Wife is on board. Well, sort of...

[Jake Thompson]

So my wife is on board with using rental properties as a way for us to achieve financial freedom, and a year ago we bought our first duplex. But I'm having some trouble getting her to understand some of the expenses involved. Specifically, I want to bring on a CPA and start doing some proactive tax planning as we are planning on buying our second property this year and our business is expanding. The problem is, as soon as she hears the cost, her brain shuts off and she just immediately rejects the idea.

At first I thought maybe asking her to listen to one of the BP podcasts on tax planning, or read the book on tax planning. But now I'm thinking maybe if I just had her read rich dad poor dad that would be most helpful. I know that book really helps shift people's mindset.

So, short story long, does anyone have advice on how to go about showing her why we need to be taking on some of these expenses? She is pretty hands off and doesn't really seem to be all that interested in learning about real estate so it's not ideal to have to go to her when I have business decisions. Since we are fairly new and still use our personal funds though it's kind of tough. Maybe in the future I can calculate the yearly cpa fee into my properties so it's coming from the business account instead? 

[Lee Ripma]

Well I'm a woman but I'm logic and numbers based, so we probably have a similar problem. I have a wife now and I'm having a similar issue but I think I realized how to deal with it so I figured I'd share. When I bring up anything related to money and wife brings up risk vaguely and shuts down, she can't rationally engage. What really helped was when I scheduled a time to go over everything with her. Then I sat down and explained what I was doing and showed her the math behind it. I went over it slowly so that she would have time to process it. She's highly intelligent but she hasn't been looking it all the time like I have. She doesn't care about the math, what she cares that I have taken a very long time learning and understanding it. She understands that I'm not just doing something risky and impulsive. And that's what matters! It took me a long time to understand that rational arguments don't work when emotional decisions are being made. It's all about making her FEEL comfortable that you have a good plan for your shared future. She's looking to prevent catastrophe. People have a lot of emotional baggage around money, fear of not having it, fear of losing it. I doubt you'll get her to read rich dad poor dad but you will get her to listen to you. She wants security, so make sure you give it to her. Maybe she wants 20k in a liquid savings account you won't touch. Or maybe she wants to see a 5 year plan. What she wants more than anything is to feel comfortable with what's happening. Once she does she might just let you handle everything! I hope that was helpful in some way and keep us posted on what works!