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  Welcome back to another episode of the road like podcast with Meredith and Craig What are we talking about this week Bennett? We're talking about one of the biggest sources of conflict in relationships money money

Title of this

episode don't be weird about money.

Yeah, because people are so weird when it comes to money money Makes everything weird for some people for a lot of people.

It's a super common For people to get super weird once money comes into things.

Yeah, and it's one of the three biggest factors that cause arguments in relationships along with sex and parenting. Money's right up there. Yeah. Well, let's talk about sex soon too. Yeah, we'll do that. Let's

get into all the

conflict spots.

So money this week and

Our goal in this episode is to get you to see money a little differently and so that it just doesn't become an issue between , you and your partner.

Let's take the power away from money and give the power back to you.

Yeah.

Cause money is just a tool.

To do

the things you want to do in your life.

Like it's just, a tool, but we give it so much power over us.

And I think the reason most people give it so much power is because of how we were brought up. We all have different money stories from how we grew up. Maybe we grew up rich and money was no object. That certainly was not my upbringing.

Maybe we grew up with, you know, rich people

are evil. Money is the root of all evil. Exactly. Rich people are greedy. Like there's all kinds of different money

stories that we've grown up. And, , maybe that then translates to you now being a saver or a spender or,

or like a never ask anyone about money.

Never ask what anything costs. Never. Like there was always all these taboo rules around money that made it this thing that you weren't supposed to talk about.

Yeah. And I was brought up that way. He's like, you don't talk about what people make. You don't ask questions. . Money is like a taboo subject.

Exactly. So then

when you get into a relationship. All of those rules that you grew up with those are the rules you live by and so when it comes time to Getting into a committed serious relationship.

You don't have the conversation about money

The conversation about money is really important and it becomes really difficult

And when you don't have that conversation up front and then you get into the relationship You get deeper into the relationship and you find out one person in the relationships a saver.

The other is a spender Yeah, well guess what? Yeah.

And it doesn't even have to be the extremes of savers and spenders. There's all kinds of like shades of gray in it. And so if your stories don't align, which they're not going to because your money story comes from your set of life experiences and what you were taught.

And we've had very, very similar upbringings, but our money stories aren't identical. No one is going to have the same money story as you. That's why it's important for you to explicitly have a conversation about money and figure out how you want to approach money in your relationship. So that conversation is just, Another difficult conversation because money is an awkward thing for most people.

So when you approach it the way we talk about approaching any difficult conversation and shout out to that episode, I forgot what number it is, but we'll link to it in the show notes. Just use the strategy of difficult conversation to have the conversation about money so that you can both get on the same page with what your new set of guidelines are, what the framework is that you're going to have for money within your relationship.

And one of the things I remember hearing early on When we were together at some point, I don't remember where I heard it, but like what's the threshold that You can just pay for something and not have to think about it versus have a conversation about it Like if you're gonna go out and buy a new truck, we're gonna have a conversation about that But if I'm gonna go buy a couple new pairs of socks I'm gonna just go do that because I've got holes in my socks.

Outfits. Yeah, so It's somewhere there's a threshold where I expect you're gonna come to me and we're gonna have a conversation before you Sign on that dotted line for whatever you're buying and what that number is to me and what that number is to you Might be two different things for me.

Maybe it's 100 for you Maybe it's 1, 000 and we need to have that conversation so that we're both in agreement on Sure, I'm gonna go buy a whatever And it's going to cost me 350 and we've agreed that we can each spend 500 without having to run it through. So basically

just have those rules in place, have the conversation and put those rules in place.

Exactly.

So one thing you can do about this right now is to reflect on your own money story, like reflect on what you learned growing up about money, how that has, Molded your money story and how you've brought that into the relationship and and consider whether you've had that conversation with your spouse about your money rules in your relationship.

Like, you know, if you're having disagreements about money, where do those stem from? Is it one person spending so much and the other person doesn't want to spend anything? And is there a conversation that can be had to agree on a set amount to your point just a second ago? Yeah. Can we agree that 500 or less have at it

or 200

or whatever it is?

And in the bigger picture too, like in that conversation, where are those compromises? Because like we said, you're both not going to have had the same set of experiences, so you're not going to have the exact same story. And so you're going to both come in with your own, Set of expectations in what constitutes the right framework for money in your relationship And that's gonna require some compromise which shout out to compromise episode We'll link to that one too that there's gonna be some give and take required there Yeah, I think another way to take power away from money and give it back to you instead of money is Knowing exactly how money comes and goes from your life How does money flow into your relationship and how does money flow out of your relationship?

Just

the hard numbers. Just

the numbers.

Because money is not emotional. We as humans are emotional. Money is not.

Yeah.

It can tell a story if you just look at the numbers.

And this is something we started a number of years ago now, but it's not something I ever did before. It's a new habit. It's a new behavior, but we just track the money in and the money out every week in our relationship so that we know.

We can track in a spreadsheet or in an app or whatever makes sense for you, but we know how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. So the end of the year just passed. I can look and I can see exactly how much we spent on groceries in the run of the year. Like, I have an idea on where the money in our relationship is going and it's important for both of you

to know

that.

And it's really great because it does take the emotion out of it. It's really just the numbers speak for themselves because money is like what we said earlier is just a tool. And it's, about what it can do for you. It's like, any other tool, like a hammer or a car, all these other things that you have in your life, they serve a purpose.

And so your car, you don't have any motion usually around your car or a hammer, but yet we hammer

for sure. But

yet we really do around money.

Yeah.

And, but it's no different than a hammer. You're going to use it to hammer that nail or hang that picture or whatever you're going to do with it.

Money is no different. You're going to use it to go buy the things you need to execute your life.

But yet we're all so deeply attached to money and how it reflects on our self worth and our success. And we tunnel vision ourselves when we think about success to our financial success. And, You know, we can broaden our perspective on what success and, failure mean for us beyond just money so that we can take some power away from money.

But going back to the, the B word, the budget, and that's what I call our tracking of money is our budget. And it's not, we can only spend X number of dollars on groceries every week. It's a, this is what we spend just so that we're tracking it. And one story that always puts this into perspective for me is your aunt and uncle.

When they got sick a couple of years ago and your uncle got very sick and your aunt didn't have the foggiest idea of where the money was, how to pay the bills. Like there was a lot of fear for her around that unknown when you're both on the same page and you both know how the money comes in, where the money goes, how it goes out, , when the bills get paid, how the bills get paid when you're both.

on the same page with how money works in your lives. Then there's, a shift in the confidence in both of you that if anything were to happen, both of you know exactly what's going on.

Yeah. So when you're on the same page too Then you can, you leverage money as a tool to accomplish your shared dreams. So getting on the same page and understanding , where your money's coming in and out, but also understanding what is it that you want to achieve in your life? What are the things that you want to do?

Do you want to save for a trip? Do you want to build a business? Do you want to start a family? What are the things that you want to do and what kind of money is going to be required to achieve those goals? And then you can start to work together to achieve those goals and understand and reframe money as a tool.

It's not just this emotional thing that causes a whole bunch of issues within me, but it's a tool to achieve the things that I really want most in life, relationships vacations, experiences, whatever the things are that you want to experience in your life. Money is just a tool to get there. Otherwise it has no use.

It has no value really other than to get you the things you want.

So when you know how much money is coming in and where it's going and you know what you're trying to achieve, whatever that big goal is, then you have the hard numbers, right? Like to your point earlier, it takes the emotion out of it.

Where do we need to redirect funds? Where do we need to lower what we're spending so we can take that money and put it somewhere else? And it just becomes a question of moving the pieces around on the board as opposed to the emotion that comes with it. You're spending too much. You're shopping too much.

You're this, you're that. It's like, no, no, no. Where is the money? Okay, we got to take this piece and move it over here and this piece and move it up here. It

also helps when you have something that you're trying to achieve together, you're saving for or investing in or do whatever it is you're putting that money towards.

It's a lot easier to have that conversation of you're spending too much or why are we buying this or whatever it is when you know that you have a goal over here. And if all this stuff that's happening with the money over here, doesn't doesn't fulfill those goals. And it's easier to have that conversation around, Hey, I thought we were, you know, over here doing this, this doesn't serve that should, you know, have that.

Yeah. Let's have that conversation again. Not easy. It's a difficult conversation to have, but there's, tools and templates out there for that. We've got that link below. And then I think one thing, tangible thing to do here is, Do that exercise of what is it we want our money to achieve for us and write it down , and get together and have that conversation.

So you can get on the same page and build that plan for yourselves of, yeah, we're saving for this vacation or we're going to buy a new house or we're going to start a family and we want to have a little bit of socked away for that. Whatever it is, do that exercise of what do we want our money to achieve for us?

And it just takes away the power of money. It gets it out into the light. You start to talk about it. You have a conversation and it just really does make it a lighter subject when you've, when you are able to talk about it more.

And you know exactly what it is in your relationship, how it comes in, where it goes, how it goes out, where it's stored, where all those things make it Just a thing, like just a flow in your relationship as opposed to all the things that we attach to it and are the biggest one, you know, being our value and what it means for us versus what it actually is.

So what are some tips that we can provide for folks that they can just start to remove the, We'll say the discontent within a relationship around money.

Well, I think the first thing going back to knowing how it works in your relationship, and it's a great time of year for this conversation actually, because we just started the year.

So , you can have a whole year of tracking where the money's coming in and out in your relationship so that at the end of this year, you know exactly where it's going. , you know, we're only a couple of weeks into this year. Go back to the beginning of the year and start tracking where and use an app, use a budget spreadsheet or templates within Excel.

Whatever makes your life easier, whatever tool you want to use to track your money. But what comes in, when does it come in? How much comes in? Where does it go? How much are you spending on groceries? How much are you spending on restaurants? How much are you spending on car payments?

How much? Have a weekly check in, communicate about it. And what I find helpful, another tip for this. is to appoint one of you to be accountable to keep the spreadsheet or the app updated. CFO. Yeah. , one of you is the CFO of your family or of your relationship and you're accountable. However,

The other person knows what's going on.

The other

person is fully informed of what's going on. So when we first started doing this, we had a weekly meeting. So every week we would get together for half an hour or 20 minutes or 15 minutes and go through our credit card statements. Where is the money going? And just allocate it. And then we know exactly who's spending what on how much and how much is everything going into.

And we're both fully informed on what's going on.

And part of that conversation I think is understanding what are the important things that your spouse likes to spend money on? Is it, is it important for them to have a monthly massage or a weekly nail appointment or whatever? I don't know, but understanding what their values are.

You don't necessarily have to always agree with every purchase, but. At least, you know what they value, what helps them fills them up. And then there's some compromise. There's some back and forth. Okay, cool. You do the monthly massages and I'll do my weekly golf with my friends or whatever.

And then, you know, that's our budget for. the vitality side of our life. And over here, we're going to start saving, you know, X percent of our income for the trip or the house or whatever. But having that conversation and understanding what each one values will really help remove some of the discontent and the disagreement that happens in relationships when we can agree that, you know, certain part of our paycheck or the income coming in is going towards some of these things that really fills our cup.

And I think just being consistent about it. Like, , I try to do it every week. Fill the spreadsheet every week, and if I miss a few weeks and it drags on, it takes me longer. If I can do it every week, it takes me five minutes, ten minutes tops. If I let it go, it can take me an hour or more. And so when you stay consistent with it, it just becomes a part of your routine.

It doesn't become this daunting task and it makes it feel easier.

And one last one is, , when you have these little milestones where maybe you've saved a certain amount of money or you, , did something really cool with the money, have a little celebration, have a go for a dinner out or something that helps you keep the momentum going and celebrate the successes that you've had with regards to the money coming in and out of your life.

Like, Oh, you hit a big income goal or You finally got that account to 20, 000. So now you're going to, do something with it. Whatever it is, the renovation can go ahead, go have a dinner, go out, go buy a steak or have a massage or whatever it is that fills you up and keeps you. In

momentum.

Exactly.

Yeah. So the whole point is to take the power away from money and give the power back to you so you can stop being weird about money.

One thing that really helped me, I found it a really cool exercise was when we did a visualization of, so you close your eyes and you think about money. You invite money over to your house for dinner and just, Sit, close your eyes and think, money's coming over to your house.

What does money look like? What does it dress like? Is it in a suit and tie? Is it very formal? Is it in short board shorts and a backwards hat? Like what is it

a cartoon character of a dollar sign?

Yeah. Like what is money? How is it showing up for you? And it tells you a lot about your vision of money, your story about money, and then have a conversation with money.

Like if you ask money, What did they

pull up in the driveway? Yeah,

are they in a Ferrari? Are they in a Volkswagen Bug? Are they in a limo? How did they walk in? confident, not confident. How did you receive them? Did you open them up and have them in for like, have a conversation with money invited over for dinner.

What are you having for dinner? Are you having steak and lobster? Are you having, how do you

act around

Mac and cheese? Are you nervous around money or are you confident around money? You treat it like an old friend. Just have the have the vision invited over for dinner and And just ask it questions and talk through and then just, and no judgment, just sit with it and understand , how am I reacting about money?

And that

just kind of gives you a good idea of your baseline and your money story and how you feel about money. I

found that really interesting to do that exercise. And so I think that that could be a really helpful exercise for, anyone really. Yeah. And

that gives you a good idea of where you're starting from so that you can engage in that conversation with your spouse.

And that's where you at least, you know, where you're starting from.

Yeah. And start small. Like I know we gave you a lot to go back, listen to all of it, but if, there's one thing you can take away from it, just have a conversation about money, start to get on the same page about it and maybe start that, tracking the budget or whatever.

Not, I know budget's a bad word for a lot of people, but there's just the tracking of the in and out flow of money.

Yeah. And so to your point, there's a lot of things in there. So what's the one thing? You're going to take away from this episode. We love sitting here having a chitchat with you But we also want you to take at least one action based on every episode.

So think to yourself. What's the one? Action you're going to take coming out of this episode and start implementing that so you can start to see change And on that note, we will see you next week. Bye