Speaker 1: Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast, show number 332, where we discuss three different ways to handle couples finances with Doug Cunnington and Carl Jensen from the Mile High Five Podcast.
Guest 1: I think it’s uh, very personal and every everyone’s relationship is different and, you know, we we have our various issues, communication, uh, trust with finances and all that stuff. We have figured out how to get to a spot where we feel pretty good.
Guest: finances are one of the the biggest issues that we have to figure out and if there’s discrepancies or like if you’re moving in different directions, it could be extremely challenging. So, you know, everyone do do your best and uh, you know, good luck.
Mindy: Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me today is my favorite marine, David Pere.
Scott: Not saying much, but I appreciate it.
Mindy: I know like three more Marines.
Scott: but I mean John, like that’s who we’re comparing me to. Eh. That’s easy. Okay. I don’t he doesn’t listen to the show enough for me to talk smack.
Scott: I’m gonna make him listen this episode.
Mindy: Today is my least favorite marine, David Perret. How about that?
Scott: I’ll take it.
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Mindy: David, today we are joined by Doug Cunnington and Carl Jensen from the Mile High Five Podcast. If you’re wondering, hey, Carl Jensen, sounds like Mindy’s husband Carl Jensen. You’re right, it’s my husband. We’re going to talk to them about how they handle their, well, that sounds weird. We’re gonna talk to them about the different ways that each of them handle finances in their relationship and how David handles finances in his relationship too because there really isn’t one right way to handle your finances.
Scott: Yeah, and we are as you’ll hear on the show, we are all very different.
Mindy: Yep. And I think it’s I think we kind of cover the gamut. We’ve got completely separate, completely together, and kind of a mix trying to figure it out.
Mindy: Today we are joined by the hosts of the Mile High Fi podcast, Doug Cunnington, husband of the lovely Elizabeth and Carl Jensen, husband of the lovely me. My co-host today is David Pere, who is married to the lovely Kimberly. We have three different couples represented on this podcast today with three different ways to handle their finances. And while there’s no one right way to do it. We’re going to discuss these three different ways to handle finances within a relationship. So, everybody knows that Carl and I have combined our finances. We don’t really have to go into a lot of detail there. What I earn goes into a pot. what he earns goes into the same pot. And then all of our expenses come out of that pot and investments and whatever. Doug, let’s look at how you and Elizabeth handle your financial situation.
Guest 1: So we are pretty much 100% separate. So, I don’t know if it matters much, but we got married when we were about 30 or so. So we had things going on on our own. We already each had our own house and expenses and we were managing our budgets individually, and it just seemed easier to do that. Now, before we started recording, I did ask Elizabeth, is it okay if I mention this, she gave the approval and she actually told me that uh she didn’t trust my financial savvy when we first got married. So she was like, I don’t want to combine our finances. You may mess it up. She used different words, but you may mess it up. So we just managed it separately. I wasn’t really making any huge mistakes, but I had a little credit card debt, a little student loans, very very much within reason. Um but yeah, we we didn’t combine anything and we just left it the way it was. The good part once we joined households, um we did sort of separate the expenses that would come in. So she would pay for the mortgage and I would cover like a bunch of other stuff like cell phone or utilities or groceries or whatever. So it roughly comes about even. And the kind of remarkable thing is our net worth has kind of tracked together, um almost exactly. So it’s it’s almost a 50 50 split, just magically it worked out that way. But that’s sort of how we divide things up.
Guest 2: I have a question for you, Doug. We recently had someone on the podcast who also divided their finances and one of them, the the male who we we were interviewing had a very high paying job and his wife did not and he was talking about becoming financially independent and he said, oh, this is just going to be about me. And in the course of the interview, he even mentioned giving his wife alone. I don’t remember the details, maybe she was going back to school. But I thought maybe if you negotiated all that ahead of time, you might be okay with it since you already agreed to it going into the marriage. But how would you deal like your situation is, is pretty good because you’re both on equal footing. But if one person made a lot more than the other, do you think this could lead to friction and I think about this with Midian I too, if we had divided our finances, it would get hairy because she stayed home with the kids. So she gave up her career and I continued to work. Have you ever thought about that if if your two situations were drastically different. You don’t have kids and you have pretty much equal net worths. so it’s not as difficult.
Guest 1: Um yeah, 100%. That definitely would have caused friction even if we unfortunately, even if we probably agreed to it ahead of time, it still would end up like one of us would feel like, oh, I, I worked, I earned this money. I should have a little bit more of a say just knowing that we’re humans and, um, flawed, like we all are, but perhaps we’re a little more flawed than others. I’m not, I’m not sure, but yeah, it definitely would have caused some friction.
Mindy: Okay, so I think this is important. Carl mentioned that there are no children in your relationship. How long have you guys been married?
Guest 1: About 13 years.
Mindy: Okay. And there is no plans for kids.
Guest 1: Correct.
Mindy: Okay. So what is, let’s talk about income. What is, is there any income disparity? Do you make approximately the same? Because Carl and I definitely had huge income disparity. He says I gave up my career. I didn’t give up squat. All I did was fund our 401Ks when I was working. So it was not difficult to, uh, stay home with the kids. Plus I wanted to stay home, but this isn’t about me, Doug, this is about you.
Guest 1: Yeah, we were pretty much, um, equal salaries for a little while and then when I started my own business, it grew a little bit more, but you know, it’s still in the same ball park ish. Um, but, yeah, when I started my own business, then I wasn’t like held back by the normal, normal like corporate structure and salaries and stuff like that. But, um, yeah, for a long time, pretty much even.
Scott: I gotta question and it, I don’t know if there’s a way for me to say this that doesn’t sound sexist. So let’s just pretend that it isn’t a question that sounds that way. But I’m curious Doug, so and you’ll you’ll understand the context for me asking this question more as I dig into my story. But, uh, did you have like how did you feel when your now wife, I don’t remember if she said it when you guys were getting married or already married was like, I don’t really trust you to run our finances, so I don’t want to mix them. Like because I grew up in a household that was very like everything’s together and traditional. and I again, we’ll kind of unpack as I talk through my journey, but we were together and then apart and now kind of a combination. And when we made that split to run things separately, I mean, it it is still to this day something that’s hard for me to uh internalize as a man. So I’m just curious if that was a hard conversation for you.
Guest 1: Yeah, I I don’t think so. and I I was going to say usually uh I’ll hold a grudge. So like I I would probably remember if I had an issue with it. But I think I also have, you know, pretty thick skin and I was like, oh, that makes sense. Like we’ll see how it goes. I guess I felt confident enough that I did have my act together and I was like, oh, if you don’t believe in me, I mean, I believe in myself, that’s okay. But I didn’t take it um, in an odd way because it was personal, I didn’t take it personal for some reason. But yeah, that totally that completely makes sense and and actually you reminded me of like one other one other aspect and I’m, I’m curious for everyone, like because we both manage our own finances and then our combined. we have a very good understanding of what’s going on like full like the big picture, our individual finances as well. So like we both have a just a little bit more involvement. So yeah, I’m curious with the other, uh, scenarios with the combined finances, is it kind of delegated and one person worries about the finances and then the other one doesn’t worry as much?
Guest 2: Yeah, I would say that’s very much the case with us and it’s it’s, I don’t think it’s anything we ever consciously decided on. It’s just that I enjoy the investment part of it and I enjoy looking at the credit card statements. Uh I think there’s something wrong with me after saying that, but
Mindy: you’re a dark.
Guest 2: Yeah, I’m a super dork. I enjoy spreadsheets and I enjoy looking at that. But I report back to you probably a little bit more than Mindy would enjoy like, hey, this investment is this or Tesla is this or here’s what VTI did today and she’s like falling asleep while we’re going for a walk. But it’s just our natural delegation. I think there’s a lot of trust in there too. We’ve we’ve known people actually who have fully admitted hiding money from spouse, their spouse or lying about what they pay and that’s just not us. We just haven’t cared. If if either of us do make a big purchase, we tell each other about it. and it’s not so much asking for permission. It’s just out of respect. I’m trying to think of and I’m usually the bigger spender there. What’s something that I’ve spent a lot of money on?
Mindy: bikes.
Mindy: bicycles.
Guest 2: Oh yeah.
Mindy: bicycles.
Guest 2: yeah.
Mindy: Tesla.
Guest 2: Uh yeah, so I have spent some money, but I always ask you, I run it by you and make sure it’s okay.
Mindy: Uh-huh.
Guest 2: Did did?
Mindy: Did you uh, recently purchase a car and then talk to me about it?
Guest 2: No, we had talked about that for a long time. and we placed an order which is perfectly, we can cancel it at any time and and not go through with the purchase of the car. So I’m not.
Scott: Wait, what is this? Is this hot news off the press? What’s going on?
Guest 2: So after the tax credit, there’s an EV tax credit. I’m like, oh man, if we buy a Tesla, we can get like $7500 back. Yeah, you have to gave it, so it shows up in 2023. Um, both our current cars have 200,000 miles on it. So I’m thinking we will probably need a car at some future point. So I placed an order for a model Y.
A roadster?
Guest 2: Yeah, I I kind of do want that if it wasn’t $300,000 and it’s got back seats, we can take the kids in there. I saw one in person and uh Peterson Auto Museum but, but yeah, I don’t know if we’ll actually pull the trigger on it and if and I talk to you, I changed the color because of Mindy. I’d opted for the cheap color, but you were definitely involved in the decision and I could cancel it if we don’t want to.
Mindy: The way that conversation went was, hey, I placed an an order for a Tesla, I can cancel it if you want. I’m like, I don’t care. Maybe now you won’t talk about it so much, even though I know he will talk about it even more.
Guest 2: Should we change the the podcast to just Tesla Talk?
Mindy: No.
Guest 2: All right.
Mindy: I don’t want to talk about Tesla. Does ends the end of our Tesla.
Guest 2: What’s the what’s the PE today?
Mindy: Uh so Doug, that was a, that was an interesting question. I think there are people, uh, I think there are couples who will take equal responsibility, but I think for the most part, it is one person is is more um, obsessed with checking the credit card statements every single morning when they get up, which is their prerogative. It’s not something I’m obsessed with. I will shout out Carl because one time he found a fraudulent charge the next morning and we were able to cancel the card. That’s really awesome. Um, but I don’t want to check my credit card statement every month. Also because he is so obsessed with it. I don’t have to. He will come to me and say, hey, what is this charge? I’m like, I don’t know. Oh wait, that’s this thing. I mean, now we don’t have to because we have our spending trackers. So he can just look at what was put into the spending tracker and see, oh, that’s a real thing. Um, but for the most part, he is so obsessed with it that I don’t have to be super obsessed. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have literally daily conversations about money and investing and he’s not kidding when he says we’re going on walks and he’s talking about it. He is, he’s like, oh, let me tell you about this. It’s usually Tesla, it’s very, very rarely any other company, but still, like we talk about it. Doug, how does it work with you and Elizabeth? Are you guys investing together? Are you investing separately? Is there a hybrid situation there?
Guest 1: It is uh separately and we both adopt uh index funds. So we have a different blend of, uh, you know, stocks versus bonds and just kind of different levels of uh risk tolerance and capacity and that sort of thing. So I feel like it works out pretty well, but we um yeah, we do it individually and I think every now and then Elizabeth will get an individual stock, but it’s a very, very small percentage of the net worth. So almost, you know, not even worth mentioning.
Guest 2: Do you ever compete? Do you ever brag about your balances or your spending or anything like that?
Guest 1: I, you know, I try to, but I’m, I’m always uh losing. So I I I stopped uh doing that, you know, I learned my lesson.
Mindy: So Doug, I’ll flip that back to you. since they’re separate financially, do you ever run purchases past each other or is it this is my money, I can do whatever I want and I never have to check in.
Guest 1: We do run it past each other. Um recently, I’m not sure if you can see in the video, but I have a couple guitars in front of me. So in the last year or so I’ve been buying more guitars and I actually I was like, I want to get one and I actually I I sort of went behind her and told her after I won the auction and that that was actually very bad. However, uh we made up and everything’s good and I got another guitar like she was in the shop with me and I was like, I I’m kind of interested in this, maybe we could check it out and yes, we do run stuff past each other and I thought my I thought the threshold for discussion was um higher but it’s much lower than I expected hence the issue with the the uh first guitar there.
Mindy: Oh, when you say threshold for discussion, you mean if it costs X number of dollars or higher, we need to discuss it before you buy it.
Guest 1: Yeah. And there’s no like formal agreement. I don’t have to submit a a form to get approved or anything. But, but yeah, I mean it’s like anything probably anything over like 100 50 bucks or something, anything that would be sort of out of the ordinary. It’s like, hey, I was thinking of getting this thing and you know, kind kind of like you guys, it’s out of respect, which I think that’s why I ran into the issue when I was like, oh yeah, I want an auction for a guitar that I wasn’t expecting. So um, surprise, I I I could cancel it if I need to or change the color. Just kidding. But, um
Guest 2: So, so I have one follow up question for you, Doug about this whole separation. Does it transcend day-to-day life? You keep your finances separate. So how do you decide who pays for a vehicle? I know you’ve got your own separate vehicles in this case, but what? Let’s go to toilet paper. Uh, do you divide that up or?
Guest 1: It’s a percentage of usage. So I I use way more than she does. So I I do have to pay more for the toilet paper. No, for um for a car. I’m not sure when we haven’t purchased a new car in a while. Um but she, she did pay for her car the last time that she uh snagged one. And yeah, for future uh purchases like that, I I expect we would probably split it. I’m not 100% sure though. so that would be a whole negotiation process, I’m sure.
Mindy: How do you decide who pays what bills or how much of each bill?
Guest 1: We sort of divided it up so that it’s roughly equal on the expense side. So Elizabeth covers the mortgage and then I cover pretty much everything else which goes on credit cards or it’s um you know, withdraw from my checking account. So that includes like groceries, cell phone bill, utilities, uh random other expenses and like our we have a credit card that we share. So that’s probably important to mention, a credit card that we do share and I pay for that. So that’s how it roughly ends up close to even. I may be paying like a little bit more but you know, it’s it’s fine. It’s just maybe a few few percent higher.
Mindy: Okay. And then, um, you mentioned one credit card that you have together. Do you have any bank accounts that you’d share together or is it like except for that credit card just completely separate?
Guest 1: Uh completely separate except for the one credit card.
Mindy: Uh let’s go to David who has kind of a different scenario because he was in the military for a while like a really long time and physically separated from his wife for long stretches. David, how do you and Kimberly handle your finances?
Scott: Yeah, so that’s actually changed a lot over the years. So when we when we first got married, uh, you know, I was active duty marine and I had a duplex and so, uh, you know, we we had everything together, we had pretty much the same income. She was a high school counselor, I was a military enlisted dude. Um and everything was joint and it was whatever, nobody cared and and honestly that was probably good because she’s very good with finances, she’s conservative, she doesn’t spend a lot of money and I’m uh I think a byproduct of growing up in a household that was like that and so now when I have money, I’m like, oh, I can buy the name brand version instead of the, you know, I don’t know, uh and so that worked out well for a while. And then what happened was, you know, we lived together, we were stationed in Hawaii for three years, I got orders to California. I was finally, I was looking at getting out of the military, she couldn’t find a good job in California, she got a job offer from her old high school and the kids, it just made sense logically to have her relocate back while I spent the last 18 months exiting the military. Uh, I could focus all in on the business and she could, you know, get her career going again and and settle down with the kids and everything. Uh, note for anyone thinking of doing this, terrible idea as far as your actual relationship goes, logically it was great. Like I achieved financial freedom, left the military, I’m home, I don’t have a job, you know, blah, blah, blah. But uh, the relationship is is still healing from being apart that much now, we planned on seeing each other a lot more and then covid happened, so kind of it was a weird year and a half, two years. but during that time, I had started buying a lot more real estate and reinvesting everything back into the the online platform and the business and all this other stuff and I guess my wife kind of started to feel as though her income was going into this pot and then if there was leftover, I was spending it on the business and in my head I was like, we’re growing this thing, it’s gonna be great. And in her head, what is she even working for? And and I as all good husbands missed all of the hints around that. Uh and and until it wasn’t until the day that she was like, hey, I got my own bank account and my account, my check’s going there, that I realized that there was a problem. Um and that was actually really rough for me. Like I mentioned like I mean partially ego but partially like I just felt uh and I’ve told her this, like we were not in a great spot and so when she made that change without saying anything like, I kind of took it as like, okay, are the divorce papers coming like what else like what like this like to me was a huge uh I don’t want to say betrayal, but it was something we should have talked about uh beforehand. And so I was not cool with that and we butted heads on finance for a while because I just felt like that was uh could have been communicated better but then at the same time I didn’t listen, I didn’t pay any attention to the hints, so, you know, uh so we were separate completely up until about four months ago and about actually, it might have even been two months ago, it was not very long. Uh finally sat down and said, look, I understand that you’re much more conservative, she doesn’t like the debt, she doesn’t like all my, you know, high leverage real estate and all of that. So we kind of just came to the terms of like, okay, why don’t we set up a joint account and we pay all of our personal bills out of the joint account. and we come up with a number that is fair, you know, whether that’s a 50 50 or a 40 60 based on our incomes and everything else and we put we each contribute to that joint account every month and that joint account covers the mortgage, all the primary residence expenses, the cars, the insurance, the, you know, anything and everything. I think the only thing that’s not in there right now is health insurance because I forgot to calculate it. Um So like I say that because it still military health insurance, so it’s very cheap and it’s not a it’s not like most people’s uh bill that you wouldn’t forget. So, uh and so like everything goes into this pot, we each contribute, you know, 1000, 1200 dollars a month, whatever, goes in there, uh all the bills get paid out. She has control of the checkbook, which she likes and she feels very comfortable with and I like because I don’t care about the details and would just put everything on autopay and hope that they tell me if I missed a payment. Um, so so she gets to uh I don’t even have log in for the account. I just don’t care, but I’m like here, I’ll contribute my money and you pay all the bills and uh but it feels good because we’re we’re doing joint on all of that stuff and then whatever is left over from what she puts into the joint account, she spends and I would say the same for me, but the reality is that like whatever’s leftover basically gets pummeled into businesses um or or, you know, rolled back into stuff and I don’t know that I’ve I actually my accountant got mad at me the other day because I’m an Scorp now and apparently that means you’re supposed to pay yourself and I haven’t been. so she’s like, what are you even doing? I’m like, I guess I need to find a salary for myself in here. Um but it’s just so easy to write everything off. So, so yeah, so that’s kind of where we’re at now is like kind of like we all of our expenses are paid joint and we’re gonna eventually the plan is to also have an emergency fund and a uh like vacation or, you know, boat or whatever fund uh in that joint account and then everything else will just be completely, however much you want to make, however much you want to spend.
Mindy: Okay, let’s just for context share the amount of real estate debt that you have right now. It’s not like one mortgage.
Scott: Uh it’s uh ballpark it. Yeah, like somewhere around 4 million, probably, 5 million.
Mindy: Okay. So, she’s, I can see a lot more of her side to this story knowing that number and knowing, you know, she’s saying, I’m, you know, wow this is, I feel weird about our money and you’re like, ah, it’s fine. You know it’s fine, but she doesn’t know it’s fine and she hears you saying this. So like I get where she’s coming from. What it boiled down to though is communication. Like Doug and Elizabeth communicated when they were getting married, hey, let’s do separate finances. Then there’s no question. I actually don’t think Carl and I communicated. I think it was just like when we get back from our honeymoon, I’ll put my name on your checking account because all you already have bill pay out of everything and I don’t, so I could just close mine and it’s no big deal. Do you remember that, Carl?
Guest 2: Yeah, I think we did have one conversation about money and it did not go well. Do you know what I’m referring to?
Mindy: Yeah. Here we go.
Guest 2: And I know you’ve since changed your mind on this topic, but I brought up the idea of a prenup and you are not thrilled.
Mindy: That is not even the right way to say that. I was so offended that he would just assume that our marriage was going to end by bringing up this prenup that I was like, if you ask me again, we will not get married. No, we’re not getting a pre up. I also, in my defense, we had like a dollar in that worth. We didn’t have anything to to protect. And that was long before David and I recorded episode 301 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast with Aaron Summers, who the author of a really awesome prenup book called The Prenup Prescription where he describes how prenups aren’t about money. They’re like a guide to how you kind of handle your relationship. It’s not just about money and how you’re going to split it up if you get a divorce. It can be about pretty much anything you want. It’s like a guide for how your marriage is going to go. So that was, and when we were recording with Aaron, I absolutely changed my mind about the prenup, but unfortunately, 20 years ago, Aaron wasn’t around, well, he was, but not by us. And I yeah, that was the one time we did talk about money beforehand. Although there were some context clues where we were both cheap and we knew it. So you can you can pick out the cheapies.
Scott: I was going to plug that prenup episode as well. That thing blew my mind and that’s partially why we set up the joint account. Uh the other thing, so when my wife doesn’t necessarily feel the financial security with our situation, which which will get a lot better once I’ve kind of, I think I’ve mentioned on the show, but I I kind of got dug into a hole with a project manager that wasn’t, you know, I’m over budget on some projects and so I’ve had to lay more capital into them than I wanted and it’ll all come back once they finally sell. but once that happens that I have no more personal debt, it’ll be a lot easier uh because it’ll just be the real estate and that’ll feel more secure. Um but the other thing is she’s a high school counselor, she’s on salary, she gets paid, she has bills, it’s very fixed, it’s very secure, it’s very stable. I do wholesaling, well, I don’t anymore, but I was doing some wholesaling, I was doing some house flipping, I’m buying apartments, I’m selling, you know, like my income is ridiculous. Like if you look at my, like tracker, like I broke, uh, two months ago I think was the most gross revenue I’ve ever brought in without like considering the sale of a business. It was like 90 something thousand dollars and then I spent like all but $4,000 of that in the same month on other things. And so like if my, if people were to look at, you know, I’m one of those guys where it actually makes sense to have a line of credit to run everything through because like one month I’ll make, you know, tons of money and have no bills and the next month it’ll be the exact opposite and so I have to have a way to like stabilize it. And so I can understand why, you know, it’s like everything’s always ticking up to the right, but it’s a stressful way to do it because it’s not stable, it’s not secure and there are definitely months where you’re like, oh my gosh, where’s the next check coming from? And then there are months where you’re like, what am I supposed to do with all this? Where do I put it? And so it’s, it’s a weird game.
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Guest 2: I’ve got a comment here to question. So, Doug and Elizabeth have very similar finances and probably similar goals. They do the same thing with their money. They do index funds. You you would say that correct. You don’t do any exotic stuff.
Guest 1: Yep.
Guest 2: Now, now, David and his wife are very different. You’ve got your co-mingled account for the common expenses but but David, let’s just say, and I think this probably will happen, you absolutely kill it with real estate. and in 10 years you’ve got some eight figure net worth and your wife still has her job as a social worker. Will that cause, have you thought about that or will that cause any tension? How do you plan for that? Like you could be living on a yacht on some bay in Hawaii and she’s got this job that yeah, how, how do you reconcile that?
Scott: That’s one of the things I think we’re hashing out in conversations, uh with a counselor as we’re trying to get, you know, back to living in the same, you know, in step after me moving back in. Uh, you know, she grew up, she is the daughter of a farmer and they raised cattle and they might have gone on vacation once when she was growing up and they’re very, you know, I I’m like I’m gonna travel the world, we’re gonna do all these things and she’s like, you can go do that, I’ll be here. And uh, you know, she doesn’t really, that’s not her thing. And so, uh, there have been some, uh, as we’ve come to more realizations of that, like, hey, my income’s increasing and I have the ability to go do these things and and you don’t really want to, like how does that work? Uh, I don’t know that there’s gonna be any animosity. I think it’s just a matter of trying to find the, the balance for like, okay, well I’m gonna stay home this much and, uh you know, she’s, I mean she could, she could stop working and she just enjoys her job. so it’s kind of a weird, you know, I mean she’s happy, she’s content, she wants to be kind of a homebody and I’m totally okay with that as long as I also get to do the other things. So, so yeah, it’s we’re working through that. Ask me again in like five years and I’ll I’ll give you a way better answer, I’m sure.
Mindy: Does Kimberly invest?
Scott: She has the school, uh whatever it like 403B or whatever the whatever the school’s version is outside of that, I don’t know not really. Um I mean, the primary residence, I guess you could consider an investment because of how how well that area is done. Um and, and I, I, I lie. We have 10 head of cattle and so you could consider that an investment because they do, they do pay dividends in steak and they do actually pay for themselves. So, uh, and they pay for the back five acres we bought. So, um, you know, we probably bring in I don’t know, four or $5000 a year in in cattle and uh deep freeze full of beef. So it’s great.
Mindy: Uh let’s see. Oh, how long have you been married?
Scott: six years, six and a half years.
Mindy: Okay, and you have two children.
Scott: Yes. Uh five and 13.
Mindy: Okay.
Scott: So
Mindy: for those of you doing the math. Yes, the 13 is a steps son in case, you know, you can’t figure out how I
Mindy: Um, so this is, this is a pretty short question for you. How are you saving for college?
Guest 1: You’re not.
Mindy: Carl, this is very interesting. This is all four of us on this episode have the benefit of or have something in common. We have all saved the exact same amount for my children’s college, which is $0 dollars. Even though Carl and I talk about money all the time and we both have podcasts about financial independence, we have saved nothing for our kids college. Why is that, Carl?
Guest 2: I remember looking into 5 29 plans, I didn’t like some of the restrictions around them. So that’s one reason. A second reason kind of along the lines of what David said is I think college is overrated. Like I remember when I was a kid, my mom always told me, you’re going to go to college and it turned out I was the first one to go and I graduated and it was great. But I ended up doing something that had no tie to biology and chemistry, which I studied. I think that I think college is overemphasized. I think there’s such a need for like if you really want to make money, uh become an electrician or H fact tech or something like that, go to school and start your own business. Uh probably one of the most wealthy people I know in town here is a plumber. He’s got his own business. There’s such a need for that and you don’t need to go to school. Hell, even to become a computer programmer, which is what I did. You can go to a boot camp now, so you don’t have to spend four years learning English and history and all the other stuff you can just write code and have a really good job in a short amount of time. And I think the the third, well, the third reason is we have savings and we probably will help our children out. But I don’t think it’s our obligation to pay for them. I’m gonna make sure if they want to go, I’m gonna make sure they find a way to go but I think there’s nothing wrong with them having some skin in the game as well. I definitely had that when I was a student. I had all my skin in the game because no one paid for anything and and my thought at the time was well, if I’m paying for this, I’m going to make it really worthwhile. and I think there’s some value in that for your kids. So no 5 29 plans, but we will help our children with whatever they decide to do.
Mindy: So, I’m going to tag off of that and say my parents paid for all of my college and I did not have that same attitude towards college. College was probably not the best choice for me. Um I am not a really great student. I did not really apply myself. It was more of, uh, like fun and I studied fashion design, which is not anything that I care about. So having that if it if I would have had to have skin in the game, I might have chosen a different career or a different major where I was I was actually learning something. Um I can sew really good though. But yeah, I could sell really good before I went to school with regards to the 5 29 plan. I need to clear something up and I’m not, I’m still not sure where I got the information. we did look into 5 29 plans 100 years ago and I am pretty sure that at the time we looked into it, the state of Illinois would only let you use their plan in Illinois and if you didn’t use it in Illinois, then you only got back what you put into it, not any of the growth. I think that might have been the case. and this is, I’m talking 20 years ago, maybe the plan has changed, maybe I misread it, but this has somehow been associated with all 5 29 plans in my mind. So, as I have said many times on this show, incorrectly that you don’t get any of the gains from the 5 29, that’s not true, it turns out that if you invest in a 5 29 plan and then your child does not go to college, you simply pay a 10% penalty and you can take that money out. So, um, I’m not actually sure about the taxes on that. If you pay taxes or if you don’t pay taxes, if it just grows tax free, it doesn’t really sound like it would grow tax free if you’re going to take it out. Um, but we can look that up and let you know in our Facebook group which can be found at facebook.com/groups/bpmoney. Okay, Doug, I would like to give you a moment to wrap up any thoughts that you have about this show and how, uh, people in a relationship can handle their finances together or separate.
Guest 1: I think it’s uh, very personal and every, everyone’s relationship is different and you know, we, we have our various issues, communication, uh trust with finances and all that stuff. We have figured out how to get to a spot where we feel pretty good. I at least I feel pretty good. I guess I have to double check with Elizabeth in the spirit of communication, but we’re in a great holding pattern and it’s been going for a little while and you know, I I wouldn’t judge uh anyone for how they’re handling their finances, but, you know, as you mentioned David, I think, you know, finances are one of the the biggest issues that we have to figure out and if there’s discrepancies or like if you’re moving in different directions, it could be extremely challenging. So, you know, everyone do do your best and uh, you know, good luck.
Mindy: David, let’s hear from you. Any final thoughts about how someone can handle their finances?
Scott: Yeah, my thought is to go back to uh, oh, you put it on the notes for me. 301 Episode 301. I I don’t know how you remember all these episode numbers. Uh, but the prenup episode because that’s ultimately what led to me having the conversation with Kim to be like, hey, here’s a solution that would allow us to have separate and also have joint so that I feel better because we’ve got stuff together and we are doing things as a couple from the emotional standpoint, and you feel better because you still have you have the ability to save money and know it’s gonna be there. Uh or to spend money and not feel like you’re taking away from the business. Um so that prenup episode was was great because he talked about, he was the one who said, you know, hey, I like the idea of having a joint account for expenses, a joint account for like travel and emergencies and then two totally separate accounts and you guys just spend that and it is what it is. Um, and I thought that was good. So I mean I ultimately, I think the answer is, uh you know, my personal belief on this, I think is that it’s much less important how you handle finances together per se, than it is to have the conversation about where where your finances are before you get married. Um because like Kim and I are super different, right? I am a, I have a massive tolerance for risk, I am okay risking, you know, whatever and taking on debt and and all of the calculated risk and she’s much more conservative. But we both came into the marriage with virtually no personal debt and we were, you know, cash flowing out of our W twos and and like we weren’t hurting, right? She had, I think like $11,000, no, not even left of personal or a student loans and I had, uh, a car payment. Um, but neither of us is like even with my, you know, crazy quote unquote spending habits like they’re within reason. Um, and they’re within, you know, they’re they’re there’s always leftovers at the end of the month and the net worth goes up and so I think it’s just important to know where you guys are before you get married. And then as long as you’re having those communications through it, I think you’ll be all right. I’m also the, you know, youngest and most newlywed person on the show. So I could be way off on all this, but we’ll find out in a decade.
Mindy: No, I think you’re spot on. Um I think both you and Doug said communication is key. And Doug said it’s very personal. How many times do you hear me every single episode say personal finances personal? You don’t have to do it the way that Mindy does it or Mindy and Carl. You don’t have to do it the way that David does it or the way that Doug does it. You just have to do what works for you and your partner and you both have to talk about it and come to an agreement and then, you know, David, you said something very interesting. You said it has changed over the years. It doesn’t have to be, oh, we agreed this one time. So that’s it that’s all we’re gonna do. Have the conversations over and over again. All Carl and I do is talk about money and Tesla which is money.
Guest 2: Carl, do you have any final thoughts?
Guest 2: Yeah, David said something about how many marriages fail because of money and I think that’s true, but deep down, the underlying cause is probably values and how you apply money to your values. So if two people are together and they have vastly different values, uh you better have good communication because if one person values eating at home and uh, and the other person is more into travel or expensive cars, you better make sure you’re on the same page and you communicate this and your partner is okay with it. So yeah, I think if there’s any common theme for the for all of us, it’s just you got to have a communication.
Scott: I know you’re making generalities but I feel like you have been like just living in my house being like, oh yeah, one person likes to eat at home, Kim, and the other wants to travel the world and buy a Ferrari, Dave. I mean, you you nailed it right on the head.
Guest 2: If if I buy a Tesla Roadster, I will share it with you, we can have some kind of shared custody agreement with it.
Scott: I will ride shotgun with you any day, Carl.
Guest 2: Okay, apparently we have to give Mindy some time with it too, but we’re communicating with it now. So it’s all good.
Mindy: You’ve got a back seat.
Guest 2: Yeah.
Guest 2: Oh my goodness. Get out all of you. Okay, this has been a fantastic episode with Doug Cunnington and Carl Jensen from the Mile High Five Podcast. Doug and Carl, tell people where they can find you.
Guest 2: uh milehifi.com is our website and you, youtube.com/milehifi podcast is that it, Doug?
Guest 1: Yeah, if you just get to the website, there’s links everywhere, it’s on all the big podcast directories. You should be able to find it if you look for it. Yeah.
Mindy: Milehifi.com.
Guest 2: Great.
Mindy: Thank you guys so much for your time today. From episode 332 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is David Pere and I am Mindy Jensen saying, got to go friend. This has to end.
