Sami Etienne (Host 1): We are back with Talking Cents, and we have two guests with us today. We've got myself and Cierra here in the studio. And we also have Chuck and Ashley. They are relationship specialists here locally in Evansville. So, I'd love to have them introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about what they do.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Ashley and I have been working with couples for over 15 years, talking about relationships and how do we have better-than-average relationships. Because something we've noticed all of these years is average isn't good enough. It ends in broken relationships and just things that aren't good enough. So, that's a lot of the content that we put together has to do with marriage, communication, whether that's somebody in their premarital state or they've been married for decades.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. We have three boys. So, sometimes we're talking about all the challenge that comes with these desires to have a good relationship, and it can be tough. But if we name those things, then we can start to identify how we want to actually leave a legacy and not just survive. So, we want to thrive instead of just survive.

Cierra Ziliak (Host 2): In this episode, we're going to dive into a little bit about finances and the relationship with finances, with your partner, with your family, and what that kind of looks like.

Host 1: We're so excited to have you guys today. Love to hear your take on that, on finances in a relationship, whether you're married or you have a roommate or you're dating. So, how do you split finances and do things? But I guess before we dive into that, how'd you guys meet?

Chuck Elliot: So, Ashley and I, we met at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. Ashley worked the front desk at the rec center, and I would walk past and see her.

Ashley Elliot: I did work at the front desk. He played racquetball. I actually taught aerobic classes. And so, I'd be walking back to the aerobic studio, and I would see him playing racquetball. And one day he struck up a conversation with me and said, "Do you want to play racquetball?" And so, we did. Actually, he wrote down my phone number and he still has that piece of paper with my phone number.

Chuck Elliot: It's framed in my office. Yeah. Her number hasn't changed in 18, 19 years. Yeah. And then, we moved here and we've lived in the Evansville, Newburgh area for 18 years.

Host 1: I love that. Did you know how to play racquetball?

Ashley Elliot: I did.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. She's actually really good.

Host 1: Did you beat him?

Ashley Elliot: We had to find a system that made us like equal, basically, because he's better than I am. But we would do rally points for me and regular points for him. But then, I would beat him. So, it made it fun.

Host 2: Do you want to talk a little bit about your journey from then to now being relationship specialists and where you're at?

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. We ended up after one year of marriage working with a grant that was local. It's actually a federal grant, but it's called Community Marriage Builders. And they gave us the opportunity to teach marriage workshops and big conferences. And we did that for several years until the grant went away. And then, in that void, we said, "Man, we need to do more things," because that was making an impact for lowering the divorce rate in the city, in the tri-states. And we just saw a need.

And so, it was several years ago, back in 2019, we started an LLC and just said, let's do a little bit more speaking, try to do workshops and help people with their relationships. And we've gone into businesses and help from the business relationship side of things. And then, we also help with like marriages and churches and different places where we help people to just really thrive in those relationships, because it's all communication. And communication can be hard.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. Ashley is a licensed counselor, and that's her background in training. And I was a minister for several years in the area, many years in the area, but also have the counseling and coaching education. That's something that I did part time, but have moved into it more full time now. So, relationships and communication has been something that's been a part of our marriage, our relationship, the entire time. It's just had different avenues, different outlets, and ways that we get to help people. And it's been a lot of fun. It's what we love to do. And it's so rewarding to see people improve in significant ways and see that their life actually can change. Because so many times, people think that their life can't change. They think they're in this rut, they were born this way, they just like inherited these patterns maybe from their family. But when they see that, "Oh no, I can have a shift. I can switch the way that I think. I can switch the way that I communicate. Switch the way that I think about money," you can have different results if you put in the effort. So, it's been exciting for us.

Host 1: So once you see somebody have that shift and they're on the right track now, do they come back to you guys or do they just like touch base to say, "Hey, you guys helped me so much. Thank you." But how do you know, and like gauge the success?

Ashley Elliot: Oftentimes whenever we're working with people, we will start a little bit more intensely. Maybe it's once a week we'll meet with people for a couple sessions and then it spans out. So, we'll go for every other week to once a month. And that's kind of how we graduate people. Oftentimes, they're like, "I'm not ready to be done-done." Then, we'll stay connected. Sometimes people will just reach out with an email and let us know how they're doing. And one of our favorite things is to see people not just get better, but then they're helping other people. And so, that's really cool to say, "Oh, now I'm doing better with my finances." And so, now my kids are as well, or my neighbors are just different people who are in our lives are impacted by the fruit of our labor too, which is interesting.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. We really want to see people thrive. And when it comes to a relationship, it's not a very high goal just to say, "Well, we don't argue," okay? Great. That's great that you don't argue, but that's not a great goal. Let's talk about what's your vision together. Where do you want to be? And if you have financial goals, you can say, "Well, I don't want my checks to bounce." Great goal. We don't want that to happen either. Let's talk about what comes after that. Something that you can get excited about in the future. And like Ashley was saying, if we get to see somebody moving past, just fixing the issues to thriving, and really if they get to invest in somebody else and we get to see that they paid it forward and they're a good example for somebody else, and they're a motivator, they're an encourager, that's where it really is special for us.

Host 2: And that's such incredible work that you guys are doing. Like, I really applaud what you're doing. And we're so excited to have you here today.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, thank you.

Host 1: So, when you guys are counseling and you have your sessions, how often does money come up?

Chuck Elliot: Money's definitely an issue and something Ashley and I have done for a while now is premarital counseling. And anybody who's listening, if you're about to get married or you're related to somebody or have kiddos who are about to get married, we highly encourage that. So, making plans for finances and premarital counseling, are we going to join checking accounts? Are we going to do this? Do you have debt? Do you not have debt? What are your viewpoints on money? That's really big.

Later on in the relationship, it is usually a component because it's resources. It's not just how much cash is in the checking account, how much you have in your 401k. It's resources to accomplish something. And that's usually what we're centering around. It's not that with every couple we meet with, we say, "Well, we need to take a look at your budget." It's not necessarily that. It's what are you wanting to build together.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. But sometimes people don't bring up money or sex, and we tend to go to all of those different topics to say more things.

Chuck Elliot: We ask those questions.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. But it will be, "Oh, you haven't even talked about the fact that you're $20,000 in debt. We've been talking about a lot of other important things, but it's important to make sure that you were kind of doing a scan through just to get the whole health. We talked about all the different things. And we have a couples needs worksheet that talks about, from the physical, spiritual, the sexual, and the emotional side of things. And money can definitely be wrapped up in the physical, the emotional, kind of like intertwined nature of how it does affect all these different aspects.

Host 2: You definitely think, bring up money, bring up finances, before marriage, like early on in the relationship so you can build that foundation.

Chuck Elliot: A hundred percent. Not that you're doing it in a way that you're saying, "Well, tell me what your net worth is and I know whether or not you're a good suitor." Like, I'm not saying that. But you need to know where they stand with things because if someone's bringing in a significant amount of debt that they have not disclosed to you, that's a trust issue. And that's going to have an impact on your intimacy in the relationship whether it's emotional, spiritual, sexual whatever it is, It all goes into how connected you are as a couple. And if you're not addressing those things, There's something in the back of somebody's mind either the person who's hiding it or the person who wonders something doesn't feel right. It feels like they're not bringing their whole self to the relationship.

Host 2: So, let's say I'm a listener and my boyfriend and I just got engaged. Do you have tips for me on how I can bring that up to him?

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. Well, having a plan and saying, "What do you think about money?" I'm going to do another pitch for premarital counseling, it doesn't have to be with us, but with somebody, do premarital counseling. As you said, the situation, they just got engaged, but saying, "What are your hopes for the future?" Like, "What do you think about joining the checking account together? What do you think about us doing that? How are we going to decide where we spend our money or savings? Are we going to rent? Are we going to buy a house?" And many times, there's finances included in what it is that you want to do together.

Ashley Elliot: And I was single for several years before we dated and I started writing down questions, like what are some things I would like to know if we were to go on a date? And then, I used that when we went on dates. And some of those questions were about money. Like, "Just tell me what are your thoughts on your life goals, when you'd want to retire, how much money you would like to save?" And just those types of things. Like, do you plan to buy your kid a car? Just all kinds of random things that just was curious about. And I knew that those things are important to talk about early on. And I'd have the idea, and I just documented it to help myself do this.

I think a lot of those preventative questions or hurdles, whatever that there might be, if we can identify them and then start to try to make it lighter, ask a question about it. It's much more inviting rather than you having an accusation, like how much debt do you have, right? What are your relationship goals, as a couple, as far as like traveling and how do we accomplish that financially?

Chuck Elliot: And being assertive and not being on the defense. Because when it comes up later, you're more likely to feel as if you were lied to, even if you weren't lied to. So when you put things out on the table in a relationship and you ask the questions that are important and pertinent to you having a quality relationship ahead of time, when you find out about something six months later, you might feel like they were hiding it. And it's not that, it could just be you didn't talk about it. So, putting things out there ahead of time in a healthy, assertive way prevents a lot of problems, even if it feels awkward. We understand that it can feel awkward to talk about money and who pays for what and what's going on, but that little bit of awkwardness can prevent major problems. Because as you're probably aware, many times, people cite financial issues when they have marital issues. And it's pretty common.

Host 1: You guys said something during our lunch today that I thought was really interesting. During one of your sessions, a group session, I guess, with two people, relationship session, you said you always ask them-- and it was finish the sentence. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? It was, "Money to me is..."

Ashley Elliot: Oh, yeah.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. Yeah. "For you, in your home growing up, money was blank." And you just fill in the blank. It usually reveals something. So if someone says, "For me growing up, money was stressful. Money was sparse. Money was not talked about. Money was lacking," and just what goes on with that? Because money is ones and zeros, and you can say it's just simple and it's cold and it's math, but it's emotional decisions. And whatever it's tied to emotionally from your background, your childhood-- not trying to get into childhood therapy here-- but just saying that there's connections to the way that you grew up and the way that you viewed money. And Ashley and I had different viewpoints on money coming into the relationship. It doesn't mean that stuff's a deal breaker. It just means you just have to discuss it.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. Having different upbringings impacted just a lot of the decisions that we made and just took communication to figure it out. So, I had to pay my way through college, and somebody in the other seat over there didn't. So, kind of going into the relationship, I learned, "Oh. Like, he was taking me to Outback," and I was on like a $25 a week budget. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness." So, there's a part of me that loved that, but I also have always lived a little bit more frugal.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. And when you're going to marry it, it's something different. So, it's like when you're dating, it can be cute. "Oh, it's Valentine's Day, and they bought me two dozen roses and spent $300 and took me out and went to a nice dinner." That is, that's wonderful. I'm not saying anything against that, but knowing that you're going to get married to that potentially, and that is now your $300, that is not just theirs that they're treating you with.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah, it's different.

Chuck Elliot: And you, the way that you processed probably our relationship, like as it was developing, changed with that.

Ashley Elliot: It's different when you're dating and "Oh, he's buying me $300..." I would be like, "You spent $300 of our money this month?" It changes a little bit. We've adjusted and, you know, we just kind of ended up figuring out a loose budget for those types of things. And it's all right.

Host 2: Yeah, I think a lot of topics of money come up whenever you are engaged. Like for example, who pays for the wedding? So, this came up in my relationship with my husband when we were engaged because we had family to help, of course, which we we're so thankful for, but there was a leftover some amount and it was like, "Does this come out of my bank account or your bank account?" And that was when we were like, "We're going to get married anyway. Let's combine our finances." But that's kind of something I've heard that's come up. Do you have any guidelines or like tips for what people can talk about for that?

Chuck Elliot: Which part of it? Joining the bank account or what do you do with the money for the wedding?

Host 1: Wedding.

Chuck Elliot: Those are two big questions.

Host 1: Yes. Let's start with wedding and then we'll go to that.

Chuck Elliot: Okay. What are your thoughts, Ash?

Ashley Elliot: I definitely think it's all about communication, right? We can be frustrated, and get stressed out. That's the trigger of, "Hey, you're going to have $5,000 that you need to figure out. Ahh!" So, learning to try to deescalate ourselves, we want to say, "It's okay. I can empathize with myself that this is stressful." But sometimes that helps us to say, "Okay, how can we cut back and maybe lessen that amount of money?" Sometimes, it might be that it's really important to me and it's not as important to Chuck. But if it's our marriage, our wedding, then a question I've had people ask, "Like on a scale from one to 10, how important is blank." So if it is, "Oh, the hors d'oeuvres at the reception," you know, "Okay, it's a nine to me." And he's like, "It's a four to me. But, okay, knowing that it's a nine out of 10 for you, let's do it."

And then, if you kind of went through and like pick those things, like, "Okay, maybe we can save a thousand dollars by finding those things that aren't as important, but then we're going to say, "Yes, this is the amount. And we are going to commit to, you know, going 50/50." Again, all of that is negotiable, but figuring out we don't negotiate without communication. If we say, "Oh, this is too awkward. We're not talking about it," that's how one person builds resentment and feels disrespected or angry that there's all of this debt that then ends up stressing them out. So, whatever the communication patterns you figure out, being able to talk about it is usually the way to lessen the tension.

Host 2: Those are really good tips, because it's like the wedding could cost $5,000 more than what our parents are able to offer or it could cost $18,000 or $20,000. So, it's starting there and then kind of working backwards as to where it's going to come out of.

Chuck Elliot: And the second part of the question that you asked was about joining checking accounts. And just recognizing, "Okay, we're coming together as one here. We're going to be a married couple." And we do advise people that we think it's best practice for the relationship to join your money together and your checking accounts. But recognizing that as a couple, it's going to be your responsibility and it's a shared thing. You're engaging in the wedding together and communicating, like you said, is the best way to not feel like you're a victim of something.

So, let's say you and your husband didn't talk about it a lot, and you made the $5,000, $6,000 decisions for the wedding. And he said, "Well, it's her thing. It's Cierra's thing. I want her to be happy or whatever else." And then, come to be a couple of months into the marriage, and he's like, "Wait a second, all this money..." and he wasn't a part of the decision-making process, but then he can blame it on you.

Host 2: Right.

Chuck Elliot: And all of a sudden, he feels like a victim of your financial decisions. So, that's why even if he can maybe sit back and say, "Well, I just want her to be happy and those are the decisions she made," and almost in a nice way, in quotation marks here, It can cause frustration later. So, like what you said, Ashley, engaging and communicating through it and engaging sooner reduces the chances of feeling like a victim later.

Host 2: Yeah. So, it's like, even if you want to give your partner the world, it's like you need to talk through what that means, the communication aspect of it.

Chuck Elliot: There's a 90% chance you're going to be a jerk later and you can't afford it.

Host 2: Exactly.

Chuck Elliot: Like think those things. And I'm not speaking about your husband. I'm sure he's very nice, but I'm just saying it as an example.

Host 2: Exactly.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Elliot: I think a lot of times people will think, "I'll join my checking account later" Or sometimes it is, "I don't know if I can trust you yet" or What if it doesn't work out?" and I think that there's a different line of thinking with each of those, but especially where we see it to be troublesome. If they say, "I'm not going to join checking accounts because I don't know if it's going to work out," we like to peel back that layer and say, "What are you concerned about?" And sometimes it is a real issue that needs to be addressed. And again, that preventative method is helpful. Like, talk about things early on if you just are gambling, hoping that avoiding talking about it is going to fix the problem. It's probably not going to. And sometimes those things grow in the dark and then they come out and hurt you later. But if you're not feeling that trust, then let's talk about that and address it so that we can get to that clean slate, feeling like we can trust each other.

And again, you could totally disagree and say, "I am not joining a checking account," all this stuff, right? You all are free-willed. You get to do what you want, make that choice. But if you try to think about it, like, "Why does that make me so angry?" All the things that we get angry about oftentimes are tied to our values. So, what is it that you value that's being bumped up against? And if you like write that out and you process it and you think, "Maybe I will look at all of the good reasons why we might want to combine finances or all of the reasons why we can't." And then, you just figure out what works for you. But all of that, as you spend time processing, as you spend time communicating, you can make a better choice that you won't regret later.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah. Be curious about it.

Host 1: Yeah. So, I want to get a little personal. You guys have your finances combined, obviously, right? Is there a dollar amount that you guys have set for each other that you don't need to communicate a purchase?

Chuck Elliot: We don't have it. It's not super firm. I guess it depends. Around a hundred bucks or so, a couple hundred dollars, something like that.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah. I would say it depends. Like if it's something like a car issue or something that is for the family...

Chuck Elliot: Like maintenance for the house or family issues...

Ashley Elliot: Then, it could be a couple hundred dollars. But if it is even just going to an expensive restaurant or something that might be $65 for a lunch, I would like to know that you're going to go do that. And so, kind of, if it is that like extra funds versus it's a necessity that we need to replace our HVAC...

Chuck Elliot: That's maintenance for something.

Ashley Elliot: We had conversations about it, but there were points of it that we're just deciding what we're doing, not if we are doing it at this point. And so, we try to talk about as many of the things as possible, but then also give each other the freedom that if you want to buy a pair of shoes or something like that, we don't always have to. Have the conversation.

Now, earlier in our relationship, we'd have a disagreement if somebody spent a little bit extra out to eat or something, it's like, "We're tight," you're like, "You got to let me know, because I don't want to then spend money in another place and then feel like we're struggling.

Chuck Elliot: In our relationship, I've been more of the spender, Ashley's more of the saver.

Ashley Elliot: Really?

Chuck Elliot: Thank you. I'd have to push her to spend money or do something because she'd hold back. And I'd be like, "You don't have to deprive yourself of that. It's okay to do those types of things." And I've backed off on how much I've spent and I've tried to encourage her to do things to take care of herself more or whatever it might be.

Ashley Elliot: And so, I'm trying to be more like him in some ways, like at this stage of her life, like, "Okay, we can spend a little bit more sometimes. And I find that those old habits of just save, save, save, save, save are coming out. And even how I gift-give, like I'm much more practical. I like the practical gifts. And so, I appreciate Chuck has gotten me not just a massage, but then you can go get another massage. I'm like, "Two massages, oh my goodness. How are you doing this?" And, oh, I want to be more like that, and to be generous with him because he does love like that.

Now, at first, It was a little bit harder for me, because I can't keep up with his generosity. But it is something that I see, I still can hold on to things. And so, that is part of like money management, is like being okay to let go of some money and say, "No, we saved this. And whether it's for the HVAC system or for a vacation, that we can figure out, like letting our money go where we want and need it to be," instead of just feeling like we are entangled by the money, and it's spending us instead of us spending it.

Host 2: It sounds like you really balance each other out.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah.

Host 1: So gift-giving though, if you guys share your account, do you surprise each other with gifts? Do you like go to the ATM, withdraw cash and that way they don't know what you've purchased?

Chuck Elliot: I feel like it's shifted in the last couple of years. I feel like it's been kind of upfront with we know what the other person wants. And if it's something specific, it's almost like, "Hey, you can get that. And then, I'll wrap it for you." We've done that a little bit too. There's been times that we will tell each other, "Hey, don't look at the bank account," which can sound a little bit suspect. " But for the next couple of weeks, don't look at it, because I got you the gift." And typically, we know about how much we'll spend on each other. And we've been married long enough that we kind of know. She'll just say, "Hey, don't look at the bank accounts. I bought Christmas stuff for you," because she knows where it's coming from, or birthday stuff or whatever.

Ashley Elliot: And I love surprises. So, I typically don't want to look, but it is easy to bump into it when you're just checking something else. We've done like if you could get it with cash, but I mean, that's pretty hard in this world.

Chuck Elliot: You buy something online.

Ashley Elliot: Don't open the package. Don't even look at the front porch because you don't know if they have it all labeled.

Chuck Elliot: That is a conversation. Do not open the boxes that are on the front porch.

Host 1: Yes. That was my husband and I's strategy was, "Okay. Don't look at the bank account during Christmas. And we're so bad that like, "Okay, I didn't look at the bank account because I'm like you, I like a surprise," but my husband cannot wait. So, he would get my package and he's like, "You want to just open it now?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah, I do." So, it was like, we went through all of that where we didn't check our bank account, but we couldn't even wait until Christmas to give each other our gifts.

Chuck Elliot: That's kind of fun though.

Host 2: So, you have shared with us that you have three boys and how do you start family discussions around money and kind of creating that relationship for

Ashley Elliot: them? That's a great question. We have one boy that's 15. And so, he's now working and that's been a new conversation with getting a checking account and getting a bank card, and he has been given some restrictions. We were telling him like, we want you to save some money and we want you to talk with us before most or maybe all purchases, but it's been one of those things that some of it just happens naturally as you're having conversations and going about your day. But we do try to set up some times to talk with them.

Now, I don't think we've like scheduled like Monday night is going to be money talks, but just as Chuck was driving in the car with our son to set up the account, having those kinds of conversations. And we are Christians and we tithe. And so, we want our boys to give God the money first. And so, that's something for us, it's a priority for us. So, being able to like teach them about it and even give them space to grumble about it. You're like, "What, how much is that? That's a lot. And then, I'm supposed to save. And then, taxes? Like, "Oh my goodness. That means I'm going to have $20 out of this."

Chuck Elliot: And we'd giggle in the background and say," You know what? You wanted to be an adult. You signed up for this." It's been a good learning experience and talking about that with the kiddos and ways that you can give them responsibility and understanding. "All right. How much do you think you would have to work in the type of job that you do? So if you did chores around the house and I gave you this much money and you had to work how hard for it. So if you had to clean up your room, you had to go outside and pick up something and do this and do that, whatever it is, and that took you how much time? Okay. Now, you want that pack of candy. Would you go do all that right now for this pack of candy right now?" And just kind of understanding the value exchange, and what does it look like in those little ways? That's just great teaching moments. And you can still be generous with your kids and be a blessing to them and give them things. But the older that they get, the more they need to recognize that it costs something. It costs your energy, it costs your time, it costs your brain power.

Ashley Elliot: And as parents, can you guess which one of us might have a harder time relinquishing control of the kid's money? One of us might be a little bit more, okay, let them do some things. And so, that's a challenge, right? You're married to someone who's different from you and they have different spending desires. And so, for us, we've seen it actually be good to give our kids some freedom. And so. As they have some of their money, just their spending money, I tend to want to speak into it. I'm like, "Really? You're going to buy that? And you were going to let them buy skateboard or something?"

Chuck Elliot: No, it was really expensive. That would have been a stupid choice.

Ashley Elliot: Hundreds of dollars.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, that would've been a horrible choice.

Ashley Elliot: "Whoa, okay. Let's count. How many months until you're going to have a vehicle?" And I just like remembered something that he had said. "You wanted to buy this thing." And he went with me and said, "Okay, I won't do it." But it is hard when you don't always see eye to eye and we have to figure out like being gracious to each other, and then also giving our kids some space, to give them rope as Dave Ramsey says, like how much rope do you give them so that they can, you know, get some freedom and make some choices.

Recently, one of our kids, at the vending machines at school that he's realized that he spent a bunch of money. And then, he says, "Let's go to Sam's and buy it ahead of time," and so he can save money. So, feeling like there's opportunities for them to learn on their own, not just for us to tell them, "No, you're not going to spend money this way." I mean, it's a great opportunity for me. Hard for me, harder for me probably than it is for Chuck. But again, I'm grateful that I can't manage all of it for them, and sometimes these things happen, but then I try to push myself to give them some of that freedom too.

Host 1: Yeah. No, I love that. I love letting them kind of learn the hard way, you know, letting them make choices, and then if it's the right or the wrong one, but they're going to remember it.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, for sure.

Host 1: I do have a question about married couple and maybe one of them is a stay-at-home parent, and the other one is the only one who brings in income. What's that conversation look like for that couple during spending? Is that different for if both spouses work?

Ashley Elliot: I definitely think that's one of the, I mean, talking about the pros and cons to having a joint checking account. I think if it is combined in that situation, the person who is staying home doesn't have that feeling quite as much, "Oh, I have no money in my checking account," or "I have to ask for money from the other person." But truly, there are so many things. I mean, I've been a working mom since I've had kids, but I worked part time. I worked at university, had the summers off and there's different things. So, I feel like I've gotten some of that best of both worlds and experienced it, but it is so much harder sometimes to work part time and feel like you have the home front load. And then, during the summer, like that pressure is high to purge all the clothes and like plan the things and to keep the house really clean, and do all of the groceries, and all of those things where I feel like I would rather work because it is a lot. So again, we figure out dividing it.

But again, some people would say, "You don't work, so you don't get this money." And I disagree with that. I think that, man, we've got to make space, especially if that person is going to do all of the home things. It is a lot of responsibility and to figure out, if it is, "Hey, you're going to have this amount that comes into your account each month if you have two accounts, or it comes from the business checking to the personal to pay for the groceries or those things. But again, it goes back to communication, like figure out what works for you. But my encouragement would be to increase the respect for that person who's staying at home and not make them feel like they're less than, because they are staying at home.  

Host 1: Yeah. I mean, they could be staying at home, watching kids. And I know that can be a full time job and childcare is so expensive that it might not be justified for them to go to work, because they're paying just as much in childcare. So, I just know there's a lot of stay-at-home moms out there or stay-at-home dads. And I was just curious about if that was something that you guys had come across often where, you know, maybe one spouse made the other one feel bad for purchasing things or spending too much. Maybe one of them wanted to treat themselves, but they're the stay-at-home parent, if that was something that came up.

Chuck Elliot: Sometimes it does come up, but going back to like what you said, Ashley, about communicating or what are we building together, what do we want to have together, what kind of life do you want to have? And if you're being intentional with your parenting and saying, "What do we want for our kids? What do we want for our home? What are we wanting to do in the future?" Then, you're working together to build something. And where the income comes from isn't as big of a deal. And I've heard men and women say that I couldn't do what I do without my partner being at home and doing those things and them doing a great job of it. And staying at home and raising kids is really stinking hard. That's a full time job, and it's stressful and you don't get away from it in the same kind of way. Because Ashley and I have had different times where because we try to split things and share things with kids and home and all of that. And going to work's easier a lot of times.

Ashley Elliot: I've also seen it happen a little bit the opposite where the person, who, maybe it's a guy in most of the situation, like they really don't want their wife to work. They want them to stay home. And I think, again, whatever your unique situation is, it's important to just communicate about it. If the woman says, "I really want to work. I don't want to sacrifice this for six years until our kid goes to school." Or if you have a few kids, figuring out, "Okay, how do we make that work?" And maybe it is a part-time thing or something, but it should be a priority to have quality time together. And sometimes people will say, "Oh, I'll work this shift. You work this shift," and just figuring out when things don't work, why is it that they don't work? We made it work with time, but now we don't see each other. And so, that can be a hard thing. So, it's, you know, not just the figuring out what you do with money, you know, whenever you have one person working, the other person not, but figuring out, even just continue to talk about those rubs and where we have issues there.

Host 1: Yeah, I feel like communication is just so important regardless of the situation.

Host 2: So in a relationship or in a marriage, how do you feel when only one person is responsible for managing the finances, as in paying the bills, doing the budget?

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, I think lots of things can work in the ways that you do it, but you don't want to have somebody completely shut out of things. If one person is more of the go-to of their making sure that automatic drafts happen, whatever it might be, that's fine. But you need to have complete transparency with things. Ashley and I push for couples to have complete transparency, whether that's an open phone policy or an open bank account policy, whatever that looks like, being able to see things on whatever device, whatever account in doing that.

And I pay more attention to the day to day, I guess, thing for the finances. But Ashley and I communicate about things, and I will do like our net worth and just kind of give a snapshot of where things are, if we're increasing, decreasing in things and have a conversation about that.

Ashley Elliot: And as you learned about us earlier, we haven't always done it that way. I used to be in control of the finances. I would be like, "So, you went out again?" So, he pays now when we go out to eat. It's the same checking account, but I can almost pretend that we aren't paying for it. And so, I know that we are paying for it, and he's looking at it. And what I pay attention to the most is the net worth. And so, I'm seeing overall every month, like we're putting money into savings, we're building into our 401ks, and we can see how much we have in checking, how much we're paying off on our house. And so, that's the big picture that I'm keeping an eye on, and then I will ask him sometimes if I have a bigger expense. He's like, "Hey, are we good for me to spend this amount?"

Chuck Elliot: And then, we have different ways that we think, "Okay, how much do we have to save for vacation or some type of other goal?" And it's like, "Can we allocate more money to that?" And just kind of having a temperature of where things are is a good way to do it. But going back to your original question, you can do it lots of different ways. And people are probably getting sick of us saying the word communicate, but you really do. Because lots of things will work. They really will. You can do it. You can meet weekly about it. You can meet monthly about it. You can do this. You can both monitor things on your different apps, different things. You can have a detailed spreadsheet, whatever it is, but you need to agree about it. Because if not, you're going to build resentment and distrust in the relationship.

Ashley Elliot: And a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck, so that's not the goal for us as humans. We don't want to feel like," Oh, I can't do blank." We want to build that opportunity and freedom. And so, having those conversations, planning a budget, doing whatever it is can help. So, we've used different apps before, and we're all about trial and error, like with our counseling work, coaching work, with money, any of those things.

So, figuring out like, "This made sense for me to manage the money." I was the frugal one. And so, we did that for years. And then, it actually was in a "Forget it. You take care of the money" kind of a mode. That was my mentality. And then, I said, "Why don't you try it for a while? And like, there was a time there's like $300 that was spent that maybe we couldn't figure out what happened, or maybe he ended up-- again, there was some sort of error. And I was like, "It's been two years. I haven't done the money. And if that costs $300, okay, I think that's okay."

And so again, figuring out what are the wins, how are we making this work in our relationship with two different people? I think it's just going to take some sacrifice and communication to get there. So, whatever it is, you keep using trial and error. You can find a system that works for you.

Host 1: Do you guys have a will?

Chuck Elliot: We have a very short piece of paper that's written out for like who gets what, who takes care of the kids if we die like in a plane accident or something like that. But our financial advisor, the people who manage our stuff has been pushing us to do a will and we have not done it yet.

Ashley Elliot: She did tell us that they were considering getting some of their people together and doing like a session to help us make it happen, which I thought was so generous. That's not their job to do, but just to help us to prioritize those things.

Host 1: But that is something you guys recommend, right? Like, obviously, you know it is a priority for you guys. It's on your list.

Chuck Elliot: It is hard to do. It's hard to think about the end of your life.

Host 1: I'm sure it is.

Chuck Elliot: Especially when you have little kids, and we have a six-year-old. And it's emotional.

Ashley Elliot: Yeah.

Chuck Elliot: And so many things with money are emotional.

Ashley Elliot: There's a book. I think it's called Read This If I Die. And it has all of these plans. It's like places you can write, "Oh, I have all of these different bank accounts or money in this place and that place," just to help you plan through those things. So actually, I was talking about it last night. So, it's easy to talk about some of these things and then to feel like life is so busy, swarming by. 

Host 1: You guys have written a book.

Chuck Elliot: Yeah.  

Host 1: It's called I Used to Be. You guys want to talk about this real quick?

Ashley Elliot: Yeah.

Chuck Elliot: Sure.

Ashley Elliot: We wrote that book in 2023, came out, and our heart was to help people understand how our identity shifts. Sometimes when we go through hard times, maybe it is you lost a baby. Maybe it is that you lost a loved one due to death or divorce, could be a job loss, but I used to be something that I'm not anymore. And we kind of mix like the pastoral and the counseling tools and kind of came together to write a really practical book to help people use the book as a guide to help them work through those hard times.

And so, sometimes we get really overwhelmed and feel like we can't go to work. Sometimes we feel like we're mad at God, like, why'd you do this to me? But just to give space for people to process all those feelings in Normalize it instead of stuffing it away, because we tend to kind of go into denial or secrecy or quiet. Like I've just got to put on this front and just go to work and act like I'm fine.

Chuck Elliot: Ashley and I saw the results over and over again of people who did not process their grief. And you people who are listening right now have probably seen a family member or a loved one go through a loss, and they didn't process it. They didn't do some of the work to heal and not that they had to just forget about everything and move on. But when you have those wounds that you don't address, it impacts how likely you are to engage in another relationship, how likely you are to engage with your grandkids, because you didn't process how you lost your wife many years ago.

Of those type of blocks that happened, we saw the results of the unprocessed grief, and it's so much to do with identity because, if I'm to ask one of you guys, tell me about yourself, you would tell about being married or kiddos or where you work and the things you love and the things that you care about. And when you lose one of those things, we can feel like, who am I now? And that's what the book helps coach people through.

Host 1: That's so fascinating because I should probably read this because I feel like I compartmentalize things and I can put it away. And then, on the surface, I feel like I'm strong. I'm fine because I don't feel weak, but it's probably because I've just never processed it.

Ashley Elliot: And we use the term like instead of putting it under a rug to try to put on a shelf. Because putting it under a rug is like, I want to pretend it's not there, but then we trip, we have a trigger or someone says something that bumps into that topic and we don't feel strong anymore. But if we put it on a shelf, like, "Okay, I'm going to go to work. I can be crying on the way to work, wash my face and go on about my day. And that's normal." But I'm not totally saying this isn't who I am, like leaving it on a shelf means this is part of me and this is what it means to be human and it's okay to be a little broken, but also to not be so broken that I won't show up because sometimes it is that people will say, "Okay, I'm calling in. I can't do this because I have to be so strong," but that secrecy or that shoving it under the rug actually can make us weaker.

So as we start to process and communicate through what we're feeling, find out that other people are doing the same things and we are all going through hard times from time to time. And so if we can normalize that a little bit, then we can get through it a little faster. So, use a phrase like neutralizing triggers to perfectly make everything like not painful, but we can give space to it so that it will be a little bit less painful in time.

Host 1: Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast.

Host 2: Yes. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Host 1: You guys were wonderful. You did a really good job.

Chuck Elliot: Oh, thank you. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it.

Host 2: It has been so great getting to know you both and hearing your story and about your book.

Host 1: I agree.

Host 2: We've enjoyed spending time with you guys.

Chuck Elliot: Anything we can do to be helpful.

Host 1: Yeah. So, where can they buy the book?

Chuck Elliot: Yeah, you can go to chuckandashley.com. That's our website, and it's on there, and then anywhere books are sold. So from Amazon Bookstore, Target, wherever.

Host 1: Okay. All right. And it's called I Used to Be. Thanks for listening to Talking Cents. See you next time.

disclaimer 2: This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Heritage Federal Credit Union.