Michelle: [00:03:32] I don’t feel safe and secure about my financial life. Since COVID, we have actually started saving money. And we both put money into our IRA two years in a row. But we live like we are 25 years old. Everything about money starts. I was supposed to get married and have a husband who takes care of me, who takes care of my finances, who provides for us. I never thought that I would be 52 years old and have very little money saved, living as if I was 25 years old. When something happens it’s like, “Oh my God, how are we going to pay for that?”
Ramit Sethi: [00:04:14] Where does that story of how it should have come from? Where did you start telling yourself that story?
Michelle: [00:04:20] My parents who helped me didn’t really help me
Ramit Sethi: [00:04:23] Tell me more about that.
Michelle: [00:04:25] Yes, so they always helped me even when I was slow. I was living in North Carolina and wanted to find a one bedroom apartment. My mom is like, “No, you need a two-bedroom apartment.” So he paid for a two-bedroom house. You stay like this, I wanted to go, my mother gave me money. I wanted this, my mother gave me money. So it was a pattern and why not? My mother gave me money. I needed it. I wanted it. So I took it.
Ramit Sethi: [00:04:58] And looking back, what lessons do you think you took from your parents that have always helped you?
Michelle: [00:05:06] Perhaps gratitude and generosity, how generous people are with money and grateful for their financial support.
Ramit Sethi: [00:05:16] Anything else?
Michelle: [00:05:18] I don’t think it helped me grow up or be responsible with money. I have never had a budget in my entire life. I knew nothing about money. We never discussed it at home either. It was my upbringing. I am Jewish. So you marry a doctor, the doctor takes care of you. My father took care of my mother. It turns out, I think.
Ramit Sethi: [00:05:46] And when you met Eric, did you have those conversations?
Michelle: [00:05:53] No, I don’t think so. It was a lot of thought. I don’t think we ever talked about money. I thought we both grew up in the same town, we both grew up in the middle class. No, we never discussed money before we got married.
Ramit Sethi: [00:06:11] And how does money appear in your relationship?
Michelle: [00:06:15] It comes with a lot of emotions and anger.
Ramit Sethi: [00:06:19] Oh, like what?
Michelle: [00:06:23] Like anger. I’m angry at him for not being responsible, not taking care of me, not talking about it, not getting involved in saving or any debts, all of that.