How many of you have baggage around money?
And if you did not raise your hand, if you did not say “me,” it's because you're an absolute liar.
How do I know this?
Because I've been doing accounting for 23, 24 years now at this point.
And I can tell you that every single one of my clients and everyone that I've worked with in my career has some kind of preconceived notions around money, what it does, what it doesn't do, uh what the Bible says about it, uh what mom and dad said about, you know, there's we don't realize that there's all these inputs in our lives that shape the way that we think about money, the way that we think about wealth.
And that invariably will affect our businesses and our relationships, whether it's personal or business.
So, for me personally, my husband and I did pre-marital counseling, and finance was a big part of that conversation.
What are you going to spend money on?
What are things that you both find valuable?
What uh, you know, how do you feel about debt?
And I can tell you that we're one of the only couples that I know that did any sort of preparation before we got married so that we were clear about expectations so that when hardships come because they invariably will, we already had a road map for decision making. We had established those guardrails before something bad happened so that in the middle of that emotional turmoil, we didn't have to try to decide how to handle it.
We already had the plan.
And so you guys, that's why I just had to ask my friend Brett Roos, author and financial coach to talk about his book, 31 Money Questions to ask your partner on a recent I Love Your Money podcast. He's got it broken up into three segments: Money in the past, Future Money, and Present Money. Brett decided to separate the questions that way because a lot of our beliefs about finances are determined by those three different categories. He explained that people tend to only talk about money issues that are going on right now. When they also talk about the future, it’s usually a vague idea of what will happen later on. People rarely talk about the root of their financial beliefs. Where did those beliefs come from?
Brett believes that what is more important than what people are thinking about money today is how they came to believe that way. Where did those money beliefs come from? When that is revealed, he can understand more about why people talk about money the way they do and why they hold the types of feelings about money that they do.
Brett said: “Well, what you're talking about is this concept that I talk a lot about with different clients (and with just people in general,) which is we really kind of live in two different realities. At all times, we live in the reality of what's currently going on in the real world, like something you can physically see touch something that's happening at the very moment. Like you and I are having a conversation right now.
But then there are also the realities that we create, the stories that we've told ourselves, the stories that we've been told that we believe to be real. And now feelings are facts to all of us. When it comes to our money and our relationships, like what you're talking about this person makes very good money, but then they always act like they're broke. You don't wanna go that far. You want to be aware enough to be like, I think and feel in a certain way, and where do those come from?"
That's why coaching is so important and an outside perspective on things.
On a recent I Love Your Money podcast, Brett and I discussed a few questions from his book that I found fascinating.
First, what was a major financially challenging setback that you have experienced in the past and how did you handle it? And, knowing what you know, what would you do differently? I love this. So I'm thinking if I'm dating somebody to decide if I'm going to marry them, right? Especially if I'm dating, these are these questions to find out, how do you think?
How do you problem-solve?
Like, what do you learn lessons?
Do you take responsibility?
I freaking love this question.
I asked Brett to tell me more about why he thinks that question is so important.
He said. “Well, it can teach you a lot about how somebody dealt with a situation in the past, and whether or not they've had time or their awareness to reflect on it as well and say, you know what? Maybe I did some of these things wrong. I did the best I knew at the time, but now that I know I've learned this lesson or I know this thing differently, I would have done this differently. Or, if they are just somebody that just puts off the blame and they just are in the victim role of like, these things happen to me and it's not my fault. And nothing I could have done differently, and I would not do anything differently because that's just what happened and it is what it is.”
I also asked him, “Once you're already with somebody, if they are like, I take no responsibility for anything I've done. Where do you go from there? How do you coach somebody that's like, everything is everyone else's fault?”
Brett responded, “I don't know if you can coach somebody who is in that state, but to be honest, there are not as many people in that state as a lot of other people would like to think. That's a true state of apathy, right there, where it's like there's nothing I can do and I give up. Most people are operating from a level above that, whether it be some kind of like, you know, where it's fear, or it's anger, or it's whatever it is. That’s the lower levels of emotions right there.
Um not that they're bad emotions, it's just never good to be stuck in one emotion for too long. Yeah, those are disempowering emotions as well. Well, they can be empowering, depending on where you're at. So if you're at a level of apathy, for example, and you do not want to even get out of bed, you don’t want to do anything.And, then all of a sudden you become into a state of fear of like, well, well, if I stay in this bed forever, nothing's going to change.
All of a sudden, it becomes a motivator. A lot of times, after people have experienced fear, they go into a level of anger, usually a level of some kind, that motivates them to get out of that level of fear. So it's almost like the stages of grief, but stages of getting out of apathy.”
Another question Brett and I discussed from money past is: “Have you ever had to support family members financially?
I said. "This has got to be a big, hard one for people because I know my husband and I both have personally had to help family members." I asked Brett to tell me a little bit about why this one made it into the book.
He gave me a couple of reasons why he included this question. “One, it shows your level of commitment to helping out somebody who is in your life permanently. Which is your family member. So, for some people, they may view it as like, no, I haven't helped out any of my family members. They needed help, but I didn't help them at all.
Uh, that person right there seems like they're for whatever reason, you can always follow up on questions with more questions to learn more."
These are not the end-all, be-all questions.
Brett continued. "They are starting points. What it seems like is they're starting points to kind of determine values. The whole point behind the book was, and I'll tell you the story of actually why I wrote this and how I wrote it is that my girlfriend had a very different upbringing from me. She grew up in old Soviet-style Ukraine. And I grew up in Oregon, a small town in Oregon. Not the same, two different upbringings and the way we were taught things and all this kind of stuff. Now me being a financial professional, if you want to call it that, we've had our short conversations about money, but they usually don't tend to go very far.
And with it being something that I see as a big challenge was in my parents' relationship that led to a divorce, many friends and and family members that I've seen have had issues with talking about finances that have led to breakups or divorce. You know, even in my past relationships, disagreements about money. Then what do I do professionally now? I’ve got to figure out how we can talk about money and not have to be so weird.
And so we got this book on Amazon called, 101 questions to ask before you get engaged. It was a good it was a good book. It's a lot of it's about values and some of the stuff doesn't necessarily pertain to us. But it was awesome that we could just keep it in the car and when we're on date nights going out to a restaurant. We just pull it out and just ask a question. And I learned a lot about how she thinks and feels because of that, and she learned a lot about me. And then I was like, what if there was something like this same thing, But it was all about your finances? If I could just put that together, then she and I could go through it together and I could learn more about the way she thinks it feels and I could share the way I think, and feel, and we could figure out where the common ground is.
So that's the whole reason that I wrote it at all.”
I think it’s great that necessity was the mother of invention in Brett's writing this book. He saw a need, had his own need, and helped himself and his girlfriend learn so much about each other and their finances.
Brett said “I learned that this girl had systems in place that I would have never thought, of because we just never talked about it. And we were in a relationship for about almost two years before we even started talking about money, even though the topic was brought up numerous times, it just kind of didn't lead anywhere. So I was like, we gotta get through this, you know, we're gonna this is gonna work out.”
Brett and I moved into the question of money present: “What do you prioritize spending money on?”
I love this question because my husband and I had a little extra money when we sold our house and we were like, what do we spend the money on? And I was like, hmm, something practical. And he was like, mm, something fun. And then and then we had to negotiate and we had to figure out what we were going to do. And in the end, we decided on a little bit of something fun and a little bit of something practical instead.
Brett explained that it's one of those questions where it is a divisive topic for a lot of people, and when he’s dealing with a couple that are working with him one-on-one and coaching, this is the topic that usually comes up every single time. Usually, it's one person, one spouse, and one partner that wants to combine the finances. The other partner does not want to combine the finances. And it's usually a fight about that. And it's always an all-or-nothing. And they're not to blame.
Both of them are correct, but they're correct for their own life, what Brett always teaches his clients is, let's figure out where the middle ground is on this. He said that usually what it is for a lot of people, is if you are in a relationship where one person does not want to combine finances and one person wants to combine finances, that the middle the best middle ground to start with is usually a joint account that is used for one specific thing. That is it.
According to Brett: “It's just gonna come on in, it's gonna go out, we're gonna you know, we're supposed to live this way, um of combining finances, we have more power if we do that, uh, together, you know, teamwork makes the dream work kind of thing. And you have the other person who has seen something, been a part of something, witnessed something where combining finances was destructive. For example, a client was worried about sharing their money because they felt like someone else would have control over what they say and what they do and what they're allowed to spend their money on and they didn't want to ask for permission for them to go to eat, you know, you didn't want to get every single that they spent money on.And then the other person that really wanted to combine finances felt like, well, if you're not willing to combine finances with me, then you're hiding something or you're unwilling to be a partner or, you know, anything.
And like that, and it really came down to the fact that they were both right for what they were I mean, they were right and they were wrong.”
I asked Brett one last question that I think is the most important, and this is in your money future part of his book.
And that's how you define financial success as a couple.
I love that question.
I love it because the word success has many definitions.
Brett responded: “It really does, you know, and a lot of people when they talk about financial success, even if they're in a relationship, they're committed, they're in a marriage, whatever it is, they often talk about like, what's financial success look like for you? A lot of times it's I want to have a lot of money I want to have money in the bank account I want to get a raise at my job or I want to get a good career. It's either like very toward the individual or it's very just kind of vague out there. I think learning how to define success as a couple financially is extremely important because it helps you both strive towards something together.
But a lot of times if people don't talk about finances, what happens is something called financial infidelity, where they're going behind their partner's back and doing something with their finances that they're afraid that their spouse won't agree with or will disapprove of in some way or whatever. And so they're always going behind somebody's back and then that feeling of guilt and shame comes out and then it's just it always builds up. It's always better to just be open and honest and try to get in front of things before you're trying to fix things from behind.”
Talking with Brett about where our attitudes about money come from and how they influence our present and future was amazing.
Go to Amazon, and get Brett's book 31 Money Questions to Ask Your Partner.