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When You Earn More Than Your Spouse - Navigating Income Disparity · The Perfect RIA

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Jamie Shilanski: A financial advisor who doesn't employ and
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have and meet regularly with a another financial advisor on
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their own finances has a risky portfolio. Welcome back, TPR
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Nation this is Jamie Shilanski in an episode of Worlds to
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Conquer and we are going to get so uncomfortable today. I hope
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you are ready because we are going to talk about income
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disparity inside of a household. And what does that mean? That's
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means when you have two people living in one house, and one is
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the quote unquote bread earner of the household. So either both
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people are employed, but one makes a lesser income and the
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other one makes far superior and I'm not talking like marginal
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10-10 to 15% more income. I'm talking when somebody makes 100
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or 200 or 300% more income than somebody else in the household.
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And then this could also mean that maybe one person works and
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the other person is a stay at home spouse and their
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responsibility is to keep the household running. So we're
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going to talk a lot about the head trash in the hypocrisy that
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comes into those relationships, myself included because you
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know, I love to call a spade a spade and I know when I'm being
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a hypocrite on this topic. So one of the beautiful things
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about running an RIA up in Anchorage, Alaska, is that we
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employ a lot of military spouses and one of the things when my
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mom and dad fought and Rosa Shilanski was starting the
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company back in 1980s. Prior to that, my mom was a military
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spouse before my dad got out of the Air Force, and she had a
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hell of a time finding a job. A lot of times people wouldn't
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hire because they knew she was only going to be there
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temporary. So she had just real low end jobs and she gets so
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frustrated with that because she knew nobody would give her a
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chance. So when we started our own business, that's one things
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we set out to rectify as we wanted to give people
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opportunity and God bless the internet because now when we
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find really great quality people, we don't have to let
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them go. They get to stay employed with our firm, even if
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they're working in a remote or hybrid capacity. But sometimes
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in those situations, that means one person's career path is more
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important than the other person's. Now the second you
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guys hear this you're saying no, no, no, that's not the case.
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Everyone's career is just as important. But when we really
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get down to the nitty gritty when we're actually balancing
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that checkbook, when we are making financial decisions...
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It's not. That we can get ourselves all we want but it's
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not we're always going to prioritize whoever is making the
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most amount of income. And if you're a financial advisor
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listening to this podcast, this could become really problematic
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in your household, because all of the sudden, you have this
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situation where you're sort of in your very beginner stages
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starting out your practice, you've got less than seven years
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and this is the grind period. This is the licensing that
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designations learning what you know isn't so try to figure out
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how to network trying to figure out how to prospect what are the
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channels of marketing that you should be pulling. Just because
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somebody can fog a mirror doesn't mean that they should
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become a client. You're learning all of this stuff and when
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you're in those learning stages, your spouse is normally
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incredibly supportive because they believe in this goal. They
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want this goal, they want it to happen for you. So they are
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rallying behind you and super super supportive and somewhere
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around year five of being in the finance industry. Your schedule
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starts to get so busy, your family begins to grow. And you
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have to ask yourself an important question. Should both
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people in the household be working or is it time that one
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person maybe gives up their career and stays home? Now I'm
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not saying that's how it should be. I'm saying that's a
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conversation. Most households I know with children have, they
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have on a regular basis? Does it make sense for us to both work,
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especially when one person doesn't have a lot of time? You
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don't have an abundance of extra money and daycare in the United
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States of America is outrageous. The cost of childcare is just
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astronomical. I remember when my son was in elementary school,
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and we would drop 'em off 30 minutes before the school hours
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started. And we needed somebody to we need to subscribe to one
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of these services for 30 minutes after school was done before we
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can get him and that was six months by the time he was done
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with elementary school. It was $800 a month. That's a lot. Anda
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lot of times people will ask themselves will does this make
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sense for me to work if I'm only earning 2000 $3,000 a month? Is
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it just better if we save that money? So we have a financial
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and emotional question just like when we talk to our clients? We
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have to run through the finances. We have to run through
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the emotional aspects and ask ourselves what makes sense. So
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then as your business begins to grow, and you guys have that
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conversation, then you go into the next stage. So there's
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really three stages. There's a stage in which you're just in
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the growth ascpect that's all you should be focused on hyper
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hyper focused on is growth, growth, growth, growth, growth.
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If you do not have the ideal number of clients that you want
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to work with - the only thing you should be focused on as a
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financial adviser, assuming that you don't know how to build
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financial plans, etc. is growing your practice that needs
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marketing and prospecting but then once you get to where you
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know the growth is coming in, you've got those levers figured
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out, you're pulling down on him and you've got a good systems in
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place. Then you need to move on to systems policies and
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processes, systems policies and processes. Now I said those
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three things before I said people why? Because a lot of
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people start with people first. And they forget that without
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systems policies and processes, you can throw all the human
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capital in the world at it, but you're still not going to solve
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the damn problem. Because you don't know what they're doing.
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They don't know what the expectations are and you don't
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know how to show them what has to be done. You both are just
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kind of figuring it out as you go along. So I don't like to
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throw people into something I don't have a process around.
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Now. That doesn't mean as we grow as we evolve as we take on
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new tasks, we can't develop new process. That doesn't mean that
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at all. What that means is I've got some idea and I work with a
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lot of organizations, especially right now, I mean post pandemic,
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you know, coming out of it and we're still in the early stages
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of coming out of it, even though it's 4 years behind us. But post
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pandemic a lot of people go down to part time or they want to
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give up their current roles and responsibilities and they want
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to do something else. So for the first time of my life, I'm
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seeing a lot of really great employees and different
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organizations in different lines of work, come back to the
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employer and say, Listen, you know, I'm just no longer
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fulfilled, I'm not happy. I don't have good work life
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balance. I don't want to leave this job, the pay and the
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benefits, but I really just wanted to make this work and
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they're coming up with their own job titles and their own job
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descriptions. Now sometimes that makes sense. Sometimes. We
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worked at the hospital that I that I'm involved with and you
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know, we had a nurse who was really, really great fun to be
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around. They got four kids at home and the husband was gone
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half of the year. You know, with his employment two weeks on two
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weeks off. It just didn't make a lot of sense for her to maintain
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full time employment, especially because all the kids were under
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the age of five. And she said, You know, I don't have enough
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time to do everything but I got enough time to do something. Is
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there something at the hospital that we could do? And you know
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what we put in charge of client callbacks? Because they didn't
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when the kids were down for now doesn't matter when she called
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because clients are grateful for a call back from a hospital or a
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doctor anytime. It doesn't have to be between nine and five on a
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weekday basis. They're happy if you call them at six o'clock at
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night. They're happy to call on you know at four in the
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afternoon so she could really you know, in that situation, we
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could mold a need for the hospital into a job that fit
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this person. But that doesn't mean we can do it for everybody
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across the board. And that's one thing that business owners have
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to be really be responsible for. Sometimes you're really, really
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gonna like a human being but they don't fit your business
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model anymore. And your ultimate responsability is to make sure
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that you're profitable you owe that to not only your family and
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your loved ones, but your clients. You have to stay in
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business in order to impact lives. So as two people in a
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household having conversation whose job should be priority,
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who has the opportunity to have greater success, and that's
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really the evaluation tools that we are using. It's not that we
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don't want both people in the house to be fulfilled. We have
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to look at it economically and say, Okay, who's got the
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greatest prospects? Who's going to earn the most amount of
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income so that we can one make sure our security and our safety
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are taken care of because those are the things that we will
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solve all day long. We will always make sure our security
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and our safety are taken care of. And then we're going to move
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on to what are the things that we want? Because labor is an
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exchange of money, right? We want to be able to exchange our
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labor exchange services exchange ideas, to earn money to buy the
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things that we want in turn, and so as the husband and wife or
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wife and wife and husband husband have this conversation,
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normally one person either stops employment altogether, or they
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take go down to a part time job or they go to like a gig
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economy. I see a lot of photographers, so a lot of
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people that have like online jewelry business, photography,
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maybe they're doing a cooking channel, maybe they're selling
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clothing or they're doing meal prepping, personal trainers. I
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see a lot of spouses have those type of occupations and allow
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them to operate anymore gig environment. A gig environment
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is that you are hired for a small job at a small task of
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small time frame that doesn't mean a long term commitment.
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Because we as financial advisors, let's let's be honest
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here, we need those people. Those spouses to take care of
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households take care of the kids to take care of all of those
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other tasks. So that we can be on for our clients and so that
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we can grow our practice and earn the money that is required
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to supplement the lifestyle. When we are on the precipice of
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leaving our growth. We're always gonna be aimed towards growth,
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but we're not so focused on prospect and marketing, because
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we can't afford to make payroll anymore. And we move on to
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getting policies, processes and systems in place. And then there
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becomes this weird time. It's this weird time where we
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dedicate ourselves to flushing out processes and we did this
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over a period of 15 months, really five years, but 15 months
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where our office wasn't focused on growth, we allowed the
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marketing system to we kept our foot on the gas pedal, but we
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concentrated on systematizing our office. So we have a new
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client onboarding process, and we have a pitch in this process.
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That's when you pitch a prospect and it doesn't work out for
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whatever reason and you want to stay active on their radar. We
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have a loss client process. We have a networking process, we
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have a tax process, and then we kept going on to money movement
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processes, R&D processes, how are we doing Roth conversions
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everything is a process and the beautiful part about a process
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is that it's no longer rely on a person on an individual. So
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often I see in small businesses and I was just on a call with
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the CEO this morning. And I said you created this problem because
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you got so dependent on one single person knowing that job
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inside and out. They didn't write it down. They didn't have
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a policy. They didn't have a process and now that they have
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left their employment because people leave employment, either
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because they want to move on to other opportunities. They no
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longer need to work and they're going back home to take care of
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the kids or parents maybe aging parents that's a big one also,
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or they moved on and they just don't want to work anymore.
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Whatever the reason is that they are got, they got hit by a bus
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does not matter. Whatever the reason it and why are buses so
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dangerous. I find scooters and motorcycles are more likely to
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hit me than a bus but you know, whatever. But anyhow, that
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person moves on and now you are so gosh darn dependent on that
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single individual that you don't know how to replicate the same
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amount of success. And so that's why it was important for us at
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Shilanski and Associates to keep a you know kind of a neutral
12:31
position on our marketing for a little while keep doing what we
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were doing not really ramp up to our full potential, but keep our
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foot just moderately pressing cruise control. And then we
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focused we hyper hyper focused on getting our policies and our
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processes documented, documented. That's the big one,
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not what I think should happen between my two ears, but
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actually a repeatable process that somebody else could look at
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and be able to do it. Now if you're in the process of
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creating your processes. Sorry for your alliteration there. But
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if you're in that stage, make sure that you don't use nouns.
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That's one thing that we found out very, very early when we
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were doing a bunch of recordings. We did a bunch of
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video recordings to teach new people as we brought them on
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what our processes were, but we were using nouns we were using
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like go to Red Tail go to money guy pro go to over here and then
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as we replaced those systems so software companies guess what,
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we had to go rerecord the video because it didn't mean what we
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thought it meant. So instead we would use a vague noun, we would
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say go to the CRM or go to your email, go to the financial
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planning software, or whatever it was at that time. We just
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replaced it with that so that way anyone can pick up right
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then and get a little cheat sheet and say, Oh, their CRM is
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Infinity. That's where I need to go to. And that worked out
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really, really successfully. So during that stage, all of a
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sudden, you know, once you got your policies and processes and
13:53
systems in place, this weird weird thing happens. You go from
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your phone blowing up 24/7 to all of a sudden, you're kind of
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picking it up throughout the day, making sure it's still on
14:04
because you're not getting called as much as there are no
14:08
emergencies to put out every single day. There's no fires
14:11
spreading out across the network of businesses, because you have
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everything you put in place from communication policies to how
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funds are distributed, what taxes are being withheld. I
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mean, you've got it all documented. And now you can find
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the people and you've given them the proper training, go through
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all those protocols. And all they have to do is follow the
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process because it's so well written. They understand the
14:35
objective, the outcome and the roadblocks. Super, super
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critical. If you hit this roadblock, stop and do this. And
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when your phone goes silent, all sudden you get the freedom of
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time. And that's really what we're solving for. Once you get
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out of growth and you get into this other stage and then you go
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on to this, this enterprise level this huge level. Now you
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can replicate not only your success in your protegees
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success, but you're ready for more advisors to come on more
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team members to come on. And you get this 15 Plus person office
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with all replicatable success. You have the luxury of time
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you've bought your time back. And that's what happens is you
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go out of growth and go into this systems policies and
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process stage all of a sudden, you start outsourcing everything
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that is not necessary in your life. And this is where people
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transition into becoming the masters of delegators. And so
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you delegate so much of your time, but I promised you this
15:42
will be an episode of sick sad truth. So anyone remember Daria
15:45
calm where my 90s MTV baby's Sick, Sad World next on Daria so
15:51
as you enter into six sad world and you figure out all of these
15:54
keys to success that hey, you know what, me jamming out an
15:57
hour of content is way more productive than me spending an
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hour mowing the lawn so I'm gonna hire the kid down the
16:02
street. He's gonna mow the lawn for $40 I'm gonna go jam out
16:06
content that's going to lead to two more prospects that leads to
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you know, potentially $40,000 of reoccurring revenue every single
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year. I'll spend that money all day long. But then you get
16:16
towards the end where you've got all your stuff done. You've
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given it over to the people that need to execute on it. And now
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you've got this beautiful, beautiful afternoon, totally
16:25
yourself and you don't have to be at the office. You get to cut
16:29
the cord you get to go do the things that you want to go do
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and be with the people that you want to be with. And so now you
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go home and you have time to give back to your spouse. You
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have time to help with house. There's time to help with the
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chores there's time to go play and go kayaking or rafting or
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boating or skiing or whatever it is that you guys like to go and
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do. But your spouse has just spent the last five to 10 years
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building the household and having their own system policies
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and processes in place. That you are now throwing a monkey wrench
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into. We talk about this a lot with our pre retirees or pre
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retirees when which they have one person that stays at home
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and then the other person that goes in work when that person is
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done working, and now they're home all the time. Now we have a
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little bit of conflict that has to be resolved. You see this
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also a military households, when you have a special ops person
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especially that's gone a lot on TV wise for long stents six
17:31
months a year and then they're home for three or four months
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and then they're gone again on another deployment. And all of a
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sudden they go to retire and they're home. 365 days out of
17:42
the year. They are completely absolutely unequivocably,
17:49
messing up the system at home. You're throwing a monkey wrench
17:53
in it and causing all kinds of chaos. You are jacking up
17:58
everybody's schedule because now you have time and the luxury of
18:03
time to go to do that. And you'll know what's happening
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because your spouse will look at you and say, Don't you have work
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to do or should you be at the office or do you have client
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meetings? I mean, there are days that it works out really, really
18:15
well. In which it's like hey, you want to go to the fair on a
18:17
Wednesday afternoon. Yeah, I don't have any appointments. Let
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me just clear out the morning I'll get up and work from five
18:21
to nine. But at time you kids are ready to move out of the
18:24
house. It's 10am so I'm good to go. Let's let's go do those and
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I can have the whole afternoon. And those times those are great
18:31
those a little rewards. But those aren't everyday occasions.
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You're not every single day planning and going doing some
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activity. Most the time you're just getting in the freakin way.
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You're not being of help you're being a hindrance, especially
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because now you've gotten so used to delegating your time now
18:45
that if your spouse comes to you and says hey, I really want to
18:47
work on the house today. You're like cool. Which carpenter Am I
18:50
calling? Which landscape artists Am I calling? What do I what do
18:54
we need to get done that we can pay somebody so we can go do the
18:57
things that we want to go do? And it's not about self
19:01
satisfaction, like there are a lot of people especially for
19:03
some reason surgeons love woodwork. And I think it's the
19:07
hand and the creation and making something out of nothing and the
19:10
finesse that goes into it. But I'll have a lot of surgeons that
19:13
just love the plain wood. They just they just love building
19:17
their own furniture. They love building their own bookcases.
19:20
They could totally go buy it a hell of a lot cheaper someplace
19:22
else, but that's something that they enjoy doing. That's
19:26
something that they're passionate about. So they're not
19:28
outsourcing, you know they're buying furniture and if you're
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listening is going oh, I'm not going to be one of those people
19:33
that outsources everything Oh, okay. Well I better see a loo in
19:36
your house and you better be like spending your own clothes
19:39
and I want to check your credit card statement to make sure you
19:41
never go to the grocery store or buy gasoline because we are
19:45
ready outsource a lot of this in a first world country. We're
19:48
already doing it. We just don't think of doing it in other ways
19:52
that really successful people that want to buy their time
19:55
back. And that's one thing that I'm constantly telling my son
19:58
I'm like, Listen, you have different stages in your 20s you
20:01
have a lot of time you don't have a lot of money. And so you
20:05
have to do the work because you can't afford for somebody else
20:08
to come in and necessarily do it. But when you get into your
20:11
30s and 40s give a lot more money than time and it's all
20:14
sudden you're buying your time back by handing these tasks over
20:18
to somebody else because it's not at your highest and best use
20:22
but this is when your spouse will say well you're just gonna
20:25
have somebody do it for you. And in my mind, I'm thinking hell
20:29
yeah I am.
20:31
But my mouth is not saying that because it becomes to sound very
20:35
arrogant. It becomes a sound ostentatious, you know that.
20:39
Yes, I am having somebody else do it. No, this task is not
20:41
beneath me. It's just not my highest and best use. It's just
20:44
not what I need to be doing right now. Because I could weed
20:47
the garden or I could spend two hours doing this other tasks
20:50
that's super important to us. And so making sure that your
20:54
spouse understand as you begin to delegate tasks out the
20:58
purpose and the reasoning of delegating those tasks out. But
21:02
then also the responsibility of saying, hey, are there things
21:05
now that we're in this stage of our life? And are there things
21:08
that you just absolutely don't want to do? My spouse, I'm the
21:11
breadwinner in my household, and my spouse does a phenomenal job
21:15
of taking care of the house and all of the routine maintenance
21:17
and all of those things. But I still hire a housekeeper to come
21:21
in one day a week and absolutely deep clean the house. Why?
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Because if you walk into our house any day of the week, it's
21:29
clean. It's well maintained. My spouse has a little OCD, so it's
21:31
very nice for me, but I still hire that person to come in and
21:35
do those things. I still offer to hire the person to come in
21:39
and clean out the fireplace and change the air filters and do
21:42
all those mechanical things. But my spouse is 100% capable of
21:45
doing it. Why? Because I don't have to have them do it. We can
21:49
we can both outsources activity because I would much rather hire
21:53
a housekeeper to come in one day a week and give some reprieve on
21:57
the house and my spouse and I go kayaking, or we go fishing and
22:00
float down those creek called the willow here in Alaska. There
22:03
are other activities I want to do with my spouse, but I need to
22:06
honor the fact that it's not just my chores and my tasks that
22:10
have to be outsourced. It also has to be theirs. And then this
22:13
is the other part of it. This is the hard part. This is the super
22:17
achy, uncomfortable part. So when you make a lot more money
22:22
than your spouse, your job initially started out as the
22:25
priority but then you bought your time back then you got all
22:29
this freedom. And now you have the luxury of scheduling your
22:33
day the way that you want it to do because you are the boss, but
22:36
in most situations, your spouse is an employee of somebody else.
22:42
So if they're not a stay at home spouse entirely if they're doing
22:45
good work, then they're of course if you're doing good
22:48
work, you're You're not the boss, so you're totally
22:51
obligated whenever you get hired, right. So let's just say
22:54
photography for an example. You're a photographer and you're
22:57
gonna go to a wedding and you're trying to line up the wedding
23:00
season in June. That means during the month of June, you're
23:02
probably not doing anything with your spouse on any single
23:05
weekend because everybody's getting married. And they don't
23:08
get to choose the date and times in which people choose to get to
23:11
get married. If they want the job. That's when it is and
23:14
that's when you have to show up as the photographer or the
23:16
caterer or the whatever the person is that you're being in
23:20
that role. And so now you come into this place where you have
23:25
to start picking up some of the slack because they have a job
23:27
that doesn't afford them the freedom that you have. And so
23:31
now it becomes like this shifting dynamic in your
23:34
household. And then when it becomes problematic let's just
23:37
say for example, you know, my spouse is out shooting my spouse
23:40
does not do this, but he's out shooting a wedding, and it gets
23:43
all the photography and I'm like, Hey, I'm really annoyed
23:46
because I've got this other event going on. I really wanted
23:48
to participate. It's super important to me that you're
23:50
there. And they're like, Well, I can't this is my job. And in
23:54
your mind, if you're being totally honest with yourself,
23:57
you're like well if you don't do that job, that $500 can be
24:01
replaced pretty easily. I could just give that money to you.
24:04
Well, now we're shifting the disparity. Now we're becoming
24:07
this really weird place financially, where we're making
24:11
other people feel undervalued for not contributing to the
24:15
household. So how do we solve this? Because everything that we
24:19
do at The Perfect RIA is about calling things out no be as
24:23
sick, honest truth around here, and then also giving ourselves a
24:28
toolset to say how do we solve this? So I already shared with
24:31
you going to my spouse and say, Hey, what are the things that I
24:34
could take care of? What are the things that I could outsource
24:36
for you so that we can have this time together? The second thing
24:39
that you need to do is their job is real. Just because it's not
24:42
your job doesn't mean it's not a real job. And a lot of my
24:45
military wives, they get super frustrated with their husbands
24:49
about this because most of them that are no longer in our
24:51
anchorage area. They're hybrid and so their spouses are like
24:55
I'm gonna go home for lunch today. Can you make sure that I
24:57
have lunch you know, at the at the house ready for me? And
25:00
they're like, No, I have 11:30 meeting I have to be on you
25:05
know, and there's this well, why why aren't you not at a beck and
25:09
call but it a little bit is but why aren't you available when I
25:13
want you available to do the things I need to do when you're
25:18
not treating that individual like they have a quote unquote,
25:21
real job with real obligations, because it isn't the highest
25:24
earnings and it doesn't provide the most amount of benefits for
25:28
the particular household. And whether we want to and there
25:31
will prioritize things like that financially, we will. We'll even
25:35
do it when we sit down with our clients. So how do we solve
25:38
this? So one of the things that I love to do with clients and I
25:41
take the same very approach in my own household, because if my
25:45
advice is good enough for a client it is good enough for me.
25:48
If my advice is good enough for a client, it's good enough for
25:52
me, we eat what we cook around here, mostly because I really
25:55
like food. So how do I solve it? Well, one of the things that I
25:58
love to do is cashflow management, especially when we
26:02
have income, huge income disparities. In the household.
26:05
When we have substantial income disparity. One person is
26:08
normally paid by some type of sales or bonus or commission
26:12
revenue. So that needs to be taken into consideration. So
26:15
whenever I have a young couple that's just getting married. I
26:18
start this out if I'm doing some course correcting of somebody in
26:20
their 40s I do this also and we carry it all the way through
26:23
retirement. But I want three bank accounts, three bank
26:27
accounts minimum only for an individual. And the fourth one
26:31
that I talked about is going to be an income source. And I'll
26:33
tell you about that, how that's going to flow in just a minute.
26:35
But three bank accounts for this individual household and one of
26:38
them is going to be a joint account and in that joint
26:41
account all of the expenses for the house and you to come out of
26:44
that. And so that's the car insurance as a home insurance.
26:48
That's a mortgage payment. That's the heat electricity,
26:50
food for groceries, not dining out food for groceries, all of
26:54
the household shared expenses go in that name, household account.
26:59
And we literally call it the household account. So what do I
27:02
do for that? Well, I take the operating costs to run the
27:05
household, I mark it up by 20% and that's the income I want
27:09
deposited into that account one time a month or twice a month
27:13
because a lot of people are most familiar with getting a paycheck
27:15
twice a month, which however it works for the for whoever the
27:18
individual is that you're working with. I do once a month
27:21
for myself. I've gotten good enough cash flow management that
27:23
I don't worry about multiple deposits, but so many get into
27:26
that household that runs the household. All right, and then
27:29
the other two bank accounts that I want are for the individuals
27:32
so you have spouse a and spouse B and you know Husband, husband,
27:36
wife and wife, husband, wife, whatever it is, you have spouse,
27:39
a spouse B and they have an individual bank account. Now
27:42
what goes into individual banking play allowance that you
27:46
get to spend on whatever you want to spend your money on. If
27:50
my spouse who absolutely loves tennis shoes, wants a $300 pair
27:56
of tennis shoes and I think that is mind blowing waste of money
28:01
because they already have 24 sets of tennis shoes and only
28:04
two feet to my knowledge. Then I don't get a say in it. That's
28:08
how they choose to spend their money. Now I have two vanities
28:12
in my life. The first is my brain. And the second is my
28:15
hair. I love my hair. And so if I want to buy $100 shampoo and
28:19
my spouse is like, you can get this to in one part. I don't
28:22
give a they better stay out of my shampoo. I'm going to spend
28:25
my money on whatever I want to spend it on because that's my
28:29
discretionary dollars. Those are my funds to pull from. Now,
28:33
here's where I see it become incredibly problematic. And I
28:36
have a lot of prescriptions with females about this. That is when
28:40
I'm talking to a client or friend or an employee. They say
28:43
yeah, but all the stuff for the kids has to come out of my
28:47
account and I'm like, well tell me more about that. In fact, my
28:50
niece and I were just going over her monthly budget with her
28:52
husband and it's the same way our monthly stipend for the
28:56
dance classes and the skating lessons and the clothing and all
28:59
of that has to come from her account, not the household
29:02
account and not her husband's account and she doesn't always
29:06
find that fair. No woman I've ever talked to is fair. Now when
29:09
I have the same conversation with the normally the husband or
29:12
the man, you know they're communists. Yeah, because they
29:15
buy a lot of nonsense. I don't want to have to pay for the Bose
29:19
the several sets of clothing doing every sporting event under
29:22
the sun. Making sure that they have a brand new pajamas for
29:26
pajama days all nonsense expenses that one party thinks
29:31
is a waste of money. Now I tend to be a little bit more
29:34
masculine in my way of thinking. So I also think it's an absolute
29:37
waste of money and kids don't need darn near what they have in
29:40
this country. But that's my opinion, that's not gonna get a
29:43
vote with my dollars. I'm gonna get to spend my money how I want
29:46
to the way that I solved this for my son was when he was in
29:50
sixth grade. Every school year we would give him a certain
29:53
amount of money, dollars. He would get a list of items that
29:56
he had to buy for the school year, and then I would take it
29:59
in the mall and he would ask my opinion like oh, is this is
30:01
cool. Do I like this you know, etc. And uh, but I didn't get to
30:05
the side what he ended up purchasing as long as he had
30:08
money for it. And it was on the list pair of pants X amount of
30:12
underwear X amount of socks and T shirts. Then he got to buy it
30:15
and so he got to vote with his discretionary dollars. You got
30:18
to learn about financial education. And he also learned
30:21
how to budget that if he wanted that really cool hoodie. That
30:25
doesn't mean he gets three really cool hoodies and three T
30:29
shirts. Instead he's got to make concessions. And so for us that
30:32
worked out really well. So when it comes to a household that has
30:35
a lot of disparity about the kids and kids situation, I like
30:38
to set a budget. I like to say okay, great, what's the average
30:41
we spent last year don't justify it, don't explain it. Don't say
30:44
oh, they have this sporting event or Oh, we had to do this
30:46
braces or oh, they broke their leg. You know, those things are
30:48
always going to come up. They're just going to come up in
30:50
different ways. So whatever you spent last year, knock off 15 or
30:55
20% of that and then put that down as the budget of what
30:58
you're going to spend this year and then you're both getting
31:00
into compromise because then if you're more you know quote
31:03
unquote masculine thinking such as myself, you're not blowing as
31:07
much money on stuff either the household doesn't need and then
31:10
the other person also doesn't feel that their budget went to
31:12
zero and it has to come out of their personal dollars. That's
31:15
how I like to solve it. I solve it that way. Now, let's talk
31:19
about this other part but where's the income being
31:22
deposited conspire to people and they work in the same household?
31:26
Sometimes people do percentages. I am not a fan of that. I am not
31:30
a fan of somebody saying what I earn 80% of the income for all
31:34
to cover 80% of the bills and you earn 20% So you cover 20% of
31:39
the bills. I don't like that. I think it sets up a hierarchy in
31:42
the household. That does not benefit a marriage. There's no
31:46
long term benefit to a marriage. What you did was you put
31:49
yourself in first and second place. You created a hierarchy
31:52
and you're no longer a team coming at this together. You've
31:55
created my money and your money. But even though I said that you
31:59
said Jamie you just set up two accounts for individuals. Yes,
32:02
in which you are both a lot of the same dollar amount to go and
32:05
spend discretionary. Now. I like to have another account.
32:08
Normally we custodian at Schwab for us I use Schwab for this and
32:12
all income all in courses get put into this account. Now, of
32:17
course if I've got a self employed person we're carving
32:19
out 30% putting in a tax bucket that's completely separate, but
32:23
all income so if I have doctors that work off production or
32:26
commission if I've got executives that get bonuses, if
32:29
I've got pharmaceutical techs that end up getting their
32:32
bonuses, which can be really substantial over the last couple
32:34
of years. All of the income goes into that one income depository
32:39
account. From that account gets dispersed to the three minor
32:44
bank accounts. I call this my wealth building strategy. So now
32:48
I'm wealth building and they counted jointly named it's both
32:52
sources of income and and we call it the wealth building
32:55
account. So I'm just going to use an example here. Let's say
32:58
I've got a household that's bringing in $50,000 a month in
33:01
revenue, and their household expenses are 15,000. And they
33:06
both like to have around $2,500 of discretionary funds in their
33:10
account. Well then, when that deposits come into this account
33:14
at Schwab this wealth building account, I am now making a one
33:18
or two times a month depending on how the person processes and
33:20
proceeds money if they have worked their whole life and are
33:23
used to getting two paychecks can get make it two
33:25
disbursements. So if I have that 15,000 going into the household
33:29
account and again, you know 7500 7500 If I've got somebody that's
33:34
used to making one time per month payments, cool, the whole
33:37
15,000 goes in on the first and we're good to go. And then the
33:40
other two deposits that 2500 gets sent to that individuals
33:43
account. Now let's say I want to buy something that costs more
33:46
than $2,500.
33:47
Well, great, go ahead, save. That's how that works.
33:51
You have to save these are your funds. It's your discretion.
34:04
It's your choice how you choose to spend them, but if you blow
34:17
through all of your $2,500 you don't get to dip into any other
34:31
accounts. You don't get to put it on a credit card. My spouse
34:44
is a toy enthusiast. So RC cars RC airplanes, dirt bikes,
34:56
mountain bikes, fishing boats, fishing rods, fishing poles,
35:08
there's a difference. The list goes on and on. And no matter
35:21
how much stuff we bring into this house, it's it's never
35:33
enough. There's always something else coming out or something
35:46
that was better or something that I got broke. I mean, it
35:58
just it's perpetual. My spouse single handedly single handedly
36:12
and this is a really a token to their modesty, but single
36:24
handedly pulled the United States of America out of the
36:36
2008 global financial crisis and never once took any credit for
36:49
it. Never once, but they double down and spent as much as
37:01
possible to get this economy back on track. And so if that's
37:14
the case, cool, I'm a nerd. You know what I like? I like good
37:27
food and good literature. That's what I like. And so my money you
37:41
know, books I might spend you know, I probably, gosh, to be
37:53
honest with you, I probably spend around four to $500 a
38:05
month on books. And that's between business planning books
38:18
and fiction, as well. A little hack for me that I'm trying to
38:31
teach the young uns in my office is in the morning because I
38:43
believe morning people conquer the world in the morning. I'm
38:56
listening to business literature, I'm reading business
39:08
books, and I'm getting my mind set up for conquering in the
39:20
evening I'm winding down and that's when I really dive into
39:33
my fiction which are and that's how I kind of get as a wind down
39:47
process for conquering and battling all of this natural
39:58
energy that I have for world domination. So if I want to only
40:11
spend $500 a month and my 2000 continues to build a bill to
40:24
build cool, then I've just got more savings that I can do
40:36
whatever I want with if we go out to eat, you know, we might
40:49
kind of volley back and forth between who gets that particular
41:02
expense, but we don't run things on credit. In fact, that's one
41:16
of the roles of my spouse is that they can buy whatever they
41:28
want as long as there's cash to buy it and it doesn't go on any
41:42
type of financing. No loans for dirt bikes, no loans for side by
41:56
sides or boats or any of those things, you got to pay cash for
42:09
it. And that means that sometimes we both have to save
42:20
to buy something for the family then guess what we both have to
42:34
save. Now if you're running into a situation in which you're
42:47
like, Okay, well I bought this fishing pole and you can't use
43:00
it you need use your own money to buy your own fishing pole.
43:12
Your problem is not about money in your household, you have a
43:25
much, much bigger problem. And you need to concentrate on that
43:39
for the sanctity of your relationship. But for the most
43:50
part, this works, and I apply it to my clients. I use it in my
44:04
own household. I use it with affluent business owners, and it
44:17
really helps equalize this economic disparity and also
44:28
remind one another that we are in this together we are wealth
44:41
building together both people made sacrifices so that you can
44:54
get to the place you are today. TPR Nation this has been an
45:07
episode of Worlds to Conquer. This is Jamie Shilanski. Go find
45:20
people who share your values and change the world.