TLDR update, I’m done:
There is no teamwork or communication apparent in their relationship, from either partner. I give it 50/50 she’s already pregnant and is freaking out now about it instead of trusting their relationship to work it out. He’s not thought about any of this on his own, which is also bad.
I’m not reading the comments on the site, but have read others thoughts here now
ETA: I think they would be excellent guests for Ramit. Definitely within his area.
Listening to John and Lindsay. Oh gosh his attitude towards paying child support for his kids and the way he talks about his ex 
How is that for his current wife? She can see how this goes if they split up.
“I know you want to pay for your children, I know that“
Why did Ramit give him a pass here?! He doesn’t want to pay for his kids. He seems to think that the burden is his ex wife and kids. I think that is what why he keeps so forcefully insisting “I am not a burden”.
Buckle up, today’s episode has an MLM. Kind of boring, the couple didn’t have any obvious animosity.
I’m in the middle of the episode and OMG this couple has seriously bought into the MLM Koolaid. They don’t want her to work a corporate job because there is a ceiling to how much she can make, and with the MLM there is no ceiling. But guess what…there is also a floor! She could be guaranteed to make at least $X with a real job 
I’m sure Rammit addresses this - just haven’t gotten there yet.
Starting episode 35! Will live blog my reactions since that’s a thing I do now.
Something seems odd about how she says she wants to be involved in the budget but then the guy is like, well it’s pretty much the same every month but ok. Feels like I’m missing something?
Uh huh, the plot thickens. The guy said their debt was “small amounts” and then named only educational stuff. My inkling is that he is doing a poor job as the money manager and probably doesn’t have a budget or a plan. If it were really mostly school stuff causing the debt I think he’d know the numbers, like, “% is from school things, Y% is consumer debt.” Immediately painting it all as educational and for the kids smells like denial to old AllHat. I bet it’s mostly consumer debt.
They both sound very stressed out.
What is this guy talking about? Paying his wife and kids from his business as a tax shelter? I can’t tell if I’m too smart to believe it or too dumb to understand it.
The guy’s main idea is making more money. I really don’t think that’s the problem since they already make six figures. Ramit likes this idea, which is so weird. I don’t understand how his “money is emotional and not about numbers” squares with his “make more money” advice? Like, the added income only helps pay down debt if you actually use it to pay down debt. They could easily fritter away an extra $50k a year.
*Side note: but it drives me a little nutty when people act like you need to be a billionaire to live on a single income. Sure, you can’t survive well on a single income if you’re below the poverty line or making minimum wage, obviously everyone who can work has to work in that case. But you can 100% live well on a single income if you make six figures a year. I’d even argue most people can swing it on like $60k a year! There are so many ways to decrease expenses when only one spouse works, and even to save money from insourcing everything. Anyway…
Essential oils are so weird. I mean, not the oils themselves, but the craze surrounding them. I also find it hilarious that a lot of fundamentalist groups are all about oils, I’m like…why don’t you think this is witchcraft? Why is this ok but yoga is satanic? IDGI, lol.
I’m so curious about this couple’s spending. I wonder if she’s a big spender since she’s into the MLM stuff. I feel like MLMs really appeal to people with shopping addictions.
I’m glad Ramit is going hard on MLMs. When I was still writing (for work) I did a couple of huge pieces on MLMs and I got SO MUCH hate mail. Like, more than for anything else I ever wrote. Those people are fucking intense, lol.
Waiiiiit. This woman is TRI lingual?!? I hope he grabs onto that because she could get a TON of WFH work doing translation. Like, she definitely doesn’t need to go back to in office work if she is fluent in three languages. Ohhh Ramit, lol, he’s not focusing on that at all, just positive visualization. Bruh.
I think this woman is hitting the nail on the head that it’s easier to be negative than positive, and that negativity can be a comfort zone. YES YES YES. Ramit is trying to with this, I feel like the woman he’s talking to is more adept with emotions than he is though. I think she needs more actionable career advice. She’s talking about how she victimizes herself and stuff, sounds very self-aware.
The husband sounds sweet. He doesn’t want her to have to work. Gosh, both of these people have such negative views of the corporate world. I’m very curious what their experiences have been! And maybe their expectations? Maybe this is me being too harsh but…he’s saying over the last three jobs both of them have had were awful experiences…IDK man. Common denominators maybe? I mean maybe I’m wrong it just seems unlikely to have every single job be totally toxic, etc. I worked at one truly horrendous place, and I know they exist, but only one was bad to the point of impacting my mental health, etc. I’d start to question myself if it kept happening. The guy also offhand joked about winning the lottery. I wonder if he just hates working?
I agree with Ramit that they have deeper issues around basking in negativity. I think the addiction to righteous indignation is real. I disagree with his supposition that if “we” went through the same experiences as the callers that “we” would react in the same way. I know that’s the commonly accepted view these days, and I totally believed it too, until I (finally at age 31) met a bunch of people with similar backgrounds to mine. That’s when I learned that people respond very differently to the exact same situations, lol. I used to attribute so many things about how I am to my experiences/immutable identities and I honestly no longer believe that’s the case. I think it’s way more individual than siloed by group experience or identity.
That was a weird one, ended really abruptly! Donezo.
I didn’t get all the way through, but that characterization stood out to me too. If it’s small stuff, then it isn’t due to the thing that you needed it for, but all those decisions beforehand.
Also, from what I’ve seen from the anti-MLMers I’ve watched on youtube (I needed to stop), there are a ton of “educational” things that get added on - coaches, conferences, etc. So it might be money that being in the MLM sphere resulted in being spent, but since Ramit sells courses and is in the self help space he didn’t catch that/didn’t want to dig into that. And they’re unwilling to acknowledge it because they need to hold onto her making 300/month, not e.g. losing 6k/year once you add all the bits up.
OHHHHHH shit, I bet you’re right! I didn’t even think about that. I bet you’re right about the debt from “educational” stuff too, that makes sense. Because he wasn’t like, “oh it’s from my x degree,” just “educational things”.
Woah, they both have MASSIVE salaries and debt. Makes no sense to me.
She wants him to pay for dinner and he mostly does but occasionally he doesn’t? IDK, kind of unclear.
Sounds like what bothers her is that she has to get buy-in every time to convince him to go to dinners where he is expected to pay. Sounds awful. Like, no one wants to harangue someone into a dinner date. How unromantic, lol. Also they are dating, not even engaged or living together, so it’s alarming that it’s an issue already IMO.
Ok, this makes more sense: he paid for stuff in the beginning (she wasn’t working). I think she assumed that’s the kind of guy he was, but he was actually only paying because she was unemployed, and now that she’s working he wants to go dutch all the time, I think.
See, she keeps saying he should pay “because he’s the boyfriend,” BUT I think it’s a bit different because she keep saying it’s “more romantic” and makes her feel loved. Professor AllHat would ask, “Is it perhaps that you want him to WANT to pay because…you’re worth it?”
Good golly, even when she pays for dinner (which she did last weekend) he wants to be told in advance that she is paying because otherwise he’ll be stressed that he might have to pay. Sounds like a fun guy. (Yes, I’m extra judge judy today, lol.)
Of course, Ramit is focused only on the woman and why she has this crazy idea about a man paying. Predictable, lol. I think he should ask the guy if he has any expectations that a woman: shave her legs and underarms, be pleasant and a good listener, have long hair, the million other things women are expected to do as a default. Dude wants the last word on everything and has to give his approval for things in advance, but also is so very progressive in this one area of not paying, lmao. He cares about eQuaLiTy.
BAHAHAHA! He actually just said, “I mean I’m ok with traditional gender roles in…some ways…” This guy is so readable. And when she does pay he feels it’s not fully genuine. GIRL, get your ass out of this relationship!!! There are billions of men in the world. Shocker, he also talks over her and doesn’t ask any follow-up questions when she expresses her feelings. He’s so progressive he should sell insurance. Ba-dum-ching!
Thank goodness at least Ramit is telling him it’s bananas-pants to have a conversation like this about every single dinner. Instead they’re making rules now.
The woman is having trouble just saying what she wants. I wonder why! So confusion. She finally says she wants the boyfriend to pay for weekend dress up dinners but that she will pay for the casual dinners. Her reason for being afraid, “Because he’s going to hate me if I say this.” BF doesn’t respond to this or seem to hear it, lol. She literally says she’s afraid saying what she wants will “ruin or affect” the relationship. I’m glad boyfriend is fully focused on the only area of equality that personally affects him. I bet he’s also passionate about women being drafted, lol.
Ramit says he notices this is a trend with women and it’s SAD. Silly women have trouble saying what they want! Must be bc periods.
Now she’s talking about how she might want a nanny when/if they have kids. BF doesn’t like that idea, she is unrealistic and from a rich background according to him. Will BF be going 50/50 on labor and breastfeeding and dialing down work and diaper changes and emotional work and homemaking? He doesn’t like that she talks about the ring he will buy her or the wedding. She should just trust him!!! It kills the vibe for him to talk about such crass things! He says it makes him think he isn’t good enough to provide the life she expects. He’s scared that her mind goes to the cost of things, he values DEEPER CONNECTION.
LOL, like HE is the one making this the focus through not wanting to pay for dinner. He says the things she brings up are shallow. I’m calling it: this dude’s an a-hole. Sorry y’all, Judge Judy is on FIRE today.
She keeps saying how much she loves him and is afraid of him resenting her and vice versa. GIRL. GTFO. If you cannot figure out going to dinner when you each make over $130k a year…you should absolutely not be together. They both feel like they make like $3 because of economy, it doesn’t feel like as much as it “should”. Whew, negative nancy’s over here. They both have MISERABLE tones of voice about their incomes ($140k and $160k each). Jeezy creezy. Bubble alert, y’all! The ungratefulness is pretty stunning with these two, which possibly explains the pairing a bit more. They act like they’re barely surviving, lol. Honestly this is the only part that explains why she’s with him, like attracts like IMO (and scarcity mindset makes it really hard to be generous, and they both crave generosity from each other but are reluctant to give it, makes sense).
Dr. Judge AllHat (I have many credentials) prescribes an immediate break-up and weekly volunteer work with people who are a lot lower down on Maslow’s hierarchy, in person work too, not remote computer work or monetary donations. And maybe therapy. No, definitely therapy.
Done, I am v spicy today. You’ve been warned.
Judge Dr. AllHat is back with more coffee and sweatiness than ever before. We’re digging into debt now. The woman has $18k debt the guy has $70k debt. FACTS!
Now we’re talking to the guy. He has a $40k vehicle loan and the rest is credit card debt from a business he started. He is only making minimum payments. He resents the debt because the business failed. Wow, he’s had this debt for 4 years. Weirdly, Ramit hasn’t even mentioned the insane car loan yet. He feels paralysis about the debt. He makes $12k A MONTH. Now he says the reason he can’t pay is because of having an expensive unreasonable girlfriend. Women, amIrite? It’s all her fault! But equality is so important to him!!! He’s only been dating the girl like a year, he’s had the debt 4 years, clearly she is a time-traveling witch of some kind.
Thank the lord Ramit picks up on the guy blaming the woman. He’s going to dig into this more. The guy says it’s not totallllly her fault, but the dinners out are part of his budget that he can’t use now 
unfair!!! He can’t save or pay off debt. All because of these dinners!
GO RAMIT! He’s like, uh you’ve had this 4 years, you only met her a year ago. He asked about the car loan. It’s a truck. Ramit hates trucks almost as much as he hates Target. The guy also has a BOAT AND AN RV. That’s why he needs the truck. Gosh his gf is so unreasonable for wanting him to pay for dates while he’s in crushing self-induced debt which he’s refused to address. Unfair!!! Boats and trucks while in debt: clearly good, paying for a nanny in the future: clearly unreasonable.
Ramit says he understands the guy’s anxiety more now. The GF says she always understood that but didn’t know he had a car loan. She has a lease on a Mercedes, you know, a car most struggling poor people have, bc they are totes in the depths of SCARCITY. Maybe these two deserve each other…
Ramit points out that they cannot afford their vehicles. Now he’s ranting about how and why people spend money and how the media covers money stuff. He’s basically talking personal responsibility. Judge Dr. Economist AllHat agrees. He’s talking about choices…how people should question their decisions. Rich life…yawn, need more coffee. Still talking. Ramit wants us to deeply understand our rich life instead of just consumerism.
The guy says he lives a “SLIGHTLY” above average lifestyle “on the surface”. Man, these people are the worst, lol. I literally cannot imagine being so wildly spoiled and ungrateful and out of touch with reality. Ramit is trying, futilely, to get them to accept responsibility and see that maybe they aren’t living at the poverty line and barely surviving through no fault of their own. I don’t think they are getting it at all. Life is super hard for them, guyz.
The guy says he’s “looking to sell” the boat. It’s hard to admit that he might sell the boat! He’s attached to it. That’s weird, I thought he only cared about DEEPER CONNECTION and not dumb material bullshit. I guess that only applies to dinner dates and wedding stuff, you know, lady bullshit. He says he will sell the RV too, but I’m not convinced.
She says she’ll get a cheaper lease but then says the Mercedes was a good deal! GIRL, I was on your side, honey, but you’re losing me! She says she could do lifestyle changes, like shopping less. She says she loves to shop but she’s always had a “problem” with shopping. Ramit’s making her reframe, I don’t think she buys it but she’s saying what he wants her to say.
They both say they haven’t faced any real consequences for their spending/debt. But somehow life is still super unfair. The woman says she had a credit card from a young age, for emergencies, but she’d take it to the mall and shop and then her parents would take the card away and then give it back. Over and over this happened. No consequences other than her parents would highlight the charges and then pay it for her. Then they said she should pay it off, she says she didn’t pay them back. I mean…no wonder you’re with a selfish dude. You’re with your match, lol.
Ramit says they have a hard road ahead of them. Plz stahp giving them more victimhood points, they are already way too into that.
She thinks she should spend money out to eat twice a month. Much deprivation. The guy says he “thinks” having a budget might be helpful. He wants clarity on the costs of the two dinners. He wants a restaurant budget, I think? Fair. She agrees. But she also says deciding restaurants and exactly what they will order in advance (like Ramit suggests) takes the fun out of it. Also fair. Ramit is trying to find a compromise, I’m exhausted.
Lordy, all they need to do is get a fucking envelope, put half each of the monthly restaurant budget in there each month. Then when they go out for food they grab that envelope. When envelope is empty there is no more going out to restaurants that month. People without real problems really love to make mountains out of molehills, jiminey christmas.
Now he’s talking about debt payoff. I guess she has to do the research and present it to him? IDK. I assume the guy just gets to sit there and do nothing. Ramit says she’s allowed to ask for help from him or ask him to contribute proportionally since he makes more. Sounds like their main budget is ALREADY 50/50 now. WHAT?! I don’t understand how this even works when you’re just dating and not even living together but whatever.
The guy says he feels like he will/“has to” respond positively to the GF for making changes, and “supporting that” bc it’s a good. She is not reassured. Judge Dr. Economist Marriage Counselor AllHat is equal parts concerned and annoyed. Now she’s directly asking, “will you be ok contributing more if you make more money than me?” golly that took AGES to get that out. It makes me sad that she even has to ask, and the “will you be ok” is pretty telling in Marriage Counselor AllHat’s opinion. He already makes more than her, she already splits everything but dinner 50/50, and he is not ok with that.
He says it’s a “fair question” but he needs “more context on that”. Then he says that even though he makes more now it should still be 50/50 because he has more debt. But longterm he’ll def be totally generous guyz. IF they have conversations he says he will be comfortable. And she says she feels BETTER about this answer than past answers. She says in the past he’s been LESS receptive to it. Holy shit.
Ramit asks when he’s willing to pay more since he already makes more. The dude doesn’t know, when does it kick in, he wonders? It’s all so complicated to appear generous without being generous! Ramit says usually couples pay proportionately. Ramit says $140k and $160k is basically the same. Ramit says simplicity is the key. Dead On The Floor From Exhaustion AllHat agrees.
Ramit says the problem is that the guy wants the woman to be more financially generous. He needs to ask her to be more generous. He does at least say the guy having more debt shouldn’t get him out of a proportional split. Fair. Then each time their incomes change they recalculate the proportion.
The woman agrees. Man says, “it’s logical and I agree mostly but I need it to sink in more, not the answer I was expecting 100%”. Whew, can he get any stingier? “No, is the answer, folks, no.” says Game Show Host AllHat.
Ramit is talking about how he and his wife used to pay proportionally (lol, like, why not still? kind of funny, anyway…) but that he had a higher standard of living than she did (for apartments, hotels, etc.). Their rule was to have agreement on the class-type of hotel they would stay at, and if he wanted an upgrade he’d pay the difference. Same with rent, etc.
The woman hates this answer, the guy is elated. You can hear him smiling! He says this is the underlying issue. “Who’s lifestyle are we splitting?” he asks. He says the important thing is that anything above their baseline is HIS CHOICE if he pays for it. HIS CHOICE EVERYONE!!! She doesn’t want to be the one to pay the difference, in fact she doesn’t even want to split vacations 50/50. They have split some vacations, but not all, splitting vacations while not even living together makes sense to me (like why would that all be on him?) but whatever. Here’s her thing: she thinks what she assumes is normal is not normal. She said she assumed Ramit paid for stuff for his wife since he’s so successful. Ramit says nope, but also that it’s changed.
Ramit asks if she can imagine the message it communicates to a partner for one person to pay for everything. She answers that it communicates that you’re the man of the house. Ramit says he’s not arguing with her view, but says it wouldn’t define them as partners. He says everyone has to put skin in the game to be partners. Apparently my husband and I are not partners, lol. SKIN IN THE GAME, PEOPLE. Ramit says it would also send the message that, “I am always here to take care of you,” and that while that’s nice words, he’ll be dead one day. And it would be super mean to leave his wife with no skills, bc obviously if you don’t pay for dinner you have no idea what anything is.
Now that Ramit’s wife makes more money their finances have changed. They plan everything a year in advance (gifts, vacations, etc.). They have rules of doing it proportionally, etc. And they have a number under which they don’t worry. Ramit says this feels like because they are combining their incomes they are a team. But also he gets to watch his wife develop her financial skills. She is no longer scarcity based and has become highly sophisticated.
The woman says this all sounds good. She says her own views must be antiquated. She doesn’t want a man to hold finances over her head. She wants to be respected and have a partnership. She says she’s just been assuming that most men pay for the women they’re with.
Ramit says that just because she sees a man put down a credit card to pay for dinner doesn’t mean he’s necessarily paying, they might split it all at the end of the month, etc. Ramit says women had no say or control back in the day when men paid, that was the trade-off, he says. Dr. Professor Economist Marriage Counselor Historian AllHat disagrees, since historically women have been the money managers and primary spenders. Instances of financial abuse happened and still do and can with separate accounts as well, but in most “traditional setups” women had the say on spending and they still do.
There’s a reason advertisers for almost everything disproportionately target women. Women are usually the money managers, shoppers, spenders, and planners in households. I hate this narrative that every woman before, like 1970, was a doormat who had no influence or sense or independence. Asshole spouses existed then and exist now, it was simply easier for asshole male spouses to get away with shit back then because of the law, but in most functional marriages women were in charge of the money.
She’s thanking Ramit. She wants a partnership and to be financially independent. She says she realizes no one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. Fair. Even though it’s not sexy or romantic she’s willing to establish rules with her BOYFRIEND (just reminding everyone they don’t even live together). Dr. Professor Economist Marriage Counselor Historian Romance Writer AllHat is sad at the total lack of sexiness and romance.
Ramit is wrapping up, BUT WAIT, they have an update for him. They wrote that there were lots of key takeaways, she bullet points them. Her expectations aren’t realistic, she assumes too much, they both talk past each other, life isn’t a fairytale, she is clearly wrong in her assumptions.
Done, whew, that was a weird one.
keep it up 
I would not be able to stand this episode, so thank you for taking the burden for all of us.
Yep, I’m not listening to the podcast any more but I will read all of an AllHat live react.
Saaame.
These people sound awful!
I’m still listening, but I also love the AllHat snark! I’m almost done with Part 2 of this couple and I just can’t stop rolling my eyes. There is endless waste and it is totally a situation where they honest to goodness do not understand how normal people live. Seriously, the woman was given a credit card while in high school and her parents did a terrible job of making her understand the consequences of spending money on it. She doesn’t want to split the cost of vacations, or eating out or anything even though they make similar amounts of money. Simply the fact that they feel like a combined income of $300k is barely enough to survive is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard. They are just so out of touch with reality.
Those bullet points seem to ignore his issues.
Wouldn’t it be funny if one of the people on the show was on this forum?
I would be surprised at the “we are LiViNg In PoVeRTy” episodes, but not the “I price check blueberries” ones.
It’s me, I’m the RV guy who won’t pay for dinner. I’m glad it’s out in the open!
I wonder if Ep 34 couple seem weirdly invested for “just dating” because they expect to move in together after getting married? That’s common for some groups here, you’re dating but really it’s very serious and the next step isn’t moving in, it’s marriage and then moving in together.