The Families of Character Show
We serve parents who want more for their family. Our show offers research-based parenting solutions to the most common family problems, real-life parenting stories, and authentic support. The host, Jordan Langdon, is a wife, mother, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who validates what parents go through and offers practical actionable steps parents can implement today to transform their families in joy and unity. Guests are experts in their field of work and provide high-value material for parents and families.
The Families of Character Show
Ep. #172: Top 5 Money Struggles Couples Face & How to Overcome Them with Jake and Noelle Wysocki
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We unpack the five biggest money struggles couples face and make the case that a shared vision is the keystone that makes everything else easier. Jake and Noelle Wysocki share practical routines, from State of the Union meetings, and tiny experiments to co-learning, that turn money from a stressor into a tool.
In this episode, we discuss:
• why no shared vision drives most money conflicts
• how to run quarterly “State of the Union” check-ins
• using tiny experiments to make lasting changes
• co-learning to prevent knowledge and power gaps
• combining accounts vs separate money mindsets
• simple 1–10 satisfaction exercise to start now
• aligning money with generosity and long-term goals
Listen to Episode 112, How to Live a Regret-Free Life, with Jake Wysocki and check out his website to see what he has been currently up to! Curious to learn about Jake and Noelle's travels? Visit www.everydayanewadventure.com
Share this episode with your spouse first, then share it with a friend. Stay tuned for our weekly episodes that drop on Tuesday. Check out our website, familiesofcharacter.com
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Hey guys, when it comes to marriage, money isn't just about dollars and cents. It's about trust, communication, and having shared dreams. And in fact, you're not going to be surprised by this, but research shows that finances are one of the top sources of conflict for couples. And it's not because of how much money you have or don't have, but it's actually because of how differently we think about money. Welcome back to the Families of Character Show. I'm your host, Jordan Langdon. And today we're diving into the five most common money struggles that couples face. And we're going to hear from our guests about how they've learned to navigate these struggles together as a united team. So I'm just going to throw these top five struggles out there for you right off the bat. Number one, having different money mindsets, right? One might be a saver and one might be a spender, or they value money for completely different reasons. Number two, avoiding money talks altogether, just putting off conversations to quote, keep the peace. That often creates bigger problems later. Oh man, do you remember when you got married and you come into the marriage with your student loan debt or maybe your target credit card debt? That sparks stress in marriages. Number four is power imbalances, right? Where one partner is um earning or controlling most of the money, and then the other one feels like sidelined or dependent on their spouse. And then finally, number five, no shared vision. That means they're operating without clear financial goals and saving and spending just kind of feels disconnected or maybe even competitive. So today we have on our show a return guest. Jake Waisaki is back with his lovely wife, Noelle. And the reason I invited them back on our show is because on episode 112, that's 112, we had Jake talk about living a regret-free life. And Jake, when I interviewed you on that episode, you talked about how after you and Noelle got married, you guys quit your jobs and traveled the world for like a year. And I remember thinking, like, how in the world do newlyweds afford this? And I had my friends who had listened to that episode be like, seriously, that sounds like a dream. Like, I wish I could do that in 10 years or 20 years. And so that really sparked the idea to have you back on the show with your lovely bride to talk about like, how do you follow through on some of these shared visions and dreams together to make something like that happen? So definitely check out episode 112, How to Relive a Regret Free Life. Um, but Jake, Noelle, introduce yourselves. Let our audience know a little bit about you, how long you've been married, your family situation, and then we'll dive into this conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Thanks, Jordan. Um, since everybody heard from me uh plenty last time, I'll actually let my wife speak a little bit first on this one. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:Great. Hi, everybody. I'm Noelle Weisaki, and of course, that's Jake Weisaki. We are three days shy of our 11-year anniversary. So happy year anniversary. Thank you. Thank you so much. We live here in Milwaukee with our two daughters. Um, Adrian is almost eight years old, and Lily is four and a half. And sometimes it feels like they're running the show here.
SPEAKER_00:I think totally's actually 14. Yes. But you know.
SPEAKER_02:14-year-old in a teeny, teeny tiny body.
unknown:Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:This happens. This happens. But we're so glad to have you on our show. And Jake, you have your own uh business, intention craft. And Noelle, you are busy working in corporate America and you got kids going to school. So you are in the trenches with us. You understand uh what it takes to uh keep your marriage together, uh, be happy in your marriage and content with each other, and uh raise kids that are awesome and like are trying to do the right things and to stand firm in their beliefs when the culture is kind of pushing you around a little bit and suggesting things that go against the grain. So um we are super excited to have you with us. Thank you for the introduction. Thanks for having us. Yes. So, okay, when I talk about different money mindsets, avoiding money talks, debt pressure, power imbalances, and then having no shared vision, those being kind of the top five um money struggles that couples have, does that pretty much match what you've observed in your own marriage and the circles that you run run in? Definitely.
SPEAKER_02:Of of all of those five, the one that really jumped out at both of us the most as being the main pillar would be no shared vision.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh. Yeah, I'll I'll jump in here for a second. So at the conference I met you at, Jordan, Crafting Commerce, in 2024, I also had the pleasure of meeting Jay Papazan, and he's the co-author of The One Thing. And this like stuck out to me, so I felt like I had to name drop a little bit, frankly, but also just like call out his his big thing in the book is having one thing that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. And I just felt like if you have a shared vision, vision of money with your spouse, that it makes all those other problems easier. It doesn't necessarily make them go away, but it gives you easier answers or more guidance. And without it, everything else is harder, conversely. So that's where that's where our uh thoughts gravitated towards.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I appreciate you pulling out that one thing that stuck out to you because I I wonder if other people uh would agree that that's kind of like the primary thing, right? I don't think so. I think most people think like, well, we just think about money differently, right? And that's our biggest source of conflict. Well, I agree with you that if you don't first have a shared vision, then you're going to realize that like we have these different ways that we think about money that comes from the way we were raised and how our parents talked about money, functioned with money, you know, argued about money or whatever. And then you never get to identifying the shared vision, right? So let's go there. Let's talk about having a shared vision for money. Tell us your experience about kind of um deciding that this was a thing for you guys. When did you decide to talk about having a shared vision?
SPEAKER_02:I think the four other items are symptoms of not having a shared vision. And we had to work through a lot of those conversations before we realized wait a second, what we're missing here is the discussion about what we want our money to do, how we intend to share our money, what things and experiences we want out of life individually, as a couple, as a family, when we want to achieve those types of things. We need to pull back for a minute and talk about what is our greater vision for our marriage and our family, um, and what does that mean as it relates to finances? Um, when did we start doing that?
SPEAKER_00:That's a really good question. Um, I feel like I've kind of always done these um like goal packets. Like ever since I was in college, my first job, I was introduced to this uh like goal packet concept and like Stephen Covey and things like this. So I've always done processes like this. I would say our process isn't super formal. So when we talk about a shared vision, it's not explicitly that we have a document, although it could be, and frankly, we probably should. That probably helps. But really, it to me, a shared vision. So let's start with like what a shared vision means for me. And that's having at least uh some high-level concepts of what you want your life to look like that you're agreed on. So you're moving towards the same direction. Let's even take a step further back. Money is a really important, uh, call it a concept or an aspect of life. It's not that it's not the end game, it's the means to get to the end game, which is a what a life well lived, if you will. Or maybe in my previous world, a regret-free life or something like that. So, money for us is a tool. Um, it's often also a hindrance if you're not taking care of it well or on the same page. And so, our goal with money and having a shared vision with money is to number one, I think, make it not a hindrance and make it not a problem, an enabler, not a detractor, if you will. And then also, what do we want to do with our life will inform what do we, what kind of money do we need? How do we need our money structured or organized, if you will, or like what choices are we making on a daily basis and a big basis? So that's kind of like a broad stroke of like it gives you um like a compass, if you will, and a and a decision filter for all these other things. So that's what immediately comes to my mind there.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate you saying just like that, you know, one of the things that you've sort of uh latched onto in in college was this idea of like goal packets, right? Like you're you're thinking, okay, let's have a little bit of a structure to our conversation so that's intentional, and we're we have a place that we're going to, an end goal that we're trying to kind of distill this conversation down to really understand, you know, what is it that you want and what is it that I want, and how could we put this together? So I'll have you know, any of you parents that have been to Parents Night Out, it's our date night event that we host monthly here in Denver for local couples. Jake has been the one that has helped me with these little goal packets to do our uh couples exercises. So we might talk about the back to school year, right, at one of our events, and and we'll put together a little exercise that kind of gives an overview of what we're gonna uh accomplish in this exercise and then takes people through a series of questions to get couples engaged with each other to talk back and forth uh and to distill it down to kind of like, oh yeah, this is our shared vision. This is what we both want this back to school season to feel like. Awesome. We got there with a little guided uh exercise, a little goal packet. Uh, because I do think that as parents in the trenches, we are working jobs, we're doing chores, we're managing kids, we're, you know, ubering people around everywhere. We've got so much on our plate that we do need a little structure when it comes to conversations. Whether you've been married 11 years or 21 years on my side or 40 years, I just had a couple reach out to me. They're in their 70s. They said, Jordan, we read your article in the Epic Times about family huddles. Can we're we're parents who our kids are out of the house and they have their own kids. Could you help us kind of get some structure around how we could do a family huddle, how we could get on the same page and communicate each week so that we can um live out our years in retirement with purpose and intentionality? And uh I thought back to our conversation, Jake, about just, you know, have an intentional conversation with some structure, with some guidance. And so it sounds like you guys have done this about this shared vision when it comes to money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So maybe I can talk a little bit a little bit about our process now. So I kind of didn't answer Noelle's question or your question about when do we start? I don't necessarily know when we started, but maybe I can tell you a little bit about what we're doing now. Um how to continue to refine and enhance and just it's it's gonna change your vision, by the way. Also, I give you permission, those of you listening, to change your vision. It doesn't have to stay locked in stone. In fact, it shouldn't, because as you're change, as you change, so should your goals and your vision. Um, so we actually called these, and I don't, I stole this from somebody, but we call them state of the unions. Uh Noelle and I is like meetings that we do ourselves. At some point, we'll also bring in our kids. Um, we could probably start doing that with Adrian any day now, I suppose, uh, for some of the aspects. But uh, and and I love taking stepbacks as I'm talking. I'm like, well, let me tell you the fundamentals behind it. So we don't need to go all the way back to the beginning, but I did want to mention one of the reasons these are so important to us is you know, if you if we were to rank, and we've done we've done this in not necessarily a direct way, but if you were to rank the aspects of our life that are most important, our marriage is at the top because it supports everything else. So our kids, and I think we've actually talked about this, Jordan, maybe even on the last podcast, or certainly informally. Our kids are incredibly important to us, but they're not as important as our marriage because our marriage supports the growth of our children, for example. So anyway, we we find it really useful to have check-ins. Um, we try to do this quarterly. It doesn't always happen quarterly, but we definitely do like a bigger State of the Union every year. And I think I had an epiphany a few days ago talking about our anniversary coming up, like what do we want to do? And I'm a big fan of Priya Parker. You can look her up separately, but she's about the art of gathering. I think actually uh recommended her to you as well, Jordan.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I love that book.
SPEAKER_00:And her kind of challenge is, I forget how she phrases it, but it's basically like don't have a birthday party, have a gathering that's about um turning another year older and what that means, or something like that. But it's it's not just doing the thing that everybody always does. So the question that that sparked for me was what should our anniversary be about? Is it about going out to dinner and just spending time with each other in a way that we do periodically anyway? Maybe that could be part of it, and that's still fun. But what if this year we actually did one of our Stay the Unions on our anniversary or around our anniversary to really say, hey, this is like it's been however many years, in this case 11 years, since we decided to get married or we said yes on the altar. Now, how are we going to reinforce that? How are we gonna continue strengthening that that relationship, that bond? What's next? Looking back, how's it gone? Things like that. So I'll just set the stage there. Um, so I'm planning our next one now, but the the core of it is really kind of like we talked about when we're planning and designing your um parents' night outs. First, do a little bit of independent thought about whatever topic it is, because we are individuals, but we're also a team, but we're individuals first, if you will. And it's easy to just defer to other people when they have ideas. So it's really important to do some of your own thinking, whatever the question may be. Let's just use an easy one. Um, let's talk about the travel that we'd like to do in the next few years or something. Instead of saying just having a conversation, first think for yourself and then come together and share, and then that leads to more conversation. Eventually, you need to make some decisions. That's like the really, really broad strokes of how we come up with a vision. So, a vision might be what's important to us with money in particular. What are the things, well, actually, money is really about enabling the life we want to live, right? So, what do we want to do with our life? That's like this first step. And then how do we actually accomplish it? And a lot of times that has to do with money. Like if we want to travel, that takes money typically to spend. And then we kind of work backwards from there. You want to add anything to that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's been a really interesting way to approach the the business that is a marriage. I think thinking of a marriage uh as an analogy to business functions, a lot of people might be allergic to that idea. Um, because it's so romantic, it really just gives you all the warm, fuzzy feelings when you're thinking about corporate talk as it relates to your marriage. But if if I would think if we were just winging it and we never took the time to check in on what do you what do you want to learn this year? Where do you want to go this year? What do you want to do? What goals do we have? What do what visions do I have for our children? What visions do you have for our children and their experiences? If we were to just go about it, I think we would have a lot more arguments. We would have a lot more miscommunication. We would be completely unaligned on how to support each other in accomplishing our goals individually, accomplishing our goals as a couple, and accomplishing our goals as a family.
SPEAKER_00:So we'd be making a lot of assumptions. Oh, yeah. We all know what assuming is. So I won't repeat it here. But you can fill the gaps.
SPEAKER_02:And so it, I think it, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie, it took me a little while to um get a resistance to that allergy. Because even I was like, this is not a very romantic way to treat our marriage. Um, so I had some resistance to doing it for a little while, and then realized, wait a second, this is actually really beneficial. And I'm actually able to express my own voice in my goals here and what I'm hoping that we can accomplish together. Um, and it's really been an excellent driver of our success. And like Jake was saying, that is the driver on how we can define that vision together. And the financial side is the tool that we can then apply to making those visions and those goals come to life.
SPEAKER_03:I love this. I love everything about it, and I have all kinds of side thoughts that are popping up. Um, one I want to go back to and address, you know, when you're thinking about money and you may have heard these top five conflicts that that couples struggle with, and you're going, yep, we've got every one of them, or one of those stands out more than others to us. Um I just want to encourage you and give you hope that if if you've avoided the talk about money or you have no idea what you and your spouse's vision for the future is, um, it's okay because you can always start from now, right? It's never too late. If you hear this conversation and you know that it's possible to start having conversations about um, how are you raised with money? Like what how did your parents talk about money? You know, how do you view money? Maybe you view it as a a tool or just a flat out source of stress that you don't even want to deal with, you know? Uh, but you can ask each other these questions in a non-judgmental way, in a way that sparks curiosity about your spouse. Like, I really do want to know, like, how was it for you growing up, you know? Um, so I hear that you guys are saying, like, man, we've had these conversations. Noelle, you were a little bit resistant in the beginning, going like, oh gosh, Jake, like, here we go. This sounds like a business meeting in our, you know, marriage. Put the sticky notes away.
SPEAKER_00:What are the sticky notes doing here?
SPEAKER_03:That's right. That's right. But then you just you kind of surrendered to it, right? You just sort of like went, okay, this is your idea. You kind of do this for a living, you coach people on how to have intentional conversations so that you have a vision for where you're going in your business. And so let's let's try it in our marriage. And it sounds like it's been very fruitful for you, even to the point of like at the beginning of your marriage, you guys did something wildly different, quit your jobs and traveled around.
SPEAKER_02:And we want to do that again, but this time we want to do it with our girls. So that's on our on our vision board, right? If we were to have a physical vision board, we we have our sticky notes, as you like to say. Um, but we hope to in the next, I don't know, five years or so, take the girls around the world for a year or two and educate them on the road. And so that's gonna be some that's gonna be a big goal that we need to put a lot of intention behind and conversations and how are we going to make this happen just like we did the first time around. So that's gonna be something that we talk about.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And I know just scripturally speaking, you know, I talk about how um where there is no vision, the people will perish. This is part of what we believe as Christians, right? It's like where there is no vision, the people will perish. That goes back to your comment about Jake, if we were just like winging this thing, like you were spending money, I was spending money. We never talked about what we want out of our life or this vision that we have for our children, these experiences we want them to have, then we would just be like blocking and tackling as things come up and living a reactive life versus a responsive and intentional life. And so again, if you're thinking, if you're listening and you're thinking, uh, I just still don't get it. These people are in a different league. They have some privileges that we don't have, so this is not for us. No, this is totally for you, right? These conversations are meant for you, they're meant for your marriage. When you get in a union with someone, you say yes, it's for life, it's forever. So why wouldn't you want to make your partner, you know, more aware of what your desires are?
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_02:Noelle, you were gonna say something. Go ahead. Yeah, you know, when we started dating, we weren't jumping right into let's talk about our finances and what we would do if we were a couple, right?
SPEAKER_00:But we were I did check your uh FICO score before I well, you know, first date, you gotta run the right uh background checks here.
SPEAKER_02:Um but if we were to just never discuss any of the things that are contributing to our success, I came into our dating relationship with student loans. I came into our relationship with certain money scripts that I was raised with in California, and you have scripts from your family and living most of your life in Florida, and our college experiences were different, um, and how those college experiences were financed.
SPEAKER_00:And you were paycheck to paycheck.
SPEAKER_02:I was living paycheck to paycheck in San Francisco, living a really fun existence when I was 23 years old in San Francisco and not paying attention to where my money was going. If we, if I kept up that behavior, boy, we would we would have some argument, we would have some arguments, we would have some difficult conversations, we certainly wouldn't have a shared vision of how we can support each other. So in terms of you know, frameworks and um debt pressures, we we talked about those things. There was one time when we we were dating and I took Jake up to my my this cabin in Lake Tahoe that my friends and I were renting for the ski season because that was a responsible thing for me to be spending money on at 23 when I'm paycheck to paycheck in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But you know, that's okay. And I we started having a conversation, and I said, Yeah, I don't know, I don't know where all of my money is going. And he said, Well, let's let's look at it. If you're feeling brave, I'll look at it with you. And he taught me how to use mint, mint.com. I don't think it's called mint anymore, but it doesn't exist anymore. Mint we we got all of my stuff, all of my accounts up on mint, and I could see where I was spending all of my money. And it was not something I was intentionally really thinking about. I was just having a good time. And I sat there and I started crying because I realized that I could be doing things differently. I don't need to live paycheck to paycheck with the income that I was making. I could make different decisions that supported my goals, but I had never taken a minute to think about my goals. And that was just me as an individual. So we took care of that. We talked about my my student loans and how we both envisioned debt. Um lots of conversations there as a foundation of our relationship when we were dating. Now, will everybody go out in your dating relationships and have these conversations? I don't know, maybe, but it's not too late. Like you were saying, it's never too late to sit down and say, wait a second, let's talk about these money scripts that we have in our head and the frameworks that we were taught and how we view spending money, carrying debt, um, the power, oh gosh, the power imbalance that might exist in relationships if one parent is making more than another parent, or if a parent is not working, um, how did how does that work out? And having those conversations helps build that shared vision.
SPEAKER_03:It does. And I want to highlight something because this is such a Jake thing to say, I feel like. And I I don't know you near as well as your wife, Jake. But when she said you were dating at that cabin and you said, you know, if you'd be brave enough to check this out, guys, listen to that. Okay, that is what a good leader of the family in a relationship does, is you tiptoe in a little bit and just say, I'm here to hold your hand, I'm here to look at the the good, bad, and the ugly with you. You can cry right here about how you spent, you know,$435 at Nordstrom or whatever on what you don't remember, right? Or whatever the thing is. And I feel very seen.
unknown:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Um but we're gonna look at the thing that has been hiding so that we can first assess it and then go, okay, no judgment. This is how you've been living your life, this is the background you've come from, or whatever. Now, if we're thinking about putting our lives together, or we have put our lives together as husband and wife, let's accept that this is where we are, no judgment, and then make a plan to create a vision and then some objectives of getting from where we are now to this vision where we're going. Yeah, like team Langdon has been to 49 out of the 50 states in the last five years. Boom. Not because we were winging it, but because we went, oh, where are we? Okay, we can make some adjustments. Let's get you know intentional about a plan and then let's accomplish these goals as a family. So just the way you set it up, guys. Uh, the conversation, gentle, right? Non-judgmental. Hey, if you'd be brave enough, if you have the courage to check this out, I'm not gonna be mad. It's better to know the reality so that we can go forward from there. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'd I'd I'd add to that um the underlying principle that I'd recommend anybody listening who wants to have more of these conversations. And you said the other half, which is non-judgmental or whatever. I would flip that and say curiosity. Approaching with curiosity, not judgment. And that's how I try to approach most difficult conversations because there's probably something I don't understand. And it wasn't even that I was judging you with your money. It was more just like, well, I'm I'm asking you, I don't remember what questions specifically I asked you at the time, because that was, you know, however many years ago. But the point was, I was asking you questions and you didn't really know. And I provided a possible way to figure that out. And I asked, would you like to look at that? And it was, and it was honestly in service of helping you and like just what you said. I believe that so strongly, and I think this is really important. It goes in line, and I won't go on a side tangent about feedback, like in a professional sense or whatever. But feedback, just like this conversation, is about moving forward. It's not about looking backwards and punishing or condemning. It's saying maybe what happened, so we can prevent it. But more importantly, what are we doing next? And that's really what all of these conversations about vision and frankly, all the other four that you listed is really about if you're gonna tackle those, it's about how do we, what do we do now? What do we do next? How do we move forward?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Something I think that supports how to move forward is education and learning and being willing to take in new information and new ways of thinking about things. Maybe your old frameworks you've outgrown them. Maybe you are ready to take in new information from some books or podcasts or what have you to learn a new skill. Um, and that's Something that I think is really important in our relationship is that we continue to learn about money frameworks and continue to take in new information. Some books that have been really influential in our conversations and how we are thinking about things and talk about things are The Psychology of Money, The Simple A Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, Die With Zero, some podcasts and things that we listen to. The Choose FI podcast really started our journey on the fire financial independence movement and Money for Couples with Remit Seti. These are things that we're still consuming now. And we still will push pause and say, oh my gosh, did you listen to that episode of Remeet? And let's talk about how we would have applied that type of thing to our life. So having this dynamic experience where we're still learning is a key function of how we can continue to mold our frameworks and um continue to contribute to that shared vision.
SPEAKER_00:Now I'll just add to that briefly. It's that we're continuing to learn together.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So again, advice to anybody out there listening is don't just consume these in a silo. You have to have a willing partner who's willing to go on a journey with you, also. So sometimes that may be more difficult to convince someone. But if you can have a can a conversation together about something that you're learning, what a great way to like sometimes it just takes a third party. Like, for example, I love Ramit's uh podcast. It's called Money for Couples, like you mentioned. He also has a book. I'm not an affiliate, I don't get any commission, but you should definitely check it out. It's great. Because this is the stuff you're asking me, is like a lot of the things that he, or us rather, are the things that he talks about on a show. And what comes to mind is a lot of times it takes a third party to raise a question or have a topic, and it's like, whoa, they were talking about whatever, I don't know, debt or combining accounts or something. Like, what do you think about that? And maybe you've been hesitant to ask, but sometimes that gives you an entrance in in a softer way rather than what may be perceived as like a like an attack or something like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Boom. I love that. I love the idea of having an openness to learn together as a couple. And Jake, I'm just gonna highlight too what you said about like, don't silo yourself off and listen to your own podcast and never have a conversation with your spouse about it. Instead, be like, hey, send that episode to your spouse, right? Say, hey, I'd love to talk about this at the next State of the Union meeting we have, or let's earmark this to circle back and write down, you know, three things that stood out to us about this particular episode regarding money and saving for retirement or whatever, because it is a gentle sort of uh outside the relationship type of source that can get the conversation going, like you said, in a non-threatening way. And sorry. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:If you're doing it together, it can also address that other symptom on your list of a power imbalance. If it were just Jake consuming this information and then coming down to me and saying, I have the knowledge or you will do these things.
SPEAKER_00:Or even I learned this thing, I'm super excited about let's do it. That also is its own way a more subtle, probably more realistic power imbalance that people may not realize. And I fall prey to that sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I want to be learning alongside, but it it takes a conscious decision for me to say, yes, I will go on this learning journey with you. It takes participation, right? Yes. Um but if if the knowledge and the decision making or the or the information that impacts the decision making is only coming from one side of the relationship, there's gonna be a power imbalance there. And one person might be resentful that the other gets gets to make all of these decisions or gets to figure out what direction we're going because I'm choosing to not participate in the in the learning.
SPEAKER_00:And some people don't want to participate because they're afraid or they have, yeah, for lack of a better word, trauma or something in their past that they're like, well, I've made mistakes there before, or I've been hurt in that realm before. So I'm just gonna let my partner do it. And then you can and again, I see this on like Remit show all the time, where it's like someone is whether knowingly or not, abdicating all their responsibility to the other person and then kind of saying, Well, I don't know, uh, Todd, why are we in this situation? Maybe not Todd. Yes, I don't know, why are we in this situation? Um, and it's like, uh, partly because you're not participating.
SPEAKER_03:Why is the carpet all that, Todd? That's right. And all of a sudden there is that power imbalance, and and that further divides our union, right? For all the pressure to be on one person and the other one's like, I don't know, I stay out of it because I've made a mistake and so I'm just not gonna do it, right? I've seen that happen in couples and some of our friends. And um I think the the danger in one person kind of taking responsibility for the finances, um, number one, it's pressure on that one person, but number two, the other person gets so far removed that um they just have no pulse on the reality of what things cost, how much they're paying for living expenses, adding another Netflix subscription or you know, whatever. And then um it's a recipe for also sort of living a second double life. Like, well, I could hide this, you know, he doesn't know about this, he's not gonna look at it, he never looks at it, or she's not gonna look at it. Yeah, right. And then I'll sneak this in. And then it just like this breeding ground for sort of what I call financial infidelity, where it's this ability to like cheat a little bit and hide some things and just like cover it up because the other person isn't involved or are, you know, not not part of the whole thing. So I love this idea um of sort of the way I I distilled down your message about learning together is that um it's not just like you get together and you decide this is the way we're gonna do our money and we're gonna have, you know, a joint account and we're gonna have, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then you just set it and forget it, but it's about returning to this conversation about finances because guess what? Finances are part of your future until your death. And even after your death, your kids are talking about your finances, whether you left them debt or wealth or somewhere in between, or you gave all your money to charity, it's still being talked about after your death. So this conversation is not going away. This is a foundational part of our union and our family, and it's an important thing that we take care of and that we steward well so that our relationship is as good as it can be, and we're using it as a tool to bless other people and do the things that make uh sense for us and for our vision, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Can I add something? Please. So, what made me what I thought about when you were talking was this kind of concept or this phrase that's been around forever, and I don't know if anybody explicitly believes this. I'm sure there are people, but like money is the root of all evil. We could debate some of the merits of that. There might be some flavors of truth, but within your marriage, at least, it is a tool. And I love analogies. So, what if if you're using a hammer to put a picture up, are you gonna not talk about like the hammer or something like that? And this is a very ill-formed analogy, but it is important, and a lot of people probably grew up not talking about money or feeling like money, you're not you're not supposed to talk about that, or we don't talk about that, or it's difficult to talk about. And I'm encouraging you, so maybe here's a better example. Um, if you're gonna do a project, a house project, you're probably talking about which tools should we use and how should we use them and what do we need and what do we need to get help on, or whatever. Your money should be the same thing, and it's fundamentally no different. And it there's some cultural uh baggage that comes with money that I would encourage people to try to put aside um for these conversations, even if it's difficult.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it is a tool, and any tool could be used for good or for bad.
SPEAKER_00:That's true, right? Yeah, that's a cell phone.
SPEAKER_03:You could use a cell phone for talking and connecting and texting and doing things, and you can use a cell phone for all kinds of things that will get you into addictions and keep you, you know, shackled to that thing. And yeah, so money is a tool. And for us to think about that um is a beautiful thing to partner as husband and wife and go, how do we want to use this tool that we will earn every money every you know, couple weeks and we spend every day to our benefit and to do it wisely and without regret.
SPEAKER_02:And everyone should learn to use the tools. Tools aren't just for boys. That's right.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's a good ad.
SPEAKER_02:Tools are for girls too. Tools are for everybody, everybody can learn how to use the tools so you can be effective with all of it and have that conversation. If you're not gonna hang up the picture, I'm gonna hang up the picture because I know how to use the hammer too.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, exactly. Now I want to talk about another subject, which is kind of going against the grain, because when I think of team Wysaki, I think of a couple who is not willing to settle for the status quo. We're not just gonna float along with society and culture and the way everybody, the way the herd is going. Like we are going to be intentional about our life, our our marriage, our family, and our finances. And so, what does it look like in your circle of friends, maybe even among your family members, to be counter-cultural when it comes to family money decisions? Oh, they started laughing.
SPEAKER_00:We just went to Hawaii on a family trip. And the first thing that we talked about is I am tired of guessing who's paying for what. Let's talk about that now before we even go on the trip, basically. I think it was met pretty well.
SPEAKER_02:It was great.
SPEAKER_00:I think it was good. There was a there's a little bit of like, I don't know, we all have different thresholds of spending money and stuff. And um I don't know. I don't need everything to be perfectly even. Just use this example to go a little deeper. I don't need everything to be perfectly even and perfectly fair, so to speak, but I also want it to be reasonable. Um, and I also don't want to be guessing, like, oh, who's gonna pick up, pick up the wallet, uh take the wallet out of the pocket at dinner? Uh, is my father-in-law gonna do it? Should I do it? Should we split it? Let's just talk about that now and avoid all the conversation. And I feel like that's very uncommon.
SPEAKER_02:And I think when I opened up that conversation with the family, because it was my side of the family. Um I think there was a little bit of that. I'm making I'm this is my own interpretation. I think there was a little bit of that, we don't talk about money type of you were certainly nervous. I was really nervous to send it because I didn't know how people would um would take it, or um, if they would think, Noel, you need to not be anxious about this or you need to calm down, or why are you worried about this? Don't be cheap. Um and you know what? I'm trying to embrace this idea of if people have thoughts in their head, um, just let them have those thoughts. That's right. Okay. Um, they can have those thoughts. But we still need to have the conversation, right? Who's gonna pay who's who's paying the check at dinner? How are we splitting it? How are we splitting groceries in the house that we're all staying in? How do we want to handle these types of conversations? And we just opened up the conversation and I think had a really good back and forth um via email, even. So that yeah, I I I think we do things differently than a lot of our friends and a lot of our family. So you you hit the nail on the head, Jordan, that yeah, we tend to go against the grain against what a lot of of uh a lot of people are doing or choosing how to go about their their marriage or how they spend money or how they handle their budgets or their accounts. Um one thing that jumps to mind for us in terms of of how we might be different from a lot of our friends is we money I make is our money. Money he makes is our money. It doesn't matter that we have combined our accounts. We've had combined accounts since we got married. That's kind of just a simplifier mechanism. Fine. It's the framework that we don't have separate ideas of the pool of money that's coming in. I was talking to Jake about a blueberry analogy. I said, How about this for an analogy? We both have baskets to pick blueberries. You have your basket, I have my basket, I'm gonna go pick blueberries. I have a W-2 corporate job right now. I might come back with a basket of blueberries that's more full than his entrepreneur basket of blueberries. He might not be focusing on picking blueberries right now. He's planting more blueberry bushes. So yeah, when we both come back to dump our blueberries in our collective bin, I'm pouring more blueberries into the bin. Does that mean that I get to eat more of the blueberries or spend more of the blueberries or have more power over deciding what we do with the blueberries? No, because his work is equally as important and we're supporting each other. And I love it. I think a lot of our friends or or or people that we interact with on a regular basis, it's very common to say, the money I make is my money, and the money you make is your money. And I get to, or, or I make more than you. So I get to decide how we spend, and that's just how it's going to be.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I don't know specifically about our friends and family per se. I we haven't talked to them about it, but certainly again, just use Ramit's show as a as a litmus test. There's a shocking amount of people on there who don't not only do they not have combined accounts, but they don't view the money as combined, which is just two different levels. There's like the level of are do we have like functionally combined accounts for like ease of accounting? And separately, another question do we actually view the money as our money or my money and your money? And then who's are you paying rent this month or am I paying rent? Like there's all these different levels. Our ultimate um decision was combine everything because we're a team, we're working towards the same shared vision. So it's ludicrous to us to come like to separate money and to have different people paying for it. Different people, like we are a team. The blueberry analogy is great. The other one I like to use when I talk about this topic, which can be a kind of a surprisingly hot button topic. And I know there are some arguments to say why things shouldn't be separate, like legally. So whatever. That's a whole nother topic that I am I understand, and there are some, there are some maybe deeper nuances to some of this for some people. But at the end of the day, it's like if you were a company and especially with like different incomes, like I make relatively little money, especially compared to Noelle, as I'm on the relative beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, but we are both working towards the same goal. And it's like if we were a company and you were sales and I was manufacturing or something, like I'm a cost center, but does that mean I don't get to spend money? No, that's ludicrous because we're a company trying to accomplish a shared goal. And I find it surprising that a lot of people don't seem to see it the same way. And it just at the very least, it makes it way more complicated. And on the the worst end, I think it undermines your marriage. So I'll just drop that and leave that there. And we can pick that up if you want to take that further.
SPEAKER_03:That is a great statement, right? Separating things out, that power imbalance and looking at money totally separately when you are a united team of like a united team, the two become one. Like that's a real thing. Um it is a little bit of hell in your marriage, inside your marriage. And if you've never combined your accounts, you might not know. You might not know sort of this this different way. Um, and you might have just been living this like separate thing. Well, we've always done you pay the rent and I pay the the utilities and the groceries or whatever. But when you have been living with a joint account and a joint vision for your finances and joint uh goals for your the unity of your family and how you want to be intentional as parents with with your kids at the different ages and stages that you raise them at, you realize that this teamwork, you know, uh it is really the only way to go to to find real joy and happiness and connection with your life partner. Right. And so again, no judgment of been living this way, you've been having separate accounts, you've been doing this because your parents did it, or you just decided that was a thing. But I would challenge you if you're listening and you're you're doing things separately in your marriage to start talking about maybe we should think about combining things, right? A lot of things, our vision, our finances, our goals for our kids, and and how we want to move forward together, totally together as a team.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Can I can I give a recommendation on that?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So I've been big on uh I went to Crafting Commerce this year, and one of the speakers um talked about tiny experiments. And I love this theme in my life. Instead of just thinking about stuff or just making decisions, view changes that you want to make as little experiments. So if you're on the side of no, we should combine accounts for any reason, um, again, I think there are some legitimate considerations. I still think the ideal is to continue moving ever closer to this combined model, is my strong recommendation for anybody who's in a seriously committed relationship, especially a marriage. And think of some way that you can test the waters and continue moving a little bit closer. You don't have to do it all at once, but start the conversation, start considering heading that direction. And honestly, it's your life. If you choose not to, do it on purpose, not because you're too afraid to talk about it or because you disagree or whatever. So I am open to you can live the life that you want to live. That's fine. I've made my pitch on why I, at least somewhat, why I think it is that you should consider combining expenses, for example. But um, definitely have that conversation if you haven't. Uh I mean, unless you're already combined, I guess you're you're there. Uh now you need to make sure you're focused on your vision or whatever. So that's the thoughts that come to my mind.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. Tiny experiments, right? Small steps over time yield big results, right? It just take the first step, have the conversation. And I also appreciate just you saying, hey, if you choose to do something, what the choice is yours. We have been given free will to make whatever choice we want. We're not forced into anything in this society, then do it on purpose. Do it intentionally. Okay, this is why we're doing it. We're gonna check up every three months, six months, nine months. If we have, you know, uh separate accounts, we're gonna have our State of the Union or our, you know, quarterly, you know, couples connection meetings where we talk about how this is going, having our separate accounts, right? Do it, do a similar process of checking in and maybe renegotiating the contract every now and then to see if things need to be adjusted and then move with purpose in the direction that you feel together is best for your relationship.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, nothing's set in stone. And um, there's a phrase that's escaping me. Maybe I'll send it to you later. Um, but it's it's essentially um you could you can make a decision, you can make it again later. Like it's not there, there's very few things in life that are uh you can't choose something else later. So the the thing I love to do is just make a decision and then you can try it again, just like you're saying. You can reevaluate if you still want to stick with that or change it.
SPEAKER_03:So good. Yes. I just had a conversation with my husband before we sent the kids off to school this morning, and I'm like, all right, I'm I'm taking them to school every day and picking them up after school every day. We have a little carpool in there, and then he's doing the Friday drop-off and pickup, and we've always split it 50-50 in the past. And I said, I'm just letting you know I'm gonna need a check-in in about three weeks to just circle back and see how this is working because it may be perfectly fine and I've adjusted and he's adjusted, and it may need tweaking. And so I love that idea that nothing's set in stone, but coming back as a united team to say, okay, how did that go? What was good, what isn't working? How can we adjust something on a just a micro level that may make a really big difference going forward, right? There's always hope, there's always a chance to renegotiate the contract, so to speak, and and try something different. So good.
SPEAKER_00:So speaking of speaking of power imbalances, you're the host and I'm the guest. Um, but with that, I do I did want to, I know we're close on time, and I wanted to offer to share a really simple exercise people might be able to do to help get close, have some of these conversations. Maybe it's not exactly vision building per se, that's a little bit different. But is that would you like me to share?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, please give it to us.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so what I would do, so let's let's just say money conversations. Let's kind of put visions uh on on the side. There's a great exercise that's often called the wheel of life. And it's like you break your life into different aspects marriage, kids, friends, money, health, you know, whatever, stuff like that. And there's different ways to do it. So you can look that up, and there's plenty of resources. This is like a sliver of that, just focused on the money. So if you want to have a money conversation, what I would do is I would start with each uh each part of the couple, each person, just do a little bit of thinking. It can only be if it doesn't need to be more than a few minutes, and you rank on a scale of one to ten. Yeah, one to ten, because you can't just choose dead in the middle, by the way, but choose one in ten. How satisfied are you with money? And it can mean whatever you want, that's okay. But you're starting with some opinion of yourself. And I think I mentioned this before. Think for yourself first and start to form some of your opinions. Then you come back together and you share what you wrote, uh, and you'll get some indication if you're even on the same page or generally in the same page. Now the nuances are what's really important, but that's the start of it. Like, oh, one person is at a three and the other is at a nine. I think we have some stuff we need to talk about. Or maybe you're both at a seven. That's also fine. There's usually things you can still talk about there. So once you do that first step, the next step after you share is then to just start having a little bit of a conversation. And I recommend um just like asking some questions, like, oh, why did you put that number? And then I'll share why I put that number, something simple like that. And then you'll just intuitively follow the conversation down as it goes. One thing I definitely recommend is making notes as you go. You don't have to make like comprehensive notes, but if if certain things come up that either feel like they're a much deeper conversation or uh like a potential idea to like solve some of these problems. I don't want you to talk too deep right away. I usually recommend cover some like the high ground and then decide where you're gonna dig deep or when, depending on the time that you have. And you definitely don't want to jump into solutions right away. I never would recommend trying to solve any issues that come up right away, but you can note those down. Then the final step would be whenever you're ready is to say, okay, what things do we want to do differently? And that's like really where we get into like the tiny experiments idea, or however you want to handle it. There's a ton of ways you can just pick something and try it. Like you don't have to don't let process get in the way of making progress. That's good. I just came up with that now. Maybe I didn't, maybe I heard it somewhere else, but I'll I'll take credit for it now unless someone can prove me otherwise.
SPEAKER_02:He's a genius.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a genius.
SPEAKER_02:He's a genius, folks.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but anyway, don't let uh uh process get in the way of progress and find something that you can agree on. And I would recommend picking one thing, not a bunch of things. Just pick one thing, set a length of time that you're gonna try it. Let's it's often around the habits that you're forming, or the maybe it's a money conversation. We're gonna do a check-in for 30 minutes every Monday at this time, put it on your calendar then and decide when you're gonna do that thing. Um, and then try it and then come back again at some point in time. Again, I could give specific recommendations, but it kind of depends. Pick something that feels reasonable, come back again, reevaluate, and see where you're at. So that's that that's like a micro piece of the process that we follow. Um, we call it pillars, but it's the wheel of life, same kind of thing. And that's been really helpful to drive conversations about um what we want to change.
SPEAKER_03:Excellent. I love how you you're just talking about first assess where are each of you when when you think about money and how you think about money. And then let's let's take a look at a little bit deeper question about this, and then let's just decide like, hey, what is it one thing that we could do differently? And we don't have to have a perfect plan, but let's just start or let's just put the conversation on the calendar to have a recurring money conversation um on Mondays, and then when it comes upon our calendar, if we don't have know what we're gonna talk about or have a framework or have a quick and pulled up on the computer or whatever, no problem. Just still show up for each other, right? Have a conversation, don't let progress pro the process get in the way of making some progress. Yeah, that's good. That's good. And instead just get the ball rolling, right? So just start rolling with this financial conversation with a spirit of curiosity about your spouse. That's my favorite kind of takeaway of this whole thing is money is gonna be with us forever, but having a spirit of curiosity and continuing to go back to the conversation and refine your vision is always going to bear fruit over the years. And you're gonna find that wow, once you take a look at what's going on in the bank accounts and debt and all of this, and you come up with a small plan to tackle this stuff and to move you down the field, um, you're gonna be like limitless when it comes to accomplishing some of the most awesome visions and goals that you have for your marriage and your family life. And that includes charitable giving. That's one of my favorite things to do with money. And that could be a totally different conversation, probably ought to be. Um but the joy people get when they are able to give to causes that they don't have the time to support and run themselves, but mean something to them, that's part of this money vision too, right?
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. Definitely.
SPEAKER_03:So good. Noelle and Jake, it has been such a pleasure. I could be on here for three hours with you. But I know parents are busy, they have a limited amount of time uh on the content they consume. So we're gonna wrap it up here. Jake, tell us um a little bit about Intention Craft and if somebody wanted to was in the coaching business or um is leading small groups, how they could engage you for uh more ideas on how to kind of have these conversations, these guided conversations in a meaningful way to get them to the outcome that they're looking for.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks, Jordan. So um, real brief context, if you did listen to episode 112, I've actually pivoted in my business since then, largely uh thanks to Jordan kind of kicking that off by asking me for help with your parents' night outs, kind of took me back to my um my design uh experience design roots. So, what I do now is I help coaches and consultants build and deliver world-class group coaching programs. And you can find me on intentioncraft.com. And if you're interested, I have I'm trying to pour all my wisdom into my crash course, uh, which you can find just on the homepage there, and that'll share as much of my wisdom that I have to share. And then if you ever want help, you can just reach out directly and reply to one of those and it comes straight to me. If you are interested in seeing what we did on our trip around the world, by the way, we still have our old blog up on everyday new adventure.com. And we've kicked around like writing more about what we're doing, especially if we're gonna do, or rather, when we're gonna do that trip with our kids. We'll probably write it on there too if you're interested in kind of peeking up, uh peeking at what we're doing.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I can't wait to circle back with you uh once you return from that trip, because I'm just gonna endorse those plans right now and those goals and say that sounds fantastic. They will learn more in two years than they could in 10 years sitting in a classroom. So I think it's a goal worth pursuing. And I might, I don't know, think about how we could do something similar to that ourselves.
SPEAKER_00:But I think you're doing what the kids say, shipping it. I think you're shipping it. I think that's the right use.
SPEAKER_03:Do they still say that? They said that a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe that's not what they say anymore.
SPEAKER_03:We're old school. We're very, we're very hip. We are, we are awesome. Well, let's uh let's ship this podcast. Episode out.
SPEAKER_00:I like it.
SPEAKER_03:Now listen, if you liked this episode, I'm going to ask you to first share it with your spouse. No surprise there, right? Because we want to learn together. And then share it with a friend. Maybe someone you're going to have over for dinner in the next couple weeks, someone you're going to see at carpool and get the conversation going with your friends. If you share this podcast with people in your circle, you can really start building each other up, taking seriously this idea of a shared vision in your marriage when it comes to finances and using money as the tool it was meant to be. So we'll circle back and have a couple other episodes about finances to come. So be sure to stay tuned for our weekly episodes that drop on Tuesday. And uh check out our website, familiesofcharacter.com. Team Wisaki, thank you again for blessing our community. Thanks for having us, Jordan. All right, guys. Take care and I'll catch you on another episode real soon.
