I want him to publish budget/income/asset/debt spreadsheets along with the episodes. I’m so curious about the Carmel couples spending!
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I agree @Economista ! I think he’s been rich so long that he’s most familiar with emotional issues around money. I mean I agree that a lot of money stuff is emotional but I also think most people are in a situation where they have to do certain things whether they want to or not. It’s interesting that he never mentions reframing things like buying store brands or not eating out as much, like he assumes that’s a terrible thing to have to do and I think that is a really hard way to look at stuff if you aren’t really wealthy. Saving money can be fun even if you grew up poor! I don’t think he feels that way though, lol.
@darlingpants Yeah I agree it’s sexist to call it “innocent doe” as if it’s a female thing, especially since there are a lot of stereotypes about women being bad with money. Innocent child would have worked just as well IMO! OMG and I would totally love if he published the spreadsheets too! Haha, like I need more details Ramit! But probably a lot of people wouldn’t participate if that were part of it. I want to see the Carmel couple’s spending also. So. Curious.
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I was surprised when they casually mentioned the hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments. I guess I’ve considered my investments “real” money for so long that I forget many people believe it’s kind of imaginary, future money, and not savings.
Haven’t finished yet, but so far I’m also getting the impression that she’s agreeing to change without committing.
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Oh! I just remembered the thing that made me super frustrated with this episode. I actually ranted about it to my husband. This is the 2nd episode with someone who grew up super poor and he almost gives them a pass on their spending because of that, and talks about how they grew up poor and didn’t learn about saving and all they ever saw was parents who spent every penny that showed up so it’s no wonder they don’t know how to save. Yes, that is a very real thing that happens and it is very well studied and observed among poor families. However, there are also lots of people who grow up poor in those same circumstances and they take the mindset of “I’m going to do the opposite because I don’t ever want to be in that situation.”
I grew up in extreme poverty, like at least 75% of the time we were homeless and bounced around from one relative’s house to another and we got almost all of our food and clothes from the food bank. My mom has always spent every cent that came into her fingers and wasted so much money on ridiculous things and then a few months later we couldn’t eat again. I watched that happen and from the moment I was on my own, basically the day I turned 18, I started to careful track every penny I spent and I saved as much as possible. Simply because I didn’t want to ever be in that situation again. My sister is exactly like my mom and is constantly begging for money for food and gas on facebook. I don’t think she should get a pass because our mom never taught her how to spend. She makes those choices and she chooses to spend her money and I have offered to help her learn how to save and she actively chooses to NOT LEARN.
Yes, he calls it the “innocent doe” act and he somewhat calls it out, but I still feel like he also tries to make it seem like it’s not their fault. Ok, end of rant.
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I totally agree with you. This seems like a common train of thought people use nowadays (like, because I grew up or experienced x now I have no choice but to be z and if you say anything about that it’s because you don’t get it). But people break generational patterns for all sorts of things all the time. I mean people who are raised in freaking cults leave and break out of those patterns!
It feels like a way of throwing up your hands like it can’t be helped so you aren’t responsible. And on the flip side I think success in many ares is assumed to be had only by people who haven’t had certain tough experiences, which just isn’t true. I get these assumptions from others quite a bit and it’s super annoying. I really admire you for coming from such an extreme poverty mindset/background and tuning it around completely! My childhood bff grew up a lot poorer than I did and she is a lot like your sister despite making way more than my household income now. But her sister, who of course grew up the exact same way, saved every penny and owns land and a house outright and she isn’t even 30. But childhood bff is very stuck in this rhetoric about “conditioning” as if she has no autonomy at all.
I also always think: no parent can teach their kid everything the perfect way! It’s unreasonable to think that just because you didn’t learn something under the age of 18 you are doomed forever, lol.
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Yes! The economic literature around social mobility talks a lot about “locus of control” and feeling like you are born this way and nothing you do will ever change that so there’s no reason to even try. It’s very prevalent in generational poverty. However, it isn’t a given and I find it fascinating that siblings born into the same family can have different mindset around locus of control. My thought was “I’m in control of my life and I can change it” while others have the mindset that they’ve been given their place in life and it just is what it is. So interesting.
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Everything I read about locus of control fascinates me! The stuff around generational poverty is also so interesting to me because I think socially/politically most of our focus is resource based. And of course that is important, but for a lot of people more resources doesn’t actually change the problem. I hope people keep studying this stuff because maybe someday there will be a better solution that’s more holistic, although I don’t think you can force people to learn and change.
I’m like you, seeing myself as having a lot of freedom to make choices that can either make life harder or easier. There is enough truly unavoidable suffering in life, lmao. I don’t need to create more! But, I think people who are externally focused don’t actually believe that. I think they genuinely believe that if someone else achieves something it’s because it was easy for them in some way that they can’t access, when the truth is…difficult achievements are difficult to achieve. You just have to do it anyway. And I think seeing it as something you get to choose versus you are forced to do is big too.
I thought it was interesting when covid began and things shut down how different people talked about it. I heard the phrase “taken away from me” a lot, like as if that person was personally having things taken from them by a bully, which is like, totally a bizarre way to look at living through a random pandemic IMO. With money it’s a lot of “denying myself” language, but it’s like…you aren’t talking about going hungry because you have no money for food…you’re talking about packing a lunch so you can save money to achieve your goals. I see it as self-serving in a good way, not as a poor-me punishment!
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I just started reading the transcript and I totally get the innocent doe imagery. Big eyes, eyelashes batting. Like Bambi (who is not a doe, but that picture)! But the vibe I get is that the innocent doe isn’t really innocent, it’s more of an act (whether conscious or not). A child would actually be innocent.
And while “doe” is female gendered I would totally accept if he called “innocent doe” on a guy who was doing the same thing. But maybe the guy wouldn’t like that 
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Ramit Sethi: [00:04:19] So, suddenly, the other person becomes the helper. They start offering solutions like this, well, have you tried this? Well, that didn’t work. How about that, and this, and that? And suddenly, the topic has shifted away from the innocent doe’s problems to something totally separate. Fortunately, I have a heart of coal and zero interest in being wooed by the innocent doe routine. This is about as intoxicating as eating mild salsa for me, so I decided to end this old routine here and now.
Hahaha this is why I like Ramit 
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I just finished, and I got this feeling. Though since Ramit helped her set some numbers, she actually has some guidelines to work with in order to meet her goals. Maybe she can exercise self control.
Would be cool if some of the interviewees came back and gave an update a year later!
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Yes! I want updates from Ester Perel’s show too. Some of those couples are hopeless, some of them have such awful pain but seem like it might be promising and I want to know if they figured it out or not!
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i didnt listen to all of the ester perel episodes, mostly because they seemed to be loaded with aint-shit men and i couldnt hear the podcast over the sound of myself yelling RUN, FRIEND, RUN FAR AWAY.
the divide between which gender is displaying aint-shit behavior seems to me to be more balanced on ramit’s podcast.
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I listened to the latest episode during nap and had thoughts but I forget them now. She seemed super disconnected. Super super.
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I’m listening to Monique and Pablo, the man should pay - 17 and 18. I’m the first episode Monique was rubbing me the wrong way because her “traditional” views on money were rubbing me the wrong way, but say the end of the first episode and staying the second I’m more okay with her and he’s annoying me because over and over he’s not communicating, even within this podcast. E.g. at the end of episode one he was surprising her with a trip to Mexico City and then expecting her to pay housing and food while they’re there and even though he’s paying more he completely missed that he’s saying “Surprise $1,000 expense!”
Ok in the second episode they take till almost 30 minutes in to come back to the Mexico trip.
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oh that mexico trip garbage really annoyed me! surprise! i bought us tickets to a place im not sure you wanted to go! you get to pay for housing! gtfo with this nonsense. either surprise me with a treat or discuss with me a fair distribution of costs. who taught this guy how to act??
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Right?! Mr. Meer night me tickets to a con when we had been dating less than a year as a surprise but he immediately in the very next sentence said I’d have to pay my own hotel and food. He never presented it as the whole trip was on him, and he asked if that was okay with me once he out lines the whole cost division. This guy’s approach was not that at all.
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see, for me, ideally i’d prefer to have a convo about anything i’m gonna be on the hook for, before anything has been bought. because maybe i don’t have the cash to cover what i’m being asked to cover, or maybe i don’t want to go that badly?
i like surprises, but not if they cost me money 
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That’s fair. If I hadn’t wanted to pay for the other stuff Mr. Meer would have had no problem reselling or refunding that ticket, so that helped too.
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yeah it depends a lot on the situation and of course people can be fine with different approaches but i personally just really don’t like other people spending my money without my prior knowledge.
i have a good amount of baggage around this for sure. it’s a big reason why i can only listen to about half of ramit’s episodes … some of these people’s thoughtlessness and communication styles make my hair stand on end.
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OMG, yes totally. I found that so shocking! Like it’s not a gift if I have to pay for part of it, lol. That’s like inviting me to dinner but then I have to cook! I also wasn’t at all bothered by her money views since mine were similarly traditional when I was dating, for mostly reasons of my own complex date-vetting system, lol. I thought the difference in their incomes made his behavior especially egregious.
And I think she didn’t articulate some of the real reason it bothered her which I suspect was that lots of other men, including men who make lot less money than he does, would be happy to pay for her soup even if they weren’t eating. So his refusal to pay is against that backdrop/comparison, which isn’t insignificant IMO. I thought it was telling that she also mentioned how he wouldn’t be going 50/50 on childbirth or child rearing. so I think her fears were totally legitimate and based on feeling like, that one day she would essentially be at his monetary whims…and he might just be like “no” to her needs because it’s not something he specifically wants. That’s would be a terrifying position to be in. I knew I’d be not working sooner than my spouse so I felt the same way when dating. I wanted to make sure I ended up with someone very generous who was not going to keep score of who did what, because that would never work for me since I’d never be able to keep up with 50/50 everything. I had to find someone who was happy to financially support me and that was a good way to gauge it.
Oh also his comments about being taken advantage of for “free dinners” like, red flag alert there too. I had two guys get furious with me that I wouldn’t immediately fuck them after they bought me dinner. That’s also part of why I did it. I wanted to see that as early as possible. The vast majority of men don’t view paying for a simple meal as an all access ticket. Like, maybe those women went on a date with him and then never saw him again because they just didn’t like him, lol. That’s the investment of dating IMO, and my attitude was always that if I’m not worth a $15 gamble then you’re not worth my time.
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