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Welcome back, young and profitors. Today on YAF Classic, we're showcasing an interview I did about a year ago with the remarkable Tory Dunlap. After graduating college in 2016, 22-year-old Tory started an entry-level job in corporate marketing, but she set herself a goal on the side to figure out a way to make $100,000 by the age of 25.
And sure enough, three years later, she met her goal and quit her job. In doing so, she realized how money and personal finance are tools you can use to shape your life into something that you love. Today, Tori is an internationally recognized money and career expert, seven figure entrepreneur, TikTok and Instagram, mega influencer, best-selling author, and top podcast host of the Financial Feminist Podcast.
Which by the way, is in my podcast network, the number one business and self improvement podcast network, YAP Media. And in this conversation from episode 245, Tori does not disappoint. She tells us how we can all get better at navigating the emotional and psychological sides of money. She also shared some awesome wealth building tips, including why you need to open up your own high yield savings account right now.
So I think it's about time for you to reconsider your relationship with money and what it means to your life. It's time for Tori Dunlap.
So Tory, you're a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree and recognized as a top financial expert, especially for women and millennials. And after doing some research on your background, I discovered that you've always been really good with your money. So curious to understand what were your influences growing up around money and how did that shape your mindset and attitude towards the topic?
I grew up with parents who educated me about money and I thought that was the case for everybody. I thought, okay, everybody knows not to overspend on credit cards. Everybody knows how to save. Everybody knows how to manage money responsibly. And as I got older, graduated high school, went into college and started having more conversations with people, I realized, of course, that wasn't the case. And especially not the case for most people that I was talking to in my generation and specifically women.
So I was the friend, all of my friends were coming to for advice and guidance around money. It shocks a lot of people to hear and may shock your audience to hear. I did not study finance. I technically didn't even study business. I studied marketing and theater in college, but Donald Trump got elected. So I graduated college in May of 2016 was trying to figure out the kind of person and the woman I wanted to be in this world. And five months later, the election happens and I'm coming into adulthood and really into womanhood.
in a very different country than I think a lot of us expected. So I'm trying to figure out how do I want to show up? What do I care about? What do I want my life to look like? And when you're the friend, all of your friends are coming to for advice. And when you're also starting to see that your own financial background,
is the reason you're able to have flexibility. You're able to quit the job that feels toxic and find a better option for you. You're able to travel. You're able to donate to causes you believe in. You start to realize, oh, maybe money is my form of protest in this world. Maybe money is the tool and the resource I need to not only build the life that I love, but also to start shaping a world that I want to see. And so,
I really became just so on fire about personal finance, but specifically again, using money as a tool to shape your life into something that you love and to start shaping communities around you. So my work started as a side hustle, her first hundred K, this now global multi million dollar business with employees and a podcast in a book was the thing I was doing on the side of my nine to five and marketing. And as I was growing my own confidence as a leader and as someone who was
learning how to connect with people and educate them step by step about how to build wealth. I was also seeing in my own life, oh, when I have money, I have options. And so the rest is just crazy. Now I took it full time after saving $100,000 at age 25, which was the origin story of her first 100k. I was on Good Morning America, quit my job three weeks later. And now we have 3 million people who were shaping and teaching them how to pay off debt and save money and start investing.
I love your story. And we have so many similarities. I also started Yap and Yap Media as a side hustle. And so from my understanding, the first thing you started was a blog. Is that right? Yeah. So it was a blog in late 2016.
That kind of era, like mid 2010s was like the tumbler blog era, if you can think back that far, right? Yeah, I had a blog too. Yeah. So that was what I thought was like, okay, I want to share my life as a 20 something woman, like how to navigate career, how to travel and how to do all these things.
And I started to realize probably about a year or two in that I was like, oh, all of my topics have something to do with money. Yeah, I would talk about traveling to Costa Rica, but I talk about negotiating our car rental or I talk about finding a cheap flight. Obviously with a career, right? I'm working to make money and to hopefully have this sense of purpose or passion. And again, I was becoming more political, becoming more
educated about systemic oppression and the various aspects of personal finance that I was not seeing covered. You think about Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, these very well-known personal finance experts. And very rarely do they talk about how racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia have anything to do with money. And I talk about this in my book, Financial Feminist, but 80% of the personal finance equation is the systemic factors that you have no control of. Only 20% of the personal finance equation is
how to get a budget together and making sure you're optimized in your Roth IRA. So I wanted to have conversations that were more nuanced. And during that time, I think a lot of the financial experts were starting to have those conversations post 2016 with Black Lives Matter in 2020, the research and so that movement. So I think it was really important for me to have those conversations be something that was not just
You can't buy a house because you buy lattes and it's like, no, what is the real reason? So yeah, all of that started as a blog as I was trying to figure out my own voice too.
I love that. And we're going to talk about how to fight the patriarchy through finances in a bit. Let's put a pin on that. And I just want to understand your story a little bit better. Sure. So you had this goal of saving $100,000. And once you hit that goal, you decided to quit your full time job and go all in on, you know, first hundred K brand and everything that you've built so far.
What made you first think of that idea of saving $100,000? Was that really intentional that you did that and you knew that that was the plan? I'd love to hear that story. I'm just that person that set goals for myself from a very young age. I literally have joked in like the promotion of my book. I sat down when I was seven or eight and said, I want to write a book someday. Now, did I think it was going to be like a personal finance book? No, hell no. That was not the plan.
But for me, 100k was I was reading another personal finance blog and I saw someone write about their 100k net worth at 25. And I was probably 23. And I started doing the math and I was like, if I can increase my income by X percentage and if I can continue to save X percentage and if my investments perform like they're performing, I think I can hit this.
The joke was as long as I do it the day before I turned 26, it still counts. It was 100k at 25. And that 100k happened, I think, three months after my 25th birthday. So it was a combination of a lot of things. It was the privilege of being able to graduate college debt free. I was working three jobs on campus, getting scholarships. I also had parents who were financially minded and who were able to contribute to my college.
I like to acknowledge that right off the bat because it's not something that everybody has the privilege of doing. I was also saving a huge percentage of my income. My take home pay, 27% at the peak was going towards savings. And then everything I made in my side hustle, I was able to contribute to the 100k goal as well. I was focused on value-based spending. I was still traveling internationally. I was still going out to eat. That's the other question. People are like, oh, you ate oatmeal and ramen. And I'm like, no, actually,
I still did all of the things in a huge US city that I wanted to do as somebody in their 20s. But yeah, that 100k, and this is this is the thing that's so important. It's a lot of people. And I find especially women, they're not necessarily motivated by the numbers. For me, there was something about seeing 100k in the bank account that was like that, you know, that burst of serotonin.
But it's very difficult sometimes to get somebody to care about money when they think it's just numbers. We know that money is psychological. We know that money is emotional. And so when I thought about that hundred K and when shit started getting hard where I couldn't save or there was a period of time that I spent unemployed, so I was not only not saving money, I was spending the money I had already saved.
I was trying to figure out, okay, I set this arbitrary goal for myself. What's the point? The 100k meant that I got to quit my job. That was the promise I had made to myself is I attached the number to a goal and to a feeling. I literally imagined like, what would my life look like if I didn't have to make somebody I didn't respect rich?
What would my life look like if I didn't have to ask to take PTO and get it denied? What would my life look like if I didn't have to commute into a job that I didn't feel aligned with my passions or aligned with the mission and values of my life?
what did that feel like? And it felt amazing. And so that 100k goal, yes, part of it was seeing the 100k, being able to see the headline, which I'm grateful that there are many, you know, how this 25 year old saved 100k, but really it was about how does my life change?
So if you're out there and you're trying to get yourself motivated, how do I become debt free, right? Or how do I invest enough for retirement or how do I make ends meet so that I don't feel panicked all of the time, associate that with a feeling, right? What does it feel like to not have somebody
demanding that you send the money every month for your student loans. What does it feel like to know? Oh, yeah, I can buy this thing without guilt or shame because I've budgeted for it. What does it feel like to know that you're going to be set for retirement? That 65 year old you is taking care of? What does that feel like? That, for me, was really the driving force of how does my life change? And what does it feel like to use money as a tool to get me there?
I love that. I think that's really good advice. And I remember I saved my first 100 K at 28, I want to say. And the amount of freedom I felt and just agency over my own life, I didn't need a man. I didn't need my parents. I didn't need all of a sudden I felt like, well, if I don't like this job, I could leave because I have 100 grand and that's at least going to keep me afloat for four to six months and whatever. So it really did unlock.
a lot of limiting mindsets for myself. So I would encourage everybody to have some sort of a financial goal like that. Well, and that's the feeling I want for every single person listening. That is the feeling I want is I am in situations I want to be in rather than situations I'm forced to be in.
Or I don't have to tolerate bullshit from a partner from a company. I can do what I want because I have the financial means to do so. That is so incredibly liberating. And it reflects in every aspect of your life. I show up differently in my relationships because I know that I'm not dependent on somebody financially. I show up different in my career. I show up different in my business. I show up different to myself in how I talk to myself.
And I think, again, that's the feeling I want for every single person listening is when you start becoming financially confident, when you start having that financial foundation, not just your financial life, but all of the rest of your life changes, the rest of your life changes.
Yeah. And that kind of confidence is actually very attractive, right? Because it's like you're not coming out in an insecure way to anyone and people gravitate to that kind of confidence. So speaking of confidence, you have a theater background and I've had traditional financial experts on the show, like Susie Orman, like you mentioned, Peter Malook and lots of great financial experts. But what's the advantage of learning from somebody outside of a traditional background?
So many advantages. Thank you for asking this question. I spoke at Morningstar at one of their big splashy conferences, probably about a month ago. And I was keynoting. And it was really interesting to see people's responses because I did say on stage, you know, I studied theater and I was joking, the girls that get it, get it and the girls that don't don't. Like it was, it was very interesting to see what kind of people were like, Oh, you're a theater major. How are you qualified? And I'm like all of these other qualifications.
Okay, a couple of things. One, I think there's something actually so refreshing about hearing this complicated, inaccessible topic explained by somebody who's not in it.
I know that there's a certain level of jargon in any industry, but specifically personal finance. And this is no fault of any financial professional, but when you've been in it for a while, that's just the language you use. And I was on a panel at the beginning of her first under K. It was probably 2019. I was still working as a marketer and this was my side hustle. And I had all of these people in these panel who were venture capitalists and financial advisors and who had been doing this for years.
And it was so interesting to them. They were speaking to this room of 20 and 30 something women who are my primary demographic and using the words that they thought were investing 101 terms like acid allocation or portfolio rebalancing. You and I know what that means, right? But I literally saw the rest, like the entire audience's eyes glaze over because they're like, I don't know what that means. And also this industry is so veiled.
And so gate kept that I'm afraid of looking stupid if I ask. But there's something so refreshing about seeing me not in a pencil skirt, but in a leather jacket and Adidas being like, hey, I'm going to explain everything to you like your five and not because you're dumb and not to condescend you, but because nobody taught you this.
So coming outside of that industry, I think is so helpful. In terms of running a business, there are so many people that I have met who have arts or theater backgrounds who are incredibly successful entrepreneurs, even in the personal finance space. I don't know if you know, Steph O'Connell,
theater person, Erin Lowry broke millennial theater person. There are so many of us who studied theater or did theater because when you're an entrepreneur, that is what you do all day. This right here, I'm staring at a camera. This is my theater degree. Am I comfortable speaking in front of 5,000 people?
Am I comfortable going live on CNBC yesterday? Am I comfortable doing that? And am I comfortable being able to story tell what I am doing and why this brand matters, which is your entire job as a CEO or entrepreneur, it's just like jazz handing your company, right? Just like jazz hands the entire time of like, this is what we're doing. This is why it matters. Storytelling is what theater gave me the opportunity to do as well as be comfortable on stage in front of people being able to adapt.
We run a financial media company much like you. Yes, I have tons of knowledge about personal finance, but really I run a media company that just happens to talk about money. I run a feminist company that talks about money. And I think that my theater background and my communications background is absolutely huge for that. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.
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I'm like vigorously nodding because I 100% agree with you. As an entrepreneur, there's so much creativity that's involved in being an inventor that's involved. And by the way, entrepreneurship is not something that you tackle alone. So if for some reason you have a gap in business or financial knowledge, you can fill that gap with other people that you can hire on your team. And by the way, you're also allowed to be a dynamic person.
that can be good at business and finance and the arts, right? So I'm totally aligned with everything that you're saying. So something that you touched on that I want to dig deeper on is this fact that you were speaking to all this women and you felt like these words were sort of just glazing over their heads. And I know you've talked about in the past about how women and men are sort of taught different things when it comes to finance from when we're young children to adulthood. The way that we're taught this financial information tends to be different. Can you talk to us about that?
Yes, the entire thesis of my book really is that is just the lack of financial education and specifically how money affects women or any marginalized group differently. And if you are a man listening, I need you to not like check out because this is not like I hate all men. The patriarchy does not mean we hate men. The patriarchy hurts men just as much as it hurts women. So when we're talking about the way we speak about money,
First of all, nobody's taught about money unless you were, and that sounds like no doubt, but unless you had parents like mine who sat down to teach you about money, you were not taught about money. Regardless of your gender identity, that's the reality. It's like there are very few places to actually learn about money, and even when it's taught to you, it is emotionally charged typically, and it depends on
your parents or your teacher's background. I can't tell you the amount of first gen or people of color who have come to me and been like, I learned about money. I learned that credit cards were evil and that I shouldn't trust banks and that money was the thing we didn't have enough of so that when we got money, we had to just hoard it. And that's not exactly the perspective we want, right? So first of all, nobody's taught about money.
Second, I could spend an hour talking to you just about this, but I'll give you a very specific example. Look at the toys that we give boys versus what we give girls stereotypically. We give boys legos, trucks, things to build, right? Things that build their sense of self-reliance and of creativity and of their own ingenuity. What do we give girls? Dolls.
Easy Bay Gardens, things to take care of. We give a literal child, another child to take care of. So what we're telling kids is we're telling boys, your inherent worth and value is in your own creativity and your own thinking, right? Your own initiative. We're telling girls your value to society and your identity is in caregiving.
and altruism. Now, that altruism is beautiful and lovely, and it's one of the things I love most about being a woman. But what happens then, when we do start becoming financially confident as women, when I do go on social media and talk about the fact that I'm a millionaire, when I do talk about me negotiating my salary or me negotiating my rate,
Suddenly it's, why aren't you grateful for your opportunities? She's greedy. She's bossy. She's bragging. The weaponization of the altruism starts happening. So when we are conditioned to be altruistic, we're conditioned to be givers, which is again, beautiful. And we should donate and we should give.
When we don't conform to that roller identity, when we're no longer controllable, because really that's what it is. When I have money, I'm no longer controllable. The perspective shifts to we need to remind her that she needs to tax herself and just be grateful for where she's at and not go above her station. We don't do that for men. A man can post a photo on Instagram or on Twitter with him at the golf course.
in a Rolex, and the comments are cool Rolex, bro, you're doing well for yourself, right? The comments for women, if I show up in a designer dress or if I have the audacity and I'm putting this in quotes to flaunt my wealth, suddenly it's why aren't you donating more? It's not aspirational the way it is for men. Also, it's more socially acceptable for men to not only pursue wealth, but to talk about wealth.
Nobody's educated about it, but there is the shift that happens with teenagers, literally teenage boys, like going on Reddit, talking with their friends about crypto or the hot stock. Women are just not allowed into those conversations and not socially conditioned to have them. And my final point I'll make in heteronarbative relationships when a man is with a woman.
The men are handling the wealth building, the women are handling the day-to-day finances. Still. So in 2023, women are handling the budgeting and the coupon clipping and the household management. And that's important. That's how households run. But that's not the wealth building.
Men are handling the real estate and the investing and these like $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 decisions. Women are handling the like, which cottage cheese is cheaper. And so if we really want to see the wealth gap start to lessen, we have to have conversations about money. And we as a society have to be comfortable with women's pursuit of wealth in a way that we just aren't right now.
We're okay with men pursuing wealth. We're okay with men managing these huge decisions in a way we just aren't with women. It's so interesting to hear you talk about this and then thinking back to my own experiences. I feel like my fans and my listeners very positive about me speaking about money and how to make money and being really supportive. But then at the same time, I got people like my mom who will constantly be like,
Holla, stop saying how much money you make. And I'm like, why? My own parent who taught me about money are the ones who will call me and be like, I'm really worried about you. I'm really worried about you talking about how much money you make. And they're not wrong though, because that's the thing. That's another example. Men can talk about how much money they make and they're lauded women. It's a risk, a career risk, a like literally safety risk.
It becomes a risk when you are transparent about money in a way that just it isn't for men. And so I am doing the same thing where like, I will show you my pay steps. I will show you how much I make. I also now know that there is a certain inherent risk that just because of my gender identity in a way that there isn't for a straight white man.
there just isn't. It's so crazy. And again, we have this own internalized stuff going on ourselves, right? This is not like men necessarily like putting this on us. This is so many women coming to me being like, yeah, but I should just be grateful that I have a job at all. And I'm like, yes, and you're not being compensated fairly. So let's get you a race. So let's talk about how women are shamed for spending and the double standards around that.
I have a whole section of my book. We have a whole chapter about spending and one of the just such interesting things ties back to what I was saying before of like the Rolex problem, right? Men can purchase Rolexes and it's like you're doing well for yourself. Women have the audacity to spend money on anything remotely nice. And it's like, why aren't you donating more? That was a waste of money.
Specifically, let's talk about how we think of spending in general. The words frivolous spending almost are only attached to women. And what are the things that are deemed frivolous? Things that are innately feminine, lattes, pedicures, manicures, again, designer bags, the things that we deem frivolous are the things that are innately feminine. They're not NFL season tickets or golf clubs.
So when you Google like how to save money 2023, the advice is still minimize. The advice for men is maximize. Maximize your earning, right? Maximize your investments. How can you make more money? How can you expand? The advice for women is how can you spend less? How can you shrink?
The advice for men getting rich is make more money, which is good advice, but the advice for women is spend less money. There's only so much less money you can spend. In theory, you can make as much money as you want. Again, that's like a huge asterisk, but in theory, you can only not spend up to a certain point. You still have to pay your rent. You still have to buy food for yourself. So it's really interesting, the difference there.
And how again we educate people about money and specifically like what is deemed frivolous, the frivolous spending the stuff that's innately feminine. Yeah, super, super interesting stuff. I want to move on to talk about the psychology of money and mindsets behind money. So you say that we have to understand our emotions behind money and that money is not inherently bad. So how should we start reframing our mindset around money?
Yeah, when I was embarking on writing my book and really educating people about money in general, I was like, okay, we got to get to the actionable advice because that's what I'm really good at. I'm really good at like, you do this and then you do this and you do this. And here's what a Roth IRA is and here's how to take advantage of one. And what happened in my early days, I used to do one on one coaching with people and what would happen is they would be successful for a period of time, but then they would fall off the bandwagon for whatever reason.
And when I would ask them or like dig into that deeper, I started to realize, oh, there's so many emotional hang-ups. There are so many psychological trauma, quite honestly, about money. Money is emotional. It's psychological. When it's good, when it's bad, we feel a certain way about every financial choice we make, whether that's how we spend our money, how we're saving our money, what we're saving it for, everything is psychological.
So I very intentionally spent the first chapter before we go into the rest of it, before we go into the how to pay off debt and how to budget about how to navigate the emotional, the psychological sides of money. Even we were talking about before these kind of like narratives, you're told about money. The biggest one is you shouldn't talk about money. That's in polite, right? You shouldn't talk about money. That is a psychological narrative meant to keep you underpaid and overworked.
Because if you don't talk about money, you don't know that Chad, who was hired two years after you, is making 20% more than you. You don't know that the debt shame you feel your friend group feels to. You don't know. That's one of those that is so steeped in us. The other one is that money can't buy you happiness. That's complete and utter bullshit. A money can 100% buy you safety and stability. And that for most people is happiness.
Now it's true in theory, right? You shouldn't buy a Ferrari to make you happy, but it buys me the freedom to purchase something that feels like a small luxury or to hire a house cleaner if I need to do that and to be able to tip them 30%. There's so much flexibility that that offers. And I would argue that that is happiness. But again, that's a narrative told to you that you have internalized in order to not have you pursue money.
And one of the other ones is this misconception that like, if you work hard, you will be financially successful. Plenty of people, I would argue most people work their fucking asses off and yet have nothing to show it for it financially because of again, of this system that constantly keeps them in poverty.
So there's so many things that we have ingrained or narratives we've started to believe. And they start from our parents, they start from society, they start from, again, how we're raised around money. And so the first step to start unpacking that is to figure out what sort of, again, misconceptions or narratives have I been believing? And do I want to carry those with me? Do I believe that talking about money is taboo?
Do I believe that actually it's okay to talk about sex and death and politics and religion and anything else controversial before I'll talk about money? Because that's what the stats say right now. We're more likely to have any other uncomfortable conversation before we'll have a financial conversation. Do I want to see people who have money as inherently evil?
Is that something that I want to carry with me? You have to decide that for yourself. And the other practice I do in my book, and we can even do this live, if you'd like, is thinking about your first money memory. I was going to bring that up next. So let's do it. What is the first time you remember thinking about money? Because that will have a huge impact on the way you were viewing money in general. Because it's, again, it's how your parents or how your caregivers were using money. So my first money memory is saving any penny or, you know,
change I had in the Altoids tin to go see a musical.
The theater major runs deep, but like that was what I wanted to do. Cause my mom told me, if you want a ticket to this, you need to save your money. So I internalized, okay, if I want something, I have to save my money. I have plenty of other people I've talked to who my first money memory is my parents screaming at each other and arguing about how they didn't have enough money. My money memory is having to get its separate line and a separate ticket to get like my school funded lunch because my parents couldn't afford my school lunch.
There's plenty of money memories that have everything to do with how you're managing money now. So if you're willing to share what your first money memory is. So I remember I have two cousins that live down the street that are my age and we had a master plan that we were going to save money to go to Disneyland and so.
We had a big plastic crayon piggy bank that we'd fill with quarters and I would put them to work. I would make them create little paintings and pictures and then sell it at Sunday school and we'd have like slushy stands in the summer.
I'd be like massaging my parents' feet for $20. Like I was always hustling to try to make this money for Disneyland. And then I think we did it for like two years. And then we, I think we just like blew the money at the mall or something and like switched gears. But it was actually making money as a little entrepreneur, putting my cousins to work.
So that we could fund this Disneyland trip. And so I always felt like I guess anything was possible in terms of money and just making it happen. So pretty interesting. Yeah, it's so crazy to think about how it connects, right? And how it ends up manifesting in our lives now.
So if anybody at home can do that and can start digging into that, and then the follow up question is not just what is my money memory, but how does my first money memory again shape the way I'm managing money now? What through lines are there? And sometimes it's the exact opposite, like we were talking about before of
I see, again, a lot of first gen or people of color, they saw their parents not grow up with a lot. And so then their thought is, any dollar I get, I have to save. And I have no flexibility with myself at all, because I'm not sure when my next paycheck's coming, right? So even money memories that could be deemed positive of, okay, it's encouraging me to save.
But at what cost, right? Are you completely depriving yourself of all joy? Well, that's not great either. I had a client that I mentioned in the book who was saving 90% of her income. And she wasn't, you know, making a million dollars. It was like 90% of 75 K. And I was like, God, you don't need to save that much. But when we dug into it, she didn't grow up with a lot. And she was like, I need to save every single penny because I don't know what the future holds for me. And I'm like, you can ease off the gas. It's okay. It's okay to not to save all of this money.
Yeah, this reminds me of, I had to meet Sethi on the show and he talks about this concept of a rich life. Rich life, baby. Yeah. He came on our show as well and talked about it. And then he's also featured in my book, Financial Feminist, but yeah, perfect, perfect example of what is your rich life? What is the life you dream for yourself that money can afford you totally?
Yeah, totally. So just for context for my listeners, basically what he says is like you should have these different categories or money dials, figure out what you like to spend money on and go ahead and splurge in those areas and then really pull back on the areas that you don't care about and don't worry about feeling judged.
So for example, I like to spend a lot of money on clothes and shoes and bags. Certain people are like, you shouldn't do that. That's bad. But I've released myself from any of that guilt and I've set up my money dial. So for you, what does your rich life look like?
Yeah, Ramit has a huge impact on the way I manage money and the way I teach it. We call them value categories at her first center K. So it's like three areas in your life that bring you the most joy that you want to see your money going to and then very similar to him. You spend most of your money there and then you don't spend a lot of your discretionary spend elsewhere. So my three value categories are travel, food out. I am a huge foodie. I love going to restaurants and plants.
There's like probably 15 in this room. There's like one in the corner. I love them. They're my babies. I love spending money on them. I will buy their cute little pots. I will buy hangers for them. Like I love my plants. Do I buy the occasional Starbucks? Yeah. Do I, you know, just sweater sale at TJ Maxx? Yeah. I'm in there like swimwear. However, I am not spending all of my money on those things because those are the things that are less important to me.
Yeah. And I think the big message here is don't feel guilt about what you love to spend. Because it's your happiness. It's your life. Society tells you that you can spend money on travel, but you can't spend it on luxury and whatever, you know, society wants to kind of dictate. But don't worry about that and live your own happy, rich life. So speaking of another sort of tool that you talk about, you've got this concept of a money diary. Can you explain to us what that is and the framework around that?
Yeah, it was a practice that I started doing when I would coach clients one on one and it was this realization of, you know, I would ask people, okay, what money is coming in and they could total that up for me usually, right? Like, okay, I'm getting paid this amount during this time. And, you know, maybe I have this side hustle or if you're a business owner, right? I have, you know, these four clients and these are my revenue streams. And then I would say, okay, where is that money going?
And they would kind of be like, well, I think it's going to this. And then we would look at their credit card statements and they were like, just kidding, I have no idea where the hell my money went. I don't know. And if that feeling is your feeling of, I look at my bank account and I'm like, I don't know where my money went, then this is the practice for you.
It's literally writing down every purchase you make, especially discretionary purchases for a period of time. And it's not to shame you. It's more just to watch what behavior and what sort of mindset you have. So again, talk about this more in my book, but you do four things. You write down where you spent the money or what you spent it on, how much? So I went to Starbucks with about a $5 milka, right? And then why you made the purchase and how it made you feel. I was meeting up with a friend and it made me feel great because I haven't seen her in a while.
The why and how it made you feel is the transformational part because, again, money, psychological, it's emotional. I need you to understand why you're making this purchase. Is it I went out with my friends and I had a little too much to drink and I suddenly was buying shots for the entire bar.
Cool. Probably wasn't about great use of your money. Maybe it was. I don't know. For me, probably not a great use of my money. Now, am I shaming and judging myself? No, 100% not. I'm just like, interesting. Okay. I did that because I maybe wanted this feeling of belonging or I wanted this feeling of I am balling out and I can show people that I can buy an entire round. Maybe it's, okay, I bought this pair of shoes I didn't need and didn't want because my boss made me feel like shit today, right? And I was spending to emotionally cope. I think we can all, all,
you know, find a place in our life where we did that, especially like pandemic, right? I bought up $75 pregnancy pillow. Am I pregnant? Am I planning on becoming pregnant? No, did I need to feel something? Yes. Yes. Was it a great purchase? Actually, yes, 100%. I still use it all the time. But that's the thing is you have to start understanding my purchases, even the ones that are minor are psychological and emotional. And what will start happening is before you lay down that credit card or before you hit add to cart, you'll start going,
Okay, do I need this thing? Do I actually want this thing? Because I want your hard-earned money going to things that you actually love. It's your hard-earned money. It doesn't mean don't spend it like we were talking about before. It doesn't mean don't spend money. It just means spend your hard-earned money on things that light you on fire. And if it doesn't light you on fire, we don't do lukewarm in 2023. We don't do lukewarm with spending with men. We don't do lukewarm. Like we don't do lukewarm in 2023. We do things that light us on fire.
So if that's something that you're like, I don't care, then don't worry about it. Yeah. I really like that advice because what it does is it uncovers all these things that you may have not realized in terms of what was actually driving your actions. And then it will also uncover this is genuine. I genuinely like doing this. This made me feel good. There was no like ulterior reason for why I did it. That's like in my subconscious mind. So I really like this advice.
Another piece of advice from your book Financial Feminist is this idea of a financial priority list. And you give like a one, I think, four step outline of what you should tackle first. And I thought I could bring this up and kind of ask some follow up questions, make it more relevant to my audience. So number one in this financial priority list is to start an emergency fund. So what are the details or recommendations around this fund? And why do you think that's step number one?
Yeah. One of the misconceptions I hear a lot is I need to pay off my debt first before I save. I just so strongly disagree with that for a couple of reasons. One, I don't want you going into more debt trying to pay for an emergency because one will come up, right? And the second is that we prioritize mental health at her first center K. And like we were talking about this before of this feeling of stability or this feeling of choice, there is something so soothing about your head hitting the pillow at night and knowing that you're covered.
You lose your job tomorrow. You get laid off. You're going to be fine. A medical unexpected medical cost comes up. You're going to be fine or at least fine for a period of time, right? The emergency funds there to tide you over. So there's something so freeing about that, but also so comforting about that mentally, just knowing like, okay, I'm good. Your emergency funds should be at least three months of living expenses in a high yield savings account.
It's a good starter emergency fund. That is our first step before we pay off any kind of debt and that includes credit cards. So that's priority number one is that emergency fund in a high yield savings count. Everybody listening, if you do not have a high yield savings count, you are losing amounts of money on interest. It's the easiest thing you can do to immediately better your life because it's just like a savings account, except a higher yield. It's just going to boost your savings. If your savings is just going to sit there, which is what we want, we may as well have it work harder for you.
So that's priority number one. Priority number two is paying down debt that is over 7% in interest. Why 7%? Well, that's the average amount we can expect in the stock market, right? 7 to 8%. So if your debt is costing you more money than you could be earning somewhere else, that needs to be paid off first. Credit cards, every credit card is over 7% in interest, right? So we want to start paying down our credit card debt next.
Some student loans are all credit cards are. So anything above 7% start paying that down and making sure you're staying out of debt in the meantime. The third priority is kind of like a two-parter where you're saving for your retirement. You're starting to prioritize your retirement savings while also paying down your lower interest debt, anything under that 7 to 8%. So most student loans, car loans, mortgages. And then finally, as you're starting to save for retirement and as you're paying down your lower interest debt, start saving for what I call like the big life stuff, the
New car, the house, the getting married, the having children, the starting a business, the retiring early, the big things that you need to save for. The only thing that trumps this list or that adjusts it a little bit is if you get a 401k match at work. If it's 3%, that means if you contribute 3%, that your employer will match you at 3%.
We do a Lion King one and a half kind of situation and it flies in right between one and two. So one is that emergency fund one and a half is getting that 401k match because it's free money. And we're actually going to do that before we start paying off our credit card debt. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
Okay. Couple follow up questions here. A lot of my listeners are freelancers, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs. If there's no 401k, is there another alternative that you suggest? 100%. So we have a section in the book that breaks down retirement accounts for various different kinds of income sources.
So W2, if you're nine to five or if you get that 401k, great. An IRA, either a Roth or traditional IRA or great options. That is an individual or a retirement account. That's what IRA stands for. You can also open up an IRA if you're a self-employed person. I have a Roth IRA.
It's actually a great option for you because it's not tied to an employer, even your business. It is something that is yours. I believe the maximum this year is 6500 unless you're over 55. So that's a great option. There's also a various different self-employed options. There's actually a solo 401k that you can open that works just like a 401k, except you're your own sponsor because you're your own business owner.
The other thing that's really cool that I took advantage of when I was side hustling is what's called a SEP IRA. A SEP IRA can be for full-time business owners or for people who are making some sort of money in a side business. So when I was at my nine to five, I had my 401k through work, I had my Roth IRA, and then I actually had my SEP IRA through my business.
So when you're a full-time business owner or a full-time freelancer, you got to pick one or the other, either a solo 401k or a SEP IRA. But the SEP IRA contribution limits are something in the $60,000 range this year. So it's a really, really great opportunity for you to start saving for retirement.
Very similar to your question. I think a lot of people who are self-employed or freelancers are like, there's no options for me. There's actually, I would argue better options for you. I know that when I was working my nine to five, sometimes my nine to five didn't offer a 401k at all. And so I didn't have that option. When you are your own employer, you can open up whatever retirement plan makes sense for you, right? And for your business.
This is all really, really great advice. You're so knowledgeable. I mean, like, screw everyone who says like, you only have a theater background. Oh, I mean, I can show you bank statements. It's always men who, you know, are like user, it's anonymous users. And they're literally, I got one last night that's like, how are you qualified? And I was like, does the New York Times bestselling author and millionaire business owner work? And he was like, no. And I was like, okay, we can compare bank statements. I'm doing fine. Bless and block wish you the best.
Okay, so another question, and this is related to debt, and I really want you to try to dig deep in explaining this because I think this is really important. Sometimes it makes sense to pay off debt. You did allude to this a bit. Sometimes it makes sense to pay off debt as soon as you can. Sometimes it makes sense to actually let that debt linger and leverage your cash differently and make more money on your money. Talk to us about that because I think a lot of people get this wrong.
This word you just used leverage. So the word debt is associated in our society with shame. And even the very people we have sought out to teach us how to manage money, my nemesis Dave Ramsey, right? As he has told you that debt is wrong and bad and needs to be eradicated immediately. Debt is for poor people.
But when you get to a certain level of financial standing, debt has a new name. It gets like fancy Gucci shoes. And suddenly it's called leverage. It's the same thing. But leverage is this idea of, you know, you'll see like Adele buy this $30 million house and take out a mortgage.
We know Adele has $30 million, right? She could buy that house cash. Why doesn't she? She doesn't because she could be using the money that she would put towards buying that in cash towards a different investment that's going to make her more money. So she's willing to take on the mortgage, which at the time, I think when she bought the house was like 4% interest because she's going to make more money somewhere else.
So the question that I was alluding to before of like, do I pay off debt or do I invest depends on your interest rate. So if it's less than you could be making in the stock market, it actually makes sense to prioritize investing. Now, if you're in credit card debt and that's 25% interest, nothing's offering you 25% interest, right? So you need to start paying that off first.
I will also say one of the biggest things that I believe is personal finance is personal. And that's the math on this. But if you are the kind of person where you're like, I know there would be a significant boost in my life. If I didn't have to worry about this anymore, cool, pay it off. But don't neglect your retirement. This is again, Dave Ramsey is like, all of your debt needs to be gone. But most people have mortgages that they will be paying off for decades.
So okay, cool. You buy a house hypothetically at 30, you pay it off when you're 50, then you start saving for retirement. Like that doesn't work. That financially doesn't work. You're not going to have enough time to be able to contribute for retirement. So don't ever feel like debt is this thing that needs to be eradicated at all costs. There are variations of debt, right? Some is debt is quote unquote like worse than others because of that interest rate. It's okay to have student loans. It's okay to have a mortgage. I had a car loan for a long time.
Because it was like 2% interest. I can make a lot of money investing that cash I would have put down towards paying that off faster or towards, you know, just not having a loan at all. And I can put that towards investing and make that hundred K that I did.
To me, this is such a great strategy that so many people are not thinking about. Look at all your debt, see what your interest rates are, see where you can put that money differently and make more money and really plan it out. So I have another question for you, Tori. So I'm an entrepreneur and I've got this mentality in terms of like, I don't care about retirement.
I'm like a hustler. I always figure out how to make money. I'm not inspired to save money for retirement. What inspires me is I'll buy whatever I want. And then I'm like, all right, I'll just make more money. You know what I'm figuring out how to make more money. And I invest a lot in my own business, right? And take a lot of risks.
Because it's served me well. I take risks and then I make higher rewards typically, right? And I'm investing myself continually, whether that's my own company, starting new companies, investing in teammates, whatever it is. And so I guess my question is, this whole idea of saving for retirement feels so passive to me and feels like very uninspiring. And I just love to hear your thoughts about that.
It's really interesting. Thank you for sharing two things. The average person, like you will not be able to retire if you don't invest. So to get the average person investing and maybe this will connect with you, I try to have them picture what 65 year old you looks like because there is this arbitrary thing where you're just like, I'm saving for this thing that's so far away, especially if you're in like your like 20s or 30s. You're like, I, what's the point?
65 year old Tory, Nana Tory is going to be drinking Savion Blanc with lunch. She's going to be flirting with her much younger Pilates instructor named Luca. She has a Tuscan villa where she adopts dogs. She is somehow more badass than I am right now and I can't wait to meet her. But she doesn't get all of that unless I do some heavy lifting right now.
So again, we were talking about this is a perfect like roundabout. We were talking about before at the very beginning of the interview about how do I attach something emotional so that I am motivated to do it. I literally can picture 65 year old mandatory with her cute little handbag and her little wrinkles, but she's just so excited to be alive. I have to save money in order to get her to that place. On the flip side, I'm 28. I will never have to work another day if I don't want to because I have saved enough.
I have the option to burn all of HFK to the ground tomorrow if I wanted to and never work again and still be fine. Because I have saved and invested enough money from all of the money I've made. Now, I won't do that for many reasons. I love what I do. It continues to make a huge impact, right? Like, I won't do that. I will continue to make a lot of money. The business will continue to make a lot of money, but I have the option as someone who isn't even 30 yet.
to stop working. Work is now optional. There is something so freeing about that. So in the same way that it sounds like it is freeing for you to be like, I can just make more money. I feel that way in some aspects where it's kind of cool to just be like, yeah, I could put something on sale and make 20 K in a day. That's great. But I also get so much stability and happiness and excitement out of the baller ass move that is like, yeah, I don't have to work.
So in terms of that mindset shift for me, I started reading about financial independence when I was in my early 20s.
And it was less like, especially in the early days, that 100k, it was less about how much money can I make or how much money can I earn and more like, what can I put away so that I have options and I can save as much as possible and fast as much as possible while still traveling and going out to restaurants and having the experience that I want as somebody in their 20s. So I think that that for me was the kind of shift, the ability to have this money saved that I work as optional.
Yeah, and I think that we should all take this what do you call nana vision nana yeah, I literally call it in the book like grandparent you are like nana you like. What does that look like and again like we're talking about remit your rich life like your nana version of you is going to look different right. I've asked people in workshops before like what is nana you look like and for some people yeah it's very similar to mine it's like adopting dogs and like not giving a fuck.
And for other people, it's just like, I feel content. I have enough money. I feel content. I'm not stressed. And I'm like, great. That's amazing. That's amazing. I think mine is living in Miami with like a pink Lamborghini or something. Perfect. And it doesn't mean I sacrifice everything now. It just means that I am balancing that to make sure that she's not living in poverty, but she's not not having a good time because I didn't do a little bit of the heavy lifting now.
Okay. So let's close out this interview talking about earning potential since we just brought that up and how it's not just about saving investing. We talk a lot about that on the podcast. You started your business as a side hustle. So I'd love to close out the interview, getting your best side hustle advice. Why do you think side hustles are something smart that people should consider? And what are your suggestions in terms of getting started with a side hustle?
Yeah, want to acknowledge that sometimes a side hustle is just a fancy word for a second job and it's not a choice. It's a necessity. And if you are the person who's working a second job because you cannot afford life, it might feel a little cringy to hear me talk about side hustles, this nice fancy thing where you can diversify your income where you're just like, no, I need a second job. So want to acknowledge if that's you. I see you and I'm here to support you. And I know that's fucking sucks.
In terms of actual side hustle, if you're like, I want to diversify my income or maybe I want to be an entrepreneur someday, or maybe I just want to explore what this looks like. I'll walk you through the exercise that I walk people through in my book. I call it the three T's time talent treasure time. How much time do you realistically have for this thing? A lot of people are like, Oh, I'll start a side hustle and I'll be a business owner. And then they look at their calendar and they're like, I have no time to do that. How much time are you realistically able to give?
For talent, do you have something that you have already cultivated, a skill or talent that you've already cultivated that you want to continue doing? Or do you want to cultivate something else? For me, I was a social media marketer. I was good at that. I was good at storytelling. That lent itself very well to being an entrepreneur. I had already had experience as well being an entrepreneur.
For some people, they're like, I want to do something completely different or I want to be something that's more creative because my job isn't. It's going to take longer to get off the ground, most likely because you have to cultivate that skill. And then finally, treasure is exactly what it sounds like of, is this the thing you want to make money doing? I wish somebody had told me when I was 22 that not every hobby needs to be monetized.
Not everything you do that brings you joy needs to make you money. And in fact, there should be things in your life that don't make you money. If this is a, I want to make money off of this where I need to make money off of this, becoming an entrepreneur is not immediately going to make you money.
So if you want to be someone who is running their own business, but you need money right now, probably not the best option. I didn't see money from her first hundred K for a couple years. And I didn't see substantial money from it until like year four.
It did not pay my bills until year four. So that's kind of what you have to balance. If you're like, I need money tomorrow catering a couple of days, right? Or becoming a part-time barista at Starbucks. There's things that you can do more immediately to start making you money.
versus these things that are like the long term plays that you hope eventually will make you a ton of money. You just won't see it on the front end. So that's the kind of questions to ask yourself to figure out what side hustle is right for you. Time, how much time do I have and how much time am I willing to spend? What kind of talents do I need in order to do the thing that I want to do? Can I just do freelance social media? If I'm a graphic designer, okay, I'll just become a freelance graphic designer on the side.
And then finally, do you want this thing to make you money? And if so, how quickly does it have to make you money? Because that's going to shift what you choose.
And I think for me, when it comes to side hustle, something that I want my listeners to remember is that getting skills and experiences is so key before you go out and branch and start your own business and company. And so don't underestimate working in corporate or working for another person or getting an internship and just really trying to get real life experience that you can then monetize, but you have to be good at something first, typically when you're starting a side hustle.
So I definitely want to call that out. The other thing I want to call out is that not all side hustles are sexy and not all side hustles need to be something that you're passionate about. Can you talk to us about that? Yeah, I don't know if it's a lie that's fed to us that your work has to be your calling.
No, there are many things that you can do outside of work that give you happiness. And as long as you feel like you're compensated fairly and you have a general like of a thing, that doesn't have to be your life's work. That is really like America.
You go anywhere in Europe and they're like, yeah, I work and it's fine, but I work so I can live, right? A lot of us here are just living to work. So your identity does not have to be your job and I would argue shouldn't. I can take that advice for myself because my identity has become my job and become what I do.
So when you're thinking about making money, yeah, it definitely doesn't have to be sexy. It doesn't have to be the thing that looks good on Instagram. It can be something that's making you money and giving you more financial security. And it doesn't have to be your life's work or your capital P passion. It can just be something that makes you money. And again, as long as you feel like I am like motivated somewhat, right? And it aligns with my values or it's something that I feel like I'm getting compensated fairly at. Cool. Go for it.
Tori, I end my show with two questions. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?
Automate everything you possibly can. Automate your savings, automate your investments, automate your bills. If something has the ability to be automated, do it. I think we believe we get this gold star if we make things harder than they have to be. No, that's not true, especially when it comes to personal finance. If the option is available to you, automate it. I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond financial.
I have realized over the past couple of years that confidence is a self worth issue, but no one's talking about it like that. The biggest question, which is very flattering that I get asked other than a financial question is like, how are you so confident or like, how do you build your own confidence? I believe myself worthy of every opportunity of every, every piece of love and belonging.
When I walk into a date, it is not, oh my God, is this person gonna like me? It is, how does this person fit in with my life? I'm not worried about how I'm presenting myself. I'm just trying to figure out, is this person worthy of me? Is this relationship worthy of my time?
When I walk into a meeting with a client, I am wondering, how is this person going to see the value and the worth that I offer? And if they're not, it's not of interest to me. So in terms of building confidence, financial confidence, career confidence, relationship confidence, it is a self worthiness issue. If you believe you're self worthy of love and opportunity and belonging and of every good thing,
you will not be shocked when all of that starts happening in your life. I have never once questioned if I'm worthy of those things. I joke when I walk into a new therapist's office, there are many other things we're going to have to talk about, but worthiness is not one of them. So when you believe you're self worthy of those opportunities, you will show up differently in every aspect of your life. That's a very beautiful attitude to have, Tori. Where can our listeners learn more about you, your new book, your podcast?
Thank you so much for having me. I am at her first 100k on all the socials. H-E-R-F-I-R-S-T-100k. You can also go to her first 100k.com and I host the financial feminist podcast and I wrote the book Financial Feminist. Amazing. We'll stick all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Tori. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you.
