[Ep. 395] Balancing Love and Money with Jason Tartick

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the More Money Podcast.

This is episode 395, and I am your host, Jessica Moorhouse, and we have quite the show for you.

We have a celebrite on the podcast, a reality star who was on season 14 of Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette back in 2018.

Apparently, he was eliminated in week nine.

So sorry for you, Jason, but I think he’s doing just fine now without that going forward.

And honestly, most of those relationships are, they don’t really last, do they?

Anyways, he is on the show because besides being on that show, he actually is a money expert himself.

He came from the world of finance and investing before he went on that reality show.

And now he’s got this great platform to have his own podcast called Trading Secrets, speaking around the world.

He also is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and he now has his second book on shelves called Talk Money to Me, The Eight Essential Financial Questions to Discuss with Your Partner.

So, just a little bit more about Jason.

So, he worked in banking for a decade.

He also has an MBA in accounting and finance while he executed over $150 million in lending transactions before taking a career detour into reality TV.

It’s just a little, hey, let’s just see what happens and do something a little crazy and outside of my comfort zone.

Well done, you.

He published his debut book called The Restart Roadmap, Rewire and Reset Your Career Back in 2022.

And now he has his brand new book called Talk Money to Me that I will also be giving away a copy of.

So, make sure to listen to the end of this episode to learn more about that.

But we really just talk all things money and relationships, what you should and shouldn’t do, why things like a prenup is probably a good idea, and just how to make sure you’re taking care of you, but also you can integrate money into your relationship in a really healthy way.

And I think that’s still a really, you know, a thing that we’re all learning more about because you know, divorce, you know, it’s still like 50% of marriages and divorce.

And I think largely it has to do with financial issues.

And so we really do need to, how can we add money to the conversation, have those conversations and, you know, not make it strain the relationship.

So we get into all that in this episode, you’re going to absolutely love it.

So without further ado, let’s get to that episode.

Welcome, Jason, to the More Money Podcast.

I’m so excited to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Jessica.

I’m excited to be here.

So I’m so excited to have you on the show because A, I’m very excited about your book to come out, is a very important book that I get questions about money relationships all the time.

There really aren’t that many books that go into the practicalities, how to navigate that, and everyone is just doing whatever they think is right and making a lot of mistakes along the way.

But I also want to talk about you a little bit because it’s one thing to be like you work in finance, you have all this experience, and this is wonderful.

But why on earth would you go on a reality show is for I would like to start with that because it’s like you had a very successful career and you still have a very successful career in finance.

What made you want to do something very outside of like most people I know who work in finance are like you cannot, I would never want to, you know, they want to be in the background, you know?

100% Jessica, you sound like I mean this in a nice way.

This is exactly what my mother and father said to me.

What the hell are you doing?

You got a rocket ship on your back.

You’ve been promoted like six times in nine years.

You’ve relocated four times.

You got $100,000 plus MBA.

Like why on earth are you going on this show?

And actually in my first book, it’s called The Restart Roadmap.

So it’s called Rewire and Reset Your Career.

And so I talk a lot about the ideology of the fact that I was a checkbox guy.

I was do what you have to do to get ahead, be the yes man at corporate America, dress the way you’re supposed to dress, act how you’re supposed to act, show up early, stay late.

That’s what I did, got my MBA and all that stuff.

The problem is, is by like 29, what I realized is that the entirety of my identity was trapped in my senior VP title at work, the way I acted, the way I did everything.

As a result of that, I’ll never forget, I was in a boardroom, we’re pitching to like 20 people.

I was the youngest person in the room.

The only job is to nail it, act calm, cool and collected and just crush it.

And especially as the young guy, a lot more pressure and I totally collapsed, had to run to the bathroom.

I go to the bathroom, I pass out.

I started to panic attack.

It was at that moment, I realized that like, again, my identity had been lived through just my career and I lost touch with myself.

And I started to like really hit rock bottom while my career was still succeeding.

And so that was ironically when the show had called, it was like six months after that.

And so I did for the first time in my life, something that was unconventional, something that most people looked at me and said, you shouldn’t do.

And I just took a chance and the thought was like, you know what, this doesn’t make sense.

There’s no logic.

But you know what, ABC is calling me, I’m burnt out.

I want to do it.

And so I did it.

So wait, did they contact you or did you apply?

And how did, if they contacted you, how did they know about you?

So how it worked is actually, it was, it’s the bank that actually got me into the bachelor, which is funny.

So it was a year prior, I was in New York, and they were doing a Gilda’s Club bachelor auction.

Now Gilda Ratner was a famous comedian who abruptly died of ovarian cancer.

And so what they did was they created a non-for-profit to help families and people undergoing cancer treatment.

So they created this bachelor auction.

They got 30 people from all over the area, all different ages and backgrounds.

You had to fundraise before the event.

They had a black tie.

You came out, you danced.

You got people excited.

And then they would bid on you to go on a date.

And then you get a date package and that money all went to the non-for-profit.

Well, I said, if I’m doing this, and the bank sponsored me to do it, right?

They donate.

I said, if I’m going to do this, I’m doing it right.

So I came out, old time rock and roll.

I had an air guitar.

I started ripping off my jacket and shirt.

I was going nuts.

And I was able to earn the most amount of money of the 30 guys.

It was that video that got sent to ABC, along with one of my best friends who was in the same bachelor auction.

He got nominated because of that auction.

And both of us got called to be on The Bachelor and they said, are you single and do you live in New York?

I go, I’m single, but I live in Seattle.

Now I moved because like a year later and that’s when the process started.

Can you tell me a little bit about, well, first, when you got that call and you’re like, yeah, all right, let’s do something crazy.

Were you at any point worried, will this, you know, you never know how you’re going to get your edit.

I watch reality TV and there are some people that you meet in real life.

They’re like, they’re totally nice, but they’re edited terribly.

Were you ever worried?

Is this going to have a bad impact on my future career if I want to continue working in finance?

100%.

Like if you told me then that six, seven years later, you’re going to have your second book, Talk Money to Me come out and it’s going to be on the shelves.

You’re going to be on podcasts talking about it and having people pre-order and I’d be like, there’s no way.

But that happened.

And here’s what I’ll tell you about the whole process of editing.

I’ll never forget it because of course, my biggest concern was like I’m totally losing control.

And when you go on reality TV, you’re losing control.

The two best pieces of advice I got from producers, one, when you get in a roller coaster, you got two options.

You either sit back and say, listen, I’m strapped in and all I can control is who I am and how much I enjoy this or don’t enjoy it.

So instead of being in that roller coaster and panicking, you’re already there.

You’re not getting off unless you can’t get off or you’ll die.

So just enjoy the ride.

Go with the turns.

Have fun with it.

Don’t try and fight the roller coaster.

You’re not going to win.

The second thing that I learned was the whole idea of this concept.

And this is true, I think, in reality TV.

The producer said, you know, it’s really, really hard to make a really good person in this experience look really bad.

That takes us a lot of time and effort.

And it’s really hard to make a person who acts very bad look really good.

That takes a lot of time and effort.

You know what it’s easy to do?

It’s easy to make a pretty good person look really good.

And it’s pretty, it’s really easy to make a really bad person look really, really bad.

So you chew on that.

And with that, I said, okay, I’ll be myself and what comes from it comes from it.

And precisely the way they explained it is what became the reality.

Were you concerned about like, what should I say or like, just like I’d be really concerned about anything that I said, just like what words I chose or who I talked about in those kind of one on ones.

Was that anything in your mind or were you very much like, I’m just going to be myself and just let it happen?

I think this is a good question that actually connects to the book, right?

So this book is called Talk Money to Me.

The whole idea, there’s things that we need to talk about that we run away from because of fear, because of fear of judgment, because of fear of what’s known, but it’s actually when we step into these things and we showcase numbers and we talk money, we’re actually creating vulnerability.

The vulnerability creates connection and then allows for deeper conversation and the deeper conversation allows us to grow as one.

And when we talk about the impact of money and love, we know that divorce, the second leading reason for divorce is money arguments behind infidelity and all the statistics point that if we run from conversations with money, our relationships go to shit.

Now what’s funny is that actually connects to your question.

Were you fearful?

What were you going to say?

Did you watch every word?

Yes, for the first two weeks of that show, I was banker Jason.

Buy the book, shake the hand, politically correct.

Great to see you.

Great to love you.

What I quickly learned is like, there’s no relatability in that.

There’s no connection built in that.

Who the hell wants to be friends with a robot?

Tell me one person that you look up to or anybody listening to this.

Think about someone that you’re inspired by, that you look up to, that has achieved greatness.

All of those people are real, they’re not robots.

So you quickly realize that our ability to edit ourselves while we think is protecting ourselves, majority of the time is leading and hurting us.

So at a quick adjustment, I said, you know what, enough of the filters, enough of the edits, just be you.

And ironically enough, it was those moments where I was just me and my guard was down that connected most to the viewing audience.

And so that was a big lesson I learned from, of all things, a reality TV show.

Did you ever talk about money?

That’s one thing.

There’s other reality shows like Love is Blind.

There’s always a part of that show where they do talk about finances, which I love.

But on The Bachelorette, I feel like they’re never like, so how much do you earn?

How much do you have?

Do you have some debt?

We should probably talk about those things instead of doing all these helicopter trips around the world where that is just fantasy land.

Did you ever have some of those real conversations with the contestants or what was that like?

Oh, the contestants.

That’s like literally all we talked about.

Like, what do you do?

How do you do it?

And there were some great stories in there.

We had…

I wish they put that in.

You would be, but most people are like boring.

But we had some cool…

We had a Harlem Globetrotter on our season.

We had a couple MLB players, a couple Major League Soccer players.

We had about four NFL players, and we had one guy who was the fourth employee of Venmo.

So you can imagine the whole time, I’m like, all right, tell me about your equity and how did you cash out, et cetera.

But what’s interesting is I think the appropriate conversation for money and careers really gets close to the fantasy suite, right?

I talk about it all the time, but like if we’re maybe thinking about sex, like you guys do your own things out there.

But if you’re starting to maybe think about sexual intimacy, maybe it’s time to talk about checks.

Like that’s something I think about.

And in the book, Talk Money to Me, again, it connects to your question.

There’s a section in here where I interviewed a bunch of former leads.

And former leads had likely been in the fantasy suite from the season prior.

And then it’s likely that they had up to three fantasy suites in their season.

So that would be a combined four fantasy suites for each person on average.

And I asked them, did you talk career?

Did you talk money?

Because in just a couple of weeks from then, you had to propose.

And this is the first time there’s no cameras, it’s just you two.

And you’ll be shocked by the results.

If you get the book, you’ll be able to see.

Is it pretty few and far between to actually talk about some of those important things?

I mean, I think that’s realistic in just normal circumstances, right?

People can live together and not actually talk about their finances.

So with that, that’s a question I often get.

At what point in the relationship should you start bringing up things?

And what things should you start with?

Should you talk about just your income?

Should you talk about how much do you have in the bank?

What are your goals?

Like, how do you, like, that is a very difficult thing.

For me, it was easy because I already talked about that.

But for most people, they’re waiting for the other person to mention it or bring it up.

And the other person is waiting for the other person to bring it up.

And so no one brings it up.

I think you made a really great point there about the fact it’s easy for you to talk to because you’ve done it, right?

So that is the one reason I’m motivated by this book, is my whole entire career has been talking money.

So I feel comfortable about money.

I’ve seen people’s personal financial statements.

I share show my numbers.

Guests that come on from billion billionaires, sharks from shark tank and business leaders, they all talk about the money.

So that is the key starting point there.

People that aren’t comfortable talking money, let’s get them comfortable talking money.

How do we do it?

Let’s have fun with it from the get go.

So people ask, when is the best time to talk about money?

Well, if approached lightly, I have 10 questions in this book that people can ask on their first date, like fun questions, right?

Like, all right, come on, Jessica, you win a million bucks today.

And here’s the deal.

You got to spend every single penny of it.

I want to know how you’re going to break it down, right?

Or, you know, Jessica, what is one thing you spend way too much money on, but unless literally you’re broke, you’re not going to be stopped.

You’re not going to stop spending.

Like, what is that thing?

Why is that important to you?

You know, what’s your what’s your money red flag?

Like, where do you think you spend too much?

You’re like, what was the most you’ve ever spent on a bar tab or dinner table?

Like, these are fun conversations that actually talk money.

What do you think?

You know, what do you think the guy that owns this bar makes if you’re at a bar or something?

Right.

So I think the idea is like start having fun with the conversations.

And then you could start drilling down to where you think it makes sense to start talking about credit score and income and net worth and retirement goals and all these things.

So, you know.

So maybe like start with the hypotheticals because it’s not like I’m not asking you about your money just in general and kind of ease into it kind of that way instead of diving in.

I mean, you know, here’s the thing is like everyone talks about the pillars of healthy relationships and we talk about them on our first dates.

We talk about compatibility and chemistry, honesty, loyalty, respect.

We talk about past relationships.

I’ve had many dates where the first two dates were talking about that stuff, but we always overlook finances.

So it’s like we can slowly start to integrate these conversations without being like, how much money do you make?

You know, it’s like, we hear money and we instantly think the Ick, but the problem is that we’ve been taught that.

And if we think Ick with money, in my opinion, my thesis in Talk Money to Me is if we think Ick with money, it is only benefiting the people at the top because they’re going to make more profitability from how we consume.

They’re going to make more profitability from the least, the little they pay us.

And as a result of it, if we’re not even talking money with our partners, we know our relationships are in jeopardy.

So let’s get there.

Let’s start talking about money the way we talk about chemistry, our exes, loyalty and honesty.

Mm-hmm.

You mentioned red flags.

And as you get into the relationship, as you become more committed, what are some red flags, like financial red flags to be kind of aware of?

Some things, they can be fixed because maybe the other partner isn’t aware that they’re doing this, whether it’s overspending or something like that.

Well, what are some things you’re like, that might be hard for you to fix if they don’t want to fix it themselves.

You should be aware.

This may be hard on your relationship.

I mean, here’s the thing.

I think what we do is we instantly judge people’s behaviors, right?

In this book, when we hear and we think about overspenders, naturally, we think bad, terrible.

In this book, if you’re an overspender, I talk about a lot of the good that comes from overspenders, right?

Overspenders have the ability to invest in themselves.

Overspenders typically have a good tolerance of taking on risk because they’re putting their money out there, right?

So whether you are a spender or a saver, know that both of them have really good things.

Know that both of them have areas for improvement.

So first and foremost, when it comes to red flags, let’s throw judgment right out the door.

Let’s stop looking for red flags and behaviors and let’s start talking.

The biggest red flag is the inability to speak about it or deception because we know that in 40-plus percent of relationships that financial infidelity is happening.

That is cheating through your finances.

So we also know about gaslighting.

We talk about it all the time, right?

It’s, you know, it stemmed from a movie back in the day.

And here we are in 2024 still talking about it.

The idea is that people can gaslight through their finances.

They can showcase this extravagant lifestyle.

They can showcase these things that they don’t have.

We saw that in the Tinder Swindler in which there’s an interview in this book about it.

But I think one of the things to think about is don’t allow people to gaslight or deceive through their money.

And the way you don’t allow that is having conversation.

So the biggest red flag out there is if you politely and in a healthy way bring up the conversation and someone will not, or your partner, your loved one, has no ability to speak to it in any capacity.

That’s the ultimate red flag.

Yeah, like a big red flag is if you’ve been together, especially for a long time, and you just cannot get anything out of them.

Like they just will not move forward.

They don’t want to talk about it.

Like how are you not going to be able to fix that behavior?

Like that’s a bigger issue.

It’s the same thing as if you see other kind of issues and you suggest, oh, maybe you should go see a professional therapist or something like that.

And they’re like, no, absolutely not.

It’s like, there’s only so much you can do.

You can’t help someone not, you know, they have to help themselves at the end.

Well, what’s interesting is like we talk about infidelity.

That’s the number one cause of divorce, right?

So we have been trained for over 100 years to understand infidelity, right?

Like if one of my friends comes to me and says their wife or their girlfriend, they saw these texts or they saw them flirting and they started doing these behaviors that led to infidelity will instantly call our circle.

Hey, I got to talk, I got an issue, we got these things and da.

But when we start to see infidelity with finances, one, we don’t know how to look for it and two, we don’t even know how to address it.

Like if right now, if I’m listening, if people are listening to the show, right now, your significant other, if you’re single and X, you think they’re cheating on you with their finances, like do you have a friend that’s going to be like, all right, let’s talk about the cheating of finances?

Probably not.

Do you have the friend that will talk to you if you find there’s infidelity?

Probably.

Will they have 100 answers or solutions for you?

Probably.

If it’s cheating through finances, will they have solutions for you?

Probably not.

So I think the idea is like, we’re so comfortable with this concept of infidelity, we need to get more comfortable and understand the concept of infidelity through finances.

And the book Talk Money to Me certainly will help anyone do that.

Jumping off that when you’re in a couple and maybe you’re starting to co-mingle things, maybe you’re moving in together or you just want to get a joint credit card or something like that.

First, at what point does it make financial sense to do that?

And I’m of the personal belief you can do that or not.

It doesn’t actually matter because there’s pros and cons to doing separate or together, what have you.

But then I guess the other thing is when you do start to co-mingle, like how much should you share?

Let’s say you do want to keep some separate because you want some autonomy.

But, you know, it could potentially lead some room for that financial infidelity if your partner doesn’t know what’s going on.

So what’s the kind of the balance?

Yeah, I think about this like think about a workout, right?

Like, Jessica, your body is so much different than my body.

And my body is so much different than my dad’s body.

And my dad’s body is so much different than my best friend Hawk’s body, right?

We all have different compositions.

We all move in different ways and we need customized approaches.

I’m going to need a certain workout that might be different than you, Jessica.

And when you think about creating these solutions with finances, it’s the same way.

The problem is we’re not willing to talk about our situation, so it’s tough to customize.

In the book, I offer three starting points that could then be customized accordingly based on the relationship.

I think one, think about having your own joint account.

And if you guys make similar income with a nice set of 15% range, create one slush fund, dedicate how much every month that you both will commit to it, and use that fund for the expenses you deem appropriate.

Whatever it might be that you’re doing things is one.

Your fixed costs, your going out for dinner, your vacations, that’s your slush fund.

And then manage your finances individually, and then maybe once a quarter, let’s come together and just talk about where our net worths are and how our finances have grown or not.

I also think there’s a teeter totter approach.

You have one big income earner and one that’s not making as much but still working.

In that case, what I would suggest is again, create one joint account, have your own individual accounts.

But in this situation, what I would say is instead of contributing equally to the pot, you contribute the pro rata based on what you are making, right?

So, if someone makes 50% more than someone, their contribution into that pot, whatever they think it would be, would be 50% more.

And then of course, there are the households where there’s one earner and someone that stays at home.

And I think what’s really important in those situations is healthy conversation because that is where money is weaponized and leveraged the most.

And those people that are sitting at home, that are creating stuff or that aren’t working, are creating massive, massive value for that person that’s working, whether it’s the cost of not spending on daycare, whether it’s the fact that person could deploy their skill set 12 hours a day as opposed to six.

I think the idea is like, why don’t we put a value on what each of you guys are bringing to the table and agree upon an amount that you put into a joint account that’s still used for the spending because just because that person doesn’t have cash inflow does not mean that person doesn’t have a huge impact on the cash that is coming in.

So, those are three basic examples for three different scenarios that again should be talked about and then customized to your situation.

And just kind of jumping off what you said about if there is one person that stays home, it’s not only that they’re not bringing in an income, but they are providing value is that they may not have, then they don’t have cash to put into their own retirement accounts and things like that.

So, that has to be a discussion as well as we need to make sure that because often it is the women that stay home and then they find themselves in a situation where like marriage break down and then they’re left with like, I don’t have any savings, you know, I was doing all this work, I have no savings, whereas my husband, he was able to put money in a savings account, maybe we didn’t have that discussion of how we could equalize that.

And so, that’s really important conversations to have whoever staying at home is making sure it’s not just fair in terms of like, okay, yeah, I’ll contribute to the household and all that kind of stuff, but making sure that you’re not left in the lurch if there is a marriage breakdown, because divorce rate is still very high.

100%, completely agree.

I was actually kind of curious, has money ever played a role in some of your, I’m not sure if you’re attached to anyone right now, but has it ever played a role in some of the issues you’ve had in past relationships?

Things that you like, you just were not financially compatible with your partner, and maybe it was more like they just were not open to talking about it or to working together on this.

Was that every initial?

For me, what it was is like, I don’t know for my romantics out there if they feel the same way, but when you first start seeing someone after you’re single, and then you finally meet the person that you’re like vibing with and the energy’s flying, who the hell is thinking about money?

Like no one’s saying, right?

You’re thinking about your next date and flirting and FaceTiming and going out and hooking up and all this stuff.

Like that’s just the reality of life.

And so what I call that period is the love clouds.

And so for me, I talk about in the first chapter that I got stuck in the love clouds.

Now, I say this to establish some credibility so the individual knows just a little bit about me.

But yeah, I was on a reality TV show.

But I also studied and got my MBA in accounting and finance.

And through the bank, I worked from everything from a teller to underwriting deals to then lending over $100 million deals.

And I own several businesses.

And so I say that because this is someone who’s a personal finance expert, who’s written one book that did well and now another one.

And still here I am in these love clouds, not having the conversations.

And on page six, I literally list out with my ex, I say credit score.

I didn’t know hers.

She didn’t know mine.

Total income, a total guessing game, total debt, a real his and her mystery.

Annual spending habits.

We never discussed it and of course didn’t put together a budget.

How bills would be split, zero plan.

Joint account wasn’t a conversation, wasn’t implemented until years after the move.

We purchased two joint living assets, two dogs, no contract.

Investment portfolio, I didn’t know hers, net worth.

Although wildly incorrect information on Google, they had more information than us.

Retirement goals, no idea.

And so what I say there is like, here I am doing it every day and I didn’t even have these conversations.

So those are some of my biggest mistakes.

And I assume, and you hate to assume, but I assume if I’m making those, there are some other people out there also making those.

Oh, yeah, I mean, I think the experts out there sometimes are the worst.

They find it the hardest to take their own advice, right?

But I mean, I feel like to come talking a little bit more about why are these conversations so important?

Well, if you get to a phase where you want to build a life together and by, ask like, get dogs, that is a really important conversation.

You see all these people, they break up and then they’re like, now they have to share custody, have a dog and then it’s contentious or buying a home together.

What happens?

I mean, there’s been a couple of reality shows lately of people breaking up and they still own this home and they never had a conversation how this asset was going to be split after the breakup.

So having these conversations is so, so important to have ahead of time, but it’s difficult when you are heading the clouds a little bit and just want to enjoy the relationship.

But yeah, even like with the credit score, if they don’t have a good credit score and you want to buy a home together, I mean, are they going to be on the loan?

Maybe not.

And what’s crazy, and I talk about examples about this in Talk Money to Me, is that the whole idea of that reality TV couple who broke up and owned the home together, what’s wild is that benchmark is like, that’s like best case scenario these days.

That’s what we’ve come to see.

And what do I mean by that?

I have a story in this book of an individual who got married, got a mortgage, was manipulated by her husband to take it out on her own.

He’s on the deed though, they close.

And the day they close, the IRS comes in with a letter saying, we own your property because of his back taxes, which she didn’t know.

She now has every single obligation to pay that loan back.

She has to work her butt off to do it.

Her credit is going to take a ding and she doesn’t own her home.

And you can imagine the nightmare that goes with that.

When I reached out to my audience, I said, hey guys, can you just send me any type of financial fraud you’ve experienced or someone you know is experienced in relationships?

I cannot tell you, I got thousands of email.

So just that couple for Vanderpump that owns a house together and they got to figure it out.

That’s what’s crazy is like, that’s the dream scenario.

There’s all the financial fraud.

That’s the scary part.

All of that comes from not having conversations.

If they had the conversations, pulled the credit report, had the deep, the tough discussions before, it’s his name on the deed, none of that happens and that happening cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I know.

Yeah.

One conversation.

We don’t want to be in a mess like that.

One conversation and very well, if they had those, I don’t know anything about the relationship, though I do watch the show, but I don’t know what conversations they have when cameras aren’t rolling.

But if they had those conversations early in the relationship, I wonder if maybe she wouldn’t have found herself in this long-term relationship with someone.

She’s like, who is this person?

It’s like, if you find out more about someone’s financial situation, you learn a lot about them, a lot about them and whether you’re like, do I want to hitch my wig into this person?

I don’t know.

No, you do.

And the other thing too is like, what’s interesting is with finance, the pain point comes after the disaster has occurred, okay?

So think about compare this to and I compare this actually to a book.

If I’m cooking and I cut myself and it’s bad, I don’t, my pain point is bad enough, I have to go get stitches.

If I’m sitting here and I get a toothache and it hurts bad enough, all things stop and I have to go to the dentist.

With finances, if we’re not paying our credit card and getting buried in interest, if we’re taking out too much debt, if we’re not investing our money and losing it by the second, if we don’t have a budget plan, I can keep going but I’ll stop.

If we don’t have these things, the system isn’t set up to immediately punish us because other people are profiting from our mistakes.

That’s the tricky thing about finance, is it’s very easy to be lost in the invisible pain of finance.

That’s why it takes even much more proactive behavior to get ahead of it.

This makes me think of, and I don’t know if this is a part of your book, but prenups, this is a very hot topic still.

Lots of people associate them with, if we do a prenup, then we’re basically signing a contract saying, we’re probably going to break up.

Now, I feel like they’re really important, especially if you’re coming into a relationship with assets.

What’s your take on prenups and if they’re important?

Again, it’s a hard conversation to have.

Yeah, it’s a tough conversation to have, but again, anybody who’s a numbers person, you just got to look at the numbers.

We try to use, again, take money out of it.

What do we do in society every day?

We use history as a learning lesson to prepare us for today.

We now live longer because of that.

We adjust what we do.

Back in the 60s, smoking cigarettes every day, we didn’t know the repercussions.

Now we do.

We don’t smoke cigarettes, at least for the most part.

We know with history that 50 percent of us are getting divorced.

If we know that, why don’t we use it as a learning lesson?

Then if we’re confused by that, let’s have a really healthy conversation to start it.

That goes something like this.

Everyone here, if you’re listening to this, you are married.

You have a prenup whether you know it or not.

You have one.

The prenup is just your state laws.

Whatever your state laws are for marriage, which are different state by state, that’s your prenup.

That’s your guideline.

You have one.

If you guys get divorced, you follow those laws.

Having a discussion about prenup should say, let’s make this fair for both of us, but also why don’t we take what the state laws are in place, talk about our situation, and then create a basic contract to adjust the state laws so that we both feel good about it and it’s the state not deciding what happens.

We decide.

Let’s talk about that.

I think that’s a very easy way to discuss the topic.

Another topic, if you’re married, you didn’t do a pre-num and it’s not in the future, they have a solution for that and it’s called a post-numptial agreement.

I talk a lot in the book about the post-num and the benefits of that.

The idea is like, let’s learn from yesterday, let’s just be prepared for tomorrow.

Divorce is still so rampant and even too, I think a lot of people think that this is only an issue if you’re married, but if you’re a common law and again, depending on where you live, I’m in Canada so we go with our provincial laws.

You’re basically treated as a married person so having a contract, even if you just don’t plan on getting married, but just want to remain common law, that’s really important too.

But I wonder too, there’s another excuse people don’t do is like, oh, it’s too expensive and it’s going to be really expensive if you don’t do it.

I mean, listen, I think it’s hard to, anything that requires a cost upfront that saves our butts tomorrow, it’s tough to comprehend.

That’s insurance and that’s everything like that.

In this book, I go through all the insurance and contracts you should have too.

However, there’s also very affordable ways to do it.

There’s a few resources I put in here, but like legal zoom is a very simple way to get a contract that’s done by attorneys at a much more affordable price.

There are solutions to the high cost and the high cost today will save you tomorrow period.

Money as a couple is one thing, but I think things definitely shift when you do decide to have a family, whether that is just dogs because those are expensive or having children.

I know just from talking to lots of friends who did start to have children, not only does it honestly just put an additional strain on the relationship because now you’re also parents, but then it also complicates the finances.

Who is going to take off work when the kid is sick?

Who should stay home?

Should we split Matt and Pat leave?

All that kind of stuff.

How can you manage money a little bit differently if then you want to start that family and is it just again having a lot more of those honest conversations and making sure you bring in the numbers, but also talk about what does this make sense or mean for our careers?

I think the biggest thing there is understanding the numbers.

The two basic numbers we just must know is the cash that’s coming in after tax and the cash that’s going out.

For the cash that’s going out, where is it going out?

Is it controllable or not?

We have to put in plans for our debt management and we have to put in plans for what’s controllable.

What’s not controllable, fixed expenses, we have to put plans to negotiate those because especially now with inflation, the price point of those are going to go up significantly.

When we understand these two basic principles of what comes in, what goes out, and what we could do as a couple, the conversation becomes a lot less tiresome because there’s only two things that you could do when planning for a child in those scenarios.

It’s increase that cash inflow or decrease that cash outflow to find more margin for the cost that’s coming.

But you can’t do that without visibility to the numbers, knowing how to find them, having healthy conversations, and then creating customization and compromise.

And so if we do those four things, we’ll have the ability to plan for a child without so much stress.

And I say the other element is being realistic.

Whenever I do watch shows like The Bachelor or reality shows, and they’re like, how many kids do you want?

They’re like, I want eight kids.

I immediately think, how are you going to pay for them?

Where are you going to live?

The middle of the states on a farm?

Where are we living here?

Exactly.

And you can do that.

You can look up studies now.

What is the based on your city and the cost of living adjustment?

What does it cost for a kid?

Those are the things that we got to do.

We got to step into this stuff.

We got to do our research.

Yeah, we got to do our research.

So the last thing I just wanted to touch on was, we all come into relationships with certain money behaviors, preconceived notions, habits that most of us are just unconscious to.

And we do them.

We don’t really necessarily know where they started from.

I’m of the belief that you can change anything about your financial future.

No matter what your financial past was, what are some money habits that people should really focus on to try to change or adopt to be successful in their relationship?

Yeah, I always say like, you know, therapy is a huge topic of conversation today.

It’s something that I believe in and something that I work on every three weeks now.

So when therapy, what do we do?

We understand from a child to where we are today, what made us traumas, tribulations, and how that impacts our behavior to adjust.

So what’s cool is we can do the same thing with money.

You can actually do some therapy through money.

It’s the theory I call behavioral based budgeting, which I talk about in the book a little bit.

You can just pull up the last three months of your credit card statements and go and look where you’re spending and do some self-digging and say, what am I spending on?

Where?

What actually triggered that execution of what I got?

And why did I do it?

And you might learn, it’s scary, but you might learn a little bit about yourself.

And as a result of that, you can see what your patterns are so that you can avoid your patterns in the future.

And so I always like to give examples, but my classic example came out of school.

I think I was making 45 grand at the year, at the year’s 21, 2010, thinking I’m the man living in a very affordable city at the time.

And what did I do?

Every Friday, boom, I had these huge bar tabs.

I can’t drink that much.

What the hell am I doing?

So Jason got to stop spending that.

Then the dig is, wait a second, why are you doing that?

Well, let’s put the guard down.

I know I was doing it.

I was a little lost.

I was coming off my senior year of college.

I didn’t feel the confidence that I felt as a senior at a small school.

I was making up for a lot of insecurities to try and be the guy.

And so now it’s actually interesting that my insecurities as an individual, things that I’ve not addressed are impacting my wallet.

And so I learned a lot from my spending about me.

And then I learned a lot about what triggers it.

So then in the future, I can change my behaviors to not do that.

And in Talk Money to Me, I list like 10 or 20 traps most people fall into that they can possibly adjust and catch.

So you can change the habit.

Amazing.

Amazing.

It sounds like you’re in a much better financial space now.

I’ve done a lot of self-work, which is really great.

My last question for you is where do you kind of see yourself?

I know you have like a bunch of businesses and it’s incredible what you’ve been able to achieve, especially since you were already doing well.

The Bachelorette could have ruined things, I’m always afraid.

But you turned it and you made lemonade out of those lemons and you did some really great stuff with it and have built this amazing career in all these businesses.

What’s your plans for the future?

Yeah, I think it’s just like exploring your curiosities and like getting off the show.

I got exposed to this whole world of digital media and influencer marketing and I just love it.

It’s fascinating.

So as a result of that, I came out with my first book called The Restart Roadmap, and that’s very career-navigation focused.

And my second book, Talk Money to Me, very love and money driven.

And then I also have a podcast called Trading Secrets, which is now a top 25 business podcast.

And so what we do on that show is we really talk about financial transparency.

So I mentioned it earlier, but like you think about athletes or musicians or actors or reality stars, people you really look up to.

But behind them, they’ve all made a lot of money and they’ve all lost a lot of money.

So we get into the numbers of their journey and then try and get the learning lessons from that.

So that podcast has been doing really well and we’re going to add a second episode and we’re going to take that out live.

For the book, we’re doing a book tour.

So March 19th to April 9th will be in Seattle, Denver, Austin, Chicago, Delray, Philly, DC and Boston.

So if you’re in any of those cities and you want to come, there’s a link in my bio.

And then what’s been fun about this whole process is curating like kind of my brand in this space.

But I realized I really have passion for helping others do it.

And so about three years ago, I started a talent management company called Rewired Talent Management.

And we now manage all different creators, public figures, musicians, actors, etc.

And we help them build and monetize their brand through influencer marketing and things like that.

And so we’ve been growing that company.

So it’s a mix of all those things I’m looking forward to.

Who knows, maybe down the road, some more TV work we’ll see.

I feel like there is definitely a gap in the market.

There’s no show really about money.

Like there’s been a few things that have come out on Netflix, but I miss some of those shows that were really just about how to improve people’s money.

There’s lots of DIY shows or how to improve your home or whatever.

But I don’t know, that might be something to…

There’s a fun way to make money sexy, so it’s good for TV.

And I don’t think they’ve done that.

There’s been some…

I don’t think they’ve done that yet.

Well, thank you so much, Jason, for taking the time to be on the show.

It was a pleasure.

I’m excited about your book, and I’m sure it’s going to help so many people, and I’m excited to see what you’re up to next.

So thanks so much for coming on.

I appreciate it.

And that was episode 395 of the More Money Podcast with Jason Tartick.

Make sure to check out his podcast called Trading Secrets, and grab a copy of his books.

Talk Money to Me is just newly on shelves, and his first book is called The Restart Roadmap.

And of course, you can also learn more about him on his website, jasontartick.com.

And I’m going to include all the social links, any other things that may be of interest to you in the podcast show notes.

So go to jessicamoorhouse.com/395 to find those episode show notes on my website.

Now, like I mentioned, I’m giving away a copy of his new book, Talk Money to Me.

So if you go to jessicamoorhouse.com/contest, that is where you can find information about his book that I’m giving away.

Also, I’m giving away all the books that have been featured on this season of the show, and there are quite a few, and you can enter to win all of them.

I don’t care if you win, you will only win one book.

But if you kind of want to, you know, up your chances of winning something, enter to win all of them.

And good luck to you.

So for a little tease of who is on the show, because we are, you know, full swing tax season.

I don’t know if you’ve done your taxes or not.

If you haven’t, you’re going to want to listen.

But even if you have, we are going to be talking about taxes, but also specifically self-employed taxes, or if you’re a self-employed person, what are some things to do to prepare for your taxes, do your bookkeeping, things that you should know, things that I get questions about literally every single day because of the YouTube videos that I’ve put out over the years about being self-employed.

So you are not going to want to miss next week’s episode with Jamie Monte, who is an accountant and really knows her stuff and also deals with these questions all the time.

So that is what’s going on next week.

So make sure to subscribe or save this, or remember to come back here next Wednesday.

So that’s really it for me.

A big thank you to my podcast team Video Edit by Justice Carrara and produced by mravcanada.com.

And also just a reminder, this is also a video podcast.

If you want to watch it, you can see clips on my Instagram, TikTok, and the full thing on my YouTube channel, jessicamoorhouse.com.

So make sure to check that out if you want to watch instead of just listen.

But also just keep listening, do whatever you want to do.

Anyways, a big thank you for listening and subscribing and liking and following and just supporting this podcast, even if you’re new or if you’ve been a long time supporter.

I really want to say a big thank you.

And with that, I will see you hopefully back here next Wednesday.