Financial Feminist - 6. How America’s Racist Roots Fueled a Predatory Bail Bond Industry, with Tricia Cleppe

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE. Today’s guest, my friend and coaching client Tricia Cleppe, grew up sitting on the counters of cash and bail bonds stores -- and WHEW does she have some stories to share. I sat down with Tricia to take a deep dive into the history of racism in America, how the predatory cash and bail bonds industry targets and harms minorities, and how these industries can have a more ethical future. The daughter of a Filipino immigrant single mother living in the south, Tricia has one of the most fascinating backstories, and I loved every minute of this interview. Not sure where to start with your finances? Order “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love”: https://bit.ly/3PpHvlC Take the free Money Personality Quiz to get tailored resources for your financial journey: https://treasury.app/herfirst100k/money-journey-quiz Official Financial Feminist Merch: herfirst100k.com/hfk-merch Follow Tricia on Instagram: www.instagram.com/tclep INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/herfirst100k TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@herfirst100k FACEBOOK GROUP: www.facebook.com/groups/362601367623070/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Team, hi, welcome back to the Financial Feminist Podcast. I'm Tori Dunlap, money speaker and educator, founder of Her Fresh 100K, and that girl who says, oh, I'll eat a vegetable tomorrow while halfway through a pop-ice chicken sandwich. Today's guest is one of my amazing coaching clients turned good friends, Trisha Kleppy. Her wedding invite is actually up on my refrigerator. She's one of those women that you could just stay up all night talking to and not about fluffy shit either. So she and I have very similar backgrounds. We both worked in marketing and work in marketing. And she also co-hosts one of my favorite podcasts called the Women Wave. So be sure to check that out. We'll link it in the show notes.

So Trisha's story is a doozy, but in the best way possible. She's a woman of color who grew up in the South. And as a kid, she helped her mother run a check cashing and cash bail business. So yeah, we not only talk about the financial and emotional impact that this had on her. If you've ever felt shame around money because of the way you grew up, this is a must listen episode. But we also talk about race, wealth inequality, and more. Y y'all i can't even begin to tell you how worth your time this episode is and please if you love the show rate and review subscribe tell your friends we appreciate your support of our mission and this movement so without further ado let's go ahead and get into it tell us a bit about yourself you and i have known each other what is like two years

three years two or three years yes introduced by our dear friend kieran I, so when we met, I was freelancing full time and, um, kind of running my own small business, um, me, myself, and I doing freelance marketing work, copywriting, a lot of cop, mostly copywriting. Um, and so we met because I definitely was like asking Kieran, our friend who also runs her own business, doing freelance work and consulting that I just like, didn't know where to start with money. Like I was so confused and like, I, money to me has always been this weird, magical thing that exists out there and doesn't exist here. All I know about money is that I never have enough of it. And as soon as I get it, it goes away. That's my entire understanding of how money works.

You're like, money and I are not friends. We don't get along. We don't talk. We don't hang out. What is this concept that you're talking about? Like savings. And for a really long time, I was just in survival mode. And so this idea of like contributing to a savings account or having an

emergency fund felt like something that was like so far away from something I could have. Right. Because there was no extra in the paycheck at the end of groceries and rent. And so, you know, I just had a very, I wouldn't even say like a bad relationship with money. I was just, I was, I was terrified of it and like just would tune out of conversations about it because it just felt so overwhelming to me. Um, and then, um, my father passed away who I, you know, didn't have much of a relationship with, but, um, who my mom who had been divorced from

him since I was, you know, four, um, had gotten a life insurance policy like years and years and years, literally decades before and, um, continued paying, you know, towards it, paying towards it. And, um, when he passed away, we, away, me and my brother each got money from his life insurance. It wasn't a lot, but it was more money than I've ever seen in a check for sure. And that I've ever seen deposited into my account. So I finally had this sort of nest egg and I paid off my student loans with it. I paid off my credit card debt. And then there was like this little chunk left over and I like just wanted to protect it

and I didn't know what to do with it. So Kieran invited me to your free workshop that you did. This was like 2019, May, April, May of 2019. Yes, and that's where we met. And then we worked together one-on-one. I did a couple of one-on-one. I did a couple one-on-one sessions with you, used some of your downloadable tools and really got my shit together. Truly. Got my emergency fund, my Roth IRA, and just feeling... And just a simple,

And just a simple, nonjudgmental budget every month of just knowing what my boundaries are really helps me. And so I'm feeling I'm in such a better place now thanks to your help. And also at that- And you work super hard to make it happen too. Totally. So I'm so proud of you and everything that you've been able to do financially. It's just been really cool to watch. So thank you. And at that same, um, workshop, I actually met my now boss as well. Um, so yeah, so all, all the things, all the things happened. It was, it was a magical day. And I'll tell listeners, we are all kind of part of this,

magical day. And I'll tell listeners, we are all kind of part of this, like, I don't know, Seattle female entrepreneur, like group chat. Like it's been in real life group chat. And then as COVID started, it's, it's all gone over text and zoom and that sort of thing. And it's honestly, it's like, if you don't have a group like this in your life, you need to get one. Like you have to have one. It's labeled the hype squad in our group chat of just like, we send each other our accomplishments. We ask each other questions. We go like, hey, have you heard of this person? And can I get an intro if any of you know this person? So yeah, it's amazing. And hey, I feel like shit. Anybody else? Anybody have tips for getting out of a rut? You just need people. You just need community. Um,

that is like my number one lesson in life. And what I encourage other people to find is, um, friends, like it sounds so simple, but you need them, you need community and you need to be in touch with your community. Um, and it makes such a difference in your life. Yep, without a doubt. So tell me a bit, and we'll kind of transition into what we're looking to talk about today. But tell me a bit about how you grew up around money and what your family situation was when it comes to personal finance, especially as a woman of color. personal finance, especially as a woman of color? Yes. So I'm biracial. My father is white, but my mother who raised me as a single mother is Filipino. She came to America in her thirties and raised us here, you know? And so I grew up the daughter of a Filipino immigrant, So I grew up the daughter of a Filipino immigrant single mother in the American South, which is quite an interesting recipe.

Quite an interesting way to grow up. And, you know, it's so funny. I like tell people about my childhood sometimes. And like, sometimes I like, I like have to edit it or like, I don't even like go there because I literally think people will think I'm lying because it's so bizarre kind of the situation that I grew up in. But I grew up the daughter of a Brown woman in America, you know, immigrant in America, in the American South, but I grew up as an evangelical fundamental Baptist church in school, you know, church three times a week, and then school at the same church complex, you know, like truly evangelical. I'm talking like Liberty University, Jerry Falwell, all of the people

that you are hearing about now as these like kooks, that's who I literally grew up around. And we're speaking in tongues, Tricia. Yes. Yes. Oh, we're going to have to go on a whole tangent about that. Okay. I grew up in this like very white, extremely white, like the whitest white in the South community you could possibly imagine. And like so much shame around everything. Women, you know, couldn't show their legs, couldn't sing on the same platform in the choir as the men. It was one of those. It was one of those. So I definitely grew up in a very shame-based upbringing on all the things, right? Not just money, but all the things. And how we got there was because my mother, when she came to the US,

when she immigrated here, she got a job. One of her first jobs after her first marriage was at a check cashing store in Miami. And she just worked there. It was a job that she got. And so then when she moved to Miami from Miami to North Carolina with my father, she met the man who became my godfather. And he owned multiple locations of check cashing and bail bonding stores throughout the Southeast. And my mom went on to manage that business for nearly 15 years. Um, so I grew up literally every single day going with her to that office. Um, it was in downtown Raleigh. I won't name any names because, you know, we're all my family that, um, and you know, my, all the people in my family are in different places with their reckoning and processing and privacy uh not everyone in my family is like down to talk

about their shit on podcasts so um you know fair enough also am i allowed to cuss on this oh okay yes of course okay so so my mom ended up working at a check cashing and managing a multi-location check cashing and bail bonding store. And can we stop there and give definitions of both of those things, if you wouldn't mind? And I'm happy to pop in with any expertise that we need, but I want everybody to be on the level playing field of what those two things are. Totally. They're both horrible things.

Predatory as fuck. Predatory as hell. Literally my shirt on the back, I don't know if you can see, I'm going to turn around for you, but it says fuck cash bail. Yeah, there you go. And mine says equal pay and shallomay. This is merch, by the way. Oh my God. Anyway. So, okay. So check cashing and bail bonding, here's just a rundown. For people who are employed, they receive checks, disability checks, social security checks, unemployment checks, or they

have an actual job and they receive their payment via check, which most people do if you're not getting a direct deposit. But there is a huge uphill battle that a lot of people don't realize on getting a bank account from an actual bank. You need IDs. There's background checks. There's credit checks. A lot of bank accounts require you to have a minimum amount in your account. Or they charge you if overdraft fees are a big thing that happen. And that's if you have a bank account in your community, which plenty of places don't,

especially disenfranchises black and brown people. And this is assuming you trust banks, which have repeatedly given black and brown people reasons to not trust them. So this is assuming you even have access to a bank account. You have all of these hoops you have to jump through. And we're talking about this with another guest on the show, but 30% of black people are under or unbanked, meaning that they either are not taking full advantage of the banks and credit unions that are offered to them, or that they just don't have access at all, or they haven't had a bank account so yeah there's all of those hoops to jump through that's even if you can get to those hoops

yeah exactly so what check cashing stores serve to do in a predatory and horrible way is um to allow people to cash those checks that they have and they need to get the cash from. But they charge anywhere between 7% to 14% or higher of the total amount of that check. So growing up, I literally went to work with my mom and would literally take people's cute little girl, cute little Asian girl at the front of the, behind the bulletproof glass and they push their check underneath. Then I would take it back and climb up on the stool and do it in the cash register. And members would pay 7%. Non-members would pay 14%. And I remember, you know, what was membership? What does that mean? So you could become like a member of the, you know, sort of like having a bank account with the check cashing store, but not really.

But you basically got paid like an upfront fee of like 50 bucks or whatever to be a member. And then you could cash your checks for 7% of the overall total versus 14% every check. But you're there taking the checks as a young girl. I'm literally there taking the checks, counting the money. Like, I mean, I have all, most of my childhood photos are at the check cashing store of me, you know, balancing the checks at the end of the night with my mom, or I learned how to count because we had, we would count the cash on, on the ground. And so that was my life, you know, that's like, that's just how I grew up. And my godfather who, um, I am not in contact with anymore. Um, but who I've come to learn is, um, you know, a white Southern man with a lot of, uh, concepts about other people and other groups.

Um, I would call him racist. Now, I don't think I had the words or the courage to express that when I was any younger. Um, but he was the one that, you know, for all of the predatory aspects, from my mother's perspective, she is a single brown immigrant living in the South. She needs to keep a roof over her kid's head. She has four kids. Keep a roof over their heads. Pay for their school. And my godfather was this really respected member of the community and the city that we grew up in. Knew the state senators. K, you know, judges, knew

the police departments. And our pastor's son worked at the check cashing store, you know, like just extremely well-respected man in the community. And so for my mother, she saw this as like a great stepping stone and a bill, like it really gave us this access to community that we probably wouldn't have access before. So he was the one that got us involved in the evangelical church because of course he was involved in, he, you know, was a member of that church. Well, it sounds like social currency too, right? Because it was like, it was the way to meet people and to move up in society. If this person is influential, It was the way to meet people and to move up in society. If this person is influential, you can get connected and into these maybe closed doors communities that you hadn't had access to before. Certainly not a Filipino immigrant single mom was not getting access to, you know.

White state senators in the South. A hundred percent. is in the South. Yeah. A hundred percent. And that speaks to, you know, this kind of grand bargain that a lot of minorities fall into in America when it comes to white supremacy is this proximity to whiteness. You think like, if you can just get closer, if you can just, you know, make friends, if you can just assimilate, if you can just go through the same, you know, go through the same education systems and you can come out the other side, like as close as you can get, as close as you can get, that's what you're fighting for. And it's just a farce. It's not true. It's not, it's not a method of protection. In fact, it doesn't do anything to protect you.

All it does is protect white supremacy, which then in turn harms you. So that's how I grew up is, you know, that's check hashing. So that was really my mom's, like, that's really the part of the business that my mom like truly managed ran. And then there was the bail bonding office. So you walked in, check hashing was on the first floor, you walk downstairs and bail bonding office, one of them is on the bottom floor. And I mean, on the bottom floor and i mean on the bottom floor i remember that's i would always hang out down there because that's where the tvs were and my you know my godfather was and he would sit at his desk all day and there would just be people coming through all day long and of course all black and brown because you know the carceral state in america um massively incarcerates black and brown people over white

people um i don't think what would you say if you had to give like how many out of 10 people were white versus people of color 90 percent were people of color so not nine out of 10 people that walk through the door were black or brown yes and maybe one was white yes and they were coming to you know it's a family member of somebody who has been arrested put in jail and is needed needs cash to pay their cash bail to be released from jail until their court date so how bail cash bail works is another extremely predatory system in America that says, um, if you get arrested, you can be held in jail until your court date. Um,

but the judge, and we now, we know that judges, there have been many studies. There's lots of academia around this, that judges, um, place higher bail amounts on people of color. And so you're talking about this whole system

that relies on racism, not from the arrests and the policing of communities to the economic state of the communities most affected who they just don't have as much discretionary income to pay $10,000, $12,000, $20,000 in cash upfront for bailing a loved one out of jail. But the alternative is that person sits in jail for six months, sometimes years, literally years. Well, until their trial, right? Until their trial. And they're not supposed to be stuck in jail for extended amounts of time, but that happens all the time. There's a massive amount of people that are incarcerated right now in America that have never been convicted of a crime. They're just waiting for their court date and they don't have the money to get out in the meantime

and in our research for this too even if your case is dismissed you don't get a refund on your cash bail like there's no refund policy so if you've paid this cash bail to assumingly get out of jail right and your case is dismissed you're not prosecuted you're not charged with anything you are still out that money yep so that's the other thing is it's like maybe if again the whole thing's predatory bullshit but maybe you get your money back if you don't if you aren't charged for a crime nope you're not you don't get your money back either no and that doesn't even speak to when, you know, there are laws in this country that say a police officer can, they can go in and raid your house and take your belongings and then keep them. And even if you are not convicted of that crime and it is proven that, that your property was taken without any, you know, guilty verdict, you don't get that property back. You actually have to go to court and prove that

that property wasn't involved in a crime that you were just proved to not be a part of. And that costs money too. So it's just so fucked up. Um, and in, in my in my experience growing up, this is something that I've had to really, I'm still very much processing it. But I literally grew up, every car my family drove, literally every car my family drove up until my mom, maybe three, four years ago, she was still driving a car from my godfather. Every single car we drove growing up was a piece of collateral that a black or brown family member put up to get their family member out of jail and then for cash bail. And they couldn't pay back. So I just got chills and the worst possible. It is serious shit that I've like, you know,

now being older and understanding context and having learned things about how this country is run. It is very heavy. But you know, there it's But there's something extremely unsettling when I think back on my favorite childhood memory of going to Disney World, the one and only time we drove to Florida in a minivan put up for collateral by a Black grandmother to get her grandson out of jail for a drug charge for probably honestly probably cannabis which right is now legal in most places and white people are profiting off of um while others are still left um in prison that that is heavy um it's heavy for me to you know come to these realizationsizations about my family's place and complicity

in these horrible predatory systems. And, you know, I think my mom ended up leaving that job for a host of reasons and life was pretty difficult. I mean, everything was tied in. That was our whole community. We didn't have, we didn't have a lot of family. I didn't have any blood family on my mom's side here in the States. And so, you know, the house we rented, the house I grew up in was next door to my godfather and my godmother, and we rented it from them. So when she quit, all of that stuff was thrown into turmoil. And so life was really difficult, but looking back, I'm so happy that she had the bravery to kind of step away from something that was a really just a horrible environment for any of us to be in. But I think what I learned is all about, like I said, that like that bargain that a lot of us make, um, white supremacy is this thing that is so big and it has so many different tentacles and like systems that uphold

it. Um, but all of them require participation, every single one of them. And we participated in it. And there's lots of excuses that we could, that I could make for my family. And, And there's lots of excuses that I could make for my family. And I understand my mom was a single mom, Asian woman trying to just provide for her family. And I don't begrudge her for that. You don't know what you don't know, but it doesn't make it right. kind of think through the lives that we intersected with and the systems that we upheld and the cash we took from people. I mean, literally took from people. So none of that is beyond me and it is not lost on me, but it was a really pretty uncanny masterclass on how these systems work together. uncanny masterclass on how these systems work together. I mean, I'm literally, you know, eight years old, nine years old and watching black families come in to put their collateral up for other family members. Um, you know, Hispanic families come in to put up collateral for other family members to get them out of jail and then they can't pay it off.

of jail and then they can't pay it off. And then my family gets to use that car or, um, you know, that the money that we're taking from people's checks that they need, um, is what paid the rent for the home for my mom to rent from, you know, my rich white godfather. Um, but I'm assuming as a kid, like how much do you know about what's happening? Nothing. Right. So you're like, so, I mean, this is going to sound awful, but I'm wondering if you as a kid were like, oh, new car. Yes. Oh yeah. That was 100%. I remember like being so excited every time we got to like upgrade, but I'm not kidding when I say like, there was one of the bail bombing offices, you would go out in the backyard and there was this gigantic wooden fence

and you would open up the fence and there was just this like graveyard of belonging, people's belongings. We had boats, motorcycles, cars, trailers, like anything you could imagine people put up for collateral and oftentimes didn't get back because they couldn't, not because they're, that the person skipped bail, the person went to their court date and was either convicted or not. But you have interest due, an insane amount of interest due.

So let's explain that. So you come in and I'm somebody's wife, I'm somebody's daughter, and I'm there to get pay to get this person out of jail. What does that look like? Like, what are just financially, what are the steps there? Yeah. So, I mean, growing up, I always knew my godfather to just have a fat wad of cash on him at all times, you know, and was on call at all times to go to the courthouse or to go to, you know, whatever, like local precinct that people were being held in.

But he would get a call and meet with whatever family member or loved one or person that was going to be bailing the person out. The justice system, the judges and those like them are the ones that set the bail amount. So it could be anywhere between, I believe the minimum that he was dealing with was like $10,000 bails. So it could be anywhere between, I believe the minimum that he was dealing with was like $10,000 bails. So he would- That's the minimum. Minimum. So he would say, okay, this is the amount of bail that is due. I can do that, but here's the terms. You have to put up something that, equal to like three times the amount of that bail to, you know, ensure that I'll be able to recoup my cost. Your loss, right. And then, you know, I'll put my cash

up for it. Your loved one can get out of jail until their court date. They have to show up at court or else obviously the bail is, no one gets it back and then all money is lost. And that's where the collateral comes in. That very rarely happened. And when it did, he has bounty hunters to go find them. And so then if somebody does get out of jail or they're convicted, you still get the bail money back, but you charge, I don't even, I don't remember the interest number, but you charge, you know, double digit interest on top of what they're paying. So if somebody's in jail or somebody's bail is, you know, their court date takes six months, you're paying six months of interest on that $10,000 bail that he had to put up. And so a lot of people would just forego their collateral

as payment for that interest that they couldn't pay in cash. So we would end up with all sorts of possessions. I mean, I literally, I grew up, there was one time where we had a boat that like had like a jet ski that you could pull out of the boat. And it was like this U-shaped floating boat. And then you could park your of the boat and it was like this u-shaped uh floating boat and then you

could park your jet ski back into it like just crazy shit that i like remember having a farm um like tons and tons of different forms of collateral that people put up and never got back and they're doing rings is this like a pawn shop or they're bringing like oh yeah diamond rings tons of jewelry tons of jewelry tvs just any belonging any belonging and then is your godfather going and selling that or is he just okay because i'm assuming like a fucking junkyard full of cars like are you selling that like how are you making money yeah selling selling the cars often and all of the belongings and a lot of it keeping, you know, keep as your own car or keep, you know, my mom would drive. But I was literally brought home from the hospital in a bulletproof baby blue Cadillac that my mom had gotten from a cash bail a cash bail collateral. And that whole, that's how I grew up. That's how I first got introduced to money were these horrible predatory systems. And I didn't know at the time, I mean, I didn't

know any different. Like I said, literally our pastor's son worked at the check hashing store. So I never knew these things were predatory or bad. I just knew that they were, and I knew that it was the family business. It wasn't until really honestly college and the year since that I've fully started unpacking just how fucked up and horrible it is. And there's a lot of conversations right now with the rise in hate crimes and violence and violent rhetoric towards the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and also the Black community, the Black Lives Matter movement, And also the Black community, the Black Lives Matter movement, tons of, you know, just awful stories, it seems like every day of police brutality and murder by cops. Asian community about this idea of the model minority and this like zero sum game that white

supremacy requires of us that says like only one other is allowed to win here. So you're either with us or you're with them. And so, you know, I don't ever remember my mother like explicitly saying those things, but every day that that's the lesson I was learning. Visually, in the environment I was in, every day I was learning, we can choose which team we're on here. We can be this model minority of an other where you keep your head down, you work for the man, you stay quiet, you don't ask too many questions, and you get the job done and eventually it'll pay off or you're with them. That was really the choice that I was visually seeing every day. And the environment was requiring of me, but I don't ever remember like my mother explicitly saying it, but it's definitely the lesson I learned growing up and have had to unlearn a lot of since. Yeah. Interesting childhood

to say the least. So I've done a ton of research on payday loans. Was that factored into this as well? Were there payday loans? We didn't have any payday loans. Obviously those, these things are all very much interconnected, um, in financial schemes. Um, but no, that was like the one predatory financial scheme that my childhood did not involve, unbelievably. So if you are growing up in this evangelical Christian Christian community and yet you're they're actively taking part in obviously predatory behavior but just morally and ethically shady at best behavior was this discussed like how what the moral quandary of this yeah how did it was it how did they justify it did they feel the need to justify it like how did how did these two parts fit together um i genuinely don't believe i mean all of the church and school i went to still exists you know, my godfather is still very much who he's always been. Um,

you know, and no, I don't think that they feel any need to, to try to, um, bridge the two, you know, the, what the Bible actually teaches and what they're actually doing. I don't think there was ever, there's, I don't think there still is ever, um, think there was ever there's i don't think there still is ever um any real incentive to explore those things um and this is not to say that like all forms of christianity you know exploit and whatever um totally well and these are largely of course they're part of a bigger system but these are individuals too who are making yeah these this is i'm assuming this was not on behalf of the church although yeah no but i mean it is you know it is um you're seeing kind of this like pardon the pun but this come to jesus moment with evangelicalism in america today um and some of the worst practices that have come from it and how it can be

exploitative from, you know, these just totally farce, really expensive, fake universities, you know, that are unaccredited or schools, lots of private schools. I mean, the one I grew up in very much this way, non, you know, non-accredited with non-accredited teachers and that get money from the state without having to apply by the state education rules of separation of church and state. And there's lots of things that are also packed into that whole world. And I think that a lot of people are learning about it. In fact, the shooter that killed eight people in Georgia just a couple weeks ago, that sparked a lot of conversation about evangelicalism and, you know, the shame-based teachings and what they can lead to, especially when it comes to sex education or, you know, misogyny.

So I think all of these conversations are coming to a head, but they're all very much interconnected. You know, there is a long, long, long history, especially in the South, of the white clergy very much being at the front lines of white supremacy and Jim Crow. That is a very known history of the church in the South. So we all carry history with us. And so, you know, the history that I was brought into at the church and the teachings that I grew up learning are not new, you know, by any stretch of the word word and it's interesting the different um types of sort of there's different types of racism obviously but there's this saying that um in the south it doesn't matter how close you are like they in the south they don't care how close other people are black people asians it doesn't matter how close you are as long as you don't get too close other people are, Black people, Asians. It doesn't matter how close you are as long as you don't get too high.

And in the North and in the West, it doesn't matter how high you get, but I do care how close you are to me. So that's why you have redlining and you have, you know, the different neighborhoods and these things. In the South, I very much grew up with the type of racism where my godfather had, quote unquote, tons of Black friends. And there were always, like, Black and brown people that worked for him, including my mom and others. So, like, from a visual perspective, there was no diversity issue in the employment practices. But there was always him on top, you know.

There was always that level of supremacy. on top, you know, there was always that level of supremacy, but I, that was the type I, that concept of, you know, in the South, you can be as close as you want to the white man, but you can't be above them and everywhere else you can be as above them as you want, but you can't be very close. That, you know, was definitely a lesson that I learned that racism looks very different depending on the context, but it's all racism at the end of the day. So growing up in this environment, growing up with this relationship to money, what did that do to you? What did that do to the way you saw money?

And what was the lens that you proceeded through life with because of that experience? I mean, I think what, what growing up, we didn't ever have much, um, when, especially when my mom, um, quit, then she went into working multiple jobs and, you know. Did she quit when you were still a kid? Yeah, when I was in seventh grade. And so when I was in seventh grade is when I got, I had to get out of that. When we left that, that also meant we had to leave my scholarship that helped pay for the private school I had gone to since I was in kindergarten. You had to leave your house, right, as well? Yeah. So-

Was that a moral decision for her or was that just like, it was very much a moral decision for her. It was tough. It was really tough. And actually in halfway through seventh grade, I ended up going to live with my oldest brother. Who's 12 years older than me who then, because my mom, she was struggling so much financially to, to provide for us. And also she has, you know, a son in ninth grade, a daughter in seventh grade. And she's working from six in the morning until 11 at night. She worked at Bank of, she just retired from Bank of America just this June. She worked for them for the rest of my life. But then at night she worked at the JCPenney's shoe department. And so she worked two jobs every

day, worked every weekend. So she really struggled. And so we actually, my brother and I moved out of my mom's house when I was 12 and he was 15 and moved in with my oldest brother. And he raised us until I went to college. I lived with him for the rest of my childhood until I left home. Fortunately, got a full red scholarship for the most part and was able to move on in life. But I think what it all taught me was that the lesson I brought with me was that money comes and goes very quickly. And it's a scary thing. And it can leave you at any moment and it can leave you feeling, if you don't have enough, you're fucked is how I felt. And so I think I really, I like was just so solely focused on providing for myself and like setting up a life that can have a little bit of financial freedom in it. But it took me a really long time to get to the realization that like,

you can have a good relationship with money that isn't fear-based, that isn't shame-based. You can set yourself up for success. Even if you don't have a ton, you don't need to have a ton of it to still feel some freedom around it and not feel so like scared of it. And the other lesson that I learned is that it's extremely expensive to be poor in America. It's extremely fucking expensive. The interest, the additional charges that you have to pay, you know, overdraft fees, the, you know, if you don't have a bank account that you have to pay 7%, 14% of your paycheck

or your disability check. So that's the other lesson that I learned. And Brian Stevenson, who wrote Just Mercy, which is my favorite book, he has the quote that there are two justice systems in America. One treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. And that is 100% true. I saw it. I saw it every day, how easy it was for somebody who came from more wealth could do something horrible or the same as another person who didn't come from wealth and be out on cash bail the next day, like it's nothing. Meanwhile, somebody else's grandma is literally giving my godfather the deed to her house. And so, you know, I learned a lot and I think I'm

finally starting to unlearn a lot of the worst lessons, but it's like, you know, this was my, this is my life. Like that was my life. That was my lived experience. And I am still processing a lot of it and what it means and the lessons I took from it. Some of them I'm aware of, but I know that there are other things that I was taught or that I absorbed, you know, in those nearly 15 years of being in that environment that I haven't quite necessarily worked through, but I'm getting there every day, a little bit closer. I mean, I'm sitting here like good, bad chills, like six different times. I'm like, tears in my eyes. I just, what I can't help but think is obviously, you know, working with clients, I think so many people come to me and they're like, people who have money are evil or money is evil. And I don't think that.

I think that inherently, you know, money is not a bad thing. It's what you do with it that is really makes the difference, right? I don't think people who have money, and I'm not talking Jeff Bezos money. I'm talking they have money. They're doing fine. They're not evil. If they are making bad choices with that money, if they are exploiting people, if they are doing things, that's an issue. But I imagine if, I mean, again, I'm a white woman, so I couldn't really have your same experience, but I would leave that thinking money's bad.

Money's evil. People who have money are evil. And like, I don't want it. Yeah. That was my lesson for a really long time. And it made me very avoidant of figuring out my own money issues. What that served to do was create, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because I feel like money is evil and I want nothing to do with it. I've seen what money does to people

and what power does to people and I don't want any part of it. And then in return, I'm avoiding money and money topics and financial health. You're losing out because of it, or you're having financial hardship because of it. And then it's telling me, well, see, money's evil because you don't have enough of it. And, you know. Can you do it again?

Just to recap. So, right, if you view money as evil, so you're like, I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to, I don't want money. It's bad. It's just, i i it's bad it's just yeah it's a self-fulfilling prophecy it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because then you're you say this is bad i don't want to participate and then you avoid the participation and what you think is like this evil rigged system which then perpetuates the evil rigged system because here I am yet another woman of color who can't seem to get a leg up on the whole financial thing,

despite being fully employed, despite, you know, having smart and well-spoken and educated and brain to do it. Yeah. So I've come a long way in that, but I still, I mean,

there, I still, every mean, there, I still every day fight this, fight that like morality around capitalism and this like this rugged individualism that this country requires of people. So it's true. It's very true that, you know, in America, we have it set up where the richest of the, it's like socialism for the rich and then rugged capitalism and individualism for everyone else. Well, and the rich ones, the patriarchal bullshit, right? The, the patriarchy is telling us these money narratives that aren't applicable to their life. So they're telling women, people of color, money is evil. You don't want it. If you want money, you are bad because then you stay poor or you stay disenfranchised or then they stay in power. They profit off of your silence. Right. And that's what I talk about all the time of like the talking about money is taboo. Talking about money is bad is perpetuated

by the same people who are having conversations about money constantly. They're telling us it's bad because they profit off of us not talking about it or us not wanting money or agency or all of these things. And then to your point, when we start to get the money, when we start having these conversations, but it's ingrained in us that we shouldn't want these things that we're that we're bad for wanting them yeah it's a cycle yeah it's set up that way on purpose you know right um it it's doing exactly what it was set up to do and that that's another you know that's definitely one of the things that i learned i keep talking about like this grand bargain with white supremacy that you have to make sometimes or that people feel they have to make sometimes of um it all relies on the idea that people with way more in common than they have in conflict deciding they have more in conflict than they

have in common that's like the whole jig of it you know and? And that's like, not new. That's like from the fucking jump of all of this, from the 1600s. I'm obsessed with learning about like where all this shit came from. Oh, I've learned so much from you. I remember you posted, especially during the Black Lives Matter resurgence, this concept that I think you post about this,

that race is like a learned concept. It's a total construct that they came up with. And so in order to what was an indentured servitude versus slavery, right? Can you quick tangent? Will you, cause this blew my mind. This is very, this is actually really important though. And it's so applicable to today. And, and it's definitely something that I really encourage, like my Asian brothers and

sisters that are thinking about these things to really consider because I think we often get caught up in this model minority and them versus us mentality and we have to realize that that whole game and that whole construct is set up from the people that want to keep you down yeah It's from the jump. Yeah. And so let's, so, okay, we got to travel back to like late 1600s, early 1700s in Virginia. The colonies first began and the colonizers first came. It wasn't like there were just the enslaved people that were stolen from Africa and brought here. And then everyone else was like the bourgeoisie

aristocracy, rich land owning white people. There was absolutely this middle echelon of people that came to the colonies and to America as sort of this last resort. They were really struggling in the countries that they were coming from, you know, Spain, England, Britain. And they came to America or the colonies at the time to try to find a different way. But they were extremely poor. Many of them acted as indentured servants. So they weren't enslaved people. They came there on their own volition, which is obviously a very important distinction. obviously a very important distinction but as far as like socioeconomics of like their class they were poor and they were stuck working for somebody for basically no money and it became

clear that the enslaved people and the indentured servants and the the lower class poor whites that came here had a lot more in common than they had in conflict. And they started talking and they joined forces. And what ensued was called Bacon's Rebellion. And it was led by a man who actually really, to overcomplicate it, but he was actually- Loved making BLTs, loved making BLTs. Yes. Yes. He was actually related to the governor of Virginia at the time and was trying to encourage the governor of Virginia

to wage war on the indigenous populations nearby to gather more land. And the governor did not want to do that, thought it would backfire. And so this guy helped basically create a rebellion to take over the Virginia government and banded together enslaved people brought here from Africa and indentured servants. And they did. Those forces came together, obviously had the people power and the numbers behind them, and they did overthrow the Virginia government. They really did it. They took over the capital of Virginia, this gigantic, one of the main colonies. And after that, the aristocracy, the rich land-owning whites came together and said, like, whatever the fuck just happened just happened, we cannot let that happen again. And that's where they came up with this construct of the one drop rule, where if you have even one drop of indigenous blood or African blood in you, then you don't have access to this new set of

benefits we're allowing white people to have. So that was the start of the rich, you know, top 1% creating this idea based on this classification of race, where they said, even if you're poor and white, you're still seen as better than poor and black and enslaved. In order for the white people to band together against. In order for people who actually have more in common with the enslaved people than they do the aristocracy, the aristocracy decided we'll give them just enough for them to help them feel superior over that group so that they don't have any interest in combining their forces and combining their power. And so they started giving poor whites small parcels of land. They started giving poor whites access to certain

parts of society and culture that they were restricting from the others. And the others were indigenous or even at the time there were free Black people in America that were not enslaved, that came from some of the European countries. And that's really where the concept of race bloomed and was first codified into law. And it was part of colonial law for literally hundreds of years. And it's the basis of the know the three-fifths amendment it's the basis of so many laws and um and pieces of our history that have gone on to create these really horrific racial racial violence and um white supremacy but it was all made up. The top people decided that they wanted to make sure people that had more in common than in conflict were given an ability to have more in conflict than they have in common with those people. And that is the whole jig. It is all, that is what the whole concept of white supremacy, it relies on that belief. to see it relies on that belief well and they gave them this social currency yes right of like cool come we will we will give you community we'll give you these things we can't give you

still you can't have all of it right don't get crazy like you can't have all of it but you can have a little bit more than we're giving those people enough for you to to make you feel superior where you're not gonna you're not gonna make you feel superior, where you're not going to, you're not going to tie your wagon to that post. You're going to tie it to ours. And I mean, if you can't see the parallels in that today, like, I don't know where, what dimension you're looking at. Like you see, I mean, I see it every day, you know, you see, you know, poor, every day you know you see you know poor uneducated white folks who would benefit more from the left's agenda than the rights voting for donald trump against their own self-interest you see it or a huge hispanic population voting for donald trump because oh this man is rich and i want to be rich

therefore like i've done a ton of research about that as well of just this idea around. I think I wish I knew the stat off the top of my head. I'll cut in here after in post with the stat. But there's some crazy statistic that says like the majority of people in America think they are going to be rich when in actuality, very, very, you know, a very small percentage of them actually will. Hi, everybody. This is Tori in post. I feel like Cusco and Emperor's New Groove coming in to scratch out Pasha and say this story is about me, not him. Anyway, I'm here with the statistic. Over half, depending on the study, as high as 60% of people think they will be millionaires someday. In 2020, only 7% of people actually were.

All right, back to the episode. We're sold this. I mean, it is a lie in order for, yeah, like people like Trump to get elected or systems to continue to profit off of these people. We have another episode about MLMs and we talked about the predatory nature of all of that. Oh yeah, this whole, but I've realized this entire podcast season is just going to be about shame apparently

because so much of this bullshit, that's just like shame and judgment suck and they are so entrenched in money. But yeah, I think it's so interesting when you consider just, of course, the shame and the narratives that we get fed about money based on who we listen to or based on who we trust i mean we both share a deep dislike are you gonna do it are you for dave ramsey i need i need like a shot counter like i need to take a shot every time on this podcast that i mentioned i like need a different name for him. Cause usually when I write his name, I star out his vowels.

I'm like, it's like an expletive. Like I don't want to say it. You don't want his, his fan base. I don't want our juju. I don't need it. Don't need any of that.

But yeah, I mean, he who shall not be named that guy i mean he runs rampant in evangelical circles and and he goes to churches yes he goes to the evangelical churches and is like financial peace financial freedom god wants you to have this. God wants you. And then tells them their credit score doesn't matter. Which completely disenfranchises black and brown people. Yes. That is, credit scores are kind of ridiculous. Just, I mean, the system. We're one of the only countries, oh, we're one of the only countries that has one. It doesn't make any sense. The system is

fucked to be sure. Oh, of course. course but like that is one of your best tools for getting out of poverty or accelerating your life and so actively telling you oh you don't need one okay how are you gonna buy a house he's like oh you can prove it this way and this way and this way and i'm like no no like that not only makes things exponentially more complicated like that doesn't really work. Yes. And then of course, we're going to tell you don't have a credit score. And if you do, it's because you love debt, which is what he says.

A credit score is an I love debt score. So of course, we profit off of your self-hatred. Yeah, I had an experience with somebody who I love very, very much is very close to me who listened to this man's advice and came to believe their credit score didn't matter and that they didn't need to do, you know, all of these things to protect them have since really struggled and have had to reach out for help from other people and loved ones and who have kind of had to come to their rescue because they listened to this horrible advice from this guy that sells millions and millions and millions of copies of his books, giving just shilling fucking snake oil. It's insane to me that this guy still has a platform. And he's one of many of those people

that MLMs prey on that same, almost exact same consumer base. And it's just really sad. And I hope that changes. I really do. Again, I'm not here to be like, I love credit scores. And I think the credit system is wonderful no it's ridiculous and veiled and very non-transparent it's horrible and abolish it all about that but until that comes having a credit score is the only way to get out of poverty in america and it is i mean that is for everything you need it for everything i signed up for internet at our new apartment in Brooklyn and they had to do a credit score. Did they check your credit score?

Yes, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. That's ridiculous. It's insane. Yeah, and it's back to, I actually, I get this feedback a lot. People are like, oh yeah, I hate that like Dave Ramsey like makes money teaching these things.

I don't have a problem. I do the same thing. I make money off of, off of education. It's, am I profiting off of, off your self-hatred? God, I hope not. And two, right, am I promoting things that are bad for you? Are you telling the truth? Right? Yes. Yes. Now this is interrogation, Tricia. Yes. Yes, I am. No, I mean, really, are you telling the truth? Are you telling the truth? And are you, that's why I call him the diet pill of personal finance because right. He tells you you're fat and then it's like, Oh, take, take this pill that I will sell to you yeah so it's like I'm gonna make you feel ashamed I'm gonna make you feel judged I'm gonna make you feel all of these things about your money and about your life buy my book buy my products sign up for my

two thousand dollar course or whatever yeah and then you'll feel better yeah it's like well I didn't really have this self-esteem I mean maybe you we all have bullshit around money but like oh I didn't have this exact issue until you pointed it, maybe we all have bullshit around money, but like, oh, I didn't have this exact issue until you pointed it out to me. And now you are, you are giving me the solution, which is money in your pocket. Great. It's upsetting to say the least. And it's, I hope something that people are catching on to i hope i think they are i feel a shift i do too i really have um and maybe that's me being too optimistic but i do feel like we're in a moment where a lot of i'm sure there is more bullshittery to come fill the void whenever those get expelled.

But I know that the particular brands of bullshit that I grew up around are starting, people are starting to shed light on them. And I'm really happy to see that. And it's not going to fix everything. Getting rid of cash bail is not going to fix everything in America. Getting rid of predatory financial lending or check cashing isn't going to fix everything. But it's a start and we need it.

So I'm hopeful. I believe hope is a practice and something you have to fight through to keep and hold on to. And I think it's like revolutionary to feel hopeful. And I think it's revolutionary to feel optimistic, not naive. Don't think anyone should be naive about the problems we're facing and um let i will be the first to tell you that i think this country is pretty fucked up um but i will second i will second that motion yes but i am hopeful uh and i do the fact that i know that i have grown from where i came up and what I was taught and the environment that I was raised

in that I have come out the other side, knowing those things are wrong and learning new lessons. That to me is evidence that it's possible for anyone. And so I hold onto that pretty tightly. And I don't subscribe to the idea that being critical of a system or a country means that you don't love it. I very much subscribe to the idea that that's the only way. If you love something- Set it free. That. But James Baldwin has a quote that's, I'm going to butcher it, but if I love you, I have to tell you about the things that you can't see. To me, that's active love and active love is everything. For me, active love for myself looks like getting my shit together when it comes to money

and braving it and facing that head on. That's active love for myself. Active love is leaving that fucking toxic job that beats you down every day. And I quit a job a few years ago and I literally told them that I felt like I had to check my values at the door every time I walked in. And it felt so freeing to say that out loud and to just speak my truth and walk away. And I know a lot of people aren't always in a

position to walk away from a job that pays them money. So I totally understand that and have been there, but I didn't have to this time. And that was active love for myself. And I believe talking about these systems that we're talking about, uncovering predatory lending schemes, uncovering things about the cash bail system and the justice system that works differently for rich and poor, talking about the fact that poverty is actually really freaking expensive. It's really expensive to pay rent your whole life and not a mortgage towards a home that you own. It's really expensive to pay overdraft fees. It's really expensive to just use a debit card and not a credit card where you can be earning points and money on top of money that you're spending. It's expensive to not have choices. It's expensive to not have choices. And so for me,

this is not criticism born out of hatred. It's criticism born out of love and an active love that says, actually, these things can be changed. And we are not stuck on this path that we're currently on. Things change all the time. And just because it feels like things have mostly been changing for the worst doesn't mean that they always have to be going that direction, but it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of learning. You actually like have to seek out this type of information. You have to read some books, maybe read some articles, listen to a different type of community than the one that you are around and you grew up in. So I just wanted to get that out because I oftentimes feel like when I speak about America and I criticize the current systems, I don't know if I don't know if I'm always heard in the way I want to be heard. Like,

let me be clear. My mom came to this country because she loves it. And we're here because we love it. It's like it's any healthy relationship, right? If I hurt your feelings, if I am rude to you, I expect you to, I would relationship, right? If I hurt your feelings, if I am rude to you, I expect you to, or I would hope, right? You could come to me and say, Hey, this thing that happened really hurt my feelings. Can we talk about it? Right. And that's what a healthy relationship is. And you can have that relationship with your country, which is like, I love this country enough to be like, this is wrong. And this is wrong. This is wrong. Yeah, exactly.

And you have to be willing to understand that some abusive relationships, that person doesn't come back because you've grown. Yep. You know, and you have to understand that there are some people who are abused day in and day out in this country who are vilified abused lives threatened lives threatened and just do not feel safe for good reason and those people don't owe anything to anyone and they certainly don't owe like some sense of like self-sabotaging loyalty. So, you know, all of these things have some nuance to them.

Do you think there's an ethical way that check cashing establishments can be run? Yeah, I totally. I mean, I think that there are lots of really great ideas for how to do that in a community centered, non-predatory and publicly created way. So there are, and I wish I had, I should have written them down, but there are bills right now that propose, and you can do this on the local level, and then you can also do it federally would be sick as fuck, but they literally, they're proposing in post offices, having Elizabeth Warren, having public banking in post offices and having a public banking option for these shorter term loans. Right. Yeah. And for check cashing and for, and for your basic banking needs that you can walk into a post office. There are post offices in the most

rural of places in America for a reason. It's because there was a public effort pushed by and funded by the federal government to get those post offices in the most rural of places. And so that access that we were talking about that a lot of people don't have that a big bank is a big banking branches. There's not a bank of America in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. Um, but there's always a post office. And so the idea is that I think they have to be able to get to your house to deliver your mail. Yeah, exactly. And so you have to, and having the ability to walk into a post office and be able to cash a check or to have banking services that aren't available to you any other way, I think you can absolutely do that. I would be wary, I would say, of startups or new financial technologies that are coming out that say

they're disrupting predatory financial lending or banking issues. Some of them may have the best of doesn't it's not enough to harm people less it's it's only good if you're not harming people period i have seen a lot of that and it does help some people like i i'm specific and i won't name any of these companies but i'm thinking of things like that are like like the i can't even think of one of the names right now but like you know you know, the, that you can pay in installments, like interest-free. Oh, but I now pay later. Oh, after pay and after pay. Yeah. So you're, you know, these like modern day layaway interest-free payment plans for things you want to buy, that isn't helping people. Well, and it's marketed towards white people trying to buy things on Instagram. That's who it's marketed to. It's like, oh, do you want this coat that just went on sale,

but you don't have the money right now, that's a very different market and clientele than I can't afford groceries and I don't know where money is coming from next. Yeah, exactly. There's a plethora of new like FinTech technologies that are really like shiny and new right now that I think people are really hopeful about. And they spin this story of, you know, they're disrupting predatory practices and they're, you know, allowing more access to whatever. And some of it may be true, but for me, the only ethical way to truly offer a check cashing service or a banking to the unbanked service is if it's a publicly created community-driven effort and it's not going to be funded by VCs and hedge funds and Wall Street tycoons. Who are trying to make money. Who are trying to make a buck. Again, there's nothing

wrong with that, but if you're going about it to again be predatory for people if your marketing is all about how you're not predatory then you need to not be predatory um and so that's paid it's paid that i mean call me crazy but i just think that it's not enough to do less harm, the goal should be to not harm people. And so that's a blanket statement. Now I'm getting into the weeds because I'm like, harm reduction is a valid way to go about things. I totally believe in harm reduction and all of those sorts of tactics. But specifically in the context of predatory lending, there are so many people that say like, okay, I want to do cash bail, but I want to do it where it's like 10% interest.

Like you are not disrupting a predatory system. You're just making it slightly less predatory so that you can feel better about offering those services. This is our whole conversation of like playing within the system right and there's certain there's certain and again sometimes justifiable times we have to play within the system in order to progress and that's like oh well we'll just take this system that's predatory and to your point make it less predatory and it's like, oh, well, we'll just take this system that's predatory and to your point, make it less predatory. And it's like, yeah, this is not, I don't think one of those times where we take one for the team. Like we don't, we don't, we don't just say like, ah,

yeah, the system, it's just going to take a while. So we'll just, we'll just create a better bandaid in the, in the, in the meantime. Right. Exactly right exactly when it will i think a lot of times that like serves to stifle like true innovation on the problem because people feel a little bit more comfortable with it and feel like it's not hurting as many people as bad as those you know which on paper it is but it's like you still haven't gotten to the root of the problem which is that this practice is predatory regardless of the interest rate. It's going to always be predatory unless the system at the heart of it is actually changed. So to answer your question, yes, I think it is possible to offer ethical

cashing services, but I don't think there's any way to do it where it's a private interest at the heart of it. I think it has to be a publicly funded, like federal type of program, like the one at post offices, um, that people are trying to get past now. If you were to meet childhood, Tricia, what would you tell her? Oh, childhood, Tricia, She still lives very much inside of my heart. And I am constantly having to soothe her throughout the day and let her know I've grown up and it's okay. And you can just take a nap in there. We've got it under control. I constantly have to do that. So I talk to baby Tricia. I do that to childhood me all the time. All the time. All the time.

Childhood me all the time. All the time. All the time. So, I mean, I literally, I have conversations with her every day. I think what I would do if I saw childhood Tricia is I would ask if I could just give her a hug and just let her know, just give it time. It'll pass. It'll pass. Everything feels so big. And it is big growing up and you haven't built up

that resilience that you get to trade off of later in life. So if I would tell her to just take a deep breath and that this too will pass and it'll all be worth it in the end. too will pass and it'll all be worth it in the end. We can all only ever speak from our own experience. And so I hope when I'm speaking, everyone knows that that's where it's coming from. All I know is what I know and what I have learned and I'm not finished yet. I don't, I still have so much work to do. And I can only have, I can only, I can only speak about what I know and what I experienced and what I've seen with my own two eyes. But let me tell you, no one is going to tell me that I didn't see it and that I didn't experience it. No one is going to tell me that I didn't experience and see firsthand the way that the systems in this country keep people down and hold people under the water and suffocate them until they feel like they can't do anything.

I have seen it. And I'm not letting anybody tell me that I didn't see it. I'm not letting anybody tell me that I didn't experience it firsthand. So that's where I'm at. But the one thing I will say, I was just having this conversation with my aunt and uncle the other day is I grew up in love. I grew up loved and in community that loved me and cared for me. And it really did take a village, truly, cared for me. And it really did take a village, like truly, especially when my mom left and was working multiple jobs, I was enveloped in love and community my whole life, literally my whole life.

And so, yes, it was traumatic in a lot of ways, but I never, ever, ever, literally not once in my life have felt unloved ever. And I've always known that there is somebody on my team, that there's somebody there for me and that community will catch me. That's something I have literally always known my whole life and has been taught and instilled in me every day. So things were different. Growing up with a father that was addicted to drugs was not easy. But for me, you find acts of love in a lot of different ways. And for me, him leaving and deciding, you know what, maybe I'm not the best person to be a dad. And maybe I'm not the best influence to be around my kids. To me, that's an act of love.

That's how I view it is he took his own ego out of it and his ego around being a father and having kids and being an influence on them. So I experienced a lot of love in my life and I've come to know a lot of actions of people that might not on the face look like acts of love, but if you actually take the time to think about the position that they were in or the mindset that they were coming to that moment in, there are so many acts of love

that carried me through my life. So I never, ever once felt like I was living in trauma. I always felt like I was living in love, always. So just want to make that clear. I tell people that all the time, that things were certainly not perfect and they were definitely unique and traumatic in a lot of ways, but love has a way. Wow. Y'all, I cannot thank Trisha enough for sharing her story. Her vulnerability in this episode is just astounding and she is just so smart. And I'm just so honored to call her a friend and a client. This might be my favorite interview episode of the season. You can follow her at tclep, T-C-L-E-P, on Instagram or subscribe to her podcast, The Woman Wave. It

is so worth your time. It's one of my favorite shows. Team, we are halfway through season one of Financial Feminist, and I just have to take a moment. The outpouring of love, of support of this show, I honestly am at a loss for words. I've said this a couple times, but my goal for the show, I wanted to be in the top 20 business podcasts. That is what I wrote on my journal. That's what I tried to manifest. And less than 72 hours after launching the first episode, we were the number one business podcast.

And we peaked at number 16 on all the charts. We beat NPR, Dave Ramsey, Tim Ferriss. We were the only women-founded, women-hosted, women-focused podcast in the top 25. And that is entirely because of you. It is entirely because you showed up, you reviewed, you subscribed, you shared with friends. I am over the moon. I am so overjoyed and I cannot thank you enough. I was honestly pretty nervous launching the show. I'm proud of the show, of course, but you just, you don't know when you're creating something, if it's going to resonate with somebody else. And especially in the new medium, we've tested a million types of content on Instagram, million types of content on TikTok. We've never done a podcast before. And when you're releasing something that you've

worked really hard on and that your team has worked really hard on out into the world, you hope, you hope it goes well, right? You hope it's well-received. And I just cannot thank you enough for your support of the show. It truly means the world. And I hope you know that this is our community and we're building a movement here at Her First 100K. We are building a movement. We are changing the way people get financially educated. We are acknowledging systemic oppression. We are avoiding shame and judgment.

We are creating a safe space to talk about this taboo topic. And I'm so thankful you're along for the ride. So if you want more information about what we discussed in this episode, Trisha, myself and the show, you can check out our detailed show notes at financialfeministpodcast.com. We do spend a lot of time on those show notes, so feel free to pop in and look at resources. And if you're looking to learn more about the things we discussed in the show, get more information, research it more. We have a bunch of resources in those show notes that our team has put together. So please deepen your knowledge, deepen your learning, take a look. I can't wait to see you back here next week, Financial Feminists. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist. Financial Feminist is produced and hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Theme song and audio production by Jonah Cohen Sound. Administration and marketing by Olivia Kolkana, Sophia Cohen, and Kristen Fields.

Research by Arielle Johnson. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton and photography by Sarah Wolf. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and our sponsors, go to financialfeministpodcast.com.