Money and Matrimony with Scott Rick
Ever wondered how your spending habits shape your relationships? Scott Rick, a behavioral scientist at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, knows that many people do. In this episode of Analog Advisor, hosts Wes Brown and Sonya Lutter sit down with Scott to help us understand how money impacts matrimony, and more.
Scott is the author of a new book, 'Tightwads and Spendthrifts,' which just hit shelves today. Drawing from original research and a vast body of interdisciplinary work, the book offers a roadmap for understanding your financial psychology and creating a game plan for a happy life together.
Turns out, it's not just about our bank accounts - let's get past the surface of financial decisions, and take a deep dive into the intricate interplay of money, relationships, and the psychology that shapes our most intimate connections.
Interested in reading Scott's new book "Tightwads and Spendthrifts"? Head to Spotify or Apple Podcast, leave a review, and then email podcast@analogadvisor.com. We will send a free copy to the first 10 people who leave a review!
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Wes Brown 0:04
Okay, I think we're rolling. Scott. It's good to see you. Good to meet you.
Scott Rick 0:08
Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
Wes Brown 0:11
Yeah. Thanks for Thanks for joining us in Sanya. Thanks for suggesting him as a as a guest on the podcast I'm super excited about today.
Sonya Lutter 0:20
I am so excited about today, because I've been citing your research for close to a decade now. And here you are in real life. So this is really a fun treat for me. Yes.
Scott Rick 0:30
It's about time we we chatted?
Sonya Lutter 0:33
Exactly. We'll see where it goes. Exactly.
Wes Brown 0:37
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, to that end, Scott, I'd love for you just to kind of introduce yourself and if you would, and kind of tell us who you are, what you do. And and then if you could also include some kind of some key moments that brought you to where you are today.
Scott Rick 0:55
Sure, well, nowadays, I'm a marketing professor here at the University of Michigan and I study you know, financial decision making, spending saving decisions over the years that has evolved into kind of money in relationships, both kind of relationships within between couples, romantic relationships, and more recently kind of parent child relationships. Yeah, a lot of it is kind of inspired. It's by my own life. There's a lot of research going on. You know, I had a curious upbringing with money. That was probably different than a lot of other people's. You know, I started to get interested in the couple issues when I married a very much a financial opposites that I had kids and started getting interested in that I tell people, if you ever see me researching divorce, you know, something has gone terribly wrong. But yeah, it's all very grounded in day to day curiosities.
Sonya Lutter 2:04
I love that about researchers. And I've said this to along the way that we study what we are struggling with personally. So I love it. When you look at what researchers are doing. You're like, oh, that tells me a lot about you as a person.
Scott Rick 2:17
Yes. No, it's I think it is quite revealing. For better or worse. Yes.
Sonya Lutter 2:22
People from the outside don't know this, though.
Scott Rick 2:25
Yes. While we're opening up the box for them.
Unknown Speaker 2:31
There you have it.
Wes Brown 2:31
I've never, I've never heard that word research that I like.
So you're a researcher, you're an academic. And recently or actually, I guess you recently completed but hasn't been released, quite yet, a new book. tightwads and spendthrifts which, from what I understand is, at least in part about what attracts us to someone who are being attracted to somebody who uses money differently than we do.
Scott Rick 3:13
The work is based on this idea that people have these chronic tendencies towards spending and saving and you know, we develop this little measure a tightwad spendthrift scale to kind of diagnose where you are on this dimension. Yeah, so a tightwad is someone who experiences a lot of distress when considering spending money. This seems to cause them to spend less than they think they shouldn't. There are a lot of purchases that they recognize they probably should be making but just can't get there. Psychologically, it's too distressing. And so they look good on paper. They're saving, they don't have a ton of debt, but they're, they're not as happy as they could be. spendthrift or the other extreme they someone kind of cut the brakes on the car for them, like they don't have enough pain when considering spending and they tend to overspend. It kind of regret a lot of their purchases. So there's kind of regret on both ends of it, even though they look quite different on paper, spendthrift have a lot of debt and can really get themselves into trouble financially. There's a middle ground of unconflicted consumers and that's really a nice place to be. They have a reasonable amount of pain. When thinking about spending money, not too little, not too much. Kind of the Goldilocks zone, they're happier than both Taiwans has been thrifts and you know that depending on the sample, around 40 to 60% of people fall into that middle area. But yeah, I over the years have tended to focus on the tight ones in the spendthrifts because they're the most sign psychologically interesting. Because that's, that's where the fun is kind of the people who are have some flaws and are imperfect and struggling and Yeah, and so I'm very much spendthrift and and then I think that sparked my interest in this I was kind of realizing in life that not everyone looked at things like I did and started to notice I was surrounded by tightwads was thinking, What's their problem? Or What's my problem? Or both? But yeah, one of the key signature features of these extremes is that, you know, we're conflicted in some sense, where we don't love this aspect of ourselves. And when we don't love something about ourselves, it's not always fun to see that reflected in a partner. It kind of shines the uncomfortable spotlight on our own issues. And so we thought this might be one case where you might enjoy someone who has a different approach to money and spending. And this might be a rare instance in which opposites attract normally we, we just marry ourselves. Because we like most things about ourselves. But if there's something that's bothering us, and then we encounter someone with that same problem, it's like, that's too much of it. So yeah, we do find that tightwads and spendthrift are more likely to marry each other than to marry someone like themselves. And it's probably fun and charming at first, when they're encountering these people who approach money so differently, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you spent that or won't even buy that. Like, it's just like this new worlds. And so that can be quite fascinating. When the stakes are low, when it's just like dating, and nothing too serious, but when things do get serious, where to live, how many kids to try for, you know, big, you know, high stakes decisions, then these things that were charming, at first can be less charming. You know, over over time, so there are these kind of fatal attractions out there. Like there's some differences at first that seem intriguing and fun. But then, over time, it's kind of it gets old.
Sonya Lutter 7:39
When you you mentioned this scale that you have, I'm wondering whose perception that is? Am I reading myself on this scale? Yeah,
Scott Rick 7:47
yeah, you're writing yourself? Yeah, one of the questions, for example, describes like two shoppers, and how they react very differently to a sale and one buys things they don't need, the other knows they need stuff, but can't bring themselves to buy it and kind of who are you more similar to. But you know, we also ask kind of, in other studies your spouse to kind of judge you, and there's a pretty strong relationship between how I see me and how you see me and and of course, we asked the same person over time, and that's also pretty stable. So it does seem to be picking up on something that's historically kind of notable about a person.
Sonya Lutter 8:32
So who should I marry?
Scott Rick 8:36
Well, that's I mean, how much time do we have here? So it's already married? To me complicated? Yes, yes. Who should?
Sonya Lutter 8:44
Did I make the right decision?
Scott Rick 8:46
No, I mean, I'm married to an opposite. And it's wonderful. And it can be wonderful. But we, you know, we do find the more they differ on this dimension, the more they fight over money, the more they are frustrated with the marriage, the more they say they wish they would marry, have married someone else. And you know, so it, it can be managed and in a very nice and productive way. But you know, it's kind of what are you looking to maximize? Are you isn't happiness? Are you comfortable with like a riskier life that's a little more exciting? Or do you really need the protection of like, our accounts are in order things are looking good. I mean, if it's just kind of the accumulation of money, you just want to put as many tightwads in the household as possible. But, you know, if you're looking for some balance, you know, then we start entertaining the idea of a spendthrift getting them involved and so it's kind of what's what's the priority?
Sonya Lutter 9:59
Yeah, I love Have this research and really thinking about how what about if it's two spenders, who are in the relationship? Because they're similar? So theoretically, they should be arguing less, right?
Scott Rick 10:10
Yes, I think they do argue less. There's really no one to blame for. They're no individual to call out. So I mean, we're both in this together. Now, it is a risky pairing to spendthrift. And I hope there's income and whatever else in place to support that. But yes, that is kind of from a financial perspective, that's a real precarious setup. But still, the biggest predictor of fighting is just how different are we? Not? How much debt do we have? That matters, too, but those differences are really kind of grinding.
Wes Brown 10:59
I'm so I'm curious. Son, you're still my question about how you identified, you know, which was which. But I'm curious if it's like, what leads what, what has to happen for you to become one or the other, like, or is it typically in is it in? Is it static? Does it? Does it change over time? Can it change over time?
Scott Rick 11:24
Yeah, it can. And certainly, if you want a relationship to a different person to work out, you need a little convergence. But yeah, we find a lot of tightwads seem to have had a time in their life where they felt money was very tight. It might not have been tight on paper, but they felt it was tight. And they kind of developed a protective response. Kind of cultivated distress to protect them from overspending. And maybe that helped them kind of clear that rough terrain. But for a lot of tightwads, you know, things get better. You know, a lot of them have landed kind of well paying jobs and you know, it looks on paper like they should loosen up. But if you kind of develop this well trained response to the idea of spending, it's hard to kind of shake that once your circumstances change. And you see this in lots of psychological domains where you develop this well learned, cultivated tendency to respond a certain way and then your circumstances change and you can't change with the circumstances. So I quote, a character from Love in the Time of Cholera, he grew up poor. He became a kind of wealth wealthy industrialist. And someone called him rich. And he said, No, no, I'm not rich. I'm a poor man with money. So, you know, you know these mindsets, these tendencies, ways of viewing the world they don't update with your bank account so much. And a lot of tightwads seem to have that where there's just this giant fear of things going back to the way they were and so yeah, there's a lot of insecurity and worry about going broke and even if on paper, they look just fine. Where I spend thrifts Yeah, they just take a very different approach and I'm not sure it's wrong. It's it can go overboard but you know, the, the idea of a spendthrift I'm going to quote another podcast here. I like this. Ask Rana podcast. It's an advice thing. And the comedian Jessica Chaffin she plays run out. The idea is I'd rather be looking at it than looking for it. And that seems to be the spendthrift mentality. So we, whereas a tightwad won't shop for obvious needs, a spendthrift will shop for potential needs. So if I'm going to Nordstroms for work clothes, yeah, I might pick up some work clothes, but I might spot a beautiful velvet blazer and think, Oh, that would be nice for like a holiday party. Like I feel like there's no party on the calendar and I'm unlikely to be invited even if there was one but wouldn't it be nice I would not want to be without that. If it comes
Sonya Lutter 14:56
up, then you might get invited. Yes,
Scott Rick 14:58
yes. So or or I'll buy the beautiful coffee mug. Because I think well maybe I shouldn't be going to Starbucks every, you know, afternoon for a little coffee treats. If I buy the mug, then I might start bringing coffee to work. So I might spend to kind of spark a change, or I'll join the gym, even though I'm not exercising nowadays, and maybe that will spark a lifestyle change. So we're doing a lot of just in case buying, buying gifts for people that they don't have any occasion coming up, but they might like that. So we're, you know, we're well prepared for all kinds of potential things that might come up. And you can imagine how that can kind of lead to some bad outcomes.
Sonya Lutter 15:54
Yes, I want to keep going on this direction of if we can change our perceptions about spending and saving. So I was reading this article I must have just been this week, it was in the Business Insider, and it's a Harris Poll, tell me if you've seen this, they pulled just over 2000 Americans in August. And remember the old research, it takes $75,000 for people to be happy income. Now, Gen Z, they require an income of 128,000 with a net worth of almost 500,000. Millennials, they require an income of $525,000 income annual income to be happy with a net worth of 1.7 million. And then Gen X requires annual income of $130,000 in a net worth of 1.2 million to be happy. So this idea of perception and people having some sort of imaginary benchmark that we need to get to can certainly influence their tightwad spendthrift personalities, and how do we get people maybe to do a required shift that $525,000 income is not going to happen for the majority of those millennials?
Scott Rick 17:14
Yes, yes. As an elder millennial, I can I can feel that but ya know, I mean, my fierce curiosity is like, how was the question asked, like, what do we like? Are you not? Are you saying you're not happy at 524,000? Like, what do we mean, but that seems okay to me. If I 23, but reasonable, but no, I mean, there is work on, nobody feels rich. And, you know, we always kind of pass the buck to the wealthier. And there's this book about the anxieties of affluence. You know, people kind of in very obvious, wealthy situations, will always kind of scoff at being called wealthy or rich. And they'll say, Well, I'm comfortable. I mean, I don't have a private helicopter, like my neighbor. They're rich, like, we can always point to someone and say, you know, we're not as rich as them. But I do think tightwads are particularly stuck with this affliction of feeling worse off than maybe they actually are and worried about it. But no, I mean, you know, the New York Times has this calculator like, am I rich? I find that's kind of a useful exercise. Like, they'll ask you, well, what do you consider rich? And where do you live? And then they'll tell you based on your income, there are some people who learn like, oh, yeah, you're rich, actually. Now, you could argue, well, we need to think about expenses and other measures of financial well being, but I do think getting other perspectives can help you kind of have a better footing on where you're at. Because a lot of people, especially tight ones left to their own devices will feel like they're just on the edge of survival. Even when it's actually kind of better than that.
Sonya Lutter 19:22
I'm curious reaction to that. Wescoe Yeah, I
Wes Brown 19:26
know. I'm gonna jump in here. I want to go back to when you talked about regret, initially, or you said, like both tightwads have I think you said tightwads regret, have regret around missed opportunity. And might not have captured that correctly. And then spendthrifts no have to regret in the form of, you know, debt generally. And I'm curious, seeing my thinking. Just at a superficial level, you would think that regret almost have a corrective force on the inclination, right? So like, I missed out. So next time, I'm not going to miss out, or I took on debt, and I took me a year to pay it off. And I'm not going to do that next time. And is that not? Does that not happen?
Scott Rick 20:18
That's, there's a page in the book on this. So like, why don't we learn from mistakes? For learning to happen, though, that you need, like some surprise, like, like, Oh, this is I did something unusual and have this bad outcome. And thus, I've learned not to do that again. But if you kind of expect that I'm someone who makes a lot of these mistakes, and then you do, there's a lot, there's not like new information there. It's just like a snowballing of many errors. So kind of non surprising mistakes. There tend not to be like a ton of learning opportunities from that. I mean, perhaps if you can talk with someone or get a new perspective on how to think about those mistakes, maybe there's some learning there, but again, left to our own devices. You need that, that surprise element to learn. Yeah, but yeah, tightwads the missed opportunities. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go
Wes Brown 21:32
ahead. No, no, no, you're fine. Yeah, keep going.
Scott Rick 21:34
You've got Yeah, so tightwads you know, there's missed opportunities. There's kids who are only young for a certain amount of time, and boy, I wish I really would have taken him on that nicer vacation that they would have just loved and love to anticipate and have these memories that we could talk about and tales of anniversaries that we're at, like Ruby Tuesday instead of like, somewhere nice and my spouse is really upset.
You know, these things they the opportunities they pass us by and but you know, it's been through a salve similar regrets.
You know, if their luck runs out, and now I can't do fun things, because I did so many fun things earlier. So it's, but you know, I'm very understanding towards both, like, it's hard to know, kind of, when do we get to eat, drink and be merry, like, hopefully, sometime? But yeah, so I struggle with it. And I try to help people think through kind of what you can pause on and what you should go for. And that's the name of the game.
Sonya Lutter 22:56
You mentioned some research between parents and children. I'm curious if children also need this surprise element. To learn something.
Scott Rick 23:06
It helps, it helps. You know, at least with kids, there's not like so much history there and so much expectation built up that I'm not good at this. And certainly, if a parents is in place to help them walk through, oh, so we've learned something here. But, yeah, it's, you know, they're learning so much by watching us. And, you know, I'll often try to give verbal guidance that seems to be at odds with what I'm doing. So I might see them mimicking my spendthrift ways and be like, Oh, hold on, we don't have to spend that money from grandma so fast. Hold on, let me just order this new iPhone for myself, even though I have a brand new one. So, yeah, so the bad news is that they tend to mimic what they see even if it conflicts with like your verbal guidance. So we all kind of become our parents to some extent. And so that has been kind of a wake up call for me try to reel myself in, at least when they're like around me. You know, when they go to sleep, I can get on eBay and do some damage. But you know, at least try to, you know, pass up some things I would normally just by if I was on my own, or at least try to verbalize some, you know, idea that this was like, not an easy decision for me like, Okay, well, there are opportunity costs here. And if we do this, we might not be able to do this other thing. So let's think about it a little bit. So yeah, Basically trying to act like my wife like, what would she do? Like?
Sonya Lutter 25:05
Do you wonder what the opposite repercussions though are? Because I'm thinking about my oldest child. And he very frequently asked me if we're rich. And so finally I showed him my chart of well, this is where our income falls according to other incomes across the US. And he's like, Well, why don't we go on the vacations like the neighbors do? And I thought, Oh, my goodness, what am I doing that? Am I too tight? That we're not doing those things? Because of what category? We're and according to this chart?
Scott Rick 25:37
Yes. Well, it is the thing that's well, income doesn't tell the whole story. And there are other indicators and expenses we need to keep in mind. But yes, with the neighbors, and what the friends families are doing that does loom large. And it is very hard to help them wrap their minds around. So I'm still coping with that myself. But, ya know, there's this question of what do you tell them? What do you not tell them? I think it's good to share kind of realities of the economic world we live in. I am not of the mindset that we need to show them everything, like show them like, Oh, here's our credit card statements and let you pour over all the details of what the parents are spending. Because I think you need some autonomy and individuality and everyone needs a room of their own, so to speak. But, yes, they need to know more than they can know just by watching and guessing. Yes.
Sonya Lutter 26:50
How much should our spouse know?
Scott Rick 26:53
Yeah, right.
Sonya Lutter 26:53
I'd love to follow up question.
Scott Rick 26:55
Yes.
Sonya Lutter 26:56
Let's see where you go.
Scott Rick 26:57
Yeah. No, I mean, a lot of the financial advice that I have seen out there is like no secrets. You know, you need to be open about everything. And anything short of that is considered financial infidelity. Which sounds really bad infidelity. When I see how people define infidelity, financial infidelity, it doesn't sound so bad to me. Like one act of financial infidelity is like, well, if I don't know how much my spouse is spending on gifts for her friends and family, I don't want to know that I just give them good gifts. And we're good. I don't need to know all the details. So I do think there is kind of this moral panic about spouses hiding this stuff from each other. And I think it's a bit overblown. And I don't think we need all the details. Yeah, I argue for financial translucency, not financial transparency, like, it's good to have a general sense of what everyone's up to. But, yeah, the details just bring about unnecessary arguments. over small things, like, you know, a lot of us have read that, oh, if we can just avoid the lattes or the avocado toast, we can make our way to riches. And so if you believe that and you see your spouse buying these things you're going to, you might pick on them for it and get into unnecessary fights. Unnecessary for my view, because I just don't think the math works out that, that we're all just kind of these latte habits away from riches. So there's that. And then there's just the fact that we are different people with our own interests and hobbies and curiosities and passions. And, you know, we might not understand each other's hobbies or areas of interest. And if I took a look at, you know, if you're a photographer, I might say, well, we have phones, like why do you need such an expensive camera like and you would say, No, no, these lenses there. There's a huge difference. Like, to me, that's all the same. I can't discern what's good and bad. So if I'm into your business, if I'm into those details, I'm just going to squash your joy of your individual pursuits. But if I know if we both know kind of, there's a number per week or per month that we both have in our own little pockets. I think for a lot of couples, that's all we need to know. And so yeah, I think the details are, look, I think they should be available upon request. I'm just hoping that the requests are few and far between. And if things are going, if, if it seems like one of us is spending too much, I think the first step is like a self audits. And just, we'll take a look at our stuff. And all I need to know from you is that you've done that. And I trust that if you notice something is amiss, you'll take care of it. If you want another pair of eyes, I'm here. But I don't like this, like, oh, let's take a highlighter and look at each of these purchases and say, well, could you limit that? To me, that's just like an unnecessarily puritanical way to live. Well, and it doesn't it again, ask me I'm a spendthrift so.
Wes Brown 30:53
Well, and this whole time, by the way, I'm in the in my own head going like which 1am? I? I'm still not sure. By the way, I think I vacillate between the two. But
Scott Rick 31:03
maybe you're in the middle of what you're talking about with
Wes Brown 31:05
maybe adolescent? We'll see. That'd be great. It's it's a power and autonomy issue, isn't it? That you're getting at in terms of like, knowing the details of each other spending, it starts to tread on, starts to overstep some right? That's what you're getting? Yeah.
Scott Rick 31:23
No, I mean, individuality, autonomy, that these are important things even. Even within a strongly committed relationship. You know, what does it mean, to be honest, like, it's not a courtroom. You know, where it's like, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I like, I like nothing but the truth, but like, the whole truth. I mean, every thought, every individual action, if, you know, if I go out in the morning, and I noticed our neighbor, like, Oh, our neighbor looks kind of attractive today. Do I have to say, Honey, did you notice the neighbor looks in turn? Can I just like keep that to myself? Or like, Oh, my partner's hair is kind of thinning, I can tell him the sunlight. Like maybe that's a private thought maybe we get diaries that we don't each get to rifle through like, it's, there's some secrets that you know, the other person is keeping. That's okay. I think that's okay. It's like secrets that are secret. That's when you get into the bad stuff. But yes, no, I'm a fan of some level of individuality, privacy, autonomy, even when we are kind of, we can still be all in. I like it. I don't like, you know, when you think about account structures, I like psychological money laundering, I think all incoming money should be laundered through joint accounts. It all comes in as ours. No, yours and mine, it's all ours. But on the back end, we get separate accounts attached to that joint account. So we can each have some of our money that we get to spend without like, scrutiny and like close scrutiny. So that's how I balance it. Like, we're all in, it's all ours. But we each get some of ours to play with on our own.
Sonya Lutter 33:34
So you've seen the research, Scott, the more joint accounts you have, the happier you are in the relationship. And there's long been the question of which one comes first. And there's a new study just in 2023. I can't find it right now. But we'll put it in the show notes with this group of researchers who took couples who are getting ready to get married. And they put them into three separate groups, and they told a third of them, you guys get the joint account, right now put everything in the same account. And then they tracked relationship satisfaction for the next two years. Another group of people they said keep all your money, separate tracks relationship satisfaction, and then the other third, they could do what they want. And you're nodding your head so you know what the outcome is? Well, first.
Scott Rick 34:22
That's my paper.
Sonya Lutter 34:23
That one is your that's
Scott Rick 34:25
me. Yeah. Oh, see,
Sonya Lutter 34:27
I'm telling you. I saw your work. Yeah.
Scott Rick 34:28
So yes, we would check in and we would check in with them over the course of two years. Are you still talking? Do you still like each other? And yeah, the people who we assigned to merge their money into joint maintains kind of the high newlywed level of relationship satisfaction. The people in the other two conditions had kind of the normal decline. And usually Yeah, the happiest day is the one And then there's a slide. But that third condition where people chose, do whatever you want, most of them kept it separate. Some of them merged at the very end. But yeah, there were very few couples that chose to merge in that two year period. I think people are getting later, you're coming in with separate accounts, their status quo bias. So we're seeing less merging nowadays than we used to. But yes, we think it helped the relationship stay communal. So, relationships often start communal. I help you because you need help not because I'm prepaying and scorekeeping. But over time, you can get into more of a exchange relationship where there is scorekeeping. You know, it's like how do you ask your partner to do the dishes tonight? Do you say, Honey, can you do the dishes? I'm exhausted? That's like a communal way to ask the exchange way to ask is like, can you do the dishes, I did them last night. And so relationships can slide into that kind of tit for tat. And so we think by using the joint account making everything our money, we got rid of, we helped to kind of stave off some of the scorekeeping. And, and there are other benefits too, like maybe we talk more, and maybe we get on the same page. Maybe we behave ourselves if we know we're being watched. You know, something about like, a good lamppost is the best police. Like I mean, people behave themselves when they know their spouses looking over their shoulder. Again, that's not always a good thing, as I just mentioned, but yeah, so yeah, the joint accounts. Were good. As long as you say, like, yeah, we have some causality. Finally. It's amazing. Yeah, it was a real adventure, as you can imagine. But yeah, I mean, these are couples, I should say, these are couples newlyweds that we recruited. They were separate account holders, but they were open. They weren't sure what they wanted to do. They were open to the idea of joins. If we had people who said I'm separate, and I want to stay separate. Goodbye. They're out of the study. So we just kind of helped some couples, we gave them a push that they were thinking about anyway. And so yeah, it's it's not for everyone. If like, if the relationship is shaky, I'm not sure I would recommend like, oh, yeah, go all in only a joint accounts. I mean, maybe some people should kind of keep a foot out the door. So yeah, that's like the the real important qualifier on that study, like they had to be open to the idea.
Sonya Lutter 38:16
In those two years, did you ask them? If they had a separate dollar or a set dollar amount that they could spend without telling their spouse?
Scott Rick 38:29
That might be buried somewhere? I if we did I, we didn't closely analyze it. But yeah, that no, that's an interesting question, kind of, is there a number below which like, we don't need to talk?
Sonya Lutter 38:42
Yeah, either. If it's the same dollar amount for everyone, which I seriously doubt it is, or just the fact that they could launder the money, as you said, and divvy it out and spend it. ranges?
Scott Rick 38:55
Yes. Yes. No, it's good question. But yeah, that's why I think kind of, if you have separate accounts on the back end, you know, that it's kind of implied like whatever we shovel into separate like, that's the, the reasonable limit of we don't need to have a pre discussion here. Yes.
Wes Brown 39:22
Fascinating. I'm curious if the distribution of tightwads versus spendthrifts falls along gender lines at all. Like is there any do you see any patterns there?
Scott Rick 39:35
Yes. Yeah, somewhat. Women are a little more likely than men to be spendthrifts. It's not a big difference, but it's it's always there. I'm talking around five to 10% more likely. You know, you can ask me women are just more honest when responding or more insight Before when considering these questions. I think they're interesting. That's for
Sonya Lutter 40:06
sure the case Oh
Scott Rick 40:11
yes, yes, yes. But it's there it is. Yeah. So you know, and there are small demographic correlations here and there Taiwans tend to be older. Is it an aging effect? Is that a generational thing? We don't know. But yeah, there are some interesting things. tightwads tend to have more mathematical majors in college. And this is true, this is not just because of gender. So like a female tightwad is more likely to have a mathematical major than a female spendthrifts, for example.
So there are Yeah, Taiwan's are more kind of. Yeah, more math oriented, I would say. So yeah, there are these kind of interesting little correlations, here and there.
Sonya Lutter 41:09
I have another question about gift giving. Sure, we can go back to that. So we're recording this near a season of gift giving. And you talked about not wanting to know what your wife is spending money on gift? But should you ask your partner what they want for a gift?
Scott Rick 41:30
Yeah, I mean, I've seen this advice. And I understand it, because there are some really kind of relationship, jeopardizing gifts out there. There are people getting their spouse, like an ironing board and just really obviously bad gifts, like so I understand that
Sonya Lutter 41:48
in iron one time, it was very,
Scott Rick 41:51
yeah, that can shake things up. But no, I can understand the risk aversion of just ask get that thing. And let's avoid any disasters. But, you know, I think it's just such a missed opportunity. And it's too risk averse for for my taste. You know, because there's nothing communicated by just getting someone what they asked for, like, I can infer that you're willing to please me? And like, not get me upset. But do you love me? Do you understand me? I don't know. So, yeah, I think a good gift really requires kind of curiosity about your partner's kind of inner psychological life, what they are excited about what they're dreading what they're planning on. What's exciting them do things like that. And so, yeah, I think it's a roundabout way that I'm getting to a good gift, which is like learning more about my partner. So it's not, what do you want, it's just taking time to have like, you know, when you're married, and you have kids, like a lot of the conversations are like, who's taking the kid to baseball and who's picking up the groceries, really practical stuff, but you need to set aside some time for some non practical, exploratory, fun conversations. And like, you know, they're in psychology, there's like these 36 questions that lead to love. It's this exercise for strangers to get close really quickly, kind of questions that are escalating in their intimacy and how probing they are. You know, it starts off with like, Oh, if you could have anyone over for dinner, who would you have? And it escalates to, like, really kind of tough subjects. But I think this is not just good for strangers. It's good for spouses. Like you might think, Oh, I know this person. I've lived with them for 20 years, but I guarantee you could use a refresher on kind of what is you know what's going on in their inner psychological world. And that's, I think, where a good gift comes from that understanding. And it matters giving good gifts because we don't take a lot of opportunities to tell our spouses to communicate what we appreciate appreciated about them or what we understand about them. Either because we're not feeling very articulate at the moment or there's not like a good opportunity to do that. If we're just busy in the day to day stuff. You know, it's like, oh, let me take a moment to tell you what I appreciate about you like Okay, can we figure out who's letting the plumber in tomorrow morning with the toilets clogged here, so So the gift giving is really these big opportunities to kind of demonstrate like, Oh, I see you I understand you, I appreciate you. And so, yeah, it requires some learning, curiosity and risk taking.
Wes Brown 45:11
It's interesting, because I have just looking at my kids, so I'm not very good gift giving. And I don't mind saying that here because my wife already knows. But one of my kids is extraordinary gift giving, and he's my cheat code when it comes to like buying gifts for other people, I'll always ask him, Hey, what is was mom want for a birthday? That could be consequences from admitting that, but he's just really good at it. For some reason. He's just hardwired to be able to pick up on those things. And, and, and I am not so interested in listening to this going like, um, I feel like I'm a pretty curious, maybe person and decent listener maybe. And, but he just gets it. I am nowhere near as good as he is.
Scott Rick 46:02
Interesting. Well, what a beautiful quality to have. And we need to bring him into the lab and try to extract your bottle that yeah, oh, my goodness. But no, I think it's, you know, because a kid might hear different things from a parent. And the parent might share more whimsical, less practical things with the kid than they do with you as a spouse. And so, right. Yeah, the kid could, I could see that. And so, ya know, it's good to ask around. I think that's fine and good. I mean, I wouldn't do it purely as a total substitute for like, one on one exploration. But I think that's, that's good.
Sonya Lutter 46:56
I said, I told Wes earlier that I wasn't going to ask, but I would regret it. If I didn't take this moment to ask you what has been your most influential research, finding to date? Why we've covered so much ground, and I'm so embarrassed that I couldn't place you as the author of my newest favorite study. So let's just do a quick read.
Scott Rick 47:21
Yeah, finding? Well, no, I mean, that. I'm pretty happy with that paper. The joint separate paper? That might be a favorite. But no, I think the paper where we found that Taiwan's and spendthrift tend to marry each other more than they marry themselves. That was that was interesting and unusual. And it really kind of set me down a different path. And so in terms of like, a big turning point, not just for me, but also just how people think about this. I think it's had some influence. Yeah, that those two kind of stand out? Yeah.
Sonya Lutter 48:09
Good ones for sure. Thank you.
Wes Brown 48:13
It's, um, I'm curious. Well, actually, I've suddenly had like, 10 questions flood into my mind, but I know we're, we're probably coming up on the top of the hour we have together so tell me what your thoughts are on on prenups?
Scott Rick 48:35
Well, you and your listeners can probably guess from what I've been saying that I'm not like the world's biggest prenup fan. I think that would be less bad if they were mandatory. The bad part is like someone has to bring it up and express that profound uncertainty about the relationship. And I think that's hard to shake. But if you were just like Forrest, like, well, this is happening, I guess if we have to do this, alright, let's talk about it. But nobody has to do it. So that's the problem. I also don't like it because it's like a backup plan. And when people have backup plans, they work less hard at like the focal plan. So for those, I don't like it psychologically, but I've heard from so many, you know, people in the financial world, like there are like, good use cases, and I understand that I do.
But in terms of making sure it's a happy relationship, I would say you know, if you can at all, no, steer away. Not a fan.
Wes Brown 49:57
I don't actually know how common they are. To be honest. I mean, No, I don't think I know. Anybody who may I might know one couple that has one, actually.
Scott Rick 50:06
Now, there's there's a great recent New Yorker article on this. And they do seem to be coming becoming more common. And, again, there are some some interesting, useful cases, like medical debts and kind of, you know, health issues and one not wanting to inherit the others medical bills like, there. Yes, of course, I understand. But But yeah, for any other couple. If you're on the fence, I would say maybe No, maybe no.
Wes Brown 50:44
That actually, that's a good segue into my next question that's coming to mind, I guess, which is, you know, should you marry for love or money? Right, and in that, like, in the context are related to what you just said, it's like, should you avoid marriage? Because of money issues, you know, I mean, or should you just plow ahead?
Scott Rick 51:06
Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I'm less cautious with dating and say, I'm all for kind of exploring, regardless of money issues, or love, or but you know, marriage is like a high bar. So I say, you know, you gotta be a little careful with that. But no, I mean, the advice of marry for money, which is surprisingly common. I was Googling around, oh, my goodness, like, people are not shy about saying, Well, there's only so many differences between people. So you might as well just marry the rich one. But like, I quote, F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby author, he says, you know, don't marry for money, you go where the money is, and then you marry for love. It's not terrible. It's not terrible advice. It acknowledges that both are important. But it's not so easy to just like, go where the money is. Like, it's not like the people with money. You're like, oh, yeah, come in. Like, we're real inclusive and throwing open our doors. Like, there's a Times reporter who said like, oh, doctors used to marry nurses, now doctors, married doctors, like we're, we're kind of running with people with similar socio economic characteristics. So and even if you find someone with money, like, great, but are they like super willing to share it? Like, are they like, oh, yeah, let's split this up. So yeah, you need enough to survive, of course. So it's a necessary but not sufficient. And love is also necessary, but not sufficient. You need both, absolutely. But you also need kind of psychological similarity. You can have all the love and money in the world. But if you want to be on a farm and raise like 10 kids, and I want to be in the city and have like, maybe one kid or no kids, we can have all the love and money it's just not going to work. So that's why I say you gotta marry for well being which kind of encompasses love money and psychological similarity. So as like, dorky as it sounds like, I think it's a good thing when I see like, oh, there's like a Star Wars dating night. See you like find your people. And then you got to make sure there's love and money also, but these three things are, these are all huge. And you don't want to be identical. That's boring, but you got to be similar enough. Never
Sonya Lutter 53:40
once in my life have I seen a flyer for Star Wars dating? Gathering? Yeah,
Scott Rick 53:46
well, that's probably good and that speaks highly of the spaces you're winning. But no, no, I'm sure. But yeah, like like minded people who are looking to date Yes,
Wes Brown 54:01
I think I've seen a Harry Potter dating night fly at like, Barnes and Noble he just I think he can't date between houses. slither and Griffin.
Scott Rick 54:09
Well, there are complications get gets messy.
Wes Brown 54:19
Well, Scott, we're at the top of our time together. You've been super gracious and I hope we can do a follow up to this because I'm sure I'm sure we will have more questions once the book comes out. So maybe tell us actually before we ask you that I'm curious as someone who writes books I'm curious what your what book you're reading right now actually yourself?
Scott Rick 54:44
Well, I should be reading more but you know, we do try to do like reading time like before bed like everyone in the family. My kids have been into Seinfeld lately. So we have been reading his book is this anything where it's like just little bits? You know, I have to skip over some of them. These are younger kids, but I think my wife thinks I should probably skip more of them. But we've been reading that. I've also been going back and reading Judd Apatow has this book. Like sick in the head are crazy that I forget what it but interviews between him and like actors and comedians, and so I didn't I do like I liked the show busy stuff. But yeah, I love a good memoir. Things like that. When I have when I make time, yes.
Wes Brown 55:37
When you have time between research and kids and family.
Scott Rick 55:42
Yes, yes. All the things will tell us.
Wes Brown 55:45
So tightwads and spendthrift comes out. When? The January January
Scott Rick 55:51
knife, my oldest son's birthday. I told him I know what you're getting outside. Maybe I'll give him something else too. Yes, that's right. No. I mean, he's offering requests but no, ask. Yeah, so that's, it's been fun. This whole process?
Wes Brown 56:17
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're excited. So we've, one of the things we've done is we've ordered pre ordered some books and we've got five that we're gonna give away, I guess to the first five people that leave us review of the podcast. A favorable was awesome. It is. I'm excited to get my own copy and dig into it. I know Sonya is too.
Scott Rick 56:42
That's great. Well, thank you so much for having me on. It's been fun. Thanks.
Wes Brown 56:46
Great. Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Scott. Yeah, this is fantastic.