She Can't Get Her Husband On Board Financially | Millennial Real Life Budget Review Ep. 38

welcome back to another episode of millennial real life budget review I'm sure you've probably encountered something as what this couple is going through not being able to get your significant other on board financially especially when you have six figures in debt stick around hey fam welcome back to the channel I'm your host Justine here we talk about all ways to crush your debt Achieve Financial confidence that least to more fun and fewer payments and is this couple having fun no do they have a lot of debt yes and we are going to get into all of the nitty-gritty details and bonus I found when I was running through this woman's application I was like you know what I think what they need is just a couple of talking points and scripts to help get their partner on board financially so stick around if you're like yes I need some talking points to talk to my significant other about finances and do so without it ending in a blowup fight then this video is for you so I asked what do you do for work she said she is a loone assistant at a mortgage company and her husband is in sales their annual salary hers is 90k husband's is variable roughly 100K so all in they're bringing in $190,000 per year which is fantastic they live in Fresno California the Witchita of California I feel like only instead of Kansas City being like 2 3 hours away from you literally yose National Park is only a few hours away from you um loved Fresno when I stopped in so I get you it's still High Cost of Living I asked what is the biggest thing you struggle with financially they said getting these significant other on the same page consistently over budget with groceries miscellaneous household spending every few months there's a new thing that comes up and it gets us in more that we had very different upbringings and following a budget is a big point of contention he feels we make too much to not indulge I feel we make too much to have this much debt and nothing to show I get it uh next question I asked there what are your top two to three financial goals you want to accomplish they said number one pay off debt not including the auto loan yet okay number two contribute to retirement I stopped mine because I see how tight we are and it makes me sick to my stomach number three buy a house in 3 plus years after the kids are done with daycare I asked how much debt do you have they have $14,100 and they have $774 in an emergency fund they also gave me some more Deets and so I want to share the Deets with you so they are mid-30s couple so Millennial couple two toddlers both work full whole time she said I cannot get him to discuss finances or follow a budget at all without it ending in a fight I manage money as much as I can but it's not just like tracking expenses over 40% of income goes to just rent in child care so they gave me a couple talking points here recently did a balance transfer she says I know I know I'm desperate Child Care will be cut in half when Toddler goes to school in August 25 and came into that my income was cut about $2,000 a month and I'm struggling to readjust I'm curious why that happened and why you're still with your current employer if you've had a $244,000 a year pay cut uh-uh I'd be looking for a new job I know you are going to eat me up on the auto loan it's husband's car family car out a rinky dink 12year car with no loan okay kidss necessities only the essentials are things required by daycare Home Maintenance this month was rough seemed like everything ran out at once and we buy in bolk I need to start a sinking fund should we get into the budget I think we should let's see what we got going on I'm I'm going towards the debt table first so we've got a lot of different debts here we've got oh we owe money to the IRS I see that more often now I see so many people owe money to the IRS because their ta tax withholdings actually were not with withholding enough money from their paychecks and spoiler alert your payroll department really doesn't do much on that end you really need to be working with the CPA in order to figure out exactly how much tax withholdings you should have from a paycheck because we went through this experience where Kyle wasn't withholding enough um taxes from his paycheck of no fault of his own anyway side note I see that more often uh now in the last maybe two years than I ever have okay so Best Buy it looks like you bought maybe an appliance oh and did you pay it off because it says actual monthly payment 1953 total debt $12.49 confused there but maybe you paid it off I'm assuming a washer dryer we've got a city credit card with $6,000 on it we've got a city Costco card as close to $14,000 your minimum monthly payment holy cow $453 yikes Apple with a balance of 7,800 Bank of America oh man Bank of America I'm telling you this is such a predatory bank I would yeah get rid of those 9980 so 8,000 of that has a 0% interest until 2026 same with discover we've got about $8,000 0% until late 2025 and then this car loan what kind of car did you guys buy $52,000 I'm guessing a top-of-the line SUV with a third row seat or a truck your payment I know she she was like warning warning you're going to eat me alive it's okay it's it's a lot though it's a lot $1,084 uh going towards a car payment that's just the car payment not your tags not your insurance not your gas not any maintenance God forbid that's just the payment oh man that's a lot okay your total monthly take-home though was $1,543 so not too shabby there let's take a look at some of the other expenses that you have so you said you had some Home Maintenance stuff that came through that was kind of like a high expense month for you but then you also said you wanted to buy a house in about 3 years so I was confused if you rented or you owned or maybe there was some Home Maintenance things cuz here is Home Maintenance of $290 your landlord would be theoretically taking care of that for you unless it was something else that wasn't covered and it was on you guys but 2178 is what you got going towards your house payment essentially so out of the 10,000 we've got 22% going towards the house payment rent payment which is actually really really freaking good but as you alluded to as add in child care which is another 20% you got 40% of income going towards Child Care totally get it understood California is a high cost of living area and so yes it's going to unfortunately that's what it's going to be until you get your kid into a prek now is covered by the public education system out there so once your oldest turns four then hopefully we can get those those costs reduced internet looks good electricity is high but you're kind of more Inland so I imagine you're running the air a lot groceries holy cow you actually spent close to $1,500 on groceries can we look at ways to maybe shop at cheaper stores maybe like a Walmart maybe an Aldi or they had a food for less in Southern California I would be looking at some of those places car maintenance you want to start a sinking fund for that get it car insurance 246 assuming that's covering two vehicles for you Grandma's Insurance recovering Grandma's Insurance Home Maintenance cell phone I'm not a fan of that $32 installment $323 balance and $16 subscriptions and then the data plan right so yeah I I would just get out of this and see if you have a device protection on it because that's another area where I always take device protection off if I have a really healthy and robust emergency fund so between everything everything for the basics you've got about $7,000 in just basic spending so we're looking at between $4 to $21,000 in your starter emergency fund based on these costs alone now you could potentially take out Child Care like if you were to lose your job then you're like I'm not sending the kids to to daycare full-time or maybe I'm going to keep one kid at home so that there's some legal room here but I definitely want you to increase your emergency fund I would increase it to 10 and then 12 and then 14 and then we can kind of reassess the situation but wouldn't it feel amazing to have $1 to $4,000 in your emergency fund and you're already way ahead because you have one month of living expenses already saved let's take a look at the fun you actually look really good on fun $64 I think in $200 to miscellaneous I don't think you need that much but I think this is probably a point of contention here where you've got this so tight because all the fixed expenses are so high so this is where we could actually kind of play with this and say well we've got to make some adjustments also I see that you're in the negative here let's take a look at what else you've got going on you have nothing going to the emergency fund this is where I would be shifting this miscellaneous uh buffer and shifting it into the emergency fund and then you've got all these other different little sinking funds which I absolutely love you want to save $75 well date night yeah if you have to hire a babysitter plus dinner plus drinks plus going out I get that Family Clothing okay you got $571 that you're trying to actively save for however knowing let me make sure that all of your formulas are set up correctly here okay you are negative negative $79 in the hole we have got to fix that I also saw auto maintenance was here and then car maintenance was up at the top so let's just go ahead and take that out so now we're only $600 in the hole it's like actually I have to take out all of these different sinking funds and the future goals and now we're kind of at this place where it's like okay I might have to lower your grocery budget to be honest oh my gosh and then you guys had a major gas bill gas high due to emergency out of state drive 450 is average let's do that 450 and then we may have to reduce this you know what I see is the issue I think it is the family car that is the issue imagine if we could reduce the car payment from $11,000 to let's call it $500 then we've got some wiggle room then we can actually do some things if we had to make one change this is the biggest change that you could make instead of trying to be like oh we can't eat out oh we can't we can't spend money we can't spend money on we can still have a second V we can still have a family car but not have it at $1,000 monthly payment with $52,000 Ed we need to have some hard conversations about about this family car and see what we can do to really shape things up for you because I I couldn't at this point if I move this back to $1,000 I've only got $31 and I've got nothing saved nothing saved for sinking funds and we're barely having any fun as it is in fact I feel like the car is sucking out all of the fun in your life because that is the biggest thing unless you guys are like I'm going to get a big fat raise and it's going to be like a 40% raise then maybe it's not working it's not working this is the biggest piece of the puzzle I don't think incomes can get any higher like really really jump unless you guys were to complete completely jump Shi from your companies perhaps you could maybe talk about that with your mortgage company I don't know what your husband's bonus structures are like in sales but this is another area maybe you could increase but something that you can control immediately cuz you can't always control how much you're going to get in a raise with your company but we can control what we're driving so this could be easily something that we take a look at and I know you said you already did some balance transfers which for these 0% let's take a look at the debt reduction calculator real quickly and then I'm going to get into some scripts for you to use to get you guys on board together financially but I went ahead and plugged in all of your numbers so collectively just on minimums on minimums alone you're paying close to $2400 a month let me double check that yep $2,400 a month in minimum debt payments so if I was to do just an extra $600 a month and let's call it $33,000 going towards debt every single month it's actually not a bad plan for you guys because I can get you debt free in 3 and 1/2 years which is fantastic Where's My Car Loan 3 and 1/2 years oh boy but we're not saving anything that's the biggest thing that is the biggest culprit here we could actually get you if this car loan let's say we traded it in for something that was less let's call it 35,000 what if this was 500 oh my gosh you guys we went from 3 and 1/2 years to 2 years 10 months we've shaved 8 months off of your life and made it 8 months shorter I mean that's fantastic that's certainly what I would be thinking about we can still drive a really nice car and a nice family SUV and be debt free in less than 3 years I think that'd be awesome for you obviously talking about trading in your $52,000 family car husband's car is going to be a point of contention alongside your budget so I wanted to include some scripts to help you get each other on board financially on the same page so that you're working on the same side of the table and my first script for you to use is would you be a opposed to me sharing an idea about the budget would it be ridiculous if I showed you a financial goal that I've been working on you want to frame the question in such a way that the answer that you want to get is a no instead of a yes and here's why when we get a question where we're getting a yes response back a yes response especially when we're talking about negotiating getting each other on board financially a yes feels like you're pinning me into a corner I yes feels like I'm signing up for something that I don't really know what the end result is going to be and I don't like that I'm already feeling defensive like yes but I don't know like let me hear you out so when we can phrase it as a would it be weird if I shared this financial goal that I've been working on with you no that's not weird at all sharing sure yeah whatever or would you be opposed to me sharing an idea about the budget no I I wouldn't be opposed to that so see how we're reframing the question from this yes response to a no response this is a really great way to start working together and collaborating on your finances the next script to use is I'm curious what if we didn't have debt payments what would we spend the money on instead or I'm curious have you ever thought about our retirement plans what do you envision when you come from a place of curiosity and use this I'm curious it allows the other side it allows your partner to open up about their ideas perhaps there's something that they haven't shared or haven't even thought about and now you're giving them the opportunity to step up and share those things be an active listener engage with them in that that even if their Vision does not line with yours at all actively listening hearing them out is really going to help you guys come together as a couple on your money the next script this this one's going to sound weird but this is this is one you'll want to use it is I have something to share with you about our finances but I'm afraid to tell you because you're going to think I'm a big fat loser you can use something along those lines of you're probably going to think the worst of me when I share this with you and I'm I'm so scared to tell you calling out the worst case scenario calling out what they may or may not be thinking and they would never say it out loud right like and they probably don't think you're a big fat loser but you're you're OV exaggerating it so when you build it up so like oh my gosh this is going to be so insane they're like no no no it's fine like don't talk about yourself that way it's like what is it I'll hear you out that's when we can start really shifting and creating this calling out this worst case scenario because it's going to disarm them disarm them from even thinking those things cuz you're calling it out loud this next statement I love and it is seems like you have a reason for saying that I love this by the way this is a tool that I got from Chris Voss who has a book called Never split the difference highly recommend Chris Boss is an ex FBI hostage negotiator who has started his own company to help people increase their negotiation skills so you're like oh boy I have to be an FBI hostage negotiator no you just need to learn some of the phrases in order to help you understand and get to an agreement and a collaboration with your partner so seems like you have a reason for saying that when you use that phrase seems like sounds like you have a reason for saying that it gives the other side an opportunity to share yes and this is why it gives them an opportunity to elaborate on their thoughts and gives you context of how they form this belief it also shows that you care and that you're listening to your significant other when you can call it out and say okay I'm taking an educated guess here seems like you really care about what we drive and what we have as our as our family vehicle it sounds like this car is really important to you being able to just say that statement allows them to elaborate on why this might be true for them this next script is how am I supposed to do that when you say how am I supposed to do that it gives your partner the opportunity to empathize with your situation and step into your shoes as in we're going to keep the car we're going to indulge we're going to spend well how am I supposed to do that you can show your partner your budget and say is it ridiculous that I show you this I just want another set of eyeballs on this to make sure I'm not missing anything when we actually see the numbers of our budget coming together it gets real real easy to to not ignore anymore but now we're actively engaged and saying oh yeah I see what you mean I want to indulge on on our money I want to enjoy our money but it doesn't really seem like we're enjoying our money because so much of it is going towards debt and lastly I want you to get to a point where you're getting a that's right instead of your right from your partner and here's what I mean by that you can use that seems likee statement and start paraphrasing and some summarizing what they've been sharing with you as you've used those other scripts seems like you think we ought to enjoy our money and spend it on the things that we truly love and have fun with seems like you feel comfortable with the way things are financially last time we spoke about finances you shared that we make a solid income to support our family when you can start summarizing and say seems like sounds like pause give them the opportunity to think about it and say that's right I agree with that a your right is like uh you're right how many times have you said you're right and then you just went back to doing the same old same old you say you're right cuz you're like just get off my back already okay okay I agree with you you're right whatever and then you go back to the same habits when you get them to say that's right it gets them to break down any barriers that they might have so that you guys can start collaborating together on your finances it's not his car and her car it's our cars and together we are going to make a plan for our cars to figure out what works best financially I mean you talked about it in your goals you want to pay off the debt not including the car loan which is like the first one I went after I'm contributing to retirement how are we supposed to do that how am I supposed to do that contribute to retirement when we're barely making all of the bills and all the bill payments how are we supposed to buy a house in 3 years when we have no down payment to show for having these conversations with your partner is really going to help you guys get on board financially please please try some of these scripts out come back and comment let me know um for the person that I'm reviewing this budget please email me and tell me exactly how those conversations went and I'm hoping Hing and I'm guessing it'll be much more productive when you have some of these scripts ready to go and use them in a way that's compassionate that you are listening to the other side that we are coming together with our finances now if you would like to have your own budget reviewed anonymously here on the channel click on the Google form link below fill out as many details as possible the more details you give me the better and the better advice that I can give to you and I'll catch you in the next one [Music]