Love, Money, and FIRE: How Money Trauma Impacts Couples on the Journey to Financial Independence

[00:00:00] I quickly learned, you know, working with couples and individuals that my job was probably, I would say like 98% therapist and 2% the math. Between 80 and 90% of your money habits are based solely on your feelings and not the math. Your partner should be the person that you go to about these things because you are actively building a life with someone which includes a financial life, a financial partnership.

[00:00:27] What's one secret about money that you've never told anyone ever? And then the dare is, now go ask someone that question. Welcome to CoastFI Couple, a podcast where love meets financial independence. I'm Matt. And I'm Yana. Join us every other week as we dive into the world of CoastFI and share smart money tips for couples.

[00:00:56] We're going to be talking all about how to strengthen your bond and your relationship and bring you closer to financial independence. One episode at a time. All right, everyone. Welcome back to CoastFI Couple. We got a special episode today. We got another guest in the studio here with us or I guess remotely. Yes. And today we're going to be talking about money trauma with Shauna Game. And Shauna, I'm super excited to have you on here. It was actually a recommendation from another good friend of ours, Bill, from Catching Up to Fi. And he made the connection for us.

[00:01:24] And honestly, we read your book. We loved it and thought this is going to be a perfect opportunity for us to talk a little bit about the psychology behind money. And we're super excited to kind of dive in today. So let's do a quick introduction, if you don't mind. So Shauna, you're a certified financial planner and a certified trauma of money specialist, which I want to learn more about on this show today.

[00:01:49] You're host of Everyone's Talking Money podcast, which was named the Top Four Money Podcast by the New York Times. Very impressive, by the way. And you're an author now of the Unraveling Your Relationship with Money book, which is releasing this year. So super excited to have you on. Did I miss anything? Yeah, no. Thanks for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here. Excellent. Awesome. Excellent. Well, I'm sorry. You want to start?

[00:02:15] I was just going to say I was, you know, up last night reading a little bit more of the book. And I really love the stories that you weave into, you know, explaining what money trauma is. And I wanted to also point out that the book is releasing on the 19th of February. Is that right? Yeah, that is correct. Yeah. So it's coming up. It's right around the corner. Yeah. So I think where I'd like to start is talking a little bit about this certification that you received for the trauma of money.

[00:02:45] You know, that's that's a new one for us. I'm not familiar with it. I love that it's out there. I think your book explained it pretty well, but I'd love for you to maybe dive into that for our audience a little bit and explain one. How did you come about finding that? And maybe a little bit more about the details of what it's all about. Yeah, you know, I have been working as a money expert for gosh, I'm dating myself, but like 20 years or so.

[00:03:12] And I quickly learned, you know, working with couples and individuals that my job was probably, I would say, like 98% therapist and 2% the math. Like, how was it the easy part? Right. We have got calculators and spreadsheets and things that we can plug that into. But, you know, I became like deeply interested in how do you like get people to the other side of the bridge? Right. They're on like one side.

[00:03:41] They've got these goals and the things they want to do and they're stuck. And it doesn't matter how much money they have. It doesn't matter where they come from there. You know, it was just across the board. I worked with people who had a hundred million dollars in assets and people who are just starting out and they all had the same thing. They were just stuck.

[00:03:59] And so, you know, I became just deeply interested as a money expert trying to figure out how do you like unlock that secret place for people so they can make this transformation. And I didn't know at the time what I was doing. But, you know, I was really diving into the stories and their values and their beliefs and how they grew up and all of these questions that I would, you know, walk them through to kind of have these like aha moments.

[00:04:27] And so a couple of years ago, I became introduced actually through a friend of mine to this certification trauma of money specialist and took coursework on that. And I've also been through the coursework of a money therapist and, you know, realized that basically what I was doing all those years prior was this just without this, you know, certification.

[00:04:52] And it just kind of gave me a little bit of more of a sort of structured foundation about talking about this weird thing called money trauma. And really, it's just a fancy word for talking about the emotions that live under the surface around money and the things that we kind of consciously know about money. But more importantly, the things that are sort of unconscious there that we just sort of operate on like an automatic basis around money.

[00:05:21] And we like, why does this happen? Why do we keep getting into debt? Or, you know, why can't we buy that house? And those are the places I came like just deeply interested. So the certification, it just helps me, I think, like peel back some extra layers of the onion skin to try to really get to the core of what's going on and what's stopping people. Yeah.

[00:05:44] You know, one thing that I loved and had a moment last night talk with Yana was you have this list of myths about money that you talk about in your book. And one of them was kind of funny because I often say that, you know, reaching fire is just a numbers game, right? We even have an episode about it. It's just a numbers game, right? It's just a numbers game.

[00:06:04] And what I tried to do was maybe sweep under the rug the psychological hurdles of that because, you know, the math is easy, right? That's the part that we can easily just kind of track out and have it not be a concern. But the psychology part is impactful. And you actually took a note. You actually have this really amazing statistic here.

[00:06:29] You say between 80% and 90% of your money habits are based solely on your feelings and not the math. So although it, you know. I'm blowing up your concept. Yeah, you are a little bit. And rightfully so. I think when we were trying to talk about money together, I was trying to find a way to simplify it. And, you know, I was a spreadsheets guy. And it took me a while to realize the underworkings of this. And you've really mapped that out very, very nicely.

[00:07:00] So can I ask you, you know, let's start with what is money trauma? Can you give us like a quick example of that? It's a deeply emotional wound that is correlated to like a past financial experience. Could be, you know, how you were raised. Like let's say there was financial insecurity. But I even see it people who are raised in a, you know, well-off family. And their view on money is dramatically different from how they were raised.

[00:07:31] Could be financial instability. Could come up in relationships. But it could also come up in something very simple. Like for instance, I see this a lot where maybe somebody like forgot to pay a bill just accidentally. Right. And then their credit score dropped. And so every time they go to look at their bank app, there is this traumatic kind of bodily response of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to do it again. You know, I'm the worst person. I should never be trusted with money. All of those like terrible things that go off in our head.

[00:08:01] And so it's not logical necessarily. Sometimes it is. Sometimes we can point directly to that experience. But it really shapes how we think, feel, and behave around money. So, you know, when we're talking about FI and we're talking about, you know, the numbers piece of it, you're right. We can plug in the numbers and we can find out, you know, exactly that day that you can retire and not have to work again.

[00:08:24] But if we've not dealt with this trauma, kind of these underlying beliefs and behaviors around money, what happens is sometimes we might reach that milestone. And then that anxiety or that behavior might bubble up again. And sometimes we undo the process that we've done. Or, for instance, like FI, we've spent, you know, however many years like getting to this mile marker. And we get to this mile marker.

[00:08:51] And then because we've been so conditioned to get there, it almost creates like a weird traumatic response in us where sometimes we self-sabotage. Right. Because it was so comfortable of a process. It was like a goal we were getting to. And now we don't know what to do. Now what? So, yeah. So we self-sabotage and put ourselves back in a space where now we're trying to do it again. You know, so it's really interesting.

[00:09:16] And trauma is something that I like to say it's just kind of that ouch, that weird feeling around money. And the best way to notice it is if you interact with money, your banking app or you're paying or you get your paycheck or you're around a person and you start noticing something happening in your body. Like your heart starts racing, palms get sweaty or, you know, maybe your knees lock up.

[00:09:41] Start noticing those sensations in your body because those are cues that there's something underneath the surface that you might want to investigate.

[00:09:50] I see that a lot in the fire community, actually, where people are talking about their fire journey or they have reached their financial independent number and they're not able to turn off their savings and stop saving or shift into the phase where they're ready to withdraw. And there's a lot of anxiety around that. And to your point, it's exactly that.

[00:10:19] It's obviously a money trauma or a relationship with money that they have not fully dived into because they've been so focused on the goal. I'll deal with all of the other things later that are making me unhappy. I just need to get to this goal. Right. Which kind of brings me back to my next question a little bit.

[00:10:38] Why do you think people in the fire community or just the financial independent movement sort of overlooks that aspect, that money trauma or that relationship with money along the way? I think because it is so numbers focused. It really is like we're trying to get to this mile marker. And so all of our attention is around how do we do that? You know, do we need to increase our savings? Do we need to put more in our 401k?

[00:11:06] Do we, you know, do we need to decrease our spending? Like what are our actions around that? And so a lot of the advice that you're going to hear is around those types of actions. And they're very legit. Obviously, that is the process that you get to that place. But I think that, you know, so much of self-worth is at the core of financial behaviors.

[00:11:31] And I think that that's the piece that's kind of missing here for a lot of people. So, I mean, I think the way the movement has been set up, it has been goal driven. Right. It makes sense. Like this is the place we're trying to get to. But I think to make it long lasting and also to make it feel like the next chapter, right?

[00:11:56] And not get, you know, sort of wrapped up again in anxiety, fear, regret, shame, blame, judgment, all of those things around money. They're so easy for us to get to. We've got to at least bring a piece of this, you know, emotional piece into the actual planning process so that it becomes not just the numbers. It becomes how do we want to feel around money? What are our values as a couple?

[00:12:23] You know, what is our ultimate vision? What is that about? What are we going to do after we hit this, you know, mile marker? So like bringing those more touchy feely, I guess you would call them aspects into the plan process, I think helps like really cement it as, okay, now this is like a fully legitimate plan.

[00:12:45] Yes, I can absolutely see how focusing on the goals and just getting to the next step or focusing on that next savings rate or focusing on that next tier in the FIRE journey. It could almost be a way to not talk about the emotional side and not dive into the feelings around money. Like I'm not going to talk about this feeling that I have, this anxiety that I have about maybe not reaching this goal or maybe a fear that I have it instead.

[00:13:15] I'm just going to focus on I'm 10K away from this goal or I've, you know, I'm five years away from this goal or whatever it is instead of actually sitting with the feelings that you have. I think it could be that, right? I think it depends on the couple. I think in our situation, I, so what I like about this money trauma concept is something that I didn't consider because money for me was always just such a default. I have to make it, I have to get to this goal.

[00:13:42] I wasn't considering your feelings or we've talked about this before, trying to like just the emotional side at all. I just said, well, this is what it is. This is what we got to do to get there. Take emotion out of it completely. Take emotion out of it completely. So for me, it wasn't really, I didn't think of it as dealing with trauma. I was focused on a different part of it. But what we've learned over time is that in order for two people to come together, you know, we have to talk about the emotional side of it.

[00:14:09] And we have to put these goal markers that you're talking about on there and celebrating the wins. And it's very easy for at least me at the time to, to ignore the milestones and just like keep on trudging. But having the moment where, okay, you know what? The reason I'm not talking about the emotions is because I've obviously gone through something and I need to actually address it. But there might be people out there who don't even recognize that.

[00:14:35] And maybe it has to be maybe the spouse that brings that up and prioritizes it. And then that's kind of opening up the door for more of these discussions. Right. And I think having those discussions really helped us because it helped me understand why you're prioritizing money in the way that you were. And I think it helped you understand your internal motivations as well. So all in all, it was helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:58] We've been identifying a lot of other, you know, stressors in our lives through this journey of marriage. And money never really was one of them for me. It was just, that's a good goal to work towards. But it is central, I think. I mean, you talk about it often. It touches everything. And so it's a huge part of finding happiness is finding financial peace. But that's not, you know, the money isn't what we're worried about.

[00:15:22] The more that Jan and I simplify and automate our finances, the happier we became. And this is the single greatest finance budgeting tool that's come out in recent times. It's called Cube Money. And it's changing the way couples implement financial health. We're investors in this company. We have exclusively been using Cube Money to do our own personal budgets since 2020.

[00:15:48] And it's so simple that even our kids are now using it. Cube has developed and patented a technology they call Default Zero. And it requires a category to be opened from your personal budget before you can spend with the card. And then once you spend, it deducts it all in real time. This single feature has made Cube the safest card in the world to use.

[00:16:15] If you drop it, it always has a zero balance on it unless you open the budgeting app. It's been extremely handy for us. And it saved us actually several instances of fraud. And we're never going to go back. Cube is perfect for families too because they've got shared spending categories that allow you to spend in real time from them. And everyone else in the family can see the updated balance. It's essentially making it 100% foolproof to always stick to our budget.

[00:16:43] And that has actually been the case. We have not overspent from our budget since we started Cube. And it's amazing. This is the tool that helped us get a handle on our family spending and made our journey to Coastify so much easier. So if you're ready to take your budget to the next level where you truly can automate it, you truly set it and forget it, then you're in luck because Cube Money is offering an exclusive deal just for our listeners. Go to cubemoney.com.

[00:17:12] That's Q-U-B-E money.com. And at checkout, use the code COAST. You can try the premium or the family membership for free. And again, we highly recommend it. It's a personal endorsement. We know that if you use the program, it'll work for you. Enjoy. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and when you bring up such a good point because, you know, in a couple relationship, we each come with our own money story,

[00:17:38] which is, you know, a fancy word for how we were raised, what we saw or didn't see or didn't hear around money. And we're not trained to talk about those and certainly not from like a place of curiosity to understand the other partner, their perspective, how they interact with money, their personality around money. We're just trained to kind of go straight to a judgment piece or to hold on to some resentment, right? One person wants to do this. The other person wants to do that.

[00:18:07] But, you know, it's like who's going to win, you know, is how we tend to approach it. And so, you know, if we both don't understand our own money stories or we're not willing to talk about them in an open way, in a partnership, and we've got two people trying to get to one goal who haven't dealt with or haven't talked about, you know, the stuff behind that. Right. And so for me, the way I've seen it played out is it's just like a volcano going to erupt, right?

[00:18:37] And it does. It impacts because, you know, money, I believe, is the longest relationship you're going to have outside of the relationship with yourself. It's with you your whole life. Mm hmm. So if you think about that from that perspective, it's like, OK, well, you know, do I want to have this relationship with this thing that it's toxic or that it's, you know, has an element of shame or blame or judgment or fear or whatever it might be? Right. But also that's going to bleed over into career.

[00:19:05] It's going to bleed over into, you know, your intimate relationship. It's going to, you know, it bleeds into every aspect of the partnership. And so, you know, because money is this taboo topic that, you know, we're talking about here. But, you know, if we pulled 100 couples out there, they would probably say, oh, my gosh, that is the last thing we want to talk about. Right. Yeah.

[00:19:27] And so because of that, it's just this breeding ground for, you know, emotions, for, you know, me thinking that you're thinking something and you're thinking I'm thinking something and we never really talk about it. And so it just, you know, it's always kind of the underlying layer to different arguments. I mean, it's just such a breeding ground for things.

[00:19:51] So I think it's even more important to at least have some of these conversations, even if you just tiptoe into them. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a quote here that I that I screenshotted last night when I was reading. Money holds power over you. Money keeps you out of rooms that you deserve to be in. Money divides lines and evokes anger, stress and trauma. Money is always there. It is inescapable. Money touches every aspect of life, whether you like it or not.

[00:20:21] I loved that. And it's so true. And it's one of the things I've tried to say on the podcast because it's one of those things that get it right because it touches everything. Yeah. I think I think if you look at it from maybe an objective party, right, it's easy to say, oh, well, you should be doing this. In fact, you know, oftentimes when we're going to these finance meetups around town, that's part of the joy is is somebody can come in and say, oh, well, you're forgetting about that part of it. You need to talk about that.

[00:20:50] But when you're dealing with couples and your financial planning experience, what is the first step maybe that if you see a couple who is unable to communicate or is missing this part of it? How would you suggest somebody starts talking about it with their spouse or partner? I always suggest that they start with the same question and it's tell me how you feel about money.

[00:21:18] And a question like that is not one that's going to usually raise an answer that can be debated. Right. If I feel a certain way around money, those are my feelings. And then I ask couples to dig down. So if I say, well, you know, I usually feel anxious around money. So then I want, you know, you to ask the follow up question. OK, well, why is that? Well, you know, I was raised this or that or I saw this or that or had that experience. OK.

[00:21:48] And then how did that impact you? OK. And then that that impact, how do you see it play out in, you know, today your your interactions with money? Well, you know, so I suggest you start with the surface layer question. How do you feel about money? Whatever that answer is, I want you to come to it with a sense of curiosity and almost like you're being a detective where you're kind of drilling down, down, down, but without any sense of judgment.

[00:22:16] So I always tell couples when we're talking about money, I want you to use I feel statements. So rather than you, you made this decision and you spent this and you. I mean, you know, that immediately puts me in like a defensive place where I just want to. Don't you realize what you spent the other day? Yeah. So coming at it with I feel anxious when it looks like we're overspending because X, Y, Z. Right.

[00:22:43] Those statements are hard to argue because it's your it's your opinion. It's how you feel. But it opens the conversation for somebody else to say, well, you know, I feel that when I when I do this, it leads to X, Y and Z. Right. So we're always trying to come at this discussion about, you know, what's the foundation foundational kind of feeling relationship with money from this sense of curiosity rather than judgment.

[00:23:10] And it really takes kind of holding two things at once. Right. So we're holding how we feel. But we're also holding like a benefit of the doubt about our partner, because if they grew up, you know, for instance, my husband grew up in a very traumatic childhood around money. They were always moving around. They lived in 10 plus different houses. You know, there was never a lot of money, but they always had, you know, what they needed.

[00:23:39] But there was just this underlying sense always that, you know, money was running out. So he brings that into his adult life. And anytime the conversation around money comes up, you can just watch him get anxious. Like you can watch that child version replay right in front of your face. Right. And so, you know, I could either come at him with something like, well, you're an adult. No, that's ridiculous. Why are you still anxious around money?

[00:24:07] You know, or I could come at it from a different perspective, give him the benefit of the doubt. This is how you're brought up. I understand. I can see why this might make you anxious. Is there a way we could have this conversation or make this decision? Or is there something we could do that would take down some of that anxiety for you? Right. So it's all in how you approach this with couples. And usually we come at it completely the wrong way.

[00:24:33] Yeah, I can see how this is sort of touching on how self-worth plays into our relationship with money and how we feel about money. And I know you touch on that a lot in the book. So if you could expand on that also a little bit, I think that would be helpful for our listeners. It's a good point. Yeah. Sorry. To me, it's self-worth is really at the core of our financial behaviors, which a lot of people will say that's ridiculous. But I could argue many, many, many, many cases where that's the truth.

[00:25:03] Because if we don't believe we're worthy of wealth, if we don't believe, like even on the FI journey, let's say we're on this direction. But internally, we have some trauma around money or an emotion around money where we feel ultimately we're not worthy of it. Right. Sometimes we're going to make all these, like we were talking about, we're going to self-sabotage that process. Because Matt, to your point, it should just be numbers. Right? Yeah.

[00:25:33] It should just be, you know, X plus Y equals this. And so, you know, my sort of pushback is, you know, we have all of these podcasts, all these beautiful resources about the FI movement. Everybody's like trying to learn from each other. And it's like, what have I forgotten? Well, if the numbers was the only portion of the equation, we would all have it figured out. Yeah. We would all be like, okay, we're going to get there in 10 years and this is what we're going to do.

[00:26:00] So I really think, you know, thinking about your self-worth at the core brings us all the way back to childhood. I think it brings us, you know, money trauma. We can look back generations before us as something that has been passed down, you know, especially for women. You know, my grandma, my grandma's grandma, they didn't have access to money. You know, they couldn't just go open a credit card or bank account. You know, they needed their husband to do these things.

[00:26:27] That obviously creates us into trauma, let alone the Great Depression. And, you know, all of those times, those come into our experiences around money as weird as that might sound. So, you know, I think it's really looking back at how was I raised around money? What did my, you know, ancestors go through around money? Is there anything, any bit of that coming in? I know I certainly have it in my money story and I would imagine, you know, most of us do.

[00:26:55] So I think really thinking about that piece, you know, and it takes like a real honest kind of deep dive. Like, do you feel, you know, do I feel worthy of money? Do I feel worthy of reaching this, you know, financial independence thing that so many of my previous, you know, generations of ancestors never would have had an opportunity to do? You know, what's kind of going on there for me?

[00:27:24] Asking yourself those questions, I think is really important. And then also asking your partner those too. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's been interesting for, for us because, you know, we've been communicating with couples and maybe even, you know, parents of sorts in our, in our experience that don't have the same philosophy about money and have grown up with their own money trauma in a way. And our, now it's pretty easy for us to see that.

[00:27:51] And I guess since we talk about how would we approach a couple that maybe isn't seeing eye to eye, I really love the idea of kind of doing it in this almost therapeutic way. What's where it's, you said unrefutable, right? You're, you're bringing forth some of these feelings from the person. I, when I was envisioning that, as you're telling that story, I was, I was thinking about, you know, my mom, for example, like trying to pull out some of the anxieties that she has about it.

[00:28:19] But on the flip side of it, what about if you have somebody who, you know, is slightly pigheaded about it, right? Like my way or the highway, you know, I've been doing this for so long and now you want to, you know, kind of be involved with these decisions. Is it the same approach? I really think it is, but, you know, I have seen many examples of what you're just talking about.

[00:28:46] And that brings me to like the bigger question at hand, right? Is this partnership, is this partnership a good partnership? Is this healthy for both of the people involved, right? It's, it's almost like we're going a level higher than that. Yeah. Because if we keep, even if we keep our money separate and we don't have a lot of conversations, you know, we have to have the central goal of what we're doing as a partnership around the vision of life we're trying to create.

[00:29:14] And so if one party is not willing to budge on their direction, you know, then that's, that's a bigger, I think, question at hand. And I think, you know, especially around money, because we're so used to just looking at it from a numbers perspective. I think it's really important that couples reinforce worth outside of financial success. So that the journey doesn't just become numbers.

[00:29:43] Because again, we, we get to the numbers and then it's like, then what, then what do we do? And so, you know, I think that, I think that, you know, sometimes for, for some money personalities, it's hard to have these discussions. And this is where trying to come at your partner with the benefit of the doubt, knowing some history of, of how they interact with money and asking some of these open-ended questions.

[00:30:08] But yeah, if you get to, you know, a dead end, if you get to the wall and you can't get around the wall, then I think it's this bigger question of, well, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing as, as partners? Do we really have a shared vision for what we're doing in life? And the answer could be no. Right. And so then that brings you to another, you know, decision point. Right. Maybe, maybe, you know, official couples therapy at that point. Right.

[00:30:32] Because if, if you can't talk about it without emotions flaring, then something else is hiding there and you need to kind of dig it out. Interesting. Thousand percent. Yep. What would you think are some of the first steps that couples can take to really start having healthy communications privately around money? Because sometimes, you know, it's one thing to have friends and family members who are maybe having those conversations.

[00:30:55] But when a couple is alone together at their kitchen table going over their numbers and it's just them, what are some tools that they can pull out of their tool belt when things start to get heated or things start to get one person is frustrated or one person is triggered? You know, I, my first thought is like, we'll take three deep breaths. You know, that's. Yeah. You know. Talk to like our son. But, but obviously it's much, it's much more complex than that. Yeah. That's a good point.

[00:31:22] So I think once you get past the, you know, what is the, um, the triggering part, like you can see when emotions start, like, you know, the cheeks start getting flush and like something I said, it didn't go over well. You know, like let's figure that part out. But yeah, like what would be maybe some tools that could help people who are doing this alone? Well, I'm always an advocate of taking three deep breaths. Don't die.

[00:31:47] I, you know, I, I have a bunch of, um, exercises that I can kind of throw out and tools. So it kind of depends on, you know, what type of person you are and what resonates with you. I think, you know, the first thing is if we're going to have, you know, a regular money meeting, I think the first questions, the first conversation topics are actually not about the numbers. Love that. That they are more about the emotions, the feelings. Is there anything going on?

[00:32:17] So we're, we're getting that, um, those kind of strong, deep feelings out from the beginning. Then we can, we can bring in the numbers, right? If we start with the numbers and we've not dealt with any of the emotions, that's again, we're just going to fire up. It's going to keep coming up. I love that because it actually gets the buy-in maybe from the person who's feeling emotional that day. Right. And anxious. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:42] So you're, you're kind of reiterating the overall vision, the goal, like, Hey, we want to be here still. Right. Like let's paint that goal and then, and then kind of back into it. You're building on top of a foundation of understanding because you've already aired out. This is how I feel about money. This is how I feel about money. These are my anxieties. How are you feeling? Kind of a thing. And then building from there, which is really interesting. Cause when I think about how we started, I don't think we really started having emotional discussions around money until much later.

[00:33:11] No, I did it totally wrong. Sean, I came at this as purely let's, you know, it's the math. Right. And it wasn't for five or six or seven years that it took us to really realize it's not about the math at all. I mean, it is about the math, but it's, it's, there's two sides of the coin. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So it's finding a way to get the buy-in from both parties. I think. Yeah. Another thing that I've done with almost every couple I've worked with, no matter how long

[00:33:37] they've been together is, um, we get out like a, like a Mason jar or some big container and each person write down 10, 15, however many questions they can think of that they would want to ask the partner that are emotion based around money. So it could be, you know, was there an experience where, you know, you felt a certain way?

[00:34:01] Is there something that, um, I do with money that, um, you know, brings up emotions could be anything, anything. So you each write 10, you fold them up, you put them in that Mason jar. So with your money meeting, you bring this Mason jar, right? Shake it up. You pick one out and that is your, you know, your topic question, whatever, whoever's it was, that's what you're going to start with. So they, they're like conversation starters.

[00:34:30] So it's not like we're sitting down and we're like, well, do you want to go first? Do you want to go first? Where do we start? Where do we start? Right. So it's, it, it, you know, any kind of tools like that, that you can bring in are super helpful because, you know, we like action steps, right? So it's like, we're pulling out of a jar. It's the questions we already said, let's start with this and let that be that it's going to open up so much. Cause once you talk about one of those questions and I have done this with couple after couple

[00:34:59] of a couple, and I've seen this work. Once they answer one, then it's like, well, let's pull out another or that then leads to some other discussion, which is ultimately going to lead into the numbers piece. Right. But we're going to get there in a much gentler way that I think really brings couples together versus like putting each other in separate corners. Right. Yeah. That's really great advice.

[00:35:24] I think not only just for money and exploring your money trauma, but just like any relationship issue, right? Cause I think that, yeah, if you were to pour out that jar on the table, that sounds like a really horrible night for, for most couples. Cause there's little nitpicky things that could probably come up, but if you're doing just one and say like, Hey, remember when you, you know, splurged and got this thing and we didn't talk about it, let's talk about it now. You know, like that might be helpful to kind of work through.

[00:35:51] Well, I think also too, with, with this tool, the idea of the Mason jar, it's, it's giving couples the ability to articulate how they're feeling sort of privately without being put on the spot and then they can discuss it. It's sort of creating a layer there. It's almost like texting your partner when you're arguing and they're in the next room because you're afraid you're not going to articulate it exactly the way that you want to, you know, and, and, or your anxiety is going to get in the way or you're going to start to hyperventilate because you're anxious.

[00:36:19] You know, this sort of, right. Yeah. So there's a way to sort of create a space around asking those questions. What I, I always say my one rule is that you're not, even though you're both going to know that you're not supposed to talk about whose question it is, even though you're going to know. Right. Right. But that's just my, my one little caveat is whatever the question you pull out, that's the one you're answering. Don't think any deeper about it.

[00:36:46] You're obviously going to know if you wrote it or didn't write it, but none of that should come into the discussion. It should just be about, this is a question we each wrote 10. We're picking them randomly. Here we go. How often do they put in the same question? Very often. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That's cool. Very often. Yeah. I would imagine that's a good thing. It is. Yeah, for sure. Well, you mentioned, you know, all these clients that you've spoken with and all the experience that you've had.

[00:37:14] I would love it if you could maybe show us an example of, you know, a successful case here. Like obviously, you know, emotions fly when we talk about money and, and, you know, the, the little coaching that we've done on the side is, it is an emotional packed conversation. I would love to hear maybe one of your most proud stories. If you have one.

[00:37:37] I worked with a couple, um, they were actually in their late fifties and he ran a very successful business in Los Angeles when I lived there. And if you looked at them, you would think they have everything, big house, watches, cars, vacations, you name it. Right. And initially they had called me in to help them raise their credit score, which I always

[00:38:07] know that whatever someone initially tells me there's way more to the story. Right. So, um, we sat down and I started to go through some of these questions and what kind of came out in our initial meeting was that, um, he felt this responsibility because she was raised in a very financially well-off family. He felt this responsibility to provide all of these things. His business wasn't going so great.

[00:38:32] And so he had been credit card hacking, but to the point where there were so many credit cards, so much debt on all these credit cards that, I mean, this was the reason the credit score was not, you know, working for them. And, um, it was terrible. I think there were, I don't know, 40 or 50 credit cards. Most of them were maxed out. Um, and she had no idea about any of this.

[00:38:56] So her initial response was just, you know, like guttural anger. Yeah. And I think the first, first words out of her mouth were something like, I will always live the version of life I want to live, you know? And I was like, Ooh, all right, here we go. You know, they both had these different, um, ideas about money and because they never talked

[00:39:21] about them, they were both living this kind of, you know, false reality around money and they were just going along with status quo. But underneath that were all of these tensions and resentments and expectations and all of this just building, building, building, building. And so, you know, we spent about 10 sessions together and we really had to dig down into what were each person's beliefs, expectations around money.

[00:39:51] What were somebody else's, a parent's version or somebody else that they were adopting that weren't actually theirs. So what were the things that we could let go of? What was the shared vision of life that we wanted? Where are we in that shared vision? How do we get closer to that? Um, we also had discussions about what each person was willing to let go of, right? So she was willing to let go of fancy colleges.

[00:40:20] If her kids didn't want to go to them, he was willing to, you know, so it was like we were pulling apart these pieces in order to put the puzzle back together, you know, and we got to a place where they had a really strong, um, I made them have weekly money conversations because I was present for those. So, um, and we, you know, we bought out a bottle of wine for those and we did them somewhere

[00:40:46] different and we used our mason jar and we pulled out and I sat there and moderated until they got to a place where they felt like they could trust each other and they could trust the responses that they would have. So of course we dealt with the credit card situation. We got that straightened out. You know, we came up with, you know, our, our little, like I call it our little behavior checklist around money of what they were and weren't going to do when they were supposed to have conversations about spending together.

[00:41:15] Like we came up with the entire kind of rule book for their relationship around money. And, you know, this went from a couple that I was just sure they're going to get divorced. Like there's, there's, they are so different and there's been so many years, like 20 plus years of no conversations around money that there's just no way that this could, you know, come back together. And I just, every time we would get together, I just see it like chip a little bit closer

[00:41:43] and a little bit closer and a little bit closer. And they're still married today. They still use this little rule book that we created and they update it and they still have their money meetings. And, um, you know, the, of course it's not a hundred percent perfection. It's never going to be that, but they're one of the most dramatic stories. Um, he let go of his business. They moved into a smaller house. I mean, like all of these things, I thought there's no way this is going to happen, but

[00:42:12] they were able to really kind of fight for the relationship in this process. Yeah. I mean, beautiful story. Uh, first off, because I can just imagine how, um, empowering it must feel to be improving someone else's long-term relationship. Mm-hmm because although money, it may be at the center of that, I, and I can see your

[00:42:39] pathway a little bit here, like why you went down this certification for money trauma, right? Like being able to implement some of these psychological, you know, uh, tools is probably really, really smart. And, you know, we've gone through a very big journey ourselves and learning how to communicate and we see it with other people. And although money is a huge part of, um, what maybe triggers people, um, if you're able

[00:43:07] to chip away at it, like you say, the whole relationship is improved, right? You're learning how to build communication. You're, you're learning how to maybe speak and define what's going to make you happy and what, what you need, you know? Uh, there was definitely a time. I think we probably all maybe in the U S go through this where, you know, we want the big house. We want the, you know, the, the trips to Europe on every other month or whatever, fancy cars. Yeah.

[00:43:34] And it wasn't until we really defined what was going to be, what was going to really make us happy that we were able to let some of that stuff go. And thank goodness we did because it, you know, identifying, um, at least in our case, like a minimalist lifestyle or even just a small content little, you know, cottage on a hill is all we really need, you know, but it took us a long time to get there.

[00:43:58] And I could see how, um, if you're not communicating with your partner today, years go by and, and you can just grow apart or, you know, find this new equilibrium. That isn't what it could be. If you don't have these conversations. Well, I think in entrenching your relationship in unhealthy communication tactics is what can really drive people apart because then they're not having those, those healthy check-ins with their partner and building a haven around some of those things that make them feel anxious

[00:44:26] and make them feel scared or fearful. Your partner should be the person that you can go to about these kinds of things. In fact, your partner should be the person that you go to about these things because you are actively building a life with someone, which includes a financial life, a financial partnership. So what Sean has done so wonderfully is created the habit of talking about it. Yes. Like the, you know, clearing the air and being able to let each other know that, Hey, today,

[00:44:53] right now we're going to address this little thing. And, and just, I imagine that after you leave the, the, you know, the conference or the mediation is over, they probably start implementing some of these tools and they're parts of their lives. Right. Yeah. There's this really great thing that you incorporate into the book where you do these truth or dares, where I think one of the first one was truth. What, what's one secret about money that you've never told anyone ever. And then the dare is now go ask someone that question.

[00:45:22] And I think that's such a genius way to sort of sprinkle in questions that you can ask yourself questions that you can ask your partner because it gets you to a place where you're starting the pattern of building an awareness around the way you feel in your body about it. When you're talking about money and the actual actions that you are implementing on a day-to-day basis and connecting those two things together. And then also bringing all that to the table with your partner when you're doing your budgeting. So I loved it.

[00:45:52] I loved it. Those were, those were super fun for me to write. It's, it's funny because almost everyone has talked about those. Um, and you know, they've said, Oh, I've, I've done this one or I've, you know, asked this one of my partner or whatever it might be, or I do both of them. And so for me, it was just a fun way to, I'm always trying to figure out a way to make money less stressful. And just what you're saying, like bring this awareness piece. Right. Excellent.

[00:46:20] Well, Shauna, we, we really enjoyed this conversation. Um, I'd love to, uh, do one more plug of your book because we really enjoyed it. Um, the name of the book is unraveling your relationship with money. And it's again, releasing this month, February, 2025, right? Where can people go and find it? You can head to my website, everyone's talking money.com slash book, or go to any bookstore. They'll have the book, um, all your, you know, Barnes and Noble, Amazon. You can find it there.

[00:46:50] Great. Great. And how can, uh, maybe listeners. Get in touch with you. Absolutely. You can follow my podcast. Everyone's talking money on, uh, the podcast player. You're listening to this episode on right now. Um, you can also come over to my website. Everyone's talking money.com. Uh, ask me a question, send me a love note. Uh, tell me you're fighting with your partner and you need some help around money. I'm, I'm here for you. Awesome. Fantastic. Well, we really love to get a chance to talk with you. Thank you so much.

[00:47:20] Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Well, we'd love to maybe see you in person here at one of these conferences in the future. So, um, and if you ever need to get in touch with us, we'd love to have you back on the show at some point after your book is doing really, really well. And maybe if you're writing another anytime. Yeah. Let's do a part two. Thank you. All right. Wonderful. Uh, any, any closing comments, um, anything we didn't touch on today? I don't think so. No, this was great. Well, everyone, thank you so much for coming for today's episode of Coast by Couple and we'll see you next time.

[00:47:51] Thanks everyone. Thank you. Bye.