Should Couples Combine Finances? How to Build Wealth Without Dividing Your Marriage | Durelle & Samantha Bailey

0:00Dorel, you said love isn't enough. Yeah. Close. Samantha, when you heard that, how did you feel? I like it. I like it. How did you, I like it. Your husband say love isn't enough. I agree. I think after being married for nine years, I think we've learned over time, then it's not enough. Wow. So I got to ask this question. Dorel, what is enough that? Love isn't enough and building wealth and being a productive and effective couple, what is enough then? Yeah. I think you have to understand that in order to sustain and steward a marriage in the right way, over time, you learn that it's not about feelings. It's not about emotions. It's not even just about being present. It goes far beyond that. It goes to intentionality, in your finances, in your planning, in communicating, right?

1:07There's a lot of self-work involved. I talk about it all the time. Samantha and I come from two very different backgrounds. She comes from a stable home. I come from a very unstable home in every sense of the word. So there was a lot of learning that I had to do that required me to go beyond love. I had to learn how to communicate effectively. I had to learn how to tend to her emotions the right way. I had to learn how to lead my household and that meant understanding how to manage finances. That meant understanding how to steward our gifts and important to her and lead the house in the right way. So love alone is not enough, bro. You have to go far beyond that in order to reach success in marriage. I heard that I was like, oh, he's going to get in trouble. So it's a meeting. I'm like, what? Love, love. But it's like, I totally do understand that when it comes to specifically, I would say wealth building. When it comes to you all are very known for helping couples get on the same plan and strategizing

2:12together. Does love enter into that conversation? Like, y'all got to have hard conversations. So I'm curious, Samantha, do you feel less loved when D'Rale has to be like, oh, I'm like, baby, no, we can't do this. What we got to do is like, how do you feel as a woman with your emotions? Not saying it's all our emotional, but a part of you all are more intuned emotionally. How do you set aside that for the ultimate vision of wealth building and just how got a daughter coming? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, congrats, by the way. Thank you. I'm thinking, don't. Like, this, my sister got a whole human being in her belly. She's baking it up right now. Socks even me. I'm like, I'm really doing this. That's crazy, bro. Yeah. God is good, man. Oh, baby. Yeah. Okay, Anthony said what's up, but like, how, what would you say to a woman who hears this and is okay, wait, especially to that single woman or what about to that married woman

3:16who struggles with this little bit? Because you all have accomplished a lot. You know what will work, right? You always able to come up with a strategy to where you was able to walk away from your job. Yeah. And you all have built a business together, building another business together, just started another business that we won't say today, but these people got like a whole another situation. They're about to announce. So how do you separate love, the romantic side of relationship to the business side of the relationship as a woman? I think that when we're doing our planning, when we're talking business, that's really where the respect piece comes in. And I think that's where a lot of people get caught up. And it's funny. I was thinking this yesterday just when Daral was talking, I was like, I just respect him so much that if I have an idea and he doesn't think it's a good idea, we talk about it and I hear him out, but I trust and respect him enough that if he doesn't think it's a good idea, I'm going to go with what he says. There might be some back of force.

4:18I really try to convince him. But at the end of the day, I trust that he's going to listen to me and he wants me to be happy. So at the end of the day, if it's not something we're aligned on and that we can both get on the same page, you out, then I respect that. And I think that that respect is always present, even sometimes when you go through seasons where the love fluctuates. Wow. The love fluctuates in relationships. Oh yeah. Oh, jeez. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Did it. It's like. Oh yeah. Oh man. What would you say to other men, Daral, who are watching this show and they want to build wealth with their spouse? I think sometimes men, we could just be like, no, we could just be straight to the point. Nine years of marriage. But it's something that you've learned that has helped you get some math on board moving forward.

5:19I think the first thing is you have to, this is non-negotiable, you have to have a vision. That's the first thing. Where's the foremost? Because I think a lot of us get it twisted is that we know that we are called to be leaders in the household and we know that we are expected to be the quote-on-quote head. But that comes with a responsibility. That responsibility has to be backed by a vision. And so when it comes to Samantha and I, I've learned that the vision can't just be, hey, I just want to be rich so that we can just go and do what we want to do. The vision has to encompass what is our legacy. What do we value the most? I need to know what she values the most. When I got with Samantha, one of the things that she told me is, hey, I grew up traveling the world, I grew up learning about different cultures and being immersed into different cities because my father was in the military. I understand that that's a part of her values. Okay, well, leading my family, that needs to be a part of my vision for us.

6:20And so understanding that, okay, cool. She wants to travel. She wants to enjoy life. I also want to do those things. Now, if that is a part of vision, what does it take to reach that vision? Now we can start getting technical. Now we can start looking at, because a lot of people say, well, I want to be a part of the rich. I want to have a lot of money. And that, most times, comes from why I didn't have a lot of money growing up. And so I just want to make sure I have a lot of money. If you don't have a vision, you won't know how to steward the money that you want to make, right? And when you have a vision and then a plan, and now you have the money coming in, now you can steward it appropriately. And so I think for the husband who is looking to lead his family, it starts with a vision that vision is not just what you want. That vision is inclusive of your wife's vision for her life as well. And then you mesh those together and you grow from there. And so it has to start with a vision. So now that's a single man, what I heard you tell me is, when I'm blessed to find my

7:21wife, ask her what her vision is. Absolutely. Ask her her upbringing, because Samantha traveled. Since the time I've known you all has been about a year, y'all have been out of country at least four or five times. Oh, dude. If it wasn't for my wife, we would be in the DMV 364 days out of the year. I was there. Yo, he's more at the end. He traveled just as much. Hey, look, this is Japan. Dude, that's right. That's right, man. Oh, the place is pretty wide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been all over. Oh, dude, man. Listen, my wife will make sure this year alone, we done been on a plane at least two, three times a month. Yeah, yeah. I think in June. Y'all went on a plane next week. Exactly. And we just got off one other day. Okay. My wife wants to get out and move, and I love it, though. Yeah. I love it because it is what makes us happy. Yes.

8:21You know what I mean? And there's a way to achieve what makes you happy. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? By planning it out, by being intentional. And so, you know, she understands that my vision is making sure that our family is squared away financially for life. That. And beyond that. Whenever I'm going, I want to make sure that I'm planning seeds. Yeah. So, there's a tree that provides shades to my grandchildren. That's it. And their children and their children. And she knows that. Yeah. And so, we meet. You know, a lot of people think that, you know, you need to have the same expectations and visions to be successful as a couple. That's not true. That's not true. She didn't come into this like, oh, I want to save. I want to invest. I want to be, you know, she went thinking that she was thinking like, I want to, I always say this, she came in like Jesus. Jesus came that we may have life and life more abundantly. Samantha's like, I want life and life more abundantly. Okay. You know what I'm saying? And so, you know, but we got on the same page as far as what we both wanted. Yeah.

9:22Now, it's my responsibility as a leader to then strategize, okay, how do we get here? Yeah. How do we leverage our strengths to get here? Right? I think those conversations has led us to at 31 years old, next week, I'll be 32 and two weeks, she'll be 32 as well, to her being retired, to me being able to walk away from the military and be an entrepreneur full of time, to us both having six figures saved and invested, you know, to us never having to worry about, you know, I'm looking at building, you know, this I'm looking at building a home studio, we have money put aside for that. I can go ahead and grab that, you know, but also, like you said, we just can't do that. We can't bring back from Japan. We have money put aside for that. It's because it's an alignment with the vision. That's so good. And there's a lot more that goes into that. There's work. There's sacrifice there because I know social media gives folks this this perspective that okay, as long as I have vision and I strategize and I work hard and I'm in alignment with my spouse, then I'm good.

10:23But the truth is everybody's timeline is different. That's why I tell folks, your lane is good enough, but you have to stoward your lane the right way in order to get what guy has for you and you. Listen family, AI is not the future. It is honestly right now. You see, if you're still trying to figure out how to get ahead, but you're stuck trading time for money, you're already behind. That's why I really want you to check out the AI Automation Bootcamp from my friends over at Careeras. You see, this isn't just another tech course. This is a step-by-step hands-on program that teaches you how to use AI to automate real business tasks, no coding required. You'll learn that exact skills companies are desperate to hire for and you'll build a portfolio that gets you paid. And I'm not talking about average paid. I'm talking about like 90,000 to 140,000 dollars a year or side income you can run from home. That is absolutely amazing. You don't have to guess what to do next. They walk you through every step of the way.

11:23Here's what I love. You get a real career coach until you land, let's say your first job or you launch that business. Listen, if you want to stop watching AI pass you by and start using it to build wealth, go to AnthonyOneal.com for a sash AI automation and get started to date. Again, that is AnthonyOneal.com for a sash AI automation. Please don't get left behind family. Go check it out and I promise you. Thank you. Thank you. This is good. I see why she respects you though. I'm crept in from Rome Samantha. She respects you because you gave her what she still desired. And so I was like, well, why would I disrespect the man or not listen to the man who I told them what I desire? He may not be giving me everything, but the important things are there. And so I can then submit to the vision of our family, to where I may get a no here today, but then I'm going to get a yes on the things that are really mad at me.

12:26And I think that's why y'all are extremely successful, man. And I wanted to bring y'all back on. I want to bring y'all on like at least quarterly because I think with me being a single man, I can't speak to the relationships out of things. And I want to see more black couples, young black couples winning in their marriage, but then also winning in their marriage financially. Yeah. Because think about it. Y'all have a daughter coming in. Oh man. And it's like, man, that's another human being. So another mountain needs to be fed. Another body needs to be closed. And you said something that is brilliant, man. You said, I want to build trees that provide shade. You didn't say I want to build trees that provides branches. Shade is covering. That's covering, bro. That's kind of like that's covering the past. The man said, oh, I can reach out. Oh, come on. Come on. Come on.

13:26Come on. How many 32 year olds are thinking about providing covering long term for their people? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And you said something about social media. And Samantha wants you to talk about it. Because I brought some questions for this. Social media is teaching. And y'all situation is different because y'all got married in your 20s. But let's say Samantha, you're super educated. You got a master's degree, right? Crazy. And you got your master's. Crazy. So but let's say y'all met today. Okay. 32 successful. You live in DC. You make in six figures. You 32, you're successful. You make in six figures. Social media is teaching our ladies to protect themselves before they even go into the marriage. Yeah. Right? Have your own, save your own that he doesn't get access to. Yeah. You all created opposite. But if you were getting married today, if you met the rail today, right?

14:30You got your own bad use and successful. The guys aligned up, but you chose him. Yeah. Are you believing that same method that social media is teaching to protect yourself, have your own money that the rail can't even touch? I think if I met Daryl today, I would have the same mindset, but it would take more time. Ooh. I think that we were so young that everything we built was together. So it's easy for me to give my friends a vice and say, you know, merger bank account, do this, do that. You know, trusting with the vision, but when you have the time to build your own vision, then you want to protect that and you want to make sure you're getting into a relationship, potentially a marriage with somebody who's going to be able to build that with you. Yeah. But for me, I think in order to have a successful relationship, at some point, you have to make that decision. I understand that for women who have already built something of their own, it might take more time because you have to build more trust. I think the goal would still be to get to that point with him.

15:30What do you think is the biggest fear when you talk to your friends? You even have a sister that just recently moved here who's super successful, right? Doctor, she's a whole doctor, right? So she, she's making just one set of six biggest. She up there. She got a few. Yeah, yeah. Up there. Like, if you're just in a room with your girls without saying her names and your sister's in there, your sister's in there and you have a lot of successful friends. I've met your late Lord Jesus. What does that conversation look like? And with you being the one that's married, right, to a successful man, how are you encouraging them today in 2026? Like, what are they saying to you? Like, no, I can't. Is it that they're fearful of us? Are they fearful of divorce? What is the biggest fear for that successful single woman? Well, I think marriageability is the problem. Marriageability? Yeah.

16:31I read this book. It's called The Two Parent Privilege. Okay. It is an amazing book. Yeah. But it talks about, especially with black men, how marriageability has decreased, how men used to be, you know, women weren't necessarily becoming as educated as they are now. Parks. And the providers of the family, while the woman was able to be at home and nurture, but now that women are becoming more educated, they're making more money, they have more on their own. It impacts the marriageability of men because what women once looked for in a man has completely shifted now. Pazzy. If a woman is making, you know, six figures, it's going to be hard for her to go for a man that might be, that's not making that. But you have so many things that have contributed to that. You have, you know, trade jobs from trades are no longer in the country anymore. So there's just a whole conversation, but between the girls, that's the issue is it's just hard to find somebody who's at least at their level. We're doing better than them.

17:31So I think my advice to them always is we put so much emphasis on how much the man is making and how successful he is. That a lot of the other things just kind of get brushed off to the side. And I think that a lot of times for women, when you find a good man that has potential, wow, yeah, you can build with him. And I think you can pour into him and help him reach that level. He doesn't necessarily have to be there today. He got to be somewhere though. I'll just buy this for you. I ain't let my daughter do it. I ain't let my daughter do it. You better be out here. Just build him in. You got to be somewhere, especially your 30s for him. You might find a man that makes the amount of money that you want and it is as successful as you want him to be. But is he loyal to you? Is he somebody you can trust? Is he someone you're excited to come home to every day? Someone you actually want to wake up to every morning. Right. So I think those things need a little bit more emphasis for women because a lot of times

18:36men just need somebody to kind of help pour into them to get them where they want to be. If I was in the room and I heard that, I think I was like 50, 50. I think 50% of it is right, marriage, baby. Yeah. I'm a recent one viral online because I said, brothers, if you're complaining about lack of money, if you're complaining about, I don't have the money to pay bills, but then you come home and you can play Xbox. You can play a PlayStation for a couple hours a day. And then in the same week you complain about making money. Your priorities are off. That you have to set that PlayStation and Xbox as a matter of fact, throw it away. Get on your game. Because if my niece comes back and sees, comes to me and says, okay, my boyfriend played

19:41a PlayStation all day on day and we don't have enough money to pay the bills. I'm going to have a problem with that. That's right. And the brothers, when I was going through all the comments, thousands of comments. Do you know the only people who tapped me broke with a man? That's crazy work. The ladies are like, speed. The brothers are like, no, that's my way of escaping. No, man, that's my way of escaping the world. And I'm like, bro, that's the problem. You need to be in the world working. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I'm curious. You got a daughter on the way. Do you know the state of men today? There are a lot of good men out there. I would say, Anthony O'Neill is just getting to the point that didn't write the last, I would say five years of, well, I say three years of being healed from issues that I didn't know was there. Yeah. Right? No. Always made the money.

20:42But I didn't have the things that you say we need to focus on because I was healing. From things I didn't even know you'd be healed from. And so now, in this season of life, I'm like, okay, I see things differently. What would you tell the brothers of what they need to do to get marriage ready? So that way, her friends are not saying there's none out there. What is it that we got to do specifically as black men to get there? I love that question. If I was single right now and I had met Samantha and I'm trying to figure this out, what I would do. And I was talking to a young man at the Rec Center, like a couple weeks ago, I go to every now and then play basketball. I said, I'm 20, 26 year old, young man. And I asked him, I said, what you got going for yourself? And he was like, well, you know, I'm just working right now. I said, okay, what is, what does 30 look like for you? Because it's four years out. He said, I don't know yet. And so I said, I said, well, have you started thinking about, you know, how are you going to make money?

21:42How are you going to be able to provide for a family one day, different things like that? And, you know, he's just like, well, not really. I'm trying to figure it out. So I said, why don't you think about joining the Air Force? Just to give him something that he can strategically do, that can set him up. And his first question to me was, why are there cute girls there? Like, are there, you know? And that was really concerning for me. Because I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, brother, you know, handsome guy, about six foot, you know, got potential. But his mindset is worried about the women that he doesn't, he's not even prepared to have. And so I would say the first thing that I would be doing as a whatever you are, whether you're 20s, 30s, 40s, whatever, I would be trying to strategize on how I am going to earn an income. That's the first thing I would be doing. The very first thing, I was like, because you can be the sweetest guy, you be the nicest

22:43guy, you can be, have emotional intelligence. You got, there is not a woman that I know. And I know a lot of them because she got a lot of friends. That is going to go after the nice guy just because he's nice. You have to be able to provide. So that's the first thing I would say. It goes back to what you said, loving enough, loving enough, nice. And the woman that was so good. Sweet, but that didn't. You know, listen, you can be handsome. Handsome. But they're going to get over that real quick when they see you in their plant NBA 2K 27. You know, it's going to, you're going to come real ugly, real fast, right? And so the first thing I would say is you need to be strategizing. Okay, how do I, how do I sit down and figure out what effort can I put in that's going to get me a reward and is this reward scalable? You need to rack and stack some different opportunities. Okay, and think to yourself, am I going to be able to make enough at this job or do I need to start thinking about how I can invest in myself so I can get a raise or I can go get another job that I can sustain the family with? So that's the first thing is strategically thinking about how I can earn an income.

23:44The next thing I would be doing is I would be doing what you just said. I'll be making sure that the self, the parts of myself that I know for a fact that I've been ignoring, that's a fat anger issues, the depression, the alcohol, whatever it is that I've been ignoring, I need to go get that figured out. I need to get me around me some good men. I need to get around some, some healthy men, some married men. I need to look at my environment and say, okay, who do I need to do that? I need to be around so I get pointing the right direction to start fixing and working on me, right? So get my income, get myself together and this is the most important part. But the reason I didn't say this first is because we are notorious for talking about how we going to pray something away. But this is the most important part. You need to get a relationship with the father. You need to get a relationship with God. And I don't mean just go to church. I don't mean to, I love what you said the other day. I called you the other day, you was like, bro, I just left prayer group. I was like, see, this is God, I thank you for attaching me to the type of men that go

24:47to prayer group. We're not talking about, I just left church on Sunday. I just left prayer group. When I hear that, I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. And so we can't, the Bible says faith without works is dead. So I just gave you the work aspect. Now we gotta make sure it's coming from faith. And I promise you, when you're in line with God, man, he'll send you to write, woman, no send you your Christina Million from love, don't call her thing. Wow. It's the Christina Million for me. Lord Jesus, who's coming? Hey, man, I agree with that. I agree with that. I would definitely say within the last year, 12 months, I've really, really, really been attaching myself to married men, more so of single men, to learn attributes of a husband and a father. Because I have the attributes of success and wealth. Right? I have that. But I didn't have the attributes and the things that require a good healthy husband and a good healthy father. And I've learned so much from you and Samantha from my boy Courtney and Ronnie, who just

25:52recently got married from my closest friend, Stephen and Zyme. And I'm able to really dive deep into with him. And then from my parents. I don't, I can't respect the, well, I'm going to be quiet. I'm just saying a relationship show. Let me just get through that. Not a lot of people want to know, bro. Let me be quiet. Because the reason why I want y'all on the show is because I think single people have dominated their relationships. Yeah. And it's almost like broke people are the loudest people in the money space. Wow. Wow. And it's like for me, I'm like, you know, Arbra, they taught to y'all nine years, even on y'all, y'all gonna meet y'all have season that I've never experienced. Right. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna bring them in because I think y'all are the ideal couple that a lot of people want. Men want to be the leader. Men want a woman that's going to submit to them. Men want to feel like, yo, my wife rocks and trust me no matter what.

26:57You got that in Samantha. A lot of ladies who are smart and educated, they really don't want to work like that. Or they want to do what they want to do. But they still want to do the things that they want. Yeah, that's right. Samantha got that. Right. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, we need more examples of this of how do we have love and how do we have money. Yeah. And you all talk about this on y'all show the Bailey podcast. Yeah, the Bailey way. The Bailey way, right? Real quick, I want y'all to talk about the Bailey way and I got like formal questions. Okay. What is the Bailey way and why should they be watching the show? You and I. I think to the point you made, we recognized that there's a lot of discourse online about relationships. And we were getting frustrated within. So we were like the conversation around relationships, especially black marriage and black relationships needs a healthier voice. And so we talk about everything from marriage to finances, life, now parenthood, even some of the tough times that we've had because we talk a lot about too about we've just kind

28:01of started building our presence online in the last two, three years because before that we were in no place to actually be online and show up authentically. We've had to put in a lot of work into our relationship to be in a place to be able to actually speak about relationships in a healthy way. That's what the podcast is about. Yeah. I think it's important to provide context, you know, because oftentimes people will see the highlight reel of things and they sort of, you know, either play the comparison game as to why I'm not there yet or whatever case may be or they may say it's performative or whatever the reason is, I think it's just important that we give insight onto what it took to get here. That's why I will quickly talk about my upbringing. We'll talk about hers, we'll talk about our early days in our marriage and what that looked like and how there was a point in time where we had phases where we had a lot of resentment built up toward each other. The thing is we want to take what people are saying is abnormal and show them that any

29:05person has been married for this amount of time, these things are normal. You don't just walk away when things get tough. You don't walk away when you disagree on how you handle your finances, right? You don't walk away when you fall out of your infactuation phase, right? Because a lot of people think for whatever reason, if it ain't like that then I don't want it. What happens when it ain't like that no more? You know what I mean? So we felt like it's really important that we not just show y'all, okay, okay, how we built wealth, that's cool, yeah. But how do you get what God intended for you to have? You know, God saw Adam and he said, it's not good for man to be alone. I'm grateful that God gave me a help mate. So let me steward this the right way and show people how I'm stewarding it. That's so good. That's so good. Y'all, we're going to drop the Bayley Way inside of the show notes. So once y'all check it out, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're going to see them often, you know, because I believe my part and my mission of this assignment is to help you build wealth, get out of debt and really get that true financial

30:07freedom. And a lot of y'all are married or in a serious relationship and I can help you with the money side, but I can't help you with the relationships side of things, right? And so I want you all to dial into their podcast, subscribe, send them questions. They're even answering people's questions because I think it's needed. We got to expose more godly, healthy, real, authentic, and I'm going to say this respectfully because I don't just sped nobody out there, but good looking black cover. I'm going to leave it right there. So those subscribe to the podcast. But I'm curious, DeBrell, Samantha, what does y'all's bank account situation look like? They all have like one bank account and Samantha has a debit card. She can go charge anything. You can charge anything like what does that situation look like as a couple who's building what you all are building? That's really your question. I love this question. And I'll tell you why. So, and I think it does help that we got together when we were really young, but I also think

31:11that glory be to God, we both had a mindset of a team, right? And so all of our accounts are joined with the exception of our personal accounts that we give ourselves allowances to go by whatever we want with. And that has transformed over time because as you learn more, you're like, okay, you know we could spend on the credit card and then pay that off and get points and different things like that. But to answer your question, everything's joint, man. Our checking account is joint, our savings account is joint. She has visibility onto everything. We both open our apps. We can see everything. The only thing we can't see is our personal accounts, which is important because I don't once we decide it, hey, we're going to get allowments to spend whatever we want to spend and whatever we want to spend it. I don't need to know which is many of your money. I don't need to track that. And I think that that's where a lot of discourse can happen where you're trying to figure out how much you spend and all of the other stuff. Well, if you're having a loan, that's all that problem.

32:12You know what I mean? And so, but everything is joint, man. We're one team. We literally share the same bit. So why wouldn't our finances be joined? That's crazy. This kid has our DNA. So why wouldn't our, you know what I mean? And so, so yeah, everything's joined. So Samantha, when you want to spend more that's inside of your allowance, how do you bring that? Do you just go buy it or do you have a conversation with the rail or have you just gone and bought it and then you told them afterwards and then you just deal with the heat or whatever is criminal? How do you do that? Because I think a lot of ladies are like, but wait, if I get an allowance, that's like maybe what, $200. But what if I want this brand new purse, that's $450? Like what? Here's two questions. Like the Samantha do authentically, then what is the right way to do it? And that can't be. I'm glad you asked it. So it's funny because when we first started doing our allowance, it was like $200.

33:15I had like a month. I had like a whole month. This was years ago. A year ago. But it was the same. But let's be real, that will be probably the average person right now, 1,000%. Yeah. And but I respected that $200. And I was like, I'm going to make this stretch. I'm going to go buy clothes, whatever. But whatever the allowance was, I genuinely respected that. However, where things did start to go a little bit astray. Talk about it. In my opinion, the allowance is for me specifically. When it comes to things for the home, which is another part that I love to spend money on, that is something that we do have larger. Conversations about and that comes from the joint bank account. But I think the key is having those life meetings. And we have saved ourselves so many arguments about finances by having set time every week that we talk about it. So at this point, there really is no spending that he's not aware of outside of the allowance.

34:20Because if I want it or if it's something that we need, I know on Tuesdays, we're going to have our meeting and I'm going to say, hey, I need an extra. However much because I want to do this with the house. Or this is outside of my allowances for me. This is something that's going to benefit both of us. So it shouldn't come out of the allowance. It should come out of the joint account. And so it's taking a lot of time and alignment. I don't know if you saw a couple months ago. Samantha revamped our whole living room. I did. Yeah. And so that was a conversation she brought to me during our meeting. She was like, hey, I'm tired of this. I want to split it up. I'm inspired. I want to change up everything in here. And my immediate thought was in like, oh, well, we didn't budget this. We sat down and had a conversation. Well, how much do you think this is going to cost? What are we going for? What's realistic for the budget that we've assigned for this month, different things like that? And we got to a place where we both agreed and we went from there. And now we both love the living room.

35:22But yeah, so that's how those conversations go. So life meetings every single Tuesday. And I'm asking from a relationship perspective because I love that. It's so let's say Samantha, you have something you wanted you like for the living room. You thought about this on Thursday. Yep. Do you wait until Tuesday or do you start a conversation on Thursday or do you do like research, go to him or everything? Like how do you present something major like that to him? Start technical pictures. I'll start planting a seed. So that way when we get to the life meeting, everything is there. But I'm super organized and I also know that I don't like to hear no. Okay. And I know what it takes for him to say yes. That's smart though. So I will create, he should have no questions. Literally when it came to the living room, when it comes to a trip, whatever it is, I make a spreadsheet. This is what we're going to do every day. This is how much it's, because this is how he needs to see things to be able to say yes. This is what it's going to look like. This is how much this is going to cost.

36:22This is how much that's going to cost. And sometimes it's okay, yes, to the couch, but those chairs are too expensive. Let's bring the chairs down. So I make it really easy for him and kind of present it to him in a way that it's going to make sense for him. And then we just kind of tweak the plan together. But I always come to him with a plan. But I do plant seeds ahead of time. So he knows the conversation's coming. Yeah. I appreciate about her is that I don't ever feel the need to, it's never any friction because if I share with her, okay, I don't think this is going to work for right now, but maybe we can reattact this in a couple of months. Then she's, you know, it's like, I'm not saying no, I'm just saying not right now. And she's not throwing a fit behind it. It's like, you know what, I understand that. That makes sense. And I'll explain to her why I think we should push it off for X amount of time because maybe this is a priority right now over that. And so it just leaves room for us to be open and transparent.

37:24So there is no, because at the end of the day, what this all is, the whole point of it, these meetings that we have, I call it prevention before intervention. That's so good. We are preventing any resentment. We are preventing any issues down line so that we don't have to intervene with a shoe flying at my head, you know, a year from now. Yeah, right. And I think I want to say too that just because Darrell leads the finances in that way, like you guys talked about the studio, he leads in the finances, but we'll still have conversations even about things that he wants to do too. You'll make sure that I'm on board, like the studio, we talked about it this morning. And I was like, yeah, go ahead, do it. It makes sense. And if it doesn't make sense, then I'll ask questions or sometimes tell him, like, hey, I don't think that makes sense financially right now or explain to me why that makes sense right now. Right. So it goes both ways too. It's not that it's always me kind of having to ask, we, I think it comes back to that respect

38:24conversation of let's make sure we both agree on this, especially if it's a large amount of money. Yeah. So it sounds like the margin of accounts for you to any, I even think it's for everyone, because it's not a difficult thing as long as you have good, clear communication. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I will say this, I think it's important to identify what works for you, your household. Right. That is so important. My opinion, which is backed by experience and scientific data is that it is smarter to merge your account. However, everybody don't, everybody ain't the same. And so some people may say, well, look, I just came out of a 10 year marriage. I love you. This is great or whatever, but for my piece of my insanity, I need to be able to manage my own accounts for right now. And if that works for you, then this is as long as you're aligned in on the same page,

39:26but I am going to give you the information to know that, hey, scientifically speaking, based on longitudinal studies, if you merge your accounts, you will do better, much better financially with your partner. But yeah, woman came to me and said that I couldn't be where. Yeah, me too. I agree with that. Right. I mean, it's like as much as I've accomplished and as much wealth and stuff I'm bringing to the table, I'm still merge my accounts. So if I'm willing to do that, because I agree with you, means I can't say this is the destination, I'm in this lane and you're still in that lane. That's good. That's good. I'm not a nerd. I don't know. It's as we need to merge lanes. Yeah, we're driving together. We're driving together. Yeah. And I believe in a marriage for a season I may drive. Yeah. But in another season, because it may be something that you're stronger, you're going to drive. Right. And I'm going to support you, but we're still getting to that destination. Yeah. And if we're saying we want to build wealth and provide shade for our children's children,

40:29come on. Yeah. And I just put in $50 into their 5-20-9. You want to put in $50 too? It shouldn't be like, right, right, right. We, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Like, hey, I want to open up, I want to buy a house for, you know, our kids. You cool with putting in, why 100 of your money? Bell in your cell. That will sound right. Well, that's for you. Like, we have friends here and that's really, hey, the light bills this much this month. What? Yeah. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Well, I'm not, not, that's not what I'm teaching here. Yeah. Absolutely. A lot of couples do that. But I think you can get so much further if we don't have to have that kind of conversation. We can have a wealth conversation. Yeah. Well, I think that's a bigger conversation about trust in your relationship. And understand. Right. And that's why I threw in there when you're preparing for marriage, make sure we, before we get there, we're healing the part of us that needs to be healed so we can actually exist in the powerful marriage that God wants to serve. Yeah. You know that.

41:29That's a question. Yeah. Y'all are about to be a mom and dad. Ooh. Has that conversation came up in y'all's life meeting about what are we doing now? Oh, I love this for our daughter. And if so, give me one or two things that, uh, from going back to what you said in beginning, yeah. The shade. Yes. Yes. What are y'all doing now to provide that shade for your daughter? So I have to tell you, we were in Miami a couple weeks. We all doing a general reveal. I spent about two hours online researching what I need to do. You know, make sure that this little girl is going to be okay. Because the truth of the matter is in 2045, she'll be 18 years old. And whether you accept it or not, AI is coming and it's coming very fast. What that means is that the job market is going to look extremely different than it does right now. The way we traditionally make money, it'll be very different 18 years from now. For sure. And so, and me thinking about that, I'm thinking, okay, cool. How do I prepare her for what's to come, not knowing what's coming?

42:31Well, what I can do is make sure that she has options, the way you have options if you have money. Yes. And so, um, what I've done is I've looked at three different options. I've looked at investment custodial accounts. Yeah. I've looked at the 529 plan, which I've served over a decade in the military. So I have my GI bill that I can pass down to her. So she doesn't need that, right? And I've looked at opening a trust and putting an account in the trust. Okay. And that way I can set rules. Mm-hmm. The thing about an investment custodial account is this, once she turns a certain age, depending on what state she lives in, she then has full control of that money legally. Yes. That is her money, the 18 to 21. For sure. We both know that what's important to you at 18 or 21 is not the same thing that's going to be important to you at 30. Thanks. And so, we had a conversation whereby that's probably not the best route for us because we want to make sure that she's doing it in that money properly. So what we're leaning towards right now is opening up a trust, putting her account into the trust and funding that every single month.

43:34And we're going to set specific rules around that money. And so we're going to look at what that looks like. Maybe it's going to be okay. When you're ready to get married, you'll have money aside for that. When you're ready to purchase a home, we'll have that down payment squared away for you. Hopefully, we'll have the whole payment of you. I'm going to be aggressive when I'm putting money into her account. And so these are the conversations we're having. Do we have an all figured out right now? No, but before she gets here on January 28th, we will have figured out facts. Yeah. But the conversations are being had and we know that we are going to be investing. I've also looked at opening up 15-year mortgages on a couple of different houses in that way. It kind of pays itself that, and by the time she turns 18 years old, we'll have that. So looking at a couple of different things, but these are the conversations that are being had. Yeah. That's providing shade. Yes. That's definitely providing shade. And I love that. I was still open with $5.29. Here's what I love it. $5.29, because you had a GI Bill. Yeah. They had a GI Bill.

44:34$5.29 till Silver College. Yeah. So it can be used for anything that supports college. Yes. Okay. Got it. So let's say GI Bill covers it. Yeah. The $5.29 still goes through it. Depending on the school, as she goes through, they'll issue that back. As a refund to help her pay her rent, help her pay anything that she needs. You all can still set boundaries around that though, as far as in what it is. Right. So she needs to live on the off campus, right? If the loans is at it, it is an apartment for school by 20. I would take care of it. And because you're in the state of where you're at, I'm putting the person's personal business out there. Yeah. It's a ride off for you. Very true. Very true. It's like, really, I think all avenues are legit. Right. Right. Yeah. But you just got to use it and just really, really just, I will fund it all. Yeah. And then put it all up underneath your trust. Yeah. I love it. So I have it.

45:34I have all that. Yes. All in my trust. And like you said, I have guidelines on when my nephews, when my niece can touch those funds. Right. When my child, if they ever have a child, can touch those funds. But I just love the fact that before your baby is even out of the womb, you all are having that conversation. Yeah. What typically happens is when they get out of high school, then, yeah, then now they're trying to have their body just like a shramble and figure it out. So I just want to say thank you, man. For what y'all are doing, love what y'all stand for. The Bailey way show is just amazing y'all. Make sure y'all go subscribe to it. Because I mean, just listen to their conversation. And so you can't say, of course, you know, she going to submit to him because she looked better than him. He ugly. There's no excuses. Right. You can't say she's, you know, the man got a vision. He's working the vision.

46:35He's providing for his family. He's giving her what she desires. He's giving him respect and love and support that he desires. And they're doing it in a healthy way. But they have some real conversations over the area. So go check them out, subscribe to the channel. And I promise you you'll be blessed, man. We'll see you on the next show. Peace out. Pretty careful. Yeah. I'll be there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.