Money with My Honey: How to Manage Finances as a Couple

Jenni: All right. Welcome to the Modern Family Finance Podcast. I'm Jenny Dazols.

And we'll be talking about money and relationships with one of my favorite couples, John and David Auten Schneider. So my wife, Lisa, and I have had the pleasure of becoming friends with them over the years and with their writing and speaking for debtfreeguys.com and the Queer Money podcast. John and David help LGBTQ people and their allies live fabulously, not fabulously broke. So today's discussion centers around the topic of money with your honey and relationships and finances are undoubtedly intertwined. And we're going to talk about how couples can effectively manage their finances while strengthening their bond. So hi, John and David.

David and John: Hi there, Jenny. How are you?

Jenni: Good. So you guys are

both happily married now for how many years?

David and John: It was so funny. I was just thinking about this literally before we got on this call. We crossed 20 years in, we've been together for 20 years in January. We've been married for Officially 2017. We did the show in 2018. Yeah. So six and a half.

Jenni: Wow. But

20 years, I'll count as 20 years as being together. Cause

that's,

David and John: we would have, yeah, we would have gotten married probably a year, a year and a half after we got together.

Had that been an option.

Jenni: ah, gotcha.

So you guys are like lesbians.

David and John: We're like lesbians. Yeah, we did it fast. Well, you know, we just knew. I think we had, you know, we were both in our early 30s, and we had dated before, and I think we had been friends for three years prior to dating, and so I think we just kind of, like, knew it was, it was the one.

Jenni: Awesome. Okay. And now you guys are helping others to live fabulously and not fabulously broke as you say. Can you share a little bit about your financial journey together?

David and John: Sure. You want me to go? Why don't you kick us off? Alright, this is John, I'll kick us off. So about a year and a half after David and I got together, we were in the mountains of Colorado and we were looking, we were having a weekend vacation there to visit a friend of mine. And while we were up there, we were thinking to ourselves, God, this would be a great place to buy land and build a house.

And so we looked at we went to the realtor's office that weekend before we left town, looked at some land and we're like, okay, this sounds amazing. We're having this amazing conversation and we decide to, we head out of town to head back home. And we start to have the discussion of, okay, well, what can we afford?

And we went from this like high of excitement and we couldn't wait to like have all of our friends up there and share the place with family and let people borrow while we weren't using it. And it gave us a place to escape from the weekend out of the city and go to the mountains. And I love to snowboard.

David likes to ski so we could enjoy all that. And We started to have the discussion of what could we afford and as we like descended in elevation, apparently getting more and more oxygen, we started to realize that we couldn't afford to buy land and build a house there. And then we thought, well, could we, could we go up there for long weekends?

Like this wasn't an option at the time Airbnb, but Verbo was a big thing at that time. Could we do a Verbo for long weekends? And now we probably couldn't do that. Can we go up there for weekends? Actually, no, we probably can't afford that. And so we, we drove up to our house, got our bags out of our car, walked down a flight of steps into a basement apartment.

and realized that we were physically and financially living in a hole. And we confessed to each other at that moment that we had 51, 000 in credit card between debt between the two of us. And the irony was at the time we had about 15 years of combined tenure in financial services. So here we were literally helping other people invest, save for retirement, help them pay off debt, build emergency savings, all that stuff.

But we weren't applying it to our own lives. And that was sort of our rock bottom moment when we realized that we were Cliche we had like all the designer clothing. We were going to make amazing vacations We were at all the happy hours and all the galas that the community was putting on Doing all sorts of fancy traveling and by and large like on the exterior things looked amazing But we were a cliche but the gay cliche of being fabulously broke and that was kind of what's got us on our journey of Paying off our debt and then eventually we became the debt free guys and queer money podcast host Do

Jenni: right? So a lot of hard work in the eventually part.

David and John: Yeah, it took a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. As, as a matter of fact during that time period John and I, after we paid off our debt was right when the financial crisis hit. So that was 2008 and we looked around and we saw lots of people. nationally from the media, but also within our own community people who were living exactly the way that we had been living, right?

People who were using their homes as the ATM so they could take vacation so they could do all the things that they thought that they needed to in life. And we were like, we were like, you know what? I think there's some people we could help with this. And so we decided to write a book because our thought was we write a book, Oprah invites us on her show and she does the, you get a book, you get a book, you get a book.

And all of a sudden we're, you know, we sell millions of copies and we have a completely different career. And we were fortunate enough that when we were shopping our book around to have an agent who said, Yeah. You guys need to build a platform and we we were like what the heck is building a platform And so well, you need something like a blog or a podcast or a tv show or radio show You need something where you already have an audience to that will help buy or launch the book, right?

You need an audience who will be receptive to that So that's when we started debt free guys and a year about a year and a half later We went to a personal finance conference of the A bunch of money nerds people who are in the, the financial media, anything from like CNBC money websites and stuff like that.

And we got together and we realized while we were there, not only what we saw, but other people basically pointed out to us that we were the only out people among 900 content creators. And literally one person said to us sitting across from us at dinner, stop trying to be Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey has covered.

You guys need to be talking to your audience. You need to be talking to the LGBT community because no one else is. And that's when John and I said that, that, We need to go back and rethink this and what we it is we talk about and who we focus on and that's when the queer money podcast was launched and And as they say the rest is history.

We are in our ninth ninth year of recording our podcast now and It's been quite a fun journey to be together working together and enjoying our lives together not only in as partners, but partners in the way in which we are trying to help change the direction of our community financially.

Jenni: That's awesome. You guys were definitely an inspiration that Lisa and I could do this. We could build this business together. We're

like, they've survived for nine years as a couple working together. So

David and John: Yes. That is one of the reoccurring questions that we get is how can you work with your spouse?

Jenni: It's

either

David and John: ask that question, you probably don't want to try to work with your spouse.

Jenni: gonna be amazing or it's gonna totally explode. So you

gotta figure out which one you are.

Yeah.

So you guys had this come to Jesus conversation early on in your relationship as a result of the ski trip. And I often get couples coming to me because they are, you know, kind of in early on in their relationship.

Maybe they're thinking about getting married. And they want to make sure their finances are set up. Okay. So, I mean, when, what are some money mistakes that you see couples make?

David and John: Oh gosh. I think number, the biggest mistake that we see couples make is that they don't have the discussion about money. I think both very often, both partners Don't want to bring up the topic They feel like it's either rude to talk about money or they're afraid to share their side of their money story with their partner or they think it's just rude to ask about the other person's money story So I think that that's probably the biggest hiccup and that's really the I mean of all the stuff that we do for the podcast Every time that we're on other people's shows and in media they always ask like what's one piece of advice you have for the community and we always go back to simply starting to have that conversation because We Straight people aren't doing a great job of it themselves, but the LGBTQ plus community is really not doing a good job of it.

I think that the other thing is I think the term is often used of financial infidelity, where you're not being Truthful with the person that you need to be the most truthful with We we partnered with now an app that has been rebranded But back then it was called honey fi and they did a survey and they found that couples who talk to each other about money were 83 percent more likely to say they had a good sex life and we thought it was interesting because You If you trust the person that you so that you're with so much that you will share everything with them, how much debt you have, what your credit score is like, what your financial habits are like, where you've made mistakes, where you're doing well.

All of that is, is an example of being, of trusting this person. And the more you trust somebody, the more you can be intimate with them. And I think that's kind of the stepping stone to that quote unquote. Good sex life. I mean, it's not like, it's not, you know, it's not a causation. It's a correlation, right?

Because of the way in which you are working together as a couple. So I, I always say, figure out a way to reveal. It doesn't need, you don't need to like open up your, your book, right. And say, this is all the mistakes I've made. This is how much debt I have. Don't, you don't need to scare your partner or your perspective partner, but figure out a way to start.

Uncovering peeling back the layers so that you can have those honest conversations with your partner

Jenni: That's helpful. That's really helpful. Like, and if you are in this situation, you're like, well, we've kind of talked about money. We've talked about our, you know, how much we should spend on this vacation, but are there particular topics that couples should make sure that they do discuss, especially if they're thinking about, say, tying the knot and getting legally married?

David and John: Yeah, we often recommend to our listeners and viewers who are just starting the money conversation focus on the fun stuff focus on the positive stuff first, so like What do you want your marriage to look like? Where do you want to live? What kind of things do you want to accomplish? What kind of vacations do you want to go on?

Do you want to have children? If so, how many children do you have? What kind of house do you want to have? Like focus on the on the big life dreams where do you want to retire? What does retirement look like to you? And then once you kind of figure out like where you overlap because you're going to have some differences But where you overlap think to yourself, okay What are we going to have to do to get there?

What kind of income incomes are we going to have how much money will we have to save? You And then at that point think about what are the obstacles that are preventing us that would prevent us from getting there And this is kind of conversation that can happen over time, right? You don't have to do this all in one sitting But then when you start to have the conversation of what obstacles are gonna keep us from getting there That's when you can start to disclose this the information that might be a little bit sensitive like okay Well, I've got this much debt or I've got all these the student loan All these student loans or my credit score is not the best You And then you can start to say, okay, what, what do we have to do to sort of overcome those obstacles and then achieve what those big life goals are.

But I think if you, if you focus on the fun stuff first and ease into the conversation, when you finally get to the dirty stuff, you can decide it kind of, it's not so Must be clearly I'm tired, but it won't be so acrimonious right because you kind of focus on the positive stuff first and you can reverse engineer into the, into the, into that later.

Jenni: Yes. Amen. Like you agree. You agree. And actually that's a really good idea.

David and John: Yeah, definitely. I, you know, the, the, the, the having the money conversation is really hard. I think the other thing you can do is to show your partner, a prospective partner, that you are interested in things like this. It literally, if you're listening to this podcast, you are interested in topics like this.

Right. So let them know, Hey, I was listening to this podcast and I heard these guys talking about. X, Y, and Z. Or I, you know, I heard these people talking about. Whatever it is, and, and then blame it on whoever the podcast you're listening to, or the YouTube video you watched, or the blog post you read, or the article you read on a web, you know, CNBC or something like that.

Say, blame it on that, and say, you know what, that made me think. It made me think about us. Where do you think we stand in this, in, in that? Do you think we could get there? Or do you think we could do that? Or do you think we have a problem with this? Cause they said that if we did have a problem with this, then this is something we could do.

And you're kind of almost saying, Hey, I didn't really come up with this on my own. I was sparked by this conversation I heard or what I read. And then it's pretty easy to Not feel like you're being confronted by your partner or confronting your partner with something that could potentially be a dangerous topic, right?

And blow up a relationship.

Jenni: Yeah. That makes sense. So one of the challenges that I see when I talk to couples is when, I don't know if it's a challenge, but it's, it's, it's, it's often that I see this is that you have a couple that comes in and there's a pretty large disparity in income. You have somebody who earns a lot more than the other, and it can cause, you know, Lots of feelings, you know, feelings sometimes on the part of the lesser earning partner feeling kind of inferior and feeling bad and feeling that they've got to work harder feelings of the higher earning partner of also feeling a little bit resentful that they have to foot the bill or they, or that their financial ambitions are somewhat limited because their financial goals are somewhat limited because, you know, the other partner can't bring that much money to the table to buy the big house or whatever. You know, How do you, well, I guess, how have you seen this play out and how do you recommend couples manage a situation like that?

David and John: So I'll speak from personal experience. My partner before I met John was eight years older than me, came from a family of wealth and had a business that he had started and made a lot of money. We lived in a very nice house in Denver and I felt that I felt every part of that. I felt like I was. kind of living in his house as a guest almost.

He literally would go to his best friend to ask decisions about what they should do, what he should do for decorating the house rather than asking me. And so. Those kind of disparities of income can really affect the relationship. You don't, if you do have those kinds of feelings it's important to try to uncover them with your partner, explain to your partner, Hey, I'm having these feelings.

Is this, is this right? Or is it, you know, do, is this incorrect that I fee, I'm feeling this way? And that's again, again, going back to that honesty and trust with your partner. Okay. In the LGBT community, it is very common for there to be disparity in income and disparity in age. And oftentimes, disparity in age c comes with disparity of income, because someone has been working longer, had a longer career, or had opportunity to advance their career much more than the other individual.

And I think that that's where we need to really be having more conversations around how do we work together as a couple, as a team, as a partnership, because that's what we really want in life, right? When we're looking for a mate, we really want somebody who really has, we have their back and they have ours, and it doesn't matter that you have desperate, disparate incomes or the disparate age.

As long as you are a couple that has strength and bond together and trust each other, then all of those things can be easily dealt with as long as you're honest with each other. Yeah, I think we need to also as a LGBTQ plus couples, we need to think maybe our mom and dad's model of dividing and managing money does not necessarily fit with us.

We have different kinds of relationships, we have different lifestyles, so we need to be open to the idea that the, the man, quote unquote, is not necessarily going to be earning all the money and be responsible for all the finances, right? And it may not even be that we do it 50 50. We have to figure out what's, what works for us.

It could be 50 50. It could be that each person brings to the table what they can. It could be that I buy some stuff and he buys other stuff or you split finances in some way, shape or form. I'll cover the mortgage. He covers the travel expenses, you know, whatever the case may be. I think we have to be open and honest with what we're able to afford and what we're comfortable doing as a partnership.

In such a way that aligns with our long term financial goals, and I would go back to the beginning of the conversation that we had is focus on what your big goals are first and then kind of reverse engineering to that. And in that discussion, you can have. Okay, what makes sense for us to divide our finances?

If you're a multimillionaire, and I'm just starting my career, right? It's gonna be hard to say that we can't be 50 50 and it could be Both parties could eventually become resentful if it's not discussed openly and you don't manage your, your, your, your financial relationship accordingly. And I think we also have to be open to the idea that what that, the ideal way of managing our finances as a couple or as a family.

Might evolve over time We need to be able to adapt to that right because the older person might retire and then all of a sudden their income drops Precipitously and the other the younger person could be earning more money. And so how do we manage that? So be open to having this conversation regularly This isn't just something that you you say you have a conversation you have before you get married or right after you get married It's it's conversation to have over a lifetime

Jenni: Yeah.

David and John: I'll use another example if you don't mind.

I had a conversation with Tim Gill it, it, for folks who are not familiar, Tim Gill is one of the largest donors to LGBT causes in the United States. Literally, this is a man who sold a company for 800 million. His husband is younger than him, and clearly he's never grown up. Going to be in that position to be earning or have that kind of money.

And he, we, a, I talked to him and I asked him, how, how do you deal with the fact that you guys have such a huge dis difference in your income? And he said, I, I told Scott, his husband, he said, I told Scott there are certain things that I want to do in my life because I now have all of this success and I want you to be there with me when I'm doing them.

I don't need to fit for you to feel like you need to have this be fair because what is fair is that I get to live the life that I've built and and enjoy the life I've built with you and you get to enjoy the life that you built and I get to enjoy that with you and that's that's I think that's where that.

Understanding where we are coming from, where we, where we are, what we have as can be a balance of equals when it comes to those kinds of conversations. Don't hold yourself back or don't feel like you're holding someone back if they make more money than you or you make more money than them. Have an honest conversation with them.

And then, Let, let it, let the cards fall where they, they, they fall so that you can be happy in your relationship.

Jenni: Yeah, love that. And you guys have a loose started, you know, I think John started talking a bit about this already, but what are some ways that couples can manage their expenses together? I mean, you're never going to have something where it's going to be absolutely the same salary, right? So there's always going to be some difference.

And I know there's no probably no right way, but can you give some examples of how you've either done it in your own life or seen other people do it managing expenses when you have one house, you know, one household, but you're also like, I don't want to just throw everything into one pot like my mom and dad did.

David and John: Yeah, I think that there are really basically three ways to break it down. One is the 50 50 split, right? We if your incomes are close to being the same, then You may have one pot, or you may have two accounts, but you both are paying 50 50 on the mortgage, on the utilities, on the vacations, on the groceries.

You kind of have a pot where you put, both put money in, and you pay half, right? The other option is the percentage split and that is oftentimes the way that people who have large differences in income We'll split the finances. If you're making 50 percent more than your partner, then you're probably going to pay.

You're going to pay 50 percent more of the bills if you're doing a 50 or a a percentage split. And then the last one is that you come to some, John kind of alluded to this, you come to some sort of agreement where I pay these bills and you pay those bills. If yours go up, then you pay more. If mine go up, then I pay more.

It's just, that's just the way we're going to divide it based on, on the kinds of things that we want to pay for. One of the nice things about that doing that kind of split is then we each get to maybe pick things that we really want in life, right? So if you're with a partner who wants to have a nicer home.

And you're going to do that kind of split. Well, then they can pay for the pay for that mortgage or, or they pay for a larger percentage, that mortgage. If you have a partner that absolutely loves travel, then they can pay for that. All, all of that travel or a larger portion of that travel. It allows you to use the, your money that you are earning to get what you want on life and feel like what you're earning is actually contributing to you having the life that you want rather than feeling like your partner or you are holding your partner back.

Jenni: anything else you want to add?

David and John: Oh, he covered all three.

Jenni: Okay, awesome. Yeah, no, those are great. And do you feel like it's important to divulge all spending to your partner? Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

ha,

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha,

David and John: do you, John, do you back to David's point earlier, you don't want to commit financial infidelity. But I think what you can do as a couple of say, we've got this pot of money and this is where most of our finances are managed out of, and then we have both have our respective pots and it's done your business that how I spend my money on that.

And we know a lot of couples who do that. So I don't think you necessarily have to divulge everything. But, but what we have also seen is couples who in situations where one partner will behind the scenes secretly rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt on their credit card and then suddenly it's The responsibility of both parties to figure out how to figure out how to pay all that debt off.

So that's kind of the financial infidelity that it's not fair to just spring on your partner. But if you each have your own little cash accounts and you want to be able to buy those shoes or go on to the coffee shop or go on that vacation, even if you want to, without having to itemize every expense and showing it to your partner, I don't think it's necessary.

As long as you've, you've come to the agreement that that's okay between the two of you. Right. Husband, right. That being said, I, what I think one of the, the stories John and I love to tell is us sitting, we just had gone to the gym. We're sitting in the parking lot at whole foods and we got into a fight over buying a 1 79 head of lettuce.

Because I was, I, I have a scarcity of mindset background, right? I came from a family where I, we got. My sister and I got our lunches for 10 cents at school. We were low income for a time period. And so I came from that mindset of I need to be really, really controlling with my money. I wasn't good with how I spent it, but I was still controlling.

My money, which is interesting because there are people who are great with their money because they're controlling with their money. And there are people who are really bad with their money because they're controlling with their money. And that kind of triggered a conversation with us about why, why did we have this fight?

Why did we need, why do we need to do that? And that unpacked a pact a little bit more of my background or my history of, I need to learn to let go of this scarcity mindset.

Jenni: ha. Yeah, tell me how you do that.

David and John: You know girlfriend, that is a lifetime

of therapy.

Jenni: Me too, me too. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

David and John: It really is. I think it is. That's a, a, a important topic to have a conversation to have with your partner after you've had all these other conversations is to start talking about your What, what informs your money story? What was money like when you were a kid? What was your household like? How did your mom and dad treat money?

What kinds of things did they say about money? Were they the kind of people that money doesn't grow on trees? We can never afford that. Those kinds of things can set people up to have that scarcity mindset. At the same time, they can have, they can set people up to say, I don't ever want to live that way.

And, and, and actually. Go the opposite direction. We're hoarding money or, or thinking they have to have tons of money to be comfortable or safe. So what kind of mindset you have with money is a really good topic to talk with your partner about, especially later on.

Jenni: Yeah, love

David and John: I think one of the challenges that we see that's quite ubiquitous in the LGBTQ plus community is because so many of us have experienced discrimination, especially from a young age, maybe even before we could articulate that we were LGBTQ, is that we're finally in adulthood and we think it's, Our self worth is tied to how many degrees we have, and our self worth is tied to the income that we have, and our self worth is tied to all the showy displays of one's means of wealth.

And so we get really, really hung up on acquiring those degrees and trying to climb the corporate ladder to get those fat salaries. And you're just, you're just going to stay on that hamster wheel for the rest of your life. You're never going to be able to enjoy it. So we have to start to disconnect our self worth with those sort of tangible things so that we can actually Discover what really matters to us and really start to live a contentful, happy life.

In a simple way,

Jenni: Yeah, I agree. Going back to the nuts and bolts of managing finances together, let's talk a little about the big B word, which is budget. You know, how do you work out that budget when one person is willing to spend 3 on lettuce and the other person only wants to spend 1. 50 or

whatever it

David and John: was

a dollar 74 and he wanted us to go all the way down to the street with, I don't know what gas costs at that time. By the time we got the head of lettuce at King's supers, it would have been the same price.

Jenni: You still John's angry about that,

but yeah, so what happens when, you know, you've, you've made the decision to be equitable and maybe you're going to do 60 percent expenses and the other guy's going to do 40. But the problem is you have a fundamental disagreement about how much is good, okay to spend on, for example, travel or lettuce or anything else. How do you deal with that?

David and John: I, I think that we have to Practice a little bit of compassion with the person that we're with and remember that they, they're, they're out there earning money just like I am and, and they have desires and wants and needs when it comes to what they're earning and we have to be willing to let them experience those.

At to varying degrees, right? I mean, obviously you can't have a partner where they're only spending money on their wants and they're not spending any money on their needs because then it becomes, it gets imbalanced, right? Then, then you are, you have a partner who racks up a ton of debt, but you, we have to, I think we have to practice that really having that compassion and having that conversation with what do you enjoy spending your money on?

And then being okay with it, right? Being okay that the fact that John wants to send a dollar and 79 on a head of lettuce, or that he wants to spend 300 on a pair of designer jeans. And I just have to say, it's okay if he wants to do that. That's his money. It's our money. I want my partner to be happy. Are you giving me the green card now?

No. I don't, I mean, I'm not saying that you can't, but the nice thing is, is that we, between the, the, the two of us we have learned over the years that what it is that we each other wants. Right? When John looks at me and says, Hey, Do you want to drop 40 on this bottle of wine? I kind of know that he's in that mindset of, I really would like to be able to do this.

And I want to make it, I want him to be, to be happy and do that. And we do that from time to time for each other, you know, and I'll say to him, I was the nickel and dimer in our relationship when we were requiring debt. I used to go. out to Einstein's bagels every single morning on my way to work and get a bagel and coffee.

And I went to Chipotle or, you know, I went out for lunch every single day. I was, I was not the big purchaser, purchaser. I was the nickel and dimer, but John was the big purchaser. So I know what his money habits are like. He likes to make big purchases from time to time. And I think it's important for you to understand the money, the spending habits of your partner and say, Hey, Sure, let's do it from time to time and to just let it happen, right?

As long as it, you are not putting yourself on a path to financial ruin or financial harm. Right by, by saying yes or by them, them saying yes to you. You both have to be honest with where are you really going with your money in your money direction? Are you staying within the guardrails? And that's the nice thing about budgets is that budgets for us, I know a lot of people budgets that are, you know, that's a four letter word.

I hate budgets and, but that's because most people look at a budget and they say, this is so restrictive because I have to do this down to the penny and we don't. We absolutely don't John and I have a budget and it's our guardrails and we operate within that right and so as long as we're not bumping up against the guardrails we're doing a good job and we can spend on whatever we want to spend on and we go back and forth with okay do you want to spend money on this or do you do is it okay if I spend money on this and we still operate within those guardrails.

Jenni: I'm curious to get your process for how you guys manage your budget, like for just even, even down to software, how, how much are you tracking, are you tracking everything? How often do you talk about it? Because I mean, Lisa and I have experienced it with 10, 000 different variations of this and we are still, you know, I think it evolves over time, but how do you guys do it?

David and John: Yeah, there are a million budgets out there, and we used to when we were paying off our debt, specifically, we were managing our budget down to the penny because we wanted to pay off our debt as quickly as possible. And probably one of the, the biggest saving graces for us was and I know this is gonna date us, but Smartphones and apps weren't a thing at the time.

So we actually did have cash envelopes and we had X dollars set for groceries, X dollars set for gas and X dollars set for social spending. And everything else was set on autopilot to pay our, whatever bills we needed to. But once we ran out of that cash, we couldn't spend any more money in those particular categories.

When we paid off our debt, we eased up on the, on the restrictiveness a little bit. And eventually over time, as David said, we, now we just have our guardrails and we, we do what's called the no budget budget, which is just kind of, we know how much we want, we're allowed to sort of spend in certain areas and we just kind of stay cognitively stay within those guidelines, but we're not looking at the budget every single day like we used to, but that's all contingent on where you're at in your life and what your, your financial goals are.

So if you need to have that more restrictive budget They're everywhere. You can find an app. You can find Excel spreadsheets everywhere. But if you want to do something a little bit more I guess casual or at ease, kind of go with a no budget budget idea.

Jenni: And tell me more about guardrails, like, is this guardrails within each categories or guardrails of like overall how much you're allowed to spend each month? How do you guys use guardrails?

David and John: For us, it's a, it's kind of a, a monthly allotment, right? And for us, we, we do like to every once in a while pop for that 150 dinner with a nice bottle of wine and really enjoy ourselves. And so we know that that's not something that we can do several times a week, right? That's something that we can do once or twice a month.

We do, we save it for special occasions, things like that. But it kind of, we, I think that both of us have kind of gotten, gotten into a habit of, really understanding what we do on a regular basis with our money, right? We know that we usually spend about 150 to 200 a week on groceries. And which is funny because we used to spend 400 a week when we were acquiring our debt.

We would spend $400 a week on groceries and $400 a week dining out. This is in like 2005 too, so consider inflation

Yeah. But now, now John and I, I mean, we, we have, we, we love to cook. We love to spend time together in the kitchen, so we kind of know, right? This are, this is a kind of a habit, right? We know that the habit of these are the things we like to cook on a regular basis.

Every once in a while. John will pull up a new recipe and we'll splurge a little bit on the groceries. We're thankful that near us, that the Whole Foods closed down because we were saving our budget. We were, we were starting to see our budget creep a little bit in that direction because it was one of the escapes for us in the town that we're living in.

Call it a whole paycheck for a reason. Yeah. But I, I think, you know, what John and I say that the habits that get us Get you out of debt are the habits that will keep you out of debt, right? When you develop money habits towards a goal, it doesn't necessarily need need to be that you're paying that off.

But if you're working towards a financial goal, you're saving for a wedding, you're saving for a vacation, you're trying to make sure you're putting around away a certain amount for retirement. When you have that goal. kind of mindset of this is the way we want to spend our money. And you do that over and over and over and over.

You start to develop those habits and those habits then start to rub off in the decisions that you make through the rest of your, your spending journey. Right? You understand that. Okay. Likewise, like I said we can only do, we can only pop for a really nice meal once or twice a month. We can't do that.

We, we just automatically know. So when John says, Hey, do you want to go out to dinner tonight? We usually then we'll pick from a couple of options that are nearby and because we know that we're just not gonna, we, we pop for a big dinner last week or we have a an event coming up. And so those, those habits take a little bit of time to build, but then they really help in informing how you spend your money.

I think this is where it's really critical to know, though, what are your priorities? And that's where having the discussion of what is it you want your life to look like and what really matters most to you. Because part of what got us into so much debt was that we just thought we had to have, have and do everything.

Because if we If we missed an event, if we weren't seen, like we weren't worthy. If we didn't have the right clothing, we weren't worthy. And you gotta get crystal clear on what matters most to you and spend your money accordingly. When you align your, your spending with your values, that's when you can find the financial freedom.

So one of the questions we used to often ask ourselves in Denver was, Okay, well, you know, we like margaritas and go, do you want to have a margarita here on Colfax in Denver? or would you rather have the margarita in Puerto Vallarta and Invariably the answer was always port of Puerto Vallarta, right? So it's like, okay.

Well, then maybe we don't have margarita here We kind of wait and we do something else so that we can go on vacation sooner But that's where having your, knowing what you're, what you value, knowing why you value those things, that can really help you consciously manage your budget without having to look at a spreadsheet every single day or look at an app every single day.

Jenni: I love that. Do you want a Puerto Vallarta here in Colfax or in Puerto Vallarta?

That's easy.

David and John: Well, and, and, you know, it, like John said, you know, knowing why you want what you want in life is one of the biggest motivators to keep you on track towards your goal. Will you stray from your goal? Of course. There were plenty of times when John and I said, Yeah, let's go have a margarita right now.

I had a really bad day at work or I just, I just need this. I need this right now. Right. Maybe my, well, for whatever reason I need it right now and that's okay. You know, at that, again, that's the guardrails, right? You bump up, sometimes you bump up against guardrails and it just pushes you right back towards your goal.

Jenni: Absolutely. I, I think what you said is definitely Lisa and I's experience when we were, you know, we were very motivated to, for us, it was not so much a debt journey, but it was more a kind of F I, how do we get out of the corporate rat race and have to stay in this pace of life? And that was our goal. For, I'd say like 10 years, that was our goal, you know, as we built towards the ability to be able to let go of our salaries and, and, and feel confident enough that we could do that. And now the goal that keeps us in check is to make sure that we don't overspend such that we have to go back, right?

Like we want to feel like we have abundance and that we're not, you know, Needing to work in order to earn to live we want to work because we want to work And that means we have to manage our spending so that we don't ever get into position We have to work because we've got to earn because that's the only way we can pay our bills. So that's very motivating

David and John: Yeah, and you know, what's interesting, I love that you said this, we, we want to keep our life in a place of abundance, abundance. The definition of having an abundant life is not the same for anyone. It's different for every single person, right? Some people, an abundant life is being able to go to the coffee shop on Saturday morning with their family or with their, meet their friends.

Some, for some people, it's being able to take that trip to Puerto Vallarta, right? You get to decide what an abundant life looks like for you and then make the decisions that help you get towards that.

Jenni: Yeah, love that. Thank you. Well said two last questions, which is one is and you know Talking about money with your partner is great when they're willing. What happens if the other person doesn't want to talk about it? You know, they've, they've shut down at money. They feel like they're bad at money.

They're just like, maybe they're not necessarily compatible about money, but they're just like, you deal with it, you handle it. I trust you. I don't want to talk about it, you know? So and that, I think, I see that happening too, where one, Person it has a hard time engaging the other person. And what I see happening is the person who's in charge of the money feels a lot of burden for themselves and also can begin to feel resentful.

And the person who has kind of given up control also feels resentful because they feel like I'm being controlled. So how do you deal with that?

David and John: Yeah, I think that's a great opportunity to find a third party, a moderator, somebody who can act as an intermediary for you. Because oftentimes that what what's happening is, is, For whatever reason, somebody's putting up a wall because they think the other person is judging them or controlling them or will judge them or will try to control them.

So a moderator can sort of come in, a mediator can come in and sort of act as the in between and get a conversation going and really, in a pragmatic, judicious way, Get both parties to open up about what their money story is, because at the heart of that, there's a money story there that that person's not comfortable disclosing and clearly the partner that they're with, for whatever reason, they can't open up to them.

And you see this in other topics too, right? There are numerous topics for, for whatever reason, couples just can't talk amicably about it. And that's where that, that intermediary can come into play, such as the financial planner. You can find a money therapist. A financial advisor, maybe you have a friend who's really good with money who can act as that mediary intermediary, but find a third party to sort of help broker the deal for you.

Yeah, I

Jenni: Great. Last question, let's talk about pre and post nuptials. So first of all, what are they and when are they helpful and how the heck do you raise this to your partner?

David and John: great question. Well, I think, you know, in the, the kind of the, the, the definition is in the word itself, right? Pre and post nuptials. So it's a contract or an agreement that you have with your, your partner that is made either before or after you get married. I think that's one of the things a lot of people don't understand is that you can actually have a post nuptial.

This it's the same thing. Legally, it's kind of the same thing. After you get married, you work with an attorney that draws up this agreement of what happens with your money in certain circumstances, right? If there is a divorce, if we have children, if if You know, in the, especially in this day and age, if we bring another partner into the relationship, right, how do we, how will we interact with each other when it comes to our financial situation?

And I think that. The, the nice thing about doing that is you do work with a, you do work with a professional that is trained in asking really good questions about what it is that you want your financial life to look like. So it's a great way to have that. It is. I think that there's a lot of There's a lot of negativity around this because a lot of people assume that a postnup, a prenuptial is a kind of a almost death sentence to our marriage that we are going to end up getting divorced.

But no, it's no different than life insurance. It is literally life insurance for your finances with what happens if your relationship changes. And like I said, lots of things can change your relationship. And again, you having. The confidence and the compassion to talk with somebody, your partner, about what it is that they really want their financial life to look like before or after some sort of event is an important conversation to have.

Not everybody needs or wants them, but I think that some people do need them and some people do want them and there shouldn't be any judgment around why you want them or need them. And I think, you know, we'll go back to a couple of the recommendations that we made earlier. One recommendation we would make is say we heard on some podcast or we heard these two blokes on the show or read it in an article that couples should have a pre or post nuptial depending upon where you are in your, in your relationship.

So blame it on, on that content creator or, or that article. If that, if you don't have the courage to be able to do that yourself, then maybe that's where it makes sense. Again, to bring in a third party, maybe encourage your financial planner to bring the topic up when you're having a planning meeting with your spouse or your future future spouse, or, you know, get somebody else to act as an intermediary for you to bring the topic up.

Yeah.

Jenni: Awesome. Great. Well, thank you guys so much. I mean, you're,

so you guys did eventually make it onto Oprah in some form or fashion. You guys have

also been on the ad. Yeah, go ahead. Talk about that.

David and John: a top 10. It was a top 10 LGBT podcast list, yeah, yeah, so that's how we got on there haven't met her yet someday we can only hope

Jenni: Someday, yes, I hope so. Well, how can your, how can folks listening find you and your content?

David and John: Absolutely, well, we're the deaf free guys, but you can find a deaf free guys calm And then we have the queer money podcast which you can access on almost any podcast player And then if you want to check out our podcast website go to queer money podcast QueerMoneyPodcast. com forward slash Kickstarter and you'll be able to get into the website from there

Jenni: Awesome. Thank you.

David and John: Thank you.