Dear Hank & John - 321: Chicken Yoga (w/ Chelsea Fagan!)

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Why do people fall for crypto scams? Should I work for a company that doesn't align with my values? Why does cash not feel like real money anymore? Where do millionaires keep their money? Why is investing seen as a "man thing"? How do I not feel bad about leaving my job? How do I start investing? What dinosaur had the most delicious eggs? Hank Green and Chelsea Fagan have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Cold Open! It's Hank, and we've got a special episode for you this week, but before we get to it, a reminder. This weekend, starting on February 25th, is the Project for Awesome. You can get involved in the P4A in a few different ways. You can make a video promoting your favorite charity and submit it to ProjectFor Awesome.com. I made a video on vlog brothers a couple of weeks ago, talking about how to make good videos promoting charities. You can also donate to the Project for Awesome and in exchange, you can get a ton of amazing perks, including our all-time favorite. Everybody gets it.

The digital download bundle, which will include an exclusive episode of Dear Hank and John, as well as all of our TikTok drafts, which is, I'm not kidding, I think, over an hour of truly unhinged content if you add both of our drafts together. But also, there are, of of course tons of other great perks and perks that will be added throughout the 48-hour livestream, which reminds me 48-hour livestream at youtube.com slash vlogbrothers,

where John and I will be absolutely ruining our credibility and having lots of amazing guest hosts. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Join us and now on with a show. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Uh, no, it's Dear Chelsea and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers and sometimes a brother and a friend answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon Chelsea. Do you know where the polar bear keeps his money?

On the rapidly diminishing ice flows that remain in the Arctic. No, he keeps it in the snowbank. Geez, God, we're already throwing. Already, it's a bummer already. Look, I'm sure that we will get to the bummers. already. Look, I'm sure that we will get to the bummers. So one of the things that is weird about a podcast where two brothers answer your questions is that John and I know about some things, like John can answer your questions about English football, and I can answer your questions about Mars, but there's a lot of stuff we don't know that much about. And one of the things that we most frequently get questions about is jobs and money.

And I feel not particularly qualified to talk about that stuff. So one of the things that we'd like to do more of is have people who can actually answer questions like that on Dear Hank and John and ask them those kinds of questions. And Chelsea does that for a living. Chelsea runs a business and YouTube channel around personal finance. The channel's called The Financial Diet. I have worked with Chelsea in the past,

and I love anytime we get to chat, and so I'm very happy to be talking with you today. Me too. How is everybody refinances? Well, there were like 75 crypto commercials during the Super Bowl. So not great, Bob. Look, we have to gamble more apparently. That's what our society truly needs right now is more people involved in gambling. Just more unregulated securities that the average person is being encouraged to buy into as possible retirement plan. I think that's great. I don't really know how you else, you make the bottom of the pyramid bigger,

because how else will the top of the pyramid get higher? It's very true. Can I ask a couple of questions? Because one of my questions is, Can I ask a couple of questions? Because one of my questions is, to what extent do we understand why people are chasing these dreams? And of course, everybody's always been chasing get rich, quick schemes of one kind or another.

But is it more now that there is sort of more, is the demand gone up because there is more of a sort of situation where the need for that has increased or is the demand gone up because we've created systems and sort of like marketing gimmicks that are making the demand for schemes like that go up? Well, I mean, you mentioned earlier that we would be getting into bummers soon. And here we are. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think the most, because cryptocurrencies have been around for a while on the timescale of the Earth, not very long, but, you know, well over a decade now. And they've we've seen such a huge increase in their sort of ubiquity in the culture and their appeal to the average person, I think for a few reasons. One, times are bad economically. Young people are increasingly unable to sort of set up a viable financial life for themselves long-term, and especially young people who made all

of the, you know, quote, right decisions that authority figures told them would lead them to a financially stable life. Those decisions no longer that end of the bargain is no longer being held up. The social contract has been broken in that regard. And things that used to be very accessible, supporting a household on a single income buying a starter home, having a dignified retirement. These things are not realistic for an increasingly large portion of the population, again, especially for young people. And then simultaneously, you have a pretty serious influx of cheap cash venture capital and large-scale financial backing backing to a lot of these crypto-based ventures.

There's a lot of cheap money flying around there. They can afford to advertise on the Super Bowl and beyond billboards and buy celebrity endorsements and seem very legitimate. If it weren't this, it would be something else. But I think, for me, the reason that things like cryptocurrency are so particularly dangerous, as opposed to your standard MLM, where you end up with some debt and a bunch of leggings, is that the framing around it that sort of purports to be, you know, a financial instrument, a real currency, a valid security. This is deeply, deeply misleading to people and gives it sort of a sense of, you know, gravitas and stability that is, I think, in many ways intentionally deceptive and dangerous.

is I think in many ways intentionally deceptive and dangerous. Yeah, it's a great, as a person who has done marketing, it's a great tool for marketing, because it's confusing, but also there are lots of examples of people who have made good money, or at least so far, depending on whether they've gotten out or not, you can count that as actually having made money.

And it's so almost intentionally confusing that you can say anything about it. And it's like, this is going to open up the banking system to developing world. This is going to break down all the barriers. This is going to fix the art market, it's going to fix taxes. I think that the only way that this is a thing that you can think that it can solve this scale of problem is if, I don't know, anytime somebody says to me that they have a solution that fixes every problem, I'm like, well, you are not interfacing correctly with the complexity of the problems that exist. And that, and, and, you know, I have correspondingly get people who are quite mad at me when they're like,

why, why are you upset about this thing? It's my only path out of the situation that I'm inside of. No, it's not. It is the only path for people to get the comfort that they had have been promised or that they deserve. No, it's not. They're wrong. But also, I think the thing about it that is also so incredibly dangerous is that there is such an ability to, committing fraud is so profoundly baked into the architecture of the system. It's barely even fraud. I mean into the architecture of the system.

It's barely even fraud. I mean, so many of the biggest sales that we see happening in this market are people selling to themselves to make something look valuable or in demand. And to me, if you see an asset transferring and it goes, it's like, oh, it was bought for $10

and then somebody made $90 selling and somebody made $900 selling it, turns out it's just the same person buying it from themselves over and over again to make it feel like there's a big market for this one product. Exactly. To me, the idea that anyone could look around at our current financial system and say, the thing that we need is less regulation and less consumer protection is just to me psychotic.

Oh, Lord. Well, here's how about we get to a more normal problem? Cause I think that knowing the audience that we have, we are preaching a little bit to acquire and it is a frustrating moment, but there are also lots of normal problems. For example, the one that Andrea has, we've heard a version of this question,

probably hundreds of times, dear Hank and Chelsea. Like so many people right now, I'm in the one that Andrea has. We've heard a version of this question probably hundreds of times. Dear Hank and Chelsea. Like so many people right now, I'm in the midst of job hunting. I'm currently employed, but I've been at the same company for six years, and my job hasn't changed and my pay reflects that stagnation. A friend of mine just started at a big tech company and recommended me for a similar role, but I looked into the company and it's really big and scary sounding and leaves me with a bit of a pain in my chest. The pay is a lot higher,

but I'm not sure if it aligns with my values. How do you ethically capitalism? How much should I honor the icky feeling that I get looking at most job postings but also have money to eat, sleep, survive? Not the opera singer, Andrea from San Francisco. Well, you don't ethically capitalism, right? I mean, I think that that entire paradigm of making navigating capitalism in an ethical

or morally unimpeachable way, an individual responsibility and an arbiter of an individual's values is, I think it's not only really ineffective, but I think it's also a very deliberate framing by the people, by the people organizations, legislators, et cetera, who benefit from people thinking that their individual choices are what sort of determine the outcomes or reflect them. For most people, the ability to make quote unquote ethical choices under capitalism is just a question of resources. Can you say no to things? Can you buy from sustainable producers? Can you opt out of things like fast fashion or big agriculture? Any of

that stuff, I mean 99% of those choices come down to your own financial resources. So if it were a question of whether or not, you know, if the arbiter were how ethical your choices are and your decision-making skills are, basically what we've said is that every person under a certain income is bad and they're just condemned to be bad because they can't afford to make better choices. After that, I mean, where you work is ultimately a lot for people, right? Because it's not just where you get your money from, it's where you, I mean, it's how many people associate you, it's how people associate themselves.

It's also, it's an identity, it's where a lot of your social life is gonna come from, you're gonna be surrounded with people who probably have certain feelings and live certain lifestyles. And to that extent, where you work is often a slightly more important choice because it does have the individual level of impact both on the organization and on yourself individually is so much higher than where you buy a t-shirt. So most people do make some kind of a calculus, like maybe they'll buy from Amazon

every now and again, but they wouldn't work for Amazon. I think everyone has to draw that on their own line themselves and know that ultimately on some level, it's going to be arbitrary and it's going to be based on kind of what feels right for you. But I would say if you are keeping yourself in financial hardship in order to feel more morally consistent, on every level you are able to have more of a positive impact on the world around you.

If you are more financially stable and able to spend your time and your money in ways that are productive and beneficial toward the causes that you care about. So don't keep yourself in poverty to feel good. Yeah. Yeah. And the, you know, I think that it's obviously should always be the case that like the standards we apply to ourselves, we need to make sure they were not applying those to other people. I am always very frustrated when I hear some mom talking about how she would never take her children

to McDonald's and I'm like, okay, well, but you are in a, you are in a very different situation. So, so do that for, for your values, but don't apply that to someone else who is in a completely different situation from you. And feel as if you are a better person than that person because you get to make different decisions. And I think that this is a really tricky thing at this moment. And we are seeing that that power actually matters. You know, you're seeing, for example, Facebook having a really hard time recruiting talent.

And that actually does change the way that they, like, it changes their opportunities for success. And it changes what they focus on and it may change their decisions. And I've seen firsthand people who work at big tech companies having a lot more power in the decisions that those tech companies make than anyone outside of them, except maybe for large investors. Because recruitment is hard, getting great people was hard. And so there is a power in being inside of that,

but you also have to understand that that power is bigger than the power that the average person has, but it is not something where you're gonna be able to alone change the course of the company's decision making. So don't think that you're getting into it to change them, but do understand that you will remain a person with your values inside of that company and that that may have an impact on the, you know, at least the work that you are doing there. And also, I have a lot of friends who came, I did an environmental studies graduate program

and I have friends who came out of that and they started working for companies that have done bad stuff and they tended to work in parts of those big, big companies that had more positive impacts. But they also took the skills and the connections that they developed at those companies, and now that I'm 40 years old and they're 40 years old, almost all of them are now outside of

those companies, either working at their own things where they're trying to use those skills that they developed to do really interesting different things that they that are really in line with their values, or they're working at smaller organizations that are doing that that are taking on those bigger companies because they took that training, they took that education, they took that organizational knowledge, they're at the management skills they developed, the connections that they developed to do other bigger, cooler things, like more interesting stuff. Absolutely. I think in general, people who hold progressive values are unfortunately often very afraid of or very naive about power and what power allows, whether that's having the kind of power in an organization where you maybe don't change everything about that organization, but you can change a lot about how the people who work under you operate. You can make really big influences

on business development decisions or areas of spend or how money is allocated at whatever that might be. But also, power in the sense of if you, a lot of people in order to do something like some of these friends are doing where they work for these smaller organizations, these non-profits, you know, they're, they're dedicating their professional lives to something that has a real chance of, you know, making a more, being more antagonistic to the problems, which I think is important. How are you going to do that unless you have enough money to not really care how much you make for a given amount of time?

Because in many cases these jobs are, they can be voluntary, they can pay not enough to support a family, whatever it might be. So in order to get to the place where you can have the ability to work on projects that really means something to you, especially for more than a few hours a week, you need money to get there so that you can support yourself while you do it and I think a lot of people are afraid of, you know, what it, what it might take to accumulate that money in the shorter term. But many people who are involved in the fire movement, which is the financial independence retire early, many of them do so with the explicit intent of being able to work in a more volunteer capacity for the majority

of their working life. But you have to earn a bunch of money to get there. Interesting. Here is a question from Itha that I need to ask because it's the exact opposite of my experience. Itha asks, why does cash not feel like real money anymore? I'm a 19 year old college freshman. I've seen the transition from cash to credit to mobile pay within my lifetime. When I was younger,

I only ever paid for things with cash, but now that I'm living away from my family, I have several debit cards and a credit card that I use. And I found myself spending cash much more easily than swiping my card. If I'm told something is $20, I'll hand over that bill and not think twice about it. But if I have to swipe, I feel stress about that purchase. Is this because bank accounts let us see the numbers immediately dwindle? Is it because cash is just a green slip of fabric with no real value? And he helped us appreciate it, ETHA.

This is the exact opposite of the experience I had when I was 19. When I first got a debit card and I was like, I don't know, plonk. Well, you're... And like the stack of like $60. So that's what I'd always have. And I have like $60 in my pocket. And like how fast that $60 went away was really like the basis of my financial anxiety. Like if that $60 lasted for two weeks, then I was like, okay. But if it lasted for two days, I was like, ah-ha!

Wow. I don't know where you're getting $60 to take you for two weeks, but I was in college. And you have your meal card. You got your room paid for. What am I doing? Your experience statistically lines up much more with the norm. People generally psychologically have a much harder time spending cash than they do cards,

especially credit cards, because the money is not automatically disappearing from your account. Typically, the advice is to have people, people who have that relationship typically should do things like go on a cash diet, use the envelope system, use ways of budgeting and spending money that force you more into a cash system. So you feel that stronger sense of attachment to the value of the dollars you're spending for someone who doesn't think cards feel real or no, no, it's who feels that cards are very hard to spend on, but dollars just fly out of their hands. I mean, don't have, like, don't keep cash on you for the bus.

I mean, I don't know how you're going keep cash on you for the bus. I mean, I don't know how you're going to buy drugs and go to strip clubs, but, you know, for the rest of it, you can go, you know, cash free. That's true. I mean, it's wild to me that we are, and this feels like a transition that has happened in the last few years. But like, at this point, I rarely have cash in my wallet. Oh, no. In New York, you always have cash. At least I think you do.

There's so much stuff that's like so much easier to do with cash in the city. Hmm, nothing, nothing. I feel like people would, the tapping of my phone on a thing is so fast. I feel like I'm doing someone a favor. I'm like, look, we don't have to do any of that stuff that we used to have to do. It happened much faster. Everybody's gone.

Nobody's waiting in line after as I'm trying to get my quarters back from you, but I don't know what to do with. What is the envelope system? You have envelopes where you have allocated amounts of money for different aspects of your budget. So like your food, your going out, clothes, whatever it might be. Usually your bills will still be automated on your debit card or whatever. But all the more discretionary spending is in cash of predetermined amounts that are

in envelopes. And you take the cash out to spend on those things. And once the cash is gone, that portion of the budget is closed for this month. And the idea is imposing the control so that you do not have to have the control. Imposing the control. You create the self-control ahead of time. It's a lot easier. This is like not buying Oreos versus not eating them once they're in your house. It's imposing the control, but it's also having a very tactile and visual representation of how much

diminishment you're seeing in a given budget category over the course of a month. Where can I learn more about the envelope system? The financial diet on YouTube? Yeah, you know what? You can do just that. You can do just that. You can't do just that. This is, here's another question from Hannah. Where do millionaires keep their money?

I've been thinking about this. Nothing seems to be the correct answer. Do you have one account with a lot of money in it? Or do you have a lot of bank accounts with less money? Having one bank account with millions of dollars in it seems kind of irresponsible to me. Imagine if you lose your credit card. Unfortunately not in Montana, Hannah. Yeah, so most people with substantial assets, typically they'll keep their emergency fund, which is about six or so months worth of living expenses, plus if they're saving for any really shorter term goals, anything that's two years or less that they're saving for, they'll keep that in various accounts.

They'll probably have a little bit of money in their checking. But for the majority of their money, if they're smart, it's going to be in places like mutual funds, ETFs, it's going to be in places like mutual funds, ETFs, it's going to be in their retirement accounts. The money is going to be somewhere where it's doing more work than if it's sitting in an average bank account by the current rate of inflation with how much interest you get on that account, you're basically losing money if you keep it in a regular bank account. Even before inflation was high, that was the case, because interest rates have been so so low. What does that mean though? What so so it's interest rate

and a savings account is how much money the bank pays me to keep my money in that account, right? That's correct. And it when I was first putting money into an account, it was like five or six percent was first putting money into an account, it was like five or six percent. And it has not been anywhere near that in like 20 years. No, no, it's not. So the alternative to that is to have it be in, you said an ETF? Yeah, so any kind of well-diversified fund of investments. So, you know, most people when they think of investing, they think about like an individual stock, like, oh, I'm going to buy a couple stocks of, you know, Nike or Apple or Tesla, and just hope that they do well.

That is not a sound way to invest. That's not how most people invest, and certainly not how smart people invest. Most investments are going to come in something called a fund, which is basically just like a very large basket full of teeny, teeny, tiny little percentages of stocks and bonds from all over the market. Sometimes they are pegged to a specific part of the market, like an index fund. Sometimes they represent the market, the market more broadly, but basically they're a way you've probably heard the term diversified. It's a way to make sure that your investments are very diversified.

And generally, the returns on these will be comparable to whatever the returns on the broader market are. I think they average out to about seven, seven and a half percent over a long enough time scale, right? Which is, yeah. So, and then you build that investment account at like, fidelity or Charles Schwab or one of the e-trade. Is that one of them that newer younger ones? And they are very happy to take your money because oftentimes ETFs have a little bit of a fee that you pay to be inside of them though. There are now a few that have no fees

which are my personal favorites. Yes. Although we do tell people, a lot of people who've never invested before and are very overwhelmed by the concept, starting out with what is called a robo advisor, which are basically these little apps that just do everything for you and give you a little statement and it bases your investments on your goals and your timeline and all of that stuff and the amount you're investing.

They take a higher fee than what is called a self-managed brokerage where you're, you know, moving the money around and deciding how to allocate it and stuff. They typically take a higher fee, but for many people, it is the hump that they kind of get over to get into investing. Nothing wrong with those either. What's a good, what's a good robo advisor? I mean, they're, they're pretty comparable. I would just look at their fees, but I mean, you probably heard of like, wealthfront, betterment, acorns, wealth symbol, all of those. I mean, that's, I've heard of those things, but I had not really understood what they

were or how they operated because it felt a little bit like, whenever I hear about them, they talk about saving strategies and financial insight, like insight into your current financial situation more than they do about sort of the advising that they do to help you get a good return, which is, I don't know, but that seems like a big deal, especially because it's, you know, having an actual like human financial advisor can be either they're like not really worth their attention because there isn't enough money in the account or they take a pretty big fee because they're a human. Sure.

And you can learn more at the financial. You do channel, I'm sure. Kinga has a question, which I feel like you're gonna, I feel like you're gonna have such so much better advice than I would have. Dear Hank and Chelsea, how do I not feel bad about leaving my job? I'm a librarian and have been in my current

and first ever job for over three years, but it doesn't pay that well and I kind of need the money as I'm looking for a new job. But the guilt, I feel so bad. Searching for a new job without them knowing, it makes me feel bad, and leaving my department where I know that I'm needed makes me feel bad. They'll have to look for somebody new and my boss who was already doing a million other

projects will have to cover my work. I hate creating problems for her. Help, the anxiety, all around all of this is immense, and I would love to have one less thing on my too worry about list, love the pod, Kinga. Such a good question and such is so well articulated that like you are a human and in our work, we understand that our job is to help each other out, help out our co-workers.

I think that's a lot of what motivates people in their work. And that does like sort of put you up against this like, in my daily life, I'm gonna act like a human. And I'm gonna think and care about my coworkers like a human, but like the economy isn't really going to necessarily treat us this way. That makes sense. 100%.

So I mean, now if she were feeling this way about working at like, I don't know, Amazon, if you like, girl, get over it because they don't give a fuck about you, you shouldn't give a fuck about them. But working at the library, which I feel very strongly about, obviously, that's sadder. And I do, I mean, it also comes with the existential sadness

of knowing that like libraries are terribly underfunded and have a hard time retaining people because they don't pay enough in this, that and the other. But I think at the end of the day, this isn't really so much a question about how not to have massive anxiety about this one issue. It's how not to have anxiety about things that are foregone conclusions or that are not going to change the outcomes. If you're already optimizing for quitting in the most manageable way possible for them, for giving them the most notice you can afford to give them, for doing everything you can to close up your projects, for maintaining contact with the people that you really care

about and want to keep in your professional circle or your personal life, then you've already taken the decision. You already know what you're doing. You're already doing it the best way you can. Now you're just experiencing anxiety that's punishing yourself effectively. And I do think that that's less a professional question and more a question for whether it's a therapist

or talking to someone in your life that you trust about these things because the tendency that people especially women have to beat themselves up about something that they've already decided on or that they're already taking action on is just kind of a form of self punishment and is something that I think should really be dealt with more as a mental health question. Yeah, I think you are right. And I think also that there are certainly ways

that co-workers appreciate more and less for a transition. Do you have the space to help train a replacement? Do you have the space to give a longer period of notice? And is here in the person who is hiring you, are they gonna allow for that? Cause sometimes they give you a start date and you have to do the start date and you're not gonna work two jobs at the same time.

You're not, because that won't be good for anybody. And I think that that, like that, understanding that this is, like organizations have to have space for this. And there are people in the world who would like the job that you have right now, and they're going to learn in that job, the way that you learned in that job, and they're going to connect with your coworkers, and they're going to feel, you know, bring different skills and different abilities. And, but like the,

you know, we are definitely in a world where people are going to, like, like, organizations expect turnover. Three years is a long time to not have turnover, especially if the job doesn't have a lot of opportunity for advancement. And there needs to be space for that to exist. And that can be really hard at organizations that are especially underfunded places, especially nonprofits, libraries would be a good example of a place where there might not be that space built in. But they need to have that. And I think that just by virtue of the fact that you're caring about this, you're probably a pretty far ahead of a lot of people who would be in a similar situation in terms of how you're going to support your

colleagues on the way out. Well, I also, I mean, something that I think kind of generally is that guilt is a somewhat selfish emotion, not to say that it's bad, but it is a self-serving emotion. You're either going to modify your behavior in some way or make different decisions, in which case it's not guilt, it's like sort of a productive movement towards a better outcome or now come that feels better to you. Or it's just sort of self-flagulating for something that's already done. And so really separating the two, and if you're just feeling bad,

you feeling bad about it isn't going to help them. It is of no benefit to the library. Yeah. And it's also okay to grieve in moments like that. Or like there are things that you like about this place that you have to move on from. And that's just like the grieving of moving to a new city or any relationship.

But grief is a productive emotion, right? Like grief helps us move through something, guilt about something you've already done is like, and aren't gonna change is who benefits? Yeah, at that point, are you, are you, it's just like do you just, and also I think the main thing here is you are not a bad person for doing this.

No. This is like, this is like, you are doing the right thing for you and the normal thing and the thing that anyone else would do. So that is like to get away from shame, especially, I think would be really important in this moment. And to let the grief motivate you to act as rightly as you can, but then beyond that, try and let it go. Yes.

Gosh, what a world, Chelsea, which reminds me though, this podcast is actually sponsored by guilt. They reached out to us and they were like, I don't think people are indulging enough. We're going to give you a little bit of cash spread. The news, good news about feeling bad about stuff, even when you know it's the right thing to do. And this podcast is also brought to you by I'm going to do three at once. It's RoboAdvisors, it's ETFs, and it's

the envelope system, all of which you can find more about. If you go to youtube.com slash the financial diet, we also have a project find more about. If you go to YouTube.com slash the financial diet. We also have a project for awesome message. This is from Boris from Switzerland, who says, you guys are amazing. I think he means me and John, Chelsea, I'm sorry. Okay, Boris. That's pretty good. You've changed my life. The last few years, you've changed my life.

And my world view with your kindness, your determination to do good and your hard work, that is extremely kind. I appreciate what you do immensely and I'm on board even if remotely for the rest of my life. Okay. If you ever change your mind, that's fine. I'm sure this is a view that is reflected by thousands of others, so please take the time to celebrate and enjoy your success.

I think that last bit is important and I think think that I, and many people often do not take the time to celebrate and take a moment to say, good job. We did a good thing. I'm celebrating all the time about everything. You do? Yeah. Hell yeah. Good for you. What is it about our society where it feels like investing is a man thing. When did that happen? And what do we need to do to continue on doing that? Because it seems like a pretty important thing to have tied up in one of the genders. Yeah. I mean, so statistically speaking, in heterosexual couples, women manage the short-term

finances, meaning the consumer decisions, the day-to-day budgeting, all of that stuff where you buy your milk, and men manage the longer-term financial management, meaning retirement, investment, home buying, things like that. And women, on average, don't actually manage those things. And in many cases, aren't even aware of those things until the case of death of a spouse or divorce. And this is something that really kind of we see across income levels, we see across education levels. The numbers are starting to change slowly, but in general, women are sort of raised that money as a concept is just something that men have, you know, more of an aptitude for, I guess. And, you know, that women are

really to manage the pocketbook, you know, the daily spending, which is hilarious when you consider that, you know, women have been in the workforce earning, you know, and securing long-term financial futures for families for decades now. But that's still the kind of wisdom that most people grow up with also, I mean, it kind of ties into the women and STEM thing, right? Like women in general typically are less,

they participate less in endeavors which heavily lean on things like mathematics, engineering, etc. Which is its own kind of words that I'm not qualified to speak on. However, most people, male and female, have the misconception that managing one's personal finances is a question of math. It is not. No one in this world is worse at math than I am. And I'm pretty good at money. And aside from a very, very, very limited number of basic calculations, there's no math involved in managing your long-term finances and more over

for the things that do require any kind of math. There's like a million apps out there. Most of them are free. Yeah, I am interested in risk as part of this conversation, because I know that like when I have managed money, I do like to put a little bit of risk into my portfolio, just because I want, because for a little bit of fun,

but I also know that that is the wrong thing to do and that never has it actually long-term turned out well. And that I always, what my father told me when I was 20 years old, would have been better served by only investing in funds that reflect the broader market. Yeah, I mean, your dad's right. I mean, also you like me. I love how there are really obvious concrete answers and you're not afraid to say them. Because there are obvious concrete answers. There are concrete truths here that are not complicated. And I think a lot of people treat finance as a fun game.

And it's okay to treat it to some extent as a fun game. That's about like winning and it's and it's very analogous to and related to the instinct around gambling. And it's not the exact same thing, but it's very, I don't know. In some cases, it is the exact same thing. I think that like options trading and and crypto are oftentimes just versions of casinos. So, but so is individual stock picking, Hank, at scale so is individual stock picking. One of my favorite anecdotes in this regard

is that they did like a double blind study on the ability of brokers to accurately predict the movement of several given stocks. So they gave them a portfolio and they had to predict what would happen to those stocks. And then they set those same stocks out on a floor as little tiles and they had a bunch of kittens walk around them to determine what the kittens thought

the performance would be. And the kittens outperformed the brokers. So the thing is that if people, there's only two ways to accurately know what the stock market is going to do. One of them is insider trading, and that's what Martha Stewart went to jail for. Like if you're actually getting privileged information that allows you to accurately bet on the stock market, you are committing a crime, and you're committing one of the few white collar crimes they actually send people to prison for.

But the other way to do it is to effectively just get really lucky, which does, yes, sometimes happen. But if people were able to predict what an individual stock is going to do, the entire underlying concept of the market would have to change because it's based on the idea that you can't predict it. That's what leads to sort of the inherent value of it and what makes it so that one genius can't just come through and completely sweep the market, there are a limited, very, very limited number of funds that will occasionally, that they do consistently outperform the market by very, very marginal amounts. But in general, no offense, even you Hank, you're not that fund.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. I definitely don't do individual stockpicking at this point after 20 years of doing it. I do not do it with the thought that I'm going to beat everything, which is why I had 90% of my money is in either CDs, cash or bonds. But I would say the important difference here is that I, so I like going to casinos. Like I don't do it all the time, but I love to play Blackjack, I love to gamble.

I think it's really fun. But I'm not diluting myself when I do that into thinking that I'm making a financial decision. I know that I'm playing a game and that I'm probably gonna lose my money and that the cost of playing the game is what I'm buying. Like I enjoy it as a leisure activity. And I think the fact that people sometimes think

that making these really, really risky speculative investments is somehow, quote unquote, like financial in nature. No, like you're having fun. You're paying for the thrill of seeing what's going to happen to Tesla or whatever, which is fine, but don't in your mind think that you're making some sort of financial decision. Yeah. And also, like it's amazing how large the industry of people who either try to get you to think that you know how to do stock picking

or are doing that themselves and like, we'll let you pay them to do it. It's a huge, it's a huge number of people. And there is absolutely no scientific evidence that it has ever worked. No, although occasionally people put together portfolios for hilarious reasons that will sometimes work out like one of my like, nemases in the like, pundit class who's always going off about like tech and business and venture capital stuff in a way that I just don't usually agree with. So he has made some, he is also, you know what? In some ways, I almost have respect for him because he actually goes so far into making actual verifiable predictions, whereas a lot of these rifters will be very vague. But he to his credit has made a lot

of absolutely bonkers and totally totally ended up being wrong predictions. But the extent that someone put together a portfolio that's just shorting all of his predictions, like for those who don't know that means like basically betting against all of his predictions, and that actually has been doing kind of well. Oh, that's adorable. Okay, I have one last question for you.

I think it's one that having heard a little bit of this conversation I think everybody will be asking. It's from Kellyn who asks, Dear Hank and Chelsea, I'm looking to start investing because I'm an adult and that's what adults do. But at what point do I have enough money to actually do that?

And how do, like, what is the first step that I would take to do it? Basically, is what Kevin is asking in a much longer question. You're in luck, Hank, is this another extremely true or false answer to which there's an actual response? The best data start investing was yesterday.

The second best day is today. Investing, the reason why it's awesome is because it functions on compound interest, which the more time it has to compound an interest itself, the better. So especially for saving for things like retirement, you need a lot of money, so starting earlier is better. So the soon as you possibly can is the best time.

When can you afford it? Do you have your emergency fund built up? That's again, about six months of living expenses that you need directly accessible in a savings account. So if your car breaks down or if you lose a job or whatever it might be, you're not on the street. Once that's built up, you want to prioritize, you know, obviously paying down any super high interest debt like you have, you know, credit cards, things like that.

You want to make sure that those are being taken care of. But basically as soon as you get free money in your budget of any amount, because you can invest a dollar a day. It doesn't or a dollar a month, really. It doesn't matter what you're investing. As soon as you have that little bit of wiggle room after you have your emergency fund, it is absolutely crucial that you start investing it. And lastly number three, if you have things like student debt or lower interest debts, there are great calculators out there that will show you whether it's a better idea to allocate more into investing versus paying off that debt.

Because if you have subsidized student debt that is like 3% or whatever interest, likely putting more money into a fund is going to be the better way. So you would pay less. Obviously, you're not going to just default on your loans, but you can pay closer to the minimum and then put that money towards investing. And how do you do it? Could not be easier. You can open up a self-managed brokerage at a place like a, you know, a fidelity of

Vanguard, whatever. You can use a Robo app where you just download the app and it walks you through the process. Also chances are if you work at a larger employer, you probably have access to some kind of employer sponsored retirement fund, things like 401Ks, 403Bs. So talk to your HR department about those things. There are also individual retirement accounts, IRAs. You probably have heard of those. You can also have them at the same time.

You have something like a 401K. But if you want to just have a lot of 101 investing information, not to pimp our own channel, but YouTube.com slash the financial diet. So I'm interested in the reserve fund. The emergency fund? Yeah. So as an example, you don't need an emergency fund. You need to be able to live for six months with no income. And that can take different shapes.

And one of the shapes that that often takes for people is a good support network of family who you know can take care of you if the worst happens. So is it okay and like, how should people think about the, obviously there's inequity there, there's privilege there, but is it worth thinking about investing earlier if you feel like you have a support network? The really throwing caution version of an emergency fund is three months of living expenses. Six months is ideal, three months is the minimum. I don't care if your family is like daddy war bucks and you can go live on their compound

in Connecticut and whatever it might be. Your financial security and financial health should never be based on the presumption that someone else is going to bail you out because then you're dependent on their financial situation and their liquidity and their availability. And like, even if let's say you could go live with your family, are you able to suddenly change cities if they don't live in the same city as you? Also, even if you had to move out of your home,

that costs money, like finding someone to replace you on your lease cost money. Like, you never ever want to be in a situation move out of your home, that costs money, like finding someone to replace you on your lease cost money. Like, you never ever want to be in a situation where your entire financial safety net resides on other people. But if you need to be more aggressive about doing things like debt payoff or getting your retirement off the ground, the minimum you can go with is a three month emergency fund. Minimum.

Okay. Chelsea Fagan does not have her opinions figured out on this stuff, you guys. It's solid. She knows where she stands, she stands there. I mean, yeah, but I think a lot of these things are not totally opinions. I think a lot of them are just like the reality of what we know happens to people, right?

Cause like you don't have to lose your job to need an emergency fund. You could need an emergency fund because we have like no comparable healthcare system in this country and you like need stitches and, you know, your copay is very high. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Chelsea. Let's end with this question from Benjamin who asks, dear Chelsea and Hank, like most self-respecting seven-year-olds, my son really loves dinosaurs. However, he has very little regard for egg yolks, which I personally find to be the best part of the egg. In an effort to marry these two topics, will we ever know which dinosaur would have had

the best tasting eggs and how best we could cook them on Uff is enough, Benjamin. I know that this is not a topic that you're expert on, Chelsea, but look, neither am I. What? What, I don't even know what the question is. The question is, what dinosaur egg would taste best? Oh my God. I, I, I, I'll let you take the first crack at this one.

Do you not, do you not spend a lot of time thinking about this? So one thing I know is that ostrich eggs taste very much like chicken eggs. In fact, most bird eggs taste like bird eggs. Now there are people who will tell you the differences in the taste. And I believe them. I've never had ostrich egg, but I have heard, but people have. And apparently it tastes a lot like, it tastes a little bit more rich than a chicken egg. And you can make with an ostrich egg, 30 omelets that are roughly the size of a three-egg omelet.

With a single egg. So I think that, I think Benjamin, the situation we're in, is that all of the dinosaur eggs would probably taste pretty good, but the ones that are going to taste most like a chicken egg, which is the ones that we obviously have developed a taste for, are going to be the ones that eat chicken-like stuff. So you're going to be looking for a dinosaur that eats grass and insects, would be my guess. I would also say whatever dinosaur had the best vibes slash was living the most trustworthy lifestyle because to go back to our earlier conversation about how being able to make ethical choices as a consumer basically comes down to money.

So now that my husband and I have the financial ability to do so, we're like very, very picky about the animal products that we buy for, you know, all kinds of reasons. And man, you get that farm-fresh egg. You will never eat another grocery store egg again. They're so gross. And you're just like, it's so and those chickens are living great lives. They got friends. They probably go to like chicken yoga and stuff. So, so we want it. You want whatever dinosaur is a vegetarian or insect and also does yoga. Yoga dinosaur is all the way. You don't want one of those prey dinosaurs.

It was like always freaked out and running away. Exactly. Yeah. I like the idea of Googling, what was the most chill dinosaur? I feel like it's, don't we all grow up with the assumption that it's brought to Sores? Yeah, I like the idea of Googling, what was the most chill dinosaur? I feel like it's, don't we all grow up with the assumption that it's Brontosaurus?

Yeah, I like the really tall ones. Seems, yeah, Brontosaurus seems very chill. It's probably eats a lot of the same things that a chicken would, it probably eats a lot of like crustaceans, but accidentally, and has a bunch of, a bunch of,

a veg aside from that, and not worried, just I don't feel like I'd be worried if I was a Brontosaurus. No. to the veg aside from that and not worried. Just, I don't feel like I'd be worried if I was a Brana source. No, they can just next-swat any predator out of the way. They're great. There's gonna be a bunch of people

who are gonna get mad at me because Brana source don't technically exist, but you know what I mean. What? Yeah, turns out Brana source has never existed. I'm sorry, I have to be the one to bring you this news. Wait, I'm sorry, what? The long neck dinosaur from the land before time and stuff didn't exist.

The long, there are many long neck dinosaurs, a padisaurus, there's a bunch of them that did exist. But Brontosaurus specifically were a species of dinosaur that were created from a bunch of bones from different dinosaurs being cobbled together into a dinosaur that somebody tried to pass off as a species, but turned out. Or like, I don't know if he thought that it was a species, but he just had a bunch of different like partial skeletons of similar looking dinosaurs and called a brontosaurus. But as far as I know, brontosaurus remains not a real thing. Being a scientist back in like the 1700s was so cool. Like you could just do whatever you wanted and no one could verify it.

Oh God, look, I just Googled it. And apparently Brontosaurus is back. What? Apparently it's back. It's been reinstated. What is this? Now I have to go, now I have to dive deep. And I have to tell, like I have to issue an apology,

a retraction, Bronisaurus didn't exist, but then it did. Bronisaurus stomps back its claim. Bronisaurus stomps back to claim its status as a real dinosaur, like Pluto. Dinosaurs became a non-species. Now scientists say that they may have made the wrong call. They're gonna, I'm gonna flag this podcast

for misinformation on Spotify for the journey that you took me on with that Brontosaurus. Oh, geez. Chelsea, thank you so much for coming on and sharing a little bit of your insight, but mostly your rock solid, concrete truth-telling around finance. There's no opinions here. No.

You are not going to pick stocks, and the best time to be invested is right now. It's true. There's no better time than yesterday. It is very true. Thank you for having me. Many people may not know this, but it is because of Hank Green that we even have a YouTube channel at all.

He plucked this from a screen. I read something that you wrote, and I was like, let's have, I'm going to be in New York, let's go have dinner together at a long bench table with a bunch of other people. Apparently, is how you do it. No, no, I was like, I remember walking into that place because it was like a fancy expensive restaurant,

but it had tables like at a Le Pen cotidian where like everyone just sits kind of like wherever they may and I was like, if you're paying these prices, I was like my own table. Hahaha. Yeah. And I was like, why haven't you ever made YouTube stuff and you were like,

cause I don't like the idea of being in front of the camera. Look at you now. Look at me now. Indeed. Well, thank you for having me Hank, I loved it. Yeah, a ton of fun. like the idea of being in front of the camera. Look at you now! Look at me now indeed. Well thank you for having me Hank, I loved it. Yeah, a ton of fun and you can find it Chelsea and lots of more great information at youtube.com slash the financial diet. I am theoretically at least if we get it together, some point quite soon going to be releasing a video there about uh finance and the creator economy is the goal anyway, we'll see.

Thank you to everybody who sent in your questions, you can send in more at hankajonatgmail.com. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Meticch, it's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohas. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Duplicate Truck Ravardi. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast,

it's by the great gunorola, and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. great gonna roll up and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪