How to Live Your Rich Life with Ramit Sethi
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What does “a rich life” actually mean and why re-release this conversation with Ramit Sethi?
What does it actually mean to live a rich life? Not the Jeff Bezos version, not the private jet, the house with more bathrooms than you'll ever use. I mean your rich life, the one that's built around what you actually care about, not what you've been told you're supposed to want. Today, I'm sitting down with Ramit Sethi. You might know him from his New York Times bestselling book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, or from his Netflix show, How To Get Rich. Ramit and I go deep on what it means to actually live a life that feels rich to you and how to determine what your rich life actually is, why renting can be a smarter financial move than buying, even if you can't afford a house, how to negotiate everything from your salary to your rent, and what couples are actually fighting about when they fight about money.
Because spoiler, it's not the target runs. This is one of my favorite conversations we've had on Financial Feminist. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.
I would love to know your first money memory, the first time you remember consciously thinking about money and how it informed your experience or your relationship with money.
I remember my parents driving us, all of us kids, in the back of a van and we were going somewhere and they stopped at a bank and they needed to get a money order. and they walked out of the bank. They left us in the back and they walked into the bank and came back out about five minutes later, laughing. And we see them laughing across the parking lot. And when they get in the car, we go, why are you laughing? And they go, they told us that they would waive the fees only if we had $10,000 in our account. And they were just laughing because it was impossible. It was not a figment of our family's reality that we would just have $10,000 lying around to get a fee wave. And I kind of look back on that and I smile because there's so many lessons just in that tiny example of them walking towards the van in the parking lot laughing.
First of all, we didn't have that kind of money. And that actually forced us to learn frugality growing up. So I was raised by my two immigrant Indian parents. And although my reputation these days is Mr. Anti-frugality, I grew up, it's deep in my bones, okay? I grew up with frugality every day of my life. The other thing is my parents had a sense of humor about it. They just laughed. What, are they going to get angry? Is that going to change it? No, they just laughed. This is ridiculous. How would we be expected? And the third thing I love is that they were looking for a deal, right? Which they also taught to me, right? So I love a deal. Sometimes I think people, especially in the frugality world, take it a little too far.
But I appreciate that they were trying to look for a way to get their money or whatever for free. That's what I remember.
I think one of my takeaways from that too, and I've talked with my team about this, is unfortunately the systems that exist in the hopes of aiding and increasing somebody's net worth and increasing somebody's financial stability. There are so many barriers to entry. And I know you know the stats around under or unbanked people, right? I think it's like 33% now of United States residents are either under or unbanked, meaning that they don't have a bank account or don't have access to a bank account. And one of the biggest things is because they can't meet the minimum account threshold. And it sounds like this was a similar experience of I can't take advantage of something that the bank offers me because I don't have $10,000 in my account.
Yeah, exactly right. And so the irony is that I now would get all those things for free, but I don't need it. It's like people who, you know, those celebs who go to the Emmys or whatever, and they get $140,000 gift bags. And of course they are the very people who can afford to buy all that stuff. You know, now I remember after a while in my career growing and somebody would take me out to a nice dinner or drinks in New York. And I was kind of like,
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What does “a rich life” actually mean and why re-release this conversation with Ramit Sethi?
0:00–5:34
2
What was Ramit’s first money memory and what does it reveal about being ‘expensive to be poor’?
5:34–15:05
3
Why don't high school finance classes work and what structural fixes matter more?
15:05–43:00
4
When does renting make more financial sense than buying a home?
43:00–57:38
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Financial Feminist
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