LadyGang - LG Quickie: How to be Rich with Vivian Tu, Part 2

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Money class is back in session, and Part Two goes even harder. 💸🔥 Financial icon Vivian Tu returns to LadyGang to dicscuss her new book "well endowed" and to finish what she started. Vivian breaks down the real tea on renting vs. owning, why estate planning is not just for rich people, the smartest (and least painful) ways to pay off debt, and how to grow your money without giving up travel, fun, or your will to live. If you want your money to work for you while you still enjoy your life, this is a must-listen. 💅💰LadyGang is sponsored by Progressive! Need car insurance? Head to Progressive.com to see how much you can save!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time for a quickie. Podcast one presents the Lady Gang, the Hollywood girl posse with Lady Gang Quickie. Here's Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin and Jack Vanek. Let's make this quick. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Lady Gang Quickie. I'm Becca here with Jack and Kelty and back by popular demand. And our rich BFF, Vivian Tu, is here to finish up the conversation we started because apparently you guys couldn't get enough.

And I personally have more, selfishly, I have more questions that I want to ask. So welcome back, Vivian. Thanks, guys. So good to see you again. Okay, so we were talking about this last week, but Vivian has a brand new book called Well Endowed, and it is all about setting up your life. There it is. You're looking so cute.

I really love, I'm going to tell a quick story about you in a second, but I really love your fashion and how chic you are. And it's amazing. But, you know, before we even get into this, if you're someone who is afraid of money and you just need a worksheet, Viv, can you explain this book and how you're reading? And then there's little worksheets and then explain how when you preorder it, you basically get all these things. So if you're not a reader, which some people are like, I'm never going to read a book and they just want the worksheets on what they should do with their boyfriend on paying rent. Vivian has that for you too. Perfect. Yeah. So Well Endowed, it comes out February 3rd. This book is going to essentially teach everybody how to use their money

to get the life that they actually want and deserve. I want everybody to feel like they aren't looking at their closet and being like, oh, that's where all my money went and I regret half of it. I want you to feel like you can buy a home and a car and get insurance, even in this economy, that you can manage money in your relationship with your family, with your friends, that you can set your kids up for financial success, both human and fluffy, that you have the retirement that you actually deserve. You get to have fun today, but still prepare for tomorrow. And then through estate planning, one of the best kept rich people secrets, you're actually able to make sure that your trust and will and power of attorney documents and your healthcare directive

allow you to take care of yourself in this entire lifetime, take care of yourself as you're passing, and then still being able to leave a legacy for the people you love the most, pre-order this book, richbffbook.com, and if you pre-order now, you get a bunch of bonus resources, so things like an outline of my trust and will so you can know how I shaped mine, a rent versus buy calculator on deciding how you should approach housing, whether you should rent or you should buy. I can't even take credit for that one. My husband built it. Um, he built it for us. I didn't ever expect to share it with everybody, but now you guys are getting it. Um, and a relationship equity calculator. So you can put in kind of what you

make, what you guys owe, and then figure out who should be paying what proportion in terms of like your rent and big expenses, um, a wedding planning checklist, a list of things that you should be testing out with your kids to help make sure that they are financially savvy as they get older. There are so many free resources that come with pre-ordering this book, well endowed. So please check it out. Go to richbffbook.com, grab a copy and then submit your receipt underneath and you'll be all set. Wow. Bam. Bam. No, I love this so much. So I met Vivian at a Marshall's event a hundred years ago. And I love it because, you know, when you go to a Marshall's event, you're obviously wearing your outfit from Marshalls and we looked at each other and we're like,

I almost got that. Like I knew we were going to be friends. And I think it's, it's, it's a really, the way you speak about money and it's so inspiring and it's also like not scary and money is so scary. Um, even as you were just talking now, I was like, huh? I was like, I have a will. And like, I feel like I've done a good job with my investments. And then I'm like, I don't have an estate plan. Like, I mean, I have a will, but I don't, And then also I was like, wait, I don't want an estate plan. I want to spend all of my money while I'm alive. Like I'm leaving these motherfuckers nothing like I'm bye.

And then I was like, can you just can you describe the two the difference between the two? Because Kelty, you bring up a really good point that you may or may not want that estate planning. Like I have my will that's like I'm leaving my Chanel to this person. And like there's some kids that are going to get some money. But like other than that, like I'm going to die on a beach broke. Well, you don't have kids, so you better spend all that money, girl. Or I'm coming for it. What's the estate plan?

And that's in the book, too. Like, I noticed there's like a big chunk about this. Yeah, it's a huge, huge part of the book. So an estate plan consists of multiple different documents. So to your point, your will, your living will, your trust that perhaps dictates how you want certain things to be divvied up. Kelty, I love you so much. but my hope for you is that you do not like have your last check bounce because that is an incredibly dangerous way to live. You don't know where you're going to go. You want to have other

things like a healthcare directive and power of attorney as well. So let me walk through kind of these four documents. So with your will, I think it's really, really great that you have that already set up. A will is just a legal document that expresses like how you want your property to be distributed. But with a trust, you can actually be a little bit more strategic. And also a trust allows you to kind of hide that money from creditors. It allows you to potentially qualify for certain benefits. It essentially makes it look like your money is not owned by you, but rather by this entity. What these two documents in conjunction allow you to do is dictate everything. The problem is, if you were to pass and say, you know, we're talking

about Becca, she has a kid, heaven forbid, heaven forbid, she and her partner pass when kiddo is 18. Can you imagine this kid getting probably multi six figure sum, multi seven figure sum of money at 18. And that's it. That's life. That kid is going to spend it on video games and probably booze and make a bunch of dumb decisions. And at 21, we'll have nothing to show for it. And Becca up in heaven is going to be looking down being like, wow, that was a huge disappointment. That's true. I'll be like, how's that cocaine? But you know what? Loser. When you have a full estate plan, what Becca could say is, if anything were to happen to me and my husband, me and my partner, we are able to actually say, hey, at 18, you get this for school. It can only be earmarked

to school. It will go directly to a verified institution. Great. At 22, when they graduate, you can get this other sum of money to help you get your first apartment, first car. Great. by 30 you need to have hit a certain number of criteria you need to be gainfully employed um one of Shaq's like Shaq the basketball player in his inheritance documents basically he says his kids all have to have two degrees so college and then a higher education degree a graduate degree yes that's amazing before they get the Shaq money before they get Shaq money wow you can also say my child needs to have a prenup with any romantic partner that they marry because you don't want them to get screwed over fully understand we should all be doing that

and then it takes it off the relationship if my if your parents were like you can only get your inheritance if you have a prenup then that like takes the stress off the stress out so now this kid is set up for success obviously had a very traumatic thing happen already there's a lot of emotional turmoil there's probably things saying like hey if we go we want nana and papa to take care of kiddo, or maybe it's my best friend and her husband, like whatever it might be, you get it all out of the way now.

You get to decide, you. And so no one has to be like, oh, well, this is what everybody would have wanted. Nobody, like nobody actually knows, except for you. You get to write what you want. And then there's two other really powerful documents as well, which are the healthcare directive and power of attorney. So if I get incapacitated in, again, God forbid,

some sort of really terrible accident, I have already made selections of, do I want a limb of mine to be amputated if it will save my life? Yes. Do I want to be put on a feeding tube and a breathing machine indefinitely? No. Do I want to be resuscitated? Do I want a chaplain if this were to happen? I have already made choices for all of these. Then with the power of attorney, I have given conditional power of attorney to my husband. So if something were to happen to me, he has the ability to move money around, to do things on my behalf to take care of the people I care about most. And obviously, I really trust him to be able to do that. You don't give power of attorney to anybody, to just anybody. But this

means that in some of the worst, darkest, most horrible moments of my life and probably the people around me's lives, at least they don't have to worry about these things. Wow. What is your take on life insurance? I have a friend of mine who was a young widow, and she holds this kind of like grief group for other young widow widowers. And she, luckily for her, had someone back way back when tell her to get life insurance for her and her husband. But she said 80% of these young women, their husbands passed, who were making a really good living, who are no longer alive, who are not making that living anymore, who did not have life insurance, and now they are destitute. So she's like, I want people to shout it from the rooftops how important life insurance is.

do share that same sort of opinion. And Vivian, not to jump in, but there is like, I saw this was one of the big questions from the book. And I know that you're going to give us an answer. But like, if you guys are interested, there's so much more in the book. And also, I feel like I want to know this because I'm a high functioning person who like feels like they have their shit together. And I think life insurance is the most confusing thing. Like, is it a racket? Like, I'm very this is a scam. It seems like a scam. It's not. Sorry. So now continue. Okay, you see how we already have two dissenting opinions in the room already. It's because life insurance is super confusing. And to answer Becca's question, does everybody need life insurance? Yes, if. The answer

is yes, if. I am a huge proponent of people getting life insurance if they have people who depend on them for income. So that's kids, maybe a partner, what have you. I think everybody needs to have it if you have those stipulations met. However, the reason why Jack and Kelty feel like life insurance might be a scam is because some of the life insurance that is being peddled to you is. So to break it down really simply, there are two main types of life insurance. There's like a zillion different types, but the two main types are this. There's term life insurance. Simply put, you croak, your family and friends or your closest people get a little something something to help them by. Simple, very easy to understand. You pay in premiums, something happens to you, they get

money. Then there's whole life insurance. This includes the death benefit, but it also has a cash component, meaning those premiums that you pay in over the years, at a certain point, they will start to accrue. It's not 100% of the premiums you pay in. It's actually a smaller fraction. But over time, that cash value grows and grows and grows. And that is what you're probably seeing online, people talking about, oh, you got to get life insurance. It's the best investment. Then you can like borrow against yourself. It's infinite banking. Okay. Here's the thing. This is what they don't tell you. The reason why those gurus are so excited to sell you on whole life insurance is because it is the highest commission product in the financial services sphere.

They make so much money when you buy a policy. And when it comes to whole life insurance, there have been so many studies that show the premiums are it doesn't make sense for most people because the premiums to even set up this plan are so astronomically expensive it doesn't make sense for most people in fact you would be so much better off just buying multiple term policies and laddering them meaning you have one for 10 years and then the next 20 years and then the next 10 years and the next 20 whatever like you basically ladder them so you have protection throughout your life or until you need it. But all of the additional money that you would have spent on premiums for whole life insurance, you should actually just be putting that money

into the stock market, into traditional, more conventional investing. Life insurance is not an investment. Life insurance is life insurance. And I think many, many people should have it, but you got to be really discerning about what kind you get. So what's your favorite, where's your favorite place to direct people if they're looking for good term life insurance? Do you have suggestions? Because term life insurance is actually a commoditized product, I would say shop around, baby. Like you go to every single place that is willing to offer it to you and you compare policies. You have to realize that if all of these policies are the same, you should pick the cheapest option at the firm that you don't think

is going to go belly up. But some of these policies might be better than others. Maybe there's higher premiums, but there's higher payouts. Then you have to kind of compare those different factors. But life insurance is life insurance is life insurance from no matter who you get it from. It's commoditized. So you make them fight for your business. Cool. When I go to get my life insurance, is this going to be like car insurance where I get it? And then when something happens, they're like, oh, well, you didn't run over that nail on a Tuesday. So you're No, only if your husband kills you, then he can't collect it, right? Sometimes they even do.

Listen, I think all insurance is going to try their best to use the fine print to not pay you. I'm going to say that very bluntly. However, I think that is also something that you should look into when you are making these purchases. Which of these policies has a more loose interpretation of what will actually be paid out? I think there are, you know, life insurance providers that are that have much higher ratings than others that are easier to use. And that should also, you know, factor into that calculus. But life insurance is interesting because unlike car insurance, for the most part, they can discriminate. They can say we're not insuring you because you've been a lifelong smoker and have pre-existing conditions. Or they can say, oh, well, you are prescribed certain medications, medications that many people are taking, SSRIs, ADHD medications, all of that stuff can impact the cost and can impact your coverage. Um, so I am not one to say lie to your doctor. That is not what I'm saying at all. But I wouldn't necessarily, like, confess to every sin that I've ever done the six months, 12 months prior to getting life insurance. Vivian will always tell us the truth. I love it.

That's the real tea. And if you're planning on going on anything, like if you've not gone on something yet and you're planning on going on some sort of medication, you do all of your stuff before going on it. Because like I have my policy. So now if I take up smoking, they can't like retroactively say, never mind. So now I can just smoke crack and I still. I'm just kidding. Before you develop your preexisting conditions. conditions yeah mornings without coffee road trips without snacks movies without popcorn

without our favorite foods we'd miss out on all our favorite moments learn more at canadasfoodsystem.ca the lady gang vivian a lot this is us right now we just had this conversation i think in december where I own a home. This is my third home. And I'm ready to get the out of home ownership. I'm like, I got to get out. I don't want to be I just paid $30,000 for a roof like I am ready to go. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to be a renter again. I want someone else my washing machine to be someone else's problem. And we there's a big discussion in our Facebook group about like, is it better to own a rent? And then what I loved about your book is that, you know,

you talk about it in this emotional way of like, you get to an age and you feel like if you don't own a home, you are a loser. You know what I mean? Like we are conditioned to be like, oh, I live in an apartment and like, oh, I still rent. And then that means you're unsuccessful and you're a loser. So I would love your take. I loved this part of the book of like the rent versus buy. Yeah. So it's so funny that you mentioned that just because I own my home in New York and we got back after the holidays and the HVAC was broken and it's probably going to be 10 grand to fix it. Like super awesome. I really, really love spending 10 grand, um, out of nowhere on something I didn't have. Three Birkins on a fucking roof tile. Like what? It's tough. It's

tough. Um, it's, it's really tough out here. So I think in exactly to your point, we have really demonized renting. And I think it's because home ownership is still so closely tied to the American dream of like, you own a home, you have a little plot of land that is just yours, and you own, like, first off, you're paying property taxes. So like, sort of you own it, but like, you still have to keep those taxes up. But second off, I think there are a lot of pros and a lot of cons to both. So I talk about this in my book, but pros of renting, You can probably get some sort of discount if you are willing to move pretty regularly.

You can get one month off your 14-month lease, your one month off your 12-month lease, whatever. You don't have to worry about anything. It is your landlord's job to fix it. You have to recognize that there are also cons though. So like maybe you can't be making all of the modifications that you would like to be making to a rental. You're also not building equity.

So you are throwing money at rent that you will not see any sort of benefit after the month where you live in that apartment or in that home. But with homeownership, there are so many other pros and cons too. So the pros are you can do whatever you want. You're building equity.

It is, in some cases, I really want to copy off this, some cases, a decent investment depending on where you buy. But also, if your HVAC or your roof or something happens, you're on the hook for that. If your toilet starts leaking in the middle of the night and there's poop all over your floor, you have to clean that up.

No one's coming to do that for you. Even worse, the fact that you do have to still pay property taxes if you live in a community, an HOA, if you live in an apartment building, the maintenance building fees. There's so many other fees that being a homeowner, you have to pay for. And it's really up to someone and their lifestyle whether or not renting or buying actually makes more sense. Do you think you're going to be somewhere for seven to 10 years? Do you think that you might be relocated for your job? Because if that's the case, you shouldn't be buying. Are you going to maybe be changing what your family looks like in the near term? If you buy something that's a two bedroom apartment in New York City, like, oh, I don't know me. Like if you decide to start

a family in five years, maybe you're kind of wishing you got one that's a little bigger. But frankly, I couldn't afford one that was a little bigger at the time. So that's why we got the two bed. And so there's so many factors to be considered here. There is no such thing as the perfect buy, the perfect rental. Everything that is hindsight is 2020. You can always look back and have the perfect decision, but you'll never know at the time, especially with interest rates where they're at, especially with rentals being very expensive right now. Net, net, it's up to you. It's up to your situation. I really encourage people to read the book and go through the checklist and then actually use my calculator to decide what makes sense for them.

I have a question for you. It's this is really like base level. Just if there's anyone listening that is feeling like I have so much credit card debt after the holidays, I am in over my head. I'm so overwhelmed. I can't even think about investing my money because I don't even have enough right now to be spending on like life. What is your best piece of advice for like the first step? Yeah, I think January is always the spending hangover. Like December, nobody wants to see my content. It's actually really funny. I see a dramatic dip in engagement. And then January, everything picks up because people are like, oh, shit, way too much money. Now what? It's so funny. It's so true. It's so true. Literally everybody. December. Oh, God. And

you know what? December was so fun. I miss December. You just don't look at your bank account. You're just like, whatever. You're just like, I'll figure it out in the new year. New year, new me. This year, I'm going on a tear. Yeah, exactly. And you know what? I don't even feel like I don't feel like this is a problem because it's so natural, right? You are celebrating. You are having a good time. But January is the reset. Like we got to all come back down to earth. So what I encourage people to do is in January, set some milestones, set some goals. Is it, oh, I'm going to save this much money to be able to pay off this much of my credit card debt. Is it I'm actually going to have a no spend January, which is where you only spend on

absolutely necessary things. So no discretionary spending just for the month of January. It's 30 days. Come on. How long could 30 days be? It might actually be 31. I don't know. But but the thing is, is like what you should really think about with your credit card is how can you like accessibly pay this down and quickly. Um, for many people it's consolidation debt consolidation. So what you can actually do is if you know that you could get that debt paid down, if the interest rate was lower, you can get a balance transfer card where you transfer that credit card balance to this new card. You have to be very, very certain that your habits have changed and you are ready to tighten up though. Cause I don't want you to just keep

racking more debt up. What you do is you pay a fee. And then once you pay that fee, you will have no interest for the first 12 to 18 months of that credit card. So it's 0% APR. That means if you are making payments against the balance, it's all going towards the money you borrow. That is an effective way to pay down that debt fast. And then hopefully from there on, you use that credit card responsibly make the payment in full on time every single month. Great. If you're like, okay, my credit card debt is a lot more and I don't think I can get it paid down in 12 to 18 months. What you can actually do is get a personal loan. So you go to a bank. Again, you have to be committed. Your habits had to have changed. You can't just spend more, but you go to a bank.

You can get a loan typically around seven to 15% interest. Most credit cards are 20 to 30%. So you can see how that's better. You use that loan, you pay off the credit card in full, then you cut it or you put it on an ice block or you just can't touch it in the time being. Then you pay down this personal loan and you can take as long as you need. But generally speaking, like you are able to then spend less on interest. So more money is obviously going towards paying back what you borrowed. And then if you're really, really in the hole, you can always consider credit counseling. These are nonprofit agencies that actually help you manage your debt. However, there are some pretty strict rules put in place.

Like you'll have to cancel all of your credit cards. If you miss one payment, you're basically even worse off than you were before. But like somebody can help you. You should never, ever feel like you are so down bad that you can't come back from it. Great. Look at us, guys. New year, new me. New us.

New us. New us. We can do it, guys. There's one thing I do want to ask you about, sir. It's a little pop culture-y. So, you know, we love the Housewives. There's a lot of talk about this money guru that is on Housewives. I don't know.

Have you seen it? Mm-hmm. Okay. The silence. Well, there's a lot of – for people who don't watch, there's this very famous scene now where Dorit is obviously going through this divorce. She has not a handle on her finances. And Bose, who is, you know, a very well-known CEO, like super smart, turns to this Amanda who says she's the money queen and is this expert in money and says, well, what should Dorit be doing to protect herself?

Kind of the way for the last week's episode in this one, we asked Vivian, what the hell do I do? And then Vivian went on 10-minute rants and said, here's the worksheet, here's the book, here's the information. Like, that's what I think she was looking for. And the money queen turns and she goes, well, you just have to decide like what kind of like who do you want to be with money? And Bo's like rolls her eyes and she goes, what kind of blah, blah, blah is this? But and I say this and I'm not trying to hate on someone because I do think the mental you at the beginning of Well Endowed, this new book, you talk about us being snails. And you say there's like the soft inside to money and then there's the hard outside. So it seems like you're in agreement that there is this like emotional, mental part, but you back it up with some like then some worksheets.

Can you discuss the snail? And what did you think of that scene on Housewives? So I invoke my Fifth Amendment right on that. However, I will say, you know, not even so much about the snail, but like I talk at the beginning of the book. I mentioned growing up going to Chinese buffets and why I am so focused on optimization now as an adult is because when I would go to these Chinese buffets, like my parents wouldn't let me just eat whatever I wanted. Like there was a routine. You would go stand by the seafood tower. You would get all the seafood. You would eat seafood until you were done. Then you could go to the meats, like the expensive meats, like beef and lamb and pork, not chicken. You're not eating

chicken. Then we go to the vegetables, but not like the cheap kind, like broccoli. We're eating snow peas. And then once you're done with the vegetables, you can finally go for the carbs and the desserts. And at the time when I was growing up, my parents didn't have a lot of money. And when we would go to these Chinese buffets, it was an act of extracting every penny of value out of life. And I think that has like chronically changed my mindset when it comes to money. I am always focusing on value. I didn't say price, value. I am really, really focused on value because it allows me to have the best possible thing at the lowest possible price for that value. I'm not getting so down bad that I'm staying at a hotel with like scratchy sheets

and like no mini bar, but I'm saying, how do I optimize so I can get the lowest price for the five-star hotel. And that I think is a mindset shift that all of us could really, really benefit from. In terms of asking a quote-unquote money guru about money and then not having any sort of actionable guidance, I think that speaks a lot for itself. she might as well said here go buy my course well that's what it felt like if all you're doing is selling a course about like manifesting your best life you don't know anything about money you're not a guru frankly I don't trust anybody who says that they are a financial expert and doesn't manage their own money and lets their husband do it oh boom roasted

mic drop mic drop no and that's why i think i was wondering what your take on it because there's the book is at the top of amazon again and i was like i don't think that's the and then i was like we got to have vivianne because like that's not the book we need to be buying bravo leberties and bravo fans like this is the book well endowed is the book um and i love that when you get this book not only are you you know and you give so much on your socials there's a wealth of free advice every single day i'm getting hit up by vivianne saying hey what's up it's your favorite wall street girly and she and rich bff and i'm gonna tell you what to do today and i'm like what am i doing but i love when you buy this book you go to your website and you get all these free

workshop worksheets and all this stuff you're giving real actionable items we are dumbasses we just need to be told what to do and it's not like think positive like i am not thinking positive and even if i am i still need to know what the 529 ira blah blah blah is and i love that for you i love what you do. Um, and the book is incredible. And if you, I know a lot of you listening bought the first book, this one is even better, but it's a one-two punch. If you've never heard of Vivian, if you're new to Lady Gang, um, the first book is, is excellent too. So it's like, go get both, you know? Yeah. Thank you for making us smarter and more confident. You definitely, you are so amazing at breaking things down. And for dum-dums and who feel like myself, who feel very overwhelmed

and not equipped to deal with money, like you've definitely instilled some confidence in us over the years. And I just am really grateful that you're not selling courses. Thank you guys so much for having me. If everybody wants to get the book, it's called Well Endowed. You can get it wherever books are sold or just go to richbffbook.com. If you pre-order now, it also comes with a bunch of pre-order freebies like an outline of my trust and will, a rent versus buy home calculator, a relationship equity calculator to see how much each of you should be paying, a wedding planning checklist, a how to help your kids with money list. There's so many free resources. Please go get it. I want you to have them. Well Endowed

comes out February 3rd, richbffbook.com. We love you. Love you. Thank you, Viv. Good luck and congratulations like we know how hard it is to write a book so congratulations to you thank you we weren't here a long time we're here for a rich time lady gang is hosted and produced by kelty knight becca tobin and jack vanek with social media support from collie carrera audio and video editing from jared monaco and additional support from steve delameter and podcast one you've put off that upgrade long enough during the hyundai upgrade your ride sales event finance a new kona or elantra from just zero percent and get a 500 bonus on select models and with the elantra hybrids best in class fuel efficiency you can also save at the pump

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