More Money Podcast - 366 How Not to Let Money Take Over Your Life - Berna Anat, Author of Money Out Loud and Founder of Hey Berna

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

I'm so excited to have one of my favourite people on the Internet and in the personal finance space join me on the show today. Berna Anat, a.k.a. financial hype woman and founder of Hey Berna is on the show to talk about her debut money book, Money Out Loud, that just hit shelves! Berna is a proud Filipina-American daughter of immigrants and an award-winning producer, speaker, podcast host, and now author! Berna was named The Plutus Awards’ Most Entertaining Financial Creator two years in a row and was named one of ABS-CBN's Global Pinoy Idols. In this episode, Berna shares how her new book came to be, including her roots as a first-gen Filipina-American and how that impacted her personal finance journey. Berna shares how she approached writing this book and with particular emphasis on lending her own unique voice to topics like budgeting, bank accounts, debt and so much more. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/366 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 366, and I, of course, am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. This is quite an episode. This is a very special episode. I have a very special announcement that I will share in just a moment, but first I do want to let you know about who we've got on the show today, and I'm so excited to have her on. I've got someone I've been following on social media and all everywhere for a very long time. Her name is Berna Anat and she is, and I love the title that she gave herself, the, I'd say probably the only financial hype woman and she makes finance actually fun. I know a lot of people say, I make finance fun. Most people don't. Honestly, sometimes I don't. Berna does. And that's why I've been just, you know, glued to all the content that she's been creating for the past several years. So I'm so excited to have her on. And in case

you aren't familiar with Berna, well, you soon will be. But she's an award winning producer, speaker and podcast host and rich auntie in training. of course financial hype woman which is my favorite and she's also a proud filipina american daughter of immigrants born and raised in the bay area and she taught herself how to pay off over fifty thousand dollars of debt and did what any millennial would do yell about it on the internet which got her a lot of attention from publications like Forbes, the New York Times, and BuzzFeed. She was also named the Plutus Awards Most Entertaining Financial Creator for two years in a row. And finally, she has her debut book out called Money Out Loud. It is out now. Make sure to grab a copy. I'm a big fan of it. It really is a very unique take on,

you know, personal finance books. And if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know how many books there are out there. And, you know, I've read, I've probably read, like, I don't know how many, but hundreds and hundreds of books at this point. This one is a really interesting take on it. So highly recommend it. We're going to talk all about it in this episode. But for the thing that I wanted to share, and I'm going to talk more about it, you know, with some more details at the end of this episode. So make sure to listen to the full episode and to the end. I also have a book coming out, not for a while, but I'm currently in the stages of writing it and I'm pretty darn excited. So your gal, Jessica Bonley is getting her book. So I'll talk more about that in a little bit. But before I do

that, let's talk to someone who does have a book out. Berna, let's get to that interview with her. Welcome, Berna, to the More Money Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I am super psyched. Folks can't see, but I'm literally wearing a shirt that says more money. Where did you get that shirt? More money, please. Is that your shirt or? No, it's not. I think a company just like sent it to me and I was, I don't, it's funny, the branding. I don't remember the company, but I do remember that I want to wear this shirt every single day. I love that shirt. How cute is that? Why didn't I think of that? I will find the

company and just, I'll just send them your way you let me you let me know yeah that's amazing that's amazing well i'm so excited i've been following i feel like your your book writing journey since and i'm not sure if you remember this because it was just for like a very short moment that we met at finn con in like 2019 yes um it was like is for like a hot second but i'm like i like that girl she's got a lot of energy and she says things how we you know like i i and this is a true story yesterday i was on uh the news there's this um uh news station that's doing this debate and so it was me and this uh the host and then this other guy and we're chatting about like the news of the day or whatever and we're talking about

like the mayoral election and how many you know people should be allowed to put their names into the ring and i'm like well more choice is good because we need diversity because they showed a photo and it was basically all white men and i'm like you know it looks pretty male and pale which i obviously know is one of your kind of things that you say i think it's just hilarious and they're like oh my god that's the first time we heard it like i did not come up with this burda came out i actually said your name burna she has a book coming out so maybe someone's gonna google you and find you but i'm a little promo up here in canada um but i've always just loved the way your your your voice is just so unique and as you know it's there's a lot of you know voices in personal finance but a lot that don't necessarily

stand out. And yours has always stood out to me. I thought it was just so exciting that you were coming out with a book. And your book is like literally the perfect, like, it sounds just like you. I mean, obviously, you wrote it. But so I want to kind of just start with that. When you were approached to write this book, how did you get the like, how did you know this is how I want to write it? This is kind of the tone. These are the things that I really want to chat about. Sure. Okay. So I first of all, major props for the promo and the shout out to ally. Yeah. And true homie. Because it is that's that is what I love to say that finance world, the finance world definitely was

when it first started out, is less so, but still is. It's still male, pale, palestale, as we know. And so when I was approached for this book by my publisher, HarperCollins, they actually had the idea of a book about money for young people in mind. And they had an outline and they were like, this is how we think it's going to go. We're just looking for a voice to actually write it. And I don't think my publisher reminds me saying this, but I saw the outline and I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. And you kind of book for young folks or targeted towards young folks with like teen's guide to, or young people's guide to is always an absolutely not. Yeah. So at the risk of offending them mortally, I was like, Hi, love this. So excited. Harper Collins is epic.

This is horrifying. I'm gonna rip it up. If you're offended at this point, I understand if you want to move on. But here's what I would do. And they were like, love it. Do you want to just go for it? I was like, I do. So I keep telling people that I got into this, writing this book kind of like bud backwards and kind of edged into it by trying to just sort of be my own voicey self. And so it was, it's been really exciting to write this book because I wanted to be a writer ever since I was little. That was the first thing I wanted to be. And of course, first gen Asian American parents,

I'm Filipino American. It was like, I always joke that either you're a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or a disappointment. And so that I became a branch of disappointment for them. But now that this book is coming out and various things happened over my career, my parents finally understand what's up. But being able to write this book in my voice, but more importantly for me, bring in the voices of like 30, 40 plus folks from my community to like round this book out has been super fun. You know, like it's I keep telling folks, like if you follow me on Instagram, you've heard enough of my voice.

Follow me, like watch my videos. What's so exciting for me is to be able to give a platform to and just pass the mic to so many other folks who are not hella male pale stale, who have just as valid of money stories and expertise or like quote unquote expertise or just your regular money experience does make you an expert in your life. And I love being able to platformize, just give the mic eyes to as many people as possible. Yeah. And what I thought was really cool and unique, I haven't seen it really in any book for, I don't think ever.

It's just sometimes how you kind of display the information. So like, instead of just doing a regular Q&A with some of your, you know, interviewees in your book, you do it via like this text message bubble, which I think is really fun. And just like, just the language that you use some of the imagery, and, you know, kind of graphics and stuff. It just makes it really, yeah, like vibrant and, you know, exciting when some of the topics are like, okay, we've all heard about budgeting before. So how do we do this in a different way? So I'm curious, like, what was kind of that process? You're like, I'm sure you've, you know, in the process read a lot of other books just to get a sense of what should I be writing about?

And what are some key things that should be in this book? But how can't you know, when there are so many, like, there's no new ideas, really. So how were you able to kind of, yeah, reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and present these ideas in a very different way so people can actually pay attention? So in the creation of this book, of course, I, like you said, kind of ingested a good amount of personal finance content. Of course, I've read lots of personal finance books up until getting this book deal. But once I started actually writing the book, I realized it was really important for me actually to put the blinders on and trust myself because I had to think like, of course I had moments of imposter syndrome. Why am I writing this book? I'm not,

I don't even have financial certifications. Like I really am just like a financial. I mean, most personal finance authors do not. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It should make you feel a bit better. Exactly. And I'm like, oh my God, of course, is this, am I worthy? How did I get here? And I had to really put the blinders on and trust myself. Like the way that I built my path up into getting like book deal worthy is that I was learning out loud in the language that I understood. I was making and

synthesizing financial content really for my inner child self to understand. And that's what caught on for people. And so I was hyper aware in writing this book that I'm a very impressionable human being. I like, I'm the kind of person where if I'm getting really into a fiction, that narrator's voice is like what my brain sounds like for the remainder of when I'm reading that book. So I was like, you know what? I think I sort of need to zen out and trust that my voice in translating what I want to say is enough. And I, especially for the first draft, I wrote all seven and a half-ish chapters at once, kind of as it went. And then my editor reviewed the entire book. And after that, I then went through and was like, okay, what I said, it almost was like a barf,

like a verbal vomit at first. And then we went back in and refined, made sure that there was like a through line. And I went through and made sure I was saying everything that I wanted to say, but I just wanted to be able to say it without influence from the way that other folks have maybe created metaphors or imagery. I'm like, I'm going to go straight from the dome, straight from like the whatever is raw from the burn a factory and then see what happens from there and refine and tweak. And so it was it's not easy, of course, because, as you know, as a finance creator, we're surrounded by finance creation all the time. And like you said, there are no new ideas. We've all defined budgeting the same like six ways. And so again, that's why I felt really good about bringing in our incredible illustrator, Monique, to sort of like put images and kind of bring to life the like weird, weird metaphors and like scenarios that I bring up and bringing in community voices so that it feels genuinely unique as opposed to me just being like, so the 50-30-20 rule, blah, blah, blah, you know, just trying to trust that I have an original voice to some degree and then sprinkling things around it that will make it, you know, community minded and very genuine.

Yeah, which is absolutely necessary. Because I feel like when I think about someone new, who's just like, Oh, I should learn about money. It's like, Oh, gosh, it makes me really upset when I hear that they're like picking up Rich Dad Poor Dad or something. I'm like, my god, there's so many now. But you know, back 10 years ago, hey, sure, there really weren't that many options. Or maybe like going back even 15 years ago, when I really started learning all this stuff. But now there's so many better options. And what's really exciting is every year, there's more and more, you know, young people like yourself coming out with this stuff. So it's like you're talking to your peers, you don't have to have this 60 year old male pale guy talking to you. So yes, absolutely. This is something that I really focus on in my content creation on Instagram and on any 60-year-old male pale guy talking to you. So there's options here.

This is something that I really focus on in my content creation on Instagram and on any other platform when I'm writing this book. It's so easy to get caught up in what other people, your peers and your contemporaries are doing. And I have to always remind myself, I love other personal finance creators. We need each other.

We need to network, but they're not my audience. They're not my community. They're not who I'm trying to serve. And so this is what the blinders are important for me to not get caught up in whatever, because that can get very distracting and frustrating. I have to think about what does the young woman of color in South San Francisco, in Newark, New Jersey, in Houston, Texas, what do they care about? How do I serve them? How do I make this feel like a conversation just between us two? And almost like pretending that there are no rich dad, poor dad, that for some of them, they've never heard of Dave Ramsey. They've never heard of these other creators. So I'm like, great, I'm just going to meet you where you're at because this is the only

world that really matters right now. And then hopefully the world opens up for them after that, but they got to have a taste of something that feels more like them as opposed to the immediate rich dad, poor dad, immediate, you know, insert freaking quote unquote timeless financial advice here. Exactly. I feel like those kind of first few entry points into the world of personal finance are so important and can really skew kind of the rest of your journey. So if you pick up that rich dad, poor Dad compared to your book, you're going to have you're going to have some different ideas

and you're going to have some different thoughts. And it's yeah, it's like looking back. I'm like, yeah, there are some books that I read. Like I read that book like, yeah, probably one or two years after. And it's it's I say it all the time is trash is absolute trash. But it's it was confusing because I was like, it's so great. And I what it was confusing because everyone's like it's so great and i i think it was just because there just wasn't really anything out there but again it's if someone could just pick up your book at first and then if they pick that book out i think they'll have a different perspective be like okay i can see this through a different lens which i think is really important but um the i really really loved and i do see well I read Paco's book and she's coming on the show but and she's also

in your book which is funny but but I loved how you really started not just like and here's how to perfect your money it's let's talk about the internal work you need to do and I think more and more people are recognizing yeah we do need to go deep before we can kind of go more broad or more specific. Because most people are like, there's a reason why I haven't picked up a book before, because it's just too difficult for me to even go there personally. So I want to kind of start there. Could you share a little bit about your personal story and how, you know, just like, how did you enter this personal finance world? Because you did come at it from a different kind of a angle. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I came out, I came at it from the complete outsider's angle, the like, if my five years ago or 10 years ago self were to see

what's happening now, they'd be like, how that, what time suck space continuum did you enter? Because there's no part of my life did I think I was going to get into finance at all. I grew up in a Filipino American immigrant household, first gen, both my parents are immigrants from the Philippines. And my mom worked in customer service at the airport for 35 years.

My dad's a mail carrier for 35 years. Nobody in my family came from money, really had money, or, and we also did not ever talk about money, which I think is a very common experience for so many folks, especially first-gen immigrant families. It's just not talked about. Or if it's talked about, like in my family, the discussion is scarcity. The discussion is, we don't have enough. What do you expect? We need to cut down. But also, and I think this can be very specific to like the immigrant,

specifically the Filipino American immigrant family experience, you're having those kinds of, if not conversations, the weird silent feeling of tension and we don't talk about it and we don't have it kind of vibe at home. And then you're out with family, you're out with friends, we're wearing the like the flashiest possible brands that are probably fake, but nobody's talking about it. We are fighting over the bill. We're gossiping about who can afford what and whose job allows them to buy what car. And it's all very status and flash. In my book, I talk about the frugal flex theory, which I think is a very key part of my kind of deep emotional financial confusion is that at any given time in my childhood and a lot of our childhoods, we're being told we don't have enough. And then we're also being told like money is for showing off and for flexing the American dream and all these things.

So I grew up very confused about money. And we had a bunch of financial roadblocks. One of the biggest being that my family got caught up in the super crappy subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. We had to file for bankruptcy. It became this very, like this, this source of intense tension and shame and embarrassment in my family to talk about our money lives and what had happened and mistakes. And so, I mean, getting into my twenties, to me, money was all shame, all fear. I had $12,000 of credit card debt, almost $40,000 of student loan debt at that point. And it was just like, well, money is here to oppress me. That's what the thing is. Money is here to make my life harder.

And yet it's something I have to touch every single day. It's also something that no one around me talks about. So I'm pretty sure I'm the worst, pretty sure I'm the dumbest. And the way that I sort of, again, backed into this career now, years later, I'm talking very openly about money, writing a book about money. I started to try to figure shit out for myself, basically, you know, like so many of us, especially millennials, you don book about money, I started to try to figure shit out for myself, basically. You know, like so many of us, especially millennials, you don't know something, you go Google it. And I was like, how the heck? You know, it's like a cat at a computer keyboard, just like, what is budget? What, what, what? From there, when I started to, you know, people started

to be like, oh, you should read this book. You should listen to this podcast. You should read this blog. Back when people read blogs, it was all older white dudes. It was all Robert Kiyosaki also. And it was all the same people. And so when I started to share, I remember my very first Instagram posts where I shared my like weird bootleg Google doc budget worksheet thing. That was fun to share and cathartic to share. But also the reaction is what told me that there's something else here. The reaction from other people of color, the reaction from other women of color, other first-gen folks being like, wait, like literally in my DMs whispering, like, are you, are we allowed to talk about this? Are you sure? Are you good? You okay? Like, huh? And I had to be like, guys, I didn't combust. Actually, this is important to talk about. And so seeing that reaction is what really got me into financial creation.

Like realizing, yes, again, like we're saying, I'm not saying anything new necessarily. All this information truly does exist. It's just, ooh, I had this light bulb moment that when it comes from the mouth of someone who looks like you, who lives like you, who talks like you, the information hits differently and you get to open the door for people who thought the room was not for them. So that's what really, it was more about the hype of the reaction is what got me into finance and the fact that there just aren't enough of us who look and talk like us and what an impact that can make to say these simple things from our language and the way that we translate. Yeah. And well, I think that's why it's like, I've always been drawn to you because

I'm like, you say things in such a different way and it's, I don't know, your stuff is just like more interesting than a lot of other people's stuff. Maybe it's, again, I've been in this like kind of world for a long time. And so I've kind of seen it all. And I think that's important to have different ways of describing things or different, you know, illustrations or different examples, which I think are really fun. But yeah, I think it's so important, like for me, as just like a woman, I found it really difficult getting into personal finance, but even like certain elements of personal finance, like investing, I never felt welcome, because it was just men talking about it. And if you had like, spoke up like, Hey,

I have a question. They're like, Oh, you don't know this. And you're like, Oh my God. Well, then I'm just not going to learn about investing because this is way too intimidating for me. I don't think it's, it's something that I'm allowed to do. And then as I saw more women start talking about it, then I started kind of opening up that part of me again and still realize it's still a very male dominated. But if we see more people that we can kind of connect with and be like, oh, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one who feels like that. Then you realize actually everyone feels like this. And they just don't have someone that, yeah, is talking about it, or they haven't discovered that person. So I think, yeah,

more voices is absolutely the key. But I want to kind of go more in depth about some of the specific topics that you do talk about in your book. Now, how did you kind of lay it out? Obviously, you talk about some of the core things like budgeting and saving money, but you also talk about things like bank accounts. Very kind of specific, but that's something that you don't often see in a book talking about. Here are the different accounts that you need. Here's how to organize your finances. Most people don't really go in depth about that. Why did you want to really make sure that was part of your book? I am an organization weirdo. I am the kind of person who I love and appreciate fintech. It has really changed the game for millions of people, but I love a manual budgeting situation. I want it to definitely represent for those of us

who want to get our hands in it. I also think it's really important to point out the fact that we can customize these things. And we didn't know. So many of us, again, like you said, I would love if this is for a lot of folks, the first finance book that they pick up and feel welcome. But a lot of those folks in that position, they have like one giant checking account and maybe a savings account. And for me, representing for my own personal journey, when I started to get into the granular organization of like, wait a minute, first of all, I can open multiple checking accounts and that's okay. I think I sort of make this analogy in the book. When I first started to open up several checking accounts, I felt like it was wrong. Like I'm not supposed to or I'm going to get in trouble.

I used to think that too, and I don't know why. Exactly. It was until I finished university that I knew what a checking account was because I only had a savings account for some reason. I think I was paying fees on whenever I made a withdrawal, and I didn't know any better. I'm like, why do I need a checking account? I don't need checks.

Exactly. First of all, you're like, I'm grown. I'm a modern woman who does checks anymore. But it's the kind of, you just don't know what you don't know, right? You're working off of the basis of what you know. And a lot of us only know my one savings account or my one checking and my one savings account. When I started to organize and open up these checking accounts, it was that weird, like low key illegal feeling. And I think of the book, I was that weird, like low key illegal feeling. And I think of the book, I hearken it to like, when you turn the light on in your car and you're driving and it feels a little wrong. I could hear my mom's voice being like, you can't do that.

It's illegal. You're going to get pulled over. It's not, you're not gonna, but we're, we're taught this like weird misinformation of just like, Oh, I remember my parents being like, well, if you open a bunch of checking accounts, you have to pay for all of that. Right. And I was like, no, there's options. There's options. Exactly. Or like, oh, don't they don't they check your credit every single time? They might. But, you know, there are options. It really depends. And so getting into the granular details of this is so important to me because that organization is what really made my brain feel like I can tactically do this. Specifically, breaking your money out into different checking accounts or now, which is available in FinTech, an account with

different buckets or different categories, which is so wonderful. I need that visual separation and the feeling of the physical separation. I didn't even, like I hadn't had the concept in my mind that I could separate my bills and adulting stuff from my fun stuff, from my savings. And just that basic level of organization made me feel like, oh, like I didn't even know I was allowed to separate shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. You know what I mean? Like, oh, we can, great, we can break that out. And then from there I could break it out even further, make it more personal. Like it's not just my savings. It's my like fun savings and my life savings, my emergency savings and Santorini and buy a car. Like the customization made it feel so good and so personal to me. And I wanted people to know, especially my

banking chapter, that you have a choice. That's the overall theme of that whole chapter. Spoiler alert is that you do have options. The options can be very specific and bespoke to your life and what you care about. And then that can feel really good. It just makes you feel more empowered and not as if you're just sort of beholden to the one savings account you opened when you were 17. And that's it. There's more. Yeah. Yeah. no, 100%. And I think that's super important. But I'm also curious, too, because you did write a chapter on investing. And that's always kind of an intimidating thing for most people. What did you really want to make sure that people got out of that? Because it's one thing to talk about your cash, how to organize it, your day-to-day

spending. Most people just live in that space for a long time. Or even debt, for example. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah. But then when it comes to investing, they're like, yeah, I don't want to touch it. I mean, that's literally where I live for a long time. A lot of people that I talk to every day, they're like, I want to do it, but I just can't. How did you want to approach that differently? So it was a more of a welcoming space for people. Sure. I wanted to overall, I think I opened the chapter with a quote from Ali Wong, the great, wonderful Bay Area first gen child of Asian immigrants, Ali Wong, comedian, where she talks about not wanting, she's like, I don't want to lean in. I want to lie down. And to me, that's sort of like that sort of encompasses how I want folks to feel about investing. There is a lane of investing and a vibe of investing that we all know, especially from

the last few years, that's like, ah, rock star, crypto, NFT, like blah, blah, blah, attendees to the moon, very intense rocket ship gains. And some people are very excited about that. And honestly, that's why so much of Gen Z has turned towards investing because it's become sexy. It's become fast and every generation, you don't even need to be that old or, you know, very along in your career, in your life to understand that we need more than the nine to five to build wealth, right? That like these nine to fives are not going to cut it, especially in terms of generational

wealth and for the world crumbling. So investing has gotten sexy, but I want to try to, for the rest of us who aren't like, I don't get it. I don't like that the fast finance bro tendies to the moon stuff. Investing can actually be very low key. It could be very easy. It could be very lazy. It could be very minimal. And you can get what you want out of investing, which is like wealth that takes care of you in the future without having to inhale the helium of like finance bros on Twitter. And feeling like you're literally risking your entire life savings and could lose it all. Because I think that's generally people's biggest fear, especially I feel like the height of like 2020 and even 2021 when people are like, yeah, investing. Yeah, it's as easy as buying a meme stock. You're like, I'm like, oh, my God, no, no, no, no, no.

And of course, you know, now those people are probably regretting the choices that they made by getting investment advice from Reddit or TikTok. But people are just genuinely, I think, scared. And largely that could be because of the experiences that their parents had, maybe, you know, from losing money from the last, you know, scared. And largely, that could be because of the experiences that their parents had, maybe, you know, from losing money from the last, you know, big recession and market crash. And just, you know, people are terrified. But then they're like, well, it seems like the only information out there is to take all of the risk. But you're saying, no, it doesn't have to be like that. It can be chill and lazy. And that doesn't have that's a good thing. Yes, it's an

important thing because we don't need more crap to do. We don't need more things to get riled up about and more things to have to track on Reddit or Twitter or get, you know, caught up in influencer schemes. Like if it could be set it and forget it, like the more things that we can set and forget, great. Especially because I think one of the overarching messages of the book that I hope comes across is that financial organization education, it's not just for funsies. It's so that we can lift our heads above water and get past that survival mode and start to dream up other ways that the system could work for us, or that we just abandon the system and create other

ones entirely that aren't necessarily incredibly patriarchal and male pale stale. So like, I don't want financial education to take over somebody's life. I don't want financial like freedom to be the center of everyone's universe because I love money, but we're meant for more than this. Like we're not all meant to be finance freaks. We're meant to make money work for us as a tool, as much as we can set it and forget it is great so that we can move on and change the world and affect the world in the ways that we feel called to. I think you and I, I'm going to assume both feel called in a specific way to also continue to talk about money once we are also like in a

financially stable place but i want to empower other people just like let money do what it needs to do for you so you can go on and bake or write or build or dance or sleep like we're we're meant for more than this but we're just not there yet as a society no we're not but yeah no i feel the exact same way like the like I tell everyone it's like even though I'm like obsessed with talking about money and similarly like I came at this with a in a really weird way in that I went to film school and thought I was going to be like a film editor and be an artiste did not happen um but just because I chose this weird direction of my life does not mean that you have to dedicate your life and become a financial

planner and learn all the things it's like you just need to learn what you need to learn, apply it, and then actually live your life. It does not have to be fully consumed. Because that's what I think that can be kind of the hard thing when you start looking at information, it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole and get a little obsessed. But then you've got to remember, why did I want to learn more about this oh yeah so i could just figure out how to like go on a trip or something or how do i pay off my credit card that's all i want to know i don't have to become a finance bro with a youtube channel all of a sudden unless you want to but you don't have to no and there's plenty of them so you know the bros got a cover there's plenty of bros it's true there's enough of them my god we know my god yeah we don't need

more of those but um your last chapter which i really appreciated which is you know really about saving the world doing doing good with your money and i feel like for me like the first and the last chapters are just for me my favorite because it's like we got to go deep and then we also got to go wide and talk about the bigger picture of money not just you and money but you know your community and money the world and money and how you can use it uh as a force for good you want to kind of share a little bit you know why you really want to kind of end the book on that note yes of course so i think in my heart of heart of heart of hearts i am an idealist i am a person who believes that we can do better always. And actually, I was in an interview yesterday where they asked me something very specific, very kind of similar to this, where they were like, you know, millennial Gen Z, especially Gen Z and even Gen Alpha are one of their defining characteristics is they're like, what's the point of all of this? You know, it's like they live inside of the catastrophizing. They're living inside of a world where like shootings are extremely common, where like recession after recession, where

everything is crumbling all the time. What's the point? And so this person who interviewed me yesterday was like, I think it was interesting that you had so much idealism in your last chapter when like, what would you say to those folks who are like, well, what's the point of all of this when it's all gonna come crumbling down anyway? And I believe that we can build better, but I don't think it's easy for us to do when we are again in survival mode. So chapters one through six,

we're meant to help get our heads above water. Chapter seven is like, great. If your head is now a little bit above water, it's, it's, it's really, it's connected to a quote that I'm always paraphrasing from Toni Morrison, where basically she said, if you are free, your job is to go free somebody else. And so assuming that in the like lifespan of you reading money out loud, which I hope takes a very long time, because it is not meant to be inhaled in one sitting, though some people have. And I'm like, God bless. Wow. Let me send you cookies. That's wild. Yeah. It's like, did you get up to breathe? Exactly. Like your brain must hurt. But I'm hoping that getting through chapters one through six, by the time you get to

seven, you have a debt plan. You have an idea of savings. You've like plumbed your emotional debts and, you know, have set up your budget so that you can figure out how to use money as a tool to make the change you want to see in the world. It's very clear every single day, something is falling apart. Something is crappy. Everybody is angry about something. And I tried to create chapter seven to tell folks, you can use your money to fight it. It's not the only tool you can use to fight what you care about, but it's a major one because capitalism, right? I cover that in the very beginning of the book. And I think I like really drive it home at the end that inside of capitalism, money is power. And if you really want to mess with people, you really want to like F with the people in power, you got to go for their

wallets or they will not care. And I wish the world was different, but this is what we have to work with inside of our lifetimes. And so what I tried to really portray is that there are so many ways to do that, to fight with your dollar that doesn't necessarily have to mean you need dollars to fight or that you need a lot of dollars to fight.

It could be the way that you spend your money, your everyday money. It could be the way that you invest in the banks and the institutions that you pick. It could be the way that you stop picking those institutions and make noise on the way out that people like to even signal to others that that's a thing you can do and to signal to the folks who create those institutions that we're watching, we care. And then there are ways that you can put pressure on folks in power with your dollar influence, with the way that you vote, with the things that

you promise not to buy or to buy. You can put, not pressure, but invite the folks around you to learn from your behavior and sharing your learning so they can change their dollar behavior too. There's just so much that you can do that has to do with money because for better or for worse, money touches everything. And money incites fear and action in a lot of corners of our world. And so when we realize that our dollars have the power to create change around us,

it's incredibly impactful to start to move in that way, to spend like it matters, to save like it matters, to talk about money like it matters, so that we can almost like, we can change the system by using some of the tools of the system itself. I don't entirely believe in like changing the system from the inside or like, you know, using the, what is it? The maker's tools to break down the house, whatever that like phrase is. But it's a method of working inside of what we have so that eventually we can create something else entirely different. That's the vibe I was hoping to give with the last chapter. I love that. I think it's an important and often not focused on aspect of personal finance is, okay, now that you're okay, how can

we help others so it can be easier? Because ultimately, I think you and me both agree, it's like we don't want people to continue to have money issues. We want to be in a place where people aren't struggling with debt. We're not complaining, I wish I learned this in school. We want other generations to be better off than us. And so I think that is one way that we can personally contribute. Now, there's so many great things in your book, but obviously I'll just encourage people to go and grab it. Of course, follow you on Instagram, which is my favorite place to see all of your, like your videos are just so well cut. I'm like, how long do these take you to make? They're just like so creative. I'm like, gosh, I couldn't think of that if I, you know, worked all day on it. They're just so funny.

I mean, that's part of the reason I think I've always been, yeah, loved your, your kind of vibe. It's like, you're just so funny. So where can people find more information about the book? And you know, what are all your platforms? I know you also have a podcast yourself. Where can they find you? Oh, yeah, it's HeyBerna everywhere. But HeyBerna on Instagram for sure is my main hub of unhinged financial content. Lots of videos, lots of IG stories. And it's real obnoxious on there recently because my book is coming out on April 25th, my book Money Out Loud. And that is coming out April 25th with HarperCollins. You can pick that up at heyberna.com. Though I've been stressing to everybody, please go independent, use like bookshop.org or go to your local bookstore,

because those are the folks, again, speaking of financial activism from chapter seven buying this book from an independent bookstore is again it's you're buying my book but you're also giving your dollars in a vote for i want independent bookstores to succeed and so let's not just support the conglomerates you know exactly go independent go like vipoc owned marginalized owned and make a statement with like that will be your first. You already checked a box there in chapter seven. Like you're kind of ahead of the work if you do something like that. But yeah, at HeyBurner all over the place. HeyBurner.com for the book. April 25th is when I will be. That would be the most obnoxious day on my Instagram. So you may follow me and then mute me and then see where the rest goes. Amazing. And you still have your podcast going on? What's that called? Oh, yes. So I did a season of Money, Please.

I'm like, what's the name of my podcast? Yeah, what's that? Money, Please. Yeah, I'm like, the podcast is Money, Please. We wrapped in 2021. It was one season of a podcast with Betches Media. And so that was super fun. We did the first season.

We ended up closing that up and wrapping that up last year, but I'm hoping to do another iteration of the podcast very, very soon, hopefully. That would be amazing. I think it makes sense. You need to be on a pod. You need to have your podcast. You know, you need to have a podcast.

So thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I'm so excited for your book and excited for people to uh read it so thanks again thank you so much for having me jessica this was awesome and that was episode 366 of uh the more money podcast with berna anat make sure to check her out at heyberna.com you can also follow her on twitter and instagram at heyberna and also tiktok don't forget forget TikTok. And of course, grab a copy of her new book, Money Out Loud. Now, the other good news is I'm giving away a copy of her book. So if you want to enter to win a copy of Money Out Loud or enter to win a copy of any of the books that have been featured on this season of the podcast, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash contest. Again,

I'm going to link to that as well as if you want to just easily find Verna, go to the show notes for this episode, Jessica Morehouse.com slash 366. And if you need a reminder, you can find the show notes for any episode by either going to Jessica Morehouse.com slash podcast or Jessica Morehouse.com slash whatever the number of that episode is. So there you go. Check it out, grab her book, get, you know, educated, I suppose. So now to the really, you know, exciting thing that I've been literally waiting so, so, so, so long to tell you about. So your gal, Jessica, finally has a book deal. I feel like, you know, if you're a longtime listener, I've been, I don't know, what was the saying? Putting

eggs, Easter eggs, breadcrumbs? I don't know. You know the saying? I've been dropping little hints anyways on the show, honestly, for the past year. Because that's how long it's been taking me to get to this point where I am actively writing the book. So how it all kind of started, and I haven't shared this with anyone, is I actually was approached by a publisher last spring, and they asked me to, you know, submit a proposal. They had a particular idea in mind. So I'm like, yeah, okay, let's, you know, see where this goes. I do want to give a shout out to Paulette Perhatch, who has been on the show, actually. Let me find out what that episode number is. All right, I found want to give a shout out to Paulette Perhatch, who has been on the show, actually. Let me find out what that episode number is. All right, I found her. She was on episode 174 back

in October of 2018. I've known Paulette for a number of years. We went to this kind of retreat thing, I guess, back in 2018. And she was the one who coined the term fuck off fund. She has an amazing article that she wrote. She's an amazing writer. Hence why I hired her to be my kind of writing coach to help me create my proposal. That is one of the services that she offers. And so we worked together for a number of months, created a proposal. And then I was talking to my agent about, you know, what do we think, you know, and I think we may have submitted that proposal to that original publisher, but then we kind of shopped it around. And in the end, we actually decided to go with somebody else. It probably sounds bad that, you know, someone approached me and then went somewhere else. But, you know,

sometimes you have to kind of follow your gut. And it didn't really seem like the best fit for the vision that I wanted. And so had a meeting with my current publisher. They liked my proposal, but really wanted to hone in on a specific kind of, you know, direction I was going into. So also had to update that proposal, resubmitted it, they really liked the new kind of direction that I proposed in the proposal. And then I got a book deal. And then it happened really quickly. Then it's like one of those things you're like, I'm working on this, you know, and waiting to see what is my year going to look like? What is 2023 going to look like? It's either going to look like I get a book deal and I have to write a book for the next year, or I don't. And then I have to kind of put all of my attention on something.

And so I was really in the middle of figuring out what are we doing? I just and I think I mentioned this on one of the episodes in the past couple months. I just passed this one other exam on my path to become a CFP. It was like a supplemental course, lending, retirement, insurance supplement. And I just signed up to do this other supplemental course, Lending, Retirement, Insurance Supplement. And I just signed up to do this other supplemental course that was the last course I needed for all my prerequisites for the CFP. And I still have that, you know, that last textbook, I just haven't had time to do that exam because I've been busy. And then I got, you know, the info that, hey, we got a book deal. And so

that really, you know, changed my whole kind of life this year. I have had to, yeah, really focus. And the reason it's been so difficult to keep, I mean, I really wanted to share this news is just let people know, like yourself, what I've been up to, because I've definitely been pretty quiet on social media and have been putting out less videos on YouTube just because a lot of my energy has been going into this. So yeah, so that's the big news. You may not know this, but this has been a dream of mine to have a book, not really about what I'm currently writing on, because I did not know I was going to write about this particular topic, which I'll kind of having a book since i was in my like early 20s um and i just thought maybe that's just like a bucket list i'd be cool one day

i never actually thought it would happen i mean who could you know like it's it's a kind of a crazy thing but then over the years you know it started to kind of kind of become more of a real thing especially having the podcast having the the real privilege of being able to interview so many amazing authors. You know, I've had this podcast for close to eight years. I'm like, huh, I wonder when is it going now, this is not the first time that I've gone down this route. Back in 2019, I did also write a proposal, shopped it around to a bunch of agents, got a bunch of rejections. So it's really not about, you know, just, oh, I was lucky and someone just gave me a book deal. No, I've had to work my butt off to get to this point and be very patient and had to have a lot of rejection. And, you know, again, part of it is luck because they could have said no, and then I wouldn't have had a book deal. So here we are. So this is really, really cool. And yeah, so the thing that I really want to share. So first, what the book is about, obviously, it's a personal finance book, but it is really focused on telling other people's stories and also really diving into the kind of the deeper topics of finance. I feel like you may have kind of gotten a sense of that some of the directions I've been taking the conversation on the podcast getting a bit deeper into the why and what's going on on the inside and the emotional

and psychological side of money. That is really what the kind of tone of the book is going to be. I'm just going to leave it there because I don't want to share too, too much because, you know, I'm really at the early stages of writing this book. So you never know where it'll go. But the really important thing I want to share with you, and I did share, tease it at the end of last week's episode. I said it was a special project. I am interviewing people from my audience, including yourself. I want to integrate your stories, your feelings, your, you know, just your words into the book. So when someone reads it, A, it's not just me talking about myself, which I could do, but I'm sure no one wants that. I want people to be able to see themselves in the book. If they

can't relate to me and my story as a white suburban girl who came from a middle, lower class upbringing, then I want them to be able to see themselves in someone else that was represented in the book. And so I want to be able to find those stories, curate them and include them in the book. So if you're interested in being considered as one of those stories, curate them and include them in the book. So if you're interested in being considered as one of those stories, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash interview. There's a little type form, you just have to fill in some of your details. If it seems like it might be a good, you know, fit that I will reach out to you and then we'll set up a one on one. If you, you know, are going to be featured in the book, it is totally up to you. If you want to be anonymous,

and I can change your name, that is totally fine. But I'm really excited about this, because I love talking to people. And I think this is this would be a really cool thing to integrate into the book. So that is the big news. And you know, I'm sharing this probably way too early about, hey, I'm writing a book because this isn't, I'm not going to have a book out next year, guys. It's going to be in, I don't know, early 2025. The book writing process and editing and all the other things that go into it, it's a two-year process, which is kind of crazy. And so I'm hopeful that, you know, throughout this process, I'll be able to kind of share it, or I'm really hopeful that at the end of it, when the book is out, I can make a special podcast episode or YouTube video

about what my experience is like, because it is very new and I don't really, you know, I'm figuring it out as I go along. So yeah, so don't hold your breath. It's going to be a little while until it's actually on bookshelves. But with that said, speaking of bookshelves and more books, I've got another amazing author coming on the show next week. I've got Paco de Leon, who I am such a fan of as well. She's actually mentioned in Berna's book, which is actually kind of a funny coincidence. She has a book called Finance for the People, another incredible personal finance book that really comes from a different perspective and is fresh and new and exciting. So thrilled to have her on the show. You're not going to want to miss next week's episode. And yeah, I feel like that's probably enough. I've been yakking for a good while now, and I'm sure you're done. So thank you so much for listening.

A big shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here next Wednesday for another episode of the More Money Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this show. See you next week. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.