39-year-old earns 5 times as much as her husband: It’s hard to be ‘the sole person providing for the family’

Annie, 39, and her husband, Emery, 43, earn a healthy $223,200 together.

On paper, they seem to be living well. They own their home as well as two rental properties, have over $236,000 invested and recently traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, to see Taylor Swift, they told self-made millionaire and money expert Ramit Sethi on a recent episode of his “I Will Teach You to be Rich” podcast.

The problem is, Annie, who’s an accountant, brings home $187,200 on her own — over 80% of the household’s earnings and five times what Emery makes working in video production. Their last names were not used.

“The difference in income has been a challenge,” Annie said on the podcast. “It’s definitely been challenging for me knowing that I am the sole person providing for the family, and I really wish that Emery could as well. I know he does it in other ways, but not financially.”

On top of that, Sethi found a deeper issue at play. Annie is an “optimizer,” he said. She wants to optimize everything, from maximizing the credit card points they earn to investing every extra dollar they have to keeping their rental properties, even though they’re adding to the stress. 

“Your actual behavior with money is actually causing you negative ramifications,” Sethi told her. “I just don’t think you’re making the connection.” 

Here’s Sethi’s perspective on their situation and how he suggested they reconfigure.

Sethi encourages every couple that comes on his podcast to know their numbers when it comes to their earning, spending and saving, so they can get an accurate idea of how well they’re doing or whether they need to make changes.

There’s no doubt Annie knew her and Emery’s numbers, but Sethi learned she obsesses about them to an unhealthy extent. For instance, she wants to keep an investment property that has required a lot of costly regular maintenance and doesn’t net the couple a profit, and uses the stock market as a “modified savings account” to try to get more out of the money she puts aside for big purchases.

She puts pressure on Emery as well, and wants his business be more consistent or see him increase his income by getting a regular salaried job.

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On their own, none of these behaviors are particularly problematic. But combined, they’re all contributing to stress in Annie and Emery’s relationship that doesn’t need to be there, Sethi said.

“At a certain point it actually becomes dysfunctional,” Sethi said, because they’re spending more time worrying about what could go wrong in the future than enjoying the life they’ve built. “You are so driven by optimizing everything, you’re going to optimize yourself into total unhappiness.”

Annie revealed that her family history may contribute to fears around money that lead her to over-optimize in an effort to stay in control. Her dad got sick and was unable to enjoy his retirement, which makes her eager to both spend money on fun things now, but also make sure she’s prepared if her health requires her to stop working, she told Sethi.

Annie also realized her income disparity with Emery frustrates her because it’s out of her control.

“I can’t control how much he makes. I just have to let him do his thing,” she said. “I hate the fact that I can’t do anything about it.”

Emery has been trying to get his business off the ground. But having to take time away from his work to do maintenance on their rental properties or care for their children has made it difficult. “Over the [past] few years, every time I tried to get something going, something that looked like momentum, I just felt like I had the rug pulled out from underneath me left and right,” he said.

At the end of the day, Annie has work to do on her relationship with money, she and Sethi agreed. Emery could triple his income next week, but it may never be enough to quell her worries.

As Sethi frequently says on the podcast, “The way that we feel about money is highly uncorrelated to the amount you have in your bank account,” he told them. 

In terms of the couple’s ability to save for the future and still enjoy life today, “you already have it,” Sethi said. “You have $223,000 a year in income. In your area, with your expenses, that is more than enough money. You’re on track to be multi, multi multimillionaires.” 

Check out their full episode here.

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