Speaker 1: This is Conversations with Olivia Jade and I Heart Radio Podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello everybody, it's Olivia Jade. Welcome back to another episode
Speaker 1: of Conversations. I am really excited for this episode because
Speaker 1: I think we're all going to learn a lot today,
Speaker 1: and it's a topic that most probably wouldn't expect me
Speaker 1: to highlight on my podcast. But I am so grateful
Speaker 1: that I have this opportunity and this person to come
Speaker 1: on and share just a lot of good information with us.
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil who it is, so let's
Speaker 1: welcome her. No need for this long intro, and she
Speaker 1: can tell you all about herself. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: please welcome Nicole Lapping. Hi, Nicole, I'm good, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. Thank you so much for having me of
Speaker 1: Corals on the show. Thank you so much. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Heart family. Thank you. I know I read that
Speaker 1: you're also a part of the family, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not complaining. Um, I'm actually really excited
Speaker 1: for today's episode because I know absolutely nothing about the
Speaker 1: topic in which we will be discussing. But before we
Speaker 1: jump right into it, do you want to give the
Speaker 1: listeners a background as to who you are, what you
Speaker 1: do your upbringing. Sure, I am Nicole Laughn and I
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Rich Fish. That was my first book.
Speaker 1: I am now on my fourth book with Miss Independent.
Speaker 1: And these are books that are about the typically boring
Speaker 1: subject of finance and investing. But I try to at
Speaker 1: least make it fun or as fun as it can
Speaker 1: be and readable, because I think this is such an
Speaker 1: important topic, especially for women to talk about, and I
Speaker 1: really think it's the last taboo we have out there.
Speaker 1: Like we'll talk about basically everything before we talk about money.
Speaker 1: I'll go to dinner with my girlfriends and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: tell me about your sexy life and your bikini wax,
Speaker 1: and then I say, well, what's your bank account? And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's crickets. I'm like, girl, he
Speaker 1: just told me about your landown script and this is cricket.
Speaker 1: What's so true? What is this? But I didn't come
Speaker 1: from money. I figured out how to make my own money,
Speaker 1: how to make it grow for me in the school
Speaker 1: of hard knocks, and I realized that you know what,
Speaker 1: it's a It's a language, just like anything else. We
Speaker 1: just don't learn it growing up, and we don't learn
Speaker 1: it in school, which is freaking bananas. It's crazy. If
Speaker 1: I were in charge of the world, it would totally
Speaker 1: be different. But I'm hoping to make it jargon free
Speaker 1: and understandable and accessible once and for all. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think, honestly, the main thing with this conversation is,
Speaker 1: at least for me, it's so intimidating because I don't
Speaker 1: know much about it, and because I wasn't taught at
Speaker 1: growing up that I don't even know where to start.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people feel that way,
Speaker 1: Like where do you start either, even if you're not
Speaker 1: in your early stages anymore. I mean, it's never too
Speaker 1: late to learn about this. I think these are really
Speaker 1: good skills obviously to have under your belt, But what's
Speaker 1: a good starting point for somebody that's just like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what any of this means. It is
Speaker 1: never too late. You're never as young as you are today.
Speaker 1: By the way, and I'm glad I didn't invest earlier,
Speaker 1: said no one ever. I just had these man's made
Speaker 1: for my new book. It's true. No one has ever
Speaker 1: said to me, you know what, I'm so happy that
Speaker 1: I didn't invest earlier. I'm just so stoked that I
Speaker 1: didn't do this in my twenties. No, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't actually need a lot of money to make money.
Speaker 1: You just need the most time possible because then you
Speaker 1: get to take advantage of this amazing, beautiful, glorious force
Speaker 1: that is compound interest, where your money is literally working
Speaker 1: for you while you're doing nothing. I mean, you work
Speaker 1: so hard for your money, it's time I think it
Speaker 1: returned the favor and the first step. All of my
Speaker 1: books are twelve step plans, and I truly think the
Speaker 1: first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only problem you can't fix is the
Speaker 1: one you don't admit you have in life and especially
Speaker 1: with your finance. So it's to be really really specific
Speaker 1: about them. Let your problems speak, and that's the best
Speaker 1: way to tackle them. And I really like to give
Speaker 1: a combination of forgiveness for my former self for what
Speaker 1: she didn't know. It's okay, but now that you know more,
Speaker 1: it's not okay, moving forward like a little bit of
Speaker 1: tough love, and say we can do better. What's like
Speaker 1: an easy first step besides just obviously recognizing maybe if
Speaker 1: you've been a little bit careless with your spending. But
Speaker 1: what's like a good first step that's achievable for most
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, I'm gonna put away this much
Speaker 1: money and I'm gonna invest it in this place, and
Speaker 1: how do you figure that out? So I would first
Speaker 1: come up with your spending plan, So instead of a budget,
Speaker 1: I call it a spending plan because like a regular diet,
Speaker 1: if you have an eating plan, you allow yourself small
Speaker 1: indulgences so you don't end up bingeing later on instead
Speaker 1: of something like a crash diet or a fat diet.
Speaker 1: And so I break that down into the three ease Essentials,
Speaker 1: end game, and extras, where sevent of your overall spending plans,
Speaker 1: so what you have coming in goes to the essential
Speaker 1: so your food, you're housing, your transportation, all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and then no more than half of that so with
Speaker 1: three five percent of the whole shipping going to housing,
Speaker 1: which is oftentimes or people blow their spending plan if
Speaker 1: they had one. And then to the extras, so whatever
Speaker 1: fun stuff does it for you, the latte, the manny petty, like,
Speaker 1: don't cut that stuff out cold turkey because you're just
Speaker 1: not going to stick to it. And then ideally to
Speaker 1: the end game. So that's your future self, your savings,
Speaker 1: your retirement, uh, anything you're saving up or if you're
Speaker 1: getting married, obviously that can be a separate sub savings
Speaker 1: account for your end game. Interesting. Okay, Well, A huge
Speaker 1: thing what I try to do with my podcast is
Speaker 1: I really want to incorporate the listeners into it. So
Speaker 1: I normally take it to social media and I get
Speaker 1: a little Q and A going. And when I announced
Speaker 1: that you were going to be on the podcast, I
Speaker 1: was flooded with questions because I think so many of
Speaker 1: my followers also relate to just not really knowing this
Speaker 1: basic or key information. And so I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you would mind if I could read some questions to
Speaker 1: you and we could help some people out of course
Speaker 1: bring it. Yes, amazing. Okay. So somebody said, which I
Speaker 1: think is an interesting rule of them, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: your opinion on it. They said, my method is if
Speaker 1: you can't buy two, you can't afford it. Thoughts. Huh,
Speaker 1: if you can't buy two, you can't afford it. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I've never heard that either. Um. Generally, I think that
Speaker 1: if you have it within your spending plan, it's accounted
Speaker 1: for and it's not something you're sneaking. If you have
Speaker 1: a company and you come up with a budget, right
Speaker 1: like my heart has a budget and they have Staplers
Speaker 1: in the budget for instance, they're not sneaking off and saying,
Speaker 1: m I wonder can I buy one stapler too? Stapl
Speaker 1: If I can't buy two, we can't buy any No,
Speaker 1: there's none of that like story you're telling yourself. If
Speaker 1: you have it laid out and you don't have to
Speaker 1: do it all day long, you just have to do
Speaker 1: what I Deally in the beginning of the year is
Speaker 1: a good time to set up a system, set it
Speaker 1: and forget it. You don't need to be looking at
Speaker 1: stock charts all day long, and there shouldn't be guessing
Speaker 1: like if you can buy one or two And sometimes
Speaker 1: you know you just because something is on sale doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's free. This happens that target all the time,
Speaker 1: Like you go in and you try to just get
Speaker 1: a roll of toilet paper or whatever, and then you
Speaker 1: end up with a whole cart because stuff is like
Speaker 1: on sale, but it's not free. So I think we
Speaker 1: often get into that emotional shopping and spending. Have it
Speaker 1: where you know a lot of times we had a
Speaker 1: bad day and then we buy something to make ourselves
Speaker 1: feel better. And that's just, you know, an addiction that
Speaker 1: we have to confront. And retail therapy, yea real tail
Speaker 1: therapy is real. It's so real. Take it from me.
Speaker 1: It's the realist thing. Um, how did you if you
Speaker 1: don't mind sharing, Like, when you first got into all
Speaker 1: of this, what was your journey kind of looking like?
Speaker 1: Or how did you start? What was the first thing
Speaker 1: you started with? So I grew up in an immigrant family,
Speaker 1: uh broken home. Nobody ever talked about money or anything
Speaker 1: like that. My boyfriend in high school said he wanted
Speaker 1: to be a hedge fund manager, and I thought the
Speaker 1: dude wanted to be in gardening. So like, I was
Speaker 1: so clueless, Olivia, I am the least likely person to
Speaker 1: be a finance anything. I never imagined I would get
Speaker 1: my own financial life together, much less teach other people
Speaker 1: about it. So truly, if I could do it, anyone
Speaker 1: could do it. And then I just needed a job.
Speaker 1: When I was eighteen and I was offered a job
Speaker 1: on the floor of the Stock exchange, and I lied
Speaker 1: and I said that I knew about it and I didn't,
Speaker 1: and I faked it till I made it, and I
Speaker 1: realized that it's the language like anything else. And you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in an immigrant family, I was only taught
Speaker 1: about cash, not mortgages or anything else. Um. And so
Speaker 1: I got a credit card for the very first time
Speaker 1: and got myself in a bunch of credit card debt,
Speaker 1: and then figured out how to get out of it
Speaker 1: the hard way. I mean, every book that I read
Speaker 1: or anytime I looked something up, it all sounded like gibberish.
Speaker 1: I needed a definition for the definition, and I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: there has to be a better way, because once you
Speaker 1: can actually speak it, it's not that complicated. It's like
Speaker 1: if you go to Japan and you don't speak Japanese,
Speaker 1: you'd be really confused. If you go to Wall Street
Speaker 1: and you don't speak the language of money, you'll be
Speaker 1: really confused until, of course, you speak it. So I
Speaker 1: figured out how to prioritize, to pulverize out of my debt. Again.
Speaker 1: Love alliteration. It just makes things easier. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: did six dollars or seven dollars a day. It can
Speaker 1: be baby steps, especially with something overwhelming, breaking it down
Speaker 1: into baby steps and those little baby steps broken down
Speaker 1: into even smaller steps is the best way to tackle
Speaker 1: something that's overwhelming. And money is often that and where
Speaker 1: do you put that, like six or seven dollars at first?
Speaker 1: So I there's two different kinds of methods that finance
Speaker 1: people talk about, the avalanche method and the snowball method
Speaker 1: for tackling your debt. So I like the avalanche method,
Speaker 1: which is the prioritize method. So you rank your highest
Speaker 1: interest rate first, and your highest interest rate is usually
Speaker 1: your credit card debt. So if you have a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks magically that you found, and you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of different kinds of debt, you have a car note
Speaker 1: or a car payment, you have a mortgage, you have
Speaker 1: student loans. You don't just find the hundred dollar bill
Speaker 1: and then pay that and cut it up. And yes
Speaker 1: it feels cathartic, but you should pay a hundred bucks
Speaker 1: toward the highest interest rate first, So toward whatever that
Speaker 1: is that you have on your credit card, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna pay that down, because that's gonna snowball and be uh,
Speaker 1: you know, greater and get out of control the fastest.
Speaker 1: So I would say, not all debt is created equal,
Speaker 1: and so make sure you know exactly what your interest
Speaker 1: rates are for all of your different kinds of debt.
Speaker 1: And you know, creditors can take away your house, they
Speaker 1: can take away your car, they can't take away your brain. Um,
Speaker 1: so I say that student loans should go at the end. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions from people saying, like, where
Speaker 1: do I start with paying off my student loans? Tips
Speaker 1: for paying off student loans, I mean I could find
Speaker 1: like hundreds of them. Um, so you're saying do the
Speaker 1: other stuff first, and that should be last on the list.
Speaker 1: It should be. There's a lot of relief to coming
Speaker 1: out of Washington and a lot of forgiveness out there,
Speaker 1: which is great. Uh so definitely check what the latest
Speaker 1: is for when you listen to this. And just because
Speaker 1: there was a moratorium on student loan payments doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you couldn't pay them. So, yes, you didn't have to,
Speaker 1: but actually, when the interest was paused on student loan
Speaker 1: payments over the pandemic, if you gave them a payment,
Speaker 1: it would be going towards your principle, which actually pays
Speaker 1: down your loan the fastest. So if you can still
Speaker 1: just what does that even mean? So you so you
Speaker 1: have a principle of what you're paying, and then you
Speaker 1: have the interest on top of that. And so when
Speaker 1: you pay mortgage payment, you're oftentimes just paying the interests
Speaker 1: and you're not paying down the actual cost of the
Speaker 1: thing that you borrowed against. Because if you get like
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollar mortgage, you're often paying just as
Speaker 1: much in interest as you are for the actual house.
Speaker 1: So the interest on these types of loans really can
Speaker 1: get out of control depending on what the interest rate is.
Speaker 1: And so when you had the opportunity over the pandemic
Speaker 1: to take a pause on your student loan payments, uh,
Speaker 1: if you did pay anyway, let's say you had a
Speaker 1: little bit of extra money, it was going towards knocking
Speaker 1: down the principle the base of what you actually borrowed
Speaker 1: and not the interest that's the stuff on top. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense sort of? I think that you're saying
Speaker 1: that because of the pandemic, that was like a government
Speaker 1: that was like a government enabled situation where they said,
Speaker 1: because obviously I'm not in school, so I am unaware
Speaker 1: of this side of things. Um, will you just break
Speaker 1: it down for me, like as if you were talking
Speaker 1: to a first grader, so totally. So if you took
Speaker 1: out student loans, then there are federal and private student loans.
Speaker 1: And so we've seen some relief that's come out of
Speaker 1: Washington around federal student loans um and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different programs that you can look into to
Speaker 1: help pay those down now, because we saw over the
Speaker 1: pandemic there was a pause on them, like in some areas,
Speaker 1: there was also a pause on paying rent for instance. Um,
Speaker 1: this is different because when you take out a certain
Speaker 1: amount of money, Let's say you take out ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: that ten thousand dollars is not which you ultimately pay.
Speaker 1: You ultimately pay much more with interest, right, And so
Speaker 1: when those payments were paused, uh, then you didn't have
Speaker 1: to pay any money toward paying them down. And so
Speaker 1: what I would suggest is that even if you didn't
Speaker 1: have to pay it, and you can pay it, you know,
Speaker 1: finance has been so hard for many people during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but it would go towards the main ten dollars that
Speaker 1: you were paying, which actually in the long run will
Speaker 1: help you pay less over then then the extra interest
Speaker 1: that you're paying on top. So as as much as
Speaker 1: you can get the principle down of what you're what
Speaker 1: you borrowed the better. Okay, this is another really great question,
Speaker 1: and it says the topic of money can be uncomfortable sometimes.
Speaker 1: If you are unhappy with your salary, what is an
Speaker 1: appropriate way to start this conversation with your boss? This
Speaker 1: is a great question. So everything is negotiable. The worst
Speaker 1: thing anyone can say is no. All these bills, by
Speaker 1: the way, are negotiable. If you have credit card um,
Speaker 1: if you have credit cards and your a p R,
Speaker 1: your interest rate is negotiable. Your medical debt is negotiable.
Speaker 1: I love to argue with online bill collectors because you know,
Speaker 1: the worst thing they can say is no. So when
Speaker 1: you're going to your employer for a salary increase, as
Speaker 1: an employer myself, you know, I like to see evidence
Speaker 1: that you are making me money. I'm not running a
Speaker 1: charity in my business, and so if you can show
Speaker 1: me like where you've actually contributed to the overall revenue
Speaker 1: of the company, then that's really helpful for me as
Speaker 1: an employer. So I would go in with a document
Speaker 1: or some sort of presentation, just like you would for
Speaker 1: any other client, but then do it for yourself because
Speaker 1: your boss has their own things going on and likely
Speaker 1: their own boss, and so they're not watching all of
Speaker 1: the things that you're doing, so you really want to
Speaker 1: highlight that for them, and then go in with a
Speaker 1: salary bump increase option, a perks option, and then a
Speaker 1: companyation of both. So the perks option could be something
Speaker 1: like a transportation stipend or an expense account or you know,
Speaker 1: working from home a certain day if you're back at
Speaker 1: the office, and then those things sometimes are more valuable
Speaker 1: than a bump in your base salaries. So I would
Speaker 1: look at your overall compensation package and uh, and then
Speaker 1: co in with a couple of different options, but definitely
Speaker 1: show how you've been contributing, because a lot of times
Speaker 1: people will say, well I deserve a raise, my boss
Speaker 1: will just give me a raise. Like you know, your
Speaker 1: boss has things to do. Your boss has like a
Speaker 1: board if they're the boss of that. You know, everybody
Speaker 1: has to report to somebody else. So really really don't
Speaker 1: be embarrassed about tuoting your own horn and spelling it out.
Speaker 1: Got it? How do you know when you are in
Speaker 1: a position to buy a house? Is there a formula
Speaker 1: that tells you how much you should spend if you
Speaker 1: have a certain amount saved. Yes, So this is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest questions I get, and I would before
Speaker 1: even getting into the nitty gritty here, stop and ask
Speaker 1: yourself if housing is buying houses right for you. We've
Speaker 1: been told a lot of financial truisms that I like
Speaker 1: to call bs on, And just because you've been told
Speaker 1: that buying a house is the right financial move doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean it's the right for you. So renting can
Speaker 1: be just fine, like if financial gods are not going
Speaker 1: to come down and get you because you rent. And
Speaker 1: in fact, a lot of people who can afford to
Speaker 1: buy a house rent because otherwise you're tying up a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunity cost for what you could be doing
Speaker 1: with that money. So unfortunately, a lot of young people
Speaker 1: are house poor, where they put all of their money
Speaker 1: that they saved into a down payment for a house
Speaker 1: and then they have very little money for anything else.
Speaker 1: So if God forbid something happened, you can't go to
Speaker 1: the grocery store with your mortgage. Um. And so instead
Speaker 1: of that uh using that lump sum like a hundred
Speaker 1: grand towards uh, you know, a five d a thousand
Speaker 1: dollar home, then I would say, think about the opportunity
Speaker 1: costs that you might be missing out on and putting
Speaker 1: your money in the market, which will ultimately get you
Speaker 1: about ten percent over time. Um. And I think the
Speaker 1: reason people think renting is throwing away money is because
Speaker 1: they forget about this thing called inflation. So then they're like,
Speaker 1: Grandma bought a house for fifty grand and now it's
Speaker 1: two d and fifty grand and housing is the best
Speaker 1: investment ever. Housing is not the best investment ever. It's
Speaker 1: not if you look at inflation adjusted prices over time.
Speaker 1: It actually has barely kept pace with inflation if adjusted
Speaker 1: for what the returns would be if you put your
Speaker 1: money in the market. Uh. So, I would say that
Speaker 1: get the idea of housing being a good investment out
Speaker 1: of your mind. If you want a house, cool, If
Speaker 1: you want to nest your face off cool. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to leave that particular area great. But that's
Speaker 1: a different reason than it being a good investment. I
Speaker 1: could think of a bunch of different things that would
Speaker 1: be much better and smith because remember, like a lot
Speaker 1: of things, you don't get back from buying a house
Speaker 1: to closing costs. You know, if the roof breaks, if
Speaker 1: the attic floods or what if the basement flood would be?
Speaker 1: That would be a whole different problem. So what would
Speaker 1: you recommend or like what you just said that you
Speaker 1: would suggest a million other things before a home. So
Speaker 1: I like to index funds and chill um. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have slipped into my d m s. This
Speaker 1: is these are the fun, sexy kind of d ms
Speaker 1: that I get about finance questions um over the pandemic,
Speaker 1: like should I buy Zoom? Should I buy Peloton? You know,
Speaker 1: should I buy Crypto? What's gonna be uh, what's gonna
Speaker 1: be most lucrative? And I think that you can have
Speaker 1: excitement and fun other places. I really like to keep
Speaker 1: it boring and basic with money and your money strategies.
Speaker 1: And so index funds. Do you know what index fends?
Speaker 1: No idea? Okay, So sometimes if you hear on the
Speaker 1: new is like the Dow is up for something like that,
Speaker 1: then the Dow and the SMP five funder those are indexes.
Speaker 1: And so those like for the Dow, for instance, those
Speaker 1: are the biggest thirty stocks that we have UM, and
Speaker 1: so an index fund will buy a little piece of
Speaker 1: all of those companies within that particular index. So you're
Speaker 1: buying a lot of different things that will essentially diversify
Speaker 1: what you have exposure too. So if one of those
Speaker 1: things fails, then you have something else to prop it up. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: if you're putting all of your money in one thing
Speaker 1: like Zoom stock or Peloton stock, and that goes down,
Speaker 1: then then so does your money. And so I like
Speaker 1: to I like to suggest what Warren Buffett suggested for
Speaker 1: his wife to do in his will. So Warren Buffett
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest investors of our time, and
Speaker 1: he said to his wife, put most of our money
Speaker 1: into low cost SMP five hundred index funds, which you
Speaker 1: know is basically just tracking the market. Not a lot
Speaker 1: of investors can beat what the market does. So when
Speaker 1: you hear the market is doing this, that generally means
Speaker 1: like the SMP five hundred, which are five hundred stocks
Speaker 1: that that would be tracking. Okay, that makes sense. Something
Speaker 1: new every day I would say, I'm so nervous about
Speaker 1: this because, as I said, it's so intimidating when you
Speaker 1: don't know anything. And I feel fortunate that I have
Speaker 1: somebody on my team that handles and helps me with
Speaker 1: my money. So I have somebody to go to. But
Speaker 1: I know so many people don't that it's like very overwhelming.
Speaker 1: When it comes to relationships, what do you think is
Speaker 1: the appropriate way to handle money? Should you keep finances separate?
Speaker 1: This is a great question. So money is one of
Speaker 1: the greatest causes of fights and divorce within couples. Um
Speaker 1: I think you have to start talking about money the
Speaker 1: earlier the better, and think about timing, tone and turf.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't have to be this hardcore conversation with
Speaker 1: all of your spreadsheets across the kitchen table and like
Speaker 1: some contentious conversation. You could be like, hey, what do
Speaker 1: you want to do in five years or ten years?
Speaker 1: Because goals have price tex. So if you have a
Speaker 1: conversation about what your goals and your dreams are, that's
Speaker 1: a much better way to approach it than something that
Speaker 1: feels scary and intense. And so when you're moving in
Speaker 1: with somebody, that's a different talk than when you get
Speaker 1: married and have kids because then you have more money
Speaker 1: talks like wills and advanced directives and not super fun
Speaker 1: things shock about that that's what grown ups do. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you're putting your money together, or if you're
Speaker 1: getting married, I would say, have a yours mind and
Speaker 1: hours account, so and have your the money that goes
Speaker 1: into the hours account you waited. So if some ultimately
Speaker 1: it's going to make more money and somebody is going
Speaker 1: to make less, it's it's very uncommon that people make
Speaker 1: exactly the same amount of money. So if one person
Speaker 1: makes a hundred thousand dollars in one person makes a
Speaker 1: million dollars, ten percent of that is going to feel
Speaker 1: similar to each person, but it's not going to be
Speaker 1: the exact same dollar amount. So you know, ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to person it makes a hundred thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year is going to feel like a lot more than
Speaker 1: somebody that makes a million dollars a year, for instance.
Speaker 1: And so I would say, come up with a percentage
Speaker 1: instead of a fixed dollar amount to put in the
Speaker 1: hour's account. Interesting, and then also don't forget like where
Speaker 1: the bills are um, whose name the bills are under,
Speaker 1: because you want to be accumulating credit. Um. Credit is
Speaker 1: like your financial report card, and your credit score determines
Speaker 1: how much how much of an interest rate you're going
Speaker 1: to get on any of the stuff. So your credit card,
Speaker 1: like the credit card interest rate that you have is
Speaker 1: not going to be the same as your friends because
Speaker 1: it's all based on your history. And I got a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about credit. Um, obviously it's really important
Speaker 1: to have good credit. I've seen a few things like
Speaker 1: how do you begin to build a like a good
Speaker 1: credit in your early twenties? And then I've also seen
Speaker 1: like what if you still live with your parents and
Speaker 1: you're under all their financial uh kind of their financial tree,
Speaker 1: and you don't have you like, how do you start
Speaker 1: building that credit on your own? Yeah? I mean the
Speaker 1: few ways to increase your credit score. The first one
Speaker 1: is paying your bills on time, and if you haven't
Speaker 1: set up automatic deposit for that, you definitely should. You know,
Speaker 1: stuff happens, you move, whatever, but that actually dings your
Speaker 1: score the most. And then your utilization rate, which is
Speaker 1: just a fancy word for how much credit you're using
Speaker 1: compared to how much credit you have. So if you
Speaker 1: have a five thousand dollar credit limit on one of
Speaker 1: your credit cards, um, you should not be spending five
Speaker 1: dollars on that. Yeah, you should try to keep it
Speaker 1: to you know, a thousand dollars or less, because then
Speaker 1: you're showing creditors that responsible with credit, so try to
Speaker 1: keep that too, um as much of a minimum as
Speaker 1: possible if you are responsible. I never say no to
Speaker 1: a credit increase because then that just helps your that
Speaker 1: fancy utilization rate. Um, don't necessarily use it, but always
Speaker 1: get higher credit increase if you can. And if you
Speaker 1: can't even get a credit card, a secured credit card
Speaker 1: is a great way to go or to become an
Speaker 1: authorized user on somebody else's card. So um, there are
Speaker 1: secure credit cards where essentially you would pay them off
Speaker 1: in full and that can just help build your credit
Speaker 1: by showing good payment history. Okay, that makes sense actually,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the most daunting topics and
Speaker 1: also one that mind boggles me that we are not
Speaker 1: taught this in high school, Like genuinely, it's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: But taxes so important. If you have no idea, obviously
Speaker 1: it's not something they teach us in school, how do
Speaker 1: you even begin in figuring out your taxes? And you
Speaker 1: have tips for disimplifying them. So taxes are definitely abuse.
Speaker 1: Don't be upset if you don't know about them. You
Speaker 1: don't actually necessarily need to know about them yourself. You
Speaker 1: just need to find the right resources to help you.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different online services like
Speaker 1: a turbo tax or something like that. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting them particularly, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: services that can help if you have very simple returns. UM.
Speaker 1: You can also if you make you know, less than
Speaker 1: fifty seven thousand dollars a year, you can get your
Speaker 1: taxes done for free depending on your state, like cal
Speaker 1: E I T C for me. If you go to
Speaker 1: that in California, then you can get help in doing
Speaker 1: your taxes. And just because you made a little bit amount,
Speaker 1: you know it, Just because you might have made a
Speaker 1: little bit of money that year doesn't mean you don't
Speaker 1: file a tax return. You should UM and in fact,
Speaker 1: you could be getting money back to you that you
Speaker 1: don't even know about. Are a lot of different tax
Speaker 1: credits that you could qualify for. But my suggestion is,
Speaker 1: depending on how much money you've made, UH use an
Speaker 1: online program, UH go to an organization like cal E
Speaker 1: I T C H for me, or find an accountant
Speaker 1: that is a certified accountant in your area. Green Flags
Speaker 1: for good investment Opportunities. I kind of liked how they
Speaker 1: phrase this because normally I always see like red Flag
Speaker 1: talking about like relationships, and I like that they said
Speaker 1: green flag for good investing. Green flags are awesome. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think green flags around anything crypto related,
Speaker 1: and crypto is the most risky, one of the most
Speaker 1: risky assets out there, but it's something that you know
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of buzz right now. And so
Speaker 1: green flag for me there would be keeping it to
Speaker 1: less than one percent of your net worth. And anyone
Speaker 1: can have a net worth. It doesn't matter how much
Speaker 1: money you have, it's just your assets. So tally up
Speaker 1: everything you have minus your liabilities, so everything that you owe,
Speaker 1: and then that's your net worth. But try to not
Speaker 1: uh try to not put in more than one percent
Speaker 1: of whatever that is because you can afford to lose
Speaker 1: one percent. You can't necessarily afford to miss out on
Speaker 1: if one percent becomes one percent though, uh So that
Speaker 1: is a good green flag. If you have boundaries and parameters,
Speaker 1: like a lot of this stuff is is similar to
Speaker 1: how we get our own emotional lives together, right. You
Speaker 1: want boundaries around your money. You wanna you wanna make
Speaker 1: sure that you are delineating it in a way that
Speaker 1: you are intentional about. You don't want to just like
Speaker 1: randomly put money into UM. You know something that you
Speaker 1: see that's on you know, hot on the news or whatever.
Speaker 1: Now on doage coin UM. So the first step to
Speaker 1: any of the investments is to get a brokerage. So
Speaker 1: do you need the difference between banks and brokerages. So
Speaker 1: banks would be like where you keep your savings account
Speaker 1: or get a CD which is a certificate of a
Speaker 1: deposit of deposit um at your bank and get kind
Speaker 1: of a low interest rate. A brokerage allows you to
Speaker 1: do any kind of investing beyond that, So those would
Speaker 1: be like E Trade or UM Charles Schwab or Vanguard
Speaker 1: or Fidelity, and those accounts would allow you to buy
Speaker 1: things like the index fund that I just mentioned to you,
Speaker 1: UM or anything else. With crypto, it's a little bit
Speaker 1: different because then you would have coin based or something
Speaker 1: like that where you would actually buy right. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of familiar with crypto because my ex boyfriend was like
Speaker 1: obsessed with it for very long time, so I'd always
Speaker 1: hear about coin base and ethereum and all these different
Speaker 1: things that I don't know how I feel about it.
Speaker 1: Are you invested in crypto slash? Is that something you
Speaker 1: recommend to people? I have a very little bit of crypto.
Speaker 1: I have a low expo sure fancy Wall Street terminology
Speaker 1: for that to crypto UM. There's you know, so there
Speaker 1: are different kinds as you mentioned ethereum, ripple, are other
Speaker 1: types of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is obviously the greatest. In the
Speaker 1: same way as that you would have a lot of
Speaker 1: different kinds of fiat currencies. Fiat currency is just a
Speaker 1: fancy word for like normal currencies that we would have
Speaker 1: the dollar or the yen or the euro or whatever else.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I would try, if you're just
Speaker 1: getting started in it, to keep it to some of
Speaker 1: the big ones that are UM like bitcoin, UM would
Speaker 1: be the largest one versus some of them more random
Speaker 1: ones because actually, anyone I've done shows on this can
Speaker 1: create a coin and it's not attached to any intrinsic
Speaker 1: value UM, and so it can be very volatile and
Speaker 1: it can be very risky. So I don't think it's
Speaker 1: the first place to start with investing for sure. That's
Speaker 1: really good to know because a lot of people are asking, like,
Speaker 1: would you recommend I just go straight to stock market
Speaker 1: or do something a little bit more safe, or is
Speaker 1: it worth taking this risk because it's everywhere right now? Um,
Speaker 1: so you got your answer people, Yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 1: no like a fast, easy way to double your money.
Speaker 1: This is such a dad joke or a mom joke,
Speaker 1: but like the easiest way to do that is to
Speaker 1: fold money and have truly anything else. Like, if it
Speaker 1: sounds stupid to be true, it probably is. Right. What's
Speaker 1: the number one misconception people have about money? Would you say?
Speaker 1: You see? I think that it is something only guys
Speaker 1: can do. Um, I think that. Um, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of women who are well educated and boss bitches
Speaker 1: in their own right still have this mentality that like
Speaker 1: a guy is going to figure this out. And I
Speaker 1: think for me, I've always wanted to have my own
Speaker 1: back no matter what, to have the money, and that
Speaker 1: means freedom to eve a crappy relationship, which a lot
Speaker 1: of women stay in because they think they can't afford
Speaker 1: to financially support themselves or leave a crappy job. And
Speaker 1: so I think changing our mindset around that. Even studies
Speaker 1: of showing that little boys associate power words with money
Speaker 1: and little girls associate scarcity or shame words with money,
Speaker 1: and so this has been socialized in US for a
Speaker 1: long time. It makes sense, and we see all these
Speaker 1: wrong coms and Disney movies where like the guys just
Speaker 1: figures out and like saves the day, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest misconception. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be that way, right. I feel like that's also such
Speaker 1: a big reason not to blame my lack of knowledge
Speaker 1: on this topic on society and what's right versus wrong.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like it is obviously very apparent
Speaker 1: that this is like not this is not true. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that's the fact, but that, you know, people
Speaker 1: say this is a man's job and they really know
Speaker 1: how to handle their money, and you kind of just
Speaker 1: sit back and you do the other stuff. And so
Speaker 1: I feel like my whole life I have have been so
Speaker 1: intimidated to even try and learn about it because I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm probably not smart enough to figure that out, Like
Speaker 1: it's probably so much more complicated than my brain can handle.
Speaker 1: And from talking to you, it it really does seem
Speaker 1: like it's not impossible to learn. It's definitely not impossible
Speaker 1: to learn. And I somehow got into this world of
Speaker 1: Wall Street and I realized that these guys, and they're
Speaker 1: mostly all guys I was like one of a few
Speaker 1: women on the stock exchange, and they really don't know
Speaker 1: a lot more than everybody else. I used to feel
Speaker 1: like it was this exclusive club, but the people inside
Speaker 1: don't know a lot more than the people out by
Speaker 1: the curb. They just talk about it way more confidently. Right,
Speaker 1: all about confidence. We can wrap it up after this,
Speaker 1: but this is the last and final question. And if
Speaker 1: you could give one just one piece of advice about
Speaker 1: money to the listeners, what would you tell them? I
Speaker 1: would say, take control today. Uh, you're never as young
Speaker 1: as you are today, and as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: today is as good a day as any. I promise
Speaker 1: your future self will thank you. It's your hard earned money.
Speaker 1: You work hard as heck for your money, so it's
Speaker 1: time that you fight for it. And it's time to
Speaker 1: allow this beautiful force of interest that's more often been
Speaker 1: used against people via credit cards and other things. Um
Speaker 1: I told you how much compound interests can grow when
Speaker 1: it's used against you, but it can actually you can
Speaker 1: use that very same force in your favor. So instead
Speaker 1: of being a customer upon in this system, you can
Speaker 1: it's so easy to be an owner in this system
Speaker 1: and you said you had three books out. This is
Speaker 1: my fourth. For Independent is my fourth. So you list
Speaker 1: off in order one through four what the names are
Speaker 1: in case people want to buy and learn even more.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing. Yes, so rich Witch was my
Speaker 1: first book. Of boss Witch is my second book. Love
Speaker 1: Becoming Superwoman is my third book, which is about burnout
Speaker 1: and how mental health affects your career. Um. And then
Speaker 1: number four is Miss Independent, which is a simple twelve
Speaker 1: step planned to start investing and grow your own wealth.
Speaker 1: There are more books. I can't believe that this is
Speaker 1: the first of a seven book. That is crazy. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of information to be to be aware of. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, honestly, thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: I know this is going to be so like so
Speaker 1: helpful for so many people, And it was very helpful
Speaker 1: for me because before his conversation I knew basically nothing
Speaker 1: I would say confidently, So I really appreciate it. I
Speaker 1: will definitely be ordering her books. I encourage you guys
Speaker 1: to do the same, and especially if you're a female,
Speaker 1: we gotta take over. Hell yeah, hell yeah, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Nicole, Thanks Olivia. All right by guys one