Kirk Ramsay

One of the worst things about personal finance content is how often it leaves people feeling ashamed.

Like they’re not doing the right things.

Like they’re missing out on all these great investment opportunities.

Like they need to make better choices or be doomed to live in debt forever.

So much of what gets said takes a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s often, “Hey this worked for me, so it will work for you. You should do it. Why aren’t you doing it yet?”

And I think the fact that so much of it revolves around numbers makes the feeling even worse. Numbers feel black and white, quantifiable and objective. You can’t argue with math.

But personal finance isn’t actually like that. There is no one-size-fits-all solution and what the numbers say is just one small piece of the puzzle.

There are so many other factors: what you value, what stage of life you’re in, your history and previous experiences with money, how you think and feel and see the world.

Advice needs to be tailored to fit you and your unique situation. It needs to take everything into account.

What might look good or make sense on paper, might not work well for you.

And that’s not because you’re wrong, or broken, or dumb.

It’s because you’re you. Doing your own thing. Living your own life.

In my job, I do help people run the numbers, and there are some basic truths and general principles that apply to most people.

But I also encounter unique people in unique situations every week. And the thing that those people need most is not a piece of absolute advice that may or may not apply.

What they need is to be heard and understood. What they need is someone to talk to without the fear of judgement.

So much of the advice you’ll see online gets this wrong and it puts people in an emotional state where they’re even less likely to take the first step toward a better future.

Sometimes when I sit down with a couple and start chatting with them about their finances, I’ll ask a question that both of them have thought about but never actually talked about.

It’s a super common and easy thing to do in a relationship.

You think and think and think about something. Mull it over. Start formulating a plan in your head. And somehow, you just kind of assume your partner has been reading your mind the entire time, and that you’re totally on the same page, even though you haven’t actually said anything about it out loud.

And then you’re chatting with me in person or over zoom and you’re giving this answer that you’ve THOUGHT about a lot, but I can tell from the look on your partner’s face that you haven’t in fact TALKED about it at all and that you aren’t in fact anywhere close to being on the same page.

And then the real discussion begins. And we go through the process of talking through and looking at everyone’s different perspectives and figuring out how to reconcile them into a plan that everyone can get on board with.

Surfacing these kinds of gaps in communication and facilitating these kinds of discussions is a big part of the work I do with couples to help them start rowing in the same direction and create the sense that they’re working together toward shared goals.