58:16.560 | happened. Well, you can't control what they will do. They could leave you. And that's always really

00:58:23.680 | hard to hear. But again, to have a document in place that stipulates what feels fair to you

00:58:30.640 | is important because finally, everyone listening here would not sign a contract

00:58:38.240 | for a business agreement or anything in the business realm. You would never join a

00:58:44.000 | partnership with a friend without having a contract about what feels fair and deciding

00:58:51.120 | what would also happen if things were to go south. Why are we all signing this very legally

00:58:58.080 | binding agreement that has huge financial implications without reading the fine print?

00:59:02.800 | And that is one thing too that I think about a marriage license is that's one of the biggest

00:59:06.640 | financial decisions you might ever make in your life. Why are we not knowing the terms

00:59:11.360 | and conditions prior to signing? One thing that never crossed my mind with what you just said

00:59:15.760 | was that I have at least a few friends now that have gone through the process of divorce.

00:59:22.240 | And even when amicable, it is very expensive. And I've always just put prenups in the light of

00:59:31.600 | this is a thing to make sure that you protect money in a situation where one person has more

00:59:37.840 | or might have more. So that's the idea. But is there a world where someone could say, "Look,

00:59:43.760 | I believe that if we ever get divorced, we should split everything 50/50, but we should still have

00:59:48.480 | a prenup so that if it happens, it just is a simple process in the way that an estate plan

00:59:54.160 | might avoid the messy process of probate, but it might not change. You could decide how things get

01:00:01.200 | affected." Could a prenup just be something that adheres to the same process as what you'd thought

01:00:07.680 | what the state would do, but just does it more efficiently and saves you on attorney fees?

01:00:13.200 | I would talk to an attorney about that before. I'm going to be like, "Yeah, absolutely." Because

01:00:17.680 | again, so much varies by state. If you live in a community property state, your divorce might

01:00:23.280 | actually be easier if you're not going to contest anything because they're usually just like,

01:00:26.640 | "50/50, down the middle. Let's go. It doesn't matter why." So again, knowing the laws of the

01:00:32.880 | land could impact whether or not you need one in the first place, if it feels super fair,

01:00:37.440 | and you also can see a world where you can get through a divorce quick and easy with minimal

01:00:42.640 | amount of pain and suffering financially. Because if that stuff drags out, it is so expensive.

01:00:48.640 | But the other part, I sometimes feel like it's a bit of a misconception

01:00:51.920 | that a prenup is just to protect the one person who brings in all of the assets.

01:00:56.800 | Yes, obviously, if you come from wealth or you've already created wealth, those are two key reasons

01:01:03.280 | that you would want a prenup. A third being if you have a child from a preexisting relationship,

01:01:07.840 | that's another good reason to have a prenup to protect the financial interests of your child.

01:01:13.280 | But it also can be about what would happen to let's say retirement accounts.

01:01:19.680 | Those are often forgotten about in these conversations. So even if you haven't

01:01:23.360 | accumulated a bunch of assets going in, if you have one that you know has the potential to get

01:01:29.280 | pretty significant over let's say 10, 15, 20 years of a marriage, those are often some of

01:01:34.720 | the first assets to get completely gouged in a divorce. So even just having a prenup that might

01:01:40.000 | be as simple as we're protecting our retirement accounts. We each just have the right to our

01:01:44.640 | own retirement account. We don't have rights to each other. That might be something that saves

01:01:49.200 | you a ton of money in the future. Now, a prenup isn't cheap. I look at it as an upfront lump sum

01:01:56.480 | on an insurance policy. So again, that amount of money might not feel good to you for doing

01:02:02.240 | something just like exclusively protecting a retirement plan. But if we want to talk post-nups,

01:02:09.120 | this also might be an opportunity to bring that up with a spouse.

01:02:12.240 | And post-nups are a really hard sell if you have not previously had the prenup conversation.

01:02:19.280 | I actually know a couple of people who wanted to have a prenup, just kind of ran the clock down

01:02:24.240 | on getting it done, and then got married and had a post-nup instead. That's an easier pitch.

01:02:30.400 | If you're 10, 15 years into your marriage, and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh,

01:02:35.120 | post-nup sounds like a great plan," and you pitch that to your spouse, it might sound like you're

01:02:39.600 | preparing to divorce them. So it's a much harder sell to be like, "Let's have a post-nuptial

01:02:44.000 | agreement." But I guess conceptually, you can make these changes at any point in time,

01:02:47.680 | it sounds like. It doesn't have to be done before marriage.

01:02:50.640 | You can. And honestly, a lot of prenups should, again, like all the documents we've been talking

01:02:56.400 | about already, you should check in on that from time to time, just in the sense of has something

01:03:02.080 | big shifted in your marriage. So if you had outlined something in the prenup that now no

01:03:08.240 | longer feels fair based on the current ecosystem of your relationship, it might be time for a

01:03:12.960 | post-nup. And that could be something like, "Hey, if the two of you waived alimony in your prenup,

01:03:18.960 | but you're 10 years in, you've had two kids, and one of you has left the workforce for an extended

01:03:23.920 | period of time, that doesn't feel so fair anymore that you waived alimony in the prenup." So it

01:03:29.200 | might warrant having a post-nup to compensate for that. Or maybe you had kids and now you feel like

01:03:35.440 | the finances are a little bit of a different conversation. Or maybe somebody, Bill Perkins

01:03:40.000 | style received a lump sum inheritance early, and you bought property with it. And you want to have

01:03:44.880 | a post-nup that accounts for who has rights to that property in the case of a divorce.

01:03:49.040 | I know some people whose parents have asked to set up a post-nup as part of pre-inheritance.

01:03:56.160 | But a situation that you just alluded to that I thought was something that

01:03:59.280 | I'd never really thought about a prenup in this perspective was someone,

01:04:03.360 | one of the spouses was going to leave the workforce to take care of kids full time.

01:04:07.920 | And that would, in the future, kind of hinder their ability to earn income. They'd be out of

01:04:13.920 | the workforce, maybe 5-10 years, they would be out of their career track. And so at that point

01:04:19.360 | in time, they actually talked about, "Can we set up something different? Because my ability,

01:04:24.960 | were we to get divorced, to go get a job is different going forward than it is now."

01:04:28.720 | So that was a point in time where someone brought that up where it felt a little more natural than

01:04:34.000 | just out of the blue. I haven't thought or done any of this stuff. It just never crossed our

01:04:40.960 | minds. And now it's something I don't even know how I'm going to think about it. You just threw

01:04:46.000 | this at me like you're crazy to have not done something. I respect your opinion. And I haven't

01:04:50.400 | done it. And I'm still have this like weird undertone of like, "Why would I do it? That

01:04:54.640 | seems crazy. I trust..." So it's just so funny that I'm trying to have this rational conversation.

01:05:00.320 | And those emotions, I still see them. Oh, listen, I have... I'm going to say 85%

01:05:06.240 | of people react to this soapbox that I have in that way. Even if they see from a very rational

01:05:14.400 | side of things that it makes a lot of sense, a lot of people still feel, "Yeah, it's not romantic.

01:05:20.000 | I get it." There's nothing about that process that is romantic. But even if you're not going

01:05:25.920 | to sign on the dotted line, to have the conversations that are required of you

01:05:31.040 | when going through the prenup process, that is some of the best pre-marriage conversations that

01:05:36.640 | I could ever recommend somebody having. And even if you're not going to get married,

01:05:40.320 | but if you're in a long-term committed relationship, it is such a helpful conversation

01:05:45.360 | to be having. Because it really digs into not only how each of you react to money.

01:05:50.160 | Let me tell you, you'll be surprised what triggers you during the prenup process. You might be like,

01:05:54.720 | "Wow, I did not expect to react that way to something." But you will. And it also gets

01:06:00.960 | into how each of you personally feels about money, how you want to handle money in a marriage,

01:06:04.800 | what feels fair to you. And then yeah, if certain things come up, what feels fair to you at that

01:06:10.560 | time. And again, that's going to be an evolving conversation. What felt fair 6 years ago when my

01:06:16.080 | husband and I were working on this probably feels a little different than right now at this phase in

01:06:20.800 | our relationship and marriage. Yeah. And I think the last thing I'll say on this is that if you

01:06:26.000 | had asked me a month ago... So I just... I binged part of Ramit's show. And I've listened to his

01:06:33.040 | podcast. It still amazes me, just given the way that my wife and I manage our finances,

01:06:38.480 | that there are couples where you can get married and find out later that one spouse has a lot of

01:06:44.000 | debt and the other one doesn't. It seems crazy that you could sign a contract that would require

01:06:50.240 | you to be equally liable for a financial situation in some ways without actually understanding that

01:06:57.840 | situation before going in. I know you have a few things to say here. So I'm just going to

01:07:02.800 | leave that as an open door when it comes to if either spouse has student loans or credit card

01:07:08.560 | debt or anything like that. Does that play into this situation and change anything?

01:07:13.200 | It should. If your spouse has debt, first of all, again, know the rules of your state. Is

01:07:20.320 | there any possibility for you to become legally obligated to that debt as a byproduct of getting

01:07:26.160 | married? Oftentimes, the answer is no, unless you accumulated it together in the marriage or

01:07:32.480 | they accumulated it unbeknownst to you in the marriage, it still could impact you. So that's

01:07:38.160 | an important thing to know. But student loans, obviously being a big thing for millennials,

01:07:42.000 | outside of you co-signing on it, typically you are not legally connected to that debt in the

01:07:50.400 | case of a divorce. Now, what happens if you get married and you graciously, aggressively help your

01:07:58.480 | spouse pay off the student loans, and then your marriage goes down the tubes a year or two later?

01:08:04.160 | I've seen this on Reddit a few times. And all of a sudden, you had paid tens of thousands of

01:08:12.160 | dollars to help your spouse get out of debt. And they're like, "Okay, I'm out." A prenup actually

01:08:17.680 | could solve for that problem. You could, there's all sorts of different strategies that you could

01:08:22.000 | put in, but you could have kind of like a vesting period for what they would owe you back if you

01:08:27.840 | came in and paid off a huge amount of their debt, and then the marriage dissolved in a certain

01:08:32.160 | period of time. Again, is that a romantic thing to be talking about when you're planning your wedding?

01:08:38.160 | Absolutely not. Does it sometimes sound like you don't trust your partner? It might. But that is

01:08:44.240 | an important conversation to be having. Because again, you just don't know what could happen.

01:08:49.840 | And particularly, if you have worked very hard to set up a solid financial life for yourself,

01:08:54.720 | you don't want something like a divorce to completely undo all of that work.

01:08:59.760 | But it sounds like even if you're four or five years into a marriage, and you're like, "Let's

01:09:02.640 | use our savings to pay off your student loans." That could be a time where you say, "Well, could

01:09:07.120 | we set up a very specific post-op for this situation?" And the thing that I never really

01:09:12.240 | considered is like, it doesn't necessarily have to change some of the default state rules, right?

01:09:18.240 | You can get a post-op, I assume, that says, "Hey, you're going to have to pay back the

01:09:22.960 | student loans, but we still split all of our assets." You don't have to rewrite everything

01:09:28.800 | and kind of do it in a way that's like protecting your money and make sure no one ever gets it.

01:09:33.920 | It doesn't have to have all those stipulations.

01:09:35.840 | And it doesn't need to be adversarial, truly, at any point. That is the one beauty I see

01:09:41.840 | of doing it at what hopefully is sort of like a peak time of your love bubble when you're engaged

01:09:46.880 | and you're getting excited to be married and start this life together, that you will be kind and fair

01:09:51.520 | and generous with each other, because there's a reason you're marrying this person. And also,

01:09:55.840 | depending on work situations, that person might have helped you get where you are financially.

01:10:01.840 | I know a lot of my career is owed to my husband handling a lot of things behind the scenes and

01:10:08.240 | being supportive and doing a lot for my household, too. So yeah, he deserves some of the money.

01:10:13.840 | Okay. So there are a handful of things that we didn't get to. We're pretty far into this.

01:10:18.880 | I'm going to maybe ask you some questions. We could treat it more like a rapid fire.

01:10:22.480 | And you're welcome to get on your 2-minute soapbox and share your thoughts.

01:10:27.520 | One, while we're still on the topic of money and other people and taboo subjects,

01:10:32.880 | talking about money with friends, sharing information about your finances, you have

01:10:38.320 | a perspective that I would say maybe is contrarian. Can you share?

01:10:42.080 | Yeah, I think you should. That's contrarian. Most people don't want to share the information.

01:10:47.600 | You don't have to share numbers. But if you are dealing with paying off a big sum of debt,

01:10:54.480 | or if it's a positive thing, like you're trying to save up for a down payment,

01:10:58.160 | or you guys are going to have a kid or whatever it is, it's helpful to give your friends context

01:11:04.400 | about why you might be opting out of a social engagement, especially if you keep saying no.

01:11:10.080 | And I really say this one from a place of personal experience, where if you say no enough times,

01:11:14.800 | people stop asking. And we're also pretty self-centered creatures at the end of the day.

01:11:19.520 | So if you keep saying no with absolutely no context, they're going to think it's a them

01:11:22.880 | thing and not a you thing. And that for some reason, you're mad at them, or you're upset

01:11:26.000 | at them, or you don't spend time with them. So giving people a little bit of context about,

01:11:30.640 | "Hey, I got to be honest with you. I'm in a situation where I'm trying to pay off some

01:11:35.360 | credit card debt, or I'm trying to pay off my student loans, or we're working really hard to

01:11:39.840 | save up a down payment for a house. And so that is just going to limit my ability to be able to

01:11:45.760 | say yes to every single concert, happy hour, birthday dinner, insert activity here."

01:11:52.240 | If you're hearing me say this, and you're like, "I'm feeling itchy. None of this sounds good."

01:11:56.320 | Absolutely not. The other option is always just provide an alternative,

01:12:00.640 | the old compliment sandwich routine. "I love you. I want to spend time with you.

01:12:04.240 | Don't really want to spend $50 on bottomless brunch. How about we grab a bagel and go for

01:12:09.520 | a walk in the park?" Anytime you're saying no to your friend, provide a counter to what you're

01:12:15.040 | saying no to. So create a solution to the problem that you are causing by not wanting to just opt

01:12:20.640 | in all the time. Loaning money, friend.

01:12:23.440 | You can do it. Just never expect to get that money back, which is very common loan advice.

01:12:30.480 | But my bigger point here is I would really encourage you, friends, family, whomever it is,

01:12:34.800 | reframe that in your mind like a gift. You are giving them a gift. So first of all,

01:12:40.640 | don't gift them more than you are comfortable gifting. And if you get paid back, delightful.

01:12:47.840 | But if you don't, and also the reason I'm saying to do this is because inevitably,

01:12:52.480 | you loan somebody money, and then they go and book a trip or buy a new TV or spend money in

01:12:58.240 | a way that you're like, "Excuse you. I just loaned you $300, and you haven't paid me back yet. How

01:13:03.440 | dare you go spend money on this thing?" You trying to have ownership or entitlement

01:13:09.120 | over someone else's financial life is just going to be an absolute relationship deal breaker.

01:13:13.520 | So if you're going to loan money, no more than you can afford, and you've reframed it as a gift.

01:13:17.520 | And if you can't do that, for the love of God, say no. Just don't loan the money.

01:13:21.360 | But provide another thing. "Oh, I'm happy to help you budget.

01:13:24.400 | Happy to help you do this." What have you, but don't loan that money.

01:13:28.560 | Engagement rings?

01:13:30.640 | You know what? I don't see the point. It is probably the most controversial stance that I have.

01:13:35.280 | I feel like, "Don't waste money on engagement ring. Why are we doing this? I don't get it."

01:13:40.160 | I also don't get it from a personal aesthetic situation. People who are seeing me, I wear a

01:13:45.280 | gold band. I do wear a wedding ring. I did not at any point in my engagement wear an engagement ring.

01:13:51.040 | You don't need one to propose. My husband proposed without one.

01:13:54.720 | And if it's something you genuinely want, great. It is the byproduct of the world's

01:14:03.200 | best marketing strategy. And so that's more of my thing. Why do we do it? Do you actually want it?

01:14:09.520 | Or have you only been socially conditioned to want it? And it's okay if you actually want it.

01:14:15.200 | But do you really truly want it? And is it worth the ring? Or is there somewhere else

01:14:21.680 | that we can spend this money that makes more sense and is more aligned with your values?

01:14:26.320 | And again, there are folks for whom it's like, "No, no. Jewelry is my thing. I love this. I

01:14:31.520 | can't wait to have it. Maybe it doesn't have to be a diamond. Maybe it can be something else that

01:14:35.680 | means more. Maybe it's made in a lab, so it's a lot cheaper and people really can't tell the

01:14:39.920 | difference." Whatever it is. But only have one if it really is in alignment with what you want and

01:14:46.160 | not because socially it's what we're supposed to be doing. Love it. Okay. We're going to wrap.

01:14:52.560 | We're way over time. But normally, I ask everyone for some fun tips on what to eat, what to drink,

01:14:59.120 | what to do, where they're from. For you, I have a little bit of a different question because

01:15:03.920 | since we first talked, you both listened to the episode I did with Brandon on Japan,

01:15:08.560 | went to Japan. So I would love any tips you have. Did you do any of the things he suggested?

01:15:13.680 | Were they fun? Were there things he missed? And then feel free if you want to make any suggestions

01:15:18.640 | in whatever place you know best. But rarely do I get to talk to someone who actually listened to

01:15:25.360 | a travel-related episode and then went and did the trip.

01:15:28.880 | So first of all, I'm never going to say he missed anything. All the advice is great. If anything,

01:15:33.680 | I'm really mad I didn't get to it. I'm not kidding. Three days sooner because there were

01:15:39.840 | multiple restaurants that he had recommended that had gone up like 48 hours prior and were already

01:15:46.640 | sold out for the dates that we were going to be in Japan. Some of them just book that fast.

01:15:50.880 | So if you listen and you're planning a trip, truly calendar reminder for like 45 days out

01:15:56.480 | to start planning to make some of the dinner reservations. So that was my only bummer.

01:16:01.760 | It was so helpful for strategizing my itinerary. As I mentioned earlier, I lived in Japan as a kid.

01:16:10.400 | So first of all, our itinerary was a little different than some people's might have been

01:16:14.320 | because I lived in Kobe. So we wanted to spend a good chunk of time in Kobe.

01:16:18.160 | People kind of overlook Kobe as a city. So my first tip would also be like,

01:16:21.760 | don't overlook it. It's a great city. Also Kobe beef, go get it in the motherland.

01:16:27.440 | The other part, I was really struggling about when to stay in a ryokan, which is a traditional

01:16:33.440 | Japanese hotel. I'm like, I know I want to have this experience. I want my husband to be able

01:16:37.600 | to experience the onsen. And there's a point in the podcast where he says that a lot of people

01:16:42.080 | try to shoehorn that into Kyoto. And that is always the wrong move. Because Kyoto, you want

01:16:47.360 | to be like out experiencing it, going to all the temples, going to the wonderful food. There's so

01:16:51.280 | much to do there. But that's antithetical to what a ryokan is because you want to be relaxing,

01:16:57.600 | in the hotel, doing the onsen. So that really should be the dessert as he described it of the

01:17:03.200 | trip. We didn't quite do it as dessert. It was like third course, almost dessert,

01:17:08.480 | but it was at a point where we had done a lot of the things. And so it was great to be relaxing.

01:17:13.120 | And we actually did a little outside of Kobe in Arima, which is just again, A-R-I-M-A, Arima,

01:17:20.560 | wonderful town that I would highly recommend. But that part of the episode, I just had this like

01:17:27.600 | full sense of clarity about like, okay, this is actually how we should schedule this trip.

01:17:33.360 | So we did Tokyo to Kyoto to Kobe. In route to Kobe, we did a half day in Osaka, which some

01:17:38.880 | people might think is sacrilege because you should probably spend like a full day or two.

01:17:42.960 | And then a few days in Kobe up to Arima for the ryokan and then back to Tokyo,

01:17:49.120 | where we did get to do a Tokyo Giants-Honshin Tigers game, which if you're in Japan during

01:17:54.160 | baseball season, get tickets to a baseball game. It is a sight to behold, even if you're not a

01:17:59.600 | baseball fan. One of my favorite travel things to do is to try to experience a sports and or arts

01:18:06.320 | thing in the place where I am. So baseball in Japan is one of the best things to do.

01:18:12.240 | This has been great. Any final tips, somewhere, someplace, if you've got something top of mind?

01:18:18.640 | Oh, Champagne and Gyoza in Tokyo is a great restaurant.

01:18:22.240 | Not talking about money, but Champagne and Gyoza would be my one restaurant ad

01:18:28.640 | that is not on the podcast previously. And I would challenge everyone listening to have

01:18:38.000 | one awkward financial conversation by the end of the week, whatever week you're listening.

01:18:42.080 | Challenge yourself to have one uncomfortable money conversation with someone that will

01:18:46.800 | be productive. Okay, where can people

01:18:49.200 | go find scripts you've written, posts you've written, books, everything?

01:18:53.520 | So everything we've talked about is in Broke Millennial Talks Money, my third book. You can

01:18:58.880 | find out wherever books are sold. My first two, Broke Millennial and then Broke Millennial Takes

01:19:02.960 | on Investing. And then I have a workbook, Broke Millennial Workbook. All of those can be found

01:19:07.760 | wherever books are sold. Plus me, you can find on Instagram @BrokeMillennialBlog, on Twitter

01:19:13.920 | @BrokeMillennial. Website is BrokeMillennial.com. I don't update it a ton anymore. So I'm going to

01:19:20.320 | be honest, Instagram is really the place to find me.

01:19:22.800 | Awesome. Yeah. I mean, you've owned the term, but I will say that the content has also evolved. So

01:19:29.440 | there is value... If you're listening to this and you're like, "I'm not broke. Why would I go

01:19:33.120 | read this book?" I was reading this chapter inspired... Chapter 7 inspired this episode. So

01:19:40.720 | there's a lot there. So I just want to caution anyone that hears the word Broke Millennial and

01:19:44.960 | thinks, "I don't need this book because I have some savings." There are still scripts in there

01:19:50.720 | that I've used for this purpose already.

01:19:54.000 | And I will also say, you might not be, but someone in your life probably is.

01:19:58.800 | And so they might find it helpful.

01:20:00.160 | Awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

01:20:03.440 | It was wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.

Money Talks: Navigating Uncomfortable Conversations with Loved Ones

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