Guest User

September 10, 2026

The Finances of Marriage

Guest User

September 10, 2026

In this episode, Ben Felix, Dan Bortolotti, and Ben Wilson take a research-driven look at the finances of marriage, from spending personalities and prenuptial agreements to wedding costs, joint accounts, financial infidelity, and household decision-making. The conversation explores how the way couples think about and manage money can affect both financial outcomes and relationship satisfaction.

We unpack the difference between being frugal and being a “tightwad,” why tightwads and spendthrifts may be drawn to each other despite having more conflict later, and how simply understanding your partner’s spending tendencies can improve financial conversations. We also examine the case for prenups, the role of optimism bias in avoiding them, and how couples can use legal agreements to deliberately design their financial arrangements.

The discussion then turns to wedding spending, including the marketing forces behind engagement-ring conventions and research linking higher spending on rings and weddings with greater divorce risk in some samples. Finally, we look at the evidence for managing money jointly, the risks of financial infidelity, and why both partners should be involved in household financial decisions. The central theme throughout is simple: couples tend to be better served when they approach their finances as a team and communicate openly.

Key Points From This Episode:

(0:01:00) Why who you marry can be one of the most consequential financial decisions of your life.

(0:04:24) Why marriage changes both the emotional and legal nature of a couple’s financial relationship.

(0:07:53) Tightwads vs. spendthrifts: the psychology of the “anticipatory pain of paying.”

(0:09:52) Why spending personality has little to do with how much money someone actually spends.

(0:11:34) How understanding your spending tendencies can be useful alongside traditional financial risk questionnaires.

(0:15:42) Why some people struggle to spend money even when they clearly have the financial capacity to do so.

(0:17:09) How upbringing, identity, and social comparison can influence attitudes toward spending.

(0:18:20) Why tightwads and spendthrifts are more likely to marry each other—and why those differences can create conflict later.

(0:21:14) How recognizing different spending tendencies can create healthier conversations and compromises.

(0:23:14) Prenups and marriage contracts: understanding the legal “default” before deciding whether to create your own arrangement.

(0:24:04) Why optimism bias and the negative signaling associated with prenups can make them difficult for couples to discuss.

(0:26:51) Why a prenup may be particularly relevant when partners enter a marriage with substantially different levels of wealth.

(0:29:54) How couples can use a prenuptial agreement to deliberately design financial arrangements around their circumstances and future needs.

(0:31:08) The origins of the “two months’ salary” engagement-ring convention and the marketing of diamonds.

(0:32:54) Research on wedding spending, engagement rings, and divorce risk.

(0:35:55) Why wedding planning can become an early test of how couples handle financial differences.

(0:37:49) Why more wedding guests and having a honeymoon were associated with longer marriages in the study discussed.

(0:38:44) The evidence for managing finances together—and why joint accounts may not be the only way to do it.

(0:42:04) How different spending personalities might influence whether couples prefer joint or separate accounts.

(0:45:10) Why couples should establish clear expectations around significant purchases.

(0:45:31) Financial infidelity: what it means to hide financial behavior you expect your partner would disapprove of.

(0:47:46) Why financial decision-making should involve both partners rather than defaulting to one “financial spouse.”

(0:52:19) Gender norms, financial confidence, and differences in how spouses participate in investment and planning decisions.

(0:54:57) Why involving the less financially engaged spouse can bring different—and valuable—perspectives to household planning.

(0:56:09) The importance of financial continuity if the spouse who manages the finances dies or experiences cognitive decline.

(0:58:21) The common thread across the research: approach household finances as a team and keep communication open.

(0:59:52) The return of the after show, including listener reviews and a discussion of feedback on a recent special episode.

Read The Transcript:

Ben Felix: Welcome to episode 426 of the Rational Reminder Podcast. We are hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, Dan Bortolotti, and Ben Wilson, all of PWL Capital.

Dan Bortolotti: Good to be back with you.

Ben Wilson: Yeah, looking forward to it.

Ben Felix: Good to be back. So we're going to jump right into our main topic here, which is the finances of marriage or the personal finances of marriage, or maybe the interpersonal finances of marriage.

I don't know. There's a bunch of interesting research on this that we'll talk through and then stick around at the end. We will put together a little after show.

Some comments in the Rational Reminder community recently suggested that people miss the chatter that I guess we used to do more of.

Dan Bortolotti: We'll have to do more of it.

Ben Felix: I think so. I think that's the message. Okay. So who you marry....

I'll be interested in your commentary, Dan and Ben, as we go through this, because we are all married people. How long have you guys been married?

Ben Wilson: I'm actually 15 years on Thursday. Anniversary is this week. I'm 32 this year.

Ben Felix: Man. Yeah. Okay. So I've been married 12 years, which I thought was a long time, but definitely interested in your input as we go, even more so. Who you marry is obviously one of the most impactful decisions of your life, both financially and of course, otherwise. But I think a lot of couples let their finances be an afterthought or their financial compatibility be an afterthought.

But the reality is that who you decide to marry and how you structure your finances and make decisions together compounds across every major life decision that you make going forward. I don't think anybody would disagree with this statement. If you mess up the marriage thing, the costs can be pretty devastating, both financially, divorce can be very expensive, but obviously otherwise as well, emotionally and psychologically and all that stuff.

I'm not a marriage counselor or an expert in marriage. You guys are more so than I am with your more years of experience, I guess. But there is a ton of research on this topic, which is what we're going to be speaking to.

We've also got, and again, this is where I'll be interested in your guys' thoughts as we go through this, Dan and Ben. We deal with a lot of clients, a lot of Canadian households and a lot of households are couples. They're married.

And then the other unfortunate thing that we see in our role as financial advisors is people do get divorced. We get a pretty good cross-section of couples and finances just through our professional work. And the last thing I'll say as a setup for the topic is that the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is one of the longest running studies of human happiness, a psychiatrist wrote a book based on those data.

And one of the six factors of a healthy aging, this psychiatrist found was a stable marriage. I think it's something that's really worth getting right and doing well. And there's a bunch of research on how to do that, which is what we're going to talk about. Any comments before I keep going?

Ben Wilson: I think it's a super interesting topic and obviously finances is a part of what you interact with in a marriage. It's usually not a primary consideration, but it's probably at least a secondary consideration when you're in the courting dating phase, you notice things that it may not be the reason you go forward or stop a relationship, but it's definitely something that people notice. And especially if you got together young, it may be hard to recognize what impact they might have over a long term.

So it's important to think about that, especially if you're not at that stage yet, or if you've been burned once through a divorce, finances might have been one of the reasons that led to divorce. And it probably changes your perspective on how to approach a future relationship.

Dan Bortolotti: I think that's it. You know, most people make this decision when they're quite young, unless it's a second marriage, but usually when you are deciding on a partner that you want to spend your life with, you're probably not at the same financial position then that you will be at some point in the future. And it's often difficult to really know what you're getting yourself into on that.

And hopefully, you know, as a couple, you evolve over time in the same way. In other words, you don't become more different and more extreme over time that you kind of learn together, your financial situation changes together at the same pace, and you can both update your expectations along the way.

Ben Felix: Some of the research does speak to that, just the effect that joint finances can have on the relationship that a couple has with money, as opposed to if they have separate finances. And I think some of that's what you mentioned, Dan, like if one person's financial situation is changing and they have separate finances, that can become pretty difficult for a couple to manage together. Just on people changing over time, some of the research that we'll talk about does show that there is a pretty stable characteristic in terms of your propensity to spend, which we'll also talk about.

So marriage is obviously a big commitment. It's a commitment that you make like emotionally, but it also changes the legal nature of your relationship. Like it comes with real legal obligations and liabilities.

Now I know obligations and liabilities don't sound very romantic, but I think that's the reality of marriage. It's as much about love as it is about commitment. And the law tends to support that commitment that you say you're wanting to make.

And so entering into a marriage ends up being this really big financial decision. You're sharing your life with somebody, but you're also sort of incurring these costs if you want to walk away from the marriage in the future. So we're going to walk through what the research says about the finances of marriage across five different questions that shape how our relationships connect to our finances.

Choosing who to marry, as Ben, you mentioned, obviously goes way beyond finances, but I think it's worth understanding what the evidence says about who is compatible long term in terms of their financial behaviors. So this is research we've talked about in the past. We've actually had Scott Rick, one of the coauthors, on the podcast.

I don't remember what episode that was, but this is based on a 2008 paper that conceptualized a scale of spending behavior from tightwads to spendthrifts. And the key difference between those two profiles, those two ends of the spectrum, or the scale, is how they experience what the authors call an "anticipatory pain of paying." So that's an immediate emotional response felt at the moment of purchase rather than a rational calculation about future consequences or payoffs.

The difference is that tightwads feel that pain of spending money too acutely and they spend less than they would ideally like to. That's the key there is that not that they're frugal, which we'll touch on in a second, but they're spending less than they would prefer to be spending. They look at like their ideal version of themselves.

They would be whatever, I don't know, going out to dinner more often or buying things for people or whatever it might be, but they are spending less than that because it hurts them to spend. I will mention the difference between that and being frugal. Frugal is deriving pleasure from saving.

Being a tightwad is incurring pain from spending. And then the other end of the spectrum, spendthrifts, they tend to feel too little anticipatory pain when spending and they end up spending more than they would ideally like to. So the scale is really measured as that gap between your ideal self and where your behavior actually places you.

They do persist over time, like just in terms of can people change over time. There is research in psychology that shows that if you're aware of your own behavioral patterns that can help you to change them. So even if these are persistent traits over time, if you know you're a tightwad or you know you're a spendthrift, I think you're in a better position to moderate that.

So it's something that's worth understanding about yourself, potential partner, I think it's kind of a weird dinner conversation to have, but maybe worthwhile when you're making that decision.

Ben Wilson: Go ask your partner if they're a tightwad or a spendthrift and see how they respond.

Ben Felix: And there's a quiz. We'll post a link to it in the episode notes. Scott Rick and his coauthors, when they wrote this paper back in 2008, I think, they came up with a scale.

How do you measure tightwadism or being a spendthrift? And they come up with this three question scale. So you answer the questions, you get a score and it tells you what your profile is.

I did this when I went on the Diary of a CEO podcast, I did this quiz with Steven as we were recording. And at that time I was unconflicted. I took it again today. And this time I was a tightwad, just barely one point over.

Dan Bortolotti: What's changed?

Ben Felix: I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know what I answered differently, or I think I was right on the edge. I was maybe a 10 last time I took it and I was an 11 this time. So I'm very close to being an unconflicted tightwad.

Ben Wilson: I'm just over the edge. I took it today too. Sort of my wife and we're both at the low end of the unconflicted consumer. I was 12, she was 13 and tightwad is 11 and below.

Dan Bortolotti: So I came in at 16, which is unconflicted, but I guess closer to the high end, which surprised me a little bit. But what's interesting about this whole definition is it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of money you spend in any objective way, right? In other words, you could be very wealthy and be a tightwad and you could be living on the edge of bankruptcy and be a spendthrift.

It has nothing to do with the amount of money that, in other words, from the outside, I don't think people would be able to identify spendthrifts and tightwads because it really comes down to how faithful you think you are being to yourself. The tightwad is someone who deep down wishes they could spend more, but can't bring themselves to, which is not the same thing as somebody who doesn't get any value from spending. So I think that's an important distinction to make.

Ben Wilson: I think that's very important. It's relative to your ability or your means to spend. It's like I've seen clients or other people, friends that have a lot of wealth and they're underspending relative to the plan.

We've gone through with clients and looked at you could spend X amount, multiples more than what they're currently spending. And they're like, I have no idea what I could spend money on and whether they're considered a tightwad or not would differ depending on the perception of whoever's looking at them. Someone from the outside sees a friend spending 10, 12,000 a month, seems like they're a spendthrift, but on their balance sheet, they're spending at way lower capacity of where they could possibly spend versus other clients spend way beyond their means or friends or peers in your circles. And you can notice a difference there.

Ben Felix: There's people who can't figure out what to spend money on. I think that's a separate issue that the tightwad is someone who they wish they could spend more money and they just can't bring themselves to do it. And I think we do see that too.

And I know that's something that some clients get a lot of value from, from the perspective of the service that PWL provides, where if we're able to encourage them and tell them, yes, it's really okay for you to do this. I think that can help reduce some of the pain that they get from spending. Something that we have not done that would be interesting is getting people to take the tightwad/spendthrift scale and then just be able to show them, listen, this is how you are classified as a spender.

Let's think about how to address that. Cause some of the research and psychology does suggest that if you just like name an issue that you're having and have a framework to think about it, that can help you actually move away from the behavior that you're not happy about.

Dan Bortolotti: That's an interesting point, right? Because we spend a lot of time giving risk questionnaires and things like that, which is important. But I think, especially once you get to the drawdown stage, just as important as it is to understand whether you're a conservative, balanced or aggressive investor is what kind of spender you are.

The point is not that you have the means to spend or not. It's about how faithful you are to your own deep desire. A tightwad is not someone who doesn't get a lot of pleasure from spending.

It's someone who deep down wishes they could get more pleasure from spending than they're actually getting. And that's an important distinction. Let's say, for example, you had the capacity to spend 300 grand a year because you were very wealthy, but you were perfectly and utterly content with yourself spending half that.

You're not a tightwad. You're probably an unconflicted consumer. Unless you're spending as much as you possibly can, then you have some sort of tightwad aspect to you.

It really, I think, again, comes down to kind of what you enjoy and what gives you pain. I think for some people, spending money just hurts so much that they don't derive any enjoyment from things that other people would absolutely derive enjoyment from.

Ben Felix: And some of it probably ties into the happiness and positive psychology literature and being able to tell people like, listen, spending money on this stuff tends to make people feel really good. Why don't we try it? I'm going to read through the questions real quick.

We said we're going to link the quiz, which we will do, but it's a podcast. So people are listening, not sitting at their computers, waiting to take a quiz. Some people have trouble limiting their spending.

They often spend money, for example, on clothes, meals, vacations, when they would do better not to. Other people have trouble spending money, perhaps because spending money makes them anxious. They often don't spend money on things they should spend it on.

How well does the first description fit you? That is, do you have trouble limiting your spending? And then there's answers from never to always.

How well does the second description fit you? That is, do you have trouble spending money? And again, from never to always.

The following is a scenario describing the behavior of two shoppers. After reading about each shopper, please answer the question that follows. Person A is accompanying a good friend who is on a shopping spree at a local mall.

When they enter a large department store, person A sees that the store has a one-day only sale where everything is priced 10 to 60% off. Person A realizes they don't need anything, yet can't resist and end up spending almost $100 on stuff. Person B is accompanying a good friend who is on a shopping spree at a local mall.

When they enter a large department store, person B sees that the store has a one-day only sale where everything is priced 10 to 60% off. Person B figures they can get great deals on many items that they need, yet the thought of spending money keeps them from buying stuff. In terms of your own behavior, who are you more similar to, person A or person B?

And then the last question, you just indicate on a scale. So they say, consider which of the following descriptions fits you better. I find it difficult to spend money or I have difficulty controlling my spending.

And you select the number from one to 11, where one is difficult to spend money and 11 is difficulty controlling spending. And then it spits out a score. Pretty simple.

Hopefully people will take it and let us know where they land. My hunch based on my many years of interactions with folks listening to our podcast is that there's going to be a whole lot of tightwads in there, but we'll see.

Ben Wilson: It's interesting because I tend to be a big saver. I thought I was going to be more of a tightwad and ended up in the unconflicted consumer.

Ben Felix: That's healthier. You can be disciplined.

Ben Wilson: I agree.

Ben Felix: And unconflicted.

Ben Wilson: For sure. I would expect that to be a more common answer, but that's just speculation because most people I've talked to are happy with what they're spending, whether it's perceived as spending too much or too little. I have not experienced in conversation as much where they wish they could spend more, but they're not or the opposite.

I don't know if you guys have seen something different in your interactions. I don't recall conversations specifically where it's like, I'm not spending as much money as I wish I could spend.

Ben Felix: I haven't been in front of clients in a long time. I've definitely had conversations where that is the case. This discussion popped up in the Rational Reminder community a week ago or two weeks ago.

And there was a whole discussion about this. It was from our myths and personal finance episode. People were discussing that the saving that you need to save as much as you possibly can when you're young myth.

That one sets people off all the time. Anyway, it led to this discussion about exactly what we're talking about. And there were a whole bunch of people in there telling stories about family members or clients who have been in this exact situation where they had a desire to buy stuff or go on trips or do whatever, but they just couldn't bring themselves to spend the money, even though they knew they had the money there.

One person gave their own story about how they're retired and they're going on a trip. I think it was to Europe. They have the means to do so.

They wanted to upgrade their seats to the lie flat business class seats and their spouse just wouldn't do it. They can afford it. It's no problem, whatever, but they just wouldn't do it because they can't bring themselves to spend the money. I think that's a good example.

Ben Wilson: Yeah. Spending on things that don't feel reasonable based on your upbringing, that's much more common for someone that's gotten to a level of wealth where spending $6,000 on a trip on a flight to Europe, for example, seems crazy if you grew up middle class or lower middle class. But if you're wealthy now, the amount of spending is irrelevant to your current situation. Something like that is much more common I found.

Dan Bortolotti: I think that's a good point. I wonder how much of it relates to how conscious you are of status. And I think it can cut both ways.

I think there are some people who like to use your business class lie flat seats. I think there might be some people who would feel quite proud being in that section of the plane and feeling like I'm signaling to other people how wealthy or how successful I am. And other people who might take the opposite who feel like, I don't know, it feels like showing off to me.

Those people could both have the same means to spend. Again, it comes down to the kind of tightwad/spendthrift inclination is about how your spending relates to your own identity, who you think you are, how you want your spending to appear to other people, if that's important to you at all. And I think the happiest people are the ones who don't care what other people think about what they spend their money on.

I'm not interested in other people judging me favorably or unfavorably on what I spend. I think if that's your attitude, probably quite a bit more content.

Ben Felix: That shows up a ton in the happiness literature. The effects of social comparison are unequivocally horrific for happiness. We're getting a little bit sidetracked here, which is fine, but back to how this relates to marriage.

So we've got these tightwads and we've these spendthrifts. The evidence here gets quite interesting. Tightwads and spendthrifts are more likely to marry each other than to marry a tightwad or another spendthrift.

So if you're a tightwad, you're more likely to marry a spendthrift is what their research showed, at least in the sample that they had studied there. So it's kind of like we hear opposites attract, but I think the findings may be a little bit counterintuitive when you consider that in reality, people do tend to find spouses who share some characteristics, which without seeing the research, you might expect that to include spending tendencies, but the research shows the opposite, which I guess is why it was an interesting finding. They do suggest a couple of reasons for the disconnect or for why opposites attract.

People tend to have poor introspective awareness of what they'll actually find attractive when encountering real potential partners. And when tightwads and spendthrifts encounter similar behaviors to their own in others, it reminds them of that negative behavior quality in themselves. And so the result is what the authors describe as "fatal fiscal attractions," where someone who doesn't share your same shortcomings from a spending perspective is initially exciting and appealing to you for that reason.

But then the reason that this is important is that what the study then goes on to show is that that excitement is transitory. And then later on, tightwads and spendthrifts that marry one another tend to experience more frequent conflicts over money and diminished marital well-being. And the more they differ on the scale, so the more extreme you are on one end or the other, the more likely you are to have marital conflict.

They find that that remains true even when debt and savings in the household are controlled for. That doesn't mean that two people who have different spending profiles will be dissatisfied with their marriage. It also doesn't mean that you should marry someone that's going to mirror your own financial behavior.

But I think it is useful to have that framework for better understanding yourself and your spouse and your respective emotions around spending money. And I do think having that understanding, like Ben, you said you and your wife both did the quiz. My wife and I both did it as well, not today, but a while ago.

And similarly, we're on the same page there. Two people are different. The fact that they're different, what the research shows is not great, but I think understanding where each person is coming from can put you on a better footing.

And then, of course, if you're not married yet and you're kind of dating, this is something that you can either explicitly by telling them to do the quiz or ask them to do the quiz, or you can just try and feel out. But it's a trait worth understanding, I think, in a partner or potential partner.

Ben Wilson: As with many areas of marriage, it opens a dialogue and transparent communication is important. As you've said, whether you're opposite or the same doesn't necessarily set you up for success or failure, but having this information equips you to have conversations in a healthy way, that you can see the different perspectives and plan together. Maybe you make compromises on different big financial decisions, but you can understand the perspective of each other.

Ben Felix: It makes conversations better. It's not about you're irresponsible. It's like, oh, you have a psychological tendency to behave this way.

Dan Bortolotti: Yeah, exactly.

Ben Wilson: In some cases, it could probably actually bring out the best of the other person, like a tightwad. It may help to encourage them to spend more when they want to spend, and the opposite, spendthrifts may end up saving more when they feel bad about overspending. It could end up in a healthy relationship, balancing each other out to be a more positive experience.

Dan Bortolotti: Yeah, you can see that in gift giving, for example. Somebody who is a tightwad would presumably be very reluctant to purchase something, even though deep down they know they'd enjoy it. They just can't justify the expense, but if a spendthrift spouse were to purchase that for them, that probably gives both of them pleasure, because the tightwad is going to enjoy this gift, even if he or she wouldn't have bought it for themselves.

Then the spouse has the pleasure of knowing that they gave a gift that made their partner happy. I can certainly see if the compromises are good ones, that having those kind of opposite personalities can actually result in each one making the other one a little bit better, or a little bit happier, anyway.

Ben Felix: Especially if you know where the other person's coming from. In the gift example, you can imagine a scenario where a real tightwad gets upset about having been given a gift.

Ben Wilson: Especially an expensive gift.

Ben Felix: I can't believe you spent money on this.

Ben Wilson: Yeah.

Dan Bortolotti: It has to be within reason, right? But you're right.

Ben Felix: That's the compromise. That's where if everyone's on the same page, and yeah, it's a super interesting strand of research and practically useful for couples.

The next one is whether you should get a prenuptial agreement, which in Ontario is called a marriage contract. I'm sure it's got different names in other places, but people kind of know what the idea is there. One thing that's important to understand up front with a prenup or a marriage contract is that everyone has one by default when you get married based on the family law set up where you live.

You got to understand what the law says in Ontario or in Quebec, wherever you are as a starting point. That's actually not even unique to marriage. We're kind of focused on marriage here, but that's important to understand.

If you're living with someone, if you have a child with someone, but aren't married, there can still be legal implications on a separation. A prenup or a cohabitation agreement lets you pre-agree on your own set of marriage rules that are different from the standard legal prescription that your province or state or whatever has. Now, that's probably a good thing for most people to do.

You mentioned earlier, Dan, a really good point, I think, on this topic specifically is that a lot of the time people are getting married, they're young and don't have a lot of financial resources, so you wouldn't even think to do this, which makes sense. People on second marriages are probably more likely to get them, but it's something that people should be aware of the implications of and understand whether they should consider getting a prenup, even if they are younger. Why don't people tend to do that?

Engaged couples, and this is based on one paper that found engaged couples accurately estimate the national divorce rate when they're asked, but they estimate their own chances of divorce being much lower. I mean, it's the classic overconfidence, I guess, being exhibited there. That optimism bias creates a real practical risk where couples who underestimate their likelihood of divorce may sign prenups that don't accurately reflect their post-divorce welfare needs, since the agreement was designed without genuine consideration of the scenario that it's meant to govern.

The other thing going on here is that law and economics research suggests that the act of requesting a prenup functions as a negative signal, showing a lack of commitment to the prospective relationship, which makes it less likely for a partner to ask for one in the first place. You have these two things happening. There's the optimism bias, which suppresses uptake, and signaling costs deter having the conversation entirely.

And so you have these structural conditions where prenups are really underused. And when they do exist, they're potentially designed without the seriousness that the document warrants.

Ben Wilson: I think this concept, the way you explained it, that everybody has a default prenup, that was first explained to me and the concept makes sense by Dr. Moira Summers, who's been on previous episodes and I think coming up on an episode in the near future. But she explained it in such a way that kind of made a light bulb go off in my head. Everybody has a default agreement set out by the law.

If you're getting into this, why not create an agreement that's on your terms? But as you've said, there's this negative connotation that if you are thinking about prenup, you are thinking about the possibility of your marriage failing, which in reality, that is true. You're preparing for what happens in the marriage breakdown, which is an awkward conversation.

But if it does happen, it's going to be split as the law says, regardless. So the way Dr. Moira Summers kind of explained this was you have the opportunity to create an agreement that is drafted in a loving way that reflects your own wishes.

Dan Bortolotti: You each have to get independent legal counsel.

Ben Wilson: Yes.

Dan Bortolotti: The environment doesn't appear particularly loving. So I understand the resistance, but of course it makes a lot of sense. And of course, I think we all would agree they're especially important if you're coming into the marriage with very different levels of wealth. Two young people who don't have a lot of financial assets, neither of them own a home.

Is it important to get one? Maybe, maybe not. But certainly if you're coming into the relationship and from very different places in net worth, one stands to be harmed a lot more in a financial sense by a breakup, for sure. Makes sense to do it.

Ben Felix: Yeah, that's the most obvious case.

Ben Wilson: I've got some good examples of that where we've had those discussions where there is an imbalance in net worth. And the way that some clients have approached it is having the large net worth spouse have their net worth kind of vest over time based on a trigger of say years or life events, such as having children or if you were to pass away, maybe you get a much bigger portion, but kind of protects from the short-term marriage breakdown, but benefits for a longer term relationship. If it goes longer, the lower net worth spouse is not penalized. They still get a more representative share of the overall pie.

Ben Felix: So weird to think about. Your point, Dan, is right, but then you talk to people who did get married young and one spouse ends up being very financially successful, doing whatever. If they do end up getting divorced, they are often pretty unhappy. I don't know. It's tough. I don't have one.

I had nothing when we got married and I didn't know I'd have a successful career at all. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I got married.

Dan Bortolotti: And here you are.

Ben Felix: And here I am. If I'm advising someone, should you get a prenup? It's tough to say.

You don't want to say everybody should get a prenup. I think what you said is right, Dan. The most obvious case is if there's an obvious financial imbalance, you almost have to get one.

It's kind of crazy not to. If you're coming in more equally, it's a tougher conversation.

Ben Wilson: Yeah. And it's tough to predict how someone's career might progress. And the question of spouse partner roles, however you play, if one person decides to stay home with the children because they enjoy that or works for your family, are you impairing their ability to earn their own income? Therefore, that should impact how much they get if the marriage does break down. So it gets complex pretty quick. I agree. I'm in the same scenario.

I got married young and we didn't have a prenup. And because of that negative connotation, I have my own personal bias that I probably wouldn't. But same thing, when talking to someone, I would advise them to seriously consider a prenuptial agreement so that they can decide the path that makes sense for them as a couple.

Ben Felix: I think that's where it's interesting is that with this document in place, you can deliberately design your financial arrangements to reflect what makes sense for you. If you're getting married, there is a default based on the law where you live. So you have to know, kind of baseline.

What does that mean? And then if that arrangement does not make sense for you, you can draft your own version of it. And you can get creative, Ben.

Like you mentioned, we've seen some people get pretty creative in terms of how they want to divide assets in a hypothetical separation over time and triggered by different life events. You can do all kinds of stuff if you're doing it yourself. But I think it does have to start with an honest conversation about property and savings and income, future income, and what each person would need to be financially secure if the relationship were to end.

Taking a very cold and rational approach to something that is not a very cold and rational thing, which is I think why it's hard.

Ben Wilson: I think sometimes even having that conversation helps. I've seen people that have gone through the exercise and not formally set up the prenup, but it's helped them conceptualize, okay, something does happen. We've discussed this and I'm okay with the default outcome or not.

Ben Felix: All right. Next one I have is how much should you spend on an engagement ring, wedding, and honeymoon? Following the arc of a marriage, choosing a partner, prenup, and wedding.

There's a common perception that cheaping out on an engagement ring signals a lack of commitment or care from the proposing member of a couple. Whereas prenups act as a negative signal, a bigger ring often acts as a positive signal and an expression of love and affection. There are many drivers of this signaling.

Most notably, I remember learning about this when I was doing my MBA as just like such a crazy marketing case, advertising from jewelry companies or diamond companies in this case, like De Beers, who first pushed the two months salary spending standard on an engagement ring. Ads like that link the price of the ring to the permanence of the marriage. I remember seeing ads, "a diamond is forever," when I was a kid. I haven't seen those in a long time.

Ben Wilson: Brilliant marketing campaigns.

Ben Felix: Yeah. I mean, they created a market, I think, for diamonds, which is why it was such a crazy case.

Dan Bortolotti: Is that pre-tax salary?

Ben Wilson: I think it's gross.

Ben Felix: Didn't look into it.

Dan Bortolotti: I think it's gross too, but it's funny though, eh, how supposed societal conventions come. It's like, it was a diamond company who convinced a bunch of guys that they should spend two months salary on an engagement ring.

Look, whether that's appropriate or not, not for me to say, I just think it's also not for De Beers to say. It's bizarre how that has entered into the consciousness, but good on them.

Ben Felix: People still do it. They still blast money on engagement rings.

Ben Wilson: And honestly, two months seems low on, I've heard like three or six months.

Ben Felix: Inflation.

Dan Bortolotti: Yeah. I certainly know of ones that were more than that. Yeah, for sure.

Ben Felix: That's the diamonds. The interesting thing is it's not limited to the ring. I mean, we all kind of know this. There's a similar perception around the wedding itself. I've seen separate from PWL stuff, just in my personal life, I've seen some wild weddings that I've been invited to or attended.

It's just like, man, it's crazy what people will spend on a wedding. There's a 2021 paper in the Journal of Consumer Policy that found that consumers routinely attach elevated importance to wedding products that allows them to excuse excess wedding spending compared to other categories on the basis that it's a once in a lifetime event that requires once in a lifetime spending. And what that's resulted in is a two-tiered retail market for products.

We've heard about this. CBC has covered this. It's a real thing where wedding items are marked up from their regular non-wedding counterparts.

So think like floral arrangements for a wedding versus a non-wedding event. This begs the big question, which is, is the tendency to spend more on wedding related items benefiting the future of your relationship? Does spending more make for a better wedding?

Or more importantly, does it make for a better marriage? And this is where the findings from this paper are super interesting. So they have survey data from over 3000 married survey participants.

And they find that after controlling for variables like income, demographic, and other relationship factors, that the opposite is true. Higher engagement ring spending was linked to a greater risk of divorce among men. And higher wedding spending was linked to greater risk of divorce among women.

Wedding related debt stress might've been one possible mechanism. Couples who experienced the lowest divorce rates spent less than $1,000 on their wedding, which is just fascinating. Personally, my wedding cost around $300 back in 2013. It's a very small wedding outside in Ottawa. It was awesome. And I'm still married.

Dan Bortolotti: How many guests?

Ben Felix: It was my sister, Tessa, my parents, and my wife.

Dan Bortolotti: There you go.

Ben Felix: And that's it.

Dan Bortolotti: To kind of pull this back to the tightwad/spendthrift continuum. I don't think anybody would argue that the pressure to spend more on, I don't know about rings, but certainly on weddings has increased a lot over the last 10, 15 years, whatever period.

People who are more inclined to be tightwads now have a lot more pressure on them if they want to resist that. And people who are inclined to be spendthrifts kind of have free reign to indulge that now, because you can spend an awful lot on a wedding without kind of judgment that you might have had to endure in years past, or without the kind of judgment you might endure if you spent that money on something other than a wedding. So I think if you have a conflict between a tightwad and a spendthrift partner, you're going to see it clash pretty heavily when you're planning the wedding.

Ben Wilson: Yeah. It'd be a very good early first test. Like if you've got a spendthrift that wants to do a flashy wedding and a tightwad that wants to do it as fiscally responsible as possible, how you handle that discussion will set the tone for the marriage.

Dan Bortolotti: But more importantly, I think the social pressure on that couple is going to be much more difficult to endure for the tightwad.

Ben Wilson: For sure.

Ben Felix: Yeah. Cause it's become such an accepted, normal, expected even thing to do.

Ben Wilson: Exactly.

Ben Felix: I always look back at my wedding. I'm like, yep, glad we did it that way.

Ben Wilson: I did not do my wedding as cheap as you did Ben, but I was pretty close. And going to the engagement ring, I went the sentimental route. I bought a gold ring and I knew my wife had a diamond ring from her grandmother that she wanted to be incorporated.

My wife will tell you a funny story that I went and stole the ring from her parents' house, which is not completely true. I had permission, I knew, but they weren't home. I used the garage code to go grab the ring at the time and then turn it into a beautiful ring for her.

And I wanted to do the traditional thing of asking her parents to have her hand in marriage. And at that point, they like, so you came in and took the ring and.

Ben Felix: That's pretty funny.

Ben Wilson: It's pretty funny to look back on, but then our wedding was not crazy expensive. I think it was maybe 5,000 total, but we got 150 people, like mostly family and some friends. We used as many free options as we had.

We had a free photographer, someone gifted a DJ, we had a friend who made cakes and favors. So we saved money as much as possible. And I don't regret doing it the way we did it.

It may also be a reflection of the time. Like we didn't have much money. We got married relatively young, but I don't regret doing that.

And don't think we missed out. We had a great time and lots of good memories.

Ben Felix: The other counterintuitive finding from this study is that there were two types of wedding spending that predicted longer marriages in this sample. One was having more guests at the wedding and the other was going on a honeymoon in both cases, regardless of the price. It kind of shows that a wedding and honeymoon don't need to be, and I would argue should not be shows of wealth, but they can still be great experiences.

You shouldn't go broke buying a ring and you don't want to max out a credit card on a wedding venue, but there are still ways to do. I mean, having a nice honeymoon and having lots of people you care about at your wedding without having to spend a whole bunch of money, if that's even possible. I don't know, having a whole bunch of people together at a venue. If anyone gets a hint that it's a wedding, it's going to get more expensive.

Ben Wilson: Yeah. Well, I had 150 people at my wedding and did it for 5,000 bucks, had a buffet, no open bar, worked pretty well.

Ben Felix: That's good. This one's one of my favorites, I think, on this topic because I remember when I was early in my financial planning career and I spent a lot of time talking to young couples, this is always one of the first questions I would get asked is how should we structure our finances? Should we have joint accounts?

Should we combine our finances? Should we have separate finances? It seems like this pretty innocuous financial decision, but it can actually have a huge impact on your financial life.

There's tons of potential answers. I mean, I've seen every possible combination of bank accounts that you can think of for a couple, but what tends to work best, the evidence is pretty strong, which is that couples should manage their finances together. Some of the research does suggest that means joint accounts, but some of it suggests it doesn't necessarily have to be.

The main idea is that combining finances has some pretty clear benefits. There's one 2022 meta-analysis across six studies and more than 38,000 participants that finds that couples who fully pooled their finances reported greater relationship satisfaction and were less likely to break up, which held cross-culturally, which is interesting. The 2023 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that joint accounts promoted communal norms, shared goals, and better feelings about managing money as a team, which are all linked to greater relationship and life satisfaction.

Now, interestingly, this is the part that I mentioned that the benefits of combined finances may not even have to come as a consequence of actually combining finances, like using a joint account. Simply thinking about your finances as combined can produce positive results. There's a 2025 paper, Talk About Shared Money, which is by Johanna Peetz, who was actually a guest on this podcast many years ago.

She found that while, yes, the act of pooling finances caused couples to communicate more openly and frequently about money, simply redirecting people's attention toward their existing joint accounts rather than their separate ones was enough to produce a similar effect. I think couples who are thinking about their finances as ours rather than mine and yours tend to talk more and more productively about money, regardless of how the accounts are actually set up. Then the other big benefit, and this, Dan, you alluded to when we first started talking about this topic, the other big benefit of combined finances is that the effect of combining finances seems to make the relationship between wealth and life satisfaction stronger, which is interesting.

The 2022 paper, My Wealth, Your Life Satisfaction, which finds that increases in jointly held wealth led to greater life satisfaction, whereas gains in individually held wealth did not have any significant impact. I think maybe pro-social spending is relevant here. If you think about positive psychology, spending money on other people produces feelings of happiness, whereas spending on yourself doesn't have the same effect.

That could be related to this, although I don't think the research points directly to that mechanism. Yeah, so then practically speaking, do you actually need to combine your finances? I don't know.

In my household, we do everything in a main joint account and that's it. That's where everything happens. The research says it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

I think it's a pretty efficient way to do it though, but the main thing is thinking about finances jointly, even if they aren't physically or whatever electronically joint.

Dan Bortolotti: The joint accounting is going to be really important again if you've got this kind of spendthrift/tightwad dynamic going on. Again, I don't have any research to back this up, but my intuition tells me if the two partners, one was on the tightwad side and one was on the spendthrift side, the tightwad would probably be happier with separate accounts because they feel like they could build a little bit of a fence around kind of their account and if their partner is inclined to spend more freely, then there's at least that separation.

Whereas if both of them were on the contented side or frankly if they were both tightwads or both spendthrifts, the joint account would be much easier. I think it would be difficult to share a joint account with someone who was at a very different part of that spectrum. The closer you are, the more likely the joint account seems to me to be the right way to go. That's tough.

Ben Felix: I think you're right. When you look at what the research on this says, you're less likely to have shared goals. Life satisfaction is decreasing, but it speaks again to just what the first piece of research that we talked about says is that if you are on opposite ends of that tightwad/spendthrift spectrum, it does lead to marital conflict and it does lead to lower marital satisfaction and I think that you're kind of pointing out a practical mechanism.

I agree with you. It probably does make sense to keep accounts separate if you're very different, but that's in itself a problem.

Dan Bortolotti: Many people, it doesn't have to be all the way one side or the other, right? I mean, I certainly know a lot of clients or other couples who've just shared like they have a joint account for their joint expenses and then they each have their own account. People can be very mechanical about how much each has to contribute to the joint account each month, whatever.

You can work that out among yourselves, but for a lot of couples, that compromise makes sense. You know you have mostly shared expenses in the house, but each one feels like, you know what, I want a little bit of money that I can spend myself without you checking my bank statements and depending on the relationship dynamic, I'm sure it can work well also.

Ben Wilson: I agree. I think it comes down again to communication. Like if you agree, okay, you each have a budget of X amount per month to do what you wish with, the tightwad saves most of it, the spendthrift spends, then it's less likely it's going to cause conflict.

If you have agreed on principle, these are the guidelines for how we manage our finances and we'll save this much jointly, then that can work. I find where if people have a joint view on how they manage their money, having additional accounts, not one way that's right or wrong, I think just adds more mental overhead and complexity. Like if you agree that what's ours is ours and if you have to move money from individual account to joint account and switch money all around, just adds more to think about and if it works for you, then that's great, but there's other layers that you need to think about when you're setting up your joint banking.

Ben Felix: I agree on that. It's all about communication. If my wife or I want to spend money on something substantial, we will just have a conversation about it rather than having a budget for stuff that we don't have to ask each other questions about.

Ben Wilson: Yeah, exactly. I've heard of couples that have like a threshold, like anything over $500 or $1,000, we should talk about it first.

Ben Felix: It does start to bleed into another topic that I want to talk about, which is financial infidelity, where I think talking about what works for a couple, if you do something that doesn't work, but you kind of agree to it, but one person doesn't really agree to it, but they say they do, then you end up with financial infidelity, which is not great. The definition of it is engaging in financial behavior you expect your partner would disapprove of and then hiding it. It's actually pretty common in marriage.

There is a recent paper that looks at what happens when one partner is much more prone to it than the other. Couples with that kind of mismatch are more likely to end up with individualized rather than shared financial goals. This also predicts a lower financial well-being and lower relationship satisfaction.

Interestingly, this finding holds up even after accounting for other mismatches between partners like one being a tightwad and the other being a spendthrift.

Dan Bortolotti: That's of course harder to do if you stick to joint accounts. That is potentially one argument for joint credit card, joint bank account, and then you just have this understanding like, look, whatever I buy, my partner is going to see it. I mean, if you want to buy a gift or something, there's ways to do that and keep it a secret, but it'd be pretty hard to hide major spending chronically if you are only working with joint accounts.

It's not to say that it's only appropriate if people don't trust each other. It's just a matter of transparency. Not usually a bad thing.

Ben Wilson: Yeah, if there is transparency, but the case we're talking about here is financial infidelity. So if someone is intentionally trying to hide it, even if you started with a joint account, it could result in a separate hidden account being created and it could cause some serious conflict because it's no longer just finances. You're breaching trust with your partner. So it could get messy pretty quick.

Ben Felix: I kind of think that bird's going to get flushed out, regardless. Like if someone's conducting financial infidelity and you say, all right, we're doing joint accounts, then they're either going to find another way to do it or it's just going to bring the issue to the forefront and you're going to get separated. It's a bigger problem than we can solve with our financial planning guidance.

Ben Wilson: It's for the counselors or the divorce attorneys to deal with.

Ben Felix: Yeah. Whether finances are combined or joined, I think another big question that every couple grapples with, and we see this as financial advisors a lot. I've had some really interesting conversations with a husband and wife who are themselves financial advisors.

When they meet with clients who are also husband and wife couples, the wife tends to sort of gravitate to the female advisor and they find that the conversations are a lot different than if it's either one of them in the room, particularly with respect to the, generally speaking, female in a heterosexual couple. This is also something that shows up in the research. The other big question that households have to grapple with is how much each spouse should be involved in household financial decision-making.

Again, as advisors, we see this all the time. It's very common for there to be a primary financial spouse, whereas the less financial spouse is sometimes not even super engaged in the financial conversation. You can have a lot of conversations that end up being dominated by one spouse and that can be with an advisor, but good financial advisors will try and check that and engage both spouses.

I think if it's just the two people on their own, a lot of decisions can end up being dominated by one spouse. It's not because the concepts are too complicated for the other spouse to understand, but it can be difficult to step back and be objective about your own financial life without defaulting into how things are usually done. If your spouse in either direction just always makes these decisions or does stuff and tells you about it after the fact, then it's kind of hard to step back and say, well, hey, maybe we should approach this decision differently.

I do think that being mediators, not quite the right word, but being somewhat of a financial mediator or neutral third party between couples does end up being a big part of what advisors at firms like PWL Capital do for couple clients. It's just a different conversation when there's a third party who's not part of the relationship in the room.

Research on this does tend to point toward male-dominated influence on important household decisions like asset allocation. A 2026 paper in the Review of Financial Studies shows that the average Australian household incorporates 60% of the husband’s risk tolerance but only 40% of the wife’s. The authors state that this implies a 20-percentage point gap in bargaining power. Half of this gender gap is driven by observable characteristics like income and employment, while the other half can be traced back to a gender effect. The average bargaining power for husbands is 69% in Germany and 61% in the United States, though the three countries are statistically indistinguishable from each other.

What is most surprising here is that discounting a wife's financial input cannot be attributed solely to her lack of knowledge. The 2021 Journal of Finance paper, "Who Wears the Pants?", finds that US households with a financially sophisticated husband are more likely to participate in the stock market than households with a wife of equal financial sophistication — a pattern the author argues is best explained by gender identity norms rather than by differences in competence. A randomized experiment in the paper points to the mechanism: female identity suppresses the wife's willingness to contribute ideas, while male identity makes husbands less receptive to a spouse's input.

A short 2018 conference paper by the same author extends the pattern internationally, finding that households in countries with stronger traditional gender norms are less likely to participate in the stock market, with suggestive evidence that the pattern holds among wealthy households too.

These norms can carry a real financial cost through the stock market participation channel, which is really a shame given what we know about how the sexes actually trade. In Barber and Odean's 2001 study of 35,000 households with brokerage accounts, men traded 45% more than women — consistent with the prediction that overconfidence produces excessive trading. That activity was costly: trading reduced men's net returns by 2.65 percentage points a year, against 1.72 percentage points for women. Note that both groups hurt themselves by trading. Women just did less of it.

Whatever the return consequences, a household that systematically discounts one spouse's preferences is making decisions that only one of the two people actually endorses. That seems worth fixing for its own sake.

Dan Bortolotti: It's always hard to make generalizations and I hesitate to do so, but I will say based on my experience working with client households, client couples mostly, I get a male-female couple. I would say the one who is my primary contact about the planning and investing is the woman as often as it is the man. I'd be shocked if it wasn't really close to 50-50.

To take it a step further, this idea about it affecting stock market exposure is really interesting because I would say in the households where the man is more likely to be our primary contact, we talk more about the portfolio and more about investing. In the households where the woman is primarily our contact, we spend more time talking about the planning. I haven't quantified this in any way, but that's my intuition.

I think that there is some social pressure on men who think that they need to know about markets and investing in a way they're expected to know about sports and cars. I don't know if this sounds like a stereotype, but to me, I think I see a little bit of that because from time to time I will talk to a male client who I get the feeling is kind of bluffing, asking questions that he feels like he thinks he should ask, but it doesn't really feel honest. It feels a bit more performative where you almost never hear that. I never hear that from our female clients. I don't know, take that for what it's worth.

Ben Felix: That shows up in the financial literacy literature where men are more likely to be overconfident. They're more likely to confidently answer a question incorrectly, whereas women are more likely to say that they don't know the answer to the question, even if they actually did. They tend to be underconfident.

Dan Bortolotti: You're correct. I think that as an advisor, it's really important for you to try to be aware of that dynamic and do everything you can to bring both partners into the conversation whenever possible. You'll see it sometimes in a meeting, one spouse will be going on and on.

You have to make the effort and turn to the other one and say, what do you think? Do you agree with that? Where are you coming from?

Because it's something I think that just in general, trying to do a financial plan for a household is going to be a lot easier and a lot more satisfying for them if they both feel some ownership and some engagement in the process.

Ben Wilson: And it leads to such a better balanced conversation. The less dominant spouse tends to have a completely different perspective than the more dominant spouse and just gives different perspectives on planning, it's kids or trips or gifting or all these different things that can come up in financial planning conversations that would not necessarily be top of mind for the opposite spouse. It's good to get both sides, whether you're doing it on your own.

So if you're a DIY investor, even if you are the main partner managing the portfolio, you're going to want to think about the more broad financial planning picture and include your spouse in those decisions and discussions. And I often hear, well, my spouse is just not interested. Don't have to be interested in the details of portfolio management and tax strategies to care about what's important to you.

Your money is a means to do things, to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. Everybody cares about that to some extent. So being part of those conversations is important, even if you're not interested in the money aspect or the technical aspects of the conversation, for sure.

Ben Felix: Continuity too, right? Where if one spouse makes all the decisions and does not involve the other and something happens to the primary financial spouse and they don't have an advisor, that can be very difficult for the spouse who's kind of been in the dark the whole time to carry on after the fact.

Dan Bortolotti: That's definitely a reason why we've had a number of clients come to us quite late in life, and that's a very common reason why. Where the one spouse who's been managing the finances will come to us and say, I'm just concerned about what might happen if I go first. My partner would not be able to manage on their own. And then you feel like the sharks are going to start circling, the bank's going to call you.

Ben Felix: And they will, is the thing.

It's very responsible, I think, for a person to be that humble, but also that forward thinking and not in denial that at some point that could happen. It's usually a good time to reach out.

Ben Felix: Yeah, we definitely do see people reaching out for that reason. There was a really interesting paper out a few years ago now that showed that there can be significant issues with cognitive decline that goes unnoticed, leading to poor financial decisions.

So death is one thing and leaving a less financially sophisticated spouse to figure it out. But cognitive decline is a whole other issue. We've seen people come to us as a hedge against that as well, which I think is another pretty interesting reason.

The other thing I've heard from a ton of people, and I don't really know if this is the best way to do it because like you said, Dan, the sharks will be circling. But I've had a ton of people tell me that I'm not going to become a client, but I've written into my will that if I die, I want you to be the first phone call that my wife makes. I'm always like, I don't know if that's the best time to do it.

Ben Wilson: Maybe not the first phone call, but yeah.

Ben Felix: Interesting comment.

Dan Bortolotti: That's a huge responsibility. I mean, I think any advisor would really take that responsibility very seriously, right? I mean, that's a huge compliment.

Ben Felix: Huge compliment.

Dan Bortolotti: To be told, I trust you with my family's finances when I'm gone. I've heard the same thing. In fact, I know people who have done that for sure.

Ben Felix: We've covered quite a bit here. The questions we talked about draw on different bodies of research with distinct financial implications for couples. I think if we kind of step back and think about all of them, one clear pattern emerges, which is that the couples who are going to set themselves up the best financially and emotionally are the ones who approach finances of marriage as a team and have open communication.

There are multiple ways that can be accomplished based on the stuff that we talked about, the research we talked about. Understanding you and your partner's spending tendencies lets you understand where each of you are coming from, aligning on the legal implications of marriage for your situation and whether that's a prenup or the default through open conversation before the marriage makes a lot of sense. Prioritizing shared experiences like a honeymoon over material displays like a huge rock or lavish wedding.

Taking a joint approach to your finances or at least thinking about them as shared, even if they're not actually set up as joint accounts rather than maintaining separate financial lives or at the extreme, secret financial lives in the case of financial infidelity. Then ensuring that both partners are involved in financial decisions rather than delegating everything to one person, which empirically is often the male spouse, at least based on some of the research that we looked at. Those are all pretty good ways I think to open lines of communication and make sure everybody's on the same page and on board with the household financial strategy. That's it. Any final comments?

Dan Bortolotti: No. Should we go to the after show?

Ben Felix: We have gotten some feedback that people miss the after show. The good old days when Cameron would tell us about the shows he was watching on Netflix.

Dan Bortolotti: We joked that there was six people who stuck around this long.

Ben Felix: Yeah. The six people in the after show. We do have a couple of reviews to read so we can go there.

I do also want to mention while we're here in the after show, we did an episode, a special episode on a Tuesday as opposed to a Thursday with two of the folks from OneDigital. The episode was not well-received. So I just wanted to say acknowledged, we heard the feedback.

We saw the feedback. People were very willing to share their perspectives on how much they disliked that episode and the reasons why. That's kind of all I want to say about it. We saw the comments. We understand. The feedback is well taken.

Dan Bortolotti: We'll move on from there.

Ben Felix: Yeah. A couple of reviews here. I'll do the disclaimer. We have a few reviews from Apple podcast to read. Under SEC regulations we're required to disclose whether a review, which may be interpreted as a testimonial was left by a client, whether any direct or indirect compensation was paid for the review or whether there are any conflicts of interest related to the review. As reviews are generally anonymous, we are unable to identify if the reviewer is a client or disclose any such conflicts of interest. Read the first one, Dan.

Dan Bortolotti: Yeah. So this one is titled best financial show. Disclosure. I'm not affiliated.

This is one of best financial podcasts there is. Applicable for both US and non-US citizens, which is great because most of the podcasts are US citizen biased. The only downside of the podcast is that it makes you go into the Rational Reminder forums, install the deep dive, which is a neverending loop of learning.

Even for people like me, not that savvy and who don't work in finance. Can't wait for the leverage podcast. And this is from V B A E N B 1992 from Israel.

Ben Felix: Pretty cool. The Rational Reminder community is a situation. People can get sucked in there.

Dan Bortolotti: Neverending loop.

Ben Felix: I do love that since we started doing a disclaimer for our reviews, people started adding disclaimers to their own reviews.

Ben Wilson: Okay. Let's do the next one here. Great podcast. Thanks, Ben and team. I've been listening to this podcast for years and look forward to my Thursday commute every week for the new RR episode.

I'd love to see an episode focused on optimal asset allocation and life cycle theory for defined benefit pensioners, of which I imagine there are certainly quite a few in Canada from the public service. PS, just to make this fun, I'll have you know, that your podcast brings me such great comfort. I listened to it while I was getting minor surgery. By Moist Towelette from Canada. It's quite the name.

Dan Bortolotti: Nice.

Ben Felix: That's a very funny name and also a very funny story. Go to the next one. Future investor as a 22 year old mechanical engineering student and massive Excel nerd, this podcast is right up my alley. I transitioned here from the Wealthy Barber and Dave's podcast and the level of data driven nerdy detail you guys provide is unmatched.

Even though I have zero assets to invest yet, every episode gets me incredibly excited to graduate and start my financial journey. You guys make complex financial topics understandable and entertaining. Keep up the amazing work and that's by Gordy from Canada.

Looking forward to the next 400 plus podcasts and that's from E.F. Schuller from the U.S. of A.

Ben Felix: Very nice.

Dan Bortolotti: Hopefully there will be 400 plus more to come.

Ben Felix: I mentioned the Rational Reminder community being a situation and how people can get sucked into it. Looking at the all-time stats for the community in terms of time read, the time people spend reading topics on the community. One person spent three months, three months of their life reading topics.

Dan Bortolotti: Time well spent.

Ben Felix: I hope so. That's the biggest outlier, but there's 67 days, 71 days, 49 days.

Dan Bortolotti: Does it have your stat, Ben?

Ben Felix: 44 days near the top, near the top, but not at the top, but I'm in the probably the top 10% or so, maybe the top 5%.

Dan Bortolotti: Nice.

Ben Felix: You can't actually sort it by days read. I don't know why they don't let you do that.

Dan Bortolotti: Because it would be too alarming.

Ben Felix: Maybe, maybe I can sort it by posts read. That seems like a pretty good proxy. Someone's got 74 days of read time, 62 days. It's a fun place, I guess.

Ben Wilson: It's a lot of time reading.

Ben Felix: It's a lot of time reading.

Dan Bortolotti: Yeah. Hopefully they were doing something else while they were reading. It's like the dishes or cleaning the house or something.

Ben Felix: Yeah. Big commitment. I'm not good at chitchat. I don't know what else you guys got?

Ben Wilson: I mean, when this episode comes out, we've got a cool event that PWL is going to be at.

This comes out on September 10th. We started last year doing a PWL summit. So the whole team's going to come together and we've grown a lot.

So we're going to get a chance to just hang out, learn a lot. Got some cool guest speakers coming in. Excited for that, to hang out, meet some people in person that we've never met.

So we've kind of grown across the country and have people working remotely.

Dan Bortolotti: How big is the group now?

Ben Wilson: I think there's going to be 140 plus people there.

Ben Felix: Pretty crazy. Like you said, Ben, we did it for the first time last year and we've grown a lot.

We became remote when COVID started. We never went back to being in the office. And there's something about getting everybody together.

And we've been so fortunate to attract, interestingly, actually partially at least and partially maybe understating it because of this podcast, we've been able to attract so many incredible employees who are just so bought into the way that we think about the world and think about portfolio management. It really is special getting everybody together in one place.

Ben Wilson: Yeah, we used to do just like a Christmas party. That was our big event of the year. But this has been so much better.

It's a multi-day event and everybody can come to nerd out on the stuff that brought us all together in the first place. Talks on leadership, talks on planning. Then just time to hang out and chat about how we're growing and what's working well, what's not working well.

Ben Felix: Should be good.

Dan Bortolotti: Good stuff.

Ben Felix: All right.

Dan Bortolotti: Guys, good to see you again.

Ben Felix: Yeah, good to see you. Thanks, guys. And thanks, everybody, for listening.

Ben Wilson: Cheers.

Disclaimer:

Portfolio management and brokerage services in Canada are offered exclusively by PWL Capital, Inc. (“PWL Capital”) which is regulated by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). Investment advisory services in the United States of America are offered exclusively by OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC (“OneDigital”). OneDigital and PWL Capital are affiliated entities, and they mostly get on really well with each other. However, each company has financial responsibility for only its own products and services.

Nothing herein constitutes an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Occasionally we tell you not to buy crappy investments in the first place, but that’s not the same thing as telling you to sell them.

This communication is distributed for informational purposes only; the information contained herein has been derived from sources believed to be “truthy,” but not necessarily accurate. We really do try, but we can’t make any guarantees. Even if nothing we say is fundamentally wrong, it might not be the whole story.

Furthermore, nothing herein should be construed as investment, tax or legal advice. Even though we call the podcast “your weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision making,” you should not rely on us when making actual decisions, only hypothetical ones.

Different types of investments and investment strategies have varying degrees of risk and are not suitable for all investors. You should consult with a professional adviser to see how the information contained herein may apply to your individual circumstances. It might not apply at all. Honestly, you can probably ignore most of it.

All market indices discussed are unmanaged, do not incur management fees, and cannot be invested in directly. Which is a shame, because it would be awesome if you could.

All investing involves risk of loss: including loss of money, loss of sleep, loss of hair, and loss of reputation. Nothing herein should be construed as a guarantee of any specific outcome or profit.

Past performance is not indicative of or a guarantee of future results. If it were, it would be much easier to be a Leafs fan.

All statements and opinions presented herein are those of the individual hosts and/or guests, are current only as of this communication’s original publication date. No one should be surprised if they have all since recanted. Neither OneDigital nor PWL Capital has any obligation to provide revised statements and/or opinions in the event of changed circumstances.

Is there an error in the transcript? Let us know! Email us at info@rationalreminder.ca.

Be sure to add the episode number for reference.