Simple, Sexy and Super Generous Money Management w/ Christine Luken (Ep.4)

Whoever said that budgeting, crunching numbers and money management is dry and boring? 

Finances and money management can be a source of conflicts in many relationships. Partners bring their own backgrounds, experiences, and habits to their relationship when it comes to finances, and they have their own relationship with money.  

Top this with their own programming around abundance, worth, value and so on, and their relationship dynamics to make things more complicated, and not for nothing money is a hot topic for many couples. 

Usually, one of partners is savvier or more interested in crunching the numbers, tracking the money, and managing the finances. Which leaves the other at odds with the whole process and money matters. This is not their strength and find the whole thing tedious, which frustrates their partner even more. 

In today’s episode, we have a very special guest, Christine Luken, and we discuss how money is emotional, how our unconscious programming plays a role in our money management, how the partners can create a money management system that’s mutually satisfying and actually fun and sexy! We also covered the importance of being generous for creating more abundance and for its own sake. A fabulous mindset around the holidays but in life in general. 

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🌟ABOUT OUR GUEST: 

Christine Luken is the Founder of the Financial Dignity® Movement, Christine has coached hundreds of high-earning professionals, business owners, and divorcing women to pay off staggering amounts of debt and massively increase their net worth. She is the author of three books and the host of the Money is Emotional Podcast. You can find her at www.ChristineLuken.com. 

Gifts from Christine:

~ Master Your Spending Mini Course

~ First 3 Chapters of Money is Emotional: Prevent Your Heart from Hijacking Your Wallet

Find her here: 

Facebook | Facebook Group | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Podcast

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🌟MORE ON THIS EPISODE:

Watch the YouTube Video!
https://youtu.be/VNcUbLWIb1Y 

More about the podcast on our Podcast Page 

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DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of the host’s.

Transcript

Emma : 0:25

Hello lovelies, welcome to another episode I am so excited for. Today we have a special guest for you, Christine Luken. We talk about how money is emotional and how to manage money in your relationship with your partner with ease and fun, sexy fun at that. Stay tuned, you're in for a treat.

Emma : 0:53

I am here with another amazing guest. Her name is Christine Luken. Before I introduce her, let me read you her bio so you know what she's all about. You might already know her, but in case you don't, I am going to treat you today to an amazing conversation about money. If you are ready for money to support your happiness rather than stress you out, then you need Christine Luken financial dignity coach, in your corner. She is the founder of the financial dignity movement. She has coached hundreds of high earning professionals, business owners and divorcing women to pay off staggering amounts of debt and massively increase the network. She is the author of three books and the host of the Money is Emotional Podcast. You can find me at ChristineLuken. com. Can I just tell you, guys, it took me three takes at least to read their bio.

Emma : 1:45

So here we are, and thank you, Christine, for being patient with me, as we go in here with this new episode.

Christine: 1:55

Well, it's very good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Emma : 1:58

Of course, so people might not know that we go a few years back. We met networking. I so thoroughly enjoy your company, whether we're meeting with people or by ourselves. We will usually have lots of fun together. So I appreciate you as a human and I appreciate you for being here with me today. Well, thank you very much. You're most welcome. So, Christine, let's hook up our audience with money management concepts, know how and strategies and all the things that they might need to no longer have money problems with their partner in their relationship. How about them apples?

Christine: 2:39

Yes, Well, I think the first and most important thing for people to understand is that money is emotional.

Christine: 2:48

We cannot remove the emotions from our money and you know, this is why I have some frustration with financial professionals who will tell people like, just leave your emotions out of this decision and make make the logical choice. We're human and emotions are a part of our nature. We can't just turn them off and in fact, it's physically impossible for us to make a logical money decision, because science has recently discovered that the moment of decision actually happens in the same part of our brain that processes emotion. But what we need to learn how to do is to manage our emotions when it comes to our money. So one of the things that I like to tell people is that the best financial decisions are usually made when you can hear both the voice of reason and you can listen to your emotions, because you know the danger in turning our emotions off completely is that we can miss very important gut feelings that we might not be able to put into words. There have been times in my life, and there's probably been times in your life, where a decision, a money decision, looks good on paper, but you just have this feeling that something is off. And I don't know about you, but those times where I have gone against that feeling, something bad has happened, and so we don't want to turn our emotions off, we just want to learn how to manage them, and so one of the things that I tell people is that it's hard to hear the voice of reason when our emotions are really loud.

Christine: 4:47

The analogy I love to use is like listening to two radio stations. So if we think about logic in the voice of reason, that's kind of like that classical radio station. That's like playing in the elevator, right, it's like real soft, but it's always there. And your emotions are kind of more like that top 40 station where it's like you never know whether you're going to get like some loud rock song or rap song, or you might get like some sweet sad love song, right, like one, right after the other, and our emotions are kind of like that right. So I will tell people you know, look, most of the time you don't have to make important financial decisions, like within a couple of minutes, right. Like you can sit on things for an hour, for a half a day, for a day. You can wait for those emotions to subside. In fact, one of my mentors has this saying, which I think is amazing, and it applies to all areas of life is that wait for emotions to subside and then decide right. So it helps that it rhymes too.

Emma : 6:02

Love it, love it, and I actually use that in couples who work with all the kinds of things, right, yes, like they try to address something in the moment. When something's hot, that's the worst time to address something, and so that makes complete sense to me.

Christine: 6:16

Yes, and I think it's also important for people to just stop and to take a deep breath and really ask themselves how am I feeling right now? Because, especially when we look at unhealthy be patterns like emotional spending, many times I find that people are trying to meet an emotional need with spending. So it's not that some people are emotional eaters right. Other people are emotional spenders. Other people drink more wine when they're emotional. So if someone is really in that category of being an emotional spender, one of the things that I will do for my clients is I will give them that advice. Stop and take a deep breath, ask yourself, how am I feeling? And ask yourself what do I really need right now? And one of my mentors said a lot of times when we're super emotional, it's almost like our inner child needs to be soothed. And she said most of the times your feelings can be soothed with a hug, a nap, a snack.

Emma : 7:35

And sometimes with something else, not numbing yourself and potentially overspending your numbing choice right.

Christine: 7:42

Exactly, yeah, right, yeah. And sometimes we need an emotional outlet for those things. And I tell this especially to my clients who are going through divorce because, like, talk about your emotional roller coasters, right, when things are on the rocks and you've got all these changes happening, then that can feel really scary and you can be going through a lot of very loud emotions in a short period of time. So if you're feeling angry, what can you do to get that energy out of your body in a productive way? Like, maybe you need to go put on your running shoes and go take a jog around the neighborhood, or go to the gym and hit the punching bag and let that emotion out. Or watch a sad movie. Right, we don't have to cry over our own lives.

Emma : 8:39

When we're sad, we can go watch the notebook, we could cry over somebody else's life, exactly, yeah, interesting, right? So anger is one of the feelings and I could imagine. I know that when people are separating or not doing well, or especially during divorce, that one of the main feelings is fear. Yes, and so we don't want to make decisions from fear, right? So, definitely, the soothing advice is perfect. Yes, and then you can make a decision or address the thing that's in front of you. Mm-hmm, yeah, cool. So any other emotions that you want to highlight? We have anger, fear so far, and how to manage them. Any other suggestions about that?

Christine: 9:22

Yeah, well, I think, when it comes to fear, that can actually be one of the most dangerous ones, because we can just like we can do one of two things we can freeze, and that's bad. If we've got something that we have to deal with, yeah, where it's just, someone becomes paralyzed, or they'll like put their head in the sand and try to ignore what's going on. And what I found when it comes to finances, if there's a problem and you ignore it, it's not going to get better. Right, probably they happen to go. Happen, yes, absolutely. And reaching out to a financial professional, I mean that's what financial coaches, financial planners, I mean even your bank or your CPA, that's what those people are there for. They're there to help you with those things.

Emma : 10:19

For sure. Another feeling that's coming to mind is overwhelm, mm-hmm, right. So when there's so much stuff coming at us, it's very hard to manage ourselves and to prioritize properly and then not to overreact or underreact where our head in the sand, like you said, mm-hmm. It could be a whole range of feelings, and so taking a moment to identify what we're feeling, managing the feeling and then tackling is a perfect way to start this conversation. Yes, perfect, perfect. So you mentioned before that some of these things might come from before.

Christine: 11:00

Yeah, before the relationship. We bring a lot of emotional baggage into our relationships and a lot of people don't realize how much our early experiences shape our unconscious mind. You know, I knew that these things were important, but it wasn't until I really understood the biology behind it that I was just like. This is even way more important than I thought. So when you're a child, between the ages of about two and seven, you're mostly in theta brainwave state, and that's known as the super learning state. So if you think about a toddler, a young child, they're learning language during this time, they're learning how to get along in the family unit and in society. I mean, this is why you can teach a four year old English, French and Japanese, like all at the same time. Because in theta there's no, there's no judging part of the brain. It's basically just like an open door to the unconscious mind and the brain is like a sponge and it's just absorbing all the the rules of the universe, so to speak, their particular universe and how to get along. And so the problem is, a lot of adults have these unconscious programs that are basically running in the background that they don't even know are there, but they're driving their behavior, and so one of the things that I will tell people is to think about.

Christine: 12:46

You know, how did your parents handle money? What did your parents say about money or not say about money? Yeah, it's funny because early on in my podcast, I remember my co-host said that his parents didn't teach him anything about money and I said, oh yes, they did. I mean maybe they did not intentionally sit you down and say this is how you handle money, but they taught you things because you either observed them avoiding talking about money I mean, you certainly saw them, you know, buying things and probably paying bills and different things like that. So, whether it was an intentional or unintentional, they're passing their programming down to you.

Emma : 13:37

I love that exactly. So they didn't proactively teach them, teach him, but by them, how they handle things. They, yes, definitely taught enough right and how to deal with emotions, how to deal with money itself, but then all of the other family dynamics that creates all the different patterns that could also be applied to money. So, for sure, how we're going to make an impact, be creative. All of our programming that manifests in how we manage money, our relationship with money, deal with money. Exactly.

Christine: 14:09

I mean because think about it like if you're a little kid and your parents are fighting and yelling about money, then you might feel like it's unsafe to talk about money in any circumstance, because the only time you ever saw people talking about it they were yelling right. And so you might be an avoider and your partner's wanting to talk about money and you're avoiding it because you deep it's not even up in your head that you're thinking that we're going to fight. So there's like literally something down deep in your body that makes it feel like talking about money is unsafe, right?

Emma : 14:44

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And we know that there is a huge amount of how we operate. I think it's 95% of how we operate is all unconscious, right it's

Christine: 14:54

all about programming.

Emma : 14:56

So it helps us to address what is happening under the hood? Yes, what programming is so then the conversations could be more direct and so then all that stuff that makes it harder gets addressed and then doesn't have to be hard? Yeah, probably so, christine. Given that money is emotional and hearing that we have programming going on, how do you weave that in all of your knowledge around money management, into your approach when you're coaching people and when you're coaching couples?

Christine: 15:33

Yeah, so once you have two people in the mix all of a sudden, that creates a whole another dynamic. I know, because I like to say that money is like the third person in your relationship. So it's like you have a relationship with money, your spouse or partner has a relationship with money, and then the two of you have a relationship together and sometimes that financial threesome can be a little weird and awkward, right. So sometimes one partner can feel like I don't really have the relationship with money. It's like you and money over here doing stuff, and then I'm left out of the picture. Or, conversely, the one person can feel like I'm responsible for all the money stuff and you've abandoned me and money and I've got to figure this out myself, right? So it's like our relationship with money also affects our spouse or partner.

Emma : 16:36

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. But before you go more specifically into how do you might work with couples around this or even with individuals, can you share a little bit about what's different about your approach versus Dave Ramsey? I saw that you're having a whole episode on this, how you do this approach, so just curious about what that looks like for our listeners.

Christine: 17:03

Yes. So you know, I think he's got the basics right and I don't think anybody would argue with the fact that we should spend less money than we make, that we should be careful with debt and we should save money for the future Like 100% on board with those basics. However, his approach is very extreme and many of my clients are high earning professionals. You know, they're doctors, they're attorneys, they're business owners. They're not going to cut up their credit cards. They're not going to sell their BMW and drive a car that's falling apart, held together by duct tape, just so they can get all of their credit card debt paid off in six months, right? So I liken his approach to money management as financial keto. Right? So you know, if you're on the keto plan, you can have almost no carbs. I don't know about you, but that would make me really unhappy. I have to at least have a few high carb days in there. I could not do 100% keto and you know my approach is more like the Mediterranean diet, right? So we do a lot of healthy things in our finances, but there is also room for fun. You know. We can have our glass of wine and our dark chocolate, so to speak, because here's the thing we want an approach that's sustainable, because if you go from complete unrestraint with your money and then you shift over to something that is extremely restrictive and very regimented, then you've basically only learned the two ends of the spectrum, right? So at some point you're going to get sick and tired of depriving yourself, but guess what? The only other thing you know is complete unrestraint. So my goal is to teach people a very sensible, moderate approach that they can live with for the rest of their lives. They might not get their credit card that paid off in six months, it might take 12 months, but guess what? They're still going to enjoy their lives and they're still going to get to go on vacation while they're doing it. So it's much more likely that you're going to stick with the plan.

Christine: 19:40

So when I'm coaching people, it's for six months at least, and that's because we are making very small, sustainable changes over a long period of time. And in fact, during the first month I don't ask people to change anything. It's so funny because they're like well, do you want me to cut this, do you want me to do that? And I'm like nope, that's it. We're not going to talk to you, that's it, no. Month one is all about awareness. Where are we right now? What's really going on with our finances? Because if you've been ignoring them, we got to open up the closet door, or so to speak, and figure out what's going on in there. And then we also have to define what success looks like for us before we can even change anything.

Emma : 20:29

Absolutely so. Where, in your approach, would you tackle some of every program? In that we were talking about addressing some of those programs.

Christine: 20:37

From day one. I mean, we really start that from the very beginning. Part of my coaching is reading my book, Money is Emotional and the whole first section is all about mindset and programming. Because beginning to notice right, because the whole first month is awareness. One of the homework items for people is to start listening to themselves, like, what are you thinking about money? What are you saying about money? What are you and your spouse or partner saying to each other about money? And let's just start documenting that, because those are clues to our programming. Perfect, and it takes a while to uncover and unravel and heal those things. You know, it's not like you just snap your fingers and it's gone. I mean there are certain things that once you realize the root of it, then you can just eject it, but some of those things take a little bit more time.

Emma : 21:44

And also because the roots are not just about money. There's all the things can. There's so much intertwined stuff in the unconscious and it makes complete sense that okay. So it's not just this one thing that I have to get rid of. This comes with all this, all the roots.

Christine: 21:58

Yes, absolutely.

Emma : 22:00

The whole root system under the ground there. Yes, Very good. So when you have two people doing that, one what?

Christine: 22:11

Oh well, you know, I think it's very important for us to be patient with each other and, you know, just because someone wants to do things differently, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. Really, really, we are allowed to disagree. We are allowed to disagree and in fact, you know, I do think that it can be important for spouses and partners to have some separate spending money so that they can feel like they have complete autonomy over a piece of their finances and really not owe any explanation to the other person. Right, because sometimes we can feel like, when we enter into a partnership, that none of it really belongs to us, right? Or you might feel like your partner scrutinizes your spending, and it's so interesting because a lot of people think that, you know, going on to a budget is actually going to make things harder for them.

Christine: 23:21

Now, I don't like the word budget, and tomorrow I'm actually recording an episode about the whole topic of budgets and why people don't like them. I prefer to call it a spending plan. That is part of your overall prosperity plan. There's actually a lot of freedom in the spending plan, because if we have decided that we're going to spend $400 on clothes this month, then when I come in through the garage with my packages and my spouse says well, what are you buying? Now I'll say less than what was in the budget.

Christine: 24:04

Right, you know it doesn't matter if I walk in with one package or six packages, like we've already agreed that this is what gets spent on clothing this month, and as long as I'm there or under, then it removes the fighting from the financial situation I love it.

Emma : 24:21

You know it's interesting that you approach that concept from that place of it's okay to have our own money. I'm encountering with couples a little bit of the opposite, so I'm wondering if we could talk about them. Well, which is couples come? They're professional people, progressive, independent, established. They all already have their own money, they all already have their own stuff. And the problem is how do we create that joint piece?

Christine: 24:56

Yes, yeah, this is huge.

Christine: 24:59

Yes, what do you think about that? Yeah, it can be huge, especially when you've got second marriages, when you've got blended families. It really can add a lot of complexity and, honestly, when you've got situations like that and you've got people who are high income earners, you probably need to bring attorneys into the situation as far as things like estate planning and potentially prenuptial agreements etc. I am not against any of that. In fact, I think it's a very smart thing to do. So I'll tell you how my husband and I handle our finances, because I find that for a lot of people, this works well.

Christine: 25:49

When we got married, we were basically we were on pretty equal footing financially. As you know, part of my story is that I crashed and burned financially in my mid-20s, despite having an accounting degree, and that was because I was engaged to a guy with horrible money habits. So once I got out of that relationship, I was in a hole. My credit was all messed up. I had debt that needed to be paid off, but by the time that my husband and I got married, I had rectified the majority of that and we were making about equal incomes. So what we decided to do is we opened up a joint account and we basically deposited a certain amount in. So it's like one week I deposit, the other week he deposits, and we figured out okay, this is what we need to pay the mortgage, to pay the insurance, pay the utilities, vet bills, etc. And then the rest of our money was ours to spend.

Christine: 26:55

Now, as the years went by, we have changed our approach. There's been times where my business wasn't doing great and he had to kick in more. There was a time he was laid off for four months and I kicked in more than he did, because it's about having a partnership and I think when you agree on what your main goals are, it's much easier to do that. But if you're coming into a relationship and one person has a lot more debt than the other, then you've got some conversations that need to be had right. Can both people contribute equally to all the household expenditures? And I think that's when having a financial coach and potentially a relationship coach also can be a really good idea.

Emma : 27:53

Yep, yes, so some of the things that are coming to mind that deal with some of these things. They might not have the blended family situation, they might not have the complexity, but they might have this parity in earning potentials. Yeah, so when a partner who makes a lot more than the other expects them to kick in the same amount, how does that even make sense, especially when they have an expensive lifestyle?

Christine: 28:21

Right. So in that situation I would have it not be equal, I would have it be proportional. So, for example, if one person is bringing in 60% of the income, the other person is bringing in 40% of the income, then when we look at what needs to go into the bill account, then the person with the higher income is putting in 60%. The other person is putting in 40%.

Emma : 28:46

Yep, yeah, very good, very good. So I thought them right.

Christine: 28:54

Yes, I mean because that's the fair thing to do, right? Because if you've got someone who's a school teacher, they're locked into a system where they can only get a certain amount of raises over their career. But they may also be offering a lot of stability too. For example, I've had my own business full time for over 12 years now, and there's been a lot of times where my income has been higher than my husband's. But the one thing that I am always super appreciative of is the fact that there's a lot more stability with his job. His income is very stable. We know that the health insurance is going to be covered. He's contributing to the retirement accounts, so we have to consider all of those factors when we're making those decisions. Absolutely Very good.

Emma : 29:57

And what I find is that it's easier to have those conversations and to be fair when partners go at it from a compassionate and generous approach, as opposed to my money. And how can you contribute more?

Christine: 30:17

Yeah, well, and that can be hard, especially if you've been hurt in the past, as I was. I was coming out of a relationship where my ex did not contribute equally to the personal finances, and so sometimes we can be punishing our partner for the sins of a past relationship. That's right and so you know, we have to understand the difference between wanting to protect ourselves and learning our lesson to projecting things onto our partner.

Emma : 30:55

That may or may not be true 100%, so good, yes, and along those lines, when a prior partner or a current partner is not contributing equally, what is the reason for it? Right? So do they make less because that's just the nature of their career and their profession, or are there other things going on? For example, as part of your story, there were other things going on.

Emma : 31:19

And so when they're right. So when the partner can't contribute because of their own the stuff that they have going on, then what is our role in enabling them to not contribute? Right, and so I can't talk about that as well. So if you want to make any comments about that, there was a difference between the levels of contribution and the reasons.

Christine: 31:40

Yeah, absolutely. You know, in my situation, you know my ex-fiance, I mean it was just like he was in and out of jobs. I mean he was even in and out of jail. He was just very irresponsible. I mean there was substance abuse going on there. You know, it was just like he never wanted to grow out of that frat boy face right, where it's just like okay, it's time for us to grow up. You know, we can't be doing this kind of thing anymore. And you know he was just more than happy for me to carry all the weight of the finances, right, and so it was.

Christine: 32:19

This is what we call co-dependency, and you know, I think one of the things that we have to look at is is my help really helping the person right? So now, if we flip it around and say, okay, you know, when my husband was laid off, yes, my help was helping him. He was out there looking for a job. You know he didn't lose the job because he failed a drug test, right? So those are the sorts of things that we have to be looking at. Is, you know what is the situation? Because you know if your spouse or partner is sick and they can't work, you know, of course. You know that's what we say when we go to the altar. You know, in sickness and in health, right, so it's never going to be 50-50 all the time. Right, there's going to be give and take.

Christine: 33:16

However, we can't always have it be one-sided either. You know, and sometimes I will see that situation when one of the partners stays home to raise the kids, where it's like, you know, that's an economic sacrifice that that person has made. Right, they've stepped out of their career. You know they can't just immediately step back into their old career and, you know, because they've lost all those years of experience, maybe it's going to take training for them to get up and running. I don't know if you've seen the cost of childcare lately, right, I mean sometimes when you crunch the numbers, it might not make sense for one person to work. Right, if you've got two or three kids and they have to be in daycare, I mean you could be looking at two or $3,000 easily a month.

Emma : 34:08

I don't know where you live, but yes, probably a lot more.

Christine: 34:11

Yes, I'm in the Midwest, it's probably way more than that in New York City and Los Angeles, right? Oh, it's crazy.

Emma : 34:19

Yeah, very good. Yes, I love all of that. And the last observation that you made is so true and in terms of couples dynamics, sometimes that gets goes unappreciated. The sacrifice that usually women still make is usually still women changing. But the partner that stays home makes a sacrifice and yet sometimes it's not even appreciated. It's looked at like well, I'm the one making the money, well, I'm psychophobic in the money, right, and so that's an interesting dynamic there. Yes and yes, very good. Anything else about enabling does such a good angle? No.

Christine: 35:00

I mean, well, I recorded an entire podcast on it, so you know we could talk the whole entire time about that. But I do think it's just something to be aware of. In relationships, you know, especially if you start to feel resentful or taken advantage of, then you may kind of want to step back and look at the picture, especially if you're not married yet.

Emma : 35:23

Oh yes, very good, something else that you mentioned. So you made the comment of if it's always one-sided, right, but what if you have the earning potentials of people like you have a teacher and you have somebody else who's like a very high earner for because of whatever career they might have, and that disparity is always going to be that way, right?

Christine: 35:44

Well, and what I mean by one-sided, you know. It's just like you know if the person who's making less money or the person who's staying home watching the kids isn't cleaning the house or they're not doing the grocery shopping or they're not doing anything, right. So, like when I looked at my relationship, it was like I was literally doing everything. I was taking care of the pets, I was doing the grocery shopping, I was doing all the house cleaning and I was doing all the earning. Like I was literally doing everything. It's not like my ex-fiance, you know, was cooking me gourmet dinners and taking care of the grocery shopping and paying the bills. You know, even if it was my money, he was taking zero responsibility for anything. So I think that's really what you have to look at there.

Christine: 36:38

It's not like dollars, but it's the shared responsibility.

Emma : 36:43

I love that exactly. Very good, so let's hang out very good. So, moving on from the dependency because, yes, this could be a 100-podcast right, all the kitten caboodle. But so any other thoughts about having that generous spirit with your partner, like not observing the dollar for dollar, in terms of contribution to the relationship and life? Yeah, being generous within the relationship, of course that's my cup of tea, that's why I love to hear about things like this. But, of course, in terms of finances, any thoughts about integrating those ideas?

Christine: 37:25

Yeah, well, I think one of the first things is sharing the financial information and having that relationship with money together. One of the things that I love to have my clients do is the weekly money date, where you just take that time every week to check in with your personal finances. Now, if one person is more of the numbers person, then they might be the person that kind of takes the lead and crunches some numbers before the two of you meet. But I do have some couples who will. They'll log into their personal finance app and they'll go through and do everything together. So in my household, I'm the one that logs in, that crunches all the numbers and then my husband and I just have a check-in, right.

Christine: 38:26

And so we're to the stage to where there's not really a lot to talk about these days, because we have no debt, our emergency funds are fully funded, we're fully funding our retirement accounts. It might just be like, hey, I got the property tax bill, so we're going to have to transfer some extra money in because that's due December 1st or whatever the case may be. We have some of those types of conversations, but he and I are always talking about money. It's because we really instituted that at the beginning of our relationship for a couple of reasons, because I had that traumatic background. My husband grew up in a household where there was always a lot of financial chaos and he did not like that. That's one of the reasons I was attracted to him, because he was very good with his money. I'm like, oh, thank God, beautiful, check. Someone that's going to pull their own weight. This is amazing, interesting.

Emma : 39:38

Yeah.

Christine: 39:41

Just being gracious with each other. If you know that your spouse is not a numbers person, then maybe don't insist that they sit side by side with you while you look at spreadsheets for an hour. If you love spreadsheets, that's great. If you've got someone that's not a numbers person, it's like they can take about five minutes of that.

Emma : 40:00

Thank, you, everybody who's listening pay attention to that right now.

Christine: 40:06

That's for you. Yeah, give them five minutes, give them the overview and say, okay, here's what's going on, here's the things we need to fine tune. I think that's really the beauty of using some personal finance app together. Currently, I'm using Mint with all my clients. It's free, it's very robust, it has very good security. What it does is it allows both people to log in. You can look at it on your phone or on the desktop. You can make choices in the moment that are in line with the goals that you've set. If you're not sure like hey, have we already blown through our dining out budget? I don't know Let me pull up the app and let's check. Oh, we've got 30 bucks left. Okay, I guess we're going home and not to the stake house tonight. I guess we're still going to.

Emma : 41:04

Yes, I love that it sounds like operating from shared goals might be really helpful.

Christine: 41:11

It is very helpful In our talk of generosity. I think that every healthy financial plan has a generosity piece in there. In your spending plan, there should be a category for giving, whether it is you're giving to a religious organization, you're giving to a man, you are giving to a medical charity or an animal charity. Whatever the case may be. The reason why I think this is important is that it helps us to have a healthy relationship with money and to not hold it so tightly.

Emma : 41:53

Right.

Christine: 41:54

Yeah, that's something that I really insist on with people is that they have some money that they're generous with each and every month.

Emma : 42:06

I love that what would be the issue with holding the money too tightly?

Christine: 42:15

Well, I think it's so easy to worry about money, especially if you watch the news at all. Right, it's always like the sky is falling, the stock market is ready to crash. Let me tell you all the things that are terrible about the real estate market. But here's the thing there's always someone who has it worse off than us. There's always someone that's hurting more than we are. I think generosity reminds us really of how blessed we already are. Beautiful.

Christine: 42:51

For me, it's something that, when I hit financial rock bottom, my dad taught me this principle. He basically said there's always someone that's worse off than you. The first time he talked to me about this, I was like but, dad, I'm homeless. He's like you're not homeless, You're living in the spare bedroom of my golf course community house. Right, you are not homeless. But I felt homeless. He said look, if you want to see what real homelessness looks like, I will drive you down to the inner city and I will show you what it looks like. And so I started giving $10 every two weeks to the homeless shelter, to the local homeless shelter, because it was a reminder to me that, although things weren't great right now, that I still had a lot to be thankful for.

Emma : 43:49

Oh my gosh, I just got chills. Beautiful, Thank you for that.

Christine: 43:52

Yeah, and I think it's something that spouses and partners can decide together. Are there certain organizations that they want to both support? Do they also want to have some money that each of them has a different charity that they want to give to? I think, as long as the amounts are equal and it fits into the overall spending plan, because you want to make sure that it is something that feels fulfilling to you personally, whatever that organization is.

Emma : 44:28

Also, let's say that one of the partners is opposed to this. For one person what do you think about this? And the other partner is something. This is something that they really want to do. They could always drop from their own personal spending.

Christine: 44:47

Yeah, absolutely.

Emma : 44:49

So I don't want people to get hung up on. We have to contribute the same way and it's the same amount and the same amount to each of our organizations, because that could be a fight.

Christine: 45:02

I told my husband when we got married. I'm like, look, this is a non-negotiable. And I said it can all be from my income, I honestly don't care, but you have to know that X percent is always going towards charitable contributions. And at first he kind of questioned it. But I'm like I promise you you won't even miss it and honestly, I feel like we have been so blessed, in part because of our generosity, that I don't miss it. And in fact it's just, it is non-negotiable. Soon, as something comes in, I'm like OK, where's 10% going? And it's become fun for me actually, you know, to see like whose life am I going to impact? Right, and some of it is not just a charity. Some of it I keep aside just to give to people as I feel led. You know, like, if you see somebody online and they've got a GoFundMe account, you know you can just go in and drop a grand and be completely anonymous. You know I mean, how much fun is that? So pretty?

Emma : 46:17

Yes 100% Love that, and what I love about that is just having spontaneous giving money. I think you put it in one. That's right. So like you could add the line item to your budget with those of you who are being serious about the budgeting concept, and you have line items and yours. This is how.

Christine: 46:35

I do it, yes, no, that's a good point, because I am a fan of both committed generosity and spontaneous generosity.

Christine: 46:44

Yeah, so I've got a friend who he him and his wife.

Christine: 46:50

They actually have an account called their generosity account and they put a certain amount of money in it and it's specifically for spontaneous generosity because they have their other charities as like line items in their budget. So they both have a debit card on this account and they basically just have a rule that if it's over a certain amount, that they'll check with each other first. If it's under a certain amount, they can just swipe the debit card or write a check. So you know, if he's at the gas station and he sees what looks like a single mom with a minivan that's, you know run down with four kids in it, he can just say, hey, let me take care of your gas for you and just swipe it and not have to call his wife and check with her first, right? But you know, whatever their limit is 500 or 100 or whatever it is then they just check with each other first and obviously, as long as there's money in the account, like that's what it's for, that is so cool.

Emma : 47:57

Yes, I don't know if you've ever experienced going through and I've mentioned this in other settings in the past. I've been the recipients of this a few times and then I've started myself as a result because it felt so good. It was like, wow, how cool this is. Going through a drive through Starbucks and the person in front of you pays for your coffee or whatever your order is, right. When you get up to the window to pay, they're like oh, the person in front of you already paid for you. How cool, is that Right? And so then, like, you put the person behind me then and then you can feel this, this thing going, starting at yourself so fun, yeah, so I can hear that. And having a black man dedicated for that so fun, yes. So, speaking of fun, and maybe this could be a last closing thoughts, when couples are having that money date or they're having that chicken meeting and how are the number crunching? How is the number crunching going? How can they make that more fun in these specific suggestions?

Christine: 48:56

Yeah, so you know I tell people make it fun, right? So a lot of times we think about crunching numbers. We think it's like a card table with a folding chair down in the basement with a bare ball banging from the ceiling. You know you got your your little calculator going.

Christine: 49:14

You're like it does not have to be, boring or torture, you know, and it can be as simple as you know, having your favorite beverage and lighting a scented candle and having some relaxing music playing. But for some of my clients who have, like, really resisted, like they're like I just hate looking at our plan, you know, and I actually had one client say I wish it could be as fun as, like you know, date night. And I said, ok, here's what you guys are going to do. You're going to get dressed up in your fancy clothes, I said, or in your sexy clothes, or hey, or hey, even naked. But OK, no touching each other until you updated, until you've updated all your categories and paid the bills and done all your transfers to your saving and investments accounts, then, once you're done, then you can have fun.

Emma : 50:16

I'm going to borrow this. Thank you, my love, we can have a sexy money date if you want to.

Christine: 50:22

I love that we can just consider it your manaja toa with money. That's so fun.

Emma : 50:31

Listen, this podcast is getting more funner by the minute. First we had three, now we have a manaja toa. Hey, you know, we have another thing. I love it.

Christine: 50:39

Yes, it doesn't have to be boring and stuffy like most people think 100 percent.

Emma : 50:43

I hear you beautiful. Ok, so any last words of wisdom or any other sprinkles or nuggets of knowledge that you want to share?

Christine: 50:54

No, I think, other than I'd love for everybody to tune in to the Money is Emotional podcast, because you just like scroll down through those episodes. I'm sure there's going to be something that's going to catch your eye that you're going to want to learn more about. Whether it's one episode, it's a process, right? I mean nobody. For most of us we didn't have a formal class about money, right? We've just kind of had to figure it out on our own. So it's going to take some time and that's OK.

Emma : 51:25

But even to your point, even those who mean you have a degree right. So even if you had a class, you could still have a challenge. So it's absolutely cool to educate yourself ongoingly and to stay attuned with how is money playing out in our life, in our relationship? What else can we do better and differently? So her podcast guys is amazing, so fun. I listened to a bunch of episodes. I really enjoyed it.

Christine: 51:48

Thank you so much.

Emma : 51:49

Christine, Thank you so much for being here. This was so fun.

Christine: 51:53

It was. Thanks for having me.

Emma : 51:55

My pleasure, and before you run, for those of you who are listening, all her information is in the show notes, guys, so feel free to check it out, and also your website, my love.

Christine: 52:05

It is my name. It's ChristineLuken. com.

Emma : 52:09

Excellent. Thank you so much and I will see everyone at the next one. Bye.