273. How To Get and STAY Rich with Vivian Tu (Your Rich BFF)

you're maybe even investing, but it still doesn't feel like enough. Today we're talking about why and how to go from financially frozen to financially fearless. On a global mission to make the financial industry accessible for all, my friend in yours living into is a former Wall Street trader, turned expert, public speaker, host entrepreneur,

New York Times bestselling author, and the CEO and founder of your rich BFF. And today she returns to financial feminist to talk about why paying your bills and saving isn't the finish line, it's actually just a starting point. Why optimization culture can leave high earners feeling perpetually behind? We also talk about using money as a tool to buy time, freedom, and security, not status,

strategic spending, asking, "Do I want this, or do I want people to know I have it?" And refraining the self-talk around money, perfection, and timelines. Let's get into it.

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“the beginning, why do so many people who are objectively doing well still feel anxious or behind financially?”

I think it has a lot to do with how you were raised. Some of those money traumas from childhood.

So in my book, well and doubt, this is literally the first story I tell growing up, I went

to a Chinese buffet. My parents didn't have a lot of money at the time, and we were working with a shoestring budget. So when we would go, I would immediately reach my little hand out trying to grab a piece of pizza and my mom would slap it away, and there was just a routine that we would have

to do. First, you go to the seafood section. You wait for the people in the back to bring out the fresh crab and lobster and all of that. You eat as much seafood as you possibly can because seafood is the most expensive food.

Then you move on to the meats. I'm talking beef, pork, lamb, not chicken, chicken is cheap. Then you move on to the vegetables, but not like cheap vegetables, like broccoli. I'm talking, we're eating pea shoots or like snow peas, expensive vegetables. And then finally, if you eat eating through all three levels of that, you could finally

at the end, maybe have some carbs and a little bit of dessert.

“And I think that type of optimization has basically felt like a birthright for me, but that”

also means that now I am still someone who to this day, even though I'm in a very different financial position now, I feel very anxious sometimes about money and how I'm spending my money and if it's optimized, I don't think everybody has this weird psyche. I think a lot of the money traumas that we inherit from our parents end up showing up in our lives, even though our lives and their lives might be too separate, movie franchises,

and they have nothing in common. When you think about the stories that were told, like we talk so much about that in our work of like the money narrative you've been told, but even just that story is so indicative

out to eat like once a month and you definitely don't order an appetizer and you're

only drinking water and if you're out of buffet, yeah, you're having the nicest thing possible that we can't get anywhere else. So, can you talk about how those pervasive money narratives that we might not even realize are in the back of our minds or dictating our everyday decisions?

“Yeah, I mean, I think it just really, really seeps into everything that you do, right?”

Like, if you hear from your parents, like, we can't afford that, we can't afford that. Like, you grow up thinking, you very literally can't afford that and I talk so much about how to raise financially, savvy children or even set them up for financial success in this book. But one of the biggest things is like, I feel like you shouldn't say the phrase, we can't

afford that. Like, we should be saying, no, you can't have this candy bar because there's too much sugar in it. I don't want you to spoil your dinner, but like, using the cup out of, we can't afford that or it's too expensive, it really does do a number on so many people and then in

the future, you feel like you have the scarcity mindset that's really hard to get past. And I also think that there are so many opposing mindsets that get inherited. So things like, oh, well, the Johnson, they drive a really beat up car, they must be having a hard financial time. Okay, so now in my head, I think anybody can drive something that's not a Mercedes-Benz

or a Range Rover is poor.

“So I think, well, I don't want to be considered poor.”

So then I go and spend way too much money on my first vehicle, which, by the way, depreciates

10% as soon as I whip it off the lot. And so we don't necessarily make the smartest decisions. We make the ones that we've been conditioned to make. And on the flip side of that, we see, I don't know, the Peterson's are driving the nicest car in the block and we're like, oh, they're rich.

They might be, you know, to quote that commercial for my 20 years ago and dead up to their eyeballs, right? And trying to perform wealth. So yeah, it's the perception of all of that. And it's very easy to write that off, but you're exactly right, that's so much of that

seeps in to the way we think about money. You said you reached this moment where you knew the price of everything, but the value

of nothing, which is such a good quote, when did that realization change how you think about

money now? Yeah. So I, as beautiful, Chinese daughter, only kid for immigrant parents, I sent my parents on an all expenses paid vacation, I paid for business class lights for them to and from Asia. They had a really, really wonderful time and on their return flight, my parents still live

in Maryland and it's a smaller airport. So they were like, okay, let's make a pit stop in New York, perfect. They're staying with us and the following morning, I take them out to dim sum.

“We have a morning, we come back to the apartment, and what do I do?”

I get to see my parents maybe twice a year if I'm lucky. I whip open my laptop, I start checking emails. As much as I can appreciate that my job and those emails are the reason why I was able to pay for that vacation and pay for those lights and pay for dim sum. It's such a shame that I can know the price of all of these things that I paid for, but

I don't understand where my parents values actually lie, what they value. And it was very clear to me when my mom made a little comment of like, oh man, back to emails are ready, like, they like broke my heart. I don't get to see them a lot and I think they're in their late 60s or at least 70s. I'm at a point where I'm counting Christmas's, I'm counting birthdays.

I get a finite number left with them and it just felt crazy that in the very limited time we have together, I would go straight back to working when I worked for myself. You work for yourself. I have the flexibility to not be doing that. And instead, I thought that would be the right thing to do.

As soon as she said that I closed my laptop and I was like, you know what, let's go do something. It is completely changed by mindset of like, what is this all for? What's the point? What am I doing this for? And it's not because I want the newest lime green Lamborghini sports car, whatever.

It's because I want to have the security and stability to be able to be in charge of my own time. I want to be able to take care of the people that matter most to me. And that doesn't include business class flights and stays of the rits and the four seasons whatever.

But like, it's not that that my parents appreciated. It was the fact that I thought of them. It was the fact that I thought to take them to dim sum and invite them to come visit me and take that time off of work. And I think we all have to come to a realization that one more designer, shoe purchase isn't

going to get you to that state of Nirvana, but maybe being able to retire your parents might and maybe being able to promise your kids an education might. And maybe being able to go months and months and months without having an argument with your significant other over money, it might.

you the best life possible?

“That I think is the transformation when you start viewing money as a tool, not the end”

all be all, but also not the thing that's your enemy. I don't have enough of it or I am so afraid to look at it or I'm so afraid to take a risk, whether that's just investing in a stock market or starting a business, the real transformation I think happens when you realize that money is the tool to unlock everything in your life. Yep.

And that your money and your happiness and your health and the health of the people you care about radically transforms when you start using money as your best tool in your toolkit. 100% agree. I got a pivot because your book's a dick joke. Like the title of your book is a fucking dick joke and I love it.

I think that we both approach personal finance and personal finance education with a little irreverence.

So, talk to me about the title of this book.

Yeah. I knew you would appreciate this one. You've been friends for a long time. It's good. It's good.

“It's like right up your silly, like, our sense of humor.”

So you've heard the term well and down. Usually it's described he, haha, we're talking about penises, we're talking about boobs, like whatever. Great. But if you actually boil down the words and you think about it well and down, well

is describing being and down and and and doubt is describing an endowment. So what actually is an endowment?

You've heard the phrase Herbert's endowment or maybe a rich person donates a big pile of

money to your favorite charity. Your charity now has a big endowment and endowment simply put is just a pile of money and resources that can be invested and grow so that any organization's mission can be further into the future. And that's it.

That's really simple. So the whole point of this book is I want every single person who reads it to be well in doubt. I want you to be able to have your little pile of money that you invest and it grows and it buys you the life that you want so that you can have the house and the car.

And if you want it, you can have the happy family and relationship and the smart financially savvy kids. And then you can have the retirement you deserve and have a good day today all the while at the very end of your life, you can focus on a state planning so that not only do you leave this earth better than you found it, you get to leave something behind, a little

legacy to the people you care about most. All of the things you're talking about, I know everybody's on board with, but there's this misconception as, you know, you and I talked to literally millions of people about money every day. And one of the questions I get all the time for somebody who's already investing, who

was already paid off debt, who has the stable job, is that they think, okay, finance to 0.0 or like 201 is going to be really complicated and it's not as complicated as people think it is. Like what actually comes next to the person who has like got their financial foundation in order?

Yeah, I think it's really taking the hard part out of it. It's building infrastructure. I feel like for me, I have little to know willpower and I know this about myself. And that's the reason why I have to pack my gym bag the night before because if the gym bag is not packed, if I'm not already wearing the yoga pants, I'm not going.

In the same way that I think 2.0 or 201 finance isn't about working harder. It's about building the infrastructure to make smart decisions early on.

“So that's if you want to home, you got to make sure that your money is keeping up with”

inflation. It's not just sitting there. It's maybe you have it in a certificate of deposits so that it can earn as much interest as possible in the two years before you need to actually make a down payment. It's, hey, I have a system to actually compare different insurance policies to see which one

makes the most sense for me and my life. It's, hmm, I have a script that I can do to take to my partner and say, I would like to have a prenat before we get married, infrastructure for your children, whether that be a custodial Roth IRA of 529, a UTMA or UGMA account to set them up for the future. And it's, of course, building out trust wills like power of attorney, healthcare directors

so that you have it all figured out. It's not about constantly having to think about these things all day. In fact, that's the exact opposite message that I hope people take away is that 201 is so that you get to think about money less. As business owners, I think the advice that we get and that people give which is so accurate

for scaling a business is the exact same advice, which is, eventually, you get to the point where you want to stop working so hard and pushing all the boulders up the hill. You want to get to a point where your revenue is more systematized, your own boardings more systematized. And this is what we're talking about here.

And I think the, one of the best conclusions I can take from what you just talked about

Because I think that's the common misconception is like, okay, I've built my financial

plans to now, I need to hire this wealth manager who's going to like, grow, you know, I'm going to pay him this fee and he's going to do all these fancy maneuvering with my

“accounts and that's how I'm going to build my wealth.”

And it's like, all of this actually, as you keep going, it loses sexiness as you go. Like it's not very exciting, like talking about a will talking about all of this is not very exciting, but it's the very things like systems are not sexy. And so, talk to me about like the feeling of, oh, this needs to be complicated in order to work.

The best example I can give to everybody listening is that really truly building wealth is not staying at a hotel. It's building hotel. So, they have a hotel, there are certain white glove expectations, right? There's rooms, there's, you know, there's the housekeeper who comes in every day and

cleans up after you.

And there is everybody who's just waiting at your back and call for, you know, your

room service order and everything is so perfect, right? You love going to a hotel, great. You know what all that costs? Money. Okay.

We are not in the business of spending money. We are in the business of preserving, growing, and making money. And so when I say building a hotel, it's all about those infrastructure in that system, right? When you go to your hotel room at night and you pick up the phone, you have like 18 different

buttons. You can press. Talk to the front desk, there's a specific situation that's going to happen there. You want to talk to the concierge, different situation, room service, different situation, housekeeping, different situation.

And so that is exactly how I think people need to think about this. You are building out those teams right now for your own financial future.

“So if you want to build out a healthy relationship, you got to put infrastructure in place”

in your relationship. You want to set your kids up for financial success while not letting them turn into dirtbags. You better start early. You better make sure you're not traumatizing them, the way my parents traumatized me. And I say that like jokingly, tongue in cheek, but like it's true.

When you have infrastructure in place, it takes all of the guesswork out and it just makes it easier. But the hard part is building that infrastructure. It sucks. You're going to be doing paperwork.

You're going to be on calls with lawyers. You are going to be having to probably do a lot of research. And it is not the most fun experience, but you'll be certainly glad you did it.

And I always say, if there is anything that you can do for yourself is just make sure that

tomorrow you is not mad at today you. And I have said many times in the show that that's like real self care. And everybody wants to talk about self care, like it's, you know, bubble baths and face masks and a bottle of wine and all of those things are fine. Those are self soothing actions.

Like it's the hardship in the moment. The things that don't feel super comfortable that makes future use life better, like having hard conversation with your partner or going to therapy or, yeah, looking at your money and creating systems for it. And Tory, you're exactly right.

“Like we talk all the time now, I think going to therapy is so much more common.”

We're able to talk about it so freely. But like don't you think people would be better off if they went to financial therapy, given that finances are usually number one or two in terms of stressors for people. Like, if you can eliminate one of those things, you may not feel as mentally bad as you do or emotionally bad as you do because there isn't that like monkey riding around on your

back when you're at home, when you're at work, you're constantly thinking about your bills, you're constantly thinking about your debt, you're constantly thinking about all these other things. What if you could just focus on your job? What if you could just focus on your kids?

What if you could just focus on your partner? And you weren't stressed about money. I think this is one of the most tangible things you can do to practice self-care. I think I saw it's red a couple of weeks ago that we're like, 90% of your anxiety will go away once you're financially stable and it's like, yeah, that's pretty true.

Now that's easier said than done in the system that actively wants to get keep wealth and get keep money and there's racism and sexism and ableism and all of the other things. But at the same time, I think especially while there's so much chaos in the world right now, your best investment of time is your financial education, your best thing you can do right now to be in control of the things you can control is to take your financial education

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When we talk about being good with money to then being more strategic with money, can you

“walk us through a strategic spending audit that someone could do this week?”

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not going to get too much away. So a question that I encourage everybody listening to think about their next purchase is actually do I want this or do I want people to know I have it? And I feel like that changed my life because when I think about a lot of the things, especially

like the cult following items that people want to buy, let's take the Birkin bag for example. There are so few people on this planet who can actually appreciate a Birkin bag for what it is. People who are in the fashion industry, maybe they have a real appreciation for the leather stitching, maybe they know the full history of Jane Birkin and it is like a true item

that they want. For most of us, I just want people to know that I can afford a Birkin. I feel like being seen with a Birkin is cool, but you know what else, hold stuff just as well, literally any other bag and it's also not $20,000. So I think we have to think about each and everything that we've purchased and frankly

things that we've already purchased. Did I want this because I actually wanted it or did I want it because I want people to know I have it. So I'll give you two great examples of things that I actually want it. I am a psycho about my state because I'm a really bad sleeper.

I wake up a lot, I have a far time getting to bed. So me and my husband invested in a purple mattress that's like this thick, so thick has the special waffle grid, whatever helps your back. We have silksheets, 100% silksheets, can you imagine? I feel like a seal every night when I get into bed.

We have special pillows because it's so shameful, but I'm a front sleeper so I smosh my face all night. So I need to have a really special pillow, I have my special pillow. We have a noise machine, we have blackout shades, like I have invested very literally thousands of dollars into sleeping better and until now, I haven't really told anybody about that.

But even if I couldn't tell anybody about it, I wake up a better person, I wake up more ready to tackle a day because I have those things and they work well worth the purchase, especially since I'm using them every single night for like seven to eight hours. I feel like we have to know in our lives what we are buying because we want them and what we are buying for optics.

And if I'm honest with you, a lot of the things that I bought in my early 20s were all for

“optics designer Beanie, sorry, did I think I was going to ask them every weekend?”

I'm not. It's itchy, by the way. The hat's not comfortable, the heels that are 18 inches high and so painful and maybe you have red bottoms, I didn't need them, like I just want to know that I had them. And so I feel like we really need to do a little introspection when we spend about how it

to question when they are making purchases so that we are just smarter consumers.

Because let me tell you that marketing industry is insidious. I would know. I worked in it. A lot of people can relate to the, I'm trying to impress somebody else or I'm trying to, you know, assert my status of like, oh yeah, somebody worth, you know, respecting.

“I think another version of this is I'm buying this thing to prove to myself that I have”

money because that was me when I started making money as I saw, oh, when you start making money, you buy designer goods and again, we're picking on designer goods. If you love that, great, but like, that was what I was told to do as a woman is, oh, when you start making good money, you buy designer things.

And I did that and did nothing for me.

Like I own three designer pieces, it's like a Gucci belt and like a YSL passport holder. And both of those, I use all the time, I own nothing designer past those two things. And yet it was not so much so people could see the Gucci logo. It was more for me going, oh, no, like, this is this is something you're supposed to do. And this confirms to you in your mind that you are wealthy now.

But that that didn't actually give me any joy when I look at my bank account and I'm like, wow, I'm protecting myself and I'm protecting my retirement and I'm doing all the things I want to do.

“That actually asserts to me, yep, you are doing the things that you need to do to protect”

yourself. So I don't know, it does act connect with you as well, because I think that's a version of this that is less like, look at me, I'm rich and more like me look at me, I'm rich. Yeah, it's not even, I would say it's not even necessarily me look at me, I'm rich, but chasing after something that you desire, but this purchase isn't going to be the thing that

it's for you, right, right, it's a disconnect. I'm trying to think like, okay, so this is like, let's pick on a birth control in yogurt. In every birth control and yogurt ad, you see a bunch of incredibly beautiful diverse women that look like they could all be a part of the UN. And they're all like, see if you have her, look at me and my best friends, me and this yogurt,

it's like, if I buy this yogurt, maybe I will have a ton of girlfriends or like, maybe if I use this one specific care product, I too will have an incredibly hot boyfriend who's half naked on this motorcycle and my hair will blow, you know, the wind will blow through my perfume, perfumes, the big one I think is like, oh, I could be do a leap of, you don't become rich by buying those things, you don't become sexy by buying those things,

you don't become popular for buying those things, but they make it feel a certain way.

“And the thing, the thing is, is that that's what they're going after.”

They're trying to help you believe that by having this association, that their brand with you, you will get that. And unfortunately, the only way that you are going to get those things is through a lot of personal work, whether that be gone through therapy, going to the gym, getting cosmetic surgery, and I'm not, you know, encouraging people to do these things, but like, I promise

you, using a certain face cream is not suddenly going to give you the jawline of, you know, do a leap out, you're just, it's not happening. And I think that in a environment and in a system right now, where there is so much chaos, we're trying to control what we can control, and for many people that is, oh, I'm going to spend money so that I can solve this very specific problem that TikTok has made me realize

I have, like, Technic or like, my 11s in my eyebrows. And if I solve that problem, then I'm controlling this concrete thing to make myself feel better. And like, I want you to channel that same energy into, like, taking your financial education seriously.

Like, because that's something that's actually going to fix your life, and actually going to help you, that's going to give you the same feeling of control that, like, the 11

wrinkle prevention stickers never could.

Yeah, exactly. We've been talking a lot about Henry's internally, which the acronym is, you know, not rich, yet. Like, why do you think this group in particular gets so caught up and stressed about money, even though they're doing fine?

Because a Henry is typically defined as someone who's making over $100,000 a year. And in many places where there are a higher concentration of Henry's because you can get higher paying jobs, they're also higher cost of living areas. And these people, if you're making $105,000 a year, you're up or poor. Like, you are still very much, like, with the rest of us.

And I think people forget that to get a $100,000 job, more often than not, you're probably

So rent is a certain cost in those areas, more expensive. Their food is naturally more expensive because the grocery stores, like, they just charge more. They're going to charge more than the, you know, Hyde and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, like, and I literally use that reference because my husband is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

And I've been to the grocery store and I was amazed at the prices. And I just think that people forget that, like, it's not just about the top line number.

You have the bottom line number.

Someone who is earning more in a major city and spending more may not necessarily be saving, putting money away for investing or paying down their debt more effectively than someone who makes a more modest living, but is living somewhere that's a little bit cheaper.

“And so I think when we as a society see Henry's, there's not that much empathy given”

to them because they're making $100,000 a year. But it's very literally the middle poor and the upper poor fight in each other. Like, we are fighting over crumbs when in fact, yes. These people are better off than many, but they're still not doing amazing. They're still working individuals.

They're still being taxed at ordinary income rates. So they're giving up, you know, let's call it, like, 25, 30% of their income. And so I think we need to reframe. Penaries are not our enemy. People who make six figures are not our enemy.

Frankly, millionaires, the humble millionaire next door who saved his entire life who, you know, worked really hard, climbed the corporate letter, that person is not your enemy. You want to get mad? Get mad at the corporations that are not necessarily paying their fair share of taxes. People who use exploitative business practices to make a ton of money and do not actually

compensate their employees. And frankly, we should be mad at people who have so much wealth that there is no possible chance of them spending it and having it re-circulate into the economy because it's being reported. So I just think we need to stop fighting with each other down here and start looking up

the pyramid. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And I think we talk about that a lot more in the first episode you did on the show.

“So if you want to hear more about that, go listen to her first episode.”

I think the other trap with Henry is if they're making the like $100,000 a year, is that you're making enough money where a lot of, yeah, the initial problems go away. So it's actually easier to ignore your finances to the point where suddenly you're like, oh, I don't really know what's going on. I can just kind of spend, but like, I think I'm spending too much.

It's like a lot easier to ignore it when you are making less money. You know where every dollar is going because you have to. And then I also think with people who are, you know, let's say you're $200,000, right? Or even $300,000. The common trap there is that kind of similar, you have not given your money a job.

And so like, you're making good money, but you have no idea what to do with it. And you don't know where you should be investing it. Yeah, you don't know where to grow it. So talk to me about that person who is like, yeah, making actually decent money, but is in the analysis paralysis, oh, yeah, do I work with a wealth advisor?

Because that's what, I don't know the guy from work told me to do like, what are they doing wrong or what can they be doing better with their money? Yeah, to your exact point, Susie Welch, a friend of mine.

She's an NYU professor and an incredible author.

She coined this term of like, a B plus life. When you have a B plus life, you're like, none of that incentivized to change it. When you have a C minus life, you're like, I have to do everything to fix this. Right. You have a B plus life.

You're like, I will do anything to maintain this B plus you can tread. You can tread water for years. The problem for someone who's making 200,000, maybe even 300,000, is that you start making a little bit more money. You start spending a little bit more money.

Your lifestyle in flights, and you still don't have the financial education, and you were bad with money when you were making 80 grand a year, and you're still bad with money. Now, making 300, you just have more zeros to play with.

“And so I think it's still really important that these people do the basics, whether”

that's, you know, opening up a high yield savings account to make sure that their savings are growing, paying down high interest rate debt, making sure that they have a debt payoff plan that focuses on ranking from highest to lowest interest rate, making sure that they have access to all of those retirement accounts with tax benefits, like a 401k, an IRA or Roth IRA, making sure that they're actually invested, not just, well, I put my cash into

account. No, no, no, babe. You're not done. You actually have a buy stuff. I'm talking target date retirement funds.

I'm talking index funds. I'm talking sector funds. And then, last but not least, making a plan. It's really easy to feel, especially if you're the first person in your family to ever make that kind of money that you're set forever.

You're not, though. Because even if you make 300,000 dollars a year, you at this, in this current climate, you

You cannot save your way to retirement.

You need to invest your way there. And so it's all about making a plan, making a plan of like, "Hey, I'm going to have some big spending years coming up. I have a wedding. I have a kid on the way.

I have a house that I'd like to buy a car I'd like to buy. I have to do all of these things, making sure that you have the money that you need to live your best life. It's not about amassing money. It's about using that money to get what you want."

That's one of the things that breaks my heart.

“I think most is when I start talking to women who are making a decent salary or whose household”

income is, yeah, great. You can do a lot with that. And then they have nothing to show for it. And I see this a lot with like business owners as well. Like a lot of women start a business and they start making more money than they've ever made

before. And it might not be somebody less than $200,000. But maybe it's just that like next jump in your lifestyle and you're like holy shit. But then they don't have a plan. They don't know what to do with it and it's just such a waste.

And it breaks my heart because it's like, "I need you to know what you're doing with your money because if you're making good money and you're working hard and you have gotten to a point where you feel compensated fairly, which a lot of people can't say, but then you're doing nothing with it, that's such a disconnect." There's nothing worse than wasted opportunity, wasted potential, and wasted time.

I feel like you and I are like the old old man screaming off the mountain into the evidence. We really are. We really are. But like having a lot of money and investing a lot of money doesn't necessarily make you a lot of money.

“Having a lot of time is what makes you a lot of money because that's how compound interest”

math works. So the longer your money is invested, the more consistent you are, the earlier you start, the better off you're going to be. That's not to say you can't start later. But if you want to get to where the person who started in their 20s is, you're going

to have to put more in. And so it's just all about making sure that you are taking full advantage of every opportunity you are presented and back to my Chinese buffet, optimizing so that you get the most value out of those dollars. This newly independent podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

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first purchase of a website or domain.

What I'm really excited about about this next book from you is that we are talking about a lot of like what I jokingly call like the big life stuff. So yeah, it's like the house and like the retirement and the kids. What I love is that you said when it comes to children, they're going to make you poorer.

“And I think that's just like that's like the secret like thing that like nobody wants”

to say out loud. But like having kids if that's important to you, that will that is going to change the way you manage your money. Like it their kids are fucking expensive. So what financial realities do perspective parents most underestimate?

So I feel like when people think about having kids, they're like, oh my gosh, like how much could Pamper's cost are like how much could like a lot by the way, and a lot. The smaller and the formula, but like people don't realize that for most people who are children, the number one expense is actually child care.

So if you have any intention of going back to work or frankly, even just need a little bit of help at night, because let's be honest, if you in many cases, if you cannot get some sort of help, whether that's family coming or higher in hell or whatever, you are

going to be living at a CIA black site for the first couple months, you are not sleeping.

Like it is great, you're going to be tortured. Like it is so important for people to realize that those child care expenses are getting higher and higher and higher right now in many major cities actually, there are weight lists. People are getting on weight lists for child care before the kids are born because there are such a lack and such an insufficient supply for how much demand there is for child care.

don't need to be too income anymore?

Of course they do right now. It's a very tough economic time and child care is so expensive, but I think it's really underestimated because it's not something that they grow out of very quickly. You might need childcare for very literally a decade and so maybe they get to 10, maybe they start getting into their proteins, they can be a latch key kid like I was, but it's

“going to be a long haul and you have to make a very important decision with your family”

of those one of us take a step back from our careers, so not only are you either in one case you're paying for childcare out of pocketing cash, but in another case you are literally paying through not getting that paycheck and you're missing out on all of those incremental gains, those promotions, those raises and the investing you could have done on all of those dollars in the meantime and so it just becomes a very, very compounded expense.

And so that's why I start the chapter with kids will make you poor, it's a decision that still doesn't deter people, knowing what I know, I still will well intend to probably have a kid or two, but I have come to the full realization that that will make me less rich and that's okay, but I need to be prepared for that. I have to tell you a story that I know you're going to appreciate.

“I have two friends of mine they live in New York a couple of years ago, they got married”

and like we did, like we do, we I saw it drinks with them and talked about their prenapped and one of the things that they wrote into their prenapped that each had their separate lawyers and she literally was like it's a man and a woman and she was literally like if we have children, it is written in the prenapped that not only am I getting a like stipend, but

also I am getting basically raises that are commiserate with what I would be getting because

I'm taking time off work to raise these children, the raises commiserate with what I would be getting if I continued my corporate job and also if I do go back to work like we are thinking about all of the last time, law and investing and all of those raises and like she had written all of that into the prenapped and like this is what we're talking about is like yes the cost of kids actually is child care and diapers and the college maybe

and like all of those things but it's also the cost especially for women because women do the vast majority of the unpaid labor it is the cost for women's financial stability and also just the emotional decision to decide do I be a good mom and stay home or do I go and keep working and it's just like that is the the complex things we're talking about here and the cost quite literally financially of that kind of decision yeah and I feel like the phrase good

mom is so loaded life course it is I put it in air quotes for anybody who's not watching who's listening yes good mom is so loaded because yeah to be a good mom you literally have to

“have eight arms you have to have for minis time turner be able to be a place that wants”

you have to literally not need to sleep you have to be super woman yeah but to be a good dad you just have to be kind yeah yeah and so I just think that like a lot of this unpaid labor is put on women and this is something that changed my brain chemistry and I feel like I'm going to tell you and it's going to change yours but we're already kind of on this train but it's so interesting how a task when done by a woman is unpaid but when it's done by a man it's art so like think about

cooking at home who cooks most of the meals more often in a traditional like where if we're assuming some mom does mom does not get paid to cook those meals mom just does it it's unpaid labor it's the slot she's cooking up in the kitchen suddenly some guy with a go tea and a full arms leave tattoo with a fun little hat is making food in a kitchen he is a celebrity chef has earned a Michelin star and gives pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to not only run

his own restaurant but maybe even beyond television it is so interesting and by that I mean it's like one of those phrases run like don't you think it's funny house and then like I go into my rant but like don't think it's funny how that's the case we're so fun at dinner parties literally my partner has now like jokingly done at dinner he like pantomimes pulling up a soapbox for me because I'm like here we go we're now at other feminist soapbox again but one of the things

I literally was going to bring up a very first metaphor you gave about like the lobster is like

that's the same thing as like there are some things that are our luxurious if you're rich but ridiculous if you're poor yeah and like lobster and crab started as like the poor man's food because it was hard to eat it was hard to get into right and so I think about that all the

use a perjorative horrible word here for like people who are immigrants right and it's like this is the same thing where so much of the way we view money and the way we view progress is just societal norms that I think anybody listening to this show is no longer interested in so for people listening I ask you are those narrative serving you and if they're not then you need to stop believing them yeah I really do think that like how you speak to yourself especially

when it comes to money is how you'll actually change your behavior and your views. Absolutely. I didn't and not even just about money but like I think about all of the horrible and I

truly mean disgusting nasty horrible terrible things I've ever thought about myself never in a

million years what I've ever said that to my best friend like she probably has some of those same habits if I'm honest but I would never say that I would never say some of the terrible things I think about myself to her and she would never say any of the terrible things that she says to herself to me and I think if we all started treating ourselves like our own best friend which we should be by the way like we'd all be a lot kinder you're not stupid you're not behind you're not that

with money you are on your money journey you are figuring it out you haven't been taught this before but you are going to make today a better day than yesterday and tomorrow a better day than today

“and that's how it's simple I started doing this really cringe thing which I've obsessed with in the”

morning and I look at myself in the mirror I'm brushing my teeth I get ready and I'm like

everything is amazing you are the luckiest girl in the world and you're gonna do great and it's

simple and I just say to myself every day and you know what today's gonna be great on the luckiest girl in the world I talk out well into myself all the time yeah and I think no but that I think I have a whole like you know episode I'll do eventually in my head that's basically like anything that you've been told is like crazy is actually this stuff that you should be doing which is like yeah talking to yourself like you think of the like crazy old lady who's talking to

yourself it's like no you actually should be talking to yourself like I when I'm upset like I literally and again it's so cringe so cheesy but I it works no one's around to see me who fucking cares I put my hand on my heart and my hand on my belly and I literally out loud I tell myself you are safe you're okay I have got you this is really scary I know Tory it's really really scary and we're gonna figure it out together it's like literally making me cry just like this is the way I speak to

“myself and yes my life is transformed by doing that but so why wouldn't we like all the crazy”

things that you're told are people being insane it's like no no actually insane people are doing the things that will actually help you build a life that you want when you were talking about everybody being on their own timeline I think people feel this pressure to make the right financial decisions the at the right age how can people make peace with timing when their life milestones are not lining up with the traditional financial advice or what they see online

I think this is kind of a funny question because I feel like you and I are both victim to this as two members of the Forbes 30 under 30 yeah yeah go ahead we're totally certain that's my one yeah no I think there is this invisible timeline that you think that we should be on that if you don't get on that list or if you don't find the love of your life by this age or if you don't have a kid by this age it's too late or if you if you don't buy a house you're a

fucking loser like all of these things they're fake they're literally set up based on arbitrary timelines I know people who have fallen in love with their significant other in their mid 40s and they have the best life ever I know people who were in a different relationship and got divorced and then found the love of their life later on so you can get a doover you can

“get a couple doovers if you'd like but like I just feel like you have to realize”

we did not all start this race from the same point some people are born on third base you

heard that phrase before it literally means they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth they have every advantage every privilege and some people aren't even born in the fucking parking lot they are so outside they are by the the illegal hotdog stand that's like a mile out where their people who are parking and walking and so you have to realize you may not have the same start as everybody else I think you and I probably are born somewhere between the parking lot and

third base many people are but I think you can appreciate all of the privileges you were born with

invisible factors that hold certain people back from certain things and recognize like when your time will come it'll come and if it doesn't come it's probably not meant for you and that is okay too a happy life looks very different for every single person we get a question a lot in our stock market school community from like women who are 40 plus who are like oh is it too late for me to say for retirement right like oh it's all fox so like

why should I do anything at all and the thing I told them is like yeah I do wish you started when

you were 20 I do but there were probably a million reasons why you didn't get started yep

you didn't have access to this education you were not taught this you were raising babies you were focused on other things you were just trying to make ends meet you were somebody scams you like there's a million reasons why you were not able to contribute to your Roth IRA until

“you were 42 or 48 or fifth whatever age we want to pick and I think that the all or nothing”

mindset the either like I do it perfectly or I don't do it at all I have multi millions of dollars in my retirement account or it's hopeless for me and I may as well have zero is one of the most damaging things I see women believe when doing anything when like oh I either go to the gym and I work out for an hour and I walk out of sweaty mess and I'm tired and sore or I do I do nothing I sit on the couch I do no workout it's like no walk around the block for 10 minutes that

has to be that is better than nothing okay fifty thousand dollar safe for retirement yeah we wish you had more but that is better than nothing so I know you believe this too when you're talking about with everything you're discussing in this book how is the all or nothing mindset killing people from creating the life that they need and becoming well-indowed yeah I mean I think I'm going to take a page out of a good friend of mine's book Reshma Sao Johnny she's the founder

of girls who code basically she was teaching young students how to code as the name suggests

and she would be right a line of code and all the boys read a line some of them will be right some of them will be wrong and then the girls many of them they would have nothing on their screens and she was like that's weird like are you all paying attention or like are you not interested like what's going on they ran the keystrokes back on those computers and all of the girls had written lines of code and then deleted them and then tried again and then deleted them

because they were so worried that there was going to be something wrong or it wasn't the perfect line or everything wasn't perfect that they just refused to do anything and showed up with nothing

“and I think that's such like a you know microcosm of how we speak to young women versus young”

men which is like young women are told to be perfect and young men are told to be brave and so I feel like especially with well-indowed my like recommendation for folks is like these are all personal decisions there is no wrong answer the only wrong move you can make is not having the conversation not assessing with yourself if you actually want these things not talking to your partner not even thinking about whether or not your children you know need

to have this financial future not you know having a discussion with an estate planning attorney of like how do I set myself up for the future it's better to do something than nothing it's better to get a pre-nip off of online software that'll get you 99% of the way there maybe there's like one

weird loophole you didn't imagine but frankly you know you're probably never come to that because

let's be real the people who actually get pre-nips usually have easier divorces than most

“and so I just think that like the idea of all or nothing is such a mistake I'll never forget this”

one of my first co-workers at my first job she was a D1 athlete and she asked me one day after work she's like what are you gonna do tonight and I was like I don't know girl like I think I'm not feeling the best I don't really feel like taking this workout class I'm probably just going to put on I told her I was like I'm probably just going to put on this like 15 minute YouTube video and do some stretches and she said to me 15 minutes is better than no minute it's baby

and to hear someone who had been in athlete at that level say that made me real how like me me realize that like we're all human heaven forbid I don't feel like working out the hardest I've ever worked on my period sorry don't want to do that it is still okay to give 20% if that's all you have to give because you'll be able to give 80 later in the week you'll be able to give a hundred later in the week and it's better to do a little bit those little things those 15 minute increments

out of so quickly if you take every speedy quickie 15 minute workout I have ever done in my lifetime I bet you that adds up to dozens and dozens of hours of workout and I am that much more flexible that much healthier that much more physically fit have stronger muscles because of that

decision is making no decision but that's the only wrong decision when it comes to money is

“if you're so afraid and you let fear dictate your decisions around money which I can almost”

guarantee everybody listening has done over and over and over again if you're so afraid of making a mistake then you should just do something because the worst mistake you can make is doing nothing I am just so thankful you're back on the show I am so excited for this book I just love talking about money with you because we view it the same way I think we educate people in the same way about it if someone walks away from reading this book what have they learned what is their biggest takeaway

“I think their biggest takeaway should be that you should be chasing security instability”

and freedom in your life because true financial richness is not having to think about money at all and not having finances be a factor in your decision making and if you read this book if you follow the instructions if you actually do the checklist I don't even just want to read this I want them to do the checklist at the end of each chapter I truly believe that this book will help you get closer to that and just for everybody listening I will be going on tour with this

book and someone someone very special someone you may know to worry done lap host of my idea is actually going to be my very special moderator at my tour stop in Seattle so come see us I would love to yeah we have a ton of Seattle listeners so yeah hometown show for me

would love to have you come out and support her incredible book okay plug away my friend where

can people get it what's it called go yes everybody please grab a copy it's called well in doubt you can order yours at rich bff book dot com not only do you get this incredible book but if you pre-order it you will actually get a bunch of other freebie resources things like an outline of my trust and will a buy versus rent home calculator I actually can't even take credit for that my husband built it and I made him make a call directly for everyone a relationship equity calculator of

“how you should be splitting big things like rent if you and your partner don't make the same amount”

of money things like a wedding planning checklist because obviously I do talk about weddings and divorces in this book and even a list of things that you can do to help raise smarter more financially sound children there's so many so many freebies please grab a copy rich bff book dot com love it thank you thanks for being here of course thank you so much for having me

thank you for listening to financial feminists produced by her first hundred k if you love this show

and want to keep supporting feminist media please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free if you're looking for resources tools and education including all the resources mentioned to this episode head to her first hundred k dot com slash s s pod