5 Secrets to Becoming a Financial Power Couple – Episode 303

To make it work, you and your spouse or partner need to commit to the goals in a financial plan. Unfortunately, many couples may need money therapy first. On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan and Matt outline 5 ways to bring your financial objectives together. Isn’t it time you became a team, increasing your net worth growth as you progress towards a shared financial future?

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show brought to you by Dentist Advisors, a no commission, fiduciary, comprehensive financial advisor just for dentists, only for dentists, all over the country, just like you. Check us out. Dentistadvisors.com.

Ryan Isaac:
Today on the show Matt and I talking about a pretty common question and a very big issue in doing financial planning for people, which is how to involve your spouse or partner in your financial planning, your investing, and your financial decision making. It can be difficult. It varies widely between different couples and partnerships. And so it’s kind of an emotional, touchy subject, but today we’re going to give some stories and some tips, some things that we’ve seen work for people over the years to get your entire team, if you will, more involved in your financial planning and investing and financial decision making, really.

Ryan Isaac:
We hope it helps. If you have any questions for us, you can talk to us directly by either going to the Dentist Advisors discussion group on Facebook… You can post a question. We will respond with an answer, or you can post a topic you’d like us to cover and we will totally do it. Or if like you’d to chat with one of our advisors, have a consultation, see if we might be a good fit for each other to work together and help you reach your goals faster and safer, go to dentistadvisors.com, click on the, “Book a free consultation,” link, schedule a chat with one of our very friendly dental-specific advisors. And thanks for being here everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consult an advisor or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions and avoid the bad ones along the way. I am Ryan Isaac. And I’m here with the guy you all know and love, the Hollywood Mountain, Matt Mulcock, running on two hours of sleep from his baby. What’s up, Matt?

Matt Mulcock:
I really am running on very little sleep.

Ryan Isaac:
Maybe three.

Matt Mulcock:
And this is not sustainable. This is not sustainable. Anyone out there with young babes, you know what I’m talking about. So my son is four months. He just turned four months about… Let’s see. Five days ago? And I told my wife the other day, I’m like, “I can’t do this anymore.” At four months you’re just done. It’s like, “We got to get this figured out.”

Ryan Isaac:
Wait. When a man tells his wife that he can’t do it anymore in regards to the newborn baby and then the wife just looks at you dead pan like, “Oh, are you referring to the human I grew from nothing in my abdomen and then passed out of my body?”

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. That’s fair.

Ryan Isaac:
“And then my body’s the one actually feeding it and then I wake up with it and I’m still feeling the effects from the last kid three years ago?” Is that the kid you’re referring to, Matt? That you can’t do it anymore?

Matt Mulcock:
Okay. I deserve that. I deserve that. But-

Ryan Isaac:
Because I’ve said that many times too and then my wife just looks at me and I’m like, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Matt Mulcock:
Right. And she gives him that look… What you just said can be communicated in just one look.

Ryan Isaac:
Two seconds. You know. You’re tired. That’s okay.

Matt Mulcock:
To be fair I am helping a lot.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. You wake up-

Matt Mulcock:
Not to go into too much and I know this is maybe a bit of a touchy subject for people out there. I know this is really a controversial thing everything in America.

Ryan Isaac:
[crosstalk 00:03:26].

Matt Mulcock:
We went to formula pretty early on with our son because my wife went back to work and it was just too hard to do the pumping and all that. So because of that, it’s a split thing where I’m up a lot during the night.

Ryan Isaac:
Good for you. Attaboy.

Matt Mulcock:
And we’re going back and forth. We’re a partnership. We’re a team. So you’re right. The nine months she did it all. She’s carried our team. But I’m done right now. I got to figure this out.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s tough. Your sleep schedule right now is the investment strategy of day trading meme stocks from Reddit. Very unsustainable.

Matt Mulcock:
Absolutely. It’s just chaos.

Ryan Isaac:
Chaos and some highs.

Matt Mulcock:
Just pure chaos. Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
All right. Well, speaking of partners and spouses-

Matt Mulcock:
Smooth transition there. That was unplanned.

Ryan Isaac:
This is perfect. That was totally unplanned. We’re going to talk about a subject today that comes up all the time. It’s a huge financial planning roadblock, subject question. And it’s just a really common, super normal dynamic in everything. Partnerships, friendships, marriages. And it’s probably the number one question we get around spending, which is, “How do I help my partner or spouse stop spending so much?”

Matt Mulcock:
Always.

Ryan Isaac:
So we’re going to talk about how to get your spouse or partner involved in your financial planning. Obviously we’re just going to give our tips here and some of the things we’ve seen work.

Matt Mulcock:
Some tips and tricks. Tips and tricks.

Ryan Isaac:
Tips and tricks here. Ts and Ts is all we’re throwing out today, but this stuff is really personal and it depends on your situation and your relationship. And what’s really fascinating about money and finances is we carry so much psychological, emotional baggage around money that we’re probably not even aware of just from being raised by other humans who were also messed up around money in some ways I’m sure.

Ryan Isaac:
So some of us might be huge spenders. Some of us might be really frugal. Some of us might be freaked out about investing. Some of us might have wild risk tolerances around… Call it investing, but mostly gambling. And some of this is our own doing. Some of this we picked up as kids being raised by other humans. And so we’re just messy creatures. And money’s a magnifying glass. That’s all I think it is. It’s just a magnifying glass and it just shows us our weaknesses.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep. Another way to put that… I’ve always said this too, is money’s a mirror. It’s a mirror just reflecting back to what you value.

Ryan Isaac:
I like that better.

Matt Mulcock:
So magnifying glass, mirror. Either way.

Ryan Isaac:
I like that better. It reflects back to you your values, your weaknesses. Yeah. That’s really true. So today we’re going to talk about what we hope are some helpful tips to get a spouse or a partner involved in financial planning. I do want to say though, just as an acknowledgement, as a disclaimer, just acknowledging that we understand how emotional this stuff is.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re humans. We have spouses.

Ryan Isaac:
We do this too, but also we’ve sat in hundreds and hundreds… I don’t know, maybe a thousand meetings. I want to calculate it at some point. If I do that-

Matt Mulcock:
You’ve sat in a thousand.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s got to be thousands of conversations.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, if we’re counting my Fidelity days plus DA days… Yeah. Thousands, easy thousands.

Ryan Isaac:
Where we’re watching spouses, partnerships, debate, argue, discuss, money decisions, investment decisions. And we know that it’s just a very human, normal thing. And some of us might never be on the same page with our partners with money. We might never be able involve the other person in our spending decisions or our saving decisions or what’s going on in the business. And I just want to acknowledge that and that’s okay. I don’t think there’s a perfect solution here.

Ryan Isaac:
And I also want to say that most of the time my observation would be that in most partnerships and marriages, one person just doesn’t it as much or care as much about finances. There’s just a big disinterest. It’s just not that fascinating, not that interesting, kind of boring. Even if things are going well, just don’t want to know about it. And that might be our client. That might be the dentist we work with. We have a lot of clients who are the dentists and we actually do more communication with their spouse.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah. All the time.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Just because the dentist happens to be the one that just doesn’t really care… Or not care, but just isn’t interested in the conversations. Doesn’t like it. It’s not something you want to spend five minutes on at all, let alone hours every year.

Ryan Isaac:
To kick things off I want to start with a little bit of background on the process of what happens when somebody hires us, because what we’re speaking about here I think you can probably take a few of these and do them on your own. But the things we’re really talking about have to do heavily with the personalized services that we give to clients and the time we spend with them getting to know them. Getting to know people over years and years just makes a huge difference when you have to talk about these subjects.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’m going to back out a little bit and just start with what happens when someone hires us, just so you have context of what we are going through, the stuff that we know and see. So by the time someone says, “Yes, I want to be a client of Dentist Advisors,” what’s normally happened, for most people, usually they’ve probably spent months listening to this show… So if you’re one of them, thank you for listening to the show.

Matt Mulcock:
Thank you. [crosstalk 00:09:10] welcome.

Ryan Isaac:
So what I’m saying is normally they’re pretty familiar with our content, our personalities, our philosophies, how we think about things. They’ve become comfortable through our content before they even reach out to us. I don’t know. If I had to throw out a stat, is it three quarters of people who have already engaged with our content pretty heavily before they even contact us? Is that fair to say, man? Higher, maybe?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. I’d say some somewhere in that range or maybe even higher, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Most people are like, “Hey, I’ve listened to the show for a year. I want to chat now.” And so that’s awesome. So that happens. And then usually we have anywhere from one to a handful of conversations around your situation. We need to know if we’re a good fit for each other. We don’t just go on hiring sprees or bring on whoever wants to hire us. We got to make sure we’re going to work for each other for a very long time, because hopefully that’s what a good financial planning relationship is.

Ryan Isaac:
But these are multiple conversations about… Man, it’s about everything, right? It’s your practice, your goals where you’re headed with the practice, what’s not working. Right off the bat we have to be super candid with each other and really transparent and just acknowledge what’s not working, what are the problems, what have been the mistakes in the past? And it always helps when we have spouses or partners on the phone during those initial conversations too.

Ryan Isaac:
So it’s content, consumption, and then it’s multiple phone calls, getting to know each other where we have a chance to explain our process in depth. Anyway, that’s what happens by the time someone says, “All right, let’s work together.” And we say, “Yep, we’re going to be a good fit.”

Ryan Isaac:
Then someone is assigned on their team two people. They’re assigned a main, primary financial advisor. And then they’re assigned what we would call a data advisor or an associate advisor. And then we go through a whole month of onboarding. We gather everything you can possibly imagine that has to do with your financial life that has probably never been gathered and organized by any other professional or yourself in your whole life or career and maybe never would be, in all one chunk. Someone’s gathered, looked at your taxes before. Someone’s looked at your insurance policy before. Someone’s looked at your loans before. But not one single person has looked at all of that.

Matt Mulcock:
Everything all together.

Ryan Isaac:
With your spending habits and patterns and your net worth and your assets and your debts and what’s going on in the practice and your profitability and your income and your big buying decisions coming up and talked about, candidly, your mistakes. By the time that first month is over we probably know you better financially than anyone else ever has or will. And that’s the goal.

Matt Mulcock:
And we’re both exhausted.

Ryan Isaac:
And we’re all tired. That’s when you pour a glass, right?

Matt Mulcock:
That’s when you pour a glass of wine and have just a celebration moment.

Ryan Isaac:
So anyway, that’s the leading up to it and then the first 30 days. So by the time that we start working with someone we have all of this context, all of this data. We’ve had hours of conversations with you, probably your spouse or partner. And we know so much about the data, but we know so much that’s not even financial. I mean, Matt, don’t you think after a while, the job of a financial advisor is very… It’s very consulting, counseling, therapy-based?

Matt Mulcock:
It’s a majority of what it is.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s not just talking about math and spreadsheets every conversation.

Matt Mulcock:
I can’t even tell you how many times I get in conversations with clients… Literally countless times over the last several years where one or both parties at some point during our conversation will say, “Man, you’re like our therapist. I feel like I’m in therapy.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what this is.”

Ryan Isaac:
Shout out to therapists for going to more school than we did.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course. I’m not at all claiming I am capable of being a therapist.

Ryan Isaac:
But you’re just saying the conversations and the relationships end up being so much more… They’re just very emotional and not all… This is super common. We’ll start a client meeting. We’ll go over some stats or something a spread sheet’s telling us. That’s two minutes of the conversation. And then it’s an hour of-

Matt Mulcock:
What’s on their mind?

Ryan Isaac:
“What’s on your mind? And how are you feeling about buying this building? And what are you hesitating about? And what are you second guessing?” Or, “This DSO offer.” We talk about the numbers for five minutes or 10 minutes. And then it’s 90 minutes of-

Matt Mulcock:
“How is this actually going to impact your life?”

Ryan Isaac:
Your life and changes and how I feel about this. Go ahead.

Matt Mulcock:
I was going to say… Just because this is what we talk about. We’ve said this so many times on this show and we talk about this in meetings, that personal finance is more personal than finance, because money touches every aspect of your life. This isn’t just numbers and data. This is your life. And so no way claiming we are therapists. Not at all. But we are money therapists, if you will. And that is where a lot of these conversations go, to, again, more times than not, it’s about just your life, your values, what are you trying to accomplish here? How are we going to get there? As opposed to looking at a spreadsheet all day.

Ryan Isaac:
I like the term money therapy. Yeah. Put your finances in therapy. I like that. Therapy’s the new gym. So it’s a really cool thing to do now and healthy. So put your money in therapy. Put your finances in therapy. I like that.

Ryan Isaac:
All right. The point of that context was just to illustrate that these tips that we’re going to talk about, they happen only after all this stuff is being done. And when most clients stick around for years and years… I mean, it’s a longterm relationship. There’s just so much of this history and so many of these conversations. And we’re talking to our clients a dozen plus times a year over phone and email and texting, all that kind of stuff. So we’re really close with people and we know the data in addition to all this. And so that’s the context behind it.

Ryan Isaac:
Matt, I’ve got a small list of things I think are helpful in this context. But I do think some people could, if they don’t have an advisor or they don’t have an advisor relationship like this, I think they could take some of these things and it would still probably work for them. But these are the things that I’ve noticed. Look, they don’t fix everyone’s situation. I still have clients who their spouse will never talk about this stuff ever. Sometimes because they flat out will not do it or sometimes they just don’t care and they don’t want to. They’re like, “Yeah, handle it. It’s fine.”

Ryan Isaac:
But these are some things that I’ve found have been helpful and they really can work. So number one I want to start with… I mean we all know that the sore spot between spouses or partners is spending. That’s the big thing.

Matt Mulcock:
Always.

Ryan Isaac:
What do most people do when they try to talk to their spouse about spending? It’s always the budget. It’s pull out the spreadsheet, pull out the bank statements, the credit cards, and then just start being like, “Why are you spending on this? And why did you have to go to-”

Matt Mulcock:
It’s very accusatory.

Ryan Isaac:
Budgets are like crash diets. They’re like triage. You got to jump into it like that every once in a while to just reign in something and get a handle on things, but they’re not longterm solutions. So the first thing I was going to say, which usually only happens after this long process and having a personal financial advisor in your corner, is that when we get to a point where we’ve established with somebody a healthy savings rate for their income… So maybe a healthy savings rate for your income’s 15% or maybe for your income it’s 30%. We got to figure out what is minimum and healthy for your income level and how much you need to save for the future.

Ryan Isaac:
But once we’ve established that… Meaning it’s automated. It’s coming out of their accounts every month. It’s going to the right places every month. They’re not thinking about it. It’s out of sight, out of mind. Then we can tell them with confidence, “Hey, the rest of the money that’s left over that you’re spending, it doesn’t really matter how you spend it. It doesn’t. And if it’s even more spending than you’re used to in the past, your savings is so high or high enough that… Have at it.”

Ryan Isaac:
And so I think that is one of the first places that we can actually help people come together on the budget and the spending and say, “Look, here’s how we’re managing it. We’re managing it in the reverse order by automating a healthy amount of savings.” Then whatever’s left you guys spend. Travel, go to Costco or Amazon, do your thing, whatever it is, and you’re okay. And I’ve found that when we get to that point spouses will step in and then start to…The threat level’s gone, right? There’s no, “Hey, we need you on this meeting because we got to tell you you’re spending too much money,” which I’ve had. You probably had this too where the spouses jump on and they’re like, “I know you’re just going to tell me I spend too much because that’s all we talk about.”

Matt Mulcock:
They’re all sheepish like, “Oh man, I know what you’re going to say.”

Ryan Isaac:
But when you can say, “Actually I don’t even care what you’re spending now and let me show you why.” So that was my first tip, is getting to a point where you can establish a healthy and high enough savings rate for your income level and future goals where the spending is… It’s like, “Do whatever you want.”

Matt Mulcock:
So I listened to a podcast the other day… Totally different context, but I thought of it for this podcast and what we do talking to couples about money. And so long story short, the topic they were talking about was more of a corporate setting. So how do companies create from leaders and team members what the interviewee referred to as psychological safety? Basically saying, in a communication type setting, how do you create an environment where both people feel comfortable sharing and communicating, again, and feeling psychologically safe to do it? And I was sitting there thinking, “Man, this is actually really pertinent to just couples and money.” And you have to create this environment of, again, feeling psychologically comfortable.

Ryan Isaac:
What did they describe in that? How did they do that?

Matt Mulcock:
So great question. That’s exactly what I was going to use as my tip here.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, that’s your tip? All right, Matt’s tip!

Matt Mulcock:
This is my tip. Creating psychological safety in these conversations when it comes to talking about spending or any of these things around money. So the way you approach it is pretty much the polar opposite of what you were saying, this accusation type tone. It’s more when you sit down and you as the spouse… Let’s say this. I’d say you as whoever the person is that’s controlling more of the money, like you said. There’s always going to be someone that’s more-

Ryan Isaac:
Who’s just more involved.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. More involved. I’m not even going to say in charge, but more involved.

Ryan Isaac:
They just do most of the spending, shopping, bill paying, organization. Yeah. Savings. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Just more involvement.

Matt Mulcock:
So I would say that person probably needs to start with this creating the psychological safety. And the way you do that is you put it more on yourself. So for example, as opposed to pulling out the credit card bill and saying, “Hey, what’s this? What’s this? What’s this?” You come to the conversation and say, “Look, here’s what I struggle with when it comes to money. Here’s a concern I have.” Or, “Here’s something that I’m spending money on that I’m not so sure I need to be spending money on,” or, “Here’s a worry I have about money. Here’s a goal I have with money.”

Matt Mulcock:
You start it and turn it on yourself and create this level of vulnerability, if you will, to say, “Hey, here’s what I’m thinking about. Here’s what I’m focused on.” And ideally you’d say, “Here’s where I struggle with money and I need your help.” If you open up the conversation that way, I think automatically the other person is going to feel, again, psychologically comfortable and safe to be like, “Oh yeah, this is what I’m struggling with.” And then it starts that conversation of more of a cohesive open communication, as opposed to we’re accusing each other-

Ryan Isaac:
That is safe.

Matt Mulcock:
And creating a defensive environment.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Because you’re just saying, “We’re both in this and here’s my part.” And so you’re opening with, “Here’s my weakness.” If it’s just the average person out there, they don’t have an advisor, they’re not involved in any organizational planning process like our clients are, well, all you know is how much is in checking right now and how much did we spend on this credit card statement? And then if you don’t have any other data you don’t know anything else. What is your savings rate? Is it enough? Are you even earning enough money out of your practice? Is your profitability high enough? Is your net worth fine or not fine? Is it growing, not growing?

Matt Mulcock:
I approach this, honestly… I may have misunderstood the assignment, but I approach this actually from just a general couple that doesn’t… Because my number one tip was get a third party involved. That was my number one tip.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Well, you can do two tips in a row.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m going to steal you your thunder and do two tips in a row.

Ryan Isaac:
Two Ts and Ts. So your second one is then you got to just get someone involved, which is basically where I began. I’m coming from the perspective of, “I don’t even really know what to tell people unless you have someone involved.”

Matt Mulcock:
Totally. Yeah. So like you just said, if you don’t have a third party involved-

Ryan Isaac:
It’s so tough.

Matt Mulcock:
We can debate whether that’s okay or not. I think most dentists out there at a certain point of their life, they’re going to need someone involved as a third party, but let’s assume that you don’t have that. The number one tip if that’s the case, where you don’t have a third party, is you got to get on the same page. You have to have a conversation around your values, your concerns, your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? And again, come from a place of creating the psychological safety. But really, ultimately, 1A, 1B, but really ultimately number one, is I think it is more optimal to have a third party involved.

Ryan Isaac:
It is. And not only just for the system and a process of a third party making you get organized, just so you have more data to talk about because probably… I mean, for some people this is true. But it might be true that spending isn’t your biggest issue. But you don’t know unless there’s somebody to force some organization and some context around data.

Ryan Isaac:
The other part about that, what you’re saying, too, is when there’s a third party involved, they’re going to make sure that you don’t skip a meeting. They’re going to make sure you don’t skip to discussing this stuff. In a marriage or partnership, you’ll just be like, “Yeah. We said we’re going to do the budget tonight, but let’s just not.”

Matt Mulcock:
“Let’s just drink wine and hang out.”

Ryan Isaac:
“Let’s get some tacos or something instead.” So having a third party is also… It’s that accountabuddy, right? It’s just that third party person who’s not even emotionally tied to all of this stuff you guys are going through and can just jump in and be like, “Hey, we’re talking on Thursday at four o’clock and I’m going to bring up this stuff and I’ll show you the data.” And so it just forces accountability that as a busy human without tons of interest in this subject anyway, you’re probably just going to skip. It’s going to get missed.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, not only that, but I’m curious to hear from you, Ryan… I know this is the case for me, but how many times have you sat with a couple and had one of these conversations, either at the beginning of the relationship or later on, and one of the people in the couple turns to the other one and says, “What? I’ve never heard this. I’ve never heard you say this.” How many times does that happen?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh. Some of the most cringy moments.

Matt Mulcock:
And not even necessarily in a negative way. Sometimes it gets a little bit awkward.

Ryan Isaac:
It can be awkward because there’s things that get brought up that the other person doesn’t know and you’re just sitting there like, “Ooh, should I leave for a minute?”

Matt Mulcock:
And a lot of times for me it isn’t even those awkward moments. It’s more of a, “Holy cow. I didn’t know you felt that way.” Like you said, it forces that conversation to be like, “I didn’t know you valued X over Y.”

Ryan Isaac:
All the time.

Matt Mulcock:
“We always talked about this.” Or maybe that one spouse just always assumed that… They were projecting on the other spouse, “This is what we want,” and when you get in this setting with a third party and all of a sudden you have this conversation and the other spouse opens up and they’re like, “Holy cow, I had no clue.” I’ve heard that so many times.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. When you say it that way, totally. And this comes up a lot… The conversation I can think of a lot is usually around debt or investing, which is one of the points I want to make, where the spouse that’s usually not on the phone calls usually, when they do jump on, you just get a different perspective. “I had no idea that paying off that car meant so much to you. And I can tell you that it’s not detrimental to your finances if it makes your life and marriage and sleep better. So let’s do it.”

Ryan Isaac:
Matt, it’s time.

Matt Mulcock:
Time for what, Ryan?

Ryan Isaac:
It’s time to book a free consultation at dentistadvisor.com. Just click on the big, “Book a free consultation,” button on the homepage and talk to one of our friendly advisors today.

Ryan Isaac:
I want to talk about investing for a minute. It’s pretty common to have two people on different pages on how they want to invest money. And usually it just has something to do with not having enough education or understanding about what investing means. So let’s just take investing in the stock market, for example. It’s pretty common to have a negative connotation about investing in the stock market. For some people, some partners or spouses, just hearing that brings up red flags and stories from mom or dad or uncle or aunt or… “Grandpa lost it all.” Something about investing in the stock market seems so wildly scary that there’s a million dollars in checking because they haven’t been able to agree on investing.

Matt Mulcock:
Where the money should go.

Ryan Isaac:
I’ve been in more conversations at this point than I could ever remember, sitting down with the spouse… Again, who isn’t usually on the calls, who is hesitant about investing their first chunk of money ever. They have horror stories in their mind about what stocks are and stock markets are. And in their mind they should just sit on cash and just pay off all their debt really fast. But having a third party go through and educate you… Not sell. I don’t care, honestly. If my clients for their own sanity and marriage and life and sleep habits need to hold more cash than I wish they would just so they can live or they need to pay off that car so that they can just keep going and work and earn money and enjoy life, then let’s do it. Let’s bake that into the plan so that your life functions.

Ryan Isaac:
But I don’t know these things until we get on the phone. But it’s more conversations than I could ever remember starting a call like, “All right. Hey, my husband’s on the phone. He doesn’t the stock market at all. He thinks it’s a casino and it’s a gamble.” And then there’s some story attached to it like, “Oh, his dad lost whatever.” And then an hour later after just educating, it’s all calm. It’s all fine. I don’t have a high agenda because ultimately I just need them to do what’s going to keep them making progress and moving forward for the next 30 years, not some rash decision tomorrow. So a calm discussion with some data and some facts, a lot of questions, and honestly I think we do a good job in in our Dentist Advisor’s culture of teaching and explaining difficult concepts in pretty simple ways that are down to earth that most people can understand.

Ryan Isaac:
So many times by the end of that, the other person is like, “Oh, okay, now I understand where this story I’ve told myself about what happened to my parents in the stock market is different from what you’re saying and how I’m missing some information and some context. And now I’m good. I’m good. Let’s move forward.” That has happened so many times and every time that happens I think, “What if we weren’t doing this?” If we weren’t doing this they would continue on for years or decades just not growing their money because of a story around some fear of investing that usually isn’t even correct, let alone totally rational. And it’s not their fault. This is how we all think about money. This is how we all internalize money stories and experiences.

Ryan Isaac:
But that has happened so many times, man, where I end those conversations, I’m like, “Geez, the path these people were on, continuing with these stories about what investing is or isn’t, was not going to work out for them at all in the future.” And so some basic teaching, some basic education from a third party who just really wants to teach you, not sell you something… Which is the difference of who you hire. Another episode entirely. But who you hire to do this job will be the difference between, are you getting educated or sold on something?

Matt Mulcock:
My next one would be along those same lines, is what I’ve said here, is having defined roles around money and within the family.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, I like that. We do that in my house too.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And that’s what we do. I don’t love the idea… And I tell my clients this all the time. I don’t love the idea when a couple comes to me and I hear from one of them that says, “Oh, I don’t care. I’m not involved. They just can take care of it.” I don’t love that. I’m fine if that-

Ryan Isaac:
Well, there’s a little bit of a time bomb in that. We know from experience somewhere down the line that is going to be a problem. It will be. It might seem easy like, “Okay, now we don’t have to get involved,” but no. It can be a problem.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I do think that both parties… This is a team and both parties have to have some defined role. So again, I’ll give you an example of my own relationship, because it sounds like, Ryan, you do something similar where you have some involvement from both.

Ryan Isaac:
I’ll explain that to you.

Matt Mulcock:
But my wife obviously knows and she’s very much fits that bill of, “I don’t care. You do it. I don’t want to be involved.” Well, we realized a long time ago, doesn’t work like that. This is not sustainable. So we defined roles. So what we’ve done is she runs the day-to-day, month-to-month. And this is a tip within a tip, if you will. Inception style.

Ryan Isaac:
Are you Leo in this scenario? Are you Leo?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m Leo. Yes, of course. I’m definitely Leo.

Matt Mulcock:
So I actually think that the spender, if you will… There’s always… Or I shouldn’t say always. Most likely there’s going to be one spender and one not, in general, on a spectrum. I think the role of the spender should be the person managing and tracking and doing the day-to-day, month-to-month. And that’s what we’ve found works for us. My role is handling the big picture stuff. But we then meet on a relatively regular basis. We communicate with each other. We’re talking about it. We’re getting on the same page on a regular basis. But I do think having your non-involved spouse… Forcing them to have a defined role in some way is really important.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. The last thing I was going to say that I think has been helpful… But this one really only comes after some work has been done for probably a few years, to be honest. I was going to say when we have clients long enough over the course of a few years that’s enough data… And certainly beyond that. To have a solid track on progress and where it’s headed…

Ryan Isaac:
Just for little context, you can go to our website, dentistadvisors.com, and follow along with what I’m talking about. If you go to the element section, there’s… What I’m talking about specifically is there’s one element that tracks your net worth compared to your spending. We call it total term. It’s in the bottom right hand corner of those little boxes. And that’s the magic number of when you are financially independent, when you can retire, stop working, or slow down. We track that number pretty meticulously and multiple times throughout the year. We also every quarter send out a report card on your net worth that shows how your net worth is growing. Are you getting wealthier? And with all the context we have as advisors at Dentist Advisors, we know if that progress is fast enough.

Ryan Isaac:
So what I’m getting at with this is that when we have enough data like this, to be able to show the less-involved spouse or partner progress being made… “Hey, all of these things you guys are doing, all the sacrifices you’ve made, all the money, all the bills, all the taxes, all the debts, all the hard work, schooling, everything…” So much that goes into it. “Here’s the progress you’re actually making. I know your goals are X, Y, and Z. And the numbers are telling us that you’re on a mathematical track to actually accomplish these goals by the age that we’re hoping to accomplish them. And here’s the math.”

Ryan Isaac:
And to be able to sit down with someone and just show them, “Here’s where your net worth increased over the last 12 months. And here’s the three areas why: debt reduction, savings, and investments growing. Here’s what you’re spending compared to that net worth and what that means for you. And here’s where your numbers match up against your peers your age.” Having that kind of data… Which, again, someone could do that on their own, but they’re going to have to do that on their own and do it for years to be able to have that kind of context and data, but that’s a staple of what it’s like working with us. Being able to show that to the other spouse or partner, man, it just goes a long way to show someone, “Everything’s good. You’re doing okay. You’re doing the right things. And here’s the numbers to tell us why that’s true.” That’s been really powerful for me to just show people progress, but it’s a lot of work and time to be able to show someone that, to get to that point.

Ryan Isaac:
That was a pretty comprehensive list. Again, we’re acknowledging that probably doesn’t fix everyone’s situation. And then there are people who will have partners or spouses that just still don’t want anything to do with this stuff. And I’ll say that we do have clients that are totally successful that they’re just never involved. Usually those people though… I don’t know. They have a lot of things going well for them. Things are working and it’s practice, income, savings, net worth, liquidity. It’s all going well. So I don’t know. It’s not like if a spouse is not involved that you’re doomed, but success will just be… It’ll just make it easier if they are in some way. It’ll just make it so much easier.

Ryan Isaac:
So we’re here to help. That’s what we do, to get someone super organized, give them all this context and data and have tons of communication and be a third party that’s not emotionally wrapped into your decision making and your spending, and your history. We’re not in your history.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. We’re not emotional about this.

Ryan Isaac:
It goes such a long way and it makes decision making easier. It takes the risk and the fear out of decision making. And it just makes it more likely that you’ll make better progress faster and safer along the way. So anything else you want to add, Matt, to… This is a pretty long episode, but anything else you want to add?

Matt Mulcock:
I would just say… Hopefully it’s helpful to just… Just a quick summary here of the themes that we mentioned here. I think number one, have a third party involved if possible. Sounds number two, probably have more of a system around… Well, be organized first. So that’s number two. Number three, have a system around savings and spending. And then I’d say communication, ongoing communication, being on the same page. And then probably the last one, having defined roles within the relationship around money. Those are probably the five themes that I think we hit on. Maybe there’s one that I missed.

Ryan Isaac:
That covers it.

Matt Mulcock:
Just if someone just wanted a quick recap, I think those are the five main things.

Ryan Isaac:
I think this would make a good webinar too, so join us for that. I’m sure that’ll come up soon. Maybe next month or something we’ll do it.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks for being with us to everyone. We really appreciate listening and we know it helps when you listen, because like we said earlier, most people, high majority of people who call us for the first time, have listened to us for quite a while. And we know it helps. So if you have any questions, any topics you’d love us to cover, reach out to us, DM us, go to the Dentist Advisors discussion group on Facebook, post a question. We’ll post an answer. Post a topic. We’ll discuss it on the show. And if you ever want to have a chat with us directly, just go to dentistadvisors.com, click on the, “Book a free consultation,” link, schedule a chat with a friendly advisor. And thanks for being with us. Matt, have a good one. Get some rest.

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Talk to you later. Bye, everybody.

 

Saving, Spending