From $100K in Debt to $550K Net Worth | Making a Millionaire

13:37Lucas:As you said, you used the matrix term. So you took the pill where you now saw the game of consumption and what you would fall and pray to.

13:45Chelsea:For sure. And again, I feel like even that was the tip of the iceberg because I didn't realize that, like, you know, like y 'all say, like your money is your biggest tool, you know. So I was just at the tip of it. And so when I, you know, I told him, he's like, well, and I think at the time he had like maybe a maybe a$100 ,000 network net worth, which is still like a lot. Like, I'm like, well, how do you, you know, how do you say that? So together we're like zero. So I'm like, but I wasn't even looking at it like that. Even then, I think I was just like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. But, you know, I'm really trying to learn.

14:21Chelsea:I'm trying to get out of this. And he's like, well, I'm starting to also learn about like managing money, too. So like I can help you like with learning. And that's when he showed me y 'all's channel. He told me Caleb Hammer.

14:30Lucas:I feel like we're part of this dating process.

14:33Chelsea:It really is. It's really cool. Yeah, y 'all are. Which is like why we feel so grateful to even be here today. Because, yeah, y 'all have been like such a great part of the story. I mean, again, I think prior to meeting him and prior to like waking up to my finances, like I did have friends that knew about money, you know, knew how to manage it. And so they'd be like, oh, Chelsea, like, you know, let's talk about this. I'm like, this is too. No, we don't talk about money. It's because I knew I was being responsible, like deep down, you know, I think it's because I knew I was being irresponsible.

15:05Chelsea:But, you know, they're like, hey, you know, this this 401k, this is and it was so technical. So when, you know, he showed me y 'all's page, I'm like, y 'all like literally say it in a way that I feel like anybody can understand. So that was also a big part. So we met, we started dating. um I my lease was coming up and I was like I'm gonna move back home to like my mom or my dad so I can really like just crush this debt and he's like well I just moved to Seattle for work and I mean I don't know anybody out here so if you want to come live with me in Seattle and you know we can tackle it together um you know you don't really have to pay rent you can just focus on your debt um then you know like then come out and I'm like I've never left Atlanta before in Seattle so far away.

15:52Chelsea:I think, again, we were trying to start and develop a relationship too. It didn't make sense to be long distance and then also be dealing with that. So moving to Seattle and, you know, working on that together again, I mean, it was all my checks just went to my dad. And then he was just mainly kind of paying the bills and I would like support with like, you know, some of the rent. And then I think it was like maybe$500 I would give him a month maybe, which was way doable but it really helped me just like chow down like on my debt so i after living with him i moved with him in march of 2023 and then um by september or october i was the credit card debt was gone the credit card debt was gone wild so what i think is interesting

16:39Lucas:because you you lived with your parents but that's racking up this debt so they weren't charging you a ton of rent, were they?

16:45Chelsea:No, they weren't even, they didn't ask us for money.

16:48Lucas:It is a mindset thing shifted on you.

16:49Chelsea:Yeah. Well, so it was, so by the time I woke up, I was, I was out and living in an apartment by myself, but when I racked it up, it was like right when COVID happened and I was like spending like crazy. It was like kind of like doom spending, I would say. Um, and yeah. And then the next year, like it's like, it felt like a double the credit card debt. So I took that 401k loan. We'll talk about that in a minute. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I used that option. I didn't use it correctly, but yeah, I would say around then, it really felt like it was only like a year and a half when my debt really blew a balloon from like maybe a couple thousand to that large amount.

17:34Chelsea:And it just happened overnight.

17:35Lucas:Negative side of compounding interest. I mean, instead of it ballooning for your benefit, it blew in the opposite side of it.

17:41Chelsea:Yes.

17:41Lucas:It went upside down for sure.

17:43Chelsea:That's what makes her like understand the investing stuff so well. She's like, well, I've seen the numbers.

17:50Lucas:I want to be the bank instead of paying the bank.

17:53Chelsea:Yes, yes, yes. I love it. So you guys have been like working together for a number of years now. As you think about now getting married and joining finances and joining together and not just working towards one singular goal of you getting out of debt, but now working towards future goals. how those conversations been like how are you guys as a couple approaching moving into marriage and then what changes like what changes financially as you guys think through that um i mean i feel like the conversations are really just starting like they're very focused on the wedding right now and occasionally we'll we'll talk about maybe buying a house but then we'll say well i mean we have this big i mean we have the wedding coming up i don't know i well okay but before that we we look at our finances frequently both of us sitting down together every month we track our net worth we we see it separately and then we see it combined and I mean we are you know technically like completely split right now but we're currently working through a prenup and then we are also when we get married we are planning on combining pretty much everything yeah pretty much everything.

19:01Chelsea:So it's not going to be your stuff and your stuff. It'd be y 'all stuff working towards what, towards common goals, whatever those goals are. And it feels like that's how we are thinking now. I mean, it just, I do feel like it makes it easier and then also just more powerful.

19:15Lucas:I think there's nothing wrong with, cause that's why I'm glad y 'all jumped right to it was, as you combine, how did you look at this? Is that retirement accounts are already going to be kind of set up. I mean, they're going to be independent the way they are already and having the prenup just to clarify those types of things. But then I would encourage once the two become one, I love the thought of you guys having a joint account and, you know, and really being in this thing together with, you know, your monthly paychecks going in and working through that. I think that would be really powerful because that's the other thing is that the big thing about money, it is a powerful tool, but it is a tool that can turn into a power structure within a couple.

19:55Lucas:And I always try to be very careful because you don't know, I don't know what y 'all decision you will make as you do your family planning, but you want to make sure money doesn't really jade conversations in the future on how you're going to raise the kids and so forth. And I've seen that with couples where while y 'all are both making great money, it probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but y 'all are going to have to make big decisions with childcare and other things in the future. And you just don't want that being something that becomes a wedge that creates a bigger problem in the dynamic of you guys.

20:26Have you all talked about that as well?

20:29Lucas:I mean, I don't know if we wanted to talk about it. It's crazy you all haven't even gotten married, but I know you at least have to be thinking about these things.

20:35Chelsea:Yeah, I mean, we're definitely thinking about kids in the not very distant future and just like how expensive that can be, but you don't know until you know how much that costs. But, yeah, I think, like, we've already seen how just how combining things would make things so much simpler. Just with the wedding stuff, it's like we're like, I paid for this. Did you pay for that? And we're trying to split the wedding stuff, but it's just a ton to keep track of. And there's, you know, everything's in, like, installments, you know, 25 % now and then a year out. Which we are not financing the wedding, y 'all.

21:18Chelsea:I love it.

21:20Lucas:That was one of my questions. Because when I hear 140 to 170 people, I know that's not going to be cheap. I'm sure y 'all put together a budget on it. And I know when I looked at that net worth statement, I didn't see, that's the one thing I was a little concerned. Y 'all aren't like rolling in cash. I mean, y 'all are pretty, and that's typical financial mutants. You feel like your money should be working. But I did start wondering, how are we going to pay for all this?

21:43Chelsea:I love how you guys are thinking through things in steps. You're thinking through, okay, we've got to get through this thing first and that thing first. And you said, hey, it's a lot easier. You know, a lot of times if we have our finances on different pages, it feels like we're moving in different directions. If we can get into the same page, it's much easier to move in the same direction towards common goals. And so we thought, hey, why don't we do that for you guys? If we took your two individual net worth statements, what's it like if we just put them together? Like as you guys are starting, what does that look like?

22:08Chelsea:So we went ahead and combined and here you guys are out starting your marriage at a net worth of almost$550 ,000, which is just absolutely insane. And so as we think through this, I think it would be interesting for us to kind of just chat through your net worth statement. I mean, right now, we can see that between the two of you have about$41 ,000 in cash. Is the wedding fund, money for wedding, is that outside of that or is that inclusive of that$41 ,000? We haven't really set aside a fund. So we, it's more like we're pre-paying for things where we can. Just cash flowing it out of paychecks.

22:48Chelsea:Yeah. How you're doing. I'm thinking, you know, we both have, like, I'm thinking I'll, I'll set some of the, you know, the next time that I get stocked at vests, you know, I'll set some aside into like cash instead Instead of usually I take that money and move it over into VTI or something. But I'll set set some aside in cash just so to have it in cash for that. And that's that's the same thing for me. Like I just got like our ESPP. I just got like that money. So usually I also put it into my investments. But I have like earmarked some for the wedding. And then my next bonus again, and mind you, like all of our investments are pretty automated.

23:36Chelsea:So it's like our paycheck, right? Like in paying for the wedding, it's like after everything that's left. You've already done all your savings. We've already saved. So you kind of freed yourself up for that. That's a beautiful thing.

23:48Lucas:Okay. So y 'all are cash flowing the wedding, but it sounds like y 'all take, it's not taken for granted, but your income is carrying a lot of the load for you because y 'all both have great jobs, great cashflow. So, but your emergency reserves, y 'all, are you telling me if we take 41 ,000 divided by six, is y 'all spending about seven grand a month?

24:08Chelsea:What is, what's your burn rate on a monthly basis? Like you say, you look at your net worth every month. What do you got to spend on a month to kind of keep the household running? It's probably about that. Like including everything. And that could be, you know, if we needed to cut that back, we could cut that back by a thousand probably. Yeah. Maybe more. So we have been spending a decent amount like these last couple of months. So more than we typically do. But I would say based on y 'all's rule about the three month versus six month, we fall more into that three month bucket. And so that number feels very comfortable with for the three month.

24:50Lucas:I do think you're on to something with that because when we tried to back into what you'll spend and save, it looked like we were coming up with a burn rate closer to$12 ,000 a month. But I think some of that might be all paying for deposits and other things. That's the cash flow of this wedding that you're talking about. That doesn't panic me to have three months, but it does concern me that you know how we talk about is goals will be funded. You know, if it's within 12 months, if it's within two or three years, typically you want to have the cash. I just want to make sure y 'all don't get caught, you know, trying to cut into the emergency reserves to pay for the wedding.

25:30Lucas:Because some of these expenses are probably going to stack up all at once, right? Y 'all have been able to spread it right now and control. But at some point, all the bills are going to come due at the same time.

25:40Chelsea:Yeah, and it would be a little bit easier if, like, my pay came in a little more regularly. RSUs make it kind of wonky. Yeah, every six months, it's like a chunk. And then I'll set some of that aside. And so even in terms of how you guys think about budgeting, that's something you have to talk about. You see the income that you guys have, and it's huge. Right now, it's like over$400 ,000 a year, but it's not just$400 ,000 a year divided by 12. So there is a little bit of creative budgeting you guys have to think about through that. But obviously, you must have sort of mastered discipline because here you are from 27 to 30, you pay off$100 ,000 of debt.

26:18Chelsea:And still, as you guys sit here, you have investable assets of over half a million dollars,$530 ,000. And it's great. It looks like you're both contributing to 401ks. Luke, Lucas, you have a rollover IRA that has about$36 ,000 in there. Chelsea, you have a Roth IRA that has about 14. Now, Lucas, yours is interesting. Your Roth IRA has about$80 ,000 in there. That's a pretty big number for a high income earner. How are you able to do that? A lot of that came from a Roth 401k. So at my previous employer, I had some money in traditional, some money in Roth. And when I moved that over, the Roth went into an IRA.

26:59Chelsea:Awesome. I actually, that was when I learned about Roth IRAs. I only had the 401k until maybe 2022. two. So I've only contributed to that. I've done the backdoor Roth now three times. Okay. So that's sort of an interesting thing. So since you have that rollover IRA balance, if you're doing a backdoor Roth, are you paying tax on that conversion every year? No, that's why. And it may not be, I guess maybe it's not included or that might be the, I have a, I have a separate traditional IRA with$0 in it. So one of the things that's interesting is you want to just make sure you're not running afoul of this is if you're going to do an annual Roth conversion, you have to make sure you don't have any other pre-tax IRA balances.

27:41Chelsea:So like when I see that you have an IRA rollover of like$36 ,000, what that would tell me is, okay, if you were to do a backdoor Roth this year of 7 ,000, when you go to file your tax return, even if you make a$7 ,000 non-deductible traditional IRA contribution, the IRS is going to say, okay, you converted that 7 ,000 to Roth. But when it looks at your total IRA balance, it's going to add that 7 ,000 to the 36 ,000. So you're going to have like a$42 ,000. So there's going to be a prorated calculation where a big chunk of that 7 ,000 should be taxable. So that's one of the things, if I were you, I'd go look back and make sure, okay, was I filing those forms correctly?

28:19Chelsea:But it's a pretty, it's not a super complicated thing to solve moving forward because you are an active participant in a 401k plan. And it sounds like you have a pretty good 401k plan, right? Yeah. I mean, they do the, for a while I was doing. It's a fortune 500 company.

28:33Lucas:We were pretty familiar. It's a decent 401k. You could roll that$36 ,000 into that 401k and then that would allow you to now not run afoul of the backdoor Roth.

28:45Chelsea:Okay. So there is a separate, I must, maybe I didn't include it. There's a separate account.

28:50Lucas:It doesn't matter if it's separate. They look at all of your accounts. It doesn't matter if it's a separate traditional versus a separate rollover. They want you to take into account that you have pre-tax assets and you're supposed to prorate how much was your contribution and how much was already pre-tax. And that's why it's a big, I have a neighbor, he's now moved back to Chicago, but he wrote me, this is probably a year ago, and he's like, I saw that episode, I did the backdoor Roth. And I was like, wait a minute. Remember on all those conversations we had on the back porch, I said, you had that rollover IRA.

29:25Lucas:I was like, you can't do backdoor Roth. And he's like, oh my gosh, I've screwed this up. And I was like, don't worry, you can fix this. We can fix that. But this is something that I always remind people. And it's why it's a measure twice, cut once. When anybody does a backdoor Roth, make sure you've cleaned out. The only IRAs you can still have is like an inherited IRA. But if you have any rollover IRAs, it blows this whole thing up to a degree, but you can fix it. Yeah. So I just moved that into the 401k now.

29:55Chelsea:And then it's nice and easy and nice and clean. And the dead giveaway for us that that was happens when we look at Chelsea's traditional, seeing that$2 in there, I bet that's a conduit account. I bet we fund that and convert it. That's what we would expect to see for backdoor Roth contributors. So there's a great thing that you can clean up right there just to make sure you're not running afoul of anything. Don't worry, we'll put that on the home market. And then you both are doing HSAs, it looks like, your participants in high deductible health plans allowing you HSA contributions. And then both of you have really healthy taxable assets.

30:27Chelsea:I'm assuming that's because of either ESPP or because of incentives, but that's great. So when I look at this and I think about your three tax buckets, your tax deferred bucket and the 401ks, your tax-free buck in the Ross, and then your after-tax in the taxable. Again, you guys are crushing it, right? I mean, do you objectively know that for 30 years old, you're absolutely killing it? Yeah. We've seen the videos where it's like, you want to have one times your income at 30 and then whatever it is at 40 and 50. He's like, we're not following them. We just got it 30.

31:03Lucas:And I'll be honest, those rules are great, but they're benchmarks only. And the fact that if y 'all's expenses are significantly lower than your actual income, which y 'all's is, it skews that. You guys, it's actually more conservative because you guys having a net worth at this age of as high as it is, is going to, you know, the power of time. You've experienced compounding interest working against you. Now you're about to experience just the blessing of this thing building upon itself. It's exciting.

31:30Chelsea:It's exciting. It's exciting. Yeah, like Chelsea loves running the numbers on like just what this money will be when we retire. Not even like the money that we have. It sounds like you go to moneyguy.com slash resources and you play with our wealth multiplier. You drop it in to see what it can turn into. All the time. I've gone on there. I've downloaded your like deliverables. I love it. I'm a consultant. I love that term. So I download those. I send it to everybody. I send the links. I go through the financial order operations when someone finally gives me the time of day to tell them about this stuff.

32:01Chelsea:Like Lucas just mentioned me running the numbers. Like it is when he feels really anxious about money. I'm like, if we didn't even spend another dollar on our retirement, on our, you know, anything or any of our investments, like by the time we're 65 or 50, this is what it would look like, you know, with that like seven, 8 % annual like return. So The number gets pretty big, even without having to save a whole lot more, because it's a testament to the hard work that you guys have done. And we want to talk a little bit more about that, because one of the things that's going to do is give you guys some freedom around the choices that you make.

32:37Chelsea:But before we can talk about that, we talked about the asset side of the network. Now we got to talk about the debt side. Both of you still have student loans, but it sounds like those student loans are pretty low interest. Is that an accurate assessment? Yeah. Yeah. They're not super high interest. And you guys understand that your dollars can be more powerful working for you. So you're just not in a huge, it's not like credit cards. It's not like consumer debt. It's okay for those to sit out there. But then I see this other guy. I see this third one right there, Chelsea, that says 401k loan.

33:06Chelsea:And it sounds like I'm using my context. It's not even that big.

33:10Lucas:It's basically an insult. I have to think when you look at your statement and you see that 401k loan, it's just like, hey, I'm a reminder of the

33:18Chelsea:mistakes of the past oh yeah and yes so i there is a whole story around that um and then i do have a positive update about it but yeah when i look at my statement i'm like this is so annoying story you can give us the cliff notes version right around the time i like started waking up to uh my situation my financial situation how like much trouble i was in i was like oh my gosh like what am i gonna do like it's you know my credit card debt's getting big and i was and someone was like you know you you could take out you know your 401k like you could take money out and i was like okay so i go on the website you know on our like employer like website for our 401ks and i'm like looking at the different options like you know an actual withdrawal or taking a loan against it so i was like okay the loan against it seems decent and they don't let you take out the whole thing like it's like only like half so i was like okay um i guess i'll take a

34:14Chelsea:oh yeah so i took out you know i was like okay i'll do that so it was about like at that point it was a 10k loan against my 401k and it was um the interest rate was like three something percent three percent something was back when interest rates were really low i was like i'm gonna use this money to pay off some of my debt i literally went and spent it on a purse the whole thing all

34:39Lucas:All the positive things that have happened in the ego and blow it on a purse. So this was before all of the. This was early on. This was early on.

34:46Chelsea:This was a different person. This was part of the problem. This was part of the problem. Man. Yes. So, and yeah.

34:54Lucas:What purse was it? I have to know.

34:56Chelsea:Oh, I'm embarrassed. I don't even like looking at it. I want to hear the brand.

34:59Lucas:Come on, Chelsea. Give me the brand. What was it?

35:02Chelsea:Louis Vuitton. I knew it. I pretty much could set.

35:05Lucas:I knew what it was going to be.

35:07Chelsea:Yes, I won't even touch that thing with a 10-foot. Do you still have it? I do. Is it as a reminder? Oh, yeah. That is actually, she thought about selling it, and then she was like, I need to see this every day. I love it. Keep me on the straight and narrow. I barely wear it. I don't wear it really. I've literally been trying to give it away, which I probably shouldn't do that. If I just hold on to it, maybe. I would not give it away.

35:26Lucas:I would let it be kind of a memento of mistakes that have turned positive. I mean, it's essentially that Phoenix experience of it. this thing was bought with the wrong intention and at the wrong time, but you have overcome it and it actually can have a positive angle to it.

35:44Chelsea:For sure. And, you know, I, so, and again, when I was introduced to your channel and like your, your, your, uh, financial order operations and then seeing like the 3%, I was like, okay, maybe I just like drag my feet paying off the 401k loan. Um, but then I was like, I don't know. It just annoys me every time I see my, paycheck so I did pay off the 401k loan I can mark that through my homework because that was going to be on the homework list let's just get rid of this

36:14Lucas:thing that is just sitting there reminding you of those bad decisions

36:18Chelsea:you guys have such a healthy net worth there's no point in that being on there which is awesome when this slide came up I was like oh I forgot about that and that was only two weeks ago but yeah so it's paid off the Louis Vuitton paid off the loans paid off so it feels nice And then, yeah, now my 401k balance has that amount.

36:37Lucas:And by the way, the reason I wanted you to say the name is because there is going to be somebody who watches this.

36:41Chelsea:Oh, and yeah.

36:42Lucas:And have done the exact same thing. Because this consumer world we live in where they're constantly just inundating us, they put attractive people on there. This is what people who are successful and young are doing. And that's just the opposite. Yes, you can have nice things, but there's a time and a place. It's not at the beginning. It's after you've built up enough assets that are working, but that's not what society tells you in this consumption world we live in.

37:09Chelsea:For sure. And back during all of this, I was living in Atlanta. I love Atlanta. We're trying to move back, but you all know Atlanta. You know, everybody wears their money, drives their money. They drive. It's a very flashy place. It's so flashy. From Wisconsin, it's very different because you don't drive a car like that because it's going to get covered in salt. Yeah, you just know better. It's going to rust on the bottom. So you go to Atlanta, I'm like, wow, everyone. Every$400 has that one.

37:35Lucas:I think half the videos you see on TikTok where they walk through car dealerships and everybody's telling you about their$12 and$14 car payments, typically a lot of them are. I've seen them in Atlanta and other places. And you're just like, oh, no. But this is the world we live in. Everybody bases it off of your monthly payments instead of$23. $23.

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38:54Lucas:But I would love to talk about, because that's a great segue. way. Y 'all want to move to Atlanta. So are we thinking about renting? Are we thinking about buying? What's the plan there?

39:04Chelsea:We've looked at houses to buy. We would probably rent initially for a while. We're just very comfortable renting right now. It just seems like I know they talk about the 5 % rule of renting versus buying as opposed to like what's cheaper. I think the flexibility is definitely super nice. It feels cheaper to rent right now. We're very career focused. And so if there's a job opportunity that we could pick up and just run to, you know, we do it. And if you own a home, it makes it a lot harder to make those kind of changes and those kind of adjustments. We've seen like we have friends again, being in tech and being in like our industries.

39:52Chelsea:We have seen people like when COVID happened, they moved to a certain place, bought a home. And now they're like, it's like a fire sale for all these homes. Companies are asking people back in the office. Yeah, so they're like trying to get out from underneath the home ASAP. And, you know, it just...

40:08Lucas:It doesn't always happen that easily on a home.

40:10Chelsea:Yeah, and even people that didn't move away. I know people drive in two, three hours to work because they were working from home for two years. And now they have to go back. That's a problem. Yeah, and being in Seattle, Like that is where they're one of the cities that they're calling all these people back from Boulder, Colorado, Austin, Texas, Charlotte, you know, where everybody went to during, you know, the pandemic. And even if you were driving to the office, there wasn't any traffic. It's a whole different thing now. So, OK, so you guys think, OK, we potentially want to move, but we're OK renting.

40:43Chelsea:We have to buy a house immediately. What are some of the other goals that you guys have? Again, you've got this short term goal of wedding. once you get past the wedding as you guys think about building and growing what are the things that you want your money what are the things you want your money to allow you to do we definitely know that we want to start early saving for college uh when we have kids okay there we go you gotta you gotta you gotta all right that's it's so funny people always say we want to start saving for college before we even talk about having the kid right we have people on here all the time that already have a 529 before they're even, we gotta have we talked about doing that we talked about opening a 529 he's like what?

41:26Chelsea:he's like the kid doesn't even exist yet but yeah I mean I think some of my longer term goals that Lucas and I have you know and I would say that that has been not, it hasn't been like a a point of conflict but just like making sure that like I'm aware of what his goals are He's aware of what my goals are. How are like they're out? You know, how are they our goals? That has been kind of interesting because it feels like a moving target sometimes, especially when you think about like him being so frugal. And then, you know, me being a bit more like, I mean, the money buys those options. So like the big thing for me is having the option to have as many children as we want, having the option to, you know, be able to pay for their education and having the option to pay help.

42:15Chelsea:with a down payment, having those type of options. Also like with our own self, right? Like having the option to stop working at our jobs and, and possibly do something else. I love fine. I've been telling everybody about fine at work. Yeah. So like that, I would say like long-term, I just, I think just in general, that freedom is our goal to really do what we want to do. I feel like being work optional with, you know, kids, especially as they get a little bit older. I think having time, being able to maybe work part time or work part of the year, like in our 40s and 50s, I think would be really nice.

42:58Chelsea:Or she said like or then start doing things that are more interesting to us. OK, so you said on this one hand, you're like super career, career motivated. right. And if a great opportunity for yourself, you want to go that way. And then you're also talking about though, being like work optional or maybe doing something different, but you said like in your forties and fifties. So this is not something like, Hey, we want to start a family and be work optional. We want to, we're going to both be career motivated, even as we have the family and that sort of walk us through how those conversations gone.

43:28Chelsea:Yeah. I like, it feels like there will be a transition period, but that's a little muddy thinking about that because Messy middle.

43:39Lucas:Details. Bo just did a good job of explaining. Y 'all have given us such far spectrums of career. And then you got family. How big of a family?

43:48Chelsea:We both come from three kids. We're both middle kids. So three is a number we keep coming back to. We're both middle children. How wonderful that you guys found each other. We get each other. For sure. yeah like three or four it's hard to say because we haven't had one yet so you know I keep saying like you know I feel like when we have two kids you know we'll decide if we want a third like saying a number right now just feels like saying a number and then I want to put you on the spot

44:23Lucas:Lucas with because Chelsea did a good job of doing it but she didn't say it out loud and I want to say out loud what I think I heard her she's nervous a little bit as y 'all make this family planning decisions, you're so tight with money to a degree that if there's any relinquishing of the financial, that there's going to be some potential conflicts. Is that something that's kind of under the surface a little bit?

44:47Chelsea:Yeah, I mean, because even now, right, like I feel like there's things. So, for example, like coming, going with me on a work trip and I'm like, hey, like it's in New Orleans. So you need some like clothes that are like light, you know, like really airy. It's super hot right now. And we get there and he's like having all this anxiety about a shirt he can clearly afford. And I'm like, all right, I'm not doing this today. I'm on the Target app while we're walking around the mall. He actually ordered it from Target. I found some nice ones. But yeah, I really, I'm nervous that when the time comes and we have to pull back on how aggressive, I mean, our savings rate is super aggressive.

45:28Chelsea:and we have to pull back on it because we have children or we have, you know, these other priorities. I feel like he's going to not be like, I think it's going to stress him a lot. It probably will be something that I have to, you know, work through. But I do think part of the reason we're so aggressive now is because it's going to be harder to say the next 10 years are probably going to be harder to keep the savings rate we currently have. Well, let's look. That's a great let's look at your savings rate, because, again, you guys are so kind in terms of like sending us this. When we look at how you guys are saving, you presently have a savings rate over 35%.

46:03Chelsea:Now, because you're high income, this doesn't include your employer matches. So when you factor in the employer matches, you've got like 40 % of your compensation going towards your future wellbeing. You're doing 401k contributions. You're doing Roth IRA, Roth IRA contributions, HSA contributions. You're doing the ESPP, Chelsea, Lucas, you're saving all of your net RSU. I mean, outside the wedding, you're just banking all that money. So when we look at this, the amount you guys are saving is remarkable. And it's incredible. It's the thing that's allowed you to have this huge headstart that you have.

46:39Chelsea:But you've heard us say, you know, one of the things that we shoot for is when people ask us, hey, how much should you be saving? We say 25%. And here you guys are at 35%. If I told you that you could save 10 % less, Lucas how does that make you feel like what when I say that out loud what's the immediate emotion that comes your way I felt his heart drop I don't know if it's necessarily anxiety it's sort of like what would I spend that on but uh yeah a little bit of it like where is it going like if I wasn't is it is it that you have not yet found the thing that you like spending money on that's kind of deep it's probably that a little bit yeah because it's one of those things like I get going to New Orleans, wanting the light, airy shirt.

47:22Chelsea:If you don't place a lot of value on clothing, I get why that'd be a thing.

47:25Lucas:But it's a functional thing.

47:27Chelsea:Here's where I'm going with that. What happens is you guys start thinking about a family and having kids. Let me go and tell you, you're going to love spending money on those kids, right? Do you think that once it's that sort of thing, once it's those sort of life decisions and you begin to maybe out of necessity back down that savings rate, does that something that you think you're going to have more comfort with? Or do you still think that's gonna that's really gonna create some tension for you i think i'll have more comfort with that than spending on things like clothes for sure i know we have a couple of cats and i i will spend money on stuff for them um but uh so i can i it probably extends probably probably yeah but uh i mean part of it is because such a big chunk of that savings rate is the rsu's what feels a little unnatural is like selling some of that and taking it out you know because Because if it was like a deduction from my paycheck, I would be like, okay, I can reduce that a little bit.

48:26Chelsea:So just sort of logistically, it's like actually selling the stock and keeping the cash feels like a decision. Right now with your RSUs, are you just allowing those to invest and you're holding on to the company stock? Didn't you say you're selling it? Well, I do sell it and put it into index funds. Got it. But cashing it out feels like, I don't know, I'm just like, I don't cash it out. It's an investment. It keeps getting diversified in the index funds.

48:51Lucas:There is something, I mean, we've been doing this making a millionaire for a while now. And it's something that I see with a lot of our guests is what happened in your household growing up has a long tail to it. And it's even to the point that, I mean, we've had super successful families who are actually at that threshold of retirement. but the father would say something like, you'll never amount to, or, you know, the system's rigged against you and all these things. And it breaks my heart to see very successful people never get out from the shadow of that. And I worry, and that's why I love that y 'all are here, because you can talk about this now, is so that when y 'all have the growing family, you don't keep pushing this forward to where this legacy builds.

49:37Lucas:and you don't see the blessing of what money is nothing but a tool. And I wish you could sit in my seat when, because I was very much what I consider a tightwad for decades of my life. And a lot of it has turned out to be great because I have all this additional flexibility. But at some point I had to give the tightwad card up because I realized you can't take it with you. This money is only a tool, nothing more. And you will need to get sentimental about, you know, building the memories and the blossoming and doing stuff as best as you can. The thing I worry, and this is why we tell everybody the 25%, y 'all are so ahead of the curve.

50:17Lucas:If you did the 25%, you could just spend the rest with really reckless abandonment. And it wouldn't matter because, and I know that probably seems crazy because you're thinking about the financial independence next endeavor and all these other things. But at some point I'd tell you, while you're, you're dealing with anxiety about spending is it's okay to, to kind of address it and try to get on the front end. And I think a good way y 'all need to talk about this is you're also thinking about all these life changes. I would never want one of you to make a decision. Cause if y 'all start having three kids, four kids, like y 'all are talking about, you're going to find that that messy middle creates some weird pulls and pushes on, on your careers.

50:59Lucas:It's kind of messy. And you all have to have some heavy conversations about what do we change on our work life balance so that we can actually have these three or four kids. And what I don't want is money to create this weird power structure to where you can't make the best decisions for your family. Yeah.

51:17Chelsea:One thing Chelsea has kind of been pushing on me that is sinking in slowly, even if she thinks it's not sinking in, it is sinking in, which is like she'll say. because we'll be talking about things that we spend money and she's like I've hit my savings goal for the month the rest of this money is to do what I want to do you have paid yourself first because part of it when I spend money it feels like I'm taking money out of and that's having the savings goal because I probably didn't know it was 35 % even though it says in our spreadsheet but it's that yeah i mean he literally is like chelsea we need to be on it he literally just said we need to be on a no spin month and i'm like who's on a no spin month i'm like you just put a couple of deposits down on things for the wedding and i i was feeling like it was starting things were starting to add up he feels like the walls are closing i don't know but i calmed down from that that was right after that trip to the mall today like no that was after Well, I was joking about having said that earlier.

52:31Chelsea:But that was after that trip to the mall where we were shopping for clothes. For work. Yeah. Where I make money. Yeah, they're paying her to go there. Sometimes I just need to, the moment passes, I calm down a little bit and I'm like, she was right. My wife and I, when we first got married, we had a struggle very similar to this. There were things that she derived value in and got value out of that I could not understand. I make a joke on the show all the time about this, right? I, at that stage in my life, was buying $7 swath of shampoo, and that's what I wash my hair. My wife does not use. I think it was$2.

53:07Chelsea:Yeah, maybe it was$2. She did not use that. And when we got married, I'd see these charges, and I'd be like, hey, this is irresponsible, and this is grotesque, and why are we doing it? And it created a lot of friction because I didn't understand that that was something she valued. And And what I recognized at that time is that it was okay for us to spend that money because we were doing the saving. We were funding the 401ks. We were saving in the Roth. We had the emergency fund. We were following the financial order of operations. None of that consumption was bad consumption. It was just different consumption than what I was used to.

53:42Chelsea:And there was a conversation around that. Now, she also had to come on board with, hey, here are the goals that we have. We want to be able to retire and we want to be financially independent. In order to do that, even starting now, we have to max out our Roth IRAs and we have to do this. So we do have to pay ourselves. And so what we both had to do was sit down and have a very candid conversation because I just wanted her to be me and she just wanted me to be her. And what we had to recognize is that when we got married, we had to come to the middle and actually compromise. You said something so beautiful a second ago.

54:13Chelsea:We just haven't really defined what our goals are. talking to each of you individually. It sounds pretty clear. Like I kind of have a vibe for what your goals are and what makes you feel comfortable. And same for you as you guys get married, then you have to decide, okay, well, what is it for us? What are the things that we're okay? Not being as stringent on. And what are the things we're okay? Loosening up on. And what are the things we're, that's some like real, and it doesn't have to be hard stuff, but it's some like very important conversation because in my experience, if you don't address that on the front end, what ends up happening is that voice in your head starts playing really mean tricks on you.

54:51Chelsea:This is something Brian taught me. It starts, you build resentment and you start creating a narrative in your head that does not exist. So if you can talk about it on the front end and get on the same page, holy cow, does it make the journey so much better and it makes it so much easier. So take that from us who like screwed this up early on in our marriage to figure out, okay, how can we have that conversation around if we spend the rsus it's not it's not stealing it's not stealing money but also just because we have extra money doesn't mean we have to spend extra money if it's not something that actually generates value for us and i think what helps me sometimes too is just knowing what like chelsea has gotten through for the past few years makes me confident that like if we needed to buckle down, if one of us lost our jobs, like we could.

55:39Chelsea:It seems like you have the capacity. You have discipline coming out of your ears. I mean, without a doubt, for sure. Yeah, yeah. We can go to Rice and Beans. We can eat Rice and Beans for a little while if one of us lost our job. But if you had to. If we had to. You don't have to go to Rice and Beans. And that's the conversation y 'all need to have around what are the things we have to do and what are the things we get to choose to do because of the hard work we've done up to this point. Y 'all are in a great spot. You know, earlier when I talked about pulling out the calculator maybe I don't explain it that well but that's really my thinking right I'm like this is why this is why we're doing this so that we can do what we want to do if I want to go and get some nice work clothes for work in the New Orleans heat in the summer I can without breaking a sweat or without Lucas freaking out about it you know and so I feel like that's something that um he has gotten better definitely gotten much better about but I you know it's still still those like things that come up.

56:34Chelsea:And so we're getting married, right? We're combining like our bank accounts, we're combining things. So when you see, you know, me spending or you see certain things being spent, I'm, I'm nervous that that is going to, you know, cause some heartburn for you. Um, because right now, again, we still, we, we operate like a team and we still see, there's a lot of transparency around our finances, but he's not feeling it when I'm spending, right? because we're not joint. But when we're joint, you're going to, you're like, okay, Chelsea did this. But, you know, I'm just nervous that, you know, he's going to come to me about it.

57:10Chelsea:It's going to be, I'm going to have a hard day at work and he's going to, you know, mention it. I'm just going to snap. And I don't want to, I don't want to do that. Well, I think it's wise that you recognize that early on that that could be some friction. Have you guys sat down and done a budget together? Like an actual, here's the money coming in and here's a categorically where it's going to go out. It's sort of retroactive. So you've done a lot of tracking. Yes. One of the, again, one of the things that I found in my experience can really help is if you can build a budget together and that budget might look like, okay, here's, we're going to pay for rent and this is going to be a Roth contribution.

57:42Chelsea:This is going to be this and this can be this. And then there's going to be like a, Hey, this is Chelsea's miscellaneous budget. It's not separate money, but Hey, she's going to spend this much on whatever the thing is. And Hey, here's Lucas's miscellaneous budget. And he's going to spend on whatever it is. And what you know is that so long as you stay inside, whatever that number is, it could be $2 ,000, whatever it is, you guys have some comfort that, okay, hey, this is part of the plan. It may not be something I'm comfortable with, but it's part of the plan. Or if you get to the point where it's like, hey, okay, I bought all the clothes this month, but I really wanted to do this other thing, but it's not in the budget, you can have the conversation.

58:21Chelsea:Hey, I'm going to honor what we agreed on the front end. Tracking is fantastic, but all it does is tell you where your money did go. If you can, but, and it seems crazy to tell a couple who makes, you know,$400 ,000 a year that maybe you should budget, but I think it'd be helpful behaviorally for you guys to define where those parameters are so that you both can have comfort with it. Yeah, kind of like permission. Exactly. That's exactly what it is.

58:44Lucas:Exactly. Because for most people, budgeting is the restrictive side of it because you're trying to create money for savings. You need the budget so that you see the compartmentalization of now I can get permission to go do this without feeling stressed out about it.

58:59Chelsea:Yeah. I think figuring out how to handle the chunk income too would make me feel more comfortable because, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm just holding, like, okay, I need to sort of hold over until the next stock comes in. And if it was coming in, you know, every month, it would be a lot easier to be like, okay, it's okay to spend this much of it. But because if It's like if I don't, if nothing vests for four months and I'm, but I'm, it's part of my income to spend that, I would have to go sell some, sell some index funds and then transfer the cash, which feels different than like, okay, if I get a payment, I can take some of it as cash.

59:38Chelsea:And then that's cash that I can spend. And the rest of it is invested. One of the ways that we've seen our clients, cause we, we've had to help a lot of clients navigate this. Cause a lot of our folks or executives or they get paid, you know, incentive compensation. And it's chunky. You know, every six months you get a big chunk that makes your income look a lot higher than it feels on a month to month basis. If you guys, again, if you can do that exercise of budgeting and you can figure out how to budget off of the base, right? Because you guys still have a healthy base. It's not like it's, you know, 50 % of your compensation.

1:00:08Chelsea:If you can budget off of the base, what you allow yourself to do is then when those incentives come in or when that bonus comes in, you say, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I know what it's going to be. And I'm going to do a, I'm making up a number. I'm gonna do a 60, 40, 60 % of that is immediately going to go straight to savings, straight to whatever. But that 40%, that now becomes discretionary cashflow. We get to figure out what we want to do with that. So is there the upgrade we wanted to do, or is there a trip we wanted to take, or is there, it's not like it all has to be saved. Cause what you're going to do is again, when we've seen people do this, well, you build your annual budget.

1:00:44Chelsea:Hey, this is what we going to happen this year. And then you get down to your monthly budget. Based on our base, this is the monthly. And when these twice a year chunks come in, all right, we're going to 60-40 those. We're going to 50-50. Again, you're just giving yourself permission. So that way you're not held captive, held ransom by the cashflow. Yeah. Because once it's invested, it feels like it's not there anymore. Like it's like it's in a 401k or it's like it's locked up, but it's in a taxable. So that's not necessarily true.

1:01:11Lucas:I do want to make sure I build this bridge back because money has been the bridge that brought y 'all together and but i also see that it potentially could be a strife point for you guys just i don't want y 'all leaving the show being like oh my gosh that brought up some things that we haven't really worked through i do i do think chelsea that if you look at how lucas has been with your debt journey there's a generous guy here i mean without a doubt he is but this is something and you probably even can recognize you're going to have to just we're going to build some tools and some some dynamic things so that you feel comfortable but I think this is so important for y 'all to tackle before you get married because I don't want the compromise to be because y 'all realize this is a battle and it's okay because y 'all both make great money right now.

1:01:57Lucas:Well, we'll just come into marriage and just treat everything separate because that way it takes the stress off of Lucas. I could see that. That's why it's important to address this now so that it takes the power out of the money because that's why y 'all got some really cool life goals And I just don't want that dynamic to blow anything up for y 'all.

1:02:16Chelsea:Yeah, well, I feel like this conversation has answered a lot of my questions for sure.

1:02:20Lucas:Look, I work with a lot of couples. And sometimes when I see the separate accounts, I see very successful couples that are both doing well. But you do see some elements of mine. That's always it makes me cringe a little bit because my wife is brilliant. And she was made more money than me when I started the company. but then we made the decision as a couple that she was going to stay home, we had a ground rule that I was never, ever, ever to talk about who made the money. And I've honored that because I know if I ever mention that, it just will create some insecurities and other things that's just very unhealthy.

1:02:56Lucas:But that's why it's a measure twice on all these dynamics with a couple is because some of these decisions y 'all will have to make with a family, you can't get back. I mean, because once you even heard Chelsea talk about how your mom's a super mom, because here she was, your parents got divorced with three kids and she was stay at home. That's a that is a hard pill to swallow. And that's why I'd love for you all to figure it out while you're in these great rosy situations. So nobody gets left with these weird under the surface things that boil up to the top and ruin things.

1:03:32Chelsea:We definitely have been thinking about it as ours for some time. And the way that we, like also just the advice that we see is like combined stuff, like really, really combined stuff. We know people who do and we know people who don't. And it seems better, but for ways that it's hard to know until you see the problems. Until you've actually done it and experienced it, yeah. We still, we answered a lot of your questions. Were there any questions we didn't answer? Anything you were curious about that you want us to weigh in that might be valuable before I load you guys up with your homework? I mean, probably we didn't talk wedding budget, really.

1:04:06Chelsea:OK, how about this? You say what you're thinking and we'll make a facial expression immediately and viscerally that if it seems reasonable or it's insane. OK, I mean, so we sort of have like a what it's almost certainly going to at least cost. And then we have what like the top level. What's the at least cost? The at least cost is like$45 ,000.

1:04:32Lucas:Okay. And then how much have y 'all already paid in deposits and stuff? What's the residual that's left? And by the way, is that a realistic number? It seems low.

1:04:40Chelsea:It's probably low. Well, in Knoxville. In Knoxville. Because let me give you guys some credit for some things you've done. You know you want to have, and it's not a huge wedding, but a larger wedding, 175-person guest list. And you've already defined, hey, we want to have this many people. We are not going to go into debt. Like, so whatever this is, we're going to cash flow. that naturally has allowed you to keep some parameters and some reins on this thing. Cause that's where then you get to money is nothing more than a tool that allows you to do the things you want to do. And if one of the goals is you guys want to have an amazing wedding and you want to have it at a great venue and you want to have amazing music and you want to have delicious food and awesome cake and the drink it's okay.

1:05:19Chelsea:Cause you guys are not sacrificing saving for the future to do it and you're not running up debt. So that's why people ask us, what's the rule of thumb? When it comes to weddings, there's not one because different people value them differently. People say, hey, what's the rule of thumb on vacations? There's not a rule of thumb on that. So long as you're not violating the other rules, saving for the future, not going into debt. You guys have already knocked that out of the park. But just to be clear, 45 in the low end, what's the hard stop number? 60. Okay. I was nervous are going to be like 45 in the low end, 250.

1:05:55Chelsea:No, no, no, no, no, no. I think it makes us feel better to your point, right? That like we're cash flowing it. So we really know like as soon as we won't, but if we started violating what we have going on, like that doesn't feel right. And that doesn't feel like a day we will enjoy. So the fact that we have this freedom and we're doing it in this way and we're being conscious about, you know, okay, I wanted something, you know, big, fun and, you know, really, you know, magical. But it's in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is so beautiful. I mean, the people there are so amazing, so nice. The venue that we have is new.

1:06:30Chelsea:So it's, I mean, we're just really excited. So yeah, I feel when it comes.

1:06:38Chelsea:That's awesome. And we're really like filling it with the big things that are important. And then we see where that lands us. I love that. And then there are things that we don't care as much about. Other people do, right? Other people care about flowers. But the centerpiece just might not be that important. It just might not be that important to you guys. And I think it's awesome that you're going into it eyes wide open on that. I do want to answer Bo's question really quick. You said how much have we put towards it with deposits and stuff. I think right at this very moment it's about like$7 ,000.

1:07:11Chelsea:Okay, great.

1:07:12Lucas:So somewhere between in the high 30s to low 50s is probably the outstanding part. So what I would encourage you guys, because you also have some compensation things coming with the RSUs and so forth, you all put together kind of an outline of the timeline of those when things are going to come due, actually put it to paper, and then overlay that with upcoming income sources, and you'll just see how that intersects and so you all are in a good place with planning and budgeting. Because I don't want all the bills to come due, and then the result is you squeeze that emergency fund down to nothing, and then we start the marriage with a limited safety net.

1:07:52Chelsea:And I think now that we have, I mean, one thing about the deposits is now we know for a handful of the things, these are the payments we have coming up. And so, yeah, like with the future stock, it's like, let me just take all of the money that I'm going to be paying for sure and set that aside. That's great. That's great. That's beautiful cash flow management. For some reason, it sounds like it seems easier to you to set it aside for the wedding than to set it aside for other discretionary spending. That's a muscle. It's just like anything else. You will learn to get more comfortable with that the more you do it.

1:08:23Chelsea:It's not supposed to feel natural day one. That's okay. But I got better at it through time.

1:08:28Lucas:Now it's a great fun thing for me. Every time they do something, I'm like, it's fun to poke him a little bit.

1:08:36Chelsea:All right, are you guys ready for your homework that we want you to take away from this? First thing I put, this is just a logistics block and tackling. I want you to go figure out your backdoor Roth IRA. set up? Have I been doing that correctly? If not, what do I need to do to correct that that I've done in the past? And then should I consider rolling my IRA rollover into my 401k so that I have zero IRA balances so that I can start doing backdoor Roths every year? That's going to be awesome. Number two, I put finish your wedding budget. So I've talked a lot about budgeting. You guys ought to, same way you're going to do your normal budget, just figure out, okay, here's what we're going to spend money on.

1:09:08Chelsea:Here's when the timing of those deposits or those payments are going to be due. And here's the cashflow we have coming. So you go and have it all figured out ahead of time. Step number three, I wrote, what are our goals? And this doesn't have to be like, you don't have to go into this with like, oh, this is going to be some friction. Make it a fun thing. Make it a date night. Make it a weekend. Make it a, you know, make it an event that you guys get to do together where you just write down, hey, here are the things that are important to us. Lucas writes down, hey, here are the five things important to me.

1:09:39Chelsea:And here are the five things that are important to Chelsea. And holy cow, three of them are the same, but two of them weren't. And how do we, and you figure out how as a couple, you're going to move in that direction and attack those goals. And then once you've defined what the goals are, then you get to build a budget, not a tracking system, but a budget. And here's how we're going to allocate towards the goals that we have. And we're going to agree with each other. These are the parameters we're going to live inside. Parameters for saving as well as parameters for spending. And we're both going to agree in the front end that this is the way we want our financial life to look as we're starting on this journey together.

1:10:10Lucas:And I want these goals. I would love for you guys to make them measurable and also put a timeline on them. Because I think otherwise, if you're just talking and you're dreaming, if you just talk about awesome things that you want to do as a couple. No, actually put down. This is what we want to do when we want to do and what we think is going to be required. So that way it has some teeth to it and you can actually kind of work on the mindset in addition to the analytics of how we're going to get there. because if you're just dreaming, that stuff's fun, romantic, but we got to put teeth to it so it's not only romantic now, but it's romantic as you're actually executing it as well.

1:10:46Chelsea:You guys are awesome. I am. I'm super excited.

1:10:50Lucas:When I walked in the room, I was excited to talk to you guys because I loved the story. I loved just seeing the journey for getting out of debt. Also, the mindset stuff. You'll have the world by the tail. You really do. It's just a matter of executing and just living your best life, your great big beautiful tomorrow.

1:11:05Chelsea:Well, thank you all so much for hanging out with us. If you would like to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguide.com slash apply. Or if you want to check out any of our resources, you can go to moneyguide.com slash resources.

1:11:18Lucas:Guys, we covered it so much. Money is only a tool. We want to make sure you're getting the most out of this life you have. I'm your host, Brian Preston, Mr. Bo Hanson, Money Guy team, out.

1:11:30Chelsea:Making a Millionaire is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners at Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through Making a Millionaire. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice.

1:12:00Chelsea:All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. The guests featured on Making a Millionaire are not clients of Abound Wealth Management at the time of recording. Their participation should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Abound Wealth Management. Saying how you feel out loud is terrifying, but that's what Hinge's new free audiobook, No Ordinary Love, is all about. It's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Dinton Hurst, Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read the foreword.

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