Episode 3: Olivia & Chris

June 11, 2018 | 38 minutes

Join us for this episode of The Money Date podcast, where we talk with Olivia and Chris about how the 2008 financial crisis and the Catholic Church have helped this couple develop some incredible money habits.

"We actually got married in the Catholic Church and there's actually a very lengthy process of the engagement that you need to really be heavily involved in the Catholic Church. And part of it was us going on this two-day retreat together. We went and there was a lot of engaged couples there. It really opened up a lot of conversations that they felt that we needed to have and finances was a big part of that. So we actually sat down in a room one day and all the couples had to write down how much money they have, how much debt they have. Those types of things. Then we switched off and figured it out. Then we had the conversation from there and we talked a little bit about it after this retreat and we decided that we both still wanted to maintain our own checking accounts after we got married. We opened up a joint savings account and I believe we have one joint banking account where we pay for a credit card that we both have together. And then in addition to that we both have our separate checking account." - Olivia

Transcript

{INTRODUCTION}

{00:00:00.45}

Aditi: Hey guys, you're listening to the Money Date podcast, a podcast that my husband and I launched to help young couples get real about their money.

Dalmar: That's right. We'll ask our friends and a few strangers all the uncomfortable and awkward questions about how they handle their money.

Aditi: All the gory details and hopefully a few tips and tricks along the way. You can pick up and use in your own relationship.

{MUSIC}

{00:00:23.34}

Dalmar: Welcome to The Money Date podcast where we talk about couples and money. On today's podcast, we have Olivia and Chris who've been together for a little over six years and have been married for four. Hi I'm Dalmar and I'm Aditi. And we're your hosts. Olivia and Chris welcome to the show.

Olivia: Thank you.

Chris: Thanks for having us.

Aditi: I'm so excited about this show Dalmar because Olivia and Chris have such solid podcast voices that I feel like everyone's just going to have a blast listening to them.

Olivia: Oh, hopefully we live up to the hype.

Dalmar: Thank you both for joining us. This is gonna be a little bit of a different show only because Aditi is currently in LAX calling in. Apologies in advance if you hear any sudden alarms or noises in the background. Our house has not caught fire, it’s Aditi trying to make her way to a quiet spot in the terminal.

{00:01:17.91}

Dalmar: Ok Olivia, Chris. Why don't you tell us your love story. Where did the two of you meet and how'd you get where you are today?

Olivia: Yeah, Chris, if you don't mind, I'm happy to tell our story.

Chris: Go ahead, I’ll jump in and give you the highlights of the things that you miss.

Olivia: So, we were both working at the same company about seven years ago when we actually met. We were both playing on the soccer team, our company soccer team and we both just started chatting. I was probably putting shin guards on. He came over started talking to me. We started talk about running. Turns out we were both going to run the Oakland marathon. So we kind of kept in touch that way. Both ran the marathon.

Chris: She’s keeping a small detail in there - I actually signed up for the marathon because she told me she was running it.

Dalmar: Good move.

Olivia: So, we ran the marathon and texted each other the day after and told me his time as that is that he finished then which is pretty good. So my response to his really good time was “Oh my hero”. I think he pretty much figured he had an invite there. So six months after that we maintained a friendship, we talked a lot about running, he let me borrow a book, we would kind of see each other in the hallways, he would sometimes ignore me…

Aditi: Sounds a little like high school.

Chris: But I did a much better job on this one than I ever did in high school by far.

Olivia: So about six months after the marathon, he added me on Facebook and I was kind of scrolling around because I remember when we introduced ourselves that he had mentioned a girlfriend. So I started doing my due diligence, as you know us women like to do, on Facebook with our crushes. I started scrolling through it and seeing what was the status on the situation and noticed there were no pictures there so I was like, “Oh this is pretty cool.” But a week after I accepted his friendship, he Facebook messaged me. I immediately responded interested in hanging out. We ended up going to dinner that night and I was really nervous because I didn't know if it was a date. I didn't know if it was two co-workers grabbing a drink or dinner. So I believe one of the first things I asked when I sat down was “Is this a date?”. And he said “Yes.”

Chris: Come to find out, one of the reasons she wasn't sure if it was a date is because my work buddies, when I left my computer, went into my Facebook and changed my personal and sexual interest to men. So she wasn't sure which team I was batting for and that caused a little confusion over that. You know, going to go to a first date at a sushi place in Oakland that serves unlimited Sake is generally the start of every love story.

Dalmar: Or it should be. It sounds like a promising first date scene. That's excellent.

Olivia: Yeah, it definitely was.

Dalmar: So who was the better soccer player?

Chris: Olivia.

Olivia: Chris was the team goon.

Chris: Happy to step in and get immediately kicked out.

{00:04:42.60}

Aditi: So fast forward six years. Here you guys are. I know you have a beautiful baby with the most beautiful eyes. Tell us how your relationship has evolved over time.

Olivia: He likes to joke that.. What was your joke about us only being 4 years Chris?

Chris: Something along the lines but it feels a lot longer.

Olivia: I guess the reason that we say that is because Chris and I have been through a lot together. In the six years that we've been together, we've both experience loss, we've both experienced really big changes in work, promotions. Both of us, at a time, losing our jobs and then having that having to start a new job and getting promoted. Lots of family stuff. It honestly feels like we've been together for so much longer and it's because the two of us have each individually evolved so much. And at the same time, both of us are evolving, had just been so beneficial to our relationship. I feel like both of us have just really grown and matured and these past six years.

Chris: Well, I'm glad to hear you use the word matured with reference to me. But, yes, certainly our relationship is as grown a lot stronger through experience.

{00:06:01.60}

Dalmar: Chris when did you know that Olivia was the one for you?

Chris: First date.

Dalmar: Oh wow.

Chris: Yep, at dinner I knew.

{00:06:09.55}

Dalmar: How about you Olivia?

Olivia: I pretty much know after after that the date was over when I was heading home. I was kind of scared. I, just by nature, am a very anxious person. So, my anxiety kind of kicked in because I was thinking, am I overthinking this? Is this, is this for real? or how am I going to mess this up? So, while I did have a lot of anxiety, I was really excited because I was like, wow it seems like this is the start of something really special.

Aditi: You guys this is the cutest story ever.

Olivia: Almost as cute as your guys story.

Aditi: No, you guys are adorable.

{00:06:52.42}

Dalmar: So what was it? Because I mean finding someone you click with is such a rare thing. Rarer still that it happens as quickly as it did with the two of you. What was it about that date or that night that really connected the two of you? That made you both realize that this is the relationship?

Olivia: Chris, you wanna go?

Chris: Well, you know, I guess when you have one of those euphoric, epiphany moments you know, it's like lightning strikes you. For me, that's the best way of describing it. I had known Olivia for quite a while as a friend before that so I knew a lot about the content of who Olivia was. But you know during the first date, it just instantly struck me that I was deeply in love with her and knew I was going to marry her. So, I don't think that happens a lot in the person's life and over time the more that we've grown together, the experiences that we've had together and where we've responded to life's situations is only affirmed that we made a good choice.

{00:07:53.76}

Dalmar: That's well said. The conversation doesn't come up right away. The conversation about money and about finances. But for any couple who is together long enough it comes up somewhere. When did that conversation first come up for the both of you?

Olivia: It actually came up very quickly for us. Because we have been friends for so long, that when we first started dating, we dated hard. Like we were together every single day. There's very little time that we weren’t together.

Aditi: That's our next T-shirt - “we dated hard.”

Chris: I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean Olivia, but ok.

Olivia: Well, the reason I say that is because we were engaged after five months of dating. We actually had made the decision after five months of dating, to move in, and to my surprise we got engaged. So the conversation about finances came up very quickly. I was still in the beginning of my career. So I was making lower range professional salary and barely getting by, on my own. Chris had a little bit more experienced and worked in sales. Based on his lifestyle versus mine, I knew that he was a little bit more comfortable than I was. And when we moved in together, I actually remember there was just a day where I kind of broke down crying like within two months of living together. It was because I was so stressed out. I didn't want to come forward with how stressed out I was over finances. And we sat down and we went through both of our incomes together and we basically evened out bills and adjusted according to each other's salary. It was really the first time that we had a conversation surrounding finances like that. So, it reaffirmed how deeply I was in love with him, and still am, because of how supportive he was when I was having that breakdown. Instead of judging me for any of my finances and choices, he said, “Let’s sit down and figure this out together.”

{00:10:19.38}

Aditi: Chris, I'm actually really curious. How did you feel in that situation? Here's Olivia. You know she feels stressed out, she feels overwhelmed. What was that like for you?

Chris: Well I mean you go through a variety of responses or reactions when that comes up. I think a lot of guys, and even myself, my first instinct was probably more dismissive of being overwhelmed or emotional about the situation. I asked her a question about how much of her net income from paychecks was going toward bills and how much she had in her checking account. When I learned how little she had week over week or leading up to a paycheck in her checking accounts. For me, as her husband to be, I didn't feel comfortable with my wife being stressed out about when her paycheck hit when I didn’t have that same situation. And I just honestly didn't, for lack of a better term, feel comfortable with her “riding that dirty every other Thursday.”

{00:11:34.65}

Dalmar: Where did that habit or that instinct, that personality come from?

Chris: Well, being a sales professional and being a manager of the last seven years. And I have a daughter whom Olivia is a stepmother who is a 9 year old. You know grow and try not to react to any situation or dismiss how an individual feels, as much as you can. I mean, at times I'm still an a-hole about that. But when it comes to those you love you, you really want to just slow down and seek to understand. Doesn’t matter where you think they're coming from or what their truth is is true or not, or emotional or not. Until you understand where it comes from and why it exists, you can't really rationalize with it. And if you don't, especially with your wife, and it's something like that, you're going to argue a lot about it and your life's not going to be happy.

{00:12:28.08}

Aditi: That's a really incredible journey that you guys have been on and it's it's really fun to hear you guys talk about overcoming that together. Now that you have had had that conversation, what happened next? How did that conversation evolve from that?

Olivia: We were a lot more open with each other about our finances afterwards. We started planning our wedding. I don’t know how big of a wedding you guys planned but planning a wedding really takes a toll on your relationship. Just family being involved and finances - it gets really, really stressful. It really tested a lot about us and the way we feel about our families. It's just a kind of evolved. And because he was so open and willing to talk about it and willing to help me resolve problems, I in turn didn't really have an issue talking about money with him. And when we were planning for the wedding, we set a budget aside and I was really open with him because I was doing a little bit more of the spending since I was doing the majority of the planning. I was really open with him about how much we needed and when. And was open with him about how much my family was putting in there and that kind of thing. So that conversation definitely, definitely made me a lot more comfortable being open about that. I grew up with my mom telling me to “be independent, that I didn’t really need a man”. So I kind of had that mentality going into the relationship like “Oh my gosh, I don't want to feel like I'm depending on the man.” But it's kind of now turning into more of a partnership and us working together rather than me having this independent mentality.

{00:14:38.76}

Aditi: So I'm actually really curious about that. Chris, you were in a previous relationship. You had a child in that relationship. Olivia, you were coming from a background where your mom was like “be that independent woman”. How did that affect how you guys decided to merge your finances?

Olivia: I mean we just kind of merged them together as one. And after that conversation that's where that's where it went.

Chris: I think because of Olivia's upbringing and me being five years older than her. I also have a child and when we moved in together, I was actually closing on purchasing our first home. So both of us came in wanting to maintain some level of autonomy in our finances. Not to hide stuff, but just because I don't want to have to have a conversation with my wife about why I went to Phil's five or six times this week. And she doesn't want me asking about why she went and got a vitality bowl three times for a snack this week. I think it's okay to have that bit of autonomy, freedom, flexibility and trust as long as you set some basic parameters around. But that was a point of contention and still is a little bit for us as we like that autonomy and as you as you build grow and your income grows that can get pretty tricky.

Aditi: So do you guys put everything into one account?

Dalmar: No, it's fine. Go ahead just repeat it again just because we spoke over each other

Aditi: No, you ask it because I'm in the Shake Shack line and I'm distracted right now.

{00:16:56.80}

Dalmar: Okay, I think the question Aditi was trying to ask before being swayed by Shake Shack milkshakes. How do you split your finances? You talked a little bit about reserving something for, for sort of autonomous spending that’s maybe not part of a joint account. But tell us about how you share your finances and how you came to this current setup that you have today?

Olivia: We actually got married in the Catholic Church and there's actually a very lengthy process of the engagement that you need to really be heavily involved in the Catholic Church. And part of it was us going on this two day retreat together. We went and there was a lot of engaged couples there. It really opened up a lot of conversations that they felt that we needed to have and finances was a big part of that. So we actually sat down in a room one day and all couples had to write down how much money they have, how much debt they have. Those types of things. Then we switched off and figured it out. Then we had the conversation from there and we talked a little bit about it after this retreat and we decided that we both still wanted to maintain our own checking accounts after we got married. We opened up a joint savings account and I believe we have one joint banking account where we pay for a credit card that we both have together. And then in addition to that we both have our separate checking account.

{00:18:01.72}

Dalmar: Olivia we were talking some weeks back during lunch and you told me about the role that the Catholic Church or the church had in helping you form your thoughts around finances. How much other than sort of opening up about some of this stuff did it change the way that you shared or manage your money beforehand?

Olivia: I think that having to have those honest conversations with each other about not only what we currently have in our bank accounts but being honest with him about my debt was a big eye opener for me. I put myself through college and with that came student loans. And for me, there was this sense of embarrassment behind it. Not only was I only was I making significantly less than him, but I also had these student loans that I didn't know how to bring up to him. It made me uncomfortable because I didn't know how it wanted to bring it up. And when we were forced to put that out there during the weekend, I felt this sense of relief because I didn’t have to hide anything from him. And he's accepted me and my debt and I just I appreciated it so much. I was so embarrassed of it and it was a relief to have it out in the open.

{00:19:29.75}

Dalmar: And you mentioned this being a two day retreat that other couples went on. How open were you about sharing sort of the information with the other people there? Was this more of a private conversation that you and Chris were having amongst other couples who were also having their own private conversations?

Chris: Yeah, they had a really good balance in the groups. The guys would break out all together. The girls would break out together to have their own separate conversations. In a few case it actually backfired on the guys depending on what the topic was…

Dalmar: Hahaha, how so?

Chris: Oh God. Well the Catholic Church has rather narrow views on pornography and sexuality. So when the girls started grilling the guys on how often and what exactly they're watching and when - it got really freakin’ awkward. Yeah, I mean overall it was a great retreat. I was raised Catholic but I don't take it super seriously - I have a little different perspective on life. But I thought the good thing they did was they got the skeletons out of the closet and had a good balance of sharing. A lot of the deeply intimate details were just between Olivia and I. When I found out that she has some debt she didn't tell me about, which was not by any means any astronomical amount, she paid for a huge amount of her college and I was really proud of that. She had such a low amount of debt as a result. She also found out that I had pretty bad credit. So I think it was a relief for her that I also had financial skeletons in there.

{00:21:04.37}

Aditi: So, I just want to say that you guys are my heroes. I feel like you’ve experienced a lot together. You've gone through some really tough money conversations, like say bad credit or debt. Now that your relationship has evolved and you know more about each other, what do you think each other's best money habits are?

Olivia: I think that Chris does a really good job of saving his money. I think he's a lot more conscious about putting others before himself and it reflects in the way that he spends. I've just always had such an appreciation for how generous he is with others. Not only me or his family but a lot of his friends as well. And I've just I've always really admired that about him. Chris, what do you think?

Chris: Well, the one thing I've discovered over time about you and your spending is that your Catholic guilt really comes out when it comes to purchases and it really tempers you. You’ll tell me about your guilty purchase of something that's relatively insignificant, say a hundred dollars here or there, not by any means burning down our mutual wealth or anything like that. So that's one thing I've learned is that I can have a high degree of trust with Olivia because her guilty conscience is always at work tempering her from going outside the lines of good judgment.

{00:22:42.75}

Dalmar: So, we've talked a little bit about best money habits. We've also talked about skeletons. Talking about some of this stuff and talking about it working through it together, I imagine, goes towards reducing the fear that those skeletons produce. Is there anything about your situation that frightens you when it comes to money?

Chris: I'd say for me, I think I live with a slightly different fear than Olivia does because she was in college during the recession and during the recession I was absolutely broke. New father, first time in my entire life getting a little bit of help from family and barely being able to make it, almost had to move back to the Midwest where I grew up. So, for me I've always got like a gut check for myself that something can turn, to be very careful about finances. I'm in sales and my career has grown fantastically well since 2010 coming out of the recession. But if something big happens again, say the market slows down, I know that the majority of my income is actually variable and not fixed. So it really changes how I save money and how much I keep in reserve.

{00:23:53.06}

Dalmar: Yeah, so tell me about that. Aditi and I talk about this sometimes. One of my heroes in general but specifically when it comes to money and investing, is Warren Buffett. He talks a lot about how growing up in the Depression and seeing sort of the effect that had on his family. It left a deep impression on him. What did the 2008 recession change about your outlook on money or the way that you used it or saved it or spent it?

Chris: You know he looks at long term plays. I mean one of the successes I had out of the recession just by being at the right time in right place here in the Bay Area was the housing market. That's where I like to play it safe - investing in the housing market, in my own house, continuing to build that equity. I know that if the recession hits like in 2000 or in 2008, in five to seven years it'll be above where it was before. As long as you've maintained enough cash on hand to be able to keep yourself afloat or not pull all of your equity out of that asset. So, for me I've looked at the things that long-term there's only so much you know Lafayette, California, East Bay that's going to go around. There's only so much Tahoe, there's only so much Hawaii. If there's a major global shift or the polar ice caps finally give out, these places are probably going to maintain pretty much the same.

{00:25:16.11}

Aditi: So you guys are super savvy at this point. Listening to you, you sound like you know what you're doing. What's one piece of advice you give our listeners that you learned early or you've gotten from somebody even in hindsight? On this platform that millions of people are listening to.

Dalmar: Don't worry, it's not millions yet. I think it was 50 some odd people on last time, accounting for the last episode, so no pressure. Not yet anyhow. One day it will be millions.

Olivia: The one thing that has really helped me maintain my finances is balancing and budgeting and knowing how much you're going to put aside whether it's for your own personal saving or your 401K. Giving yourself a buffer and then really being conscious of how much I have to build or play. Being very careful about what we put on our credit cards. I monitor our credit card almost daily because I’m very nervous about going into debt. I still do have some of that student loan debt and I'm just very conscious and aware of how much it's spending. I'm always making a mental note, “Oh well if I spend twenty five dollars on this person then I might have X amount in my accounts.” I never leave it so that I'm surprised when I log in and look at my bank account. I really like to be on top of how much I have and where it is.

Chris: What I would add to that is to know your limitations. You know I might sound smart rattling off a little bit about long term investments in real estate but I have no idea how much I need to be saving for retirement, for our children's education, how much I plan on my income or career growing. Having an idea and a plan for that has been incredibly important to reducing our stress as a couple. So couples and individuals out there, get a good financial adviser who knows what they're doing. Sit down and work out a plan with them, even if you really understand the details or not. Put some trust into that individual and let them go invest your money and make sure you have a good plan.

{00:27:33.40}

Dalmar: How often do the two of you talk about money or things related to money?

Chris: Almost every day. There’s always something that comes up with money.

Dalmar: And who tends to bring up the conversations?

Chris: There's little things that bring up money every single day or every single week. We just recently had our son start in pre-school so there's that added expense. There's the discussion of the additional expenses that go into child care on a regular basis, the grocery shopping, the other little things that we're doing here and there. So, I think it's also because we have a pretty low barrier for when we want to discuss any type of purchase or financial transaction. So, you know outside of the normal coffee/lunch type stuff, when we're thinking about something or making a purchase, we communicate with each other.

{00:28:26.96}

Dalmar: And outside of those sort of regular check-ins maybe daily maybe every other day. Do you have like one big sit down at all. And if so what does that look like and how often does it happen?

Olivia: We haven’t a big sit down for a while actually but both are very honest and transparent with how much money we have coming in. If the other person is having trouble or might not be able to pay for something one day, we’re pretty open with each other about it. I think that another daily discussion that we have is then Venmo-charging each other for any emotional damage that we caused to one another. Hahaha.

Dalmar: That's the first we've heard of our couples Venmo’ing or loaning each other money for for emotional damage. That’s great. That’s a good one.

Olivia: Try it next time when you get in a fight - just bring up how much you're going to charge them afterwards.

{indistinct talking and laughter happening between Aditi and Olivia}

Chris: And it goes a long way if you proactively shoot over a little bit of money for admittedly being an a-hole.

Dalmar: Who started that first?

Olivia: I think I brought it up as a joke one day when he was getting a little feisty with me and I saw that it was right before an argument was nearing a climax and I said “You know, if you don’t knock this off, I’ll start charging you for emotional damage.

Dalmar: An asshole tax!

Olivia: Exactly. A couple of weeks ago we got pretty hot with each other and I woke up to a couple of Venmo notes charges. I kind of laughed because I was like “Okay, you’re right.”

Dalmar: That's amazing. I can always rely on chocolate molten lava cakes to bribe Aditi. So, if I feel like I've been I've been a big jerk, grabbing one of those usually does the trick. Either that or Smart Pop.

Aditi: Don't reveal all my secrets, babe.

Dalmar: That's right. If anyone wants to bring down Aditi’s empire, come bearing chocolate molten lava cakes and smart pop.

Aditi: I'm seriously gonna kill you. You need to stop talking.

Chris: That's great. Well, for Olivia, it’s a dozen donuts. It gets you out of trouble.

Aditi: Olivia, you're a woman after my own heart. I can't even deny it.

Dalmar: Great, let’s transition to the second half of our conversation. I asked the both of you a handful of questions before we got on the call. And this is our version of the Honeymoon Game where rather than asking the both of you embarrassing questions in front of all of your family and friends, we're going to ask you questions related specifically to your finances. We've asked each of you to write your answers down individually and privately and we're gonna share those now on the air.

{00:31:11.61}

Dalmar: If your partner won the lottery and the winnings were a million dollars, what would be the first thing they spent the money on. Olivia, why don't you go first.

Olivia: Chris would probably buy a property in Hawaii. It feels like it's right answer but I don't know. He’s kind of a sometimes.

Dalmar: Chris, how accurate is she?

Chris: She is 100% accurate.

{00:31:52.86}

Aditi: That's awesome. I love it. Chris, what would Olivia do?

Chris: It would be some type of an extended European vacation, leave of absence, see the world type event.

Olivia: Oh my God, it's definitely a one way ticket to Europe.

Dalmar: That's amazing.

{00:32:07.68}

Aditi: Wow you guys, that's one for one right now. Okay, next question. What's one purchase that your partner’s made in the last years that you're still trying to understand.

Olivia: Chris you want to go first?

Chris: Yeah, it's really a couple purchases that are the same type of impulse purchase that I don't normally see from Olivia. It's these little on-demand boxes for clothes or jewelry or a bunch of vegetables that are imperfect and also spoiled and moldy the next day. And I just don't understand that because it's not like Olivia to make some bad impulse purchases like that but she’s done it like five times this year.

Dalmar: You know those imperfect vegetables….

Aditi: She knows exactly what you're talking about.

Dalmar: From the way she's laughing and so do I. Embarrassingly so. I think their branding is just really spot on. I've seen this at a couple of farmer's markets as well. These imperfect vegetables and combination of the packaging and the story just gets to my hipster heart. Makes me want to purchase it right away.

Olivia: Yeah I'm guilty.

Dalmar: I've resisted it only because Aditi and I had many conversations about vegetables or produce that I've bought that has gone on to spoil over the course of a week. So I'm better about that.

Aditi: Dalmar, don't forget to eat the strawberries in the fridge okay?

{00:33:25.83}

Dalmar: I'm on it. Olivia, I may or may not bring strawberries to the office tomorrow. Olivia how would you answer that question?

Olivia: Everything that he's purchased has made sense or if I questioned it for a second few days or a week, later I understand. So, I really don't think there's anything that I can say to that.

Chris: Yeah, I mean really that's a trick question for Olivia because I will go to great lengths to not spend money. I’m incredibly practical and really hard to shop for and that's probably her biggest struggle. So, there's nothing to question cause I just don’t buy anything

Aditi: That's really funny. So maybe it's an experience and not a thing.

{00:34:05.46}

Dalmar: Complete the following sentence. When it comes to money, one thing we can't agree on is {Blank}? Why don’t you go first this time Chris.

Chris: Where to invest outside of our current investing with our financial advisor.

Olivia: Did you look at my sheet before you walked out?

Chris: No, I know. The last time we talked about it, you had an anxiety attack and I realized that the good problem we have of extra cash and shouldn't make you fall off the deep end.

Olivia: I actually wrote down where to purchase an investment property. We keep flip flopping.

Dalmar: You two are in sync.

Aditi: That's actually a really good one to bring up Chris. I feel like that is a hard one because you have an opportunity ahead of you and you have to make a decision and it's money that you’ve save and really sort of have an ability to help grow your wealth. It's a tricky conversation.

Olivia: We both agreed that that's the move we want to make. We both want to make an investment into a property but we just don’t know where.

{00:35:15.03}

Aditi: What sort of money questions do you think is really important to ask your partner when things start to get serious?

Chris: In that question you mean when a relationship starts to get serious?

Aditi: Yeah.

Chris: Okay, just want to make sure.

Olivia: I brought it back to what Chris and I talked about at our engaged weekend - how much debt do you have or and or how much savings if any?

Chris: Not too much different. I really did go back to the same experience that we had in our offsite with the other engaged couples - what percentage of your net income goes to bills monthly.

Aditi: Ok, if you were playing the actual honeymoon game, you'd win. Also I just saw a guy walk out of the men's restroom with a Shiba Inu dog. Sigh, LA. Ok, last question.

{00:36:11.53}

Dalmar: What's your spending number. Let's start with you Olivia.

Olivia: I said anything over a thousand which I know it’s steep but I mean Chris and I really don't make very big purchases without consulting one another. I feel like anything that warrants over being a thousand, like a car or something up. I don't know. I guess I was confused.

Dalmar: Chris.

Chris: No, I was going to say was a thousand but I remember I had a good quarter at work and I was looking at skis and I remember them being under that and I remember feeling uncomfortable making that purchase without talking to Olivia about it. So I said $500. It’s not that we need to sit there and scrutinize the whys and what's, it’s just a heads up for us. I think that's outside of the norm of what we would purchase on any sort of regular basis.

Dalmar: This is great. Thank you, Olivia, Chris. I really enjoyed the conversation tonight. Aditi, I think we made it work. You're calling in from LAX.

Olivia: Always happy to do something especially for you guys and it sounds like it's gonna be great.

Aditi: You guys are just absolutely awesome. Not only are your voices so well suited for radio, it’s also so fun to hear your story. I love the level of variety in your experiences and the difference between the two of you too. It clearly works and it's really fun to talk to folks like you. And you both are also insanely cute (together).

Chris: Well, thank you and be sure to tune into our 3 am weekday show. Hahaha.

{00:38:25.33}

{END}

Spread the love!

To safely consume this site, we recommend reading this disclaimer. Any outbound links will take you away from Zeta, to external sites in the world wide web. Just so you know, Zeta doesn’t endorse any linked websites nor do we pay/bribe anyone to appear on here. Any reference to prices on the site are just estimates; actual prices are up to specific merchants and their current desire to charge you for things. Also, nothing on this website should be construed as investment advice. We’re here to share our favorite tools, tactics and tips for managing your money together. This content is for your responsible consumption. Please don’t see this as a recommendation to buy specific investments or go on a crypto-binge. Lastly, we 100% believe that personal finance is exactly that, personal. We may sometimes publish content on this website that has been created by affiliated or unaffiliated partners such as employees, advisors or writers. Unless we explicitly say so, these post do not necessarily represent the actual views or opinions of Zeta.

By using this website, you understand the content presented is provided for informational purposes only and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

1Zeta is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Piermont Bank; Member FDIC. All deposit accounts of the same ownership and/or vesting held at the issuing bank are combined and insured under an FDIC Certificate of $250,000 per depositor. The Zeta Mastercard® Debit Card is issued by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license by Mastercard International Incorporated and can be used everywhere Mastercard is accepted.

2Zeta Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is effective as of 05/01/2023, for customers who qualify for VIP status. Minimum amount to open an account is $0.00. Minimum balance to earn the APY is $0.01. Interest rates are as follows: 2.43% APY applies to the entire balance for customers who qualify for VIP status. Interest rates may change after the account is opened. Fees may reduce earnings.