August 7, 2025 • 16 mins
Money conversations fall short when only one spouse is at the table. It’s easy to treat financial planning like another household task to divide and conquer, but unlike errands, your financial plan is the blueprint for your shared future.
What we’ve seen time and again is that the person sleeping next to you often holds the key to your blind spots. They know what stresses you out, what brings you joy, and what dreams you’ve stopped saying out loud. That’s why the best financial plans aren’t just about returns or tax strategies—they’re built around conversations that reflect what both of you actually care about.
One question we love to ask: “Would you rather spend more each year, or donate that money to your least favorite political cause?” It’s uncomfortable and it works. Couples suddenly uncover real goals they’ve never voiced before.
When both partners are involved, tradeoffs become clearer, values rise to the surface, and decisions feel more connected. It’s not just better planning, it’s a better relationship with your future.
What conversations might you and your partner still need to have?
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The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.
Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
James, as you know, we require spouses part of our
planning process.
Spouses partners Now requiresounds like an intimidating word
and many of you who reach outto Root you first reach out to
Root and you're the onespearheading it.
You've been managing thefinances.
You maybe enjoy hearing how wehelp clients optimize and you
might want that for yourself.
But maybe your spouse orpartner just generally finds
(00:23):
finances less interesting.
We actually don't think that'sthe case.
We think they just haven't beenasked the right questions yet,
and your spouse plays a reallyimportant role in your planning
process.
They're the ones sleeping rightnext to you.
They have the best seat in thehouse.
We want to understand are youreally stressed out?
You told us during our meetingthat you're not worried about
being bored, but your spousesaid that you were going to bed
(00:44):
looking at chat GPT, wonderingwhat activities you can do in
retirement.
So we really want to make sureyour spouse as well as yourself
have a really detailed planningprocess and we want to make sure
both of you feel equally heard.
That's the topic for today'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's the topic and the reason for that, the reason
that we've been talking aboutthis and, yes, this is we'll
talk about root for a second.
So why do we require a spouse,or both spouses, to be involved
if someone's married to gothrough this?
It's because people have thisperception that, okay, we need
to get our financial plan done.
That's something I can do.
It's almost like I need to goto the grocery store and buy
this.
I can take care of that.
(01:20):
My spouse will take care of theother thing.
You go pick up the dry cleaning, I go pick up the Cheerios, and
it seems like that divide andconquer and it's done.
The financial plan is not just amath problem to be done.
I think that's most people'sperception Run the Excel
scenarios, run the financialplanning scenarios.
Whatever it is, I'll take thisback, I'll communicate it to my
spouse and we'll be good.
And that's the wrong way tolook at it.
(01:41):
People look at the financialplan as like the thing that they
are getting or is the finalproduct, whereas the financial
plan is just a means to an ends.
I think that oftentimes, whenthere is a spouse that's not as
involved for me, for example Itend to be the one that's doing
a lot of the money stuff in ourhousehold.
My wife, ashlyn, is not doingnearly as much as it.
So I, if I was going tofinancial planner, might say hey
(02:07):
, ari, I want to work with you.
Um, I kind of handle all thefinancial stuff.
Uh, ashton doesn't need to behere, uh, let's go ahead and get
started.
And your response to me youwould you would say, well, we're
not going to get started untilAshton's here.
And the reason for that isn'tbecause, oh, she needs to
understand what we're optimizinga portfolio allocation.
That's not why.
The reason why is because thefinancial plan is simply a means
(02:29):
to an ends.
It's the thing that we do thatsays how do we get to where we
want to be?
How do we have that successfuloutcome?
How do we reach the future thatwe've envisioned?
And that future that we'veenvisioned is not something that
Ashlyn delegates to me or Idelegate to her.
That has to be something thatwe talk about together.
What are our dreams for ourfamily?
(02:49):
What are our dreams for wherewe want to be?
What is the thing that's mostimportant to us?
What are our values?
What do we want reflected, ifshe never understands what the
actual 401k allocation is orsomething that's no big deal,
but she has to be very involvedin understanding.
Here's what we're trying to do.
Here are the trade-offs we'remaking along the way.
(03:09):
Here's what we're saying no to,so that we can say yes to this.
And to your point, ari, which isa great one, when we do meet
with clients and one spouse kindof tends to lead it, and we
make sure that most spouses, orboth spouses, are involved to
understand from both sideswhat's important to you, what
are your concerns, all thatstuff We'll have spouses.
They'll go on for a while.
Here's what we want to do.
(03:30):
Here's all this.
And then we'll ask the otherspouse what do you think about
that?
Hey, alice, what do you thinkabout what Ari just said?
And Alice says well, ari saysthat he's going to struggle when
he's not working every daybecause he loves the people he
works with and he gets a truesense of purpose out of that.
He didn't tell that to you, butI can tell as his spouse, even
if I don't understand all theintricate workings of the
(03:52):
financial stuff I get this about, ari, and so your spouse is
going to see your blind spotsand you might not recognize that
, and that's because they'reblind spots.
You don't see them by nature.
And so, having that sense of wewant to talk to the person that
knows you best, and we want todo that to both of you, to
understand the both of you.
(04:12):
And we want to talk about notmoney, we're not telling the
spouse to come on the call so wecan talk about, as I mentioned,
standard deviation and take youto 50 pages of charts of things
that are going to make youreyes who cares?
I'm bored by that stuff.
What I want to know is whatdoes success like?
What are you excited about?
What do you hope for?
What do you hope you never haveto do a day again in your life
(04:34):
in the future?
What are the things you mostvalue spending money on?
Tell me about some of thefavorite trips you've like.
Those are the types of thingsthat both spouses, whether
they're the money person or not,are going to have something
impactful to say about, and youcannot have a well-designed plan
until you truly understand thatcomponent first.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
My mom used to feel so guilty going into her
advisor's office her old advisorand the advisor would show a
graph with green colors and redcolors and my mom would always
feel bad because she used toalways ask them to explain more.
She felt like she was a burdenby asking questions.
She said I see the graphs.
Advisor, I see you're excitedabout this.
I'm not trying to take yourexcitement away.
I just don't understand whatthis means.
(05:14):
And my mom never really got tohave her own financial plan ever
, and it's because she wasscared to ask the question.
It wasn't an open space and whatI imagine happened is in the
first meeting, james would havewalked into Ari's office and in
this hypothetical, ari wouldhave said James, it does sound
like you're the guy who managesthe finances and Ashlyn's not
(05:34):
here and her schedule is reallybusy.
So because of that, yeah, let'sjust go ahead and get started.
That advisor did what hethought was the right thing to
help James.
It's hard for an advisor to sayI'm really sorry, james, I
can't help you today, and Jamesis saying no, you don't
understand.
I don't know if you heard me.
I'm the one that manages it.
And for Ari, in that case hewould have to say no, I heard
you fully, I can't work with youyet.
(05:55):
That's really difficult becausea lot of advisors they want
more clients, they're trying togrow their business.
So at root we are verytransparent.
We want advisors who areactually excited to execute true
planning, which sometimes doesmean having to reschedule so
that we can really make surethat conversation is meaningful.
James, I know that sometimesyou'll come up with these really
(06:17):
magical questions, whether youthink they're magical or not,
that help clients really open up.
Do you mind sharing some ofthose questions?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, there's a few, and I think if you want better
answers, obviously ask betterquestions.
If you want better outcomes,ask better questions.
And so sometimes what I don'tlike is a question of okay, mr
and Mrs Client, tell me whatyour goals are.
Morgan Housel had an awesomeblog post on this, where the
reason I don't.
I know this is not the rightway of saying it, but I don't
(06:47):
trust a lot of people when theytell me what those goals are,
because I can tell I don't thinkthose are your goals.
I think that you've maybe neverspent enough time actually
thinking already about what youwant, and so if you've never
spent time thinking about whatyou want, you're naturally just
going to think that you wantwhat the most successful people
around you are, or have Nicercars, bigger homes, sending your
(07:13):
kids to nicer schools.
So those become the goals thatyou state, not because that's
actually what you want, butbecause it takes time and deep
thought and reflection and notjust being caught up and
consumed by the demands of theworld and the culture.
It's who, what do I want, whatdo I actually want this to be?
And so how do you get people totruly understand, or how do you
help people to truly understandwhat they want to do, and
sometimes you try to askquestions around what do you
(07:36):
enjoy spending money on?
What's your favorite purchasethat you've ever made?
But one question that we like isaround, and this comes up more
so just to paint a picture ofpeople who have saved a lot,
they've invested a lot, they'veworked.
They now are in this positionwhere they maybe have a scarcity
mindset of I'm never going tohave enough to retire, and so
(07:56):
that scarcity mindset reallydrove.
Living beneath their means,saving a lot, investing a lot,
growing this portfolio we say,hey, not only can you retire
today if you wanted, but you canactually spend significantly
more than you ever thought youcould because you built up this
portfolio to do so.
And what they struggle with isthey struggle to actually spend
the money.
They say we know we can, butthere's a difference between
(08:18):
logically understanding that Ican do something and
psychologically being able tobring myself to actually do that
thing.
And so one question that's justkind of a fun thought exercise
for people that struggle tospend is already if you and
Alice came to me and it was like, ah, we know we could spend
150,000 per year, but we just,we're only going to spend 90,
(08:39):
because that's that's all weneed.
That allows us to pay ourproperty taxes, that allows us
to put food on the table.
We're not doing anything likereal fancy, we're not playing
soccer much, we're not travelingmuch, we're not doing anything
that we actually want to do, but$90,000 meets our needs.
If I know that there's, in thissimple example, $60,000 more
that you could spend sustainably, safely, a question I might ask
(09:01):
you is Ari, you have an option.
Ari, you have an option.
You can either go spend $60,000more per year or, if you don't,
I'm going to take that $60,000from your portfolio and I'm
going to donate it to your leastfavorite political party or
political figure.
And I didn't make up thisquestion.
This question comes up, but it'sthis sense of almost like you
(09:24):
know that that would you rathergame.
Would you rather do thishorrible thing or that horrible
thing?
And and sometimes it's it's itmakes you even uncomfortable
thinking about it.
It's like, oh, they both soundso horrible.
You get caught up.
And it's like, well, they'reboth, they're not true, you
don't have to do either of them.
But how do we paint this pictureof?
If you don't spend it?
It's not just going to bewasted, it's going to be donated
(09:46):
to something that you believestrongly against, and so I would
ask that, and I would just bequiet.
It's uncomfortable thinkingabout it, but it's this way of
saying.
If you were forced to do thisthing, I'm not telling you
actually have to go do it, butthe first step to doing
(10:09):
something, action is just goingto be the thing that is the
byproduct of thinking throughwhat we actually want to do.
So what do you want to do, ari?
What's important to you andAlice?
We don't need to start withthings, but is it travel?
Is it health?
Is it relationships?
Let's start there, and then wecan start thinking through what
(10:29):
types of things would be mosthelpful to spend money on.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
That is my favorite question and all of you.
I wish you could see.
When we've asked any of ouradvisors have asked a client
that question.
You would be shocked by thediscomfort you see, followed by
how quick they come up withanswers.
And I have done this in ameeting where someone has said
that same example 90,000.
(10:54):
James, I know I said that was myneed, but the truth is that is
my want and that's everything.
I truly can't spend more.
And James would give theexample Okay, then it's going to
your least favorite politicalparty and you'd think they'd go.
Well, then I guess that's whereit's going.
I have nothing else I could do,and how quickly people go.
I mean, I would start my ownfoundation.
I would donate more money.
In fact, you said in an earliermeeting that maybe we should do
(11:17):
that charitable account.
Should we do that now?
Because I think that wouldactually help.
And you know what We've beenmeaning to get our kids more
invested in how we're giving,and so maybe that would be good
for them.
And you know they didn't starttheir Roth IRA.
What if we gave them half ofthe max?
Then they started going to workearlier and they start spinning
in a way that they never wouldhave without that question.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And this goes back to why do we, if someone's married
, why do we require their spouseto be part of the process?
If we're going to take themthrough it, obviously you can go
to anywhere and do it yourself.
That's your money.
But if we're going to be theadvisors in this, that is one of
our standards.
There is a beautiful alignment.
That happens when, If I'mtalking to Ashlyn and we're
talking about budgets and we'retalking about investments, it's
(12:00):
not like a super unifyingconversation.
It's not one of us likes that,one of us doesn't.
But if I'm talking to Ashlynabout the future that we both
envision, what do we want to do?
Who do we want to give to?
Where do we want to spend?
How do we want to create theenvironment that we will?
That's something that both ofus are going to be fully aligned
with and it creates this senseof connection that you're going
(12:21):
to get when you and your spouseboth talk through these things.
Or Ashton might be able to sayJames, you've always really
wanted to do this, and it's likeoh, yeah, yeah that's what you
know.
That sense of that was a blindspot of mine.
But that is important to me,but my spouse knew.
So that's just another talkabout with your spouse.
(12:45):
Those are the things we want tounify around.
The financial part is kind ofthe easy part Once you know what
we're trying to do, what we'reaiming for, what we're trying to
create, the finances.
Our job is to align those in away to help support getting
there.
But we can't cast that visionfor someone that has to come
from both parties in a way thatonly happens when both spouses
are involved.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Beautifully said.
And final thing here werecognize you are humans, you're
not robots.
We have had many instanceswhere a certain spouse will say
look, I really would appreciateif you would go above and beyond
and meet with me one more time,just so I can fully understand
why we're going to decide tofill up this certain tax bracket
and, if you don't mind, wecould record that, because my
(13:22):
spouse can't make it for thatone meeting.
There are instances where, ofcourse, we go yes, that's an
option.
We want to make sure you arefully in the loop and that your
questions are answered.
But too often we find advisorswill say, yeah, don't worry
about it this time, and thenit's the next time, and then we
haven't seen them in a year.
And now we're wondering okay,is it just you driving it and is
it still a team effort here?
(13:43):
So, yes, we want you to betransparent.
You are your own individualpeople.
We just do ask oftentimes ifit's okay that we record the
meeting so that if there'ssomething that comes up, we can
go ahead and make sure yourspouse feels heard.
So we do require spouses onmeetings, but we do also want to
make sure that the way youcorrespond with your spouse is
probably different than yourneighbor and your coworker and
(14:04):
friend, and we take all thatinto consideration.
So anything else for today'sepisode, james.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Just to take Root out of this.
Who cares what Root does?
Everyone should talk to theirspouse about this type of thing
not the financial side, but whatare we actually trying to do?
Whether you're working withRoot, you're working with
another advisor, you're doing iton your own, you're going to
have better outcomes, especiallywhen those trade-offs have to
be made.
Okay, we only have so much money.
Do we use it to send our kidsto this type of a school or do
(14:31):
we use it to create this type offamily vacation, to create the
memories with our family?
Those are the types of thingsthat, hopefully, both spouses
are coming together and talkingabout and not always seem
perfectly eye to eye, so this isless about root and what root
requires.
The reason we require this,though, is because, in general,
everyone has differentphilosophies on what you know.
When you're married combiningmoney, whatever Get aligned on
(14:55):
what you want to do, and thenthe method by which you get
there is going to become a loteasier, and you're going to be
closer as spouses when you'reable to have those types of
conversations together veryimportant clarification there,
so thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
If you ever want to put your spouse to sleep really
quickly who's traditionally notinvolved in finances you can
throw on one of our rothconversion verse healthcare
subsidy episodes and they'll beout like that.
So we are here to support youas you need it now.
Joking, this is what we love todo here at Root.
We want to make sure you andyour spouse are heard, so
everything you work so hard forcan come to fruition and you
(15:29):
don't have a new job having todo this in retirement.
If this is the type of servicesthat you're looking for the tax
, the estate, the healthcare,the withdrawal, the insurance
it's what we love to do.
If you go to rootfinancialcom,in the upper right you'll see a
little button that says clickhere to see if you're a fit.
If you click on that, you'll beasked a few questions and we
look forward to hearing from youthere.
James has his own individualYouTube channel under James
(15:51):
Canole.
He also has a podcast ready forretirement.
I have my YouTube channel undermy name, ari Taublieb Early
Retirement.
I will come up right on YouTubeas well as the podcast, early
Retirement.
This is our joint show, rootTalks where we get to answer
your questions that are left inour free community, the Root
Collective.
You can join that in thedescription below if you're not
(16:12):
already in there.
There's over 3,100 members asof today.
So go in there, look around,see if there's something that
piques your interest and if youwant.
So go in there, look around,see if there's something that
piques your interest and, if youwant, drop a question or
comment and we'll look to answerit in a future episode.
See you guys next time.
Thank you.
James, as you know, we require spouses part of our
planning process.
Spouses partners Now requiresounds like an intimidating word
and many of you who reach outto Root you first reach out to
Root and you're the onespearheading it.
You've been managing thefinances.
You maybe enjoy hearing how wehelp clients optimize and you
might want that for yourself.
But maybe your spouse orpartner just generally finds
(00:23):
finances less interesting.
We actually don't think that'sthe case.
We think they just haven't beenasked the right questions yet,
and your spouse plays a reallyimportant role in your planning
process.
They're the ones sleeping rightnext to you.
They have the best seat in thehouse.
We want to understand are youreally stressed out?
You told us during our meetingthat you're not worried about
being bored, but your spousesaid that you were going to bed
(00:44):
looking at chat GPT, wonderingwhat activities you can do in
retirement.
So we really want to make sureyour spouse as well as yourself
have a really detailed planningprocess and we want to make sure
both of you feel equally heard.
That's the topic for today'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's the topic and the reason for that, the reason
that we've been talking aboutthis and, yes, this is we'll
talk about root for a second.
So why do we require a spouse,or both spouses, to be involved
if someone's married to gothrough this?
It's because people have thisperception that, okay, we need
to get our financial plan done.
That's something I can do.
It's almost like I need to goto the grocery store and buy
this.
I can take care of that.
(01:20):
My spouse will take care of theother thing.
You go pick up the dry cleaning, I go pick up the Cheerios, and
it seems like that divide andconquer and it's done.
The financial plan is not just amath problem to be done.
I think that's most people'sperception Run the Excel
scenarios, run the financialplanning scenarios.
Whatever it is, I'll take thisback, I'll communicate it to my
spouse and we'll be good.
And that's the wrong way tolook at it.
(01:41):
People look at the financialplan as like the thing that they
are getting or is the finalproduct, whereas the financial
plan is just a means to an ends.
I think that oftentimes, whenthere is a spouse that's not as
involved for me, for example Itend to be the one that's doing
a lot of the money stuff in ourhousehold.
My wife, ashlyn, is not doingnearly as much as it.
So I, if I was going tofinancial planner, might say hey
(02:07):
, ari, I want to work with you.
Um, I kind of handle all thefinancial stuff.
Uh, ashton doesn't need to behere, uh, let's go ahead and get
started.
And your response to me youwould you would say, well, we're
not going to get started untilAshton's here.
And the reason for that isn'tbecause, oh, she needs to
understand what we're optimizinga portfolio allocation.
That's not why.
The reason why is because thefinancial plan is simply a means
(02:29):
to an ends.
It's the thing that we do thatsays how do we get to where we
want to be?
How do we have that successfuloutcome?
How do we reach the future thatwe've envisioned?
And that future that we'veenvisioned is not something that
Ashlyn delegates to me or Idelegate to her.
That has to be something thatwe talk about together.
What are our dreams for ourfamily?
(02:49):
What are our dreams for wherewe want to be?
What is the thing that's mostimportant to us?
What are our values?
What do we want reflected, ifshe never understands what the
actual 401k allocation is orsomething that's no big deal,
but she has to be very involvedin understanding.
Here's what we're trying to do.
Here are the trade-offs we'remaking along the way.
(03:09):
Here's what we're saying no to,so that we can say yes to this.
And to your point, ari, which isa great one, when we do meet
with clients and one spouse kindof tends to lead it, and we
make sure that most spouses, orboth spouses, are involved to
understand from both sideswhat's important to you, what
are your concerns, all thatstuff We'll have spouses.
They'll go on for a while.
Here's what we want to do.
(03:30):
Here's all this.
And then we'll ask the otherspouse what do you think about
that?
Hey, alice, what do you thinkabout what Ari just said?
And Alice says well, ari saysthat he's going to struggle when
he's not working every daybecause he loves the people he
works with and he gets a truesense of purpose out of that.
He didn't tell that to you, butI can tell as his spouse, even
if I don't understand all theintricate workings of the
(03:52):
financial stuff I get this about, ari, and so your spouse is
going to see your blind spotsand you might not recognize that
, and that's because they'reblind spots.
You don't see them by nature.
And so, having that sense of wewant to talk to the person that
knows you best, and we want todo that to both of you, to
understand the both of you.
(04:12):
And we want to talk about notmoney, we're not telling the
spouse to come on the call so wecan talk about, as I mentioned,
standard deviation and take youto 50 pages of charts of things
that are going to make youreyes who cares?
I'm bored by that stuff.
What I want to know is whatdoes success like?
What are you excited about?
What do you hope for?
What do you hope you never haveto do a day again in your life
(04:34):
in the future?
What are the things you mostvalue spending money on?
Tell me about some of thefavorite trips you've like.
Those are the types of thingsthat both spouses, whether
they're the money person or not,are going to have something
impactful to say about, and youcannot have a well-designed plan
until you truly understand thatcomponent first.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
My mom used to feel so guilty going into her
advisor's office her old advisorand the advisor would show a
graph with green colors and redcolors and my mom would always
feel bad because she used toalways ask them to explain more.
She felt like she was a burdenby asking questions.
She said I see the graphs.
Advisor, I see you're excitedabout this.
I'm not trying to take yourexcitement away.
I just don't understand whatthis means.
(05:14):
And my mom never really got tohave her own financial plan ever
, and it's because she wasscared to ask the question.
It wasn't an open space and whatI imagine happened is in the
first meeting, james would havewalked into Ari's office and in
this hypothetical, ari wouldhave said James, it does sound
like you're the guy who managesthe finances and Ashlyn's not
(05:34):
here and her schedule is reallybusy.
So because of that, yeah, let'sjust go ahead and get started.
That advisor did what hethought was the right thing to
help James.
It's hard for an advisor to sayI'm really sorry, james, I
can't help you today, and Jamesis saying no, you don't
understand.
I don't know if you heard me.
I'm the one that manages it.
And for Ari, in that case hewould have to say no, I heard
you fully, I can't work with youyet.
(05:55):
That's really difficult becausea lot of advisors they want
more clients, they're trying togrow their business.
So at root we are verytransparent.
We want advisors who areactually excited to execute true
planning, which sometimes doesmean having to reschedule so
that we can really make surethat conversation is meaningful.
James, I know that sometimesyou'll come up with these really
(06:17):
magical questions, whether youthink they're magical or not,
that help clients really open up.
Do you mind sharing some ofthose questions?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, there's a few, and I think if you want better
answers, obviously ask betterquestions.
If you want better outcomes,ask better questions.
And so sometimes what I don'tlike is a question of okay, mr
and Mrs Client, tell me whatyour goals are.
Morgan Housel had an awesomeblog post on this, where the
reason I don't.
I know this is not the rightway of saying it, but I don't
(06:47):
trust a lot of people when theytell me what those goals are,
because I can tell I don't thinkthose are your goals.
I think that you've maybe neverspent enough time actually
thinking already about what youwant, and so if you've never
spent time thinking about whatyou want, you're naturally just
going to think that you wantwhat the most successful people
around you are, or have Nicercars, bigger homes, sending your
(07:13):
kids to nicer schools.
So those become the goals thatyou state, not because that's
actually what you want, butbecause it takes time and deep
thought and reflection and notjust being caught up and
consumed by the demands of theworld and the culture.
It's who, what do I want, whatdo I actually want this to be?
And so how do you get people totruly understand, or how do you
help people to truly understandwhat they want to do, and
sometimes you try to askquestions around what do you
(07:36):
enjoy spending money on?
What's your favorite purchasethat you've ever made?
But one question that we like isaround, and this comes up more
so just to paint a picture ofpeople who have saved a lot,
they've invested a lot, they'veworked.
They now are in this positionwhere they maybe have a scarcity
mindset of I'm never going tohave enough to retire, and so
(07:56):
that scarcity mindset reallydrove.
Living beneath their means,saving a lot, investing a lot,
growing this portfolio we say,hey, not only can you retire
today if you wanted, but you canactually spend significantly
more than you ever thought youcould because you built up this
portfolio to do so.
And what they struggle with isthey struggle to actually spend
the money.
They say we know we can, butthere's a difference between
(08:18):
logically understanding that Ican do something and
psychologically being able tobring myself to actually do that
thing.
And so one question that's justkind of a fun thought exercise
for people that struggle tospend is already if you and
Alice came to me and it was like, ah, we know we could spend
150,000 per year, but we just,we're only going to spend 90,
(08:39):
because that's that's all weneed.
That allows us to pay ourproperty taxes, that allows us
to put food on the table.
We're not doing anything likereal fancy, we're not playing
soccer much, we're not travelingmuch, we're not doing anything
that we actually want to do, but$90,000 meets our needs.
If I know that there's, in thissimple example, $60,000 more
that you could spend sustainably, safely, a question I might ask
(09:01):
you is Ari, you have an option.
Ari, you have an option.
You can either go spend $60,000more per year or, if you don't,
I'm going to take that $60,000from your portfolio and I'm
going to donate it to your leastfavorite political party or
political figure.
And I didn't make up thisquestion.
This question comes up, but it'sthis sense of almost like you
(09:24):
know that that would you rathergame.
Would you rather do thishorrible thing or that horrible
thing?
And and sometimes it's it's itmakes you even uncomfortable
thinking about it.
It's like, oh, they both soundso horrible.
You get caught up.
And it's like, well, they'reboth, they're not true, you
don't have to do either of them.
But how do we paint this pictureof?
If you don't spend it?
It's not just going to bewasted, it's going to be donated
(09:46):
to something that you believestrongly against, and so I would
ask that, and I would just bequiet.
It's uncomfortable thinkingabout it, but it's this way of
saying.
If you were forced to do thisthing, I'm not telling you
actually have to go do it, butthe first step to doing
(10:09):
something, action is just goingto be the thing that is the
byproduct of thinking throughwhat we actually want to do.
So what do you want to do, ari?
What's important to you andAlice?
We don't need to start withthings, but is it travel?
Is it health?
Is it relationships?
Let's start there, and then wecan start thinking through what
(10:29):
types of things would be mosthelpful to spend money on.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
That is my favorite question and all of you.
I wish you could see.
When we've asked any of ouradvisors have asked a client
that question.
You would be shocked by thediscomfort you see, followed by
how quick they come up withanswers.
And I have done this in ameeting where someone has said
that same example 90,000.
(10:54):
James, I know I said that was myneed, but the truth is that is
my want and that's everything.
I truly can't spend more.
And James would give theexample Okay, then it's going to
your least favorite politicalparty and you'd think they'd go.
Well, then I guess that's whereit's going.
I have nothing else I could do,and how quickly people go.
I mean, I would start my ownfoundation.
I would donate more money.
In fact, you said in an earliermeeting that maybe we should do
(11:17):
that charitable account.
Should we do that now?
Because I think that wouldactually help.
And you know what We've beenmeaning to get our kids more
invested in how we're giving,and so maybe that would be good
for them.
And you know they didn't starttheir Roth IRA.
What if we gave them half ofthe max?
Then they started going to workearlier and they start spinning
in a way that they never wouldhave without that question.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And this goes back to why do we, if someone's married
, why do we require their spouseto be part of the process?
If we're going to take themthrough it, obviously you can go
to anywhere and do it yourself.
That's your money.
But if we're going to be theadvisors in this, that is one of
our standards.
There is a beautiful alignment.
That happens when, If I'mtalking to Ashlyn and we're
talking about budgets and we'retalking about investments, it's
(12:00):
not like a super unifyingconversation.
It's not one of us likes that,one of us doesn't.
But if I'm talking to Ashlynabout the future that we both
envision, what do we want to do?
Who do we want to give to?
Where do we want to spend?
How do we want to create theenvironment that we will?
That's something that both ofus are going to be fully aligned
with and it creates this senseof connection that you're going
(12:21):
to get when you and your spouseboth talk through these things.
Or Ashton might be able to sayJames, you've always really
wanted to do this, and it's likeoh, yeah, yeah that's what you
know.
That sense of that was a blindspot of mine.
But that is important to me,but my spouse knew.
So that's just another talkabout with your spouse.
(12:45):
Those are the things we want tounify around.
The financial part is kind ofthe easy part Once you know what
we're trying to do, what we'reaiming for, what we're trying to
create, the finances.
Our job is to align those in away to help support getting
there.
But we can't cast that visionfor someone that has to come
from both parties in a way thatonly happens when both spouses
are involved.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Beautifully said.
And final thing here werecognize you are humans, you're
not robots.
We have had many instanceswhere a certain spouse will say
look, I really would appreciateif you would go above and beyond
and meet with me one more time,just so I can fully understand
why we're going to decide tofill up this certain tax bracket
and, if you don't mind, wecould record that, because my
(13:22):
spouse can't make it for thatone meeting.
There are instances where, ofcourse, we go yes, that's an
option.
We want to make sure you arefully in the loop and that your
questions are answered.
But too often we find advisorswill say, yeah, don't worry
about it this time, and thenit's the next time, and then we
haven't seen them in a year.
And now we're wondering okay,is it just you driving it and is
it still a team effort here?
(13:43):
So, yes, we want you to betransparent.
You are your own individualpeople.
We just do ask oftentimes ifit's okay that we record the
meeting so that if there'ssomething that comes up, we can
go ahead and make sure yourspouse feels heard.
So we do require spouses onmeetings, but we do also want to
make sure that the way youcorrespond with your spouse is
probably different than yourneighbor and your coworker and
(14:04):
friend, and we take all thatinto consideration.
So anything else for today'sepisode, james.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Just to take Root out of this.
Who cares what Root does?
Everyone should talk to theirspouse about this type of thing
not the financial side, but whatare we actually trying to do?
Whether you're working withRoot, you're working with
another advisor, you're doing iton your own, you're going to
have better outcomes, especiallywhen those trade-offs have to
be made.
Okay, we only have so much money.
Do we use it to send our kidsto this type of a school or do
(14:31):
we use it to create this type offamily vacation, to create the
memories with our family?
Those are the types of thingsthat, hopefully, both spouses
are coming together and talkingabout and not always seem
perfectly eye to eye, so this isless about root and what root
requires.
The reason we require this,though, is because, in general,
everyone has differentphilosophies on what you know.
When you're married combiningmoney, whatever Get aligned on
(14:55):
what you want to do, and thenthe method by which you get
there is going to become a loteasier, and you're going to be
closer as spouses when you'reable to have those types of
conversations together veryimportant clarification there,
so thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
If you ever want to put your spouse to sleep really
quickly who's traditionally notinvolved in finances you can
throw on one of our rothconversion verse healthcare
subsidy episodes and they'll beout like that.
So we are here to support youas you need it now.
Joking, this is what we love todo here at Root.
We want to make sure you andyour spouse are heard, so
everything you work so hard forcan come to fruition and you
(15:29):
don't have a new job having todo this in retirement.
If this is the type of servicesthat you're looking for the tax
, the estate, the healthcare,the withdrawal, the insurance
it's what we love to do.
If you go to rootfinancialcom,in the upper right you'll see a
little button that says clickhere to see if you're a fit.
If you click on that, you'll beasked a few questions and we
look forward to hearing from youthere.
James has his own individualYouTube channel under James
(15:51):
Canole.
He also has a podcast ready forretirement.
I have my YouTube channel undermy name, ari Taublieb Early
Retirement.
I will come up right on YouTubeas well as the podcast, early
Retirement.
This is our joint show, rootTalks where we get to answer
your questions that are left inour free community, the Root
Collective.
You can join that in thedescription below if you're not
(16:12):
already in there.
There's over 3,100 members asof today.
So go in there, look around,see if there's something that
piques your interest and if youwant.
So go in there, look around,see if there's something that
piques your interest and, if youwant, drop a question or
comment and we'll look to answerit in a future episode.
See you guys next time.
Thank you.
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