➡ They met and began dating during their time at Boston University when they were 18 and 19, respectively, and have been together ever since.
➡ The couple did not arrange a prenuptial agreement before their wedding, but plan to create a postnuptial agreement to clearly define how assets should be divided in case of divorce or death.
➡ They believe that financial independence means being able to change their lives as they wish, such as taking extended breaks or switching careers, without worrying about money.
➡ Neil only spends money on things he genuinely loves and sees as worthy investments. Their combined monthly budget includes significant amounts for savings, investments and discretionary spending.
➡ The couple manages their money wisely, allowing them to invest for the future while still enjoying their lives in the present. They believe it’s possible to “have your cake and eat it too” when financial decisions are smart and balanced.

One of the things that’s really important to us is to make sure that we enjoy our lives today and not wait until we’re 60 to enjoy our lives. Financial independence to us means being able to have the flexibility to make changes in our life, whether that means taking a sabbatical for six months or another career change, just because we can. And that’s what we’re interested in and not having to worry about where the money is coming from.

My name is Jenna Balu. I’m 30 years old and I live in Chicago with my husband, Neil. Together, we earned $227,000 in 2023. I don’t know why everybody’s still living in Chicago, but I feel you stay in Chicago. They said together they make 227. All right, let’s see what this breakdown into. Our income comes from a combination of my work in renewable energy and Neil’s work in tech.

So she. She makes more than him if she makes 125. See how my mental math worked that fast? And that means he make 102. If she makes 225, then that means he makes 102 and she makes more than him. But somehow, some way is making it work. All right, don’t do. Oh, so they actually make way more than that. They only made that in 2022. Okay, so he make 158.

He makes more than her. Okay, so they said that they make 227. So they made 227 in 2022. This year they’re going to make what? She said she made 120, so they’re going to make 278. 278 is what they’re going to make this year. That’s pretty good. Neil and I first met at Boston University when we were 18 years old, but we did not start dating until the following year, when we were 19 years old.

Exact same story of me and my wife, except for we met in high school, but we didn’t start dating until the college years. Exact same story. I’m about to play this, but this is the exact same story. Meet younger, meet younger. Meet younger. And do not walk away. Build it together. Meet younger, meet younger, meet younger. I cannot say this and stress this enough for your kids. Tell them to stick with and don’t feel like it’s something out there.

It’s okay to not be experienced. It’s okay to not go and slut it out. It’s okay to build it together. Shooting in the gym together, having each other’s back, pushing each other, growing together, meet younger, stay together, stay together. Do not continue to think that it’s something better out here. You don’t have to go and experience your whole twenty s and then go and get married when you’re 30.

If you’re a woman and all of that, meet younger and marry your best friend. Okay? Rest is kind of history. We’ve been together ever since. Neil and I did not do a prenup before we got married, but we’re planning to do a postnup. One of the reasons for this is, I think we both had this misconception that a prenup or a postnup was only for if one person and the couple had a huge difference in their assets versus the other.

And typically that’s been the male that has the large number of assets versus female. But in my research and education, I actually found out that the power of a prenup or a postnup is actually in how the assets get split. If you were to get divorced or someone dies, for us, it’s really important to make sure that we are set up well, if something like that were ever to occur, shout out to the ladies, that’s down for the prenup.

And more importantly, shout out to the ladies, that’s down for the postnuptial agreement. This is normal in other cultures. The only time that you see this happen in this western culture. But in other cultures, it is normal by default to get a prenuptial. And then sometimes a postnuptial agreement, basically it irons out and makes sure that there’s a clear distinction between by what’s going to happen if anything was to ever happen.

That’s all a prenuptial agreement is. A lot of people have made it more of a selfish thing because they are in it for the wrong reasons. But a prenuptial or a postnuptial agreement is basically just a way for you to be able to be clear about what’s going to happen if anything happens, so that you can then focus more on the things that you actually enjoy about each other.

That’s all it is. So one of the things that really surprised me about Neil’s spending habits was that he really only spent on the things that he genuinely loved and would make investments into those items. All right. Let me break this down. Transportation is $80, which means that either they already own cars or they use some combination of only one car and plus public transportation. Or the fact that they may only own one car and they don’t have any car note.

But because they both are remote workers, they only have to pay $80 a month in transportation costs, which is probably just insurance. Gym membership, which obviously she’s not using, but we’re not going to go there. Insurance, I’m assuming that’s associated with health care coverage or whatever that comes out of their paychecks. Phone, $1,300 a month. I have no idea why your phone bill is that high, unless you finance in a phone or whatever.

I do not understand why. Phone is $1,300 a month. Food, $1,400 a month between the two of them. Obviously, they’re spending more time at the grocery store and cooking and eating out than they are going to the gym. Neither here nor there. Travel, $1,800 a month. I think that that makes sense. Discretionary. I don’t know why you spending $3,100 a month on discretionary. What could you be spending $3,100 a month on discretionary? But because they make so much money, I don’t think that it really matters.

Renting, utilities, $3,500 a month. They probably got a dope apartment over in Chicago, so I’m with that. And savings and investments is $7,200 a month. It looks like a really dope budget. Basically, what this budget details outside of the gym and the food and the phone bill, what this budget basically shows you is that you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can invest in your future, you can make smart decisions financially, but you can also enjoy life, which is, I guess one of the reasons why they got discretionary, that’s shopping, travel or travel is separately.

So basically discretionary is about $5,000 a month. Right. They set aside $5,000 a month to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, and then the rest of it goes to lifestyle and then savings and investments. I don’t have any problem with this budget. As long as they’re not net worth negative. I have no problem with this budget whatsoever. This looks like a really good budget items.

Whereas for me, I think I still trying to understand that food thing, I mean, a phone thing. Also at the time was understanding the importance of really spending on the things that you love and not really paying attention to spending money on the things that don’t bring you joy and happiness, something that Neil was able to bring to our relationship as we thought about how we wanted to create spending habits together.

When Neil and I moved in together, we both started tracking our expenses together. Also opened up a shared credit card for all of our household expenses. But we still kind of split all of our expenses 50 50. What you can be in a healthy relationship and be going 50 50? What you can be with a Woman that makes $120,000 a year, and she’s willing to go 50 50? What they willing to split expenses with? A shared credit card.

Wow. So you’re telling me that this can work? I know plenty of women from other cultures and a couple from that are black women that do the same thing, and they are in a great space. They are in a great space. I know plenty of women that are in other cultures that have high power jobs, that have no problem with splitting bills going straight down the middle, and they’re able to turn off their masculinity when they get home.

In order to make sure that they have a great household, they built the net worth of almost $900,000, and they are having no problem whatsoever. They both look really happy, net worth positive, and nobody is having an issue. But we still having these dudes simply out to you all, telling you all that, listen, 50 50. I’ll play 100%. Her money is hers, and my money goes. Our money.

Listen, it can work. It works. It works. All right, let’s continue. Wasn’t until we got engaged in 2021 that we started to think about how do we want to combine our finances moving forward. We’re going to get married. What does that look like? And so both of us went through kind of a financial health education period where we were trying to figure out, what do we want our finances to do for us? What are our goals in life together? Where do we want our money to take us in the future.

It’s not until this year, actually, that we started working with a financial planner to help us realize those goals. You. One of the biggest categories of spending is usually your rent or mortgage. Think, like, the number on the Internet right now is to spend, like, 30% of your income, and I think that number is, frankly, too high. I think we try to keep our rent or our housing expense between, like, 15 and 20%, because that’s a number we just feel more comfortable with.

As of now, Neil and I are very comfortable renting because we like to have the flexibility to move wherever we want to live. And this feeds into exactly what she was describing as far as lifestyle some people don’t want to be tight most of the time. Especially even if you put 20% down and you avoid PMI and you finance a house and you get it at 6% or whatever.

When you take in a true cost of owning a home, unless you live in it for the next ten to 15 years at least, you’re not going to be net positive. As far as the investment. You looking at a home as a long term investment, you’re not. You need to look at homes. Depending on where you at in your financial lifestyle, as a shelter, that’s it. It’s shelter.

It’s a place to keep a roof over your head. It’s a place to make you comfortable. And more importantly, it’s supposed to feed into the lifestyle that you want. Not a lot of people are going to die empty. They’re going to die wishing that they really lived and experienced life and enjoyed life. And that’s not going to be determined by the fact that you just stayed out in the sticks in a boondocks and because you wanted to continue to own a home and that was the only place that you could afford to get one at, you’re going to have to tailor your lifestyle based off of your life goals and circumstances.

And that’s an exercise. A lot of times that I do with people that I coach, but neither here nor there. Make sure you all tap into the Patreon link is in the description. But a lot of people don’t truly understand that. You don’t have to be relegated to any one place. And you’re going to change and evolve, even with your needs and your wants throughout your lifetime, and not have to worry about the upkeep and management of a home.

I think we’d be interested in owning a home, perhaps as like a rental property or an investment piece. But what up, Kenya? We have no plans to purchase a home. But of course that could change as our life changes in the future. Outside of rent, our three biggest spending categories are groceries, dining and travel. We absolutely love food. We’re big foodies and we love to travel and experience new cultures and really beautiful spots around the world.

I think they’re also expenses that bring us the most joy. That’s dope. She turned it into a flatback. She probably at one point had a fatty, now she turned it into a flatback, though. I don’t need to see all of that anyway. So it looks like that they live in a blissful lifestyle. I don’t see anything wrong with their budget. I like the fact that they have a prenup or a postnuptial agreement, or they get in a postnuptial agreement.

I also like the fact that they allocate the majority of their monies over to investing, and then they’re able to do what they want to do. So they have a combination of both. I just don’t understand that. Well, I’m assuming that the phone bill is that somebody must have bought a new phone. Maybe that’s a part of the budget. A, but I don’t understand that. Well, I’m not going to get into that, but it looks like that they got a really healthy budget, and so I rock with that.

I don’t have no problem with that. .