The Liz Moody Podcast - An Actually Fun Money Q&A with @herfirst100K—Money Mistakes, Investing Made Easy, Getting Paid What You’re Worth, Budgeting Tips and More

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

You KNOW I love talking about taboo topics, and today might just be the most taboo of all—money. I’m so happy to welcome Tori Dulap from Her First 100K to the pod to get into the nitty gritty of personal finance. We get into: Her personal financial story The biggest money mistake people make Investing made super simple Whether or not buying a house is a good investment (and exactly how to best prepare to do so) What stocks she’s invested in, and how she decided on those If it’s okay to invest at a time when the market seems really high The number one thing people get wrong about earning their maximum potential Her 2 best salary negotiation tips How to get over the fear of asking for a raise Whether or not your career should be your passion + her thoughts on side hustles 3 super pragmatic tips for creating and sticking to a budget Advice for people dealing with money anxiety Thoughts on joint versus separate bank accounts How to pay off debt without feeling guilty about splurging (plus how MUCH you should be paying off each month) Her top 2 favorite credit cards And so much more! I also wanted to include some of YOUR stories, so at both the beginning and the end of the episode, I’ll share your anonymous money confessions. I have more money confessions plus the money tips and tricks that have changed your life over on Instagram, so definitely check that out—I’m @lizmoody. And of course, Tori and I would both love to hear your feedback on this episode, anything you’ve learned, anything that comes up for you as you’re listening—I’d personally love to hear from other people with money anxiety or weird childhood money stories—so screenshot and tag me and her—she’s @herfirst100k. PS: Have you snagged my Foodie preset pack? You can get all 8 presets, designed to make your food pics look as good as they taste, at lizmoody.com/presets. PPS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Seed, the makers of one of my all-time favorite supplements. Their Seed Daily Synbiotic is a game changer—it contains both pre- and probiotics, survives INTACT all the way into your gut, AND contains the most studied and powerful strains of probiotics out there. You can get 15% off of your first month’s supply of Seed’s Daily Synbiotic by going to seed.com and using the code LIZMOODY. This episode is sponsored by Nuzest, one of my favorite protein powders. It’s 98% digestible (a rarity in the protein powder space) and—get this—it actually tastes good. I recommend the Digestive Support Line—they have a Probiotic Vanilla and a Probiotic Cacao. You can use the code “HealthierTogether20” for 20% off your order on Nuzest.us/healthiertogether. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a cookbook author and long-time journalist. You know that I love talking about taboo topics, and today might just be the most taboo of all, money. I am so happy to welcome Tori Dunlap from her first 100K to the pod to get into the nitty-gritty of personal finance. There is so much good wisdom here, including the biggest money mistake people make, her favorite stocks, her two best salary negotiation tips, how to create and stick to a budget, and she will not make you give up your daily coffee habit, advice for people with money anxiety, and so much more. I also wanted to include some of your stories in this episode, so at both the beginning and the end, I'll share your

anonymous money confessions. I have more money confessions, plus the money tips and tricks that have changed your life over on Instagram, so definitely check that out. I am at Liz Moody. And of course, Tori and I would both love to hear your feedback on this. episode, anything you've learned, anything that comes up for you as you're listening, I would personally love to hear from people with money anxiety like me or weird childhood money stories. You'll hear mine in this episode. Please make me feel less alone. So screenshot and tag me and her, she is at her first 100K. If you're new here, welcome. I would love if you subscribed and join the fam. We have so many fun episodes coming up this summer, including a healthy summer

travel series and a series about how various amazing women learn to love their beautiful bodies. Oh, and we also have an Ask the Doctor Dental Health Edition, which is going to be a game changer for so much more than just your teeth. And if you know anybody that you think might love this episode, send them the link. Have a real conversation about money together. The more that we bring these topics out into the open, the less shame we imbue them with, the more empowered, happy, and frankly, financially well off will all be. This would be a very big. This would be a a really fun episode to do like a podcast book club with where you got a group of girlfriends together and discussed it. And if you do that, send picks. Please send picks, DM me or I will be

very, very sad. All right. Let's get into some money confessions. I got thousands of these. So I had to narrow it down quite a bit. But boy, let me just say, whatever you feel about money, you are definitely not alone. Remember to stay tuned until the end of the episode for the rest of these. Okay, first up. And remember, these are your confession sent in anonymously. This is not me. I am just reading your confessions. All right, let's go. Teachers have likely two degrees or one and a certification and make less than many other public servant jobs that require less education and their pay doesn't rise at the rate of those other jobs. In San Francisco, brick layers and people who fix broken parking meters get paid more than us and their salaries increase at a higher rate. The fact that

we are not paid equitably dramatically impacts who can and cannot afford to be a teacher. For instance, I can because I'm married to a straight white man who makes twice as much as me. And that impacts the fact that children of color rarely get to have teachers that look like them. My master's cost me 40K and I'll never pay it off on a teacher's salary. I was very fortunate and went to school with almost a full ride scholarship and my parents were able to help me with the rest. I now make 72K out of college as a project manager at a big tech company. I love my job and I've worked really hard to get here, but I understand and acknowledge the privilege and the opportunity I have to be where I am.

With that being said, I make significantly more than most of my friends and I don't have to worry about debt. I love treating people and I always take care of my friends and those around me, but I can't help but get frustrated sometimes when I feel like I'm always the one to host, to call Ubers or to pick up the tab. I don't feel they take advantage of me because I tend to offer, but I just feel bad and I end up being like, don't worry, I got it. But then I end up mad at myself later when looking at my budget or savings goals because I spent all of this extra money. After 15 years making nothing in the

architecture world, I don't know why people think it's so glamorous. I went to the corporate world for the sole purpose of not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. I'm happier doing 50% what I want to do in a job, but being a 100% more secure. I'm personally from a blue collar background. During college, it simply wasn't possible for me to take on an internship. I always had to have two to three part-time jobs. After college, it still wasn't possible for me to do an internship or even an entry-level editorial job in New York. There was just no way to cover rent and student loan payments. As a result, I didn't work my first day in journalism until I was 27. By then, I had a job as an admin in the nonprofit sector that was enough for me to pay rent in my loans, barely.

But what I also had was a stable relationship with my now husband, who encouraged me to try to get an internship or a magazine job telling me he would cover my share of our bills. That was 17 years ago. I've gone on to accomplish a lot in the editorial world. I'm really proud of the things I've done and still get to do. But it's always with a sense of resentment and the realization that I was often simply unable to pursue the things I wanted to do or to take risks because of money. I finally paid off my student loans last year.

I always wonder, what if I could have done an internship? What if I could have stayed in New York? Our biggest challenge financially is childcare. We live in Kansas City where it's relatively affordable and it's still approximately three times our mortgage. Our friends who don't have kids simply don't understand our financial load and want to go out to eat, drink, do fun things that cost money and we simply can't do it. Our first child was unplanned and therefore all hospital bills and her first year

of child care all went on a credit card. Dumbest thing I've ever done, but at the time I felt like I had no options. When my husband and I were first dating, he made way more than me, like five times more. Fast forward to our lives now. We move cross-country so we can make a big career shift. In the years we've been here, he has struggled to get jobs and been unemployed for at least half the time. We now have two young children and expensive lives. And my career has grown so that I'm now the breadwinner.

But despite being the breadwinner, I'm still the mom, which means I still do the lion's share of planning playdates, classes for the kids, buying groceries, making sure we never run out of anything, the list goes on and on. My husband is actually a super engaged, helpful partner, so I know I have it good, and I am still doing way more than half. The most difficult conversations are around whose time is more valuable. Because it's hard not to feel that as the one with a full-time job, I should be able to ask him to pick up more of the slack with the kids or house stuff, but he feels that it should still be what he considers a 50-50 split because he needs the work time to work on things that could hopefully eventually turn into projects down the line. So it creates tension and we don't talk about

this ever. But of course, I wonder how it affects his self-esteem and identity as a man, a husband, and father. All right, Tori, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. As I was telling you before, my audience was like, oh my God, we're so excited to hear from her. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I think that financial wellness is a huge part of having a full and healthy and satisfying life, which is one of the reasons I'm so excited to get into all of this. I just think it's a key part of wellness that's often not associated with wellness. So I'd love to start off by just hearing a little bit about your financial story or journey. Yeah. So I was looking enough to have parents who financially educated

me. I was lucky enough to have parents who were committed to talking about money. And I grew up thinking that that was a norm for everybody. And I graduated college and really into college. and realized that, of course, that was a privilege and that, unfortunately, women are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to financial advice and guidance. So I was a friend, all of my female friends were coming to for advice about investing, advice about budgeting, advice about saving. And I graduated college in May of 2016. Obviously, the election happened not soon after that. And I was coming into adulthood and to womanhood in a very different America than I had expected. And so I realized that with that privilege of a financial education came the responsibility

and that we don't have any sort of equality for women or any marginalized group until we have financial equality. So I started what later became her first 100K on the side of my 9 to 5 was educating women about how to save money, pay off debt, invest, start online businesses, negotiate, and then took it full time in 2020 and everything's kind of been crazy since then. And so, yeah, we're a community of over a million financial feminists now, and we fight the patriarchy through financial education. I love that.

Okay, so we're going to ask you all of your questions. I want to actually get into side hustles later because I think that's a very complicated subject that I personally have very complicated feelings on. But let's start off with what is the biggest money mistake that you think people make? Yeah, so we hear about the wage gap a lot, as we should. 78 cents to a man's dollar on average, even worse if you're a woman of color. What we're not talking about enough is the investing gap. So women either wait longer to invest than men or don't invest at all. And the number one reason they cite for not investing is

fear, fear of getting started, fear of doing it incorrectly. So there's this paralysis that happens. And during the months or years it takes for a woman to hopefully finally start investing, she's lost out on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in investing gains because of of this paralysis. And when you consider that we not only make less because of the wage gap, we're investing less, but we also are living seven years longer than average. So we are living seven years longer than most men do. We have to save money. We have to invest money, right? We have to allow our money to grow for us. And just statistically speaking, we will not be able to afford to retire if you don't invest. You just, you can't afford it. And so I think,

that the number one mistake I see people, especially women, make is they wait to invest. They think, like, okay, I have to have all my ducks in a row. I have to have all my shit together before I get started investing. And you really don't. You just need to get started even if it's, even if it's with a small amount of money. So that's probably the number one mistake I see is we focus a lot on budgeting and saving, which are important. But really, the wealth building happens by starting to invest. Let's talk about investing because I'm one of those people who is afraid of it. I was not financially educated really growing up and it really scares me a lot. So can we start off by just like walk me through investing as if I literally know nothing about it when you say investing, what do you mean?

Yeah. So we think investing is this huge complicated concept of like Leo DiCaprio and Wolf of Wall Street like yelling into a phone, right? And that's like I think that that's what everybody thinks of or you know, it's what the media portrays, which is like, you know, the game stop shit, market volatility, which means just the market going up and down, right? And really, the media, unfortunately, with especially the stock market, their job is to sell ads. Their job is to make you panic. Their job is to make you feel some kind of way about the stock market. And so if you don't know anything about investing in the stock market, your first intro to it could be like, oh, this is scary, this feels risky, and I don't want to do it. And,

there is betting and gambling on the stock market. There is also consistent long-term investing. So investing, you can really only invest in two things. Everybody gets, it gets, you know, portrayed as this hugely complicated thing. There's really two basic things to invest it, stocks and bonds. Stocks are the little tiny slivers of companies. It's like owning a little bit of stock. So if you bought a share of Amazon stock, right? It's like owning, you know, a grain of sand on Bezos's beach, but still, like you own a little bit of that company, right? And that's what a stock is simply. And groups of stocks are things like index funds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds called ETFs. And this is a way to mitigate some of that risk because although stocks are very, they tend to be lucrative, they're also more volatile because, you know, there's up and down fluctuation. So one of the best ways to make the stock market kind of mitigate that risk is to invest in groups of stocks through one of those funds. And that's all an index fund mutual fund ETF is, is it's just groups of these stocks. The difference is in like how they're traded and it really doesn't matter. It's more like,

okay, we're well diversifying our assets, right? So that's what a stock is or that's what groups of stocks are. The other thing you can invest in are bonds. Bonds are the debt of a company or government. So it's like you are making money by loaning your money to this company or organization. So that's how you're making money is off the interest on that loan. Bonds tend to be more steady. They tend to be more consistent, but they're also not going to make you as much. So the typical financial advisor response would be if you're younger, you have years and years and years and years to invest for retirement. So invest largely in stocks or groups of stocks. And then as you age, move more of your portfolio out of stocks and into bonds.

And portfolio is simply a fancy way of saying, like, what amount of money is in the stock market? What are you investing in? And so it's really not much more complicated than that. And I like to say that investing is like climbing stairs, except that first step is like five feet high. So you just got to climb that first step and then it's easy from there. So when you're looking at, you know, the stock market, it's really important to look at, you know, again, what is the volatility? Are you putting all your eggs in one basket? And like, what are the fees that this particular account or this particular fund is charging?

And I talk way more about this. I have investing courses. I have investing classes. And so, yeah, when it really comes down to it, though, there's two things you can invest in. And it's stocks and bonds. And when you're talking about investing and, like, we need to start investing, we need to do this, are we always talking about putting money in something and letting it sit there for, like, the duration of our life until we retire?

or is there a way that I can be investing now if I want to be rich in 10 years? Well, here's the deal. So there's a certain amount of risk you take on if you are not doing what's called long-term investing, right? The term short-term investing in and of itself is an oxymoron. The definition of the word investing means that you are putting time, energy, blood, sweat, tears, money into something for a long period of time. A lot of the stuff that gets lauded by the media, you know, this GameStop thing that happened

a couple months ago, individual stocks, this kind of sexy investing, you're taking on a lot of risk to do that. And some of these decisions are borderline gambling. They are gambling. And when we think about goals you want to invest for, retirement is the biggest one and using tax advantage retirement accounts to invest, tax advantage meaning that the government is incentivizing you to save for retirement by offering you things like a 401k or an IRA. array. But when you talk about goals that aren't retirement, what you have to ask yourself is, okay, if I want to buy a house in three years and I put money in the stock market, am I okay with the reality that I might lose a good chunk of that money if the market doesn't do well

during those three years? When you look at 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, you are giving the stock market enough time to boom and bust, right? You're giving it enough time to go up and down. And so when you have these shorter term goals, and I would really define short term as anything under like seven to 10 years, you're potentially not giving the stock market enough time, right? So let's you say you wanted to buy a house in two years back in 2006 and you went and put your money in, you're probably not going to be super happy come 2008 and the stock market hasn't done very well. On the flip side, maybe you started investing in 2018 or 2017 and now in 2019, cool, you have a lot more money, right? You have to be comfortable with that amount of risk.

And I don't know your life. I don't know the listener's life. But for me, I'm not comfortable with that level of risk. So I am okay putting my money in the stock market for longer term goals, right? And for longer term, basically retirement and anything, you know, decades out. And for these more short term goals, I'm going to save it in a high yield savings account. Do you have ways, so when you're thinking about I want to buy a house in two or three years, it's less for you about how you're investing money and more about how you're figuring out ways to maximize your earnings then for that time? Yeah, it can be maximizing earnings. It can be, you know, how much do you have saved for a down payment? What does your credit score look like? That's something I get asked a lot. People go, okay, I want to buy a house. Like, how do I prepare? And I'm like, honestly, your credit score is going to be hugely helpful. If you can boost your credit score as much as possible, your interest rate is going to be less. So, yeah, and to your point, maximizing your earnings, I was actually just talking to my friend whose partner is a real estate agent. And he was mentioning that, you know, saving 10K is great.

Making 10K more is actually way better in terms of like how you look on paper when you're about to buy a house. So saving 10K is great. But if you can maximize your earning potential, that means that potentially you can afford a bigger house, right? Or that the loan provider is more likely to give you a loan at the lower interest rate because they're less worried about you, right? they're like, okay, they'll pay back this loan. So yeah, I think that if you are going to buy

something like a house or like you're going to get married or you're going to have kids, right, if these are shorter term goals, ultimately, right, it's up to you. You have to figure out your risk awareness, your, you know, risk tolerance. I would typically recommend that, you know, it's saving in either a high yield savings account or a certificate of deposit, a CD, over that period of time. Well, come back to like earning more money and negotiating what you're worth. But just to go back to the investing for a second, because of the way you're talking about it, are you usually putting money into these big index funds?

Or do you ever be like, like I say in Airbnbs and BRBOs because I'm living this nomad my life right now, should I be like, I love Airbnb. I want to invest in them. Or like I believe in clean energy. I want to invest in this company. Or do you think that's a bad way for novice investors to approach it? It's entirely up to you. Like I said, like I don't know your goal.

I don't know. I don't know your life. You know, and it's ultimately, you have to figure that out for yourself. I would say that if one of the goals of investing is to be well diversified, that not all of your eggs are in one basket and you are only investing in individual companies, that could potentially be riskier because it's not likely, but let's say Airbnb tanked tomorrow, right? Let's say that we work actually, perfect example. I just watched that documentary about we work. Like, you know, like, let's say you work at we works and you're like, oh, I love this company and I love what they're about. and then you invest your money and then you realize, they have some issues behind the scenes that you maybe didn't know about, right? That's potentially way riskier than investing in an index fund

that has the top 500 companies in its holdings, meaning it's invested in those 500 companies. It's also typically cheaper to invest in an index fund, because if you're going to buy one share of Tesla versus one share of an index fund, it's actually typically cheaper. And again, you are you are helping mitigate that risk by being well diversified. You're investing in a bunch of different companies rather than just one. I know for myself, I actually didn't buy, this is not advice. This is just my own perspective or my own savings investments. But I actually didn't buy an individual stock until a couple months ago. And I've been investing since I was 21, 22. So I've been investing four or five years now. And that was actually the first time I bought an individual stock.

And for me, it was, I bought Bumble because I was like I like supporting women own companies. I want, if I buy an individual stock, I want it to be, you know, something that I like and something that I believe in. And so my first individual stock purchase was Bumble. But, you know, it's entirely up to you. It's up to your goals. And when you buy that, are you planning on, when you buy Bumble, something like Bumble, are you planning on holding onto that for a pretty like, again, a really long time like you talked about when you're buying into an index fund? I mean, probably it's hard to know. And it's also, yeah, when I look at index funds, those are definitely for long-term investing. For me, when I looked at just individual stocks, there's kind of this rule of thumb that says, like, you, if you want to do this

kind of exploratory investing, you should feel comfortable losing about 5% of your total money in the stock market. Like, that's your kind of throwaway money. Most people actually, I don't think, consider individual stocks to be that 5%? I do personally because it feels riskier to me. So I committed to like, okay, if I'm going to invest like, let's say in Bitcoin or I'm going invest in, I actually have, I have, I own a tiny little part of a famous art piece. That's something that I've invested in. And that's part of that 5% is like, okay, I'm invested in art. I'm invested in these individual stocks. And for me, I don't want that to be more than 5% of everything I have invested.

Can we talk about cryptocurrency for a second? Because I think there's a lot of conversation about it right now. One, people don't really understand what it is. And two, people are like, well, am I missing out on this opportunity to become like a millionaire in a year because this shit's going to go crazy and I need to get on board the train? I'll be honest with you. I don't know a lot about it. I purposely have not learned a lot about it because I think I'm not, I personally am not comfortable with that level of risk. It has been around now for a decade or a little less, I think, like eight years. But the stock market's been around for 125. So when you compare the steady, unpredictable predictability of the stock market, right? You know there's going to be booms and busts. You know it's going to recover. It's just how long does it take, right? You know that we're going to have recessions.

We're going to have crashes. We know that's going to be a thing. It is predictable in its unpredictability. Bitcoin is like the wild love. list. Like, none of us really know. And so that's why I say, like, okay, if you want to invest in Bitcoin or crypto, great. It shouldn't be a majority of majority of your investments. Like, I remember the last corporate company I worked at, it was a startup. And, you know, during the interview process, I asked, like, oh, do you offer, you know, a 401k plan? And they kind of made a joke. They

were an early stage startup. And they were like, no, like, a lot of the guys, like, are investing in crypto and that's their retirement plan. And they kind of. And they kind of. kind of meant it as a joke, but they were all so serious. And I'm like, even then, I was like 23, 24. And I was like, oh, that, okay. I was like, all right. So yeah, it's, I purposely have not learned a lot about it. It's kind of one of those things that's on my to-do list, but I don't have a lot of interest in it because I do think that it's still so new. And just like any of these things, right? Like GameStop, we saw a couple months ago, all these people making a ton of money, the story that the media didn't tell was, okay, but how much risk did they have to take on? And who were the people

who bet big and went home with nothing, you know, or actually lost money? So I think that whenever you're considering investing in whatever it is, again, you have to be comfortable with the amount of risk you're taking on. It's like, you know, looking at potentially this statistic that says like, oh, 99% of people don't make money or 99% of people lose money. And you're like, no, but I'm the 1%. It's like, you're not though, right? Like none of us are. So, you know, I'm not saying crypto is that, but when you are looking at anything you're going to invest in, you really have to know the risk and be comfortable with the risk in order to do that. And that's not to say, don't ever invest in anything, right?

It's, again, like I said, with the stock market, like it is predictable and it's unpredictability, at least. Crypto, we don't know. We don't know what that's going to look like. So for me personally, again, not advice, but me personally, I would rather invest in something that has been proven over time and yeah, maybe put less than 5% into something that hasn't been proven in the case I do well. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast.

We love talking about our gut health here on the Healthy Together podcast, which is why I'm so excited to share the life-changing Seed Daily Symbiotic. I actually discovered Seed back when I was working as an editor full-time, a bottle came across my desk, and I was instantly taken by how cute the green glass packaging is. Then I found out that that packaging was actually refillable so that seed could share its products as sustainably as possible. And then I actually looked into the research behind seed and, well, I was blown away. First of all, seed is not just a probiotic.

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investment or do you think that we should be renting these days? Oh, it's hard. It's hard to say. I don't know where you live. I don't know what your goals are. I don't know if you want kids. I don't know if you want to stay. And actually, this would be a great conversation that I'd love to have with you after, is I'm considering doing the digital nomad thing for a while. I rent in Seattle. I spend $1,500 a month on rent. And that's not including, you know, all of my utilities and things like that, which I'm,

I am okay doing. I love Seattle. I'm from the area. Like, I, you know, will have roots here for a very long time. But I don't want to buy a house, both because that doesn't fit my lifestyle right now. and also because the average home price in Seattle is $800,000. And I just emotionally can't condone spending $800K on a house. So, you know, I hear a lot from people.

People are still shocked when I say, I'm a personal finance expert who doesn't own property. It's on my list. Right now it does not feel necessary to my life. And I think that if you are going to own property, the biggest question to ask yourself is, does this align with my goals? I think you just, you hear the like, oh, renting is throwing money down the drain or like, you know, all of these things. And it's not really. You have to decide, like, is this, does this make sense for my lifestyle? And if it does, great. Research homes, figure out what works for you, figure out if there's one in your budget. And if it doesn't, you shouldn't feel pressure to buy a house. It's, it's okay. When you say that, though, so the reason I get, I've rented by whole life, I don't own a house. And the reason people tell me, or my dad mostly tells me that renting is throwing money down the drain is because I could be spending that money. And, paying down my mortgage. So how is renting not throwing money down the drain? Like, why isn't

buying a house the ultimate investment that we should be making that's really safe and stable? Well, I would argue that potentially buying a home is not safe or stable. Like we've seen, again, in 2008, like a lot of people bought homes they couldn't afford or a lot of people had to, you know, there was a whole issue about housing crisis, right? I would say that, yeah, it's hard to say. And it, again, depends on where you live. There are certain places where it's more predictable that you will make money off of this house. I have, but I have another friend who bought a house. He lives in Florida and bought a house and he ended up losing money on it, like a significant amount of money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars of money. So, I mean, it's when I say it's not throwing away money,

I am paying to live somewhere. And I'm also paying for the luxury that if my toilet overflows, I call somebody and they handle it. And it's not out of my pocket. Right. I also pay for the flexibility that, you know, I can have this apartment or have this condo and not have any of the potential risks of, yeah, something happening to it or the volatility of the current housing market. And like I said, you know, I want to travel for a while. And if I own a home, yes, I have an asset. And that's something that I've definitely considered. But at the same time, somebody's got to manage that for me while I'm away. Somebody's got to make sure that, you know, everything's good. Somebody's got to pay property tax, right? So there's a lot of things that I don't have to take on by renting.

The biggest thing being taxes and expenses. So yeah, up front probably my, you know, a mortgage could be cheaper or a mortgage could be as much as your rent. But again, if it doesn't fit your lifestyle, or if it's a significant amount more money in terms of renovations or taxes or expenses, you know, I think it kind of levels out. And last little question about investing, this is pretty personal for me, is that I actually finally at the first point in my life, I feel like I have money to invest. But everybody keeps telling me that the market's like at a high and it's going to crash soon.

So I'm like, oh, shoot, like I finally have money now. And do you get around? Is that idea of this like longer term thing that it doesn't matter at how the market looks when you put it in? Correct. Yeah. You can Google what's called dollar cost averaging and timing the market. Dollar cost averaging basically means that no,

matter when you put in your money, it'll average out over time. And in terms of timing the market, no one can really time the market. No one. Like even your investing experts that scream at you on CNBC. Like, no one can time the market. No one knows what's going to happen. We do know that there will be booms and busts. We just don't know when. And so if you're riding this stock market wave for decades, if you put money in and it crashes the next day, that's not really a big deal. Like, honestly. And the thing about losing, and I put it, losing in quotes, money in the stock market is you don't actually take a loss unless you sell. So if you buy something, right, if you buy an index fund and the price of that index fund drops by 30%,

but you hold on to it, you technically haven't lost anything yet, right? If you sell, then you have lost money, right? Because you bought it at 30% higher and then sold it. So when you're thinking about gains or losses on the stock market, those are not actual realities unless you sell, unless you know, liquidate your holdings. So when it comes to these gains and losses, if you're in it for decades, and this is why I suggest you be in it for decades, is that it doesn't really matter. I don't really check the stock market every day. I'm an investing expert, and I don't check the stock market every day because, you know, a Tuesday in April of 2020, is not going to really matter, you know, in the grand scheme of things.

Okay. I love that. That makes me feel better. Let's get into the side where we're just like, I want to earn a shitload of money. So what would you say is the number one thing that people get wrong about earning their maximum potential? I was just having a conversation with my friend this morning about this. I see this with women in particular.

And it is a lovely trait, but unfortunately it doesn't work to our advantage. We get into companies and we give our all, right? And we're so dedicated and we show up and we work really hard. And when things start to get a little squirrely, right, when we feel like we're being undercompensated and we have, we've taken on more work than we agreed to and all of these things are happening, what I still hear is like, no, but like I like this company. I'm loyal to them. You know, I want, I want to stay because I've committed so much of my time and like, I don't want them to hate me if I leave or I don't want them to, you know, not like me. And here's the thing. Companies, even if they treat you well, at the end of the day, they can fire you. They can cut your hours. They can let you go. They are not

loyal to you no matter how many times they tell you that loyalty matters. Right. So I see a lot of and especially stay in jobs for way longer than they should because, A, they feel like they have to. They're like, oh, I have to stay at this job for X amount of years. That's bullshit. That doesn't really matter. And two, they think like, okay, I don't want, I don't want them to hate me. Like, they've, you know, they've given me so much or they've done all these things. And I'm like, yeah, so have you. Like, you have more negotiating power when you job hop than in any other time. When you are approaching a new organization or a new job, you have more power. Even if you've been at another company for 20 years. You have more negotiating power when you are approaching a new position.

So I'm not saying job hop every three months or six months. That's not what I'm saying. But if you've been out of company for a couple years or whatever timeline and you're thinking like, oh, I need to, you know, they've given me so much and like, you know, it's fine and there's nothing better out there. Like, there is. And the way to maximize your earning potential is to go shop for other jobs. because your loyalty to them, although it is a valuable, beautiful trait is not doing you any favors because that company is not loyal to you. They will let you go. They will cut you. They will do whatever they have to. They'll lay you off. And they'll feel badly about it for like two seconds. So ultimately, like, if the company is going to play hardball, I need you to play hardball too.

I need you to feel as worthy of your success, of your money, of your opportunities, as the company feels to have you, right? The company's like, oh, you should be so lucky. And you should be thinking, yeah, you should be so lucky, too. So when it comes to, like, maximizing your earning potential, like, please don't get caught in the trap of I have to stay X amount of years or I have to, you know, what if it looks bad on my resume that I left or like, you know, those companies treated me really well and I feel badly if I leave. If it's no longer serving you, leave. It's okay. It's probably great that you're leaving. Let's talk about salary for a second, because at my last full-time job where I was working for a company, when I did a, I was hiring for a position,

and the women came in and asked for $50,000 to $60,000, the men came in for the same position and asked for $120,000 to $130,000. And it devastated me. Like, it blew my mind and it devastated me. And, you know, people can go on glass door, but that has such a range and it's sort of hard to pinpoint your exact position. So I'm curious, how do we know what we're worth? And then how do we get over the fears around asking for it? Yeah. So I'm a negotiation coach. This is something that I do. And actually, I have a whole course that walks you through exactly what to say, the script around it. So I won't reveal too much. But I will say the two biggest things when you're negotiating. One is your data, like you said. You can't just say, like, I want a million dollars. Like you have to have data that says why you should be

worth this amount of, or why you are worth this amount of money, why you should be compensated at this level. A good starting point is Glassdoor, payscale, salary.com, these kind of online aggregators, but you're right, you need to do more than that because I worked in marketing, a social media manager job at one company, paid very different than a social media manager job at another company in another state, right? All of these things are going to be factors and how this job is priced. So one of the best things you can do, in terms of your market research, in terms of getting data, is just talk to people. Talk to your colleagues.

If you have LinkedIn connections, if you've met people at networking events, if you have friends who are recruiters, even if you feel comfortable and you don't feel like they're going to, they're going to reveal this information, you have somebody at your current company, who you can talk this over with. That's going to be one of the best things because they'll know you or know your experience. And you can literally present them the job description and say, hey, based on what they're asking for and what you know about me, what would you price this roll at? And that's going to be a lot more valuable than trying to type in, you know, your location and your potential job title on Glass

Store. So have conversations with people who are knowledgeable, who know, right? If I'm going for after a marketing job, I'm going to talk to friends who work in marketing. I'm going to talk to marketing directors. I'm going to talk to people I met at marketing meetups. I'm going to have conversations with, you know, friends who are recruiters. So get your data and get it as specific as you can. And then the second key part about negotiations is value. What value are you offering either this potential company or if you're asking for a raise, what value have you provided to the company over the past six months or a year? It is about you getting compensated fairly, right? But the way you present it is not about you at all. It's about here's everything I have done for you, right? Here's all

of the ways I've shown up and better this company. Here's the ways I've saved the company money. Here's the projects that I've implemented. Here are the people I've managed. Here's, you know, the master's degree that I got in the evenings while working full time, right? Here are the certificates that I obtained, right? So any way that you can show that you are valuable to the company or that you have, you know, served the company over the past period of time, that's going to be the most compelling argument you have. Is the data plus the value that you're bringing? And what about the fear of asking for that? That's a bigger question. The unfortunate part is that we have been conditioned as women our entire lives to just be grateful for our opportunities. Right. And I imagine if you're a woman of color that that happens even more. I know it does, not from my own experience, but from talking with women of color,

is that you should just kind of sit down and shut up and be grateful and just be excited that you have a job at all. And not only, of course, are the men not doing that, but you miss out on so, so much money, not just the amount of money that they could be paying you for negotiating more. But like we were talking about investing, imagine if you took that 5K extra a year or 20K extra a year and invested in the stock market for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Right. So actually, by not negotiating, women lose on average a million dollars more over the course of their lifetime than women who negotiate. Wow. And when you consider as well that you're not

just negotiating on behalf of you, you're negotiating on behalf of every woman at that company. Like, you are paving the way to have conversations about compensation that don't feel weird or scary. And there's a fun trick that it's a kind of unfortunate fun trick that women who think of someone else when they're negotiating, they negotiate on behalf of someone else, actually statistically do better negotiations than women who don't. Because we're a lot better talking about somebody else's accomplishments or, you know, promoting somebody else than we are about ourselves, which is messed up. But we're going to use that to our advantage. I don't like that. Yeah. I know. I hate it. But if you're going to negotiate, think about your best friend, your partner, your, your sibling, your, you know,

your favorite co-worker. And we're more likely to be okay talking about their accomplishments are fighting for what they're worth, than we are, unfortunately, unfighting for ours. And like I said, my course has like an entire script about what to say, what to do when they say no, all of those different things, as well as the mindset. But really, it comes down to coming in as prepared as possible. I know that when I'm nervous about something, like I did theater forever. I have a degree in theater. And when I went in, you know, to an audition, kind of knowing my monologue, like I had done it a couple times memorized, I was so much more nervous. I didn't perform as well. Like, it just was not as great of

experience. But when I went in and auditioned with a monologue that I could recite, you know, in my sleep, I felt so much more confident. I was still nervous. I was still really nervous. But I knew, okay, I know this monologue. I'm not going to mess it up. I know what comes next, right? I know this, and then I know it's this line and then I know it's this line, right? So I was so much better prepared. I was still freaking out. I was still nervous. But I knew my material. So one of the best things that you can do when you're approaching a negotiation where, of course,

you're going to feel nervous, is prep the hell out of your material. Like make sure you got your data. Make sure you have your value statements. Make sure you got all of that prepped. What are your thoughts on side hustles if we're talking about making money and just kind of the concept in general that your career should be your passion? I think some people, there's a lot of conversation around. Some people think it's sort of like falling into the trappings of people.

capitalism and it leads to burnout in an unhappy life. And then other people say that it's like the path to a happy life. So I would love your take. Like I, like I've been saying this entire time, I don't know you, I don't know your life. I don't know your schedule. I don't know what you want your life to look like, right? Side hustles are great. They're also not great. And it depends on, it depends on who you are. For me, my side hustle was her first 100K and it's now my full time gig. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur for honestly forever. Like that was. something that I always wanted. And then I got into college and thought, like, okay, I'll work corporate. And maybe eventually I'll be able to, you know, quit my job and run a business full

time. And I thought, oh, maybe by the time I'm 30 and it ended up happening when I was 25. And it was because I did not love corporate. I did not like working for somebody that I didn't respect. I didn't like making somebody else rich. I didn't like having to submit PTO requests. Like, I wanted to run my own thing. And for me, a side hustle was the best way to get there because I could flesh out my idea over time. I could test it. I could allow it to grow organically. I didn't have the pressure of, okay, this thing needs to pay my bills. So it needs to make money immediately. And, you know, I had the flexibility of being able to live on my corporate salary. And then also getting side hustle earnings to increase my savings, increase my investments, but also as a, you know,

kind of jumping off platform for full-time entrepreneurship. For other people, you know, I'm, I don't have kids. I'm not married. I don't even have a dog, although I wish I had one. Like I'm very non-committed in terms of my social engagements, right? And of course, I see friends. I have great relationships. But like, if you have kids, if you have a partner, if you have all of these things you have to think about, a side hustle may not be the option for you. It may not be as flexible. If you're already working super long hours or if you're trying to run a household, if you're trying to raise children, yeah, side hustle might not be a good thing for you. For me, in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of wanting to be my own boss and run my own thing, I would recommend side hustles to the

moon. Like it was the best way to slowly, like I said, slowly grow a business, slowly tested over a period of time. And again, not have the pressure of this thing has to support me. But if you don't want a side hustle, you don't feel like you have to. Like, and it's, it's been really interesting that now that it's not my side hustle, I have to remind myself what hobbies are. Because for so long, it was like, I worked a corporate job. And then my side hustle was my hobby. That's what I did in my free time. And now that my side hustle is not my side hustle anymore, like, I'm like, oh, okay, well, okay, I guess I'll, I'll, I'll get a house plant. I guess I will go on a walk, right? And it's like, I am not great at doing things that don't seem productive. I'm actively training.

myself to be. And that's, you know, the kind of con of side hustles is you might be working a lot. If that's something you like, something that fits with your lifestyle, great. If it's not, it's not. And that's okay. Is there anything you would say to somebody who feels like they're in a 95 job, they hate it? But they don't see a way out. Like they don't have something they're passionate about. They don't have an idea for a side hustle, but they, you know, scroll through Instagram and see all these people living out their dreams and they're like, well, why am I living this life instead? Hmm, it's a good question. I mean, I was that person. It's very easy to look at somebody's life and be like, I want that or I want their business. And the truth is, is like, you know, a lot of my story

looks very overnight successy and it wasn't. It was a lot of working and not making money and not growing for years. The thing I recommend for people is that, um, you know, done is better than perfect. I think one of the things that happens is you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to have this business, you see yourself, you know, running this huge thing. But you're like, okay, but I have to get there first. And you're like, either it seems overwhelming or like it has to be exactly what I want in my mind and I need a brand color.

I need a logo and I need a website and I can't start until I have those things. And the truth is those are all excuses. And I mean this as kindly as possible, but they are. They're all excuses to not start. They're like the things you put in your way to actually getting started because it feels weirdly productive, but it's actually not. Like it's not helping you at all. So I don't want you stressing for six months about a brand color.

I want you making money in those six months. Like why stress for about a brand color in six months when you could be making money or at least growing your business to, you know, setting it up to make money? So I tell entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs all the time. Like you just need to get started. Like done is better than perfect. you just need to start. Victory Media, which is what her first 100K used to be, started as a three blog post blog in late 2016. Like it was less than $50. I bought a domain in a night. I signed up for a

domain platform and I was like, cool, I'm launched. That's all I needed. I just needed to get started. And I perfected it over time. Was it the website of my dreams? Hell no. Like, was it the best blog post I've ever written? No, but I just had to start. I wasn't even just talking about money back then. It took me two years to figure out that that's what I wanted to do. But I would never have figured that out had I not actually gotten started. I would have never figured out how to market to people, how to sell courses, how to build a community, how to do all these things, had I not actually just gotten started. So you can look at the business you want and that's great. You know, those are goals, those are manifestations, whatever you want to call them. But like, you have to

figure out what you want along the way. You are not going to magically have that business overnight. You're not magically going to have people's trust and credibility immediately. So you just have to get started and pivot and build over time. And your interest can change and your angle on things can change. And that's okay. But you won't know unless you actually get started. I totally agree. And I actually think it's a negative part of social media is that by the time we learn about brands,

they've iterated so much and gone through all that messy process. So we're comparing ourselves at the beginning to some, somebody who's far, far, far, much, much more further along in their journey. And I think that it's really good when you're looking at those very established brands that feel like their brand colors are so perfect and they have such a good logo to remember that they definitely didn't start that way and you just weren't there when they were starting. Not even close. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. I get asked constantly about my favorite protein powders because quite frankly, it can be really hard to find ones that have great ingredients

and actually taste good. Using protein in green smoothies is key. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. So making sure there's a good amount of protein in your smoothies is the best way to avoid that mid-morning crash and make sure that you're full and happy through lunchtime. I've tried pretty much every protein powder on the market and there are only a few that I like enough to keep stocked in my kitchen to use in all of my green smoothies. And I am so excited to introduce you to one of them today.

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so bad at budgeting. I'm, I don't know where to start. I don't know how to do it. Can you give me like three super pragmatic tips for actually creating and sticking to a budget? Yep. First is a mindset shift. Your budget is not something that limits you. It's not the like really shitty thing of like, oh, this is going to be restrictive and I hate it. Your budget is basically your permission slip to buy the things that you want. Like, you know, if you're like, oh, I want to go out to eat, you check your budget. Great. I can do that. Cool. Right. And I will say my number two thing is that when you're thinking of your budget as not restrictive and as kind of this permission slip or this plan is that it doesn't have to be down to the dollar. I don't budget in a way that's like tracking every penny.

Some people that works for, the budgeting method that I use and that I teach in my classes is way more flexible than that. And it's simply looking at your money through the lens of does this actually bring me joy. So when you're setting up your budget, one, it doesn't have to be restrictive. Don't view it as that. Two, it can be flexible to your life. It's not, you know, I can't have this or I can't buy this. And the way we get there is by looking at your purchases over a period of time. So if you haven't done this, I recommend this of literally doing what we call like a money diary or a money journal of for a period of time writing down everything you spend your discretionary money on. And not only, you know, I went to Starbucks, I bought a $5 a mocha, but asking yourself two questions.

Why did you make the purchase and how did it make you feel? Money is psychological. Money is emotional. I can't tell you the amount of times in the pandemic that I have emotionally spent because I thought it would make my life better. And shocker, it didn't really. Right. So when you're thinking about spending your money, I want your hard-earned money going to

things that you actually give a shit about, that you actually like. You don't have to stop spending money. you just need to stop spending money on things that you don't give a shit about, right? So when you're looking at your money diary, you're like, Marie Condoing your money, right? You're like, does this bring me joy? Did I like this purchase? And if you didn't, cool, that's a great, a great reminder that maybe this thing in the future is not going to make you happy either.

So when I, like, when I buy coffee, I'm not a huge coffee drinker. That's not like a great purchase for me. Am I going to shame myself and judge myself? Hell no. No, that's not productive. But I am going to say, hey, when you bought that coffee, that meant that you couldn't buy this other thing that you might have liked better, right? Or when you bought this coffee, you didn't really love, and that made you anxious, which is

what always happens, you know, when you like tripped out on coffee, what ended up happening was not only did you emotionally, physically feel like shit, but also that limited the amount of money that you could spend somewhere else, like on food out, which is something that you really love. You love going out to restaurants, Torrey. And when you spend money on coffee, that means you don't have as much money to spend on Airbnb's or food out or house plants. Right. So viewing your budget through that angle can be really helpful of where is my money going? Is it going to things that I actually like? And then how do I set myself up in a way that feels, you know, joyful and feels exciting and feels like I can spend my money on things that I love rather than you can't spend money. This budget is here to make you

feel like shit, right? Yeah, I love that. It's like your cheerleader best friend versus like your disciplinary parent, your budget. Well, and it's, I'd love that you said that because unfortunately, a lot of the personal finance experts who talk about budgeting treat you like that. They shame you, they judge you. They don't acknowledge systemic oppression, right? They make you feel bad about your choices. And money doesn't have to be that way, right? There's, there's nothing, there's no human emotion less productive than shame. Every human emotion, even like the ones that we think of is not as great, right? Anger, frustration, sadness, those are all productive. They allow you to release something, right? You're able to work through things. Shame is the one thing that doesn't

actually make you any better. Like it's not productive. And unfortunately, money and shame are inextricably linked because our society tells you continuously that talking about money is taboo, wanting money is bad. And then the people who are largely talking about money, the more public-facing people are making you feel badly about yourself. And like, the reason you can't afford a house is because you buy too much coffee. And not only does that math, of course, not work. Like, that math is bullshit. It's not, it's not a joyful sentiment. It doesn't acknowledge systemic oppression. It doesn't, you know, allow you to be a person who like has pleasures in life, right? And it's, it's also very sexist. It's like some sexist bullshit. So, like,

I think it's so important that when you're looking at money and when you're trying to get your financial shit together, people are already out there shaming you about money. I don't need you to be another person that shames yourself about money. I love that. Let's dive into the emotions around money just for a second because I know that a lot of my listeners, and honestly myself, I have money anxiety. I think of myself as having like an avoidant attachment style with money where I love to make it. I love making money and I feel really empowered when I do it. I'm always the first person to tell my friends to like ask for raise and ask for raise myself. But then I don't like to think about it at all. I don't like to look at bills at restaurants or I have really big fears

around investing and losing it all or not being able to make money all of the sudden. So do you have any advice for people just dealing with money anxiety, I want to call it? I do. I'll ask you, what is your first money memory? What is the first time that you can remember as a child, thinking about money? I've never said this before. But when I had sort of like a lot of childhood trauma and at one point in my elementary years, I started stealing from major stores as a way to get attention from my parents. And I stole like a lot of money from my mom specifically who I was living with at the time.

And I stole a lot. And then she found out because I had so much stuff. and then I had to work for her doing chores to make back the money to sort of pay back what I'd stolen is my first money memory. So unpack that. I appreciate your vulnerability. I do this practice with clients because it can often reveal a lot about your current relationship with money.

So the majority of our money habits are cemented by age seven. The majority of the way we view money is cemented by second grade. So I am not a therapist. I'm not going to psychoanalyze you. But I imagine, right, that a lot of the bullshit that you could feel around money, around wanting to keep money and, you know, making sure, okay, if I spend money, I don't want to see it or if I invest money that feels risky, right? I'd rather just have it might be linked to the memory of, okay, I'm going to steal for attention

and I'm going to figure that out, right? And I'm also, okay, the value of money, right? The value of a dollar, I have to work back. you know, I have to work for this money back or, you know, for her, for your mom to get it back. And I mean, if you're listening out there, I actually have this, remind me when this podcast goes live, when this episode goes live. I'm not exactly positive, but it will be within the next few weeks or a month or so. Okay, cool.

So I'm actually releasing, we're starting our own podcast. We haven't announced it yet. And we're doing this journaling practice around money memories is one of the episodes. So come, come listen to that full thing and we'll walk you through this journaling practice. But if that's something that you haven't considered before, I ask you to consider it. Like, what is the first time you remember thinking about money? And for most people, it's not a great memory. It's like, I remember realizing I don't have enough or like our family doesn't have enough.

Or I remember my parents fighting about money. Or, you know, a perfect example of, yeah, I was stealing to get attention. And then I had to pay my mom back. For me, I was lucky that that first money memory was super positive. I wanted to go see Annie the musical. And my parents told me, okay, well, if you want something, you have to save your money for it. And so I, you know, was probably four or five. And I collected every penny I found on the street and every quarter.

And it kept it a little outtoid's tin to go see Annie the musical. And that is the first time I can remember thinking about money. For me, it was that, you know, savings important. You can't buy something unless you have the money for it. And, you know, if you want something that's not Christmas or your birthday, okay, well, you can't put it on a credit card. Right? You can't do that. You have to save for it.

And so I was lucky that that was my first memory. For a lot of people, it's not that positive. So it can be a way to kind of release some of that, some of that tension or some of that guilt that you feel around money when you realize you're like, oh, this, this really has nothing to do with me necessarily in my decisions. This has been something that's been rooted in me for potentially decades, right? And I think that that's kind of a nice permission slip to remind yourself that this sort of, you know, potential trauma or potential bullshit around money has been building

since you were a kid and it's okay. You know, we were never taught how to money. Like, unless you had parents who were financially educating you, this is not the reality, right? And, and you have to give yourself some grace and cut yourself some slack for that. I think that's beautiful. It also ties back into the conversations around shame that we were having earlier. I think that just literally having that grace for yourself, it's almost like sighing into your anxiety, which I think always lessens anxiety, money related or otherwise. I'm going to ask you some quickfire questions from listeners. So what are your thoughts on joint versus separate accounts and relationships?

I'm going to give you the standard answer, which is I don't know you. I don't know your life. I know I say this a lot, but personal finance is personal. That's what personal finance is, right? It's going to be dependent on you. I will say, regardless of your relationship status, you need to have some separate money. Even if you are completely conjoined, you, especially as a woman, need to have your own separate money. And that's not just for if shit hits the fan because I hope to God it doesn't.

I hope you have the most beautiful loving relationship ever. But you need to have some of your own money. Like you just need that for your mindset. And if God forbid things do turn sour, you need to have some of your own money. As should your partner. So even if you are like completely merged, I would say that at least, you know, like three to six months of living expenses for an emergency fund needs to be just yours as well. How can I pay off debt and simultaneously not feel guilty about splurging occasionally?

Great question. I talk about this in everything I publish. Automate your savings, automate your debt payoff. Do that first. We call it in the industry paying yourself first. So if you are taking care of your financial goals first, you're treating it like another bill, then the money left over is everything you get to spend and whatever you want, right? If you're taking care of your savings, if you're taking care of aggressively paying off your debt, whatever that looks like. And then hopefully we have a little bit of money left over, right? That's your money to spend whatever you want. So doing the hard thing first, paying off your debt, working towards your financial goals, investing, saving, whatever, right? If you are doing the hard

thing immediately, then you know that the money left over is fund money. Too many people wait to the end of the month and then they go, oh, I don't have anything left to save anymore, right? So doing it first, getting the hard thing out of the way is going to make it a lot easier. Is there like a formula for knowing how much you should pay off? Like I know Zach has student loans from his grad school. Am I like, are we supposed to be paying off the max amount every month or like how much every month before we, so because then we'll know how much we have left over? It really depends on the interest rate.

So if you have, you know, a credit card at 22% that has debt on it and you have a student loan at 5%. Your credit card is costing you way more money, right? So you want to work to pay that off first. And when it comes to like the pace at which you're paying things off, I would say that if it is something that is like credit cards where they're at least 15% in interest, you need to pay those off pretty much as soon as you can after you have an emergency fund. Have your emergency fund first, but then you need to be aggressively paying off your credit card debt

and then hopefully staying out of credit card debt. Something like a student loan, your average student loan interest rate is 4 to 5%. And that's probably a bigger balance too. So that's something that is going to take you longer, whether it's credit cards, like those are, those are kind of, those would get you. So you want to make sure to pay that off as soon as you can. So we might be having less leftover for that splurging amount if we're trying to pay down credit card debt at any moment. Correct. But the hope is, right, is that you are getting your debt as out of the way, or you're getting your debt out of the way as fast as you can. So you will have more money eventually, right? Because a lot of your

right now is going to being in debt. And the longer, so the lovely thing called compound interest, right, which is basically defined as your interest compounds. So let's say you have $1,000 at 10%. Now you're paying 10% interest on $1,100, right? So it's not just you're paying 10% on $1,000 forever. You're paying 10% on your interest, on your interest over time. So that's why debt can often feel like you're drowning is because it's compounding for a never-ending period of time. So that's way it's really important, especially if you have debt at a higher interest rate to get it paid off immediately or as quickly as you can because if you don't, it's going to be even bigger and it's going to cost you even more money over time. So yes, up front, it might cost you more money than you'd like,

but it's going to save you way more money than trying to be in debt for a longer period. What's an old piece of money advice that doesn't apply anymore? Like I mentioned earlier, the reason you're not rich is because you buy coffee. We've, We've debunked that, like so many times. The math doesn't work. It's, again, it doesn't acknowledge systemic oppression. It's shaming as hell. It's judgmental.

It's not good advice. And it just doesn't, it doesn't offer you a varied fluid lifestyle, right? It's like it doesn't offer you pleasures in life. I'm not going to name and by name, but it should be pretty obvious who I'm talking about. There's a particular personal finance guru. who I am not a fan of, who is famous for saying that. And he's also said something like, if you're in debt, the only time you should see the inside of the restaurant is if you're working there, which we could have a whole podcast

to unpack just that, that particular sentence. But like, it's like going on a diet, right? Like if you tell me I can't eat fried chicken, I'm just going to want fried chicken. It doesn't work. Yeah. It just doesn't work. So there is ways to, you know, you know, to grow your wealth without feeling like you have to completely deprive yourself.

If you can afford it, is paying for a financial advisor worth it? Oh, thank you for asking this question. Okay, 99% of people do not need a financial advisor. I have nothing against financial advisors. You probably just don't need one. I am now someone with a multi-six-figure business. I am a financial expert. You think I would have a financial advisor. I don't need them. You don't need one. A financial advisor is two big things. is they can manage your money for you, which you don't necessarily want. They can like, you know, buy things for you, but they're going to take a fee, most likely. And two, a financial advisor can tell you exactly what stocks to invest in. Those are the only two things

that a financial advisor can do that I, as a financial coach, can't. If you need somebody who can help you get a budget together, to ask investing questions, to teach you how the stock market works, whether that's me or somebody else, really 99 people out of 100 need a financial coach. They don't need a financial advisor. Financial advisors are great. If you want to go that route, please make sure that they are a fiduciary, meaning that they are legally obligated to act in your best interest. And you can straight up ask you, ask them, are you a fiduciary?

If they're not, please run the other way. So if you are going to go that route, cool. I can almost guarantee you. You actually don't need a financial advisor. You just need somebody to guide you and to give you resources in order for you to manage your money. And we're going to be a lot cheaper as coaches than financial advice. are. Love that. Okay. And this is the last one. Do you have a personal favorite credit card? Yes. They're actually linked on my website at her first hundredk.com slash tools. I have all of my

credit card recommendations there. This is one with a hefty annual fee, but it makes it worth it. It's the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. It is a great travel card. It's the best. It's a it's a pretty standard card for travelers. Yeah. It's a metal card. It makes me feel fancy. It's great. It's got like a $550 annual fee, which is pretty sizable, but it pretty much pays for itself immediately. You get like a $300 travel credit. You get TSA pre-check. You get really good like miles to points conversions. And it's kind of the standard like personal finance lauded card, especially for people who like to travel. So that's a great one. If you are just starting out or if you're, you know, just trying to figure out what card is right for you, you're just starting to build credit.

Again, I have both of these linked on my website, but the Capital One quick silver card is a great, like everyday card. It was one of the first ones I got when I started. It's like 1.5% cash back on everything. So you don't have to like play like play revolving categories. And it's just a really good, really good everyday card. No foreign transaction fees. Capital one's really reputable. So those are probably my two big recommendations. But keep in mind with like the Sapphire Reserve or even the preferred. The preferred's a little more flexible. But like you have to have a pretty good credit score in order to apply and receive one of those. So they're kind of like a good card as you have built credit over a couple of years. Well, you have shared so much amazing wisdom in this episode.

You've mentioned your website a few times, but can you just sort of reiterate where people can find you if they want more from you? Of course. Thanks for having me on. So I run her first 100K. That's at her first 100K on all the socials or her first hundredk.com. H-E-R-F-I. Yes. Do you ever do that where you go on autopilot and then you're like, am I saying words that make sense? Ooh, H-E-R-F-R-I-R-S-T-O-K dot com. But TikTok and Instagram are my two primary. So come say hi. I would love to have you as part of the community.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Tori. Thank you so much for having me. All right, let's get into a few more money confessions. Remember, these are not me speaking. I'm just reading what you anonymously sent in. I have more of these over on my Instagram. So head over to Atlas Moody if you want to check those out.

Okay, let's get into it. My partner earns way more than me and more than three times what my parents combined earn. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, but I don't feel like it's fair. My parents have worked so hard for so long, and as good a job as my boyfriend does, I think the disparity is ridiculous. Many of my friends earn considerable amounts and have lost perspective on how much people earn and what a typical salary is. I make so much less than all of my friends, and it sucks.

It drastically impacts my quality of life and happiness because they can do and have so much more. I've been job searching for years. They've all had their same jobs for years and are now high up in their companies. I'm 100% aware that I'm often the reason we aren't doing the things they want to do, going to nicer restaurants, traveling, et cetera. So they will do those things with their friends who can't afford it. And I hate that I have to miss out on that. I make more than my partner. I'm several years ahead in terms of my career and he's still finishing school and doing minimum wage jobs in the meantime. It affects me more than it affects him. And to his credit, he always pays half the bills. But I'm the only one actually saving for our future, down payment on a house,

wedding, kids, retirement, and he probably won't start contributing to that for several more years. I feel shallow that it bothers me, but it certainly impacts our ability to have and support children if we decide we want them. My husband and I make the same, but his parents make far less. It has gotten to the point where they expect us to pay for everything and never pull their wallets out. They also only ever thank my husband when we pay for things, even though we share a joint bank account and they know this, which really bothers me. Okay, I thought this one was really, really interesting. You know, the teacher confession that I read at the beginning, whereas about how teachers are undervalued and she doesn't feel like she's being paid enough, I got maybe

500 DMs from teachers basically saying the same thing, saying they want to be a teacher so bad, but they were quitting their teaching job to do something else because they can't figure out how to make it work financially. And then I got sent in this confession. which I will start reading now. I am a teacher at an international school in Germany, and I'm paid the equivalent of about $80,000 and have a great work-life balance and benefits, healthcare, leave, et cetera.

To put it in perspective, it's my first year at this school and my first year teaching since I officially became a licensed teacher, so the salary will only go up from here. One of the reasons I teach overseas is because the profession is generally more well-respected in other countries, and the salary tends to be much better, too. I don't think I could teach back in the States. I make it a point not to share how much I make because it seems to cause resentment and expectations.

When my friend found out how much my husband makes, she made an offhand comment at dinner about how he can afford to cover the shared apps. Knowledge about salary makes some people judgmental about how much you should or should not spend on various activities or products. I feel like that last one would be a great podcast club conversation starter like should we be sharing our salaries or should we not be. Sometimes it can cause a lot of resentment and hurt feelings to share them, but also if we don't share them. We can't all move ahead. We can have men making so much more than women, all of that. Should we be having an open conversation? Is that beneficial to us as a whole? Or does it cause more problems than it solves? I think that's a really interesting question. Discuss it amongst

yourselves. I love the idea of a podcast club. I think I'm going to start one. But also tell me what you think. DM me on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. Screenshot the episode and tag it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. So would Tori, she's at her first 100K. Also, if you like this episode about money and money wellness. I would so appreciate a quick rating or review on whatever podcast platform that you listen on. All right. If you're not subscribed, subscribe so you can come hang out and I will see you on the next episode of the Healthy Together podcast. I love you and I hope you have a wonderful day. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to

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