Already know how to save but wondering how to go from six figures to seven? Download my free guide, How I Built My First $1M, and see the three things that took me from $100K to $1M in under two years. Visit https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod and grab it today.
At 25, I had $100,000 in the bank. At 27, I was a millionaire.
And today I’m handing you my actual formula. Plenty of articles boil my story down to “save money, invest, start a business.” That’s technically true and practically useless. In this episode, I’m breaking down what I did between 25 and 27 that made the biggest difference, which parts you can copy, and which parts came from privilege I didn’t earn. I graduated debt-free and grew up with parents who taught me about money, and that shaped the conditions I made my decisions in. Personal finance is personal, so treat this as a formula you adapt to your own life instead of a script to copy line for line.
What you need to know:
The habits that got me to $100K are the same ones that got me to a million
I built my money habits while making $55,000 a year: negotiating every salary, side hustling, spending thoughtfully. Those habits held up when the numbers got bigger. I’ve watched people hit $100K, half a million, even ten million and blow it because they waited to learn about money until they had money. If you can manage $10,000, you can manage a million. A small income is the best time to practice, because the stakes are lower and you aren’t distracted by a flood of cash.
You can only cut so much
Women get told the reason we’re not rich is our shopping. So we slash everything, we’re miserable, and we’re no closer to a million. Men get told to make more money, which is better advice, because your earning potential has no ceiling. For me, earning more meant leaving jobs that underpaid me, negotiating whenever I had an opening (new job, new client, new contract), and eventually building Her First $100K full time. In the first three months of 2020, I made the equivalent of my old annual corporate salary.
Entrepreneurship is one path, and you don’t have to take it
Starting a business is a risk, and it isn’t for everyone. For me, the worst case was going back to corporate, so the risk was smaller than it looked. If business isn’t your thing, focus on raising your income through negotiation and job moves. Wealth has two sides, what you keep and what you earn, and I worked on both.
Build a system that works without you
Automate your savings, investing, and bills, and bump those automations up a few percent every time your income grows. Then decide ahead of time where extra money goes. Mine runs in order: emergency fund, credit card debt, Roth IRA, 401(k), brokerage account (a regular investing account with no retirement tax perks). The same system has a plan for bad months, so a surprise expense doesn’t turn into a crisis.
Wanting money is allowed
I unapologetically want money because of the options it gives me. Money means being able to leave a relationship that isn’t safe, donate without a second thought, tip generously, and take care of your family and community. Generous, thoughtful people having money makes the world better.
Notable quotes
“If I could manage $100,000, even if I could manage $10,000, I can manage a million.”
“Stop thinking about how do I cut. Start thinking about how do I earn more so I don’t have to cut.”
“Privilege did not make every decision for me, but of course it affected the conditions under which I got to make those decisions.”
“Money in the hands of women is freedom. Money means options.”
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro
01:10 How Her First $100K started
03:02 The privilege in my story
05:08 #1: Solid financial habits
08:31 Start acting like a millionaire now
09:28 #2: Growing my earning power
10:21 Why cutting your budget only goes so far
13:50 Going full-time in 2020
14:37 If entrepreneurship isn’t for you
16:44 #3: Building a financial system
19:48 Why I unapologetically want money
23:18 My favorite part of being a millionaire
Learn the exact strategies I used to save money, pay off debt, and get my first $100K. Visit: https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
Mentioned in this episode:
The $100K Blueprint
Negotiate Like a Woman with Kathryn Valentine
How to Negotiate with Confidence
RESOURCES:
Looking for accountability and deeper financial education? Join the $100K Club
Our HYSA Partner Recommendation (terms apply)
Behind the Scenes and Extended Clips on Youtube
Leave Financial Feminist a Voicemail
Financial Feminist on Instagram
Take our FREE Money Personality Quiz
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
I went from $100,000 in my bank account at 25 to being a millionaire by 27. And many of you have heard that story, and there are plenty of articles that reduce it down to save money, invest, start a business, but it’s actually a formula that you can copy. So today on the show, here’s what I actually did at 27 that materially contributed to becoming a millionaire, what was replicable, what was specific to my circumstances, and what changed as my wealth grew. By the end of this episode, you will have that formula. Let’s get into it. And before we get into the rest of the show, I made you the perfect companion to this episode. It is literally the formula for how I built my first million dollars, and it goes further than what we can cover here on the show. It is actual tools, actual worksheets, and the order of operations.
So if you go to herfirst100k.com/ffpod, you can grab it now or you can come back at the end. And again, it’s free, herfirst100k.com/ffpod. I will see you over there. But first, a word from our sponsors. Hi, my name is Tori. I am the host of Financial Feminist. I am a multimillionaire. I’m a New York Times bestselling author. And today on the show, we’re going to talk about how I went from 100K at 25 to being a millionaire at 27. If you are new here, you might know that Her First 100K, literally this business name, started from my own journey to save $100,000 at age 25. I started Her First 100K in the side of my 9:00 to 5:00 in marketing, and over time of bettering my financial education, of getting better with money, I started realizing that I could set this goal of hopefully saving $100,000 at age 25. And I successfully achieved that goal. I had my 100K by, I think, 25 years and three months. There are so many other episodes we have done that talk about how I built my first 100K.
So if that is more relevant to your life, we will link them down below. But when we think about those two years in between, from 25 to 27, I 10X’d my net worth in that time. 100K at 25 was already a huge accomplishment. And then to go from that to a million dollars at 27, it feels like I found a loophole or I won the lottery or I have a rich uncle or I picked the right stock at the right time. But the truth is none of that happened. I created a formula for myself that isn’t that different from my first 100K formula, and I adapted it to me becoming a millionaire at 27. And that formula is what we’re going to talk about today and also what we talk about even more in that worksheet. So again, herfirst100K.com/ffpod, it is free to download. I expect you to do it.
So first we have to talk about always the privilege that I do have, because if you are watching on YouTube, you can tell I am a cisgender white woman. I am someone who grew up with parents who gave me a financial education, which was a privilege. I took it for granted. I though everybody knew not to overspend on credit cards and everybody knew how to save money. And the truth was that’s not a thing. I was so lucky to have the financial education I did. And that’s part of the reason why I founded Her First 100K is I felt that with that privilege came responsibility. And when I think about all of the things that got me to my first 100K and all of the things that then two years later got me to my first million, it was some hard work, absolutely. And there’s also privilege in that story.
Personal finance is personal. I had certain things that allowed me to get ahead financially that you might not have. I graduated debt-free from college. If I had student loans, that would’ve been really, really hard to do. I had parents who were able to contribute a little bit to my college fund, but I also was working three jobs on campus throughout my entire time of being in college. I was also working a part-time job in the summers. There was always, when I look at my story, a coupling of privilege and hard work. Privilege did not make every decision for me, but of course it affected the conditions under which I got to make those decisions. And this is an important distinction. This episode is the formula that worked for me that I truly think can work for you, but it is not a copy paste solution.
Personal finance is personal. Everybody’s circumstances, everybody’s situation is going to be slightly different. So let me talk about what actually worked to get me not only to that first 100K at 25, but to becoming a millionaire at 27. The most important thing I did is I created incredibly solid smart financial habits. And it’s so easy to hear me say that and be like, “Yeah, everybody knows that good habits are how you succeed.” But the truth is my 100K at 25, which we’ve covered in other episodes, there was a couple things that made that happen. Me negotiating every salary I got, me side hustling with my business on the side, me making sure that I was thoughtfully spending, all of those things that I was doing when I was only making $55,000 a year, those habits that I built then were the foundation on which I built my million dollars. Because there’s a lot of people who get to the point of financial success at whatever age, and then they blow all of that success.
I have plenty of people who I could name who achieved some sort of financial milestone, 100K, half a million, a million, two, 10, and blew all of their money because they kept thinking, “I’ll wait to establish good financial habits when I have money. I will wait to understand how investing works, how saving works, my spending habits, my financial narratives, my money story, all of the psychological bullshit I have around money. None of that’s important until I have money.” And I get the impulse. It is really hard to try to save and to try to navigate your personal finances when you are at a lower income. Obviously, duh. And also the very habits that got me to 100K were the ones that got me to a million. And those very same habits were the ones that got me to multimillions and beyond.
If I could manage $100,000, even if I could manage $10,000, I can manage a million. And all of those good habits, all of those smart money skills led me to that first 100K, led me to the first million and beyond. Because when I started making more money for the first time, I was like, “Okay, great. I know what to do with it.” Because too many people get a little bit more money. Maybe that’s a 10% raise at work, maybe that’s a gift from somebody or an inheritance from a family member, and they don’t know how to manage it. It’s like deer in the headlights, because they didn’t spend the time learning when the stakes weren’t as high. And this part is absolutely crucial because I don’t want you to be making good money as you progress in your career. You might be further along age-wise than I was, but hopefully as you’re leveling up in your life and in your work, you start making better and better money.
And the last thing I want for you is to start making decent money, but have nothing to show for it. I didn’t blow my money. I didn’t let lifestyle inflation destroy what I had worked so desperately hard to build. So these good financial habits start when you are making very little money, and it’s actually the best time because you’re not distracted by all the money that’s coming in. So if you are thinking to yourself, “I don’t know how I’m even going to get to 100K. I definitely don’t know how I’m going to get to a million.” Start practicing like a millionaire now. Start acting like a millionaire now. And acting like a millionaire isn’t. I spend my money on Bugattis and I buy a mansion and I don’t know. I don’t even know what a stereotypical millionaire actually spends their money on because I don’t do that shit.
There are so many opportunities and flexibility that being a millionaire has afforded me, and I’m so grateful for that. And also, I lead a pretty normal life. I still drive a 2014 used Toyota. I don’t have another car. I still shop at Costco. I literally need to make my Costco list today. The things that I was doing when I was 22, 23, 24, when I was making 55, 60K a year are the same things that I do now as a multimillionaire. There are certain things that have changed, but the financial habits, the system I’ve built has not changed at all. The second thing I did that was incredibly important to get me to that million as quickly as it did, I kept increasing my earning power. Saving mattered 100%. Saving, investing, those are part of the good financial habits, right? I was automating my savings.
I was maxing out my Roth IRA. Those are all the things I did to get me to my first 100K. They also assisted me in becoming a millionaire, but really it was discovering that there was only so much I could cut out of my budget. And this is how you start thinking when you go from scarcity to abundance, when you go from somebody making enough money to just get by, and when you start really understanding your financial education and you really start learning more about money, is that there is only so much you can cut. And I wrote about this in my first book, Financial Feminist. I have a whole chapter about spending and the narratives we are told as women. And one of those narratives that is so toxic is, oh, the reason you can’t buy a house or the reason you’re not a millionaire, the reason you’re not rich is because you have a shopping addiction, right?
It’s because you spend too much money. So what do we do? Well, we slash everything on our budgets. We’re fucking miserable. And also we are not anywhere closer to that million dollars. That is not an accident. It is not an accident that we are told that the best path to wealth is by shrinking, by minimizing, by making ourselves more miserable while men are getting a completely different playbook. Men are getting great advice. The advice for men, as I talk about in chapter two of my book, is about making more money. That’s great advice, right? Because in theory, your earning potential is limitless. And it’s not just like, how do I negotiate a higher salary, which is 100% part of this, but it’s also how can I allow my money to make me more money? So how can I be investing in the stock market? How can I start a business?
How can I side hustle if that is something that’s available to me? So increasing my earning power looked like not staying indefinitely in jobs that undervalued or underpaid me. I was consistently making sure that whatever job I had, whatever opportunity came to me, I was being compensated fairly. And the moment I wasn’t, I was looking for something else. The second thing I did is I was negotiating more money when I had that leverage. It was always when I started a new job. It was always when I took out a new contract or a new client. I was always thinking about making sure I was compensated fairly. And when another opportunity offered me better compensation, growth, treatment, I was in there like swimwear. I had job hopped. But the most important thing I did is that I realized for me, for what goals I had for my life, for the flexibility I wanted, for what I knew I was capable of, for the mission and values I wanted to lead my life with, I knew that staying in a corporate environment was not suited to that.
I knew that I didn’t want to spend the next 35 years working for men I didn’t respect, making them rich, getting sexually harassed at work. And I think a lot of women are waking up to the fact that traditional corporate jobs are not working for them. A traditional corporate structure not only does not have a woman in mind, definitely doesn’t have a mother in mind, definitely doesn’t have additionally marginalized woman in mind. I just realized that that was not only going to cap how much I could earn, but it was quite literally, I was going to say cap my dreams, but kind of, it was going to force me to play smaller than what I knew I was capable of. So I started making more money in my business. And I can point to those years, 25, 26 into 27, I was making more money than I had ever made in my life, but doing work that I really, really loved.
I remember my first year of full-time entrepreneurship was actually 2020. And I remember in the first three months of 2020, I made the equivalent of my annual corporate salary and I was like, “Holy shit, wow. Okay. This could be an opportunity for me to not only set myself up financially, but again, to think more broadly about my currencies in my life.” Because at that time, money was the currency, money was the thing. And as I started making more of it, I started realizing that time was my currency, that I could start buying back my time, that I could start putting my effort into things I actually loved, and that was fucking amazing. And it’s the feeling I want for every single one of you listening. Now, starting a business might not be for you. You might have decided, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur.
I don’t want to take on that risk because it is a risk. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. It takes a certain kind of person. I think that it is so fruitful and that so many women write it off because we haven’t seen other women do it in the same way or because we think we can’t for whatever reason, because we don’t know enough. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you absolutely can. If you don’t want to be, how you’re going to emulate my story is you’re going to focus on your earning. We have so many episodes on this show that talk about how to negotiate increases to your salary, that talk about how to negotiate additional things beyond your salary to increase your net worth. So rather than thinking, how do I keep cutting, especially when the cost of living’s going up, inflation’s getting higher, and we’re all fucking miserable, stop thinking about how do I cut?
Start thinking about how do I earn more so I don’t have to cut? The biggest reason that I can point to that took me from that 100K at 25 to being a millionaire at 27, and then a multimillionaire at 28, I was just earning more money. And that was a risk I took, but I knew I had built enough self-trust in myself to know that if that risk hadn’t worked out, if Her First 100K, running that full-time, if that business wasn’t successful, I knew I could just go back to corporate. It wasn’t actually that big of a risk. Because at the end of the day, there are two sides of wealth building. There’s what you keep and what you earn. I was actively working on both. I was actively working within that system, that framework, those financial habits to make sure that I was keeping the good money I was making, but I was also focused on making more money.
And finally, the third thing that absolutely changed the game for me, having a financial system. I would pair this with the habits that we talked about at the beginning, having those really good financial habits, understanding how money works, understanding your triggers around money. All of those things are crucial. But a system starts working without your active labor. So what I mean by this? Your systems are the things that you set up that help your money run on autopilot. So the first one is automation. If we can automate most, if not all of our financial life, things get so much easier. And with that automation, we have an additional trigger that if we start making more money, we get that raise at work, our side hustles bringing in more money, then that automation goes up a couple percentage points. You can automate your savings, you can automate your investing, you can automate your bills.
There are so many things that you can automate that help you build that financial system. The second part of that financial system is knowing where the money goes when it comes in. Because if you know, okay, I’m getting paid this amount of money at this time and every single dollar has a job, and if we can automate every single dollar having a job, great, it takes the guesswork out. You’re not sitting there wondering, oh, can I afford this trip? I don’t know. Or I got a little extra money this month. What do I do with it? You already know. You’ve built the system. You’ve built the system that is running in the background and that takes the hard decision making out. So when you get extra money, you already know, oh yeah, okay, my emergency fund is fully funded. I still have credit card debt.
Now it’s going to go to my credit cards. Or when you start leveling up, okay, I’m making more money, so now I’m going to make sure to max out my Roth IRA. Oh, that’s already done for the year. I’ll max out my 401k. Oh, that’s already done. Great. I’ll contribute to my brokerage account. So the system is knowing where the money’s going to go every single month, the automation, but also knowing what happens when certain things occur. On the flip side, I know that if shit hits the fan, if a recession kicks in, if we have a bad month in our business, if I have a more expensive month than my previous months, if something happens, the system I have built supports the good things, the beneficial things like more money, unexpected money, yay, but also the unexpected expenses. All of that has been automated.
And if you’re wondering, how do I actually put this system in practice, you are going to go to herfirst100k.com/ffpod and you’re going to download the How I Built My First Million, and you’re going to download that and follow the exact steps because it’s all outlined in there. The final thing I need you to know, I unapologetically want money, and I know some of you squirmed. Some of you were like, “Oh, that’s gross. She’s conceited. Who does she think she is? She’s greedy.” I want money. I unapologetically can say that. The reason why I am comfortable making money, the reason I am comfortable pursuing wealth, the reason I unabashedly come on this podcast, come on Instagram, come in front of 5,000 people speaking on a stage and say, “I love being rich is because of the options and choices that being rich affords me.”
At this moment in time, when some of the worst people in the world have the majority of the wealth, it is actually morally imperative for you to get wealthy. Why? Because the patriarchy wants you broke. It wants you underpaid. It wants you to be in a constant state of instability because when you don’t have enough money, not only can you not provide for yourself, you’re Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you can’t make sure that you have enough food, that your mental health is okay, that you’re not constantly worried about losing your job, but also you are so tired and depleted that you don’t fight against a system that isn’t working.
That is not an accident. Money for patriarchy is a source of control. Money in the hands of women is freedom. I’m going to say that again. Money is control for the patriarchy, but for you, for I, money is actually freedom. Money means options. When you have money, you have the ability to leave a violent, abusive relationship that you don’t want to be in anymore. When you have money, you have the ability to donate to causes you believe in. You have the ability to travel, to start a business, to fund your children’s education. You have the ability to live as the fullest, best, baddest version of you. And nothing bad happens when women have money. And in fact, I want money right now in the hands of women. I want money in the hands of the people who are the most generous, who are the kindest, who are the most socially and self-aware, because you better believe that most of the wealth right now is in the hands of demons, of full Dr. Evils with white cats that they’re stroking in their laps.
I don’t want the money going to Elon Musk. I want the money going to you. And in no way am I saying stockpile, gatekeep, because that’s not what women do. That’s the beautiful thing is when I say I want to be rich, I know that the world will be a better place for it. And I know when you get rich, inevitably, because it is inevitable, when you inevitably get rich, you will not only have enough money to feel the sense of ease, but you will take better care of yourself, you will take better care of your family, and you’ll take better care of your community. The world will be a better place for it. So if you have been thinking to yourself, you know what? A lot of people who are rich are shitty people.
Yeah, you’re correct. And there’s a lot of rich people that are doing really, really cool shit with their money. You and I have the opportunity to be rich people who do really cool shit with our money. One of the favorite things, my favorite, favorite thing about being a millionaire is that when something comes up on my feed, when I get served an Instagram post or a news alert about something going on in the world, I know I can do something about it. When I have somebody in my life, it literally just happened last night, I have a friend who’s running a marathon in honor of an organization. I didn’t have to think twice. I donated to it. When I’m at a restaurant, when I’m at a hotel, I can tip generously. I leave 50%, 100%. I left a 200% tip two weeks ago. I can do that.
And that is the feeling and the reality I want for every single one of you listening. And that starts to happen way before being a millionaire because you are already generous, you are already kind, you’re already socially and self-aware. I just want money as a tool to reinforce that. There’s this great quote that money doesn’t change you, it just shows you who you truly are. And you can start practicing that level of stability, that level of financial stability right now, regardless of the amount of money you have in the bank.
So when I look at my own journey, it was mine. There are privileges that I have. There’s certain circumstances that may have made it easier at times. And also I worked really, really hard. I invested in my financial education. I worked really hard at my business. I consistently put myself out there in a way that is often really difficult, but it has not only aided my financial picture, it has not only helped me create financial stability for myself, for my family, for our business and my community, but it has made me a different person in all of those beautiful ways.
I show up differently in my relationships because I feel financially stable. I feel fully in control of my money. I show up differently in our business. I make different decisions. There are so many incredible things that becoming a millionaire afforded me past the money. And also the money’s been pretty fucking cool too. Financial Feminists, here’s your homework. You are going to go to herfirst100k.com/ffpod. You are going to download that free resource. And if you are nowhere near a million and you’re still on your road to your first 100K, there is an additional resource of how I got my first 100K, the exact system, the exact formula, that is free for you as well. So choose your own adventure, pick the one that’s going to be most relevant for you. Thank you for being here as always. If you love this show, the best thing that you can do to support it is subscribe and share it with a friend.
We really appreciate your support of feminist media during a really difficult time to be a feminist company. Thank you for listening to this episode. We will see you over on that free download and have a great day.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist produced by Her First $100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting Feminist Media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you’re looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Ellice Ellis and Tamisha Grant. Audio and video engineering by Jonathan Kirk. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Rae Wong, Daryl Ann Ingman, Meghan Walker, Marciella Baietto, Demi Ganim, Taylor Toll, Zoe Rezek and Stormy McBride. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
