A finance expert has explained why a money-related red flag could harm an otherwise healthy relationship
When it comes to dating and figuring out compatibility, there are lots of important topics to discuss. From your values to your approach to life, couples differ in lots of respects, and money often plays a part in this.
While it’s no bad thing to disagree with your partner, provided you find a solution that works for everyone, there are certain red flags to look out for, according to a finance expert.
Ramit Sethi, host of the Netflix series ‘How to Get Rich’ and founder of the podcast ‘Money For Couples’, warns you could find yourself in difficult water if your partner doesn’t want to talk about money. Speaking to Steven Bartlett on The Diary Of A CEO podcast, Ramit claimed not talking about money is the ‘biggest red flag of all’.
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He explained: “We could differ on how we see money. We could even have different values for a few things, but if your partner simply will not talk about money you have a huge problem. If you can’t talk about money then you can’t even understand where they’re coming from, and they are not curious about what you want. So how are you ever going to get on the same page?”
The expert also spoke about why regular conversations about money help build healthier relationships. “A lot of people think we need to have ‘the conversation’ about money as if it’s one conversation,” he shared. “Would you have ‘the conversation’ about raising kids? No, you’ll have thousands in your life — that’s the way it should be. Money is very much like parenting, not like, ‘Uh, should we play pickleball or tennis today?’
“We want to have lots of conversations about money and that means we first of all need to be willing to talk about it and then we need to find a way to have fun doing it.”
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But it’s not the only red flag, according to the pro. Sharing another example, Ramit said he takes issue with people who have a ‘money guy’. He claimed: “I don’t have anything against financial advisors in general but a money guy that they’re typically referring to is someone who charges them a percentage of their assets (….) that’s tens of thousands of dollars or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it’s a red flag if someone has an advisor that they’re paying a percentage-based fee to.”
Elsewhere, Ramit said being ‘cheap’ is a red flag. He added: “Cheap is cost is the first and last thing they always consider. You might come home. You’re so happy. ‘Oh my gosh, look at this beautiful thing I got for the kids.’ ‘Oh, how much was that?’ It just sucks the life out of every room.
“Cheap people are obsessed with cost, cheap people rarely recognise the effect they’re having on their loved ones, and cheap people find it very difficult to change. They don’t want to change. I’m not saying everyone has to go out and spend a million dollars but you’ve got to use money to live your rich life. The point of money is not to just hoard it and save it.”
Rather, Ramit considers generosity a positive trait. When asked who should pay for the first date, he suggested: “It doesn’t matter. It would be nice if the person who suggested the date pays, but I think we spend way too much time focusing on the first date and way too little time thinking about the next 14,625 days.
“Aren’t you more interested in how your partner thinks about money and talks about money? Are they a cheap skate? Are they generous? Are they abundant? Did they grow up the same or different than you? That is something we don’t talk about. Meanwhile, we have five million YouTube videos on who’s going to pay on the first date. We are missing the real point.”