May 29, 2025 • 44 mins
In this week's episode, I sat down with the Dr. Travis Parry to talk about one of the most game-changing aspects of your financial life—getting on the same page. Whether you’re married, engaged, or single and want to better understand your own money mindset, this episode is packed with tools and insights that will help you level up. We talk about understanding your money history, why shared goals matter more than shared bank accounts, and how regular communication can build deep financial intimacy.
Dr. Parry—author of Achieving Balance and Marry and Grow Rich, founder of the Make Time Institute, and father of eight—shares powerful stories and practical tools to help couples and individuals alike break through financial misalignment. If you’ve ever felt like you're speaking a different financial language than your spouse or just want to better align with your future goals, this one’s for you!
💰 Money Talking Points
- What page are you trying to get to?
- How would it feel to be in sync with your goals or your spouse?
- What challenges need to be overcome to get on the same page?
🕒 Time Stamps & Key Conversations
[03:00] – What is a money history? How family origin influences your financial habits.
[05:00] – Scarcity vs. abundance mindset—how your beliefs about money shape your behavior.
[08:00] – Skyler shares a personal breakthrough in financial communication with his wife.
[09:00] – How communication (or lack of it) can make or break your financial life.
[13:00] – Financial infidelity and why trust is so crucial in money management.
[15:00] – Joint accounts vs. joint goals—what matters more for true alignment?
[18:00] – Setting up a system: Money Monday meetings, spending plans, and routines.
[23:00] – 3 big steps to get on the same page:
[30:00] – Final advice: Be a good steward of what you have now to prepare for more.
🔗 Links & Resources
📚 Travis’s Book – Marry and Grow Rich: marryandgrowrichbook.com
🌐 Make Time Institute (Travis’s site): maketimeinstitute.com
Sign up for my newsletter: https://money-talk.kit.com/64cbd24b05
Schedule a free Money Talk at https://moneytalk.show/chat
Get your free Money Talk resources at https://moneytalk.show/resources
Sign up for a free trial with MyBudgetCoach and select me as your money coach: https://www.mybudgetcoach.com/coaches/skyler-fleming
Find even more Money Talk at moneytalk.show/quick-links
"Upbeat Forever" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome Money Buddies to thisweek's episode of Money Talk.
(00:03):
This week we're talking aboutbeing on the same page, sharing
a bank account, and leveling upfinancially.
I'm your host, Skyler Fleming,and let's get talking.
(00:23):
Whether you're married or not,have you ever been on the same
page as someone about somethinglike you're on that same in sync
page?
How does that feel?
How does it feel to be in sync?
Especially if you're married?
It feels phenomenal.
I.
This is something that I'm surewe are all striving for
financially, is to feel in synceither with ourselves, with our
own goals, or of course with aspouse if we are married.
(00:44):
If you're married, you'llcertainly know the struggle of
one person being on thebudgeting cost cutting page,
while another is on theinvesting and spending page.
There are a lot of differentphases throughout your financial
journey that we can findourselves in.
So syncing those up to make sureour actions and our ideas are
staying consistent with ourgoals.
Is paramount.
I know that for my wife and mewhen we are on the same
(01:06):
financial page, it feels likewe're racing in giant strides
and it's phenomenal.
So I hope for each and every oneof you listening that you are
going to be able to takesomething away that will help
you get on the same page withyour goals or with your spouse
and your combined goals.
So be sure to stick around atthe end so we can cover the
great money talking points fromthis episode.
Today's Money Buddy is TravisPerry.
(01:26):
Dr.
Travis Perry is a number onebestselling author of Achieving
Balance and Marry and Grow Rich.
He's earned a master's inpsychology and a PhD in family
relations to better understandfinances from a psychological
and family perspective.
Travis is the founder of theMake Time Institute and has
helped thousands of businessowners and couples in all 50
states achieve their financialgoals.
He is an international speakerand a podcast host of the
(01:48):
Balanced Growth Show.
However, his greatestaccomplishment in life is being
a husband to his wife for 22years, and a father to their
amazing eight children.
So I'm excited for you to meetTravis today.
This interview coming up isphenomenal.
Let's talk about the moneytalking points real quick so you
know what you can look forwardto after the interview is done.
The money talking points forthis week are, what page are you
trying to get to?
(02:08):
Two, how would it feel to be insync with your goals or with
your spouse?
And three, what challenges doyou need to overcome to get on
the same page with those moneytalking points in mind?
Let's get talking and welcomeTravis to the show.
Travis Parry (02:21):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Skyler (02:22):
this is gonna be a great one.
We're talking about getting onthe same page financially, which
can be so clutch and so crucialfor couples, but we're also
gonna touch on it for those whomight not be married, How is
handling money difficult whentwo people are on different
pages?
Travis Parry (02:36):
I think the, the biggest issue for most couples
is they don't see themselves astwo individuals with.
Separate money history.
Well, what, what is a moneyhistory?
Lemme break this down.
Money history is a combined, youknow, psychological relationship
that you have with money plusyour experiences.
(02:59):
where do those typically comefrom?
a lot of times from your familyof origin.
it may be also that your parentshave, you know, had similar
money, you know, history issues,but they brought that from their
parents.
So just like he would go into adoctor and say, doc, I've got
this potential problem.
He might say, well, tell meabout your family history.
'cause he is looking atgenetics.
(03:20):
he is looking at also, he isprobably looking at where these
behaviors might have beenlearned.
So we focus on the learnedbehavior.
what psychological money historydo you have?
regardless if you're married ornot, all of us have a money
history.
All of us have a family oforigin.
it looks different for everyone.
I've studied families longenough to know that.
(03:41):
But what we all have in commonis an idea around what money is,
what it isn't.
What it can do, what it can'tdo, our perception of what,
money means in our life andmoving forward.
Then you take another person,and this is where the marriage
comes into play and you'remarried and you share resources
(04:04):
and time and everything.
and then you try to worktogether on money.
Well, if the two of you are noton that same page, you don't
agree.
You can, learn communicationskills all you want.
But if you don't understand whyyour spouse is thinking about
these things in a differentpoint of view, you're gonna be
just talking past each other.
Skyler (04:26):
Yeah, that's perfect.
I'm excited.
Now You got my mind thinkingabout how this can apply to
people who aren't married withyour family history and your
money history.
One of my favorite questions toask people is kind of like an
icebreaker.
a get to know you question, it'swhat's your first money memory?
And I think that goes right inline with your family history,
money, idea of where did youcome from with money?
Is your first money memory, yourparents fighting about it?
(04:48):
Is it your parents buying youwhatever you want so you feel
like you should be spoiled andhave whatever you want?
There's a whole lot of thingsthat go into that, whether
you're married or not.
How do people start off?
understanding themselves on thatlevel.
Travis Parry (05:01):
I think the first thing is to understand what is
the psychological relationshipyou have with money?
how do you know what that is?
in basics.
we can look at money as a, akind of a, a, abundance
mentality, meaning.
You believe that there's,there's enough and there's
plenty.
Or you can have a very scarcementality.
(05:21):
a lot of us that studypsychology or understand much
about, money, relationships.
Know that our mentalities helpus make those decisions.
Your thoughts can help you makeand change habits, That's where
I like to begin is where areyou?
And most people who have ascarcity mentality usually don't
(05:41):
understand money very well.
What do I mean by that?
when I say the word money, moneywords have meaning.
I.
I've come to understand thatmoney isn't actually what we
think it is is the value that weplace on that currency.
Some of us will devalue it.
Somebody think, well, money'sdumb.
(06:02):
I hate it.
I hear this a lot money doesn'tgrow on trees.
scarcity mentality, or money isevil, right?
All of those ideas, they're veryscarce.
I.
if you wanna follow people whoare wealthy and you want to
become wealthy, you can't thinkscarcity.
You have to make a mentalmindset shift.
what help people do is realize,well, where did those scarcity
(06:24):
mindsets come from?
I.
Most time men and women, it'stheir own parents.
So like you mentioned, what'syour first money memory?
Skyler (06:32):
Yeah.
Travis Parry (06:33):
One that they can remember is typically something
related to their parents.
Maybe their parents argued aboutmoney.
Maybe money was a problemgrowing up, maybe it wasn't.
Maybe they spent it like crazy.
for example, on a, on a marriedcouple.
I have a, a client who, he's abusiness owner and he brings in
a lot of money at one time, andthen it's kind of scarce for a
(06:54):
little while.
the wife, for whatever reason,would just spend it into
oblivion.
She knows that.
Money might not be coming in.
So she had this very scarcemindset, As we dove into where
her belief systems came from, wegot to her mother.
She's like, yeah, my mom alwayshad a really scarce mentality.
(07:15):
And she's like, I don't knowwhy.
I said, well, how about your,your, your, you know, your
grandparents, your mother'sparents?
You said, oh yeah, my grandpa.
Oh, and it just clicked.
he was a depression era baby,and so was mom, but he always
told me that money was evil, Idon't believe that.
Skyler (07:35):
But there's a piece that did
Travis Parry (07:36):
Yes.
And that's the thing is thosememories hang out in your
subconscious.
Our conscious might say, I needmoney.
But our subconscious, if it'ssaying Money is evil, then what
she was doing, as soon as moneycame in, she spent it so she
didn't have it'cause she
Skyler (07:52):
Yeah.
I didn't have that weight Yeah.
that's so fascinating.
And I know we're off a littlebit of what the initial podcast
was supposed to be about, butthis is so interesting for
people to understand where theirmoney beliefs come from.
I'll share a story real quickabout.
Me and my wife is something wehave to learn.
my wife and I after a couple ofour budget meetings that we like
to do.
That my wife was beginning tofeel like I was restricting
money in a similar way that shesaw maybe her parents deal with.
(08:14):
And we, I mentioned that, andthat was that click moment, like
you said, for the grandparentsrealizing, I was like, oh, you
are beginning to feel that fearthat I'm not gonna let you have
fun with money or whatever itmight be.
when it clicked for that, wewere able to move past it so
fast because we were able tomake awareness to it and then we
got on the same page.
So I, I love that idea that youshared of being able to just
(08:38):
think back a couple, maybe yourparents, maybe their parents,
and figure out what clicks interms of why you deal with money
the way you do
Travis Parry (08:45):
And I would say those who aren't married are
like, ah, whatever.
the reality is that, Most peoplein America want to be married.
it's gonna be a future eventthat happens.
And even people who divorce,they wanna marry again.
so, you know, think about thisas great marriage prep because
one of the most.
Divisive arguments in marriageis about money.
(09:08):
I got to this place because Isaw how divisive this was for my
married clients when I was afinancial advisor.
I saw how much, people weredivided and I couldn't figure
out why, like, why can't wechange this?
Well, it's because it's in theirpsychology I wasn't trained
until I, received a master's inpsychology and really dug into
this very specifically the nextpiece of this is how you
(09:31):
communicate about it, what youlearn, effective communication
skills, anyone listening to thiswould do better in life.
By having better communicationskills.
It's not just gonna help withmarriage, but learning to
listen, not just listen toreply, which a lot of us do.
and some of it is because, I'mafraid I'm gonna forget my
(09:52):
thought or whatever.
But if you truly listen withintent to understand, you might
not have to say anything.
Skyler (10:01):
Yep, that's what I was
Travis Parry (10:02):
listening and just listen and listen.
I will say that sometimes, thereare male and female differences
here with listening.
Guys are listening so that theycan fix it.
'cause that's what they're,honestly, they're programmed to
do, let me fix, let me fix,lemme fix.
And then a woman a lot of timeswants issues and problems to
feel validated.
and I'm not saying you complainabout life'cause no one wants to
(10:24):
listen to you complain all day,every day.
It gets really old.
but as a married couple, there'stimes where you need to talk
about things and listen.
a great rule of thumb is I liketo tell men, especially ask your
wife or a friend or familymember, single or married, Ask
that person, do you want me tolisten to help you or do you
(10:44):
want me to listen to listen
Skyler (10:46):
Yeah.
And that can be a huge step.
And even like you said, gettingbetter communication skills.
Sometimes that just meanscommunicating at all.
outside of the tragic situationof a spouse cheating on another
spouse, I would say money is thebiggest issue that leads to
divorce.
there's so much that goes intoit beyond just the money.
currency is the, objective thingand money is the subjective
(11:07):
thing that we apply so many moreemotions and behaviors and such
too, that if you're not talkingabout that money aspect, it
bleeds into all these otherareas, whether you're ready for
it or not.
you don't have to have perfectcommunication or some sort of
degree in communication in orderto talk about money, but you
gotta talk about it at all.
Is kind of even the the entrylevel of beginning to get on
that same page.
(11:27):
But have you ever not been onthe same page?
I'm sure there's plenty ofpeople listening are struggling
with that.
What is it like to not be on thesame page as your spouse
financially?
Travis Parry (11:36):
I would say this about my wife and I, there were
earlier times in our marriagewhere we really struggled with
this, but we tried.
the very first week after we gotback from the honeymoon, we sat
down and said, okay, let's lookat our budget.
Let's create a plan and startfiguring this out.
at first my wife was like, no, Idon't wanna do this.
her parents didn't really seeeye to eye on money and they
(11:57):
ended up getting a divorce.
I'm not saying that money is.
Always the problem but the pointis that we have done the
budgeting.
Every week thereafter, almostevery single week.
we're trying to be on the samepage.
It takes work because if I bringmy money history, and maybe
sometimes it's scarce, andsometimes it's, good but maybe
(12:18):
there's times where hers is kindof scarce and worried and afraid
and, and there are concerns thatwe have.
We have to look at the emotionalside.
We have to look at thepsychological pieces so that we
can work together as a team.
in my book, I actually haveseveral assessments and one
of'em is look at where are youpersonally and then where is
your spouse, and then how do youline up?
I.
(12:38):
Because once you know what kindof money script you are
following, there are some moneyscripts that are so polar
opposite that it doesn't matterhow much you listen to each
other It's just so ingrained inyou psychologically that you're
not gonna be able to move andyou're gonna be fighting about
it all the time.
Does that make sense?
I worked with Jeff Dee at UtahState University when I was
(13:00):
doing my PhD, he had themajority of studies done on
couples and money.
He's the money and couplesexpert I was learning from.
he found that money, is actuallythe number one thing that
couples fight about.
when they fight about money,it's the most emotional of any
other topic, including sex.
(13:20):
while some people might say,divorce happened because,
someone was unfaithful, Somepeople are unfaithful with their
money.
We call it financial infidelity,and they might steal from each
other.
I had a client whose spousestole from him and he's like,
that was the last straw.
some people purport that moneyis the number one cause we can't
actually predict.
in family science, we can onlycome back and look at predictors
(13:43):
and say, money was a big part ofthat and it keeps showing up.
Number one argument.
The longest lasting, the mostemotional of any other type of
argument.
when people come to therapy, thenumber one thing they say
they're there for is forcommunication.
Skyler (14:00):
Hmm.
Travis Parry (14:01):
But if the number one thing that they're
miscommunicating about is money,they're there for money
communication.
most therapists are not trainedin money at all whatsoever.
Skyler (14:14):
Yeah, it's like we understand the groundwork that
we have to have in place inorder to do well with money, but
then we don't realize that stillhas a financial element that we
need to understand and employ.
Like you said, therapists andthings like that aren't
financial coaches.
They aren't financial plannersthat are prepared to say, oh, I
understand why that financialthing or financial history
(14:34):
piece.
They have a completely differenttool set.
But speaking of financialspecifics and how people can be
on the same page, I know youmentioned spouses stealing from
each other or maybe using eachother's money when they feel
like it's their money or it'snot our money is combined
accounts, are those the only wayto be on the same page
financially?
Is it possible to still dothings separately or do they all
(14:56):
have to come into one to reallydo it well?
Travis Parry (14:58):
you bring something up that if you just
typed in Google, like, same pagefinancially or something like
that, this is the litmus test.
do you have a shared bankaccount?
I think it's a great question,but you're looking at the
construct versus the subjectivefirst.
you're on the same pagefinancially if you're working
together toward whatever endgoal you have.
(15:20):
Most couples don't even have endgoals they share together.
So they make the argument aboutlike, well, we have a shared
bank account.
You mean you have a, a placewhere you can both dip in,
without any accountability ordiscussion?
it may not even matter.
Does that make sense?
So I think.
Skyler (15:36):
be separate,
Travis Parry (15:37):
Yes, abs.
That's exactly it.
Skylar, they may be separateusing the same shared resource,
but they're not on the samepage.
In general, what the researchhas found is that, married
couples, trust each other.
They love each other.
They're committed.
They put it on paper, it's ontax returns, the whole nine
(16:00):
yards.
those who are living together,this is a different discussion.
the point is, when you'remarried, You trust each other.
So I would suggest that inespecially first marriages, you
have the same bank accounts foralmost everything.
But that doesn't mean you can'thave your own individual account
for your own spending.
Skyler (16:19):
Mm-hmm.
Travis Parry (16:20):
Does that make
Skyler (16:21):
And that, that was the key for my wife.
like when me and my wife werekind of dealing with this
combination or bringing thingstogether, the key was she didn't
want to feel like every singleamount of her spending had this
helicopter bird's eye view overit by me and simply having her
to have.
One credit card where wewouldn't share where we were
spending money.
I wasn't worried about thataspect, but she just wanted
(16:42):
something that had just her nameon it she could spend in a
pinch, or that she could spendon a gift for me.
But it was still a jointaccount.
And I think even more importantis joint goals.
Like that was what was combined.
Travis Parry (16:54):
Yeah, so that's the most important part.
because my opinion is you shouldstill share resources because
you need that financialintimacy.
And a lot of times people arelike, well, we're in the second
marriage.
We're just gonna keep thingsseparate.
I'm like, well, that's probablywhat led to some of the problems
in your first marriage, capish.
So it was like, well, no, you'vegotta learn this, or it's just
(17:15):
gonna keep repeating itselfworse and worse.
shared resources, shared bankaccounts, individual to keep
your spending money and underaccountable, you know, reasons,
but then assets, keep thoseseparate if you're in a
remarriage situation and careabout legacy and estate
planning.
Otherwise, if you're married,you know, do what's best.
You know, there, there may besituations where the wife needs
(17:38):
to be on the business or thewife needs to be on the property
or not, or the both of you.
That's not really the point.
The point is.
Are you on the same pagepsychologically?
Do you have the same, sameshared goals?
And the research that we've doneon shared goals is couples with,
with, with shared goals andvalues, are not only happier
(17:59):
psychologically, they are moresatisfied in their marriage and
more stable in their finances.
Skyler (18:04):
That's fantastic.
And like I said, I'm hearingjoint goals are more important
than joint bank accounts.
just coming into a marriage andsaying, okay, we're gonna put
our money in one pool and thenwe're gonna be good with money.
That is.
So much less than you actuallyneed to think about and
consider.
Joint goals before joint banks.
I think that's a good way towrap that discussion up make
sure you're on the same page,which is what we're about to get
(18:25):
into, how you can actually getthere and what's the whole
episode is about, same pagestuff, right?
So let's actually talk about howpeople can move into it and
begin to get on that same page.
A couple people are listeningright now and they're like,
yeah, me and my spouse we're ondifferent pages.
I'm here listening to financepodcasts.
They're out spending money orwhatever.
How do they begin to bring up aconversation between spouses to
(18:47):
try to get on that same page?
Travis Parry (18:48):
So what I recommend is, my wife and I,
just.
Sat down and started talkingabout it, but then how do you
continually do that?
I came up with this term, Idon't think it's original, but
Monday money nights for us setup a time, once a week, once a
month at minimum.
weekly is a, is a great time tojust kind of maintain.
(19:10):
Once a month you'll be lookingat.
Your spending plan, I don't liketo call it a budget.
Budget seems restricting.
It seems constricting.
And we wanna look at growth.
We wanna look at abundancemindset, but there still needs
to be limits and boundaries.
So, you, you, you'll sit downand create what that, spending
plan will be to help you achieveyour goals.
(19:30):
if a budget for budget's sake islike a diet for diet's sake.
if you're gonna stop the diet,if you don't like what it tastes
like and you don't like how youfeel, but if you have a goal and
you want to achieve somethingand you're do this together,
then you're gonna help eachother.
You're gonna work towards
Skyler (19:46):
Mm-hmm.
Travis Parry (19:47):
And some goals, you know, especially for my wife
and I, we love to travel, welove to take our kids places.
We love to go alone on getaways.
a lot of it is like, well, we'regonna save some money.
We're gonna spend, on theseimportant priorities.
then we're going to, use, thismoney when we hit our goals to
reward ourselves with thistravel and fun things.
It doesn't, it's not always likeadulting, you know?
Skyler (20:07):
Yeah,
Travis Parry (20:07):
it doesn't have to be painful.
It doesn't have to be now.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes you have to makedecisions
Skyler (20:12):
be tears sometimes.
Travis Parry (20:13):
I absolutely, my wife and I have had to sit down
and we sold a dream piece ofproperty'cause it just wasn't
the right time.
Five acres of beautiful land wethought we were gonna build our
dream home on.
And the economy and, and covidand everything just kind of took
everything in a differentdirection and we had to bail on
it.
that I think it was moreemotional for me than it was for
my wife.
I was the one crying tears aboutit.
(20:35):
I think the important part, isto first have a place where you.
Can set goals together.
Most couples don't do this.
Most couples kind of have this,this real quick.
They, very gender,stereotypical, most women, the
female in the home, she'susually the one who controls the
pocketbook or the spending,right?
And most men are typically theones Dealing with the investing,
(20:58):
But if you can both be on thesame page and the wife knows
where the husband is investingthe money.
That's great.
And if the husband knows thatthe wife is taking care of, the
household, he doesn't have tomicromanage everything that
she's doing.
my my suggestion typically isjust know what's going on and
let her do that.
(21:18):
if she's the one who's reallygood.
Now, if it's vice versa, that'sfine.
If don't care who actuallycarries out the responsibility,
but just be one.
The decisions just be togetherso that there's no second
guessing.
There's no wondering, there's notiptoeing around, there's no
doing things shady in the In thedarkness.
Skyler (21:39):
Yeah, I loved the idea that you mentioned there of your
money Monday nights, or it couldbe your money talk Mondays or
your budget meeting Sundays,whatever you want to call it.
It doesn't matter.
My wife and I, we have ourmonthly budget meeting and I
have a free resource on mywebsite for that, for anyone
listening if you want to getstarted there.
We also talk about money weeklywith our spreadsheet, we don't
(22:00):
spend much more than three tofive minutes on it saying, oh,
these categories are headingtowards the end of the budget
for the month, or the spendingplan, like you like to call it.
And we're just aware that thatis getting near the end and we
say, Hey, maybe we need to takea step back on spending, or we
need to be a little bit morecognizant of it.
But that regular conversation iscrucial towards us not feeling
(22:20):
like the end of the month comesup and I'm like.
How did, how did I spend so muchon Amazon?
Or how did my wife spend so muchat Joanne's or whatever, like
all these different storesbecause we're talking about it
throughout the month.
So that way if it does getoverboard, there's not that last
week of the month where you'respending so much, you can kind
of reel it in.
So I love the idea of thatregular consistent money talk
(22:40):
between people.
What can people do to begin somesmall steps to feel like they're
on the same page?
Because maybe this big regularmeeting seems a little
overwhelming right
Travis Parry (22:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Skyler (22:50):
What are some small steps they can take?
Travis Parry (22:51):
So in my book I talk about this in part three,
there's really three things youought to do.
The first is evaluate what areyour own individual blocks
keeping you from having anabundance mindset.
What is it that you're thinking?
go back to your money history.
how can you change your moneyhistory?
in my book, I talk about how toget past these limiting beliefs
and blocks and, start to createthis new mindset.
(23:12):
a lot of it has to do withforgiving your parents.
Forgiving your grandparents, andhaving a better understanding of
what money is.
And then, getting past thesefears, these subconscious fears
that are holding you back.
It might be a fear of failure orit might be a fear of success.
You might be afraid to investmoney because you're afraid
(23:33):
you're gonna lose it like yourgrandparents did.
whatever investment they didthat they lost their life
savings in.
Or you might, struggle to know,well, I don't come for money.
So if we invest money and weactually make money, well then
what?
Skyler (23:45):
Yeah.
Travis Parry (23:46):
Then?
Skyler (23:47):
a weird spot to be in.
My wife and I are dealing withthat because my wife is a
physician assistant and she'smaking more money than either of
us have ever seen in our lives.
And it's such a, privilegedplace to be where you're like,
what do we do with all thismoney?
So like, we don't take it forgranted.
But also you have to be careful.
You have to be aware of notletting lifestyle creep come in.
(24:07):
Still having those regularconversations, because it would
be easy enough for us to justtake a step back and just spend
money however we want because weare seeing this money come in.
So you still have to be carefuland on the same page, regardless
of too much or too little.
Travis Parry (24:19):
That's right.
I a hundred percent agree withthat.
the second piece is creatingshared financial goals with your
spouse, which we talked about alittle bit.
But what do those look like?
It's not just spending plan.
Spending plan.
That's the tool to help you getthere.
I talk about my first book aboutachieving your life's goals and
your time management Is like abudget or a spending time plan,
(24:41):
of where you're spending yourtime, right?
So think of it as the tool.
Money's the tool, just like timeis the tool.
so then what is your long-termdesires, goals, dreams?
Where do you guys wanna be?
it doesn't have to be aboutsomething that you, consume,
like a home or a car but itcould be a business.
some business owners, reallycare about that.
Maybe it's education for yourkids.
(25:01):
What.
Ever it is flush all of thoseout to know like, where are you?
Short-term, midterm, long-term,even end of life?
Where do you wanna befinancially?
And then work backwards and say,here's our spending plan for the
year, the month, the week.
and be really organized.
The ones who are more organizedare gonna track.
Now I know there's this flexwhere, well, we make so much
(25:24):
money, we don't have to track itanymore.
To me, that's bogus.
it doesn't matter how much moneymy wife and I have ever made,
we've made millions and we'velost it.
I've been on both sides of thecoin.
I didn't come from money.
my parents, struggled with it alot, which is the reason why
I've studied this and helpedpeople.
I do believe that God has givenus this as a stewardship.
Money is a stewardship.
It's a responsibility.
(25:45):
So regardless of how much moneywe make or how little.
We're responsible for it.
And if that's the case, then I'mgonna be answering for that
someday.
not that every single penny hasto, you know, never be wasted.
I'm not that particular, butknow where it's going
Skyler (26:01):
Is it in line with your
Travis Parry (26:02):
goals?
Is it in line with your valuesand your goals?
Because you will feel out ofalignment.
And that's quite honestly what Iconsider balance.
balance is being aligned withyour values, your goals, your
priorities in life.
And if your money is helping tofacilitate those values and
priorities, you're gonna feelit, you will feel good.
(26:22):
The last thing is, if you have abusiness.
Or, if you're earning money byworking for someone else, then
grow the business.
Invest in the business.
If you're working for someoneelse, then be the best employee,
the best, person they've everhad that can help that business
to grow, because that's whatthey're in business for.
be invaluable to them.
(26:43):
And one of the best ways you cando that is being productive.
If my first book AchievingBalance is all about
productivity goals, timemanagement, and I, I really lay
out my make time method to helpyou improve that way.
you have those three, yourpsychology, you're on the same
page financially with yourspouse, and then you're earning
money or bringing in more moneyfrom the business that's gonna
(27:04):
help you.
So many people, like they wannabudget and only budget, they
don't wanna look at where theincome is coming
Skyler (27:09):
Yes.
Travis Parry (27:10):
Yeah, that's huge.
Skyler (27:11):
You gotta make sure you know where it's actually coming
from and that you're actuallyhaving an ability to make more.
I talked about in that episode Iwas mentioning there is a
spending floor.
There's only so much you can godown with your budget.
But you can continue to increasethat cap on your income and
continue that to go up and up.
we are coming to the end of ourtime here, so I do have a couple
last questions I wanna ask you.
(27:31):
Let's end on a motivationalnote.
How has being on the same pagefinancially helped you in your
life?
Or how will it benefit others?
Travis Parry (27:38):
Yeah, so personally, when my wife and I
were not on the same page, eventhough we were doing the
spending plan, we were trying tolike do the things right.
I found that there just a lot offriction, stress, worry, and
fear.
but as a business owner, I thinkthe hardest thing is knowing how
(28:00):
to smooth that out.
There are hills and there arevalleys in any business.
I don't care what business thatyou're in, it's gonna flow up
and down.
So having the patience and justthe long-term perspective is
huge, that's really helped mywife and I.
there's something that wehaven't, we've talked about
money, infidelity, where you'restealing from each other, but
(28:22):
there's another aspect.
There's money fidelity orfinancial intimacy is this
connection.
if you're feeling like you canreally trust your spouse with
money You have a sense ofintimacy that can help the
relationship.
It is a huge boon and in a placewhere we've talked about like,
well, if money is the number onepredictor and it's the longest
(28:42):
lasting, the initialconversation and it brings
people to therapy all.
If you can turn that around andmake that your strength.
What that does for therelationship is a whole new
level of your marriage.
for me and my wife, it's reallybrought us to a whole new place.
We see money as a stewardship.
We have an abundance mentality,and we know that business could
(29:02):
10 x at any time, and we wouldbe ready.
This is one of the last thoughtsI wanna leave you with, and that
is, I have a strong belief inGod, and I believe that
sometimes you're like, Why am Inot earning more?
How am I not making more?
Why is my business not growing?
Maybe you're not ready for it.
Maybe the thing you need to dois prepare for that hill and
(29:23):
preparing for it by showing thatyou can be a good steward of
what you've already been giveninstead of begging for more.
Why would God, why would theuniverse, whatever you wanna
call, why, why would you begiven more if you can't handle
it?
Most who win the lottery.
Like nine out of 10 and win thelottery, go bankrupt in three
years and divorced in three tofour.
(29:44):
Why?
It's because they've neverhandled that much money being
their in life, and so boom, it'sgone.
Skyler (29:50):
money's an amplifier in that way where when you run into
large amounts, if you're notready, if you're on different
pages, that rift is gonna becomebigger and bigger and bigger
when you start running intothose larger sums of money.
that's fantastic.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on.
I have two final questions hereto wrap up so people can find
you Real quick, how can peopleconnect with you or your book?
And then the very last questionis, what's gonna be just one
(30:12):
thing you wish you knew soonerwhen it comes to being on the
same financial page?
Travis Parry (30:15):
I love that.
first you wanna grab my book,Mary and Grow Rich?
It is at Mary and grow richbook.com.
if you wanna know everythingabout me and my speaking, my
podcast, my other book, mycourses, you can get that at
Make Time Institute.
Dot com, make time institute.comis where you can find everything
about, me and the work that Ido.
(30:37):
and then that last question,something I wish I would've
known before, You know, I wishedI had understood how important,
my wife's thoughts and feelingswere about money, not just
communicating again, but it'sreally understanding where she
came from.
Her parents struggled with moneyand I tried to help them with
(30:59):
it, you know, and a little,little, little too late.
and they ended up gettingdivorced and, and they went
through ba, they went throughbankruptcy and then got
divorced.
I wish that, I would've, earlieron in our marriage, really,
understood the emotional side ofmoney with her.
And quite honestly with me, Ithink I was acting out on the
things I had been given as akid.
that's what drove me intofinancial planning.
(31:20):
And then, as I started to seemore couples struggle with money
and realizing that my wife and Iwere kind of dealing with some
of these same issues, I delved.
Further into it.
So I know it was a process.
we never go step by step throughprogress.
We're always going around incircles and it's messy.
if I look back, I wish Iwould've understood that earlier
(31:40):
on.
It would've saved me a lot ofgrief and time and we would've
healed from some of the thingswe've dealt with in life.
So hopefully that's helpful topeople out there.
Skyler (31:49):
Yeah, I'm sure it is.
And that's one of my favoritethings about doing these
podcasts is I'm able to bring onexperts through.
Real life situations wherethey're able to say, here's what
I learned.
Don't do this or do this.
And I think that's one of thethings that hopefully some young
couples listening to this ontheir honeymoon road trip or
whatever, and they're saying,wow, if we can get ahead of
money right now, we can startthat next level in month two or
(32:10):
three of our marriage versusyear two or three or 10 or 20.
So Travis, that's a fantasticplace to leave it on.
Thank you so much for sharing somuch great information.
Travis Parry (32:19):
Thanks for having me.
Once again, thank you so much toTravis for coming on the show.
I know I enjoyed that interviewa lot.
Lemme know what you think bysending me a text message or
leaving a comment whereveryou're listening to this.
Skyler (32:38):
I'd love to hear some feedback about these interviews.
So let me know what you thought,but let's get into the money
talking points today.
The first one is, what page areyou trying to get to?
Well, there are a lot ofdifferent pages or types of
pages that you can be on.
Are you trying to be on a paydown debt page, a savings page,
an investing page, a gettingoutta the paycheck to paycheck
cycle page?
What is your primary page orgoal that you want to be focused
(33:01):
on?
Identifying this for yourself isgonna make having the
conversation with somebody elsea whole lot easier.
Otherwise, if you don't havesomething in mind, it could just
potentially turn into anargument.
If you're not sure where youwant to go, especially if you're
talking about this with aspouse, it could be very easy to
turn this into an argumentbecause you can both come at it
with, I don't really know whatpage I want to be on.
(33:22):
Here's the page I thought wewere on.
Oh, we're not on that page.
Let's argue about it.
So make sure you're beingcareful with this conversation
and truly identifying.
What page or goal you want toget to.
But if you're managing money byyourself, this can be a great
thing to share with a moneybuddy.
You can tell someone else thatyou know what page you want to
be on so that they can try tobring a different perspective to
it.
And that can be super helpful,especially if they bring a
(33:43):
perspective of, oh, maybe youshould scale it back and try
this other idea.
Or, yeah, that's an awesome pageor goal for you to get to go for
it.
And maybe they support andencourage you and they can help
by being your accountabilitypartner.
But all in all, it's importantto remember to take small steps.
Don't try to read a novel all inone sitting.
I've read some fairly lengthybooks all in one sitting, and
it's just exhausting.
(34:04):
I've done some fairly longcourses in one sitting and it's
just exhausting and your brainfeels dead by the end and nobody
enjoys it.
So don't try to do all of thisall at once.
Take small steps, and I got apodcast episode coming up where
we actually talk about this interms of estate planning.
You have to take it one step ata time.
So with your goals and gettingon the same page, make sure
you're taking small stepstowards getting on the page that
(34:26):
you want to be on.
You're not gonna be able to reada humongous novel full of every
financial page that you want tocover in one sitting.
But let's talk about some of thecommon pages, and I kind of
wanna outline some examples thatyou could potentially put into
your financial situation.
So let's say you are married andyou want to get out of that
paycheck to paycheck lifestyleand get out of that system and
(34:48):
page and move on to the nextone.
How do you approach this?
Well, don't approach it with afiery rage about how your spouse
spends all of your money and youhave to work every single day to
support their bad spendinghabits because obviously that
won't end well.
And I'm exaggerating of course.
And everyone listening thinkswhat I just said is completely
obvious.
Like, of course you don't wantto come into it with a fiery
(35:08):
rage about how your spouse isthe worst and all they do is
spend your money.
But saying something like, oh,you bought donuts again, or, oh,
you bought X with a questioning.
Tone can have a similar impactto the recipient of your
question.
It can make them feel likeyou're being hard on them for
wanting to spend money.
So you need to make sure to becareful how you're coming at it
because my exaggerativeexplanation and crazy situation.
(35:32):
That I said at the beginningcould have the same impact as
simply questioning somebody'spurchase.
So make sure you're being awarewith the questions you're
asking, because that can be areally easy way to set off some
sort of big argument thatreally, delays you actually
getting on the same page,especially with a spouse.
You have to find a shared goal.
We will talk about shared goalsin just a second, but wasn't
(35:54):
that idea of shared goals beforeshared bank accounts a great
one.
Lemme know what you thoughtabout that one when I said it
because I thought that one wasspot on.
Shared goals before shared bankaccounts, you have to find a
shared goal and then realizewhat actions don't fall within
that.
This is something that I learnedin my public relations class.
You have to create tactics oractions that support your
strategies.
(36:14):
So if you can figure out whatyour strategy actually is.
It will be a whole lot easierfor you and your spouse or
whoever you're working on moneywith to realize what actions
don't align with it.
So make sure you're figuring outthe strategy first.
It can make it so that younever, ever, ever, ever again
have to ask, oh, you purchasedX.
It'll make it so that yourealize it's not in alignment
with your overall goals andstrategies, and then who knows?
(36:36):
Maybe it is okay and it's inalignment with your plan, and
then spend the money.
If it's in alignment with thatstrategy you came up with, spend
it, who cares if you're inalignment with the strategy and
the actions are getting you tothat strategy?
Do whatever you want that fallswithin that.
That's honestly a really fun andliberating place to get to.
But let's move on to talkingabout goals and how it can feel
(36:57):
to be in sync.
The second money talking pointis how would it feel to be in
sync with your goals and yourspouse?
Well, I want everyone listeningto this to text me using the
link in the top of the shownotes and tell me your answer to
this following question.
I would love to have some followup about this episode and hear
what everybody thinks.
What would it mean to you or howwould it feel?
To be in sync with your goals orhow would it feel to be in sync
(37:19):
with your spouse?
Text me and let me know theanswer to that question for you.
This is gonna be a quick moneytalking point because really
this is one that you have totake and talk about with other
people, which is going to be amassive deal and a real marriage
changer for people if you canget in sync.
It's a huge.
Huge win.
I know for my wife and I beingon the same page and in sync
with our goals is life-changingfor the both of us.
(37:41):
It allowed me to take my footoff the gas in terms of trying
to force savings or investingand allowed us to realize
together, like I said in thelast segment, what the balance
is of paying off debt versusinvesting that we need to strike
to feel good about our sharedgoals.
There's the emphasis again onshared goals.
Shared goals before shared bankaccounts.
A shared bank account doesn'tneed no good if it's just a
(38:02):
place for both spouses to pullmoney from, and there's no
accountability towards yourgoals.
So what challenges might lie inthe way of this?
That's the next money talkingpoint.
The third money talking point iswhat challenges do you need to
overcome to get on the samepage?
Is there a communication or atrust issue?
Well then maybe you need tocontact a professional that can
help you work through that.
And that's okay, but maybethere's just a financial
(38:23):
literacy issue and both of youaren't quite on the same
Financial Knowledge foundation.
Listening to more podcasts orattending local workshops here
may be helpful.
There are a lot of great booksat the library that you can read
and then teach your spouse orencourage them to read as well
so that you can get on that samefinancial foundation.
And by the way, one of thegreatest ways for you to learn
something yourself is to go andteach others.
(38:44):
So that's even more of a greatway for you to shore up your
financial foundation and yourknowledge around it is to teach
others.
Most likely it's that there'ssome sort of hidden mindset at
play.
Like what Travis and I talkedabout.
There's likely something in thebackground that once you start
talking about it, it can clickand really help flip a switch
for you.
For my wife and I, we realizedthat she had some hiding fears
(39:05):
about not being able to spendmoney or feeling like all of our
money was going to go into somesort of.
Inaccessible account, so we hadto make sure to take precautions
so that she could naturally workpast that.
I was so gung-ho about makingsure all of our finances were
entirely together in one jointaccount.
And that freaked my wife out alittle bit.
Like I said, shared goals beforeshared bank accounts.
(39:25):
In the beginning I was puttingshared bank accounts ahead of
everything else, and my wifestill wanted to have her direct
deposit go into a separateaccount in just her name, and
that really confused me at thebeginning.
But once we realized that shewanted to make sure she still
had some solo control over somemoney, even though it would just
end up in our joint account atthe end of the month after we
processed it and budgeted withit, that ability to control it
(39:47):
by sending it to the jointaccount on our own or paying off
her own credit card with alittle bit of spending on it,
made all of the difference.
We still tracked everythingtogether.
We still work towards goalstogether.
It just so happened that some ofour joint money was in an
account that was in just hername, and that was fine.
Now we do everything all in oneaccount.
All of our direct deposits go tothe exact same place, and my
wife could not care less aboutit being in the same account or
(40:12):
that I'm managing the cash, orI'm sending the credit card
payments or that I'm paying ourbills and things like that.
If we didn't have our regularbudget meetings, I don't know if
my wife would ever look at ourbank accounts, which is a huge
shift from where we started, butit took a long time.
So realize that sometimes theremay be a little bit of a mindset
or mental hurdle in thebackground that you have to take
time working through.
And those things will slowlychange to get to a point where
(40:34):
you are able to be on the samepage and aligned.
I also have had my own hiddenmindsets at play, and mine was
to only optimize the math.
I've told this story before, butI wanna share it here so that it
doesn't sound just like my wifeneeded to change to conform to
the way that I wanted to handlemoney.
I also needed a change to helpadjust and compromise to the way
that she wanted to handle money.
(40:55):
So mine was that my wife helpedme realize that there's more
than just math to all this moneymanagement.
Because I wanted it to juststrictly be math based.
I've shared before how herstudent loans impacted her and
how they impacted me.
It's completely different for mywife, they feel like a
requirement to work untilthey're paid off.
And then I came in saying, let'sonly make minimum payments.
(41:15):
So that's like that sameexaggerated statement that I
came in with a fiery rage andsaid, oh, you must work to pay
off these loans, even thoughthat's not what I said, the
recipient to my response ofsaying, let's pay minimum
payments.
Was equivalent to the responseof saying, you have to work so
that we can pay these off over avery long period of time.
Because honestly, I just wantedto optimize the math, which is
(41:38):
not smart when yousubconsciously tell your wife
that you wanna force her to workfor the next 10 to 15 years to
make your math problem work out.
So then we were able to find amiddle ground.
I adjusted my mindset so wecould figure out a way to pay
off the loans quicker, and wemet in a good middle ground
where now we're able to invest agood sum of money, but we're
also paying these loans offquickly.
Wow.
That was a great few moneytalking points right there.
(42:00):
This has been a fantasticepisode and make sure to share
it with a friend.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on any of these money
talking points.
Please text me using the link inthe top of the show notes, some
of your feedback.
Thoughts, questions, anythinglike that.
I hope you enjoyed the moneytalking points in this episode
and that great interview.
Let's bring this episode home.
As we wrap up today's episode, Ihope it's clear that getting on
the same financial page withyour partner or even yourself is
(42:22):
not just about budgets, numbers,or bank accounts.
It's all about understandingyour own money story, uncovering
hidden beliefs and buildingshared money goals rooted in
trust and communication likeTravis shared.
It's not about who's right orwho's wrong with money.
It's about learning where you'reboth coming from.
Financial intimacy starts withlistening, patience and
intentional conversations.
(42:43):
Whether you're trying to getoutta debt, save for the future,
or just reduce tension aroundspending, identifying the page
you want to be on is the firstpowerful step.
And remember, shared goalsshould come before shared bank
accounts.
Take small steps, talkregularly, set a time like a
money talk Monday and make it ahabit.
And most of all, know thataligning your financial goals
(43:03):
can be a game changer, not justfor your budget, but for your
entire relationship, marriageand life.
So what's the next page you aretrying to get to text me using
the link in the show notes.
I'd love to hear how thisepisode resonated with you.
But thank you for listening totoday's episode.
The best way to stay up to dateand connected to All Things
Money Talk is to subscribe tothe podcast and sign up for my
(43:24):
email list.
Head over to Money Talk Show andsubmit your name and email right
there on the homepage.
You can also use the contactpage on my website to send me
any questions.
And if you're looking to getstarted with budgeting, I'm a
partner with my budget coach, aplatform that connects your
budget directly with me, afinancial coach, and I'd love to
work with you over there andhelp you with your budgeting.
The link is in the show notes.
Remember, the best way to learnfrom today's episode is to go
(43:46):
and have a money talk abouttoday's topic with a fellow
money buddy.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of Money Talk.
I'm your host, Skylar Fleming.
Have a great week.
Speaker (43:54):
Thank you for listening to Money Talk.
This show is provided forinformational and entertainment
purposes and may not be specificto your unique situation.
Please be sure to do additionalresearch before making any
financial decisions.
Welcome Money Buddies to thisweek's episode of Money Talk.
(00:03):
This week we're talking aboutbeing on the same page, sharing
a bank account, and leveling upfinancially.
I'm your host, Skyler Fleming,and let's get talking.
(00:23):
Whether you're married or not,have you ever been on the same
page as someone about somethinglike you're on that same in sync
page?
How does that feel?
How does it feel to be in sync?
Especially if you're married?
It feels phenomenal.
I.
This is something that I'm surewe are all striving for
financially, is to feel in synceither with ourselves, with our
own goals, or of course with aspouse if we are married.
(00:44):
If you're married, you'llcertainly know the struggle of
one person being on thebudgeting cost cutting page,
while another is on theinvesting and spending page.
There are a lot of differentphases throughout your financial
journey that we can findourselves in.
So syncing those up to make sureour actions and our ideas are
staying consistent with ourgoals.
Is paramount.
I know that for my wife and mewhen we are on the same
(01:06):
financial page, it feels likewe're racing in giant strides
and it's phenomenal.
So I hope for each and every oneof you listening that you are
going to be able to takesomething away that will help
you get on the same page withyour goals or with your spouse
and your combined goals.
So be sure to stick around atthe end so we can cover the
great money talking points fromthis episode.
Today's Money Buddy is TravisPerry.
(01:26):
Dr.
Travis Perry is a number onebestselling author of Achieving
Balance and Marry and Grow Rich.
He's earned a master's inpsychology and a PhD in family
relations to better understandfinances from a psychological
and family perspective.
Travis is the founder of theMake Time Institute and has
helped thousands of businessowners and couples in all 50
states achieve their financialgoals.
He is an international speakerand a podcast host of the
(01:48):
Balanced Growth Show.
However, his greatestaccomplishment in life is being
a husband to his wife for 22years, and a father to their
amazing eight children.
So I'm excited for you to meetTravis today.
This interview coming up isphenomenal.
Let's talk about the moneytalking points real quick so you
know what you can look forwardto after the interview is done.
The money talking points forthis week are, what page are you
trying to get to?
(02:08):
Two, how would it feel to be insync with your goals or with
your spouse?
And three, what challenges doyou need to overcome to get on
the same page with those moneytalking points in mind?
Let's get talking and welcomeTravis to the show.
Travis Parry (02:21):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Skyler (02:22):
this is gonna be a great one.
We're talking about getting onthe same page financially, which
can be so clutch and so crucialfor couples, but we're also
gonna touch on it for those whomight not be married, How is
handling money difficult whentwo people are on different
pages?
Travis Parry (02:36):
I think the, the biggest issue for most couples
is they don't see themselves astwo individuals with.
Separate money history.
Well, what, what is a moneyhistory?
Lemme break this down.
Money history is a combined, youknow, psychological relationship
that you have with money plusyour experiences.
(02:59):
where do those typically comefrom?
a lot of times from your familyof origin.
it may be also that your parentshave, you know, had similar
money, you know, history issues,but they brought that from their
parents.
So just like he would go into adoctor and say, doc, I've got
this potential problem.
He might say, well, tell meabout your family history.
'cause he is looking atgenetics.
(03:20):
he is looking at also, he isprobably looking at where these
behaviors might have beenlearned.
So we focus on the learnedbehavior.
what psychological money historydo you have?
regardless if you're married ornot, all of us have a money
history.
All of us have a family oforigin.
it looks different for everyone.
I've studied families longenough to know that.
(03:41):
But what we all have in commonis an idea around what money is,
what it isn't.
What it can do, what it can'tdo, our perception of what,
money means in our life andmoving forward.
Then you take another person,and this is where the marriage
comes into play and you'remarried and you share resources
(04:04):
and time and everything.
and then you try to worktogether on money.
Well, if the two of you are noton that same page, you don't
agree.
You can, learn communicationskills all you want.
But if you don't understand whyyour spouse is thinking about
these things in a differentpoint of view, you're gonna be
just talking past each other.
Skyler (04:26):
Yeah, that's perfect.
I'm excited.
Now You got my mind thinkingabout how this can apply to
people who aren't married withyour family history and your
money history.
One of my favorite questions toask people is kind of like an
icebreaker.
a get to know you question, it'swhat's your first money memory?
And I think that goes right inline with your family history,
money, idea of where did youcome from with money?
Is your first money memory, yourparents fighting about it?
(04:48):
Is it your parents buying youwhatever you want so you feel
like you should be spoiled andhave whatever you want?
There's a whole lot of thingsthat go into that, whether
you're married or not.
How do people start off?
understanding themselves on thatlevel.
Travis Parry (05:01):
I think the first thing is to understand what is
the psychological relationshipyou have with money?
how do you know what that is?
in basics.
we can look at money as a, akind of a, a, abundance
mentality, meaning.
You believe that there's,there's enough and there's
plenty.
Or you can have a very scarcementality.
(05:21):
a lot of us that studypsychology or understand much
about, money, relationships.
Know that our mentalities helpus make those decisions.
Your thoughts can help you makeand change habits, That's where
I like to begin is where areyou?
And most people who have ascarcity mentality usually don't
(05:41):
understand money very well.
What do I mean by that?
when I say the word money, moneywords have meaning.
I.
I've come to understand thatmoney isn't actually what we
think it is is the value that weplace on that currency.
Some of us will devalue it.
Somebody think, well, money'sdumb.
(06:02):
I hate it.
I hear this a lot money doesn'tgrow on trees.
scarcity mentality, or money isevil, right?
All of those ideas, they're veryscarce.
I.
if you wanna follow people whoare wealthy and you want to
become wealthy, you can't thinkscarcity.
You have to make a mentalmindset shift.
what help people do is realize,well, where did those scarcity
(06:24):
mindsets come from?
I.
Most time men and women, it'stheir own parents.
So like you mentioned, what'syour first money memory?
Skyler (06:32):
Yeah.
Travis Parry (06:33):
One that they can remember is typically something
related to their parents.
Maybe their parents argued aboutmoney.
Maybe money was a problemgrowing up, maybe it wasn't.
Maybe they spent it like crazy.
for example, on a, on a marriedcouple.
I have a, a client who, he's abusiness owner and he brings in
a lot of money at one time, andthen it's kind of scarce for a
(06:54):
little while.
the wife, for whatever reason,would just spend it into
oblivion.
She knows that.
Money might not be coming in.
So she had this very scarcemindset, As we dove into where
her belief systems came from, wegot to her mother.
She's like, yeah, my mom alwayshad a really scarce mentality.
(07:15):
And she's like, I don't knowwhy.
I said, well, how about your,your, your, you know, your
grandparents, your mother'sparents?
You said, oh yeah, my grandpa.
Oh, and it just clicked.
he was a depression era baby,and so was mom, but he always
told me that money was evil, Idon't believe that.
Skyler (07:35):
But there's a piece that did
Travis Parry (07:36):
Yes.
And that's the thing is thosememories hang out in your
subconscious.
Our conscious might say, I needmoney.
But our subconscious, if it'ssaying Money is evil, then what
she was doing, as soon as moneycame in, she spent it so she
didn't have it'cause she
Skyler (07:52):
Yeah.
I didn't have that weight Yeah.
that's so fascinating.
And I know we're off a littlebit of what the initial podcast
was supposed to be about, butthis is so interesting for
people to understand where theirmoney beliefs come from.
I'll share a story real quickabout.
Me and my wife is something wehave to learn.
my wife and I after a couple ofour budget meetings that we like
to do.
That my wife was beginning tofeel like I was restricting
money in a similar way that shesaw maybe her parents deal with.
(08:14):
And we, I mentioned that, andthat was that click moment, like
you said, for the grandparentsrealizing, I was like, oh, you
are beginning to feel that fearthat I'm not gonna let you have
fun with money or whatever itmight be.
when it clicked for that, wewere able to move past it so
fast because we were able tomake awareness to it and then we
got on the same page.
So I, I love that idea that youshared of being able to just
(08:38):
think back a couple, maybe yourparents, maybe their parents,
and figure out what clicks interms of why you deal with money
the way you do
Travis Parry (08:45):
And I would say those who aren't married are
like, ah, whatever.
the reality is that, Most peoplein America want to be married.
it's gonna be a future eventthat happens.
And even people who divorce,they wanna marry again.
so, you know, think about thisas great marriage prep because
one of the most.
Divisive arguments in marriageis about money.
(09:08):
I got to this place because Isaw how divisive this was for my
married clients when I was afinancial advisor.
I saw how much, people weredivided and I couldn't figure
out why, like, why can't wechange this?
Well, it's because it's in theirpsychology I wasn't trained
until I, received a master's inpsychology and really dug into
this very specifically the nextpiece of this is how you
(09:31):
communicate about it, what youlearn, effective communication
skills, anyone listening to thiswould do better in life.
By having better communicationskills.
It's not just gonna help withmarriage, but learning to
listen, not just listen toreply, which a lot of us do.
and some of it is because, I'mafraid I'm gonna forget my
(09:52):
thought or whatever.
But if you truly listen withintent to understand, you might
not have to say anything.
Skyler (10:01):
Yep, that's what I was
Travis Parry (10:02):
listening and just listen and listen.
I will say that sometimes, thereare male and female differences
here with listening.
Guys are listening so that theycan fix it.
'cause that's what they're,honestly, they're programmed to
do, let me fix, let me fix,lemme fix.
And then a woman a lot of timeswants issues and problems to
feel validated.
and I'm not saying you complainabout life'cause no one wants to
(10:24):
listen to you complain all day,every day.
It gets really old.
but as a married couple, there'stimes where you need to talk
about things and listen.
a great rule of thumb is I liketo tell men, especially ask your
wife or a friend or familymember, single or married, Ask
that person, do you want me tolisten to help you or do you
(10:44):
want me to listen to listen
Skyler (10:46):
Yeah.
And that can be a huge step.
And even like you said, gettingbetter communication skills.
Sometimes that just meanscommunicating at all.
outside of the tragic situationof a spouse cheating on another
spouse, I would say money is thebiggest issue that leads to
divorce.
there's so much that goes intoit beyond just the money.
currency is the, objective thingand money is the subjective
(11:07):
thing that we apply so many moreemotions and behaviors and such
too, that if you're not talkingabout that money aspect, it
bleeds into all these otherareas, whether you're ready for
it or not.
you don't have to have perfectcommunication or some sort of
degree in communication in orderto talk about money, but you
gotta talk about it at all.
Is kind of even the the entrylevel of beginning to get on
that same page.
(11:27):
But have you ever not been onthe same page?
I'm sure there's plenty ofpeople listening are struggling
with that.
What is it like to not be on thesame page as your spouse
financially?
Travis Parry (11:36):
I would say this about my wife and I, there were
earlier times in our marriagewhere we really struggled with
this, but we tried.
the very first week after we gotback from the honeymoon, we sat
down and said, okay, let's lookat our budget.
Let's create a plan and startfiguring this out.
at first my wife was like, no, Idon't wanna do this.
her parents didn't really seeeye to eye on money and they
(11:57):
ended up getting a divorce.
I'm not saying that money is.
Always the problem but the pointis that we have done the
budgeting.
Every week thereafter, almostevery single week.
we're trying to be on the samepage.
It takes work because if I bringmy money history, and maybe
sometimes it's scarce, andsometimes it's, good but maybe
(12:18):
there's times where hers is kindof scarce and worried and afraid
and, and there are concerns thatwe have.
We have to look at the emotionalside.
We have to look at thepsychological pieces so that we
can work together as a team.
in my book, I actually haveseveral assessments and one
of'em is look at where are youpersonally and then where is
your spouse, and then how do youline up?
I.
(12:38):
Because once you know what kindof money script you are
following, there are some moneyscripts that are so polar
opposite that it doesn't matterhow much you listen to each
other It's just so ingrained inyou psychologically that you're
not gonna be able to move andyou're gonna be fighting about
it all the time.
Does that make sense?
I worked with Jeff Dee at UtahState University when I was
(13:00):
doing my PhD, he had themajority of studies done on
couples and money.
He's the money and couplesexpert I was learning from.
he found that money, is actuallythe number one thing that
couples fight about.
when they fight about money,it's the most emotional of any
other topic, including sex.
(13:20):
while some people might say,divorce happened because,
someone was unfaithful, Somepeople are unfaithful with their
money.
We call it financial infidelity,and they might steal from each
other.
I had a client whose spousestole from him and he's like,
that was the last straw.
some people purport that moneyis the number one cause we can't
actually predict.
in family science, we can onlycome back and look at predictors
(13:43):
and say, money was a big part ofthat and it keeps showing up.
Number one argument.
The longest lasting, the mostemotional of any other type of
argument.
when people come to therapy, thenumber one thing they say
they're there for is forcommunication.
Skyler (14:00):
Hmm.
Travis Parry (14:01):
But if the number one thing that they're
miscommunicating about is money,they're there for money
communication.
most therapists are not trainedin money at all whatsoever.
Skyler (14:14):
Yeah, it's like we understand the groundwork that
we have to have in place inorder to do well with money, but
then we don't realize that stillhas a financial element that we
need to understand and employ.
Like you said, therapists andthings like that aren't
financial coaches.
They aren't financial plannersthat are prepared to say, oh, I
understand why that financialthing or financial history
(14:34):
piece.
They have a completely differenttool set.
But speaking of financialspecifics and how people can be
on the same page, I know youmentioned spouses stealing from
each other or maybe using eachother's money when they feel
like it's their money or it'snot our money is combined
accounts, are those the only wayto be on the same page
financially?
Is it possible to still dothings separately or do they all
(14:56):
have to come into one to reallydo it well?
Travis Parry (14:58):
you bring something up that if you just
typed in Google, like, same pagefinancially or something like
that, this is the litmus test.
do you have a shared bankaccount?
I think it's a great question,but you're looking at the
construct versus the subjectivefirst.
you're on the same pagefinancially if you're working
together toward whatever endgoal you have.
(15:20):
Most couples don't even have endgoals they share together.
So they make the argument aboutlike, well, we have a shared
bank account.
You mean you have a, a placewhere you can both dip in,
without any accountability ordiscussion?
it may not even matter.
Does that make sense?
So I think.
Skyler (15:36):
be separate,
Travis Parry (15:37):
Yes, abs.
That's exactly it.
Skylar, they may be separateusing the same shared resource,
but they're not on the samepage.
In general, what the researchhas found is that, married
couples, trust each other.
They love each other.
They're committed.
They put it on paper, it's ontax returns, the whole nine
(16:00):
yards.
those who are living together,this is a different discussion.
the point is, when you'remarried, You trust each other.
So I would suggest that inespecially first marriages, you
have the same bank accounts foralmost everything.
But that doesn't mean you can'thave your own individual account
for your own spending.
Skyler (16:19):
Mm-hmm.
Travis Parry (16:20):
Does that make
Skyler (16:21):
And that, that was the key for my wife.
like when me and my wife werekind of dealing with this
combination or bringing thingstogether, the key was she didn't
want to feel like every singleamount of her spending had this
helicopter bird's eye view overit by me and simply having her
to have.
One credit card where wewouldn't share where we were
spending money.
I wasn't worried about thataspect, but she just wanted
(16:42):
something that had just her nameon it she could spend in a
pinch, or that she could spendon a gift for me.
But it was still a jointaccount.
And I think even more importantis joint goals.
Like that was what was combined.
Travis Parry (16:54):
Yeah, so that's the most important part.
because my opinion is you shouldstill share resources because
you need that financialintimacy.
And a lot of times people arelike, well, we're in the second
marriage.
We're just gonna keep thingsseparate.
I'm like, well, that's probablywhat led to some of the problems
in your first marriage, capish.
So it was like, well, no, you'vegotta learn this, or it's just
(17:15):
gonna keep repeating itselfworse and worse.
shared resources, shared bankaccounts, individual to keep
your spending money and underaccountable, you know, reasons,
but then assets, keep thoseseparate if you're in a
remarriage situation and careabout legacy and estate
planning.
Otherwise, if you're married,you know, do what's best.
You know, there, there may besituations where the wife needs
(17:38):
to be on the business or thewife needs to be on the property
or not, or the both of you.
That's not really the point.
The point is.
Are you on the same pagepsychologically?
Do you have the same, sameshared goals?
And the research that we've doneon shared goals is couples with,
with, with shared goals andvalues, are not only happier
(17:59):
psychologically, they are moresatisfied in their marriage and
more stable in their finances.
Skyler (18:04):
That's fantastic.
And like I said, I'm hearingjoint goals are more important
than joint bank accounts.
just coming into a marriage andsaying, okay, we're gonna put
our money in one pool and thenwe're gonna be good with money.
That is.
So much less than you actuallyneed to think about and
consider.
Joint goals before joint banks.
I think that's a good way towrap that discussion up make
sure you're on the same page,which is what we're about to get
(18:25):
into, how you can actually getthere and what's the whole
episode is about, same pagestuff, right?
So let's actually talk about howpeople can move into it and
begin to get on that same page.
A couple people are listeningright now and they're like,
yeah, me and my spouse we're ondifferent pages.
I'm here listening to financepodcasts.
They're out spending money orwhatever.
How do they begin to bring up aconversation between spouses to
(18:47):
try to get on that same page?
Travis Parry (18:48):
So what I recommend is, my wife and I,
just.
Sat down and started talkingabout it, but then how do you
continually do that?
I came up with this term, Idon't think it's original, but
Monday money nights for us setup a time, once a week, once a
month at minimum.
weekly is a, is a great time tojust kind of maintain.
(19:10):
Once a month you'll be lookingat.
Your spending plan, I don't liketo call it a budget.
Budget seems restricting.
It seems constricting.
And we wanna look at growth.
We wanna look at abundancemindset, but there still needs
to be limits and boundaries.
So, you, you, you'll sit downand create what that, spending
plan will be to help you achieveyour goals.
(19:30):
if a budget for budget's sake islike a diet for diet's sake.
if you're gonna stop the diet,if you don't like what it tastes
like and you don't like how youfeel, but if you have a goal and
you want to achieve somethingand you're do this together,
then you're gonna help eachother.
You're gonna work towards
Skyler (19:46):
Mm-hmm.
Travis Parry (19:47):
And some goals, you know, especially for my wife
and I, we love to travel, welove to take our kids places.
We love to go alone on getaways.
a lot of it is like, well, we'regonna save some money.
We're gonna spend, on theseimportant priorities.
then we're going to, use, thismoney when we hit our goals to
reward ourselves with thistravel and fun things.
It doesn't, it's not always likeadulting, you know?
Skyler (20:07):
Yeah,
Travis Parry (20:07):
it doesn't have to be painful.
It doesn't have to be now.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes you have to makedecisions
Skyler (20:12):
be tears sometimes.
Travis Parry (20:13):
I absolutely, my wife and I have had to sit down
and we sold a dream piece ofproperty'cause it just wasn't
the right time.
Five acres of beautiful land wethought we were gonna build our
dream home on.
And the economy and, and covidand everything just kind of took
everything in a differentdirection and we had to bail on
it.
that I think it was moreemotional for me than it was for
my wife.
I was the one crying tears aboutit.
(20:35):
I think the important part, isto first have a place where you.
Can set goals together.
Most couples don't do this.
Most couples kind of have this,this real quick.
They, very gender,stereotypical, most women, the
female in the home, she'susually the one who controls the
pocketbook or the spending,right?
And most men are typically theones Dealing with the investing,
(20:58):
But if you can both be on thesame page and the wife knows
where the husband is investingthe money.
That's great.
And if the husband knows thatthe wife is taking care of, the
household, he doesn't have tomicromanage everything that
she's doing.
my my suggestion typically isjust know what's going on and
let her do that.
(21:18):
if she's the one who's reallygood.
Now, if it's vice versa, that'sfine.
If don't care who actuallycarries out the responsibility,
but just be one.
The decisions just be togetherso that there's no second
guessing.
There's no wondering, there's notiptoeing around, there's no
doing things shady in the In thedarkness.
Skyler (21:39):
Yeah, I loved the idea that you mentioned there of your
money Monday nights, or it couldbe your money talk Mondays or
your budget meeting Sundays,whatever you want to call it.
It doesn't matter.
My wife and I, we have ourmonthly budget meeting and I
have a free resource on mywebsite for that, for anyone
listening if you want to getstarted there.
We also talk about money weeklywith our spreadsheet, we don't
(22:00):
spend much more than three tofive minutes on it saying, oh,
these categories are headingtowards the end of the budget
for the month, or the spendingplan, like you like to call it.
And we're just aware that thatis getting near the end and we
say, Hey, maybe we need to takea step back on spending, or we
need to be a little bit morecognizant of it.
But that regular conversation iscrucial towards us not feeling
(22:20):
like the end of the month comesup and I'm like.
How did, how did I spend so muchon Amazon?
Or how did my wife spend so muchat Joanne's or whatever, like
all these different storesbecause we're talking about it
throughout the month.
So that way if it does getoverboard, there's not that last
week of the month where you'respending so much, you can kind
of reel it in.
So I love the idea of thatregular consistent money talk
(22:40):
between people.
What can people do to begin somesmall steps to feel like they're
on the same page?
Because maybe this big regularmeeting seems a little
overwhelming right
Travis Parry (22:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Skyler (22:50):
What are some small steps they can take?
Travis Parry (22:51):
So in my book I talk about this in part three,
there's really three things youought to do.
The first is evaluate what areyour own individual blocks
keeping you from having anabundance mindset.
What is it that you're thinking?
go back to your money history.
how can you change your moneyhistory?
in my book, I talk about how toget past these limiting beliefs
and blocks and, start to createthis new mindset.
(23:12):
a lot of it has to do withforgiving your parents.
Forgiving your grandparents, andhaving a better understanding of
what money is.
And then, getting past thesefears, these subconscious fears
that are holding you back.
It might be a fear of failure orit might be a fear of success.
You might be afraid to investmoney because you're afraid
(23:33):
you're gonna lose it like yourgrandparents did.
whatever investment they didthat they lost their life
savings in.
Or you might, struggle to know,well, I don't come for money.
So if we invest money and weactually make money, well then
what?
Skyler (23:45):
Yeah.
Travis Parry (23:46):
Then?
Skyler (23:47):
a weird spot to be in.
My wife and I are dealing withthat because my wife is a
physician assistant and she'smaking more money than either of
us have ever seen in our lives.
And it's such a, privilegedplace to be where you're like,
what do we do with all thismoney?
So like, we don't take it forgranted.
But also you have to be careful.
You have to be aware of notletting lifestyle creep come in.
(24:07):
Still having those regularconversations, because it would
be easy enough for us to justtake a step back and just spend
money however we want because weare seeing this money come in.
So you still have to be carefuland on the same page, regardless
of too much or too little.
Travis Parry (24:19):
That's right.
I a hundred percent agree withthat.
the second piece is creatingshared financial goals with your
spouse, which we talked about alittle bit.
But what do those look like?
It's not just spending plan.
Spending plan.
That's the tool to help you getthere.
I talk about my first book aboutachieving your life's goals and
your time management Is like abudget or a spending time plan,
(24:41):
of where you're spending yourtime, right?
So think of it as the tool.
Money's the tool, just like timeis the tool.
so then what is your long-termdesires, goals, dreams?
Where do you guys wanna be?
it doesn't have to be aboutsomething that you, consume,
like a home or a car but itcould be a business.
some business owners, reallycare about that.
Maybe it's education for yourkids.
(25:01):
What.
Ever it is flush all of thoseout to know like, where are you?
Short-term, midterm, long-term,even end of life?
Where do you wanna befinancially?
And then work backwards and say,here's our spending plan for the
year, the month, the week.
and be really organized.
The ones who are more organizedare gonna track.
Now I know there's this flexwhere, well, we make so much
(25:24):
money, we don't have to track itanymore.
To me, that's bogus.
it doesn't matter how much moneymy wife and I have ever made,
we've made millions and we'velost it.
I've been on both sides of thecoin.
I didn't come from money.
my parents, struggled with it alot, which is the reason why
I've studied this and helpedpeople.
I do believe that God has givenus this as a stewardship.
Money is a stewardship.
It's a responsibility.
(25:45):
So regardless of how much moneywe make or how little.
We're responsible for it.
And if that's the case, then I'mgonna be answering for that
someday.
not that every single penny hasto, you know, never be wasted.
I'm not that particular, butknow where it's going
Skyler (26:01):
Is it in line with your
Travis Parry (26:02):
goals?
Is it in line with your valuesand your goals?
Because you will feel out ofalignment.
And that's quite honestly what Iconsider balance.
balance is being aligned withyour values, your goals, your
priorities in life.
And if your money is helping tofacilitate those values and
priorities, you're gonna feelit, you will feel good.
(26:22):
The last thing is, if you have abusiness.
Or, if you're earning money byworking for someone else, then
grow the business.
Invest in the business.
If you're working for someoneelse, then be the best employee,
the best, person they've everhad that can help that business
to grow, because that's whatthey're in business for.
be invaluable to them.
(26:43):
And one of the best ways you cando that is being productive.
If my first book AchievingBalance is all about
productivity goals, timemanagement, and I, I really lay
out my make time method to helpyou improve that way.
you have those three, yourpsychology, you're on the same
page financially with yourspouse, and then you're earning
money or bringing in more moneyfrom the business that's gonna
(27:04):
help you.
So many people, like they wannabudget and only budget, they
don't wanna look at where theincome is coming
Skyler (27:09):
Yes.
Travis Parry (27:10):
Yeah, that's huge.
Skyler (27:11):
You gotta make sure you know where it's actually coming
from and that you're actuallyhaving an ability to make more.
I talked about in that episode Iwas mentioning there is a
spending floor.
There's only so much you can godown with your budget.
But you can continue to increasethat cap on your income and
continue that to go up and up.
we are coming to the end of ourtime here, so I do have a couple
last questions I wanna ask you.
(27:31):
Let's end on a motivationalnote.
How has being on the same pagefinancially helped you in your
life?
Or how will it benefit others?
Travis Parry (27:38):
Yeah, so personally, when my wife and I
were not on the same page, eventhough we were doing the
spending plan, we were trying tolike do the things right.
I found that there just a lot offriction, stress, worry, and
fear.
but as a business owner, I thinkthe hardest thing is knowing how
(28:00):
to smooth that out.
There are hills and there arevalleys in any business.
I don't care what business thatyou're in, it's gonna flow up
and down.
So having the patience and justthe long-term perspective is
huge, that's really helped mywife and I.
there's something that wehaven't, we've talked about
money, infidelity, where you'restealing from each other, but
(28:22):
there's another aspect.
There's money fidelity orfinancial intimacy is this
connection.
if you're feeling like you canreally trust your spouse with
money You have a sense ofintimacy that can help the
relationship.
It is a huge boon and in a placewhere we've talked about like,
well, if money is the number onepredictor and it's the longest
(28:42):
lasting, the initialconversation and it brings
people to therapy all.
If you can turn that around andmake that your strength.
What that does for therelationship is a whole new
level of your marriage.
for me and my wife, it's reallybrought us to a whole new place.
We see money as a stewardship.
We have an abundance mentality,and we know that business could
(29:02):
10 x at any time, and we wouldbe ready.
This is one of the last thoughtsI wanna leave you with, and that
is, I have a strong belief inGod, and I believe that
sometimes you're like, Why am Inot earning more?
How am I not making more?
Why is my business not growing?
Maybe you're not ready for it.
Maybe the thing you need to dois prepare for that hill and
(29:23):
preparing for it by showing thatyou can be a good steward of
what you've already been giveninstead of begging for more.
Why would God, why would theuniverse, whatever you wanna
call, why, why would you begiven more if you can't handle
it?
Most who win the lottery.
Like nine out of 10 and win thelottery, go bankrupt in three
years and divorced in three tofour.
(29:44):
Why?
It's because they've neverhandled that much money being
their in life, and so boom, it'sgone.
Skyler (29:50):
money's an amplifier in that way where when you run into
large amounts, if you're notready, if you're on different
pages, that rift is gonna becomebigger and bigger and bigger
when you start running intothose larger sums of money.
that's fantastic.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on.
I have two final questions hereto wrap up so people can find
you Real quick, how can peopleconnect with you or your book?
And then the very last questionis, what's gonna be just one
(30:12):
thing you wish you knew soonerwhen it comes to being on the
same financial page?
Travis Parry (30:15):
I love that.
first you wanna grab my book,Mary and Grow Rich?
It is at Mary and grow richbook.com.
if you wanna know everythingabout me and my speaking, my
podcast, my other book, mycourses, you can get that at
Make Time Institute.
Dot com, make time institute.comis where you can find everything
about, me and the work that Ido.
(30:37):
and then that last question,something I wish I would've
known before, You know, I wishedI had understood how important,
my wife's thoughts and feelingswere about money, not just
communicating again, but it'sreally understanding where she
came from.
Her parents struggled with moneyand I tried to help them with
(30:59):
it, you know, and a little,little, little too late.
and they ended up gettingdivorced and, and they went
through ba, they went throughbankruptcy and then got
divorced.
I wish that, I would've, earlieron in our marriage, really,
understood the emotional side ofmoney with her.
And quite honestly with me, Ithink I was acting out on the
things I had been given as akid.
that's what drove me intofinancial planning.
(31:20):
And then, as I started to seemore couples struggle with money
and realizing that my wife and Iwere kind of dealing with some
of these same issues, I delved.
Further into it.
So I know it was a process.
we never go step by step throughprogress.
We're always going around incircles and it's messy.
if I look back, I wish Iwould've understood that earlier
(31:40):
on.
It would've saved me a lot ofgrief and time and we would've
healed from some of the thingswe've dealt with in life.
So hopefully that's helpful topeople out there.
Skyler (31:49):
Yeah, I'm sure it is.
And that's one of my favoritethings about doing these
podcasts is I'm able to bring onexperts through.
Real life situations wherethey're able to say, here's what
I learned.
Don't do this or do this.
And I think that's one of thethings that hopefully some young
couples listening to this ontheir honeymoon road trip or
whatever, and they're saying,wow, if we can get ahead of
money right now, we can startthat next level in month two or
(32:10):
three of our marriage versusyear two or three or 10 or 20.
So Travis, that's a fantasticplace to leave it on.
Thank you so much for sharing somuch great information.
Travis Parry (32:19):
Thanks for having me.
Once again, thank you so much toTravis for coming on the show.
I know I enjoyed that interviewa lot.
Lemme know what you think bysending me a text message or
leaving a comment whereveryou're listening to this.
Skyler (32:38):
I'd love to hear some feedback about these interviews.
So let me know what you thought,but let's get into the money
talking points today.
The first one is, what page areyou trying to get to?
Well, there are a lot ofdifferent pages or types of
pages that you can be on.
Are you trying to be on a paydown debt page, a savings page,
an investing page, a gettingoutta the paycheck to paycheck
cycle page?
What is your primary page orgoal that you want to be focused
(33:01):
on?
Identifying this for yourself isgonna make having the
conversation with somebody elsea whole lot easier.
Otherwise, if you don't havesomething in mind, it could just
potentially turn into anargument.
If you're not sure where youwant to go, especially if you're
talking about this with aspouse, it could be very easy to
turn this into an argumentbecause you can both come at it
with, I don't really know whatpage I want to be on.
(33:22):
Here's the page I thought wewere on.
Oh, we're not on that page.
Let's argue about it.
So make sure you're beingcareful with this conversation
and truly identifying.
What page or goal you want toget to.
But if you're managing money byyourself, this can be a great
thing to share with a moneybuddy.
You can tell someone else thatyou know what page you want to
be on so that they can try tobring a different perspective to
it.
And that can be super helpful,especially if they bring a
(33:43):
perspective of, oh, maybe youshould scale it back and try
this other idea.
Or, yeah, that's an awesome pageor goal for you to get to go for
it.
And maybe they support andencourage you and they can help
by being your accountabilitypartner.
But all in all, it's importantto remember to take small steps.
Don't try to read a novel all inone sitting.
I've read some fairly lengthybooks all in one sitting, and
it's just exhausting.
(34:04):
I've done some fairly longcourses in one sitting and it's
just exhausting and your brainfeels dead by the end and nobody
enjoys it.
So don't try to do all of thisall at once.
Take small steps, and I got apodcast episode coming up where
we actually talk about this interms of estate planning.
You have to take it one step ata time.
So with your goals and gettingon the same page, make sure
you're taking small stepstowards getting on the page that
(34:26):
you want to be on.
You're not gonna be able to reada humongous novel full of every
financial page that you want tocover in one sitting.
But let's talk about some of thecommon pages, and I kind of
wanna outline some examples thatyou could potentially put into
your financial situation.
So let's say you are married andyou want to get out of that
paycheck to paycheck lifestyleand get out of that system and
(34:48):
page and move on to the nextone.
How do you approach this?
Well, don't approach it with afiery rage about how your spouse
spends all of your money and youhave to work every single day to
support their bad spendinghabits because obviously that
won't end well.
And I'm exaggerating of course.
And everyone listening thinkswhat I just said is completely
obvious.
Like, of course you don't wantto come into it with a fiery
(35:08):
rage about how your spouse isthe worst and all they do is
spend your money.
But saying something like, oh,you bought donuts again, or, oh,
you bought X with a questioning.
Tone can have a similar impactto the recipient of your
question.
It can make them feel likeyou're being hard on them for
wanting to spend money.
So you need to make sure to becareful how you're coming at it
because my exaggerativeexplanation and crazy situation.
(35:32):
That I said at the beginningcould have the same impact as
simply questioning somebody'spurchase.
So make sure you're being awarewith the questions you're
asking, because that can be areally easy way to set off some
sort of big argument thatreally, delays you actually
getting on the same page,especially with a spouse.
You have to find a shared goal.
We will talk about shared goalsin just a second, but wasn't
(35:54):
that idea of shared goals beforeshared bank accounts a great
one.
Lemme know what you thoughtabout that one when I said it
because I thought that one wasspot on.
Shared goals before shared bankaccounts, you have to find a
shared goal and then realizewhat actions don't fall within
that.
This is something that I learnedin my public relations class.
You have to create tactics oractions that support your
strategies.
(36:14):
So if you can figure out whatyour strategy actually is.
It will be a whole lot easierfor you and your spouse or
whoever you're working on moneywith to realize what actions
don't align with it.
So make sure you're figuring outthe strategy first.
It can make it so that younever, ever, ever, ever again
have to ask, oh, you purchasedX.
It'll make it so that yourealize it's not in alignment
with your overall goals andstrategies, and then who knows?
(36:36):
Maybe it is okay and it's inalignment with your plan, and
then spend the money.
If it's in alignment with thatstrategy you came up with, spend
it, who cares if you're inalignment with the strategy and
the actions are getting you tothat strategy?
Do whatever you want that fallswithin that.
That's honestly a really fun andliberating place to get to.
But let's move on to talkingabout goals and how it can feel
(36:57):
to be in sync.
The second money talking pointis how would it feel to be in
sync with your goals and yourspouse?
Well, I want everyone listeningto this to text me using the
link in the top of the shownotes and tell me your answer to
this following question.
I would love to have some followup about this episode and hear
what everybody thinks.
What would it mean to you or howwould it feel?
To be in sync with your goals orhow would it feel to be in sync
(37:19):
with your spouse?
Text me and let me know theanswer to that question for you.
This is gonna be a quick moneytalking point because really
this is one that you have totake and talk about with other
people, which is going to be amassive deal and a real marriage
changer for people if you canget in sync.
It's a huge.
Huge win.
I know for my wife and I beingon the same page and in sync
with our goals is life-changingfor the both of us.
(37:41):
It allowed me to take my footoff the gas in terms of trying
to force savings or investingand allowed us to realize
together, like I said in thelast segment, what the balance
is of paying off debt versusinvesting that we need to strike
to feel good about our sharedgoals.
There's the emphasis again onshared goals.
Shared goals before shared bankaccounts.
A shared bank account doesn'tneed no good if it's just a
(38:02):
place for both spouses to pullmoney from, and there's no
accountability towards yourgoals.
So what challenges might lie inthe way of this?
That's the next money talkingpoint.
The third money talking point iswhat challenges do you need to
overcome to get on the samepage?
Is there a communication or atrust issue?
Well then maybe you need tocontact a professional that can
help you work through that.
And that's okay, but maybethere's just a financial
(38:23):
literacy issue and both of youaren't quite on the same
Financial Knowledge foundation.
Listening to more podcasts orattending local workshops here
may be helpful.
There are a lot of great booksat the library that you can read
and then teach your spouse orencourage them to read as well
so that you can get on that samefinancial foundation.
And by the way, one of thegreatest ways for you to learn
something yourself is to go andteach others.
(38:44):
So that's even more of a greatway for you to shore up your
financial foundation and yourknowledge around it is to teach
others.
Most likely it's that there'ssome sort of hidden mindset at
play.
Like what Travis and I talkedabout.
There's likely something in thebackground that once you start
talking about it, it can clickand really help flip a switch
for you.
For my wife and I, we realizedthat she had some hiding fears
(39:05):
about not being able to spendmoney or feeling like all of our
money was going to go into somesort of.
Inaccessible account, so we hadto make sure to take precautions
so that she could naturally workpast that.
I was so gung-ho about makingsure all of our finances were
entirely together in one jointaccount.
And that freaked my wife out alittle bit.
Like I said, shared goals beforeshared bank accounts.
(39:25):
In the beginning I was puttingshared bank accounts ahead of
everything else, and my wifestill wanted to have her direct
deposit go into a separateaccount in just her name, and
that really confused me at thebeginning.
But once we realized that shewanted to make sure she still
had some solo control over somemoney, even though it would just
end up in our joint account atthe end of the month after we
processed it and budgeted withit, that ability to control it
(39:47):
by sending it to the jointaccount on our own or paying off
her own credit card with alittle bit of spending on it,
made all of the difference.
We still tracked everythingtogether.
We still work towards goalstogether.
It just so happened that some ofour joint money was in an
account that was in just hername, and that was fine.
Now we do everything all in oneaccount.
All of our direct deposits go tothe exact same place, and my
wife could not care less aboutit being in the same account or
(40:12):
that I'm managing the cash, orI'm sending the credit card
payments or that I'm paying ourbills and things like that.
If we didn't have our regularbudget meetings, I don't know if
my wife would ever look at ourbank accounts, which is a huge
shift from where we started, butit took a long time.
So realize that sometimes theremay be a little bit of a mindset
or mental hurdle in thebackground that you have to take
time working through.
And those things will slowlychange to get to a point where
(40:34):
you are able to be on the samepage and aligned.
I also have had my own hiddenmindsets at play, and mine was
to only optimize the math.
I've told this story before, butI wanna share it here so that it
doesn't sound just like my wifeneeded to change to conform to
the way that I wanted to handlemoney.
I also needed a change to helpadjust and compromise to the way
that she wanted to handle money.
(40:55):
So mine was that my wife helpedme realize that there's more
than just math to all this moneymanagement.
Because I wanted it to juststrictly be math based.
I've shared before how herstudent loans impacted her and
how they impacted me.
It's completely different for mywife, they feel like a
requirement to work untilthey're paid off.
And then I came in saying, let'sonly make minimum payments.
(41:15):
So that's like that sameexaggerated statement that I
came in with a fiery rage andsaid, oh, you must work to pay
off these loans, even thoughthat's not what I said, the
recipient to my response ofsaying, let's pay minimum
payments.
Was equivalent to the responseof saying, you have to work so
that we can pay these off over avery long period of time.
Because honestly, I just wantedto optimize the math, which is
(41:38):
not smart when yousubconsciously tell your wife
that you wanna force her to workfor the next 10 to 15 years to
make your math problem work out.
So then we were able to find amiddle ground.
I adjusted my mindset so wecould figure out a way to pay
off the loans quicker, and wemet in a good middle ground
where now we're able to invest agood sum of money, but we're
also paying these loans offquickly.
Wow.
That was a great few moneytalking points right there.
(42:00):
This has been a fantasticepisode and make sure to share
it with a friend.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on any of these money
talking points.
Please text me using the link inthe top of the show notes, some
of your feedback.
Thoughts, questions, anythinglike that.
I hope you enjoyed the moneytalking points in this episode
and that great interview.
Let's bring this episode home.
As we wrap up today's episode, Ihope it's clear that getting on
the same financial page withyour partner or even yourself is
(42:22):
not just about budgets, numbers,or bank accounts.
It's all about understandingyour own money story, uncovering
hidden beliefs and buildingshared money goals rooted in
trust and communication likeTravis shared.
It's not about who's right orwho's wrong with money.
It's about learning where you'reboth coming from.
Financial intimacy starts withlistening, patience and
intentional conversations.
(42:43):
Whether you're trying to getoutta debt, save for the future,
or just reduce tension aroundspending, identifying the page
you want to be on is the firstpowerful step.
And remember, shared goalsshould come before shared bank
accounts.
Take small steps, talkregularly, set a time like a
money talk Monday and make it ahabit.
And most of all, know thataligning your financial goals
(43:03):
can be a game changer, not justfor your budget, but for your
entire relationship, marriageand life.
So what's the next page you aretrying to get to text me using
the link in the show notes.
I'd love to hear how thisepisode resonated with you.
But thank you for listening totoday's episode.
The best way to stay up to dateand connected to All Things
Money Talk is to subscribe tothe podcast and sign up for my
(43:24):
email list.
Head over to Money Talk Show andsubmit your name and email right
there on the homepage.
You can also use the contactpage on my website to send me
any questions.
And if you're looking to getstarted with budgeting, I'm a
partner with my budget coach, aplatform that connects your
budget directly with me, afinancial coach, and I'd love to
work with you over there andhelp you with your budgeting.
The link is in the show notes.
Remember, the best way to learnfrom today's episode is to go
(43:46):
and have a money talk abouttoday's topic with a fellow
money buddy.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of Money Talk.
I'm your host, Skylar Fleming.
Have a great week.
Speaker (43:54):
Thank you for listening to Money Talk.
This show is provided forinformational and entertainment
purposes and may not be specificto your unique situation.
Please be sure to do additionalresearch before making any
financial decisions.
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