A Personal Finance Star on What Millennials Need From Their Boomer Parents

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From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Marquezie.

“What's the best thing to do with our money?”

It's an age-old question, and one often prompted by the feeling, at least for me, that there are experts out there who know the mysterious answers hidden from the rest of us financial robes. Remeats A.T has found success positioning himself

as one such expert in the past. His book, the irresistibly titled, "I will teach you to be rich,

has more than a million copies in print."

In the years since it was published in 2009, S.T. is transitioned into streaming, with a Netflix series called How to Get Rich, and a popular podcast, "Money for Couples," in which he ends up playing both financial advisor

and de facto relationship therapists for Couples struggling with money problems. So why are people listening to him? For one, he comes across as younger, hipper, and more emotionally attuned and liberal,

than your stereotypical brow-beating financial experts.

“For another, he says the key to personal wealth,”

even in an economic moment that seems particularly tougher, his younger audience, can be as much about spending money as it is about squimping and saving. I wish I'd know how to do that, as it is about squimping and saving.

I wish I'd know that sooner. Here's my conversation with Remite S.T. Remite, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you for having me. We're going to talk about money.

My favorite topic. My problem is I have too much of it. How do I get rid of some money? That's really my issue. You do not hear that too often.

Just to start, when you talk about helping people become rich, you don't just mean rich in a dollar figure way. You mean it in a more holistic way. Can you explain to people what rich means to you in the way that you use it? The word rich is extremely loaded in our culture.

When we think of rich, we have a very specific vision of what that looks like. For example, in the '80s and '90s, it was a country club, maybe a fur coat, a private jet, that's rich. But it's quite different now. Rich could be picking up your kids from school every afternoon.

Rich can be traveling for a few months a year, or buying a beautiful piece of clothing, but your rich life is yours. We see that, especially in the last few years, as people went through work from home,

and they realized, hey, I would actually rather do this for the rest of my life. It might even mean taking a small pay cut, but I want the freedom and the flexibility. Until now, I hadn't seen people talk about rich in a positive way that fits you like a glove.

I saw it in this kind of richy-rich on TV vision, and that just didn't connect with me. One of your big insights, and to my mind, one of your key insights, is that you actually encourage people to spend money on the things that they love,

and which they feel will enhance their lives in a meaningful way.

“But if you're going to do that, you need to cut ruthlessly”

on the things that don't enhance your life in a meaningful way. Where did that insight come from? That you don't have to be afraid of spending on certain things? I started my entire business from my dorm room, and I remember at the time reading a ton of books on money.

And the material that I read on personal finance did not connect with me at all. It was people who didn't look like me lecturing me about all the things I'm not allowed to do with my money. There was no vision of what I get.

Like I would literally, you put your hand out.

I think there's a powerful exercise for a lot of people with money.

Put your hand out, palm up, and ask yourself, what do I get? What do I get? And it better be something cool. And I started to talk to people, what do you love to spend your money on? Every person has an answer, and their eyes light up.

And they'll go, "Oh, you know, I love travel."

And then the next thing they'll say, depending on what their answer is, but I know I probably shouldn't, and they shrink. And I never let them. I go, "Hey, what do you love? What's your favorite piece? Why do you love it?"

And then I asked the next question, "If you could spend more on that thing, what would it look like, what would it feel like?"

This is a very powerful moment, because the vast majority of people have never been asked this.

And they've never been treated, especially by a money person, non-judgmentally.

“But how do people prioritize spending on the things they love?”

Because I think if you were to ask someone, "Oh, I mean, this is what you do for a living." So you know, and you correct me if I'm wrong. But if you were to ask someone, you know, what are the things you love? They're not just going to say one thing. They might say, "Well, I love to travel. I like to eat out.

I love to buy new clothes. How is someone supposed to know, like, at what point does spending on the thing they love?" It's actually sort of counterproductive to their larger financial goals. First of all, people do not prioritize spending on the things they love. That's not the way people act.

And this is one of the central mistakes that the entire financial industry makes, which is to treat people like they are rational robots.

People believe that their children are the most important thing to them.

So therefore they are apportioning resources accordingly. No, they're not doing that at all. And so when I ask them, "What's the most important thing to you?" The answers are always the same. The number one thing that people love to spend money on is food, eating out, fine.

Number two is travel. Number three is health and wellness. Then we take a look at where their money is actually going. It is never aligned, never. And so what they claim is important to them is not reflected on their calendar and in their spending plan.

And that's where we get the opportunity to change things. So if someone were listening to today and thought, "Okay, I'm willing to cut back on some things that mean less to me and willing to give myself permission to spend more on things that mean more to me." That's not sufficient.

“What are the other things they need to be doing to put themselves on more stable?”

Or not just more stable financial ground, but to actually grow their wealth. Okay, most of us do not know our basic numbers. Money is so mystifying and confusing, often by design, but also by a lack of effort that we put into it that when I ask people, "What's your household income?"

You know, 50% of people do not even know their own household income. What people typically discover when they calculate their 4 key numbers is that they have way too much money going towards fixed costs. That would be things like their housing, which is a huge problem, especially now, towards their cars.

Americans love to buy gargantuan $85,000 trucks. And then, you know, they go, "Oh, that's just normal." They also discover that they don't have a lot in savings. And when we look at how much they are automatically saving every month, it's usually zero.

What a blessing to be able to go, "Oh, it's very clear why we don't have any savings because we are not saving." Now that we understand the basics, we can make some changes. And just to be clear, what are the 4 key numbers? The first is your fixed costs.

Anything that is fixed to keep the lights on, so your rent or mortgage, your auto payments, debt, groceries, the things that you use every day and they're going to stay there. The next one is your savings. How much are you savings? These are as a percentage of your take home pay.

The third is your investments. That's where the real wealth is created. And finally, is guilt-free spending. This is eating out, traveling. Anything that you like to do for you, for your family, 20 to 35%.

If you hit those numbers, call it a day and move on because you are nailing it.

“Well, have you always had a healthy relationship with money?”

What's your personal relationship with money? It has evolved over time. I think that I, you know, it's funny. I struggled with math when I was younger. Well, to the same extent today, I struggle with rotating things in my head and puzzles.

But for some reason, compound interest just made sense to me. And it was early. You know, my dad helped me open up an investment account at age 14. And instantly, I'm putting in, you know, 20 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks. And I'm already compounding it until 65.

I go, whoa, this is amazing.

So that part, I think, for whatever reason, that was a talent that I had. But I was also a utilitarian. I was a kind of guy where in his early 20s, if you looked in my apartment, there's nothing on the wall. Maybe one poster, no frame, because why would I?

And I was living in San Francisco.

“So I think it's kind of a common sentiment, just like focus on efficiency.”

And now I would say I'm the furthest from that idea. And how old are you? 43. But you're not one of these fire guys. No.

The financial independence retire early. And there are people who sort of relentlessly are working their financial numbers. You know, at some point, as young as they can possibly do it, they can stop working and just live off their investments. What do you think they're missing?

Like, you are sort of critical of the fire mindset.

What's the criticism there? What I appreciate is that the fire community pushes people to think in a different way. And in America, anything that gets people to engage with their money, I'm initially for it.

“I think that they took the average savings rate,”

which Americans have really three less than 5%. How about 30%. How about 50%. That's pretty bold, which I appreciate. But I do think that if you build a life where you focus solely on a number in a spreadsheet,

that is a mistake. There are far too many people who go through life. Ultra-frugal. And over time, there are ability to spend money meaningfully atrophies. For a lot of people that can be as simple as,

"Hey, every time I come home, there's a bunch of shoes on the floor. I tripping over Legos. Let me spend 20 bucks on a little organizer to put those shoes in there." Wow. Or let me spend a little bit of money to make my life slightly more convenient,

so I can have quality time. Or let me just tip 30%. Everywhere I go. I want to be super generous to the people that are taking care of me at the coffee shop, et cetera, and the restaurant. I want us to get deeper than thinking that rich or spending money is frivolous or somehow unimportant.

It's not. I want to go back to the beginning of your career for a little bit. So you've been doing this or talking about money for 20 years.

“And you started blogging, I think, in roughly 2004, when you were still at Stanford.”

And the blog evolved into the best-selling book. I will teach you to be rich, which would publish in 2009, which is sort of become one of these books that are perennial best sellers. But when did this switch happen where you decided to talk specifically to couples about money? I was wondering, you know, it's like there's only so many ways that you can say, you know, pay off your debt. You know, spend on the things that matter, buy low cost index funds, do the employer 401k match.

Did you think, oh, I need to find another lane for the material? I think that money is so multi-dimensional that I can talk about this for the rest of my life. But the advice to me was relatively one-dimensional. It was, here's a spreadsheet, puts a numbers in it, and God bless. And I actually think that money is alive. It is like relational.

And that's when my relationship focus started was several years ago. My wife and I met, talked about money, a little late. I broke my own rules on that one. I should have done it earlier. That was a violation of my own rules. Well, you're on rule about what?

Talk about money early. Oh, earlier.

And anyway, so we finally talked about it.

We went through a pre-nup process, which was challenging. And then we got married, and you don't stop talking about money when you get married. It's actually only the beginning. And so I discovered how challenging it was, and I will teach you to be rich guy. And I'm like, if this is hard for us, let me ask other couples.

So I started asking of these couples. How do you talk about money? Who handles it? What do you disagree on? And it was like the earth started shaking. Because there's all these taboo stories that nobody talks about publicly.

And whenever there's a taboo around money, I pull out my flashlight, and I want to shine the light on it. Do you think every couple should have a pre-nup? No. Most couples don't need it. If one or both partners come into a relationship with pre-existing assets or any sort of complexity,

then it may make sense. It's worth looking into. But the vast majority of people do not need it. So when you speak to couples about their money problems and they're talking about specific ones, like what are the most common problems that you come across?

Where actually the problem is not the money. It's what the money represents between the couple.

It's usually represents something much deeper.

But what they do talk about is we have this expense that just came up.

You've got to send her on a field trip or we're taking a trip to Grandma's next month. Where's the money going to come from? And it produces and reinforces this feeling that we only talk about money when there's a problem. So what we have to do is rebuild this relationship. Where are you today?

They're like, I don't know.

“I go, all right, do you know how much you're going to have at 65?”

They have no clue. So I do a little compound interest calculation for them. And I tell them how much they're going to have. And sometimes they are shocked. Because the number if you compound over 10, 20, 30, 40 years, that number becomes quite large.

And they they realize through more discussion that this argument they have about who spent too much at target is completely absurd when you're talking about having that kind of retirement. But I'm also interested in what's underneath the you spent too much money at target.

Oh yeah, conversation classic right, which could be, you know, maybe the person who's being critical.

Maybe they are actually controlling and they want to be, they want to oversee all the spending. Yeah. Maybe the person who's doing the spending feels like a spending is a way of sort of exercising power in their own way.

“So what are those sorts of dynamics that you see recurring in the couples that you talk to?”

There are psychological dynamics, there are gender dynamics, cultural dynamics at play. It is the most fascinating part of what I do. So target is actually a very real example. It's very common that usually in a heterosexual relationship, the wife will go to target. And it's almost a running joke that she will go in with the intention to spend $50 and come out having spent $250.

This is actually a meme online. Ha ha ha, I spent $250. And that produces a lot of conflict. Several reasons. One, the husband who's often not involved in the daily tracking of anything or knowledge of what's being spent.

He just looks at a number and goes, why did you do that? The person who spends the money in this case, wife becomes quite defensive. What do you mean? I'm out here going shopping every day, taking care of things.

“And so now we have an entrenched conflict where there is no understanding of the dollars or the vision, just why do you do that?”

And it reverses in gender as well. We will often hear guys spending money at a gas station. This is quite common. They go every morning, they're buying snacks, drinks at a gas station. Why do you do that?

We can make it at home. So they over time come to realize that what they are spending, either they can easily afford it. So why are we arguing about this? Or this is not the vision for our rich life. And candidly, sometimes I'll just tell them, like, is target your rich life?

And I have to say, I don't think buying a bunch of commodities can be a core part of your rich life.

Because I've never heard somebody say target is my rich life.

It's just not spending time with your kids, being able to volunteer with them, buying something beautiful that you appreciate, even going on splurging for a meal and getting an extra appetizer. Yes, that can be part of a rich life. A lot of people have told me that, but buying some stuff at a random store, probably not. After the break, Remet explains his problems with a lot of personal finance content.

Personal finance personalities will bring people on their show who are making obviously poor financial decisions. They will subject them to mockery, and they will essentially present the message that it's all your fault. [Music] My name is Audra Diaz Burge, and I am a national correspondent covering race and identity for the New York Times. Race coverage is complicated.

It can be joyous and affirming. It can be uncomfortable, but I feel like it's still absolutely necessary. Race and identity are not just understanding who you are, but who the person in front of you is. And wanting to understand more about them. We're trying to wrestle down these really hard subjects, and maybe not answering the question,

Listening a lot.

The Times is dedicated to ambitious and deeply reported coverage of race and identity,

and they're willing to back it up with resources. If you are curious about the world on which we live, if you're interested in who you are, where you come from, and how you relate to others, I would encourage you to subscribe to the New York Times. [Music] You know, I have to say that sometimes when I've been thinking in a broader way about your work,

particularly your work with couples. And I see these couples come on, and to all outward appearances, they look like they should be doing well.

And they're really struggling.

Like people talking about maybe losing their house or sort of the specter of divorce can come up because of tensions around money, or people really anxious about not being able to provide the same life for their kids that they were able to have. And that's sort of on on one side of it, and then on the other side you have people who have a lot of money, but they seem completely like coiled and unable to enjoy it.

“And I think this is actually painting a in-hole kind of a grim portrait of American society like this.”

What do you think your podcast is saying about American society writ large? Like if an alien were to come down and watch Remeet Seti's show, what would the takeaway be? It's no surprise to me that money is fraught and that you're pointing out even the people I have on the podcast who are multi-millionaires. Aren't happy? Yeah, they're not happy.

And you look at it from the outside and you go, that is shocking. Sometimes you look like it's so obvious why you have these financial problems. Like I have couples, they are two months away from literally running out of money, two months and they have kids. They will lose their house, they will lose their multiple vehicles, they are months away from it. And they are remarkably lack of days ago about it.

They have never really faced any consequences.

Think about it. Many of us still have our cell phones, still have our internet at home, still have a home.

“So it may be stressful, but when I ask them, what are the consequences that you have faced?”

I have $25,000 of credit card debt. I go, how does that affect you day to day? Nothing, it's just a number. What I am trying to do with my work is to bring the reality of money from the clouds to the street. Meaning, money is not just a word, it's not just all, it's improve our portfolio or like debt is bad. I want to know what would it feel like to go to the grocery store and be free to pick up an extra treat for your family.

What would it feel like if you and your partner, when you talked about money, you actually started with a compliment, and you ended with a hug. What would that feel like? Not a fight, not so in silence, but wow, that was really cool. It doesn't just in listening to you, give that answer. It also doesn't help that we clearly live in a society that thinks people who have money are better than people who don't have it.

And also people think they deserve to have more money than the people who don't have it. It's a bizarre relationship, if you were to explain it to aliens, we love the wealthy in America. We ageulate them, we look at their pictures in Bora, Bora, we aspire to be them. We aspire to be them, but we hate them, we hate them, we hate them for evading tax increases, we hate them for being evil capitalists. And these simple labels actually do us a disservice.

You want to be good at money, you better learn how it works, you better learn how it works on the individual level. We're talking about your 4 key numbers, your debt pay off date, you got to know these things. And we need to understand that just because you have money does not mean you are evil or bad. But if you have billions and you argue against paying a slight marginal tax increase, you might be an asshole. I want to know about your political evolution a little bit.

“I'm no expert on the space, but I think one of the heavyweights is a guy like Dave Ramsey, right?”

It's sort of like it has a good old boy vibe. And I think he's sort of publicly pretty pro-Trump.

who seems politically different than Dave Ramsey.

Like there's a left-coded version of that guy and I want to be him. No, my political outspokenness was more at my revulsion at what Donald Trump was saying. He was calling Mexicans rapists and saying other horrific things. And I realize in that moment, if I cannot speak up, somebody who runs their own business, who has a large platform, somebody who looks like me, then who can.

For the most part, the personal finance world, particularly in the media, has often been right-wing coded. Personal finance personalities will bring people on their show who are making obviously poor financial decisions. They will subject them to mockery over and why did you do that?

How could you spend that much?

And they will essentially present the message that it's all your fault. Now, I believe that we should take personal responsibility for our money, yes, 100%.

“That's why I talk about savings rate and I call people out when they're spending more than they have.”

But we can simultaneously acknowledge that and the need for systemic reform. You will not hear the need for systemic reform on many personal finance media platforms. You will not hear them talking about why housing is so expensive. It's not just because it's because of nimbeeism, because of a political decision that we've made. You will not hear them talking about raising money taxes on billionaires, even though taxes are historically low.

No, you will hear them simply saying you spend too much on oats every morning and you're a bad person. I find that to be nonsensical. When you understand that society is not simply a culmination of people making individual decisions, but there are structural reasons that we are the way we are. The structural, then suddenly you start to realize, oh, money is much more nuanced and interesting, and you actually become a lot more compassionate about it.

Well, this is something that maybe relates to the kind of personal political change you just described. When I was reading, I will teach you to be rich. I understand this book was now written 17 years ago, but you know, you write about the problem of victim culture. You sort of suggest that people who complain about systemic and societal or structural problems related to personal finance are like winers. That's not what I said.

This is an introduction. I did talk about victim culture, which when I initially wrote it in 2007 was a fine thing to say.

Now it has become right-coded, but I never said that you're a victim because you're complaining about social structures.

No. There is an amount of personal responsibility that we have to take with our money.

“So we cannot simply say, life is too hard.”

I'm not going to read a single book about money or watch a free YouTube video. Somebody solve it for me. That's not going to happen. We've got to take personal responsibility. Well, so what are the valid structural reasons for why some people struggle to get ahead?

Can we give credence to someone who says, like, look, the game is rigged against me. I could follow every step that Remitte said he tells me to take, and I'm still going to struggle to get my head above water. Or what do we look at somebody who says something like that and say, like, you know, you're just not making the right moves. This is such a great question. No, I would not look at them and say, you're not making the right moves.

“I think first of all, we need to acknowledge, for example, the jobs even for college educated graduates are scarce.”

And the pay is not what they need to do to survive. And housing, of course, is the biggest one of all. We have systematically made it more expensive by letting people who bought a house and then pulled up the drawbridge is around them, not allowing more housing to be built. We have a policy decision to let wealthy, typically older people protect their house value

while younger people cannot afford a basic house. And if you take a look at some young person and they're like, hey, I can barely afford my housing and I already live with a roommate. It's not fair to tell them, oh, you're not doing enough. No, this is something that happened around you. You were not even aware of it or a participant in it. And you are the one bearing the brunt of it.

And what would be the inverse of a question like that where the millennial or the Gen Z person

What would you point to and say, like, no, here's the myth about that thinking.

“I would ask them, what have you read to improve your personal finances?”

Right there, boom, there is at least one thing that anybody can do in America that will have a profound effect on your finances. Usually, the simplest answer is to automate your savings. Just pulling aside a certain amount of money before you ever see it. People go, there's no way I can do that. I'm already cut to the bone. You will be shocked at how much you can actually survive on and even thrive on.

And the money is just automatically growing for you.

You don't even know it. That's powerful. That takes understanding psychology and automation, but anyone can do it in less than two days.

You know, if we can say that getting ahead financially is harder for millennials and Gen Z years than it was for older generations. What advice would you give to parents for how best to help their kids? I mean, maybe just give them as much money as you're able to give them? Yeah, right in a big fat check if you can. It's actually not too far from it. You know, in the old days, in the old days, the idea was, I'll pass whatever I have a long when I die.

And more sophisticated financial planners now know, if you have something to give giving a few thousand dollars, 10 out, however much is much more impactful when your children are younger. Particularly when they're 35, 40, 45, those are really tough financial times for people.

“But look, the best thing that older parents can do is to actually ask their children and legitimately learn what is going on financially for young people.”

Because it is not the same. And I am tired of hearing these comments. Oh, we bought a house when it was 17% interest. Yeah, the houses were a fraction of what they cost today. And if you look at what they were as a percentage of income, they were way lower. It was achievable. We know this because there are a lot of people who bought a very nice house on one income. That is effectively impossible today. Thanks to Nimbiism.

So actually just asking your children, hey, I know it's really tough right now. Can you just, like, what's it like? How much are you spending on food and housing?

And how does that break down? And oh my gosh, here's what we spent.

Wow, if I had to do that today, I don't know how I would do it. There is power in just acknowledging and validating. And there are so many young people who would love to hear their parents just say, Wow, that's got to be really tough. I had no idea. Remed, if you could snap your fingers and go into the minds of every American and get them to change one behavior around money that will put them on the path to a richer life.

What would that be? Once a month, one hour, set it aside. If you're solo or with a partner, look at your key numbers.

“Ask yourself, what's my rich life? Has anything changed since last month?”

Am I on track? And what progress have I made? Then celebrate. That's it. All right, I'll do that with my wife once a month for an hour, and I'll report back to you. I would love it. Remed, thank you for taking all the time to speak with me. It was a total pleasure. Thank you. That's Remed Safety.

To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@symbolTheInterviewPodcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by John Wu, mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Vemisto, and Marian Lazano. Photography by Devon Yalkin. The rest of the team is pre-amath you, Seth Kelly, Paola Newdorf, Joe Bill Moonios, Amy Marino, Kathleen O'Brien, and Rook Mentors. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Special thanks to Ron Lieber.

I'm David Marquezie, and this is the interview from The New York Times.