Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Graduating During a Crummy Economy 101

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

Dear Class of 2022: YOU DID IT! Congrats on this major moment! Now it is time to venture off into the "real world" which is really... upside down. But don't worry— Nicole's got you. She's sharing her best money tips for new grads (and their loved ones). Spoiler alert: it has something to do with super woman (but not Superwoman).  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. And should I have a 401k? You don't do it? No, I never do it. Dear class of 2020,

I love you. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a charge. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, San Dixie, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. And let's face it, no one is going to top Taylor Swift's speech at NYU two weeks ago, so I'm not even going to go there.

This is not a graduation speech. But all that said, I remember how I felt to graduate. I remember when my little tassel moved from the right side to the left side and being hit with the weight of the question, what happens next? After graduation, I spent a bunch of years hustling so hard that I had a pretty epic breakdown. But I'm not going to go into all of that here because I want you to skip that part.

I did learn a lot from the experience of burning out, but I had to learn those lessons the hard way. And I want to share everything that I learned the hard way so that you don't have to. So I want to tell you what I needed to hear at graduation. And it all starts with superheroes. I wanted to be Superwoman for as long as I can remember. Do it all, have it all, be it all. If you're like me, you probably looked up to some version of this Superman or Superwoman character growing up. And most of us still do as grown-ass adults. Don't believe me? Take a look around the next costume party you go to. Superheroes, after all, do good work and look good doing it. I mean, how does Superwoman

maintain that bouncy blowout and look so smoking hot while also saving the world every day? And Superman gets punched in the face 23 hours of the day, and yet his jaw remains a right angle. Who wouldn't want to be a superhero? But for the longest time, I never really stopped to think about why I aspired to be the embodiment of Superwoman. Have you? Or do you, a powerful human being, just idolize superheroes because you always have? Let's think

about that for a second. The Superwoman origin story goes more or less like this. Superman started saving the world. Then he saved Superwoman. And then Superwoman went on to save the world multiple times, all while strutting in sassy red boots and essentially underwear. So it's basically a tale of a woman who was saved by a dude and then went right into saving everyone else, never complaining, never missing a beat. Is that truly who you want to be? Is that what you want to strive for? I don't. I mean, not anymore. The superhero narrative is all about saving everyone else. In essence, dropping everything and even putting his or her own well-being in danger at the slightest suggestion that they're needed. The superhero narrative is all about saving

everyone else. In essence, dropping everything and even putting his or her own well-being in danger at the slightest suggestion that they're needed. Sure, they perform incredible feats, but who they are and what they feel is largely a mystery. In real life, that approach plays out like this. Being all things to all people means you are nothing to yourself. And therein lies the real danger. I want to be a super woman. And that's not the one word super woman with a capital S. I want it to be two words, super space woman. That space allows me to define on my own terms what being super means for me and my goals without the pressure and limitations that come with the make-believe

one-word version. I used to think that being super meant excelling in everything, my career, my personal life, and yeah, having a rockin' bod and a perfect outfit. But that ideal wasn't heroic at all. In fact, it was destructive. The pursuit of being perfectly put together made everything, well, fall apart. The superpower I was missing was the ability to take care of myself. Real superheroes, and yes, that's super space heroes, are those who are dedicated to the pursuit of their own happiness. They decide what's important to them and then they make time for it.

They listen to what's going on in their own heads and then deliberately and thoughtfully act on it. A super woman is her own goddamn hero who writes her own story and when need be saves herself. Super woman only exists in fiction, but superwomen exist in real life. It's time to nix the idea that you have to be superhuman, and it's time to be a super human. Now, I know you're graduating into a very uncertain and sometimes unsuper world, and it might feel like having a cape wouldn't be the worst thing right now. No one really knows which side is up in this job market or this economy. You might be applying for a gig that was an office job three years ago, and now it's completely

remote. Maybe you aren't working remote, and you're wondering how you're going to commute when gas is six bucks a gallon. You're probably seeing the headlines that inflation is 10%. And I'm sure you sat next to someone in class who told you every day that crypto was going to the moon, and now it's going to zero. Every graduation generation has their shit. I graduated in the calm before. I graduated in the calm before what would become the Great Recession. I think you'll find, though, that weathering these types of storms is what allows us to really earn those capes. But here's the good news. Another difference between our story and Superman's story is that you aren't being launched into a whole new world all alone. You have your loved ones and people like me who don't want you

to make the same mistakes we did. So as you get started making your way in the real world, here are three things you should know, you know, once you're done celebrating. Number one, talk to your school about which institutional resources you have after graduation and for how long. A lot of schools offer career development services in perpetuity after graduation. Amazing. And there are some tangible resources that a lot of schools will allow you to use up to one year after graduation, like academic databases, Microsoft Office, which is really expensive, and other computer programs that might be useful to you during your post-grad job search.

be useful to you during your post-grad job search. Number two, consider a temp agency. This is perhaps my favorite hack for new grads that I never ever hear people really talk about. Temp agencies, which if you don't know, are groups that place employable people like yourself with companies that are looking to hire someone temporarily. And in case you're wondering, a company may hire a temp if they have a full-time employee going on sabbatical or parental leave, or if the company is working on a big project and just needs an extra set of hands to see it through. I think this type of work isn't often recommended because the conventional advice is that a new grad should try and get his or her foot in the door at a company that they can stay

at long enough to grow. But I've found that the real way things shake out in adulthood is that you don't know what you like until you try it. And so if you're not sure which career path you actually want to commit to, like so many other people in your shoes, getting placed with a temp agency will allow you to try out different roles with only a few months worth of commitment and making money while you do it. Number three, learn what you weren't taught. This may be unsurprising coming from me, a financial expert and overall money nerd, but you need to take the time to set yourself up for financial success. And this will take a little bit of effort on your part because I know that you were not taught

financial literacy in school. Even if you studied business, even if you studied economics, I'm sure you focused on the economics of companies or even nations, but you never learned about your own bottom line. Did your econ 101 professor ever talk to you about how to pay off the debt you incurred just by sitting in that class? I guess not. Money can't buy happiness. That is totally true. But it can afford opportunity. So start this new chapter by having a grip on your finances and putting together a spending plan so that you know you have your own back. Now, I did say I wanted to keep this completely free of the repetitive stuff you hear in all of the graduation speeches. But there is one thing I do want to say that everyone else says, and that is, Class of 2022 and their loved ones, congratulations. I wish

you all the very, very best for what comes next. But I also hope that you're taking time to celebrate where you are now. And remember, you don't have to be superhuman. Do what makes you feel like a super space human. and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.