Tiger Sisters - The Money Tips You NEED in Your 20s & 30s (We WISH We Knew These Tips)

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Women are silently losing over half a million dollars across their careers — not from big mistakes, but from three subtle traps: Delay, Doubt, and Default.In this episode of Tiger Sisters, we expose how these invisible money leaks happen, why women are disproportionately affected, and the practical tools you can use to reclaim your wealth. Backed by research, real stories, and the frameworks we’ve tested ourselves, this episode will change how you think about money.We share: ✅ How delaying investments or salary moves can cost ~$500K+ — and the automation trick to stop it ✅ Why women are 29% more likely to feel “not investment ready” — and the role-play method that flips doubt into confidence ✅ The danger of defaulting to the first offer, 0% 401k contributions, or cash hoarding — and how wealth circles can boost savings by 45% ✅ Case studies from missed Bitcoin to comp transparency spreadsheets ✅ A mini exercise to identify your money story: survival, victim, or creatorIf you’ve ever felt behind, avoided your finances, or wondered why money feels harder than it should — this one’s for you.🐯👯‍♀️ We’re the Tiger Sisters — Your Wall Street & Silicon Valley big sistersDecoding Money • Power • Love✨ New episodes every Monday | Shorts all week ✨🎯 Sponsored by mbaMission, the #1 MBA admissions consulting firm (Poets&Quants). Their expert team has helped 15,000+ applicants get into top schools. Start with a free 30-minute consultation at https://www.mbamission.com/consult and select “Tiger Sisters.” Use code “TIGERSISTERS30” for 30% off onTrack, their guided MBA application platform.💌 Want to partner with us? Sponsorships: [e-mail]⏰ Timestamps00:00 Why women lose $500K+ in invisible wealth02:01 Delay – The cost of waiting & power of compounding03:42 How to beat Delay: automate & reward yourself07:50 Quick Break: mbaMission 09:08 Doubt – Mindset traps & the 3 money stories13:24 Mini Exercise: Survival, Victim, Creator14:40 How to beat Doubt: role play & mock negotiations17:27 Default — Autopilot money decisions & UBS study21:02 How to beat Default: create a Wealth Circle22:04 Case study: salary transparency & collective bargaining27:07 Wrap-up + survey & subscribe👀 Newsletter: https://cherieluo.substack.com/🎁 Survey: https://forms.gle/rXpQtbpwU3qShHW26Why trust us?▫️ Cherie Brooke Luo – 100M+ views demystifying big tech, finance & MBAs▫️ Jean Luo – ex-Goldman, ex-Snapchat exec, 50+ AI patents, startup investor▫️ Together: 4 Ivy degrees • built billion-dollar products • two startups — decoded for youWhat you’ll get (and keep):▫️ 🚀 Ivy League cheat sheets – no $250K tuition required▫️ Personal finance playbooks – salary jumps, investing, money psychology▫️ Networking scripts – behind $100M+ deals, job offers & VC intros▫️ Real talk with unicorn founders, VCs, and billionaires▫️ Mindset resets – clarity minus the pricey life coach▫️ Fashion, wellness, and productivity hacks that actually work💛 LET'S CONNECT:~ CHERIE ~🤳🏻 Instagram – / cherie.brooke📱 TikTok – / cherie.brooke✍🏻 Substack – cherieluo.substack.com👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – / cherie-luo~ JEAN ~🤳🏻 Instagram – / jeanluo_👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – / jeanluo👉 Hit Subscribe & tap the 🔔, then WRITE A REVIEW and rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!Share this with someone who deserves to be seen as a leader.🎵 Music: Sammy Signal – https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Hsyk...🛍️ Items: 🍵 Sisters Matcha – www.sistersmatcha.com | 🌀 Everything else – https://amzn.to/3z0dx5b

Today, we're talking about personal finance. If you're a woman with a bank account, listen up. A McKinsey study recently said that women lose over half a million dollars during the course of their career. And this can happen silently. And this is money that slips through the cracks without you ever seeing it through three mechanisms. We call them delay, doubt, and default. And today we're going to address all of them one by one. And of course, we're going to have examples, case studies, and tools that you can use just like we did at Harbor, business school. This personal finance episode is helpful for everyone, especially women. Let's get started. I'm Cherie. I'm Jean. And we're the Tiger Sisters. We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast on Spotify, where we talk about money, power, and

love. Yeah, so I just wanted to speak directly to the listeners and say that the reason I wrote this episode, the reason we decided to do this episode is because it's the topic that is very rarely, broached. It's definitely not talked about enough. And the reason we wanted to talk about this specifically in the context of women is because this conversation is just not being had amongst women and definitely not on a recurring basis. So as your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters, we felt like it was really important that we be the ones to drive this conversation forward. According to a brand new McKinsey study, American women end up forfeiting over half a million dollars because of what we call invisible wealth avoidance. That's equity left on the table,

raises we never asked for, and investments we waited too long to make. That's money you never see, all because of delay, doubt, and default. You like that? I came up with those three. The three s are pretty catchy. Easy to remember. So the first one is delay, which is exactly what it sounds like. it's basically procrastinating on making these high-impact money moves, whether it's opening up an investment account, asking for fair pay, or rolling over your 401K, for example. Okay, so let's bring some math into it because I think this will show you how dangerous this actually is.

So if you look at Fidelity's calculator, if you wait 10 years to invest $5,000 a year, this will cost you almost half a million dollars by the time you retire. And that's not just like a latte that's half a million dollars. That is money that you can spend, you know, on a down payment on a house, more than a down payment on a house, depends on the house. Depending on where you live. Yeah, but like half a million dollars is a lot of money. And if you kind of delay making these investments earlier on, like the power of compounding will come back to haunt you. And I just want to double underline the power of compounding. We've talked about it before as it relates to personal habits, how that works. But I think it's a,

especially apparent when you talk about finances and especially investing. So for example, if you invest a dollar today, you will make interest on it. Next week, you're making interest on the dollar plus the interest that you've gotten. So the power of compounding is that you make money on the interest as well. And if you think about a lifetime of that compounding, it's a lot of money left on the table. Yeah. And I think what people don't realize is that the power of compounding not only applies to like a savings account, for example. You're getting a straight interest rate, but it also applies for investments in the stock market. Okay, Sherey, please tell us about the method that we've come up with to address delay. Automate whatever you can and reward yourself

for completing the task. An example of this is if you want to invest weekly, you don't have to go into your brokerage account and like press the buttons. You can do it once, set it up so it happens on a weekly, monthly, whatever recurring basis. So you don't have to think about it. Yeah, I've done that. I also actually do it the opposite way around, which is that I, by default, move my money into my savings account. And then I automatically have the money transfer from my savings account to my checking account, which is where I pay my bills and stuff. Why do you do that? So that way the money is default making interest in the savings account. And I'm only taking it out when I need to pay the bills in the checking account.

So that way I can keep the checking account lower and keep the savings account. higher. That's smart. I don't do that, but I probably should. You never told me you did that. This was not something you revealed to me. Well, now I've revealed it to you and to everyone else. Thanks a lot. But don't keep your checking account too low. I've also done that once. I've never done that before. I'm just scared, you know. Yeah, once I did that and then you had a rush to like make sure that nothing bad happened. You didn't have an overdraft fee or something. I didn't have an overdraft fee or something. I didn't have an over, well, I didn't have an overdraft, but like probably like a million dollar loss anyway, because I at the time had put in an order to buy 10 Bitcoin. This was back when they were like

40 bucks each. And I like was at the time managing my checkings account so on such a thin margin that the order bounced. And then I just like never went in and put it in again. So that's 10 Bitcoin I'll never see. But had you automated it? it might have tried again in the week after. Right. That's my pre-automation time. So I'll add that to my lifetime of missed earnings. Oh, geez.

It's 600,000 plus a million dollars for me. In Bitcoin, yeah. So, Sheree, what's a way that you would reward yourself once you've done something like this? Well, I actually kind of reward myself before. Okay. What I do. Well, so what I like to do. She prewards herself.

Yeah, exactly. But, you know, if I have to do something that's kind of time consuming and a little bit annoying, come on, let's be honest. It's a little bit annoying to do it, but you have to do it. I like to get myself like a nice matcha or like a nice coffee. I knew she was going to say that. Yeah. Like I'll go to Phil's. I knew she's going to say that. I'll go to Phil's and get a mint mojito. And then I'm like, okay, I got this. Now I need a lock in and the caffeine helps me like lock in. Oh my God. I'm obsessed with Phil's. We love Phil's. Just the. Just the. week or last week I introduced someone to Phil's for the first time and I was like I wish I could be you to like read to discover Phil's for the first time the mint mojito only yes which is basically for all of you guys who don't know fills it is a coffee shop um I think I've only I don't know if it's on the east coast I've seen it on the west coast like in many many cities I think it started in San Francisco started in San Francisco in the mission one no the first one was right next to where you lived where did I live noe wait no the first one was in the mission

No, I think the first one was right next to where you lived. Someone fact check this. I'm like 90% sure I'm correct. It was on the mission. No. And our favorite drink is this iced coffee that has mint leaves in it. It's like actually real mint leaves muddled inside. So if you like a mint flavor, I know it sounds weird in coffee, but it is so tasty.

It's incredible. But that's kind of my reward, my like pre-reward. And you have to get it fills way. Or at least one time get it fills way, which is sweet and creamy. so they make it sweet and creamy. Okay, so now delay is addressed, and we've come up with several options for rewards for yourself once you address it.

But next, let's get into doubt. So Vanguard says that women are 29% more likely to say that they don't feel investment ready than men. Let's flip that script. And we'll get into doubt right after this quick break. Applying to business schools, it's a lot. We know. Every decision feels high stakes.

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own personal counselors to help you with the entire process. They are the leaders in MBA admissions consulting and I wish I knew about them when I was applying. So go to MBAMission.com slash consult and pick Tiger Sisters in the drop-down menu to claim your free consultation today. Book now before the calendar fills up. Check out the episode description. We have a special discount for Tiger Sisters listeners for MBA missions special on-demand platform. They have over 25 hours of videos that take you step by step in the application process. All right. Now back to our show. And we're back. Okay, so doubt is basically self-limiting beliefs and the mindset that you are not good enough or that you can't do something. So in this context, it looks like something like money scares me,

numbers scare me. I'm not ready for this. I'll fail if I try. I'll fail if I try. try. Yeah. And I think this one is probably the most nefarious D of them all. Oh yeah? Yeah. Because I know some other nefarious D's. Name them. I won't. This is a family program. This is the most nefarious D because it's your mindset. If you're doubting yourself, like, you're just limiting what you can achieve. And I think this is also the hardest because like it's all kind of within you and your self-belief to change this. Yeah. It's quite insidious. And this is the one where. where like we're going to give you tools and methods, but it is something that you can be working on for a lifetime to beat that nefarious D.

Yeah, true. Beat that D. Ew. That was my joke. You didn't even get it. A Stanford GSB study shows that women consistently underapply for stretched roles. Like they don't have enough self-belief in themselves to think that they can get these roles. And as a result, they're not applying for these roles.

landing these roles, they're not getting the promotion, they're not asking for it. And so they're forfeiting over half a million dollars in lifetime earnings. Yeah. And like I had mentioned, a lot of this goes back to psychology and like ingrained thought processes. So there's actually this whole money story framework that psychologists came up with that describe what sort of mindset you have. So the three main ones are survival, victim, and creator. And psychologists say that most of us toggle between these three stories. So for survival, it's, I just need to pay rent and make ends meet. For victim, it's like money controls me and the systems are rigged. And for creator, money is a tool that I deploy and I can control. Yeah. And of these three, I think victim is the most insidious, like, sneaky one

because survival is obvious, right? Like when you're in survival mode, you can't really do anything except try to make ends meet. So that's like very obvious and like easy to address. And, but victim mode is more so like in your head because it means you technically have all of the resources to do what you need to do but you're just not able to because you're like holding yourself back because of your mindset yeah and an example of what victim story could look like is if you're like avoiding downloading a banking app or you're not looking at your budgeting you're not making that budget you know how to do it but you're deciding not to maybe even subconsciously just because you're nervous and you're like avoiding it.

Mm-hmm. I've been there. I've for sure. I've for sure been there. Yeah. I think it's interesting how you can toggle through these different stories at different points in your life. Mm-hmm. And in different areas of your life as well. Like maybe I might have more of a survival mindset when it comes to one area versus a creator mindset for another, I would say. Like rent and housing versus food and spending versus travel. So it really depends. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I really, really like the sort of mantra of the creator mindset, which is money is a tool I deploy. So it's, I like it because then it becomes like, oh, it's a tool that I use. It's not something to be afraid of. It's not this like boogeyman or this like huge mountain to climb. It's a tool

that I deploy. It's a tool at my, at my disposal. I don't know. It's just I, I'm saying it multiple times because it's almost like something you need to say multiple times to really have the meaning sink in. Yeah. And so part of this mindset or like money story of being a creator is that you use the tool and then you celebrate your progress. You don't necessarily have to be perfect. Yeah, I think that's a really good call out because in that way, the creator story is very empowering. Like it's something that I am choosing I'm electing into to do and make moves off. on. Okay, should you tell everyone about the mini exercise we've come up with? Yes. So this mini exercise is interactive and we want you to write in the comments of this video wherever you're listening

or watching on YouTube or Spotify or Apple if they do comments on Apple. But we want you to tell us what story you're in now and this is no shade. Right. Like Gene and I have mentioned, we've been in the survival story. We've been in the victim story and we've tried to break into the creator story and we're trying to feel more comfortable there. But we go back and forth in different parts of our lives. We want to invite you to tell us what story you're in now. And you can also break it down per category if you think, you know, it's not a monolithic story that you're in now. And the reason for this is to feel less alone. Like no shade at all wherever you are, but you might be surprised. There are more people than you realize than we realize that are also in the survival mode or the victim mode. And so you're not

alone and let's all come together and work towards being creator mode. Yeah. And like we've said before, like the first part of being able to improve yourself and do something about it is to acknowledge it. Confront yourself. Yeah. Confront yourself. Yeah. God damn it. Confront yourself. We welcome you. We welcome you to confront yourself. Welcome. Okay. And then really quickly, Shari, let's talk about the tools or the methods that we have to break out of this entire doubt mindset. So something that's in your toolkit is role play. I'm completely serious about this. This is something we would do at Stanford, GSB in like every single class. To combat that nefarious D. To combat that nefarious D. And an example of this is a mock negotiation. If you need to negotiate your salary and you

have something coming up, you should definitely roleplay that with a trusted advisor or a friend. Just going through the motions of seeing what you would say and how you would respond when someone else comes back to you or pushes back on your negotiation ask. Role play is really important and I honestly don't feel like it's used enough because it helps you think through the scenario and anticipate questions that you might get. At school in one of our classes, we did role play every single class and there would be different scenarios. We would role play firing an employee.

We would role play like difficult conversations. It is definitely not used enough. Yeah. I think it's really important because one of the most. common reactions to like a new or scary situation is to freeze, right? And so a lot of times, I think if you can role play, you can sort of get that like freezing reaction out of the way. And you can like freeze when it's not high stakes when you're practicing with your friend or your partner or whoever it is. And then you can sort of go through that process of actually

processing the freezing moment and then come up with a response so that when you do the actual negotiation, you don't freeze. Yeah. You're allowed to stumble in the mock negotiation or stumble in the role play. That's a whole purpose for it. It's not going to be pretty so that when the real deal comes, you're ready for it. And not only will you know what to say, but like you said, you'll know how you will feel. That is really important. Yeah, that's true. So you've had like the training. Yeah. It's almost like when you roll play, you go through the entire event emotionally so that when you do the actual event, like you're not surprised by whatever emotions come up. True. Within yourself or reactions from the other people. Right. Yeah. That's such a great point. I mean, when we would do

role plays in class, we would often do it multiple times because other student, like student one would do it and then student two would do it. And the negotiation or the role play could go several ways. Right. Like you would do it with different partners. Not only different partners, but you can have, let's say if you're firing someone, the first person, the first time you do it, the person is really sad. The second time, they're really mad. So then you can like anticipate all the different scenarios that could come up. Yeah. And like see how you feel about it. Exactly. Okay. So now we've moved from victim or survival into your creator story. Amazing. But even the most confident person can still wreck their finances if they're just staying on autopilot.

Remember automation? I think that was a really good idea. But definitely with an asterisk here, making sure you check the automation every now and then. Exactly. So, Confidence without intentions lands us in the last money trap, which is default. So default is when exactly what it sounds like when you put things on default. So whether that's having the 0% 401 contribution, 0.01% interest rate because you're putting in the money market or sure, I'll take that first salary offer. These are all very, once again, nefarious things that are related to this third D. Exactly.

This is just the stuff that you don't question because you're on cruise control. Quick pause, Tiger fam. This is Sheree, and we just dropped a brand new listener survey. It's different from the audience survey that you hopefully already filled out. It's 10 quick questions and 2 minutes max. Your support keeps the episodes free and publishing weekly. Why? Because your answers tell future sponsors that Tiger Sisters is a show worth investing in. That means better partners, stronger episodes, and no random ads you don't care about. Tap the listener survey link in the description right after this episode. episode, knock it out and help us keep building a podcast that feels made for you. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being the best part of Tiger Sisters. Now back to the show. And we're back. Okay, so now talking about this last D, which is default. This is letting someone else choose, whether it's taking that first offer, putting the 0% contribution just because that's how it's set up, or leaving your money in the 0.01% savings account. And this is something that we really want to emphasize because it is shown through studies that women are more likely to do this than men.

So UBS did a study that showed that women hold 71% of their assets in cash versus men hold 60% of their assets in cash. So over the course of time and through all the women that are doing this, that's hundreds of millions of dollars lost in growth. Yeah. Default is going through with an option because that's how it was set up. And I think it's dangerous because sometimes I assume that things are set up in my favor when they're really not. Like that's my very like naive way of going about life where I'm just like,

yeah, like it's all going to work out because everything's going to, you know, help me. Yeah. It's like, would you marry the first person you ever had a crush on? How was that related? Because that's the default. You mean, beep, beep in kindergarten? Yeah. How would that have turned out? I don't know if he's interested in women. Oh, okay, true. So not well for you. Not well for you. Actually, I told my therapist recently about my first crush in kindergarten. And this person was my first crush because he ran the fastest. And then my therapist was like, that's so you to have the crush on someone who did something really well. Oh, it's not because he could like run away from you really fast. No, he did the fastest lap. Oh, I thought it was because like he, you know, made it like hard to chase.

him. No, no, no. He did the fastest lap around the gym of all the boys. That's hot. Right? Yeah. My therapist was like, that is so you to be into that or to prioritize that. Was he also the best singer? I'm not sure. Why? I don't know. That's what like kids like, right? Those are attributes that are showcased in kindergarten. Okay, so speaking of sharing, let's talk about the method that we've come up with to combat this D. So the tool that we have is called wealth circles. And this is something we urge you to implement today. I have a lot of guy friends. And for some reason, they talk about wealth and money and finances so freely. And they just have group chats to just talk about these things. And they'll talk about, you know, what they're investing in, how much they're making. It's a very common,

like, topic discussion. And I feel like it's kind of unfair that, one, there are no women in these chats. that's a problem. And two, I think women just don't talk about it as much. So our tool for you is to create a wealth circle with four or five of your closest girlfriends who you feel comfortable talking about this with. It helps with social accountability and it helps with information sharing. And as Jean often says, information is power. Yeah. Is that my like catchphrase? It kind of is. It really is though. Yeah. And there's actually also a lot of research behind this. So the Bureau of Economic Research has shown that social accountability actually increases savings by 45% versus a control group. Do you guys like these stats? I personally, I like having stats. And that's why when I write these episodes, I put them in because they're well researched.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Because it shows you that the ideas that we're recommending in these methods we've come up with are based on science. Okay, and then just one more quick detail about this study is that the mechanism they identified that leads to the increased rate of savings is descriptive social norm plus mild competition. So what does that mean? It means that when people are sharing about what they're doing and their sort of like money practices, that's creating a descriptive social norm amongst the group. And then also the fact that they're sharing and they're seeing each other's numbers creates this level of mild competition, which then you want to improve yourself so that you can.

meet this social norm. Yeah, and I unknowingly created a wealth circle in my first job out of school because I was in a program of associate product managers and our base salary that everyone got, supposedly, was the same when all of us joined. But then as you go into a year or two years later, things start to change. People have different projects, different bosses, different comp structures. And when we're all, you know, we got promoted at the same time because we are part of the same group. But when that happened, we started talking about our salary more, like one or two people started talking about it and realizing there was a pretty big disparity in how much we were earning in our bonus, in our stock compensation. And then so my friend Logan created a spreadsheet.

Bless that man. He's so good. He's so good. He's so competent and so open and willing to share. And we love people like that. He created a spreadsheet and urged everyone in my, you know, cohort to fill it out. And I think most people did. I think everyone did fill it out so we can know, you know, on the first possible time that we got a comp refresher, what everyone else got. And then when I saw those numbers, I realized I was being underpaid compared to other people and other teams. Yeah. And I did bring it up with my boss. I was like, this is weird. And then when we all got promoted, I think everyone got a huge bump and it was more evenly distributed. Collective bargaining.

Yes. We unionized against LinkedIn. And I don't think our bosses like that. We're like 25 and we're like, we should be paid more. You beat the system. Yes, we did. Yeah. Through your wealth circle.

It actually was crazy because I was going to get, I think, like 50% less or 50 to 60% less in stock refresher until I brought it up to my boss. And then he brought it up to, you know, the senior leaders who then gave people more money. Like my boss was advocating for me, but he also didn't have the information, supposedly, to advocate for me. And when I gave it to him, he did. He came through. When you look back on it, the person that set the standard that was getting the highest

amount of refresher, do you think it was because they had the most sort of like aggressive of an outspoken, outspoken manager? I think they both, I think the person and their manager are very aggressive in a good way. Like self-advocating. Self-advocating.

And they worked in an org where they had more money to give. Honestly, their business line was very successful. Ads. Yes. As someone who ran AR ads. They worked in monetization at LinkedIn. Yeah.

And so I think they just had a bigger pie to distribute anyways. And you were at call center? No. No. She was distributing knowledge to people at LinkedIn learning. Our ed tech platform. Different from ads. Very different from ads.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably nicer to work in, to be honest. Likely. And so for this wealth circle, this is a group of four to five trusted people. And you want to establish ground rules. Basically, confidentiality is a big thing. and whatever stays, whatever I said here stays here.

You can set up like weekly or monthly topics to discuss. It can, the first week can be about rent. The next week can be about like pay for work. The next week can be something else. But it should just feel like more transparent and you guys have an open conversation about these topics. And like I feel like people are into talking about this like in a private group because then it just feels like you have a space where you can finally like,

share all of your frustrations. It's probably better in person, but if you can't do it in person, you could also do it virtually. Yeah. I was thinking you could just do this over text message too. So, Jen Z of you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode. Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe because when you subscribe, you'll get notified when our next episode drops.

One last reminder to please fill out that survey that we've linked in the description. It is really, really important for the survival of Tiger's system. and helping us grow the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Bye.