Building Understanding and Getting on the Same Page with Travis Parry - 181

Welcome Money Buddies to this week's episode of Money Talk. This week we're talking about being on the same page, sharing a bank account, and leveling up financially. I'm your host, Skyler Fleming, and let's get talking. Whether you're married or not, have you ever been on the same page as someone about something like you're on that same in sync page? How does that feel? How does it feel to be in sync? Especially if you're married? It feels phenomenal. I. This is something that I'm sure we are all striving for financially, is to feel in sync either with ourselves, with our own goals, or of course with a spouse if we are married. If you're married, you'll certainly know the struggle of one person being on the budgeting cost cutting page, while another is on the investing and spending page. There are a lot of different phases throughout your financial journey that we can find ourselves in. So syncing those up to make sure our actions and our ideas are staying consistent with our goals. Is paramount. I know that for my wife and me when we are on the same financial page, it feels like we're racing in giant strides and it's phenomenal. So I hope for each and every one of you listening that you are going to be able to take something away that will help you get on the same page with your goals or with your spouse and your combined goals. So be sure to stick around at the end so we can cover the great money talking points from this episode. Today's Money Buddy is Travis Perry. Dr. Travis Perry is a number one bestselling author of Achieving Balance and Marry and Grow Rich. He's earned a master's in psychology and a PhD in family relations to better understand finances from a psychological and family perspective. Travis is the founder of the Make Time Institute and has helped thousands of business owners and couples in all 50 states achieve their financial goals. He is an international speaker and a podcast host of the Balanced Growth Show. However, his greatest accomplishment in life is being a husband to his wife for 22 years, and a father to their amazing eight children. So I'm excited for you to meet Travis today. This interview coming up is phenomenal. Let's talk about the money talking points real quick so you know what you can look forward to after the interview is done. The money talking points for this week are, what page are you trying to get to? Two, how would it feel to be in sync with your goals or with your spouse? And three, what challenges do you need to overcome to get on the same page with those money talking points in mind? Let's get talking and welcome Travis to the show.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

this is gonna be a great one. We're talking about getting on the same page financially, which can be so clutch and so crucial for couples, but we're also gonna touch on it for those who might not be married, How is handling money difficult when two people are on different pages?

I think the, the biggest issue for most couples is they don't see themselves as two individuals with. Separate money history. Well, what, what is a money history? Lemme break this down. Money history is a combined, you know, psychological relationship that you have with money plus your experiences. where do those typically come from? a lot of times from your family of origin. it may be also that your parents have, you know, had similar money, you know, history issues, but they brought that from their parents. So just like he would go into a doctor and say, doc, I've got this potential problem. He might say, well, tell me about your family history.'cause he is looking at genetics. he is looking at also, he is probably looking at where these behaviors might have been learned. So we focus on the learned behavior. what psychological money history do you have? regardless if you're married or not, all of us have a money history. All of us have a family of origin. it looks different for everyone. I've studied families long enough to know that. But what we all have in common is an idea around what money is, what it isn't. What it can do, what it can't do, our perception of what, money means in our life and moving forward. Then you take another person, and this is where the marriage comes into play and you're married and you share resources and time and everything. and then you try to work together on money. Well, if the two of you are not on that same page, you don't agree. You can, learn communication skills all you want. But if you don't understand why your spouse is thinking about these things in a different point of view, you're gonna be just talking past each other.

Yeah, that's perfect. I'm excited. Now You got my mind thinking about how this can apply to people who aren't married with your family history and your money history. One of my favorite questions to ask people is kind of like an icebreaker. a get to know you question, it's what's your first money memory? And I think that goes right in line with your family history, money, idea of where did you come from with money? Is your first money memory, your parents fighting about it? Is it your parents buying you whatever you want so you feel like you should be spoiled and have whatever you want? There's a whole lot of things that go into that, whether you're married or not. How do people start off? understanding themselves on that level.

I think the first thing is to understand what is the psychological relationship you have with money? how do you know what that is? in basics. we can look at money as a, a kind of a, a, abundance mentality, meaning. You believe that there's, there's enough and there's plenty. Or you can have a very scarce mentality. a lot of us that study psychology or understand much about, money, relationships. Know that our mentalities help us make those decisions. Your thoughts can help you make and change habits, That's where I like to begin is where are you? And most people who have a scarcity mentality usually don't understand money very well. What do I mean by that? when I say the word money, money words have meaning. I. I've come to understand that money isn't actually what we think it is is the value that we place on that currency. Some of us will devalue it. Somebody think, well, money's dumb. I hate it. I hear this a lot money doesn't grow on trees. scarcity mentality, or money is evil, right? All of those ideas, they're very scarce. I. if you wanna follow people who are wealthy and you want to become wealthy, you can't think scarcity. You have to make a mental mindset shift. what help people do is realize, well, where did those scarcity mindsets come from? I. Most time men and women, it's their own parents. So like you mentioned, what's your first money memory?

Yeah.

One that they can remember is typically something related to their parents. Maybe their parents argued about money. Maybe money was a problem growing up, maybe it wasn't. Maybe they spent it like crazy. for example, on a, on a married couple. I have a, a client who, he's a business owner and he brings in a lot of money at one time, and then it's kind of scarce for a little while. the wife, for whatever reason, would just spend it into oblivion. She knows that. Money might not be coming in. So she had this very scarce mindset, As we dove into where her belief systems came from, we got to her mother. She's like, yeah, my mom always had a really scarce mentality. And she's like, I don't know why. I said, well, how about your, your, your, you know, your grandparents, your mother's parents? You said, oh yeah, my grandpa. Oh, and it just clicked. he was a depression era baby, and so was mom, but he always told me that money was evil, I don't believe that.

But there's a piece that did

Yes. And that's the thing is those memories hang out in your subconscious. Our conscious might say, I need money. But our subconscious, if it's saying Money is evil, then what she was doing, as soon as money came in, she spent it so she didn't have it'cause she

Yeah. I didn't have that weight Yeah. that's so fascinating. And I know we're off a little bit of what the initial podcast was supposed to be about, but this is so interesting for people to understand where their money beliefs come from. I'll share a story real quick about. Me and my wife is something we have to learn. my wife and I after a couple of our budget meetings that we like to do. That my wife was beginning to feel like I was restricting money in a similar way that she saw maybe her parents deal with. And we, I mentioned that, and that was that click moment, like you said, for the grandparents realizing, I was like, oh, you are beginning to feel that fear that I'm not gonna let you have fun with money or whatever it might be. when it clicked for that, we were able to move past it so fast because we were able to make awareness to it and then we got on the same page. So I, I love that idea that you shared of being able to just think back a couple, maybe your parents, maybe their parents, and figure out what clicks in terms of why you deal with money the way you do

And I would say those who aren't married are like, ah, whatever. the reality is that, Most people in America want to be married. it's gonna be a future event that happens. And even people who divorce, they wanna marry again. so, you know, think about this as great marriage prep because one of the most. Divisive arguments in marriage is about money. I got to this place because I saw how divisive this was for my married clients when I was a financial advisor. I saw how much, people were divided and I couldn't figure out why, like, why can't we change this? Well, it's because it's in their psychology I wasn't trained until I, received a master's in psychology and really dug into this very specifically the next piece of this is how you communicate about it, what you learn, effective communication skills, anyone listening to this would do better in life. By having better communication skills. It's not just gonna help with marriage, but learning to listen, not just listen to reply, which a lot of us do. and some of it is because, I'm afraid I'm gonna forget my thought or whatever. But if you truly listen with intent to understand, you might not have to say anything.

Yep, that's what I was

listening and just listen and listen. I will say that sometimes, there are male and female differences here with listening. Guys are listening so that they can fix it.'cause that's what they're, honestly, they're programmed to do, let me fix, let me fix, lemme fix. And then a woman a lot of times wants issues and problems to feel validated. and I'm not saying you complain about life'cause no one wants to listen to you complain all day, every day. It gets really old. but as a married couple, there's times where you need to talk about things and listen. a great rule of thumb is I like to tell men, especially ask your wife or a friend or family member, single or married, Ask that person, do you want me to listen to help you or do you want me to listen to listen

Yeah. And that can be a huge step. And even like you said, getting better communication skills. Sometimes that just means communicating at all. outside of the tragic situation of a spouse cheating on another spouse, I would say money is the biggest issue that leads to divorce. there's so much that goes into it beyond just the money. currency is the, objective thing and money is the subjective thing that we apply so many more emotions and behaviors and such too, that if you're not talking about that money aspect, it bleeds into all these other areas, whether you're ready for it or not. you don't have to have perfect communication or some sort of degree in communication in order to talk about money, but you gotta talk about it at all. Is kind of even the the entry level of beginning to get on that same page. But have you ever not been on the same page? I'm sure there's plenty of people listening are struggling with that. What is it like to not be on the same page as your spouse financially?

I would say this about my wife and I, there were earlier times in our marriage where we really struggled with this, but we tried. the very first week after we got back from the honeymoon, we sat down and said, okay, let's look at our budget. Let's create a plan and start figuring this out. at first my wife was like, no, I don't wanna do this. her parents didn't really see eye to eye on money and they ended up getting a divorce. I'm not saying that money is. Always the problem but the point is that we have done the budgeting. Every week thereafter, almost every single week. we're trying to be on the same page. It takes work because if I bring my money history, and maybe sometimes it's scarce, and sometimes it's, good but maybe there's times where hers is kind of scarce and worried and afraid and, and there are concerns that we have. We have to look at the emotional side. We have to look at the psychological pieces so that we can work together as a team. in my book, I actually have several assessments and one of'em is look at where are you personally and then where is your spouse, and then how do you line up? I. Because once you know what kind of money script you are following, there are some money scripts that are so polar opposite that it doesn't matter how much you listen to each other It's just so ingrained in you psychologically that you're not gonna be able to move and you're gonna be fighting about it all the time. Does that make sense? I worked with Jeff Dee at Utah State University when I was doing my PhD, he had the majority of studies done on couples and money. He's the money and couples expert I was learning from. he found that money, is actually the number one thing that couples fight about. when they fight about money, it's the most emotional of any other topic, including sex. while some people might say, divorce happened because, someone was unfaithful, Some people are unfaithful with their money. We call it financial infidelity, and they might steal from each other. I had a client whose spouse stole from him and he's like, that was the last straw. some people purport that money is the number one cause we can't actually predict. in family science, we can only come back and look at predictors and say, money was a big part of that and it keeps showing up. Number one argument. The longest lasting, the most emotional of any other type of argument. when people come to therapy, the number one thing they say they're there for is for communication.

Hmm.

But if the number one thing that they're miscommunicating about is money, they're there for money communication. most therapists are not trained in money at all whatsoever.

Yeah, it's like we understand the groundwork that we have to have in place in order to do well with money, but then we don't realize that still has a financial element that we need to understand and employ. Like you said, therapists and things like that aren't financial coaches. They aren't financial planners that are prepared to say, oh, I understand why that financial thing or financial history piece. They have a completely different tool set. But speaking of financial specifics and how people can be on the same page, I know you mentioned spouses stealing from each other or maybe using each other's money when they feel like it's their money or it's not our money is combined accounts, are those the only way to be on the same page financially? Is it possible to still do things separately or do they all have to come into one to really do it well?

you bring something up that if you just typed in Google, like, same page financially or something like that, this is the litmus test. do you have a shared bank account? I think it's a great question, but you're looking at the construct versus the subjective first. you're on the same page financially if you're working together toward whatever end goal you have. Most couples don't even have end goals they share together. So they make the argument about like, well, we have a shared bank account. You mean you have a, a place where you can both dip in, without any accountability or discussion? it may not even matter. Does that make sense? So I think.

be separate,

Yes, abs. That's exactly it. Skylar, they may be separate using the same shared resource, but they're not on the same page. In general, what the research has found is that, married couples, trust each other. They love each other. They're committed. They put it on paper, it's on tax returns, the whole nine yards. those who are living together, this is a different discussion. the point is, when you're married, You trust each other. So I would suggest that in especially first marriages, you have the same bank accounts for almost everything. But that doesn't mean you can't have your own individual account for your own spending.

Mm-hmm.

Does that make

And that, that was the key for my wife. like when me and my wife were kind of dealing with this combination or bringing things together, the key was she didn't want to feel like every single amount of her spending had this helicopter bird's eye view over it by me and simply having her to have. One credit card where we wouldn't share where we were spending money. I wasn't worried about that aspect, but she just wanted something that had just her name on it she could spend in a pinch, or that she could spend on a gift for me. But it was still a joint account. And I think even more important is joint goals. Like that was what was combined.

Yeah, so that's the most important part. because my opinion is you should still share resources because you need that financial intimacy. And a lot of times people are like, well, we're in the second marriage. We're just gonna keep things separate. I'm like, well, that's probably what led to some of the problems in your first marriage, capish. So it was like, well, no, you've gotta learn this, or it's just gonna keep repeating itself worse and worse. shared resources, shared bank accounts, individual to keep your spending money and under accountable, you know, reasons, but then assets, keep those separate if you're in a remarriage situation and care about legacy and estate planning. Otherwise, if you're married, you know, do what's best. You know, there, there may be situations where the wife needs to be on the business or the wife needs to be on the property or not, or the both of you. That's not really the point. The point is. Are you on the same page psychologically? Do you have the same, same shared goals? And the research that we've done on shared goals is couples with, with, with shared goals and values, are not only happier psychologically, they are more satisfied in their marriage and more stable in their finances.

That's fantastic. And like I said, I'm hearing joint goals are more important than joint bank accounts. just coming into a marriage and saying, okay, we're gonna put our money in one pool and then we're gonna be good with money. That is. So much less than you actually need to think about and consider. Joint goals before joint banks. I think that's a good way to wrap that discussion up make sure you're on the same page, which is what we're about to get into, how you can actually get there and what's the whole episode is about, same page stuff, right? So let's actually talk about how people can move into it and begin to get on that same page. A couple people are listening right now and they're like, yeah, me and my spouse we're on different pages. I'm here listening to finance podcasts. They're out spending money or whatever. How do they begin to bring up a conversation between spouses to try to get on that same page?

So what I recommend is, my wife and I, just. Sat down and started talking about it, but then how do you continually do that? I came up with this term, I don't think it's original, but Monday money nights for us set up a time, once a week, once a month at minimum. weekly is a, is a great time to just kind of maintain. Once a month you'll be looking at. Your spending plan, I don't like to call it a budget. Budget seems restricting. It seems constricting. And we wanna look at growth. We wanna look at abundance mindset, but there still needs to be limits and boundaries. So, you, you, you'll sit down and create what that, spending plan will be to help you achieve your goals. if a budget for budget's sake is like a diet for diet's sake. if you're gonna stop the diet, if you don't like what it tastes like and you don't like how you feel, but if you have a goal and you want to achieve something and you're do this together, then you're gonna help each other. You're gonna work towards

Mm-hmm.

And some goals, you know, especially for my wife and I, we love to travel, we love to take our kids places. We love to go alone on getaways. a lot of it is like, well, we're gonna save some money. We're gonna spend, on these important priorities. then we're going to, use, this money when we hit our goals to reward ourselves with this travel and fun things. It doesn't, it's not always like adulting, you know?

Yeah,

it doesn't have to be painful. It doesn't have to be now. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you have to make decisions

be tears sometimes.

I absolutely, my wife and I have had to sit down and we sold a dream piece of property'cause it just wasn't the right time. Five acres of beautiful land we thought we were gonna build our dream home on. And the economy and, and covid and everything just kind of took everything in a different direction and we had to bail on it. that I think it was more emotional for me than it was for my wife. I was the one crying tears about it. I think the important part, is to first have a place where you. Can set goals together. Most couples don't do this. Most couples kind of have this, this real quick. They, very gender, stereotypical, most women, the female in the home, she's usually the one who controls the pocketbook or the spending, right? And most men are typically the ones Dealing with the investing, But if you can both be on the same page and the wife knows where the husband is investing the money. That's great. And if the husband knows that the wife is taking care of, the household, he doesn't have to micromanage everything that she's doing. my my suggestion typically is just know what's going on and let her do that. if she's the one who's really good. Now, if it's vice versa, that's fine. If don't care who actually carries out the responsibility, but just be one. The decisions just be together so that there's no second guessing. There's no wondering, there's no tiptoeing around, there's no doing things shady in the In the darkness.

Yeah, I loved the idea that you mentioned there of your money Monday nights, or it could be your money talk Mondays or your budget meeting Sundays, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't matter. My wife and I, we have our monthly budget meeting and I have a free resource on my website for that, for anyone listening if you want to get started there. We also talk about money weekly with our spreadsheet, we don't spend much more than three to five minutes on it saying, oh, these categories are heading towards the end of the budget for the month, or the spending plan, like you like to call it. And we're just aware that that is getting near the end and we say, Hey, maybe we need to take a step back on spending, or we need to be a little bit more cognizant of it. But that regular conversation is crucial towards us not feeling like the end of the month comes up and I'm like. How did, how did I spend so much on Amazon? Or how did my wife spend so much at Joanne's or whatever, like all these different stores because we're talking about it throughout the month. So that way if it does get overboard, there's not that last week of the month where you're spending so much, you can kind of reel it in. So I love the idea of that regular consistent money talk between people. What can people do to begin some small steps to feel like they're on the same page? Because maybe this big regular meeting seems a little overwhelming right

Yeah. Yeah.

What are some small steps they can take?

So in my book I talk about this in part three, there's really three things you ought to do. The first is evaluate what are your own individual blocks keeping you from having an abundance mindset. What is it that you're thinking? go back to your money history. how can you change your money history? in my book, I talk about how to get past these limiting beliefs and blocks and, start to create this new mindset. a lot of it has to do with forgiving your parents. Forgiving your grandparents, and having a better understanding of what money is. And then, getting past these fears, these subconscious fears that are holding you back. It might be a fear of failure or it might be a fear of success. You might be afraid to invest money because you're afraid you're gonna lose it like your grandparents did. whatever investment they did that they lost their life savings in. Or you might, struggle to know, well, I don't come for money. So if we invest money and we actually make money, well then what?

Yeah.

Then?

a weird spot to be in. My wife and I are dealing with that because my wife is a physician assistant and she's making more money than either of us have ever seen in our lives. And it's such a, privileged place to be where you're like, what do we do with all this money? So like, we don't take it for granted. But also you have to be careful. You have to be aware of not letting lifestyle creep come in. Still having those regular conversations, because it would be easy enough for us to just take a step back and just spend money however we want because we are seeing this money come in. So you still have to be careful and on the same page, regardless of too much or too little.

That's right. I a hundred percent agree with that. the second piece is creating shared financial goals with your spouse, which we talked about a little bit. But what do those look like? It's not just spending plan. Spending plan. That's the tool to help you get there. I talk about my first book about achieving your life's goals and your time management Is like a budget or a spending time plan, of where you're spending your time, right? So think of it as the tool. Money's the tool, just like time is the tool. so then what is your long-term desires, goals, dreams? Where do you guys wanna be? it doesn't have to be about something that you, consume, like a home or a car but it could be a business. some business owners, really care about that. Maybe it's education for your kids. What. Ever it is flush all of those out to know like, where are you? Short-term, midterm, long-term, even end of life? Where do you wanna be financially? And then work backwards and say, here's our spending plan for the year, the month, the week. and be really organized. The ones who are more organized are gonna track. Now I know there's this flex where, well, we make so much money, we don't have to track it anymore. To me, that's bogus. it doesn't matter how much money my wife and I have ever made, we've made millions and we've lost it. I've been on both sides of the coin. I didn't come from money. my parents, struggled with it a lot, which is the reason why I've studied this and helped people. I do believe that God has given us this as a stewardship. Money is a stewardship. It's a responsibility. So regardless of how much money we make or how little. We're responsible for it. And if that's the case, then I'm gonna be answering for that someday. not that every single penny has to, you know, never be wasted. I'm not that particular, but know where it's going

Is it in line with your

goals? Is it in line with your values and your goals? Because you will feel out of alignment. And that's quite honestly what I consider balance. balance is being aligned with your values, your goals, your priorities in life. And if your money is helping to facilitate those values and priorities, you're gonna feel it, you will feel good. The last thing is, if you have a business. Or, if you're earning money by working for someone else, then grow the business. Invest in the business. If you're working for someone else, then be the best employee, the best, person they've ever had that can help that business to grow, because that's what they're in business for. be invaluable to them. And one of the best ways you can do that is being productive. If my first book Achieving Balance is all about productivity goals, time management, and I, I really lay out my make time method to help you improve that way. you have those three, your psychology, you're on the same page financially with your spouse, and then you're earning money or bringing in more money from the business that's gonna help you. So many people, like they wanna budget and only budget, they don't wanna look at where the income is coming

Yes.

Yeah, that's huge.

You gotta make sure you know where it's actually coming from and that you're actually having an ability to make more. I talked about in that episode I was mentioning there is a spending floor. There's only so much you can go down with your budget. But you can continue to increase that cap on your income and continue that to go up and up. we are coming to the end of our time here, so I do have a couple last questions I wanna ask you. Let's end on a motivational note. How has being on the same page financially helped you in your life? Or how will it benefit others?

Yeah, so personally, when my wife and I were not on the same page, even though we were doing the spending plan, we were trying to like do the things right. I found that there just a lot of friction, stress, worry, and fear. but as a business owner, I think the hardest thing is knowing how to smooth that out. There are hills and there are valleys in any business. I don't care what business that you're in, it's gonna flow up and down. So having the patience and just the long-term perspective is huge, that's really helped my wife and I. there's something that we haven't, we've talked about money, infidelity, where you're stealing from each other, but there's another aspect. There's money fidelity or financial intimacy is this connection. if you're feeling like you can really trust your spouse with money You have a sense of intimacy that can help the relationship. It is a huge boon and in a place where we've talked about like, well, if money is the number one predictor and it's the longest lasting, the initial conversation and it brings people to therapy all. If you can turn that around and make that your strength. What that does for the relationship is a whole new level of your marriage. for me and my wife, it's really brought us to a whole new place. We see money as a stewardship. We have an abundance mentality, and we know that business could 10 x at any time, and we would be ready. This is one of the last thoughts I wanna leave you with, and that is, I have a strong belief in God, and I believe that sometimes you're like, Why am I not earning more? How am I not making more? Why is my business not growing? Maybe you're not ready for it. Maybe the thing you need to do is prepare for that hill and preparing for it by showing that you can be a good steward of what you've already been given instead of begging for more. Why would God, why would the universe, whatever you wanna call, why, why would you be given more if you can't handle it? Most who win the lottery. Like nine out of 10 and win the lottery, go bankrupt in three years and divorced in three to four. Why? It's because they've never handled that much money being their in life, and so boom, it's gone.

money's an amplifier in that way where when you run into large amounts, if you're not ready, if you're on different pages, that rift is gonna become bigger and bigger and bigger when you start running into those larger sums of money. that's fantastic. Travis, thank you so much for being on. I have two final questions here to wrap up so people can find you Real quick, how can people connect with you or your book? And then the very last question is, what's gonna be just one thing you wish you knew sooner when it comes to being on the same financial page?

I love that. first you wanna grab my book, Mary and Grow Rich? It is at Mary and grow rich book.com. if you wanna know everything about me and my speaking, my podcast, my other book, my courses, you can get that at Make Time Institute. Dot com, make time institute.com is where you can find everything about, me and the work that I do. and then that last question, something I wish I would've known before, You know, I wished I had understood how important, my wife's thoughts and feelings were about money, not just communicating again, but it's really understanding where she came from. Her parents struggled with money and I tried to help them with it, you know, and a little, little, little too late. and they ended up getting divorced and, and they went through ba, they went through bankruptcy and then got divorced. I wish that, I would've, earlier on in our marriage, really, understood the emotional side of money with her. And quite honestly with me, I think I was acting out on the things I had been given as a kid. that's what drove me into financial planning. And then, as I started to see more couples struggle with money and realizing that my wife and I were kind of dealing with some of these same issues, I delved. Further into it. So I know it was a process. we never go step by step through progress. We're always going around in circles and it's messy. if I look back, I wish I would've understood that earlier on. It would've saved me a lot of grief and time and we would've healed from some of the things we've dealt with in life. So hopefully that's helpful to people out there.

Yeah, I'm sure it is. And that's one of my favorite things about doing these podcasts is I'm able to bring on experts through. Real life situations where they're able to say, here's what I learned. Don't do this or do this. And I think that's one of the things that hopefully some young couples listening to this on their honeymoon road trip or whatever, and they're saying, wow, if we can get ahead of money right now, we can start that next level in month two or three of our marriage versus year two or three or 10 or 20. So Travis, that's a fantastic place to leave it on. Thank you so much for sharing so much great information.

Thanks for having me.

Once again, thank you so much to Travis for coming on the show. I know I enjoyed that interview a lot. Lemme know what you think by sending me a text message or leaving a comment wherever you're listening to this.

I'd love to hear some feedback about these interviews. So let me know what you thought, but let's get into the money talking points today. The first one is, what page are you trying to get to? Well, there are a lot of different pages or types of pages that you can be on. Are you trying to be on a pay down debt page, a savings page, an investing page, a getting outta the paycheck to paycheck cycle page? What is your primary page or goal that you want to be focused on? Identifying this for yourself is gonna make having the conversation with somebody else a whole lot easier. Otherwise, if you don't have something in mind, it could just potentially turn into an argument. If you're not sure where you want to go, especially if you're talking about this with a spouse, it could be very easy to turn this into an argument because you can both come at it with, I don't really know what page I want to be on. Here's the page I thought we were on. Oh, we're not on that page. Let's argue about it. So make sure you're being careful with this conversation and truly identifying. What page or goal you want to get to. But if you're managing money by yourself, this can be a great thing to share with a money buddy. You can tell someone else that you know what page you want to be on so that they can try to bring a different perspective to it. And that can be super helpful, especially if they bring a perspective of, oh, maybe you should scale it back and try this other idea. Or, yeah, that's an awesome page or goal for you to get to go for it. And maybe they support and encourage you and they can help by being your accountability partner. But all in all, it's important to remember to take small steps. Don't try to read a novel all in one sitting. I've read some fairly lengthy books all in one sitting, and it's just exhausting. I've done some fairly long courses in one sitting and it's just exhausting and your brain feels dead by the end and nobody enjoys it. So don't try to do all of this all at once. Take small steps, and I got a podcast episode coming up where we actually talk about this in terms of estate planning. You have to take it one step at a time. So with your goals and getting on the same page, make sure you're taking small steps towards getting on the page that you want to be on. You're not gonna be able to read a humongous novel full of every financial page that you want to cover in one sitting. But let's talk about some of the common pages, and I kind of wanna outline some examples that you could potentially put into your financial situation. So let's say you are married and you want to get out of that paycheck to paycheck lifestyle and get out of that system and page and move on to the next one. How do you approach this? Well, don't approach it with a fiery rage about how your spouse spends all of your money and you have to work every single day to support their bad spending habits because obviously that won't end well. And I'm exaggerating of course. And everyone listening thinks what I just said is completely obvious. Like, of course you don't want to come into it with a fiery rage about how your spouse is the worst and all they do is spend your money. But saying something like, oh, you bought donuts again, or, oh, you bought X with a questioning. Tone can have a similar impact to the recipient of your question. It can make them feel like you're being hard on them for wanting to spend money. So you need to make sure to be careful how you're coming at it because my exaggerative explanation and crazy situation. That I said at the beginning could have the same impact as simply questioning somebody's purchase. So make sure you're being aware with the questions you're asking, because that can be a really easy way to set off some sort of big argument that really, delays you actually getting on the same page, especially with a spouse. You have to find a shared goal. We will talk about shared goals in just a second, but wasn't that idea of shared goals before shared bank accounts a great one. Lemme know what you thought about that one when I said it because I thought that one was spot on. Shared goals before shared bank accounts, you have to find a shared goal and then realize what actions don't fall within that. This is something that I learned in my public relations class. You have to create tactics or actions that support your strategies. So if you can figure out what your strategy actually is. It will be a whole lot easier for you and your spouse or whoever you're working on money with to realize what actions don't align with it. So make sure you're figuring out the strategy first. It can make it so that you never, ever, ever, ever again have to ask, oh, you purchased X. It'll make it so that you realize it's not in alignment with your overall goals and strategies, and then who knows? Maybe it is okay and it's in alignment with your plan, and then spend the money. If it's in alignment with that strategy you came up with, spend it, who cares if you're in alignment with the strategy and the actions are getting you to that strategy? Do whatever you want that falls within that. That's honestly a really fun and liberating place to get to. But let's move on to talking about goals and how it can feel to be in sync. The second money talking point is how would it feel to be in sync with your goals and your spouse? Well, I want everyone listening to this to text me using the link in the top of the show notes and tell me your answer to this following question. I would love to have some follow up about this episode and hear what everybody thinks. What would it mean to you or how would it feel? To be in sync with your goals or how would it feel to be in sync with your spouse? Text me and let me know the answer to that question for you. This is gonna be a quick money talking point because really this is one that you have to take and talk about with other people, which is going to be a massive deal and a real marriage changer for people if you can get in sync. It's a huge. Huge win. I know for my wife and I being on the same page and in sync with our goals is life-changing for the both of us. It allowed me to take my foot off the gas in terms of trying to force savings or investing and allowed us to realize together, like I said in the last segment, what the balance is of paying off debt versus investing that we need to strike to feel good about our shared goals. There's the emphasis again on shared goals. Shared goals before shared bank accounts. A shared bank account doesn't need no good if it's just a place for both spouses to pull money from, and there's no accountability towards your goals. So what challenges might lie in the way of this? That's the next money talking point. The third money talking point is what challenges do you need to overcome to get on the same page? Is there a communication or a trust issue? Well then maybe you need to contact a professional that can help you work through that. And that's okay, but maybe there's just a financial literacy issue and both of you aren't quite on the same Financial Knowledge foundation. Listening to more podcasts or attending local workshops here may be helpful. There are a lot of great books at the library that you can read and then teach your spouse or encourage them to read as well so that you can get on that same financial foundation. And by the way, one of the greatest ways for you to learn something yourself is to go and teach others. So that's even more of a great way for you to shore up your financial foundation and your knowledge around it is to teach others. Most likely it's that there's some sort of hidden mindset at play. Like what Travis and I talked about. There's likely something in the background that once you start talking about it, it can click and really help flip a switch for you. For my wife and I, we realized that she had some hiding fears about not being able to spend money or feeling like all of our money was going to go into some sort of. Inaccessible account, so we had to make sure to take precautions so that she could naturally work past that. I was so gung-ho about making sure all of our finances were entirely together in one joint account. And that freaked my wife out a little bit. Like I said, shared goals before shared bank accounts. In the beginning I was putting shared bank accounts ahead of everything else, and my wife still wanted to have her direct deposit go into a separate account in just her name, and that really confused me at the beginning. But once we realized that she wanted to make sure she still had some solo control over some money, even though it would just end up in our joint account at the end of the month after we processed it and budgeted with it, that ability to control it by sending it to the joint account on our own or paying off her own credit card with a little bit of spending on it, made all of the difference. We still tracked everything together. We still work towards goals together. It just so happened that some of our joint money was in an account that was in just her name, and that was fine. Now we do everything all in one account. All of our direct deposits go to the exact same place, and my wife could not care less about it being in the same account or that I'm managing the cash, or I'm sending the credit card payments or that I'm paying our bills and things like that. If we didn't have our regular budget meetings, I don't know if my wife would ever look at our bank accounts, which is a huge shift from where we started, but it took a long time. So realize that sometimes there may be a little bit of a mindset or mental hurdle in the background that you have to take time working through. And those things will slowly change to get to a point where you are able to be on the same page and aligned. I also have had my own hidden mindsets at play, and mine was to only optimize the math. I've told this story before, but I wanna share it here so that it doesn't sound just like my wife needed to change to conform to the way that I wanted to handle money. I also needed a change to help adjust and compromise to the way that she wanted to handle money. So mine was that my wife helped me realize that there's more than just math to all this money management. Because I wanted it to just strictly be math based. I've shared before how her student loans impacted her and how they impacted me. It's completely different for my wife, they feel like a requirement to work until they're paid off. And then I came in saying, let's only make minimum payments. So that's like that same exaggerated statement that I came in with a fiery rage and said, oh, you must work to pay off these loans, even though that's not what I said, the recipient to my response of saying, let's pay minimum payments. Was equivalent to the response of saying, you have to work so that we can pay these off over a very long period of time. Because honestly, I just wanted to optimize the math, which is not smart when you subconsciously tell your wife that you wanna force her to work for the next 10 to 15 years to make your math problem work out. So then we were able to find a middle ground. I adjusted my mindset so we could figure out a way to pay off the loans quicker, and we met in a good middle ground where now we're able to invest a good sum of money, but we're also paying these loans off quickly. Wow. That was a great few money talking points right there. This has been a fantastic episode and make sure to share it with a friend. I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these money talking points. Please text me using the link in the top of the show notes, some of your feedback. Thoughts, questions, anything like that. I hope you enjoyed the money talking points in this episode and that great interview. Let's bring this episode home. As we wrap up today's episode, I hope it's clear that getting on the same financial page with your partner or even yourself is not just about budgets, numbers, or bank accounts. It's all about understanding your own money story, uncovering hidden beliefs and building shared money goals rooted in trust and communication like Travis shared. It's not about who's right or who's wrong with money. It's about learning where you're both coming from. Financial intimacy starts with listening, patience and intentional conversations. Whether you're trying to get outta debt, save for the future, or just reduce tension around spending, identifying the page you want to be on is the first powerful step. And remember, shared goals should come before shared bank accounts. Take small steps, talk regularly, set a time like a money talk Monday and make it a habit. And most of all, know that aligning your financial goals can be a game changer, not just for your budget, but for your entire relationship, marriage and life. So what's the next page you are trying to get to text me using the link in the show notes. I'd love to hear how this episode resonated with you. But thank you for listening to today's episode. The best way to stay up to date and connected to All Things Money Talk is to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email list. Head over to Money Talk Show and submit your name and email right there on the homepage. You can also use the contact page on my website to send me any questions. And if you're looking to get started with budgeting, I'm a partner with my budget coach, a platform that connects your budget directly with me, a financial coach, and I'd love to work with you over there and help you with your budgeting. The link is in the show notes. Remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about today's topic with a fellow money buddy. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Money Talk. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming. Have a great week.

Thank you for listening to Money Talk. This show is provided for informational and entertainment purposes and may not be specific to your unique situation. Please be sure to do additional research before making any financial decisions.