Financial Feminist - Managing Money In My 30s

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

What if your thirties were about impressing yourself instead of others? In this episode, Tori gets real about the shift in priorities that comes with entering a new decade, reflecting on everything from financial independence and self-care to setting boundaries. She encourages listeners to stop apologizing for their choices and start building a life that aligns with their values. Whether you're navigating your twenties or already thinking ahead, this episode is packed with insights that will inspire you to take control of your finances and well-being with confidence and purpose. Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money plan quiz and get access to my favorite money tools: https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod My personal trainer: https://www.instagram.com/adaispresent/  00:00 Welcome & Free Money Personality Quiz 01:00 Managing Money Differently in Your 30s 02:45 Stop Apologizing for Your Purchases 06:00 Prioritize New Financial Goals 07:00 Navigating Money With a Partner 08:00 Investing in Your Health 10:00 Why Health Spending Pays Off Long-Term 13:30 Adjusting Your Investment Strategy 14:30 Financial Independence & Living Off Investments 15:00 Setting Better Work-Life Boundaries 16:45 Why You Need a Will and Life Insurance 19:00 Business Planning & What's Coming Next 20:00 Final Thoughts & How Your Money Shifts by Decade Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're struggling to figure out where to start with your financial journey, if you're so overwhelmed and you're just like, I need the step-by-step plan and mentorship from you, Tori. Well, great. You can go to her first hundredk.com slash FS pod to take our free money personality quiz. We're going to ask you about six questions. We're going to see where you're at in your financial journey. This is not like a past fail of thing. I just want to know where you're at. Then we'll deliver resources cater to exactly where you are in your financial journey. The quiz takes less than two minutes and it's the perfect place to kickstart your financial goals and get a financial plan personalized to you. So again, that's her first hundredk.com slash FFPod, and we'll send over your free personalized money plan. We'll see you there. Hello.

If you're an oldy bit of goody, welcome back to the show. And if you're new here, hi, my name is Tori. And I am a multimillionaire and I thought the patriarchy you've been making you rich. If you want to do something nice today for us, because this is a great show and we put a lot of effort into it, you can subscribe. That's the easiest thing you can do to support us and to make sure that we can get good guests. It's just hitting that one little button. And if you want extra credit, you can turn on auto downloads. and maybe listen to another episode after this.

We would really appreciate it. I just turned 30. I don't know if I have any grand, massive takeaways about my 30s in a new decade yet. I don't think it really feels real yet. Haven't, like, had a lot of time because I've been working a lot to, like, really sit with it. But today we're talking about

the things that I am planning on doing differently in my 30s or things I'm thinking more about, especially when it comes to money and how I'm going to manage it in this next next. decade of my life. But first, a word from our sponsors. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. When my partner was launching his business last year, I was like, great, you need a

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I say that here a lot. And I think that any sort of marker of success can sometimes be helpful, but it's usually just like very shameful. And that's why you won't hear me say a lot on the show things like you should have X amount of money saved by the time you're 30, or you should be making X amount of money when you're 45. You should be spending Z amount of money every month on your rent, because everybody's life is different. Everybody's financial goals are different. Yet there's, I think, a couple crucial tasks or mindset switches that are really, really important as you transition into your 30s and beyond, that you maybe wasn't a priority to you in your 20s. And that also you maybe didn't have to think about as much just because it wasn't as relevant

to you. So today I'm talking about a couple of things, both personally, that I am thinking about with my money into my 30s and some of the things that I would encourage you to think about too. So whether you are late 20s or you're in their 30s, here's a great guidebook, let's say for you as you transitioned into your 30s. Okay, the first one. I'm giving less fucks about what people think of my purchases. You know me, though. I haven't given fucks about that really ever.

But I think as you get into 30, your 30s, you start sending better boundaries around everything and you start realizing who you truly are and what you want to spend your money on. And I think if your 20s are about impressing people or were about impressing people, let your 30s be about impressing people. yourself. Like, do the things you actually want to do and then don't apologize for it. You want to

buy a sewing machine and that feels grandma, but you know you're going to love it? Great. I think for me, actually one of the biggest transitions I've had when I started to make more money is like the designer poll. It's just, I think with social media and like, you know, rich bitch culture, there's this draw of purchasing a bunch of designer goods because I can now afford to do that. And, Let me tell you, I tried that. I tried buying Versacee sunglasses. And I have them and they're cool looking, but it didn't give me the joy that I think a lot of other people feel. Like, there is a certain type of person that is like, oh my God, I have saved for five years for this Dior bag. I don't feel that way. That's just not, I'm really hard on my stuff. Like, that's just not

what I love, but I have figured out the purchase that I absolutely love, and that is like luxury hotels. And most of them I do it on credit card points, which is great because I don't even have to pay my own real money. But I researched the hotel beforehand. I'm like going on and I'm like tickly-tackly, and I'm like, ooh, what's the spa look like? And what are the pillows made out of? And this is literally me. And I'm checking the amenities weeks before. And then I've checked all of them and I'm still checking them two days before. And like that level of excitement for me is, I think, what a lot of people feel about getting the Chanel purse.

But that's not me. That's not my level of excitement. And I think, again, the frivolous spending, right? We're told basically anything that we want or desire as women is frivolous. So like, just buy the thing you want. Make sure you can afford it, right? Make sure you've saved responsibly. Don't be putting this on a credit card and you can't afford it.

But give less bucks about your purchases. If you love it and you know you're going to get joy out of it, there is no need to justify it to anybody else. And also find the thing that feels luxurious to you. Maybe that is a designer good. Maybe that's, you know, a really nice car. Maybe that is beautiful home goods. This is not sponsored, but Bull and Branch sent me some of their sheets. Oh my God.

Divine. Incredible. They're $700 sheets. I probably would have paid my own money for these sheets because they're that incredible. Like, I think that you have to find the thing that you love and that feels luxurious to you. And don't feel like you need to buy it to impress anybody else. Don't feel like you have to justify it to anybody else. Give less fucks about the things that you spend your money on.

Okay. Number two, it might be time to prioritize new goals. I just think when you're 30, you know, you start, again, figuring out what you want and you might have new priorities, right? You might want to become a homeowner. I want to pursue that. you might want to consider children. You might want to do neither of those things and just figure out how to grow your wealth. But I think transitioning into your 30s, again, your priorities change. You get more focused about what you want. And therefore, your financial goals may shift too.

I will always say that, you know, your financial goals should always be about protecting current you and future you and then paying for past you. And what I mean by that is, you know, an emergency fund. investing for retirement to protect future you. Your current goals, you know, a budget to make sure that you're not overspending and that your purchases are aligned with what you want. And then past you, paying off your debt, paying off your student loans, your car, your mortgage, any credit card debt that you have. So I feel like as I'm transitioning into my 30s, I'm thinking a lot, again, what do I truly want? Where do I want my money to go? What do I want to spend my money on? And in your 30s, you're going to figure out how your goals and perspective shifts. I think especially as you start

bringing newer different people into your life. I know some people get married in their 20s. I'm obviously not that person, but I have a serious partner now, and we're starting to have conversations about what we want our life to look like. Where do we want to live? What do we want to do? You know, how much do I want to keep working on this business? And, you know, can I create a kind of business that allows me to step away more often. And so those are a lot of the conversations that I'm starting to have because I am doing life now with somebody else. I am not just 100% the sole decision maker anymore. If I want to spend six months in New York living from there, well, that causes significant strain on my romantic relationship. So it's just all these things that

you have to think about that are new exciting challenges. Number three, I, personally had a whole crisis when I was leading up to my 30th birthday. Because I have chronic pain, because I have back problems, because the titties are too big and cause a bunch of health complications for me. And I've also gained a lot of weight in the past two years. That's the side effect of running a stressful business. I think that was 100 percent. The reason I gained weight was this business that I love so much, it caused me a shit ton of stress. And my hormone levels are a little crazy. So as I approached turning 30 and as I think about the rest of this decade, I just really want to prioritize my health.

I really want to make sure that I am not sacrificing my mental or physical health to succeed to accomplish my goals. I have family members who have unfortunately let their health go and are now paying for it later. they can't walk. They have, again, significant pain and multiple surgeries for things that were largely preventable. I'm spending a lot more money and a lot more time and a lot more of my energy thinking about my sleep, thinking about my physical health. I got a personal trainer and she's incredible. We went to high school together. I will link her down below. Shameless plug. She's incredible. She's a black woman. She works here in Seattle and Tacoma. And if you're looking for

somebody, she's a great person to go to. But that was an intentional choice. And it was in true investment. It was a little bit of money. But it's not just about now. It's about protecting my muscles and my bones and my energy so I can show up for myself and show up for my team and do all the things I want to do. Because, man, I want the next 30 years to be as kick-out. And as these first 30 were. And I need a healthy body to do that. I think that focusing on your health, even if it does feel pricey, expensive, that's something that pays off. That's something that even I can see. I think we've done probably about 10 sessions together. And even my partner the other day, literally, like, two days ago was like, I can see a difference in like your legs

and your butt. Like they look more toned. I can see a difference. And like seeing is great, right? especially from your partner. That's fantastic. But I think that I want to feel better. It's not about getting skinny for me. It's not about, you know, I don't weigh myself. It's not about that. It's about making sure that I have a healthy enough body to live in for the rest of my life. And I unfortunately sacrificed a lot of that to build the company and to, you know, do all of the things I wanted to do, including write and launch a book. And so I'm just focused on my health now. And I would encourage you to think about that as well and would also love to know anything that you're doing

to consciously focus on that. I've been collecting staples lately. I've been a lot more intentional about finding pieces in my wardrobe that I can just drag and drop. I literally came from packing for a work trip to record this. I have my cute little tank top from Quince that I wear for everything. I've worn it on stage.

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It doesn't rebound as quickly. And I think my goal for my 30s is to be in really, really good shape to the point where, you know, I'm consciously taking care of myself and also lifting fucking heavy things and continually impressing and surprising myself. The last thing I'll say about health is that you do also realize if you want certain things, you're going to have to sacrifice others. And I know that sounds so obvious. But I think as I've aged and as I'm going into my 30s, one of the things I'm really conscious about, okay, if I know that I have a big day tomorrow or I have goals I want to get done tomorrow, I can't stay up till midnight doing something else fun. And then there's sometimes where I'm willing to stay up till 12, for me, that's late, even like 1130 is late. That's late, but it has consequences later. So you have to figure out when are you okay with those consequences and when are you like, actually,

I'm going to make the like smart adult choice. Because again, when you were 20, you could have your cake and eat it too. And you can't anymore. And I think that's something that's so, so, so crucial about aging is that, you know, okay, I want to have a really good day tomorrow. I want to poop regularly. I want to have enough energy. It means that I have to make strategic decisions. And, you know, I'm coming to you on this podcast a little tired. And that was partially. because I said I was going to go to bed at 10 and literally was in bed. I was in bed at 10 and ready to go. And then I sat on my phone for an hour. And I regretted it. Even as it happened, I was just like, go to bed. And then I didn't actually make that commitment to myself and now I'm paying for it. So, you know, that's the tradeoff I think with your health too. It's like you realize you can't do all the fun stuff if it means that you get to do fun stuff tomorrow. My fourth thing, investing strategies. You're getting a little older. You might want to optimize a little more.

The rule of 110 is how a general rule where we figure out what percentage of our portfolio should be in stocks versus bonds. So you take 110 minus your age. So I'd be 110 minus 30, which would be 80. So 80% of my portfolio should be stocks and 20% should be bonds. And then as you age, you want to optimize that, right? So as you age, you want your investments and potentially less risky places because you want to keep you more of your money. right? You want to make sure that you're protecting your retirement. So that's one thing that I, you know, will be more strategic about in this next decade. I also am just focused on if, you know,

I'm realizing, okay, I don't want to work this hard forever. What sort of investing do I need to do, like literally investing in the stock market, do I need to do in order to potentially not work? and be able to potentially even live off of my investments. And this is what we call the financial independence movement, which is getting to a point where you are good on just the amount of money you have invested. And so I think that that is one thing I'm also thinking about more as I age is, uniquely for me, who already has hit my financial independence number. At what point do I need to start taking this money out?

I think I've got a while. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. but it's in the back of my mind as I'm aging and thinking about that. My fifth one is just work-life balance. I mean, it's a myth. We all know that, like, that's a myth. It's not real. But my boundaries around my business have gotten a lot stronger,

even than the last six months or a year. For all of the reasons I've already outlined, I sacrificed my health. I sacrificed a lot of things in order to build this company, and I'm not willing to do that again. And so now I'm really focused on my own health, my life outside of work. The past two weeks I've gone swimming in Lake Washington, I think, like six times, and it's been blissful, even if it was just for 20 minutes. And those sort of

experiences I want to keep having. It's so easy to tie my identity to work, especially when I walked down the street and I get recognized and it's, oh, hey, you're her first 100K. My identity is the business that I've run to a lot of people. And it's very easy for me as myself to start believing that. And whether you run a business or, you know, of course you care about your work, it's probably the same for you too. So I'm trying to find other identities outside of HFK, outside of the work that I do, you know, and I think that is very, very difficult in a society that constantly demands you and your career be completely intermesion and intertwined. So it's a fun challenge that I'm looking forward to developing even more as I went through this decade.

And I'm so much happier for setting boundaries. Like, I care about this business so much and so deeply. And I haven't lost my ambition, but I'm slowly building other things that I'm just as proud of or that I enjoy doing just as much that allow me to forget about the business for a while. And I want to do more of those things because, unfortunately, I've only recently discovered them. this one's not fun, but we're going to talk about it. You need a will. You need to set up a will to make sure that you can assign legal guardianship for your children. And if you own a business, you need a will and you might need a trust.

And that is something that I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to admit to you as a good financial expert that I am. It's something that I should have done sooner and I haven't done it. I just haven't gone around to it. I haven't made time for it. And we have a guest on the show coming up in an upcoming episode. that talks about how important this is and fuck I got to I got to do it. I got to do it. So it's not fun to think about death. I get it. But you know what's really not fun as when you're the loved one

who got fucked over because your loved one who died didn't do any of this for you. And you're trying to find their accounts and you're trying to figure out what they want and how to just navigate all of that while you're also grieving. The most selfless thing you can do is get a will together, get life insurance for yourself. And if you have a partner who is, you know, not even making money, but is a non-compensated working parent, a stay-at-home parent, like, look into this. We have so many resources around getting wills, getting life insurance on our money tools page. We'll also link that in the description. But it's something that I'm thinking more about because I'm getting older and also because I own a business. So you don't have to be

a multimillionaire and you frankly shouldn't be in order to get a will again. And if you're a parent, you need a will, if you have a complicated family situation, you need a will. Or if you just want to make sure that your stuff is going to the people you want it to go to, you need a will. And if anybody is reliant on you financially, you need life insurance. 100%. You've heard me talk about Built as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, homeowners can also earn up to 1.25X points on

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for the company, but also for myself and my role in the company. Transparently, we've talked about me stepping back and bringing in a CEO. Now, I would still be the face of the company. You'd still see me all the time. My interaction with you would not change, but my day-to-day interaction as like the head of the company internally would be a lot different. And I'm not even sure I want to do that yet. Just a lot of things I'm starting to think about. And again, related to what do I want outside of work? What do I want outside of HFK? What lights me up? What brings me joy? We also just have a lot of really exciting things coming. We build in secret a lot of the time. We build things very quietly that you might not know are coming. And we have in January of this next year some really

fucking cool shit that we're launching. We have so many exciting plans for this show for just so many incredible goals for our business and ways we can continue to make an impact for you all that are coming very, very soon. Lots of exciting things coming in the next coming years and me just trying to figure out how do I serve you all best? How do I serve our team best? And how do I serve myself best? What do I want to do do that really brings me joy? So a lot of things we're figuring out right now. Team, those are a lot of the things I'm changing. My financial habits that I'm changing as I move into my 30s and a lot of the things I am thinking about. I would love to know what you're thinking about or what things

changed for you as you transitioned into your 30s. And if you're in your 20s, ask us a question. I would love to answer some more questions about the decade shift and how your money needs to shift with it. As always, thank you for being here. We appreciate your support of the show. You can like and subscribe or share this episode or leave us a five-star review. It's all easy to do, but hugely impactful in supporting our movement. I'm going to go drink an apple roll spritz and lounge on the beaches of the Amafi, host, and I will see you back here very, very soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First 100K.

If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst00K.com slash s-s-s-spodd.