Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, we're talking about what it
Speaker 2: means to be a financial feminist and why it's so
Speaker 2: important to get money into women's hands.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, June tenth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Voice, and this is the bright side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, Danielle. It's Monday, and it is time
Speaker 3: to kick off the week with some food for thoughts.
Speaker 3: These are the stories that make us curious. They motivate
Speaker 3: us and give our mondays a little fresh perspective. You know,
Speaker 3: shall we get into it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Okay, mine is kind of silly, but just bear with me, Okay.
Speaker 3: So I saw this article in Pop Sugar. Headline reads
Speaker 3: why am I obsessed with sitting in my car for
Speaker 3: long periods of time? And when I read that, I
Speaker 3: felt so seen because I realized sitting in my car
Speaker 3: is like a form of therapy, something about shutting the doors.
Speaker 1: There's like soundproofing. No one can get in. It's just me.
Speaker 3: I get to just do whatever I want. I feel autonomous.
Speaker 3: And apparently this is a phenomenon that a lot of
Speaker 3: other people engage in too. Does that resonate with you
Speaker 3: at all? Do you sit in your car like a
Speaker 3: weirdo like me.
Speaker 2: I will be right in front of my driveway sitting
Speaker 2: in my car. I could just go right. And I
Speaker 2: don't have kids or a husband. It's quiet in my house,
Speaker 2: but I will just sit in my car.
Speaker 1: There's something just very warm. And I don't know. You're right.
Speaker 1: Everything you said is right. I don't know the science
Speaker 1: behind it, but you're totally right. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if there is any science behind it. I mean, here's
Speaker 1: what a psychotherapist said who is part of this article.
Speaker 1: She said, the sitting in your car allows for a
Speaker 1: moment to decompress, process your day, prepare yourself mentally for
Speaker 1: what's next. I mean, yeah, of course we know that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it's a controlled environment, so it does.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what it is. It provides this sense of
Speaker 3: control and safety. The car is parked, you're not moving,
Speaker 3: nothing can hurt you, nothing can get in or get out.
Speaker 1: It's just great. It's so underrated as a form of
Speaker 1: self care.
Speaker 2: It's so relatable, Like I know so many women in
Speaker 2: particular that do this.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: That would be a good question, like would we just
Speaker 3: find men sitting in their car to take a few
Speaker 3: minutes to themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, it's so funny, Okay, Simone. Over
Speaker 2: the weekend I read an article in The Cut about ambition.
Speaker 2: And we talk about ambition and drive so much on
Speaker 2: this show. But it really got me thinking because over
Speaker 2: the last few months there have been tons of rumors
Speaker 2: about j Lo and Ben breaking up, that they're allegedly
Speaker 2: on the rocks. The writer of this article uses that
Speaker 2: as an entry point to a larger conversation, and it
Speaker 2: basically comes down to is j Loo too ambitious? Everybody's
Speaker 2: saying that ambition broke up her marriage, that she chooses
Speaker 2: work over family. And what I liked about this article
Speaker 2: was the writer was just saying, I'm done with the
Speaker 2: conversation around ambition and feminism. We're having the wrong conversation.
Speaker 2: Ambition isn't good or bad. It's not an either or
Speaker 2: situation and we've all been looking at it wrong.
Speaker 1: So how should we look at ambition? Then? What's your
Speaker 1: takeaway from this article?
Speaker 2: My takeaway is that we don't talk about men's ambition
Speaker 2: it just is, and we constantly talk about women's ambition.
Speaker 2: Should we lean in? Should we have a seat at
Speaker 2: the table. And I know why we're talking about it.
Speaker 2: We're talking about it because historically we haven't had a
Speaker 2: seat at the table. And I think when it comes
Speaker 2: to ambition and women, we should start thinking about ambition
Speaker 2: more broadly. We should open it up to being ambitious
Speaker 2: about friendships, being ambitious about cooking, being ambitious about whatever
Speaker 2: it is that lights you up, because it doesn't just
Speaker 2: have to be associated with work, because men's ambition isn't well.
Speaker 3: I also think that we've never really been good in
Speaker 3: our society at holding space for two truths at once,
Speaker 3: and that is what we should be doing with ambition.
Speaker 3: There's this zero sum mentality that if you're an ambitious woman,
Speaker 3: you can't be a great mother or great wife, and
Speaker 3: that's right. It couldn't be further from the truth. Like
Speaker 3: we are multi dimensional human beings and the same is
Speaker 3: true for men.
Speaker 1: So I would just love for all of us to
Speaker 1: embrace a little bit more nuance. Okay, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you brought this up, Danielle.
Speaker 2: It's a great article by Jennifer Romalini. I encourage everyone
Speaker 2: to read it. After the break, I sit down with
Speaker 2: Tory Dunlap to continue the conversation about feminism, but this
Speaker 2: time as it relates to money. She's here to tell
Speaker 2: us why a financial education is a woman's best form
Speaker 2: of protest.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: We're back and our guest today is Tour Done lap
Speaker 2: Aka her first one hundred k on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 2: She's a New York Times best selling author and the
Speaker 2: host of the podcast Financial Feminist. In three years, Tory
Speaker 2: went from being just out of college to saving her
Speaker 2: first one hundred thousand dollars at age twenty five, then
Speaker 2: launching her own company teaching women financial literacy.
Speaker 1: Today, Tory says she's fighting for.
Speaker 2: Women's financial rights, and she's here breaking down her approach
Speaker 2: to financial freedom.
Speaker 1: Tory, Welcome to the bright Side. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. I'm so excited to be here, Tory.
Speaker 1: I need to know all the things.
Speaker 2: Take me back to before you were a New York
Speaker 2: Times bestselling author, before you started your financial literacy platform.
Speaker 2: How much were you making, what were you paying and rent,
Speaker 2: what were you saving? What was your approach to making
Speaker 2: this happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the common misconception is that I was living in
Speaker 4: my parents' house, eating oatmeal, and never did anything fun,
Speaker 4: And none of those things were true. I was twenty five,
Speaker 4: I was in Seattle. I was in a one bedroom
Speaker 4: apartment that I think was about seventeen hundred dollars a
Speaker 4: month in rent. I was making about seventy K a
Speaker 4: year pre tax, and then I had a side hustle
Speaker 4: where I was making a little bit of money, but
Speaker 4: I was just diligently saving the entire time. So the
Speaker 4: process of one hundred K was a couple things. One
Speaker 4: I always like to acknowledge the privilege that I have.
Speaker 4: I graduated college debt free, and it wasn't because I
Speaker 4: have a trust fund, but I got a lot of scholarships.
Speaker 4: My parents had saved a college fund for me, so
Speaker 4: we collaboratively were able to pay for college, and so
Speaker 4: that gave me a huge lead up. The second thing
Speaker 4: is that I was saving a portion of my take
Speaker 4: home pay. So anybody listening can do this. You can
Speaker 4: set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to
Speaker 4: your savings account. So maybe that's every time you get paid,
Speaker 4: maybe that's once a month. But I was saving twenty
Speaker 4: seven percent of my take home pay, and that was
Speaker 4: immediately before I even saw it just going into savings,
Speaker 4: and that was an amount I built to over time.
Speaker 4: I was also investing. Women on average wait longer to invest.
Speaker 4: The men are don't invest at all, and it ends
Speaker 4: up costing us literally million of dollars. And it's one
Speaker 4: of the most powerful things we can do to build wealth.
Speaker 4: So I opened up a roth I array when I
Speaker 4: was twenty two and max that out every year. And
Speaker 4: I still was going to Costa Rica, I was still
Speaker 4: eating out, I was still you know, having fun in
Speaker 4: a big city. And so yeah, it was one hundred K.
Speaker 4: Was the impetus of a lot of the work that
Speaker 4: I now do, which is teaching women all over the
Speaker 4: world how to be more financially confident. And it's what
Speaker 4: I believe I was put on this earth to do,
Speaker 4: is fight for women's financial rights.
Speaker 2: So you hit your savings goal in twenty nineteen when
Speaker 2: you were just twenty five years old, and then a
Speaker 2: year later you launched your own company. Is it true
Speaker 2: you started with forty dollars?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I started with forty bucks.
Speaker 4: I literally decided, okay, you know, you know tumblr blogs
Speaker 4: were all raged in you remember that whereas like tumblr
Speaker 4: blogs were huge and I had always wanted to like
Speaker 4: blog about life as a twenty something woman, and had
Speaker 4: put it off for years because I felt like I
Speaker 4: didn't know enough. I was doing the thing that all
Speaker 4: women do, which is like it's either perfect or nothing,
Speaker 4: and like I have to have the perfect website and
Speaker 4: the perfect logo and the perfect brand name, and I
Speaker 4: have to know everything I'm talking about, and like none
Speaker 4: of that is true. So I literally decided one night
Speaker 4: in December twenty sixteen, I'm like, I'm just going to
Speaker 4: launch this thing, wrote three blog posts, didn't know how
Speaker 4: to code, and threw up a website. And so my
Speaker 4: first two investments in the business were like the website
Speaker 4: platform and the domain. So it was twenty bucks and
Speaker 4: twenty bucks and that's how we got started.
Speaker 2: It's mind blowing to think that last year your business
Speaker 2: hit four million dollars in revenue for product sales.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're doing three to four mili a year. We're
Speaker 4: on track to do five million just this year.
Speaker 1: Thank god, Wave the Flag.
Speaker 2: What do you think was the most crucial decision you
Speaker 2: made in getting there?
Speaker 1: Honestly getting on TikTok. Really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I started on TikTok in July of twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: our like fifth video ever went crazy viral and it
Speaker 4: just it was like rising tide lifts all ships. It
Speaker 4: was just incredible how quickly our business grew from there.
Speaker 4: And it was also launching our podcast, Financial Feminist, and
Speaker 4: the first episode came out and within forty eight hours
Speaker 4: we were the number one business podcast, and at the
Speaker 4: time we were the only women hosted, women focused show
Speaker 4: in the top forty.
Speaker 1: But I think it was those big too.
Speaker 4: It was getting on TikTok and posting regularly and then
Speaker 4: launching our show sounds.
Speaker 1: To me like self.
Speaker 2: If I were to try and categorize it, it's self
Speaker 2: enterprising and it's consistency over time.
Speaker 4: It's one hundred percent consistency. Yeah, because I think especially
Speaker 4: with any you know, if we're talking to anybody who's
Speaker 4: dreamt of building a business, it's going to be cringey
Speaker 4: for a while. Like that's something I wish more people
Speaker 4: talked about, Like you have to post, like you already
Speaker 4: have a million followers. I remember seeing even a post
Speaker 4: the other day that was someone like, if you want followers,
Speaker 4: you have to post, Like if you want to, you know,
Speaker 4: build a business, you have to build the business. I
Speaker 4: think it's just so easy for us to say, well,
Speaker 4: I'm scared of doing it wrong, I'm scared of failing,
Speaker 4: or I'm scared that I don't know everything I need
Speaker 4: to know, so I'm just not going to do it.
Speaker 1: But you learn as you go.
Speaker 4: You learn all of the answers to the questions you
Speaker 4: didn't know you had as you go.
Speaker 2: Your website says having a finance education is a woman's
Speaker 2: best form of protest. Why is getting money into the
Speaker 2: hands of women so important?
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Money means options, money means choices.
Speaker 4: And when you look at a really alarming statistic, but
Speaker 4: I think is the perfect representation of this, ninety nine
Speaker 4: percent of abusive relationships have some sort of financial abuse
Speaker 4: tied to them. So when you hear a stat like that,
Speaker 4: what does that tell you, Well, it tells you that
Speaker 4: money is used as a form of control, and that
Speaker 4: money leads to better options and more security and your
Speaker 4: own autonomy. So when women have money, you can leave
Speaker 4: a bad situation, whether that's a relationship or a job
Speaker 4: that you don't want to be in anymore, because you
Speaker 4: can afford to quit, or you can afford to leave
Speaker 4: you can afford your own apartment. Having money means you
Speaker 4: get to donate to causes and people and legislation that
Speaker 4: you believe in. Having money means you get to start businesses,
Speaker 4: or to travel, or to have kids or not have kids,
Speaker 4: or get married or not get married. Every option opens
Speaker 4: up to you when you have money. And so I
Speaker 4: believe that we don't have any sort of equality for
Speaker 4: any marginalized group until we have financial equality, because when
Speaker 4: we are safe and living a life of abundancy and wholeness,
Speaker 4: the entire world starts to change. And that is the
Speaker 4: feeling I want for every single woman on this planet,
Speaker 4: is the ability to get out of situations she doesn't
Speaker 4: want to be in, put herself in situations she loves
Speaker 4: and feel safe in, and more than that, where she
Speaker 4: absolutely thrives.
Speaker 2: When I have conversations about money with my girlfriends versus
Speaker 2: my guy friends, it's so very clear to me that
Speaker 2: women were taught as girls to think about money from
Speaker 2: a standpoint of budgeting and men were taught to think
Speaker 2: of it as wealth building. There's a stark difference. And
Speaker 2: your book offers seven different teachings, so you have principles
Speaker 2: like earning, investing, debt, even emotions tied to money. But
Speaker 2: I want to talk about spend. You say something that
Speaker 2: many financial experts don't say, which is, do not scrimp
Speaker 2: on the things, go to costa Rica, travel, dine, spend
Speaker 2: money on plants. Why is it important to identify where
Speaker 2: we should spend and not feel guilty about it?
Speaker 1: I love this question.
Speaker 4: A lot of the narratives that are given to women
Speaker 4: about how to be better with money are about how
Speaker 4: to spend less, and really that means how to hate
Speaker 4: your life, and it's not actually sustainable and it's not
Speaker 4: actually good advice. The advice we're giving to men is
Speaker 4: great advice, which is expand right. Become the fullest version
Speaker 4: of yourself. Invest in real estate, invest in the stock market,
Speaker 4: find a better paying job, negotiate your salary. What is
Speaker 4: the advice to women? Here are five meals you can
Speaker 4: make under five dollars. Stop buying the latte, stop getting
Speaker 4: the designer purses or you know, the blowouts of the
Speaker 4: hair salon. Anything that is innately or like stereotypically feminine
Speaker 4: is deemed frivolous. Rightous spending frivolous is not NFL season tickets.
Speaker 1: It's not golf clubs. It's not video games.
Speaker 4: So what does that tell me, Well, one, it tells
Speaker 4: me that the advice we give around money is incredibly gendered.
Speaker 4: And second, scrimping is not the answer because there's only
Speaker 4: so much that you can eventually stop cutting. Let's say
Speaker 4: you do cut everything fun from your life, Well, you
Speaker 4: still have to pay for your rent, you still have
Speaker 4: to pay for daycare, you still have to pay for groceries. Right,
Speaker 4: there's only so much you can cut. But in theory,
Speaker 4: you're earning potential, or your compound interest potential is limitless.
Speaker 4: So when it comes to spending, ninety nine percent of
Speaker 4: diets don't work because the more you tell me I
Speaker 4: can't have fried chicken, the more I want fried chicken.
Speaker 4: And that is not willpower, that is literal psychology. So
Speaker 4: we instead have to find the things that we actually love.
Speaker 4: So what you're talking about are what I call value
Speaker 4: categories in the book, identifying the three areas in your
Speaker 4: life where you get the most joy, because you don't
Speaker 4: have to stop spending money, but you do have to
Speaker 4: stop spending money on shit you don't care about. Like
Speaker 4: we want a piping hot life, we want things that
Speaker 4: we love and things that light us up. I'm done
Speaker 4: with lukewarm, Like, I don't want to spend money that
Speaker 4: I don't really want to spend on things that I
Speaker 4: don't really like, or to appease people that I don't
Speaker 4: really care about.
Speaker 1: The appeacement is big, it's huge.
Speaker 4: So for me, those three value categories are travel, food, out,
Speaker 4: and plants. You can't see it, but I have probably
Speaker 4: twenty five plants in my office alone. They're my babies.
Speaker 1: I love them. You're a plant debt, you can they
Speaker 1: truly am.
Speaker 4: So you get to identify, like what those three value
Speaker 4: categories are and spend pretty unabashedly in those categories so
Speaker 4: that you can also save and invest and pay off
Speaker 4: your debt and do all of the advice that we
Speaker 4: give men but that we don't give women.
Speaker 2: So there's so much inspiration porn out there on the internet,
Speaker 2: especially with financial experts. I see it all the time.
Speaker 2: They tell you to dream big, to hustle hard, and
Speaker 2: very few people tell you in practical terms how to
Speaker 2: get there.
Speaker 1: Where can someone start? I'm going to give you a scenario.
Speaker 2: Let's assume someone has credit cards, they have a savings account.
Speaker 2: What are the first three things that they should do
Speaker 2: to start to build wealth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I could go off on a whole tangent about
Speaker 4: inspiration porn, and I appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah,
Speaker 4: a lot of people tell you to dream your bid dreams,
Speaker 4: but they don't tell you actually what to do. And
Speaker 4: with personal finance in particular, they don't acknowledge that it's
Speaker 4: about eighty percent your circumstances and twenty percent your personal choices.
Speaker 4: So you know, there's so many factors that have nothing
Speaker 4: to do with like how hard you work, or like
Speaker 4: how smart you are with money. So first one, we
Speaker 4: talked about it already, automate your savings, automate every part
Speaker 4: of your financial life, automate your bills, automate a four
Speaker 4: to one K contribution, but automate your savings. Because our
Speaker 4: first goal is an emergency fund should be about three
Speaker 4: months of living expenses in a highielded savings account. And again,
Speaker 4: setting up that transfer allows you to do it on
Speaker 4: autopilot without you even having to think about it, which
Speaker 4: is a great way to save and also not put
Speaker 4: it off. Second thing is to start identifying, like I
Speaker 4: said before, what are your value categories and where's your
Speaker 4: current money going. Is your money going to things you
Speaker 4: actually love and things that make your life worth living
Speaker 4: or is it being diluted with just spending because you're
Speaker 4: trying to feel something. So actually ask yourself, like what
Speaker 4: money is coming in, what money's going out, and when
Speaker 4: it goes out, where is it going and does it
Speaker 4: align with your values and things that actually make your
Speaker 4: life worth living. And finally, if you are not investing,
Speaker 4: we need you to start investing. Maybe that's through your
Speaker 4: four oh and K, which is your workplace sponsored retirement account.
Speaker 4: If you don't get access to one of those, it's
Speaker 4: opening up something like a roth IRA, which is an
Speaker 4: individual account for retirement and doing everything you can to
Speaker 4: contribute to one of those accounts.
Speaker 2: In your opinion, what is the most common mistake people
Speaker 2: are making when it comes to their money.
Speaker 4: I can't teach you to pay off debt, I can't
Speaker 4: teach you to budget, I can't teach you to invest
Speaker 4: until we start to understand a lot of the emotions
Speaker 4: and the psychological hang ups that are keeping you from
Speaker 4: being successful with your money. So as like not fun
Speaker 4: as it is like you need to do some financial
Speaker 4: therapy and some like trauma excavation because we don't realize
Speaker 4: just how linked our emotions and our money are. So
Speaker 4: one of the biggest mindsets that I see that I think,
Speaker 4: I just really want to debunk. For women, we often
Speaker 4: will do the like, well, I'm so bad with money,
Speaker 4: or I am not good with math, so I'm not
Speaker 4: good with money, or you know, I didn't know this
Speaker 4: sooner I keep making mistakes and this is Yeah, money
Speaker 4: is a skill.
Speaker 1: It's not inherent in our DNA.
Speaker 4: You're not born with the good with money gene or
Speaker 4: born with the bad with money gene. Like I love
Speaker 4: saying this because it blows people's minds. I majored in
Speaker 4: communications and theater in college. Like I didn't major in finance.
Speaker 4: I technically didn't even major in business. And I am
Speaker 4: a multimillionaire with a multimillion dollar company that teaches other
Speaker 4: women how to do this too. Like, it's not about math.
Speaker 4: It's actually not even you know about your graphs and
Speaker 4: your charts and your numbers. It's actually about your brain
Speaker 4: and your body and about understanding goals. And women are
Speaker 4: really good at setting goals and knocking them out of
Speaker 4: the park.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about financial transparency in the world The
Speaker 2: idea is that when we don't share what we make,
Speaker 2: we're upholding the.
Speaker 1: Systems that keep us down.
Speaker 2: But it can sometimes be a little spicy to share
Speaker 2: what you make with your coworkers, like it can start
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this? What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on financial transparency?
Speaker 4: The whole talking about money is ghost thing or talking
Speaker 4: about money is impolite is a narrative that keeps you
Speaker 4: underpaid and overworked. I will say though that this is
Speaker 4: again part of the larger conversation about how we view
Speaker 4: women with money, and again we could do a whole
Speaker 4: podcast specifically on this. I think that you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of the conversation has been okay, yeah, be transparent
Speaker 4: about your salary, negotiate for a raise. But we are
Speaker 4: not living in a system or a society that allows
Speaker 4: women the pursuit of wealth. We allow and encourage men
Speaker 4: to pursue wealth unabashedly. But when a woman asks for
Speaker 4: what she deserves at work, or when a woman posts
Speaker 4: you know how much her business charges, the converse is
Speaker 4: very different. The conversation is why are you charging for
Speaker 4: your services? You should just do this for free if
Speaker 4: you really loved it, which is like a good chunk
Speaker 4: of my Instagram comments. And you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: the conversations with women negotiating for a raise is like
Speaker 4: you should just be grateful that you have a job
Speaker 4: at all. So I think, again, this is where financial
Speaker 4: transparency is so important. Where we as individuals can make
Speaker 4: an impact is having those conversations sharing our salary for
Speaker 4: white women, especially sharing salary with your folks of color
Speaker 4: and with your coworkers of color. There's this rule called
Speaker 4: the over or under rule, and it can be a
Speaker 4: great way of talking about salary without talking about salary.
Speaker 4: So I might ask you, hey, do you make over
Speaker 4: under eighty K a year? And you say over? And
Speaker 4: I go, okay, do you make over under one hundred
Speaker 4: K a year? And they say under? Okay, Now I
Speaker 4: just have a better range.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's it's great.
Speaker 4: Eighty to one hundred as opposed to like ninety two,
Speaker 4: six hundred and twenty seven dollars a year. Right, So
Speaker 4: that I think is a nice way of having a
Speaker 4: conversation that doesn't feel so scary. And I think in
Speaker 4: gener again, talking about money with anybody, even with people
Speaker 4: we trust, can be really terrifying. Offer vulnerability first, So
Speaker 4: if you're going to ask somebody to be vulnerable, it's
Speaker 4: a lot easier if you are vulnerable first. So, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out what this role should pay.
Speaker 4: I think the range is X to why or I'm
Speaker 4: getting paid in my current job, now this kind of rate,
Speaker 4: what would you suggest?
Speaker 2: I absolutely love that, because the fear of the person
Speaker 2: sharing is they're going to share the exact number and
Speaker 2: my boss is going to be mad at me. So
Speaker 2: you had just eliminated that.
Speaker 4: I will also say you, it is illegal to be
Speaker 4: terminated for talking about salary at work in the United States.
Speaker 4: So uh doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it is illegal.
Speaker 4: And I'll also say too, this is again a lot
Speaker 4: of the emotional hang ups is we believe our net
Speaker 4: worth to be our self worth, or we believe our
Speaker 4: salary to be somehow indicative of like how good we
Speaker 4: are at our job right or how while we succeed.
Speaker 4: And we all know literally probably hundreds of people who
Speaker 4: work so incredibly hard, who are so incredibly intelligent, who
Speaker 4: don't make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned negotiation.
Speaker 2: I had a mentor of mine one time say to me,
Speaker 2: you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't understand when he said it years ago.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand how true those words are.
Speaker 1: Oh embroidered on a throw pillow. That's yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2: So what is the tool that you share that you
Speaker 2: think is most helpful in negotiation?
Speaker 4: With negotiations, This is again another mindset shift that is
Speaker 4: so crucial. This is not a conflict. Negotiating is not
Speaker 4: an argument. It's not a fight. It's not you putting
Speaker 4: on your box and gloves and fighting to the death
Speaker 4: to get what you want. It is a collaboration. It
Speaker 4: is a collaboration, not a conflict. You and your boss
Speaker 4: or potential boss are not on opposing teams. You are
Speaker 4: on the same team trying to solve a problem. And
Speaker 4: that problem is you not being compensated fairly. And I
Speaker 4: have a feeling you're really good at your job and
Speaker 4: you problem solve every day. This is another problem to solve.
Speaker 4: The other thing is to come with data. You're talking
Speaker 4: to very data driven people most likely, so your ask
Speaker 4: needs to reflect that.
Speaker 1: It needs to be.
Speaker 4: This is again we're talking about salaries so great it
Speaker 4: needs to be not just from like a glass door
Speaker 4: or like an online aggregator, but also from people you've
Speaker 4: talked to who can see you as a full three
Speaker 4: dimensional person. Talk to other people in your industry, talk
Speaker 4: to coworkers at a previous job, talk to people on LinkedIn,
Speaker 4: find people you can actually ask, hey, based on what
Speaker 4: I'm doing, based on my success metrics, what would you
Speaker 4: price my salary at?
Speaker 1: What would you price my role at? And that way
Speaker 1: you can present that.
Speaker 4: Data and say, you know, based on the data that
Speaker 4: I have found for a role similar to this, as
Speaker 4: well as the accomplishments and the milestones I've hit, I'm
Speaker 4: looking for a range of X to Y.
Speaker 2: If they say there's no room for negotiation, what's your
Speaker 2: go to?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, but especially you know post COVID, that seems to
Speaker 4: be a response more often than not, my response is
Speaker 4: tell me more about that, Like no, but truly, like,
Speaker 4: tell me more about that, because I'm trying to understand
Speaker 4: what for them is the hang up?
Speaker 1: Right? Is it they don't have enough budget?
Speaker 4: Right? Is that actually the thing? Okay, then I'm going
Speaker 4: to negotiate something else. I'm gonna negotiate my PTO. I'm
Speaker 4: going to negotiate that I can work from home three
Speaker 4: times a week. I'm gonna negotiate a better title, which
Speaker 4: is at no cost to them but sets me up
Speaker 4: for a better job later. There's other things you can
Speaker 4: negotiate beside salary. So if it is truly like they
Speaker 4: are not budgeting, great, But a negotiation is a back
Speaker 4: and forth, so they might you know, you might ask
Speaker 4: for the number, and by the way, ask for the number,
Speaker 4: not the number you want, but a little over the
Speaker 4: number you want. Because if you're at sixty and you
Speaker 4: ask for seventy, you're gonna be at sixty five. So
Speaker 4: we're asking for like seventy two to seventy five to
Speaker 4: get to seventy. So if they do say, well, we
Speaker 4: can't do seventy five ago, okay, how about sixty six,
Speaker 4: sixty six plus at two extra days a ptom And
Speaker 4: if they still you know, okay, well you know we
Speaker 4: can do you know, sixty two, okay, sixty five? Right, like,
Speaker 4: you will eventually get to a point where hopefully you
Speaker 4: can meet in the middle, and if you can't, one,
Speaker 4: start looking for another job, and two there's other things
Speaker 4: you can negotiate beside salar. We actually have in my
Speaker 4: book an entire list of everything that's negotiable, and it's
Speaker 4: a lot more than you might think.
Speaker 2: One of the things I really love. I think it
Speaker 2: gives me great solace that I hear you say is
Speaker 2: it's never too late?
Speaker 1: Is it never too late to start?
Speaker 4: I truly, both a math and what I know from
Speaker 4: talking with millions of women, it is never too late
Speaker 4: to start.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: I'm not the kind of person who's going to blow
Speaker 4: smoke up your ass? Do I wish you started sooner?
Speaker 4: Of course, But probably there was a bunch of things
Speaker 4: that prevented you from starting, including a trillion dollar student
Speaker 4: loan crisis, and stagnating minimum wages and lack of paid
Speaker 4: family leave, and like again, all of the other systemic issues.
Speaker 4: And maybe some of you know your financial mistakes that
Speaker 4: you might not be proud of. But would you rather
Speaker 4: have one hundred k for retirement than nothing at all?
Speaker 4: The stats now that are updated, forty nine percent of
Speaker 4: Americans over the age of fifty five have nothing saved
Speaker 4: for retirement.
Speaker 1: Nothing. Wow, So I would rather you have something than nothing? Right? Yes?
Speaker 4: Is one hundred thousand dollars sustainable for your entire retirement?
Speaker 4: Probably not, But that's better than nothing.
Speaker 2: You ask women what their money personality is. I want
Speaker 2: to know what your money personality is.
Speaker 1: Oh rich bitch. She's like, she is loving her life.
Speaker 4: I'm turning thirty this year, and the coolest thing is
Speaker 4: that I again don't have to put up with situations
Speaker 4: that don't respect me. I don't have to go on
Speaker 4: a date with somebody who I don't like because I
Speaker 4: need him to pay the bill. And I will actually
Speaker 4: throw my credit card down, like twenty minutes in, just
Speaker 4: because I'm like, no, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: I will like that.
Speaker 4: I want to walk away. I don't have to, you know,
Speaker 4: work with a client that I don't like. I don't
Speaker 4: have to work a nine to five job or someone
Speaker 4: I don't respect. And I did that and it sucks.
Speaker 4: And I also get to protect sixty five year old me.
Speaker 4: Grandma Torre is like drinking Sabion Blanc with lunch, and
Speaker 4: she is flirting with her hot pilates instructor that's way
Speaker 4: younger than she is, and like she is adopting dogs
Speaker 4: in Italy. She's having a great time, and like, again,
Speaker 4: this is the feeling I want for every single woman
Speaker 4: on this planet. Is that feeling of security and that
Speaker 4: feeling of power, and the world starts to change when
Speaker 4: women feel that way.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,
Speaker 2: Tori tells us how we can make the most of
Speaker 2: our money.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So we always talk about money moves on the podcast,
Speaker 2: but it's not every day that we have a financial
Speaker 2: expert here with us, let alone a financial feminist expert. So, Tori,
Speaker 2: I'm going to throw out some real life scenarios and
Speaker 2: I want to get your financial take on them.
Speaker 1: Cool. I'm going to call this the career change.
Speaker 2: So after working in the corporate world, you're considering a
Speaker 2: complete career change that requires investing in yourself.
Speaker 1: Maybe that means going back to school.
Speaker 2: Maybe it requires taking a pay cut initially, or going
Speaker 2: without pay at all for a few months. How should
Speaker 2: you financially prepare for this transition?
Speaker 4: Do everything you can to save while you still have income,
Speaker 4: so set up that automatic transfer, you know, take advantage
Speaker 4: of every single benefit your company offers. Often companies will
Speaker 4: offer like development stipend. You can be sometimes literally getting
Speaker 4: paid to like learn more. That can set you up
Speaker 4: not just for success in the current job, but the
Speaker 4: future job. So yeah, prepare save. This is what I
Speaker 4: did when I was, you know, preparing to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: The one hundred k that I saved was literally my
Speaker 4: provisious slip to quit corporate. That was the amount of
Speaker 4: money I felt was enough to give me stability and
Speaker 4: a head start, but also like enough runway where I
Speaker 4: could see this through. And so that's literally what I
Speaker 4: did was save and be really strategic to be able
Speaker 4: to give myself that safety net.
Speaker 2: So you you know what it's like to have a
Speaker 2: side hustle. What is the best money move when you
Speaker 2: have a side hustle? Is it investing or paying down debt?
Speaker 4: I think depending on your interest rate, that's the answer.
Speaker 4: So if you have debt that is over like seven
Speaker 4: to eight percent interest, that is all credit card debt,
Speaker 4: by the way, it is actually more advantageous to pay
Speaker 4: off that debt. But if you have like student loans
Speaker 4: under seven percent, car loans, mortgages most of those are
Speaker 4: like under seven to eight percent, it's actually more advantageous
Speaker 4: to invest. The fun fact that I wish more people
Speaker 4: knew when you are a side hustler, when you own
Speaker 4: a business in addition to your.
Speaker 1: Nine to five.
Speaker 4: So if you're a freelancer and you have to have
Speaker 4: a business license, right, you can actually open a solo
Speaker 4: four oh one K or what's called a step IRA,
Speaker 4: which is like a self employed IRA. You have to
Speaker 4: pick one, but you can contribute to that. So that's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons I hit my one hundred k is.
Speaker 4: I had my four to one k at work, I
Speaker 4: had my roth IRA that was just for me as
Speaker 4: an individual that pretty much anybody can open up, and
Speaker 4: then I had my step IRA. So that is one
Speaker 4: like cheat code that I wish more people knew is
Speaker 4: that you can actually take a huge chunk of your
Speaker 4: side hustle earnings and invest them.
Speaker 2: Okay, I want to talk about a dream vacation. So
Speaker 2: you've always wanted to take a three month sabbatical to
Speaker 2: travel the world. How can you financially plan for an
Speaker 2: extended break without jeopardizing your financial stability.
Speaker 1: So it's all about savings.
Speaker 4: It's all about putting money in something like a highield
Speaker 4: savings account and allow an interest to work for you,
Speaker 4: so you can not just save the money, but have
Speaker 4: the interest accumulate too. And it's also being strategic are
Speaker 4: you going to cut some of your normal expenses to
Speaker 4: be able to do this sooner? Like do you want
Speaker 4: this badly enough? Or you're willing to sacrifice maybe going
Speaker 4: out to eat as much? Like what sort of expenses
Speaker 4: are you willing to cut to be able to do
Speaker 4: the thing that you want to do sooner? And there's
Speaker 4: also I think a lot more workplaces are being really
Speaker 4: flexible where Okay, maybe if you can't afford to do
Speaker 4: three months off totally, maybe you work part time, or
Speaker 4: maybe there's a way that you can continue with your
Speaker 4: current job and just be like, hey, can I take
Speaker 4: three months off and then I'll be back when I'm back.
Speaker 4: So there's there's ways you can do this without blowing
Speaker 4: up your entire life. But also if you want to
Speaker 4: blow up your entire life, like you can get another job,
Speaker 4: Like if you feel like it's it's really important for
Speaker 4: you to do this right now, save accordingly. And this
Speaker 4: is where I love that, like millennials and gen z
Speaker 4: are really redefining what it means to like retire, so
Speaker 4: all of us like retirement was sixty five years old
Speaker 4: Pina Colada in Florida, right, Like it doesn't have to
Speaker 4: be that, and it can be like many retirements, sabbaticals,
Speaker 4: it can be you know, remote work or part time work.
Speaker 1: So I love that somebodies even think about that in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Okay, home renovation, this is on a
Speaker 2: lot of people's minds. So let's say you're considering a
Speaker 2: major home reno that will significantly increase the value of
Speaker 2: your property. Should you take out a loan to finance
Speaker 2: the renovation? Should you use your savings or a combination
Speaker 2: of both. Yeah, it depends on the interest rate when
Speaker 2: you're going to take on debt at all. This is
Speaker 2: where if you're going to take on any sort of loan,
Speaker 2: personal loan, car loan, mortgage, student loans, credit cards, right,
Speaker 2: you need to know the terms of that loan and
Speaker 2: are they actually advantageous to you. I would not use
Speaker 2: your emergency savings for this. However, if your pipes burst,
Speaker 2: that's an emergency.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If you are getting a new kitchen because you don't
Speaker 4: like the one you're in, that's not an emergency. So
Speaker 4: this is where you know, we might be automating towards
Speaker 4: a financial goal like retirement or towards our emergency fund.
Speaker 4: And then maybe you've set up an automatic transfer to
Speaker 4: go on a separate highyled savings account for the home renovation.
Speaker 4: But also like I would really crunch the numbers on
Speaker 4: are you actually going to you like a definitive increase
Speaker 4: in your property value and all of the other emotional
Speaker 4: stuff we just said too, Like it's not just about
Speaker 4: does it financially work, It's like, okay, this is important
Speaker 4: to you, go ahead and save up for it.
Speaker 2: So there has been a social media debate that has
Speaker 2: been going on online since twenty twenty one, and the
Speaker 2: question is would you rather have five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: or lunch your dinner with jay Z? So Tory, I
Speaker 2: have to ask you which one would you take?
Speaker 1: This has been the hardest question you've asked. So okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, I am probably taking dinner with jay Z.
Speaker 1: I would rather take dinner with Yance, but I'll take
Speaker 1: dinner with ja Z.
Speaker 4: For me, time is my currency now, and like connections
Speaker 4: are my currency. It's not about money for me. And
Speaker 4: again that sounds like, oh good for you, cool, but
Speaker 4: like I want every single woman to be able to
Speaker 4: answer it that way if that's what she so chooses.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking that knowing you You're going to take dinner
Speaker 2: with jay Z and turn it into multi millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: I think you're good, Tory.
Speaker 2: I so appreciate your time and you lift women up
Speaker 2: both in your work and in your personal life.
Speaker 1: Thank you, that mean so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Tory Dunlap is a New York Times bestselling author and
Speaker 2: the host of the podcast Financial Feminist.
Speaker 1: That's the show Today. We'll be back.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow with Culinary Dynamo author and host Kristin Kish. Listen
Speaker 2: and Follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 3: You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: That's ro Ba. Y see you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 3: Keep looking on the bright side.