They were the doctors, the lawyers, the people with the big house. We didn’t have anything. Now as he’s grown up, he makes a very good income. The way he talks about money, he still believes he doesn’t have enough. He still acts as if he doesn’t have enough. And there’s a lot of peculiar behaviors that people without money carry into their adulthood.

Can Netflix really teach us ‘how to get rich’?

When people think budgeting, images of their parents studiously going over receipts, writing down expenses in a notebook, and screaming, “WHY DID WE SPEND SO MUCH ON GAS LAST WEEK?” come to mind. Mad Fientist: So Edinburgh is a really big coffee city actually, and they have great cafes who have lots of people that are passionate and lots of roasters. So I’d maybe go down there and chat to them about potentially learning more from them in some way or if they had any recommendations for what to do for somebody in my situation, I guess. Don’t like watching TV? Cancel the Netflix subscription. What about the gym subscription? Is it possible for you to get the same results at home?

So over the past couple of years, you’ve released a couple of things that are actually very helpful for this goal. So if you could, since I’m gonna be referencing them so many times, would you just tell the audience who may not be familiar with your podcast and your new journal, what those both are about? I like doing what I can to lighten my footprint on the planet. I’d rather wear a sweater than crank the heater. I don’t like dust, dry air, or the noise from the heater, either. I’d rather keep usable things out of the dump and avoid fueling the demand for ever more. That includes buying high-quality things and keeping and maintaining them a long time. I love bicycling, and I don’t love driving. Okay. Well let’s take a second to dream. Coffee is one of the things that makes you passionate. You love it and you wanna get more experience with it. So how would you discover how to go deeper into that hobby of yours? Ramit Sethi: Mmm. Try again. Don’t you have a lot of money, like, oh, I’m not even spending what I should be in my model. And we’re debating over a hundred pounds. I don’t think so. Try it again. Ramit Sethi: I think that’s true. I think that a lot of people have been taught well… I think that the world teaches us to save, but nobody teaches us to spend. And if you take that concept of frugality to the logical extreme, then you start to see saving money as a virtue and spending money as a sin.

Ramit Sethi | LinkedIn Ramit Sethi | LinkedIn

I would say it’s sort of like being in a psychiatrist’s office and the couple are on the couch and you’re there like assessing it and you’re just eavesdropping on this really personal conversation. And yes, some of the higher net worth episodes have been really, really useful to me, which we’re gonna talk about.And you will be happy to know that over 2021 and 2022, it looks like we’re doubling that value for our annual spend. Mad Fientist: Now, I’ve heard you do this sort of thing with people on your podcast a lot, but I did not expect this sort of like clammy reaction that I just experienced. So this isn’t even a question on my list because I wasn’t expecting this sort of reaction to those pressing questions. Ramit Sethi: Yeah, it definitely does. And it’s a funny wrinkle in human psychology that even if we are acting in a way that is not serving us, our mind will create a narrative where we end up being virtuous. But there are things that are really important to me, and so I actively seek out how to go deeper and make my life easier. And so I’m not surprised that you had that reaction and that you almost kind of seem to go blank when I asked you how would you do it? But that’s okay. It takes a little bit of coaching.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich Ramit Sethi - Apple Podcasts I Will Teach You To Be Rich Ramit Sethi - Apple Podcasts

If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Mad Fientist: Excellent. Well thank you so much, Ramit. Really appreciate it. And yeah, hopefully I’ll touch base with you in another three or four years and I’ll have made even more progress. Why aren’t you doing that? And it’s a disconnect between, what you have in the bank, because that’s just some number on a computer screen. It’s meaningless. It feels meaningless to me. And I was listening to these episodes like dreaming with them and being like, wow, what an amazing position they’re in. And you define what it is. And if we start from that premise that you decide what your rich life is and suddenly it becomes a lot more exciting to be able to use money to live that life.So let’s talk about this concept because I like that it’s uncomfortable. I like that it makes you think about your vision for spending. Ramit Sethi: I know. I love it. I wish we could be in the same room right now. It’s quite striking when you see how people physically react to conversations about money, they shrink. I’ll see someone who’s extremely confident and the minute we start talking about money, they physically shrink into the couch . It’s quite interesting. But you know what, I have a lot of empathy for that cuz I shrink when we talk about a couple things in my life that I know I need to do and I’m not. I like older things for multiple reasons. Clothes soften up, and I like them that way. I can putter around the kitchen and garden and not worry about getting mud or fruit juice on them. Some stuff, I just get used to, and it’s comfortable to go on using the old and familiar thing. When I used to write and journal longhand, I found I wrote better in cheap notebooks than in expensive ones. I’m less inhibited about taking apart or remaking a free or thrifted item, too, whether to attempt to fix it or to remake it and do something creative. And they really don’t make some things like they used to. Mad Fientist: You know what that’s a fantastic idea because sometimes it just doesn’t turn out and I don’t know why. And I’m like, how am I gonna figure this out because it’s not something I can YouTube or something. Because I don’t really know why that’s not as good as it should be.