You might know her as “Your Rich BFF.” You might also know her as a former Wall Street trader, entrepreneur, or speaker…but one thing you’ll never know her as is broke. Our guest today, Vivian Tu, is a financial expert on a mission to make the financial industry less “male, pale, and stale.” In this episode she’s talking to Tori about how to live like the rich, pursuing wealth as an act of protest, and how to overcome mindset blocks around money.
“When I got that job, I had made it. Not even because I got the job, but because my mom was able to tell people I got it, and she got to brag about it.”
Vivian and Tori begin their discussion about Vivian’s early money memories and growing up as the child of Chinese immigrants. She shares how, like many children of immigrants, she saw her parents basically live to survive. They placed so much importance on saving money and being frugal that while it did help her set the foundations for being a good financial steward — it also ended up causing her a lot of guilt about money and never having enough.
So much guilt that when she made the decision to leave her Wall Street job — the one her mom had bragged to people about — she was afraid to tell them.
Later, when she founded “Your Rich BFF,” she didn’t tell her parents for 8 months. “I was like, hey mom, by the way, I started this TikTok channel – I’m your rich BFF, I make money, blah, blah, blah, blah. I closed the conversation off with like – and I’ve made a lot of money doing this, it’s a great supplement to my income. And there was just silence for like 10 seconds, and my mom goes, you made how much doing this? And I knew I fucking had them.”
On quitting Wall Street
“It was very othering, and this guy would make comments like, you’re so girly, you’re too girly to be in the seat. But the very last straw that broke the camel’s back is I came into work one day with a long cardigan, and this guy put his hands together, bowed at me, and said, ooh, is that a kimono?”
After applying to and accepting an internship at J.P Morgan, Vivian ended up as one of the few interns that were offered a full-time position after 10 weeks of Hunger Games style competition. Though her team consisted of mostly white males, her manager and eventual mentor happened to be another Asian woman. She credits her mentor for helping guide her path and being her sounding board in those early days, but after her eventual switch to another team at the bank, Vivian knew it was time to go. Thus began her transition into digital media, working for Buzzfeed, and the eventual creation of “Your Rich BFF.”
“A million dollars ain’t what it used to be baby”
Tori and Vivian go on to discuss the mindset that people tend to have towards the wealthy. Tori shares that people have extreme opinions about whether or not being a millionaire or billionaire is ethical or if they should even exist at all. Vivian explains her take on it, explaining “I think a lot of those comments stem from a place of just true frustration because the financial system has not served a lot of people for so long now and it’s only gotten worse. And it’s been exacerbated by the fact that the middle class is shrinking, the cost of living is rising, and when you can’t afford groceries, to hear someone who looks like you and me, young women, talk about how much money they have, it feels, it’s hurtful.”
She goes on to say that there is a huge difference between a millionaire and a billionaire and that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be (or being) a millionaire. To help put things into perspective, she compares being a billionaire to the people hoarding rolls of toilet paper during Covid 19 — “it’s like when COVID hit and people were buying 18 packs of toilet paper and I was wiping my ass with one ply. if everybody just got the appropriate amount of toilet paper instead of 18 packs of the mega rolls, we could have all used two ply.”
If you’re someone who tends to side with the “eat the rich” crowd, Vivian wants you to understand that there are rules to the game and you can’t decide not to play. You have to play even while knowing that the rules aren’t fair, because your financial wellness depends on it.
Pursuing wealth as an act of protest
What happens when women make more money?
What happens when marginalized communities make more money?
What happens when black, brown and indigenous communities make more money?
According to Vivian, those dollars get re-injected into small businesses who may identify that way. That money is then used to create programs to improve and uplift communities. She shares a story of a young football player who recruited some of his teammates to give out turkeys on Thanksgiving.
“What does that tell you about where people’s heads are at when those communities make money? They want to bring up the crew they came up with. They want to help other people get on their feet. That’s also the question that goes back to like so many young immigrant kids helping to support their families. Sending money back. Like where do you think that money goes? That money goes to your grandma, to your mom and dad, to your family.”
She shares that this is why she’s been so passionate about empowering communities who haven’t been taught how to be good with money, how to get good with money. So they can help other people. “If you’re a seven on the money knowledge scale, you can teach fours and fives. If you’re a five on the money knowledge scale, you can teach twos and threes. When we do that, more people get access. Opening up access to finance is, like you say, our greatest form of protest.”
Vivian and Tori talk more about changing your mindset when it comes to wealth, double standards with women and money, and how to live like a rich person on this week’s episode of Financial Feminist.
Vivian’s links:
RESOURCES:
Feeling Overwhelmed? Start here!
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
Meet Vivian
On a global mission to make the financial industry less “male, pale, and stale,” Vivian Tu is a former Wall Street trader-turned-expert, educator, public speaker, host, entrepreneur, media powerhouse, and the founder and CEO of the financial equity phenomenon, “Your Rich BFF.” In January 2021, she developed and launched the “Your Rich BFF” blog and social media handles as a passion project to destigmatize and make the rules of personal finance accessible and digestible to non-experts and marginalized communities. Her dedication to promoting financial literacy and ability to bridge the gap between finance and the mainstream have earned her cross-platform fame and notoriety, having garnered nearly 6 million followers and counting, as well as honors on both the Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30 – Social Media’ (2023) and inaugural ‘Top Creators’ (2022) lists.
Transcript:
Vivian Tu:
You can understand that the system is messed up while also understanding that there are rules of the game and you can’t just say I’m not playing. You have to play along. You have to play to the best of your ability. You have to play responsibly. But all the while you can understand that the game’s not fair. That some people start life halfway down the Monopoly board and you started at go.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh. I have a Christmas carol stuck in my head. I’m so excited to see you. It’s Christmastime. It’s also the last episode of this year. It is the last episode of Financial Feminist for 2023. And if you have been here for a long time, we thank you. If you are new here, we also thank you. We’re just so excited to round out this year after producing episodes for literally almost every week of this year. And Kristen’s shaking her head very tiredly. But we are just so thankful for your support. We could not do this without you. And oh boy, do we have a great last episode for you. Before we get into it, I want to go on a quick little … I don’t know if it’s a rant or a appreciation moment for Santa Baby. And I have this whole debate on whether or not it’s feminist because I’ve seen the Miley Cyrus version on Jimmy Fallon, and if you haven’t, watch it. It’s great. And it’s basically like, I don’t need Santa to buy me things. I can buy them for myself. And I agree, but also I’m like, if Santa does want to buy me things, I’m going to take free shit.
Also, if you read the lyrics, first of all, it’s Eartha Kitt. This does not get appreciated enough. I was telling this to my partner the other day. I was like, “You know Santa Baby’s Eartha Kitt?” And he was like, “What?” And I was like, “Yes. It’s Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove.” And Madame Zeroni from Holes and a bunch of other things. She’s a fucking legend. Died a couple of years ago, but I fucking love this woman. And that’s who’s saying Santa Baby. So picture Yzma in your head when you hear Santa Baby.
And then these lyrics are fantastic. She’s asking for a diamond ring and she’s also asking for a duplex and checks. We love a real estate girly. We love someone who’s investing in themselves and she’s just asking for blank checks. And then she wants the deed to a platinum mine. I don’t know. Every time I listen to the song, it just makes me really happy and I’m just like, I love that it’s like, yes, get me the fun things that look good, like rings and all of this other stuff, but also I want investments. I want to own property. I want to own industries. She wants a yacht and that’s not a lot. I don’t know. I just think it’s just fun. So hopefully when you listen to Santa Baby this year, you get a little extra joy from it.
It’s probably getting a little late in the Christmas season for this, but if you follow us on Instagram or follow us on TikTok, you know that we have brought back the Mariah Carey Savings Challenge. And that is every time you hear, All I Want For Christmas Is You, and I’m not going to sing it because it would count, you deposit a certain amount of money, you decide how much, into your high-yield savings account. I was literally at a Christmas party last night with our partnerships manager Taylor, who was doing the challenge, and she hears the song. And it came on last night, and I filmed her having to transfer the money. She literally pulled out her phone and she went, tap, tap, tap on her app. It can be 50 cents if that’s all you got right now. It can be $5, it can be $10. But the idea is that every time you hear Mariah Carey’s, All I Want For Christmas Is You, you transfer some money into your high-yield savings count and into your savings. It becomes a fun little game. So if you haven’t started the Mariah Carey Savings Challenge already, I encourage you to start. You’ve got enough days to do some good damage. And if you’re continuing to do it and you’re cursing my name, well, too bad. You’re building your savings.
All right. Team, let’s talk about today’s episode. Good friend of mine, fellow financial expert. You’ve been asking for this one for a long time. You know who it is. It’s fucking Vivian Tu, Your Rich BFF. On a global mission to make the financial industry less male, pale and stale, Vivian Tu is a former Wall Street trader turned expert, educator, public speaker, host, entrepreneur, media powerhouse, and the founder and CEO of the financial equity phenomenon, Your Rich BFF. In January 2021, she developed and launched Your Rich BFF blog and social media handles as a passion project to de-stigmatize and make the rules of personal finance accessible and digestible to non-experts and marginalized communities.
Her dedication to promoting financial literacy and ability to bridge the gap between finance and the mainstream have earned her cross-platform fame and notoriety, have garnered nearly six million followers and counting, as well as honors on both the Forbes 30 under 30 list and the inaugural top creator list.
This December, almost a year to the day when my book came out, she launches her own book, which is called Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. In this episode we’re going to get into the biggest pushback that we get as women who are financially independent and actively building wealth, including having a candid discussion about the difference between millionaires and billionaires and why it’s important to make a distinction between how to build wealth versus hoarding resources. We talk about overcoming mindset blocks around money, the pursuit of wealth as an act of protest. And Vivian even shares a couple fun tax tips. I know, you just heard me say the words fun and tax in the same sentence. But if there’s anybody who can make it fun, it’s Vivian. So she’s going to share a few tax tips that she’s learned over the years that you can take into your own life as well. All right. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukah, happy Kwanza, happy everything. Thank you for being here. Let’s get into the episode. But first a word from our sponsors.
Tori Dunlap:
We got to finally meet in person in New York at a lovely dinner and that was fun.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah, we did. And I will note you give excellent hugs. Very long. A soft, warm hug.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, no.
Vivian Tu:
No, I like it.
Tori Dunlap:
That sounds so creepy.
Vivian Tu:
Not in a creepy way. I was very open to the hug. It was a great hug.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. Thank you. I try to be a warm person. I don’t know. I will take that as a compliment. Thank you.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. It was a good hug.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay, good. I’m glad. We’re so excited to have you on the show. We ask everybody who comes on who’s a finance expert to tell us what their first money memory is. What is the first time that you remember thinking about money?
Vivian Tu:
My very first money memory. Do you want it to be a positive or a negative?
Tori Dunlap:
It could be the one that’s accurate to you.
Vivian Tu:
Okay. I don’t want people to judge me on this story, but it’s a pretty good one. In the third grade, we had a school supplies list and we would get all these school supplies and I sat next to a girl. We’ll just use her initial, K. K was not very prepared and she was a little bit of a space cadet. She’s such a nice girl, but she just never had her shit together. And I had a bunch of highlighters and school supplies were like gold to me. I kept good care of them. If I could keep them in the packaging for as long as humanly possible I would.
Tori Dunlap:
It was the best time of the year when you got to go down that aisle and pick.
Vivian Tu:
Fresh highlighters.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That tells exactly what kind of people we are because that is the most … Yeah. Totally.
Vivian Tu:
And so we were about to do an activity and the teacher was like, “Everybody get out of your highlighter.” And I saw K was rummaging around and obviously did not have her highlighters handy. And this is so messed up. I knew that if she rummaged around for too long, the teacher would come to my desk and be like, “Vivian, will you lend this girl a highlighter?” And I was like, okay, I know this is about to happen. So I said to her, “I will give you a highlighter if I can have that ChapStick in your school box.” And she was like, “You want this ChapStick? I’ve used it.” And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s trade. Give me that ChapStick.” So she gives me the ChapStick and I give her the highlighter, day goes on. I then take a paperclip and I roll up the ChapStick. I shear off the top so it’s flat and I roll it down a little bit. I end up selling this ChapStick for $1.50. And then I used the $1, $1.50, whatever I sold it for to buy myself a cinnamon stick churro lunch.
Tori Dunlap:
You were hustling.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
You were like a little mobster. You can’t take my highlighter, but here’s the thing. I will trade it and then sell my ChapStick for a profit.
Vivian Tu:
So that is my earliest money memory. Thank you so much for asking this question. And now people know that I literally was running an underground ChapStick warehouse in elementary school.
Tori Dunlap:
And the funny thing is usually our follow-up question is how does that relate to how you manage money now? If you were to think about this from a therapy standpoint, what does that say about you now?
Vivian Tu:
I would say that positively speaking, it means that I’m always thinking about how I can grow my wealth. How am I able to level up? And I think that’s something that I learned as an adult, probably around the same time you and I both did. A few years into our career. Wasn’t straight out of college. But it has really shown that I am focused on making more money because it affords me little luxuries like that cinnamon stick churro. And let me tell you, it tasted that much better because I earned it.
Tori Dunlap:
I love the spin. Run for office Viv. We’ve had a few recent guests who are children of immigrants, and they all have this really unique perspective on how it affected their relationship with money growing up. What was that like for you?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. My parents immigrated to the US from China in their early 20s. And I always say this, but their focus was so much on survival. They always felt like the other shoe was about to drop and for them it was save, save, save, save. So my mom still to this day washes Ziploc bags and reuses them, which is disgusting because sometimes they mold. And I’m like, “Ew, Mom. Just throw that shit out.” And I think that gave me a really good financial foundation in that I never had a problem with a budget. I never had a problem saving because it was so deeply ingrained in my DNA because my parents had to. They weren’t making a lot of money and to make ends meet, they had to be really mindful of how they were spending, whether that be making sure that they weren’t over purchasing groceries or driving really modest cars until the wheels fell off.
I think saving and budgeting, that half of the financial journey equation I’ve always been really good at. But I think it also came with a set of negatives. I have really bad spending guilt even now. I do have a little bit of I would say scarcity mindset when it comes to will I ever have enough? And certainly investing and growing wealth wasn’t a conversation that was had at our dinner table, and that was something that I had to learn as an adult and a little bit the hard way.
Tori Dunlap:
My parents are not immigrants, but very similar mindset where it was just frugality and making the right choices because that means safety and stability. And I would love to know if this was also accurate for you. I’ve talked about how my parents basically begged me to not quit my job. Even Her First $100K was growing and it was gaining speed and I had 100K in the bank and they were like, “No, you need to do everything you can to keep your job.” And I’m thankful they made that decision for me because it meant that I had a stable childhood. I didn’t want for anything. I was good. But at the same time, risks are not my parents’ jam. Even the ones that are calculated. Was that similar for you when you were ready to take entrepreneurship full-time? Yeah, you’re nodding.
Vivian Tu:
Super-duper similar. I would say even today when they’re thinking about their own lives, when they’re planning vacation, they’re very afraid of taking risk and they’re like, “Oh, if this sounds too complicated, we just won’t do it. We’ll just take a cruise because then everything’s all-inclusive and I don’t have to worry about it.” I’m like, “But I know you guys really wanted to go to Spain. Why don’t you just do that?” When I left my Wall Street job … This job, which by the way was everything that I had been working towards. I was our high school valedictorian. I was such a great student. I go to U Chicago. It’s top three university in the country. I graduate with a great GPA. I think it was a three, eight or something. Get this crazy coveted job. It felt like for me, when I got that job, I had made it. Not even because I got the job, but because my mom was able to tell people I got it and I got to work there and she got to brag about it. And it felt like I was ticking off boxes of a good dutiful Asian daughter to-do list.
And when I decided to leave, they were not at all supportive. It’s public information, but I left Wall Street to go work at Buzzfeed. And the only thing my mom knew about Buzzfeed were like the what kind of cheese are you quizzes. And my mom was literally like, “You did all of this, you did the thing in high school, you did the thing in college, you got the job, you did all this, you’ve done it, and now you’re going to leave and go write quizzes?”
Tori Dunlap:
Work at this bullshit media company.
Vivian Tu:
Exactly. Work at this bullshit media company. And I was like, “Well, first off, no. I’m on the biz dev sales team. It’s not the same. I’m not here writing what kind of cheese are you.” But they couldn’t put it together. And we got into such a big fight. We did not talk for two to three months. And keep in mind, I’m an only child.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m an only child. You guys, we’re so similar. Oh my God.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. So you know what it means to not talk to your parents when you’re an only child for two to three months. It’s blow up fight. And when I started Your Rich BFF, I actually didn’t tell my parents for the first eight months. So just my secret little project. And it wasn’t until I started making some money doing it that I was like, okay, my mom is always suspicious why I don’t have time to call her. She’s wondering why there’s a ring light set up in my living room. She’s starting to ask some questions and I need to give her an answer that’s not clearly so transparent that she can see through it. And I told her the truth. And I don’t know if you did this, but I was a bad kid. I used to get in trouble all the time as a little kid.
And so before my parents could yell at me … This is how I feel like I became a decent public speaker. I learned to filibuster and talk very quickly. So I would get my entire story, my alibi out. And so when I told my mom, I was like, “Hey mom, by the way, I started this TikTok channel. I’m Your Rich BFF. I make money.” Blah, blah, blah and I ended it, I closed the conversation off with, “And I’ve made a lot of money doing this. It’s a great supplement to my income.” And there was just silence for 10 seconds. And then my mom goes, “You made how much doing this?” And I knew I fucking had them. I wasn’t going to get yelled at.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, you positioned it in the way that they care.
Vivian Tu:
Right. And so I positioned this to my mom as a nice little side hustle where I was earning extra income and I was saving it. And she was like, “Ooh, we love that.” So when they found out about Your Rich BFF we didn’t fight. And when I ended up leaving Buzzfeed to go full-time, I had everything in my arsenal ready to fight this battle. And when I told her, and I told my parents, they were like, “Yeah, you’re an adult now. It seems like this is going really well. Go for it. We just want you to be happy.” And I’m like, “Who are you and what have you done with my parents?” Asian parents don’t say stuff like that.
Tori Dunlap:
Wow.
Vivian Tu:
But yeah, it was a shockingly easier conversation the second time around than I had anticipated.
Tori Dunlap:
It was maybe somebody who came on the show or I read it. It was like immigrant parents take the most giant risk to never take a risk again.
Vivian Tu:
Literally. Literally. You leave the country where you speak the language and have people and family and a home and uproot your entire life to go somewhere where you don’t know anybody, can’t speak the language, can’t do anything, and then for the rest of your life you’re like no risk.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Oh, gosh. We have very, very similar relationships with our family. Again, we’ll unpack it another time. Okay. So most infamously, and you also just mentioned, your time on Wall Street. Can you give us a breakdown how you got there and what it felt like to work in such this almost mythical place? It doesn’t feel real in many ways because it’s been represented in the media so much. And also, I don’t know. It just seems like a bunch of men screaming at each other. What was that like?
Vivian Tu:
Sometimes it was. U Chicago in particular is a big feeder school for a lot of Wall Street banks. So what ends up happening is they will create a recruiting team. So all of the big banks across the street will say who are alumni from this school who are passionate about recruiting young students who are very essentially vetted already because you have to be smart enough to be attending one of these schools. And they send those people back to campus and they host these coffee chats where they get to know you, but in reality it’s like a mini interview. And then if you get invited to these coffee chats and you do a decent job, they’ll be like, “Oh, we would like to invite you to come to another thing.” And it becomes a one step after the other, you keep going past round and round. I ended up applying to … I would say a couple major banks. Ones that you’ve heard of, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citibank, all of them. And I got interviews at pretty much all of them, but ended up deciding to take an internship at JP Morgan. It’s a 10-week internship. And this is the scariest part that people don’t ever talk about. They hire basically two to three X the number of interns that they have, full-time positions. So when you get that internship, you are not-
Tori Dunlap:
It becomes like a shark tank.
Vivian Tu:
It’s literally a pressure chamber because you either have to do or die. And for what it’s worth, my desk started with three interns. Only I got hired full-time. I basically had to kill two other people to get this job. Metaphorically. Your Rich BFF does not condone murder. Have to put that out there. People on the internet are weird.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, people on the internet are crazy. Yeah. I wanted on the record that Vivian Tu participated in the finance version of-
Vivian Tu:
The Hunger Games. And you’re just constantly asking, how can I help? How can I do better? You’re literally just kissing ass for 10 weeks, but you have to make sure that every single one of your skills shines. Whether that be remembering lunch orders or taking down the best notes for a meeting or helping someone-
Tori Dunlap:
It’s just pick me girl energy the entire time.
Vivian Tu:
It’s so pick me energy the entire summer. Pick me, choose me, love me. I ended up getting this full-time job. And I don’t want to paint such a scary picture. When I did start my job, I was very, very fortunate. The vast majority of the team was white guy, but my manager, my mentor was an Asian woman. And Tori actually got to meet her at this dinner. And I credit so much of my growth as an adult to my friend Jean. Jean was my boss, and she certainly was not easy to work for. I got yelled at all the time. But she was fair and she really gave a shit about me and my education and teaching me everything and giving me a lot of the resources that she didn’t get because she also came from a non-generational wealth family. She was one of the first people in her family to go to college. She went to Stanford. She gets this job doing this and she has to grind her way from the bottom up. And she looked at me and she must’ve seen basically herself at that time.
And she was the one who was guiding me through this path. And I can’t say how grateful I am enough for having my first boss ever be a woman and be a woman of color because there was just some stuff that we could talk about that I could not talk about with anybody else. And I know for a fact a lot of my girlfriends didn’t get that. Their first bosses weren’t Jeans. They were white guys and they just couldn’t have certain conversations. But first year and a half going great, then the head of my desk got let go. So that ended up with a new desk head being hired, firing half of the team. And keep in mind, this is the team that hired me. I like everybody. Everybody likes me. We feel warm and fuzzy. Whole new crew. I’m like, I don’t know any of you people. And now I feel like I have to prove myself all over again.
And one thing that I think most trading analysts don’t need to have really is a ton of Excel ability because you’re not doing that much work in spreadsheets. That’s more for the bankers on the other side of the wall. And I had those skills because I interned my sophomore summer in commercial banking. And the new head of the desk found out that I could do these things because I helped a couple people on the desk create little spreadsheets that would help them see how their P&L was tracking, all that. And he basically asked me, he goes, “Do you want to leave your manager and come work for my new best friend who’s coming and he’s going to be my right-hand guy?” And I’m like, “You just started here. You are the second coming. Everyone’s looking to you like you’re the boss.” I’m 22, 23 at this time. I can’t say no to this question. That’s not a yes or no question. That’s a yes or when can I start. And that’s the beginning of the end, my friends. Because when I started to go work for this guy, it all really changed.
Suddenly I went from being superstar rockstar to being the chick who just couldn’t get it right. It was very othering. And this guy would make comments like, you’re so girly, you’re too girly to be in the seat. And I have talked about this before, but the very last straw that broke the camel’s back is I came into work one day with a long cardigan and this guy put his hands together, bowed at me and said, “Ooh. Is that a kimono?” And to be clear, I’m not even Japanese. So I’m like, “Thank you, sir. Wrong kind of Asian.” But it literally was a joke written in some shitty ’90s knock, knock joke book that this guy had put together.
And I was like, this guy’s never going to advocate for me. He’s never going to want to make sure that I get paid. He doesn’t give a shit about me. It’s time to go. And who do I run to? My mentor. I told her, I was like, “I’m quitting this job. I’m quitting tomorrow.” And she was like, “Don’t be an idiot. Don’t quit tomorrow. You don’t have anything lined up. You got to pay rent babes. I know what’s in your checking and savings account. You can’t quit tomorrow.” So I don’t. But I talked to her about my concerns and she’s like, “All right. Just start interviewing and would you potentially be interested in a career change?” I was like, “I’ll do anything. I will literally go scrub tables. I’ll go busboy at a nearby restaurant. I don’t care. I’m not going to work here anymore.”
And as fate would have it, my mentor had a best friend who had worked in finance for four years and then went into the tech media space and had a conversation with her, ended up going through a couple of rounds of interviews and next thing I know I’m working for my manager, my first manager, my mentor’s best friend. So yes, I literally worked for a pair of best friends as my first two jobs. And I feel so grateful to have had that network, to have someone who could bail me out at that moment. But it was real. And when you’re 22 and 23 and you spend your entire life working towards a goal just to find out shit’s not going the way you planned and you don’t have any control in the position. I wasn’t in a position of power. I was just trying to not lose my job and it sucked.
Tori Dunlap:
We have similar stories. My first job out of school, thought it was great, everything was going great and then had an incident where somebody else blamed me for something they did. I almost got fired. I was 23. Got called into the office by the CEO who told me, “If you don’t like it, you can fucking leave.” And yes, that’s a direct quote. And yeah, he’s like 23-year-old employee sitting there crying. And then I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. I was like, this is awful. I don’t want to be here. And the rose colored goggles come off and you’re like, oh, this is not it. This is not it. This is something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a long time because I think we both have, again, I’m realizing very similar, not only backgrounds, but also understandings about personal finance. I imagine you get the same kind of comments. Whenever I talk openly about the fact that I am a millionaire, that I’m a multi-millionaire, that I want to pursue wealth, the comments are, eat the rich and millionaires shouldn’t exist. Can we talk about the difference? And I know you did this with a grain of sand, beautiful analogy. But what is the difference? As two very good liberals who … I don’t know. Do you believe billionaires should exist? I don’t really believe billionaires should exist.
Vivian Tu:
I think, billionaires with a B should not really be a thing, but millionaires certainly should.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. But millionaires and billionaires are so-
Vivian Tu:
So different.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. But they get lumped into the same category. So talk to me about that because it infuriates me, but I also know that me trying to have a conversation with somebody in the TikTok comments is not going to actually do anything. So let’s talk about that.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. So let’s get one thing straight. A million dollars ain’t what it used to be, baby.
Tori Dunlap:
Sorry. That’s the other thing is people also in the comments are like a million dollars is nothing. I have people in the camp who are like, “You should go die. You have so much money. Fuck you.” And then other people who are like, “A million dollars is nothing. That’s not that impressive.” And it’s always men by the way. It’s like million dollars is not that impressive. Big whoop. Yeah. A million dollars is not what it used to be.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. A million dollars is not what it used to be. I in my adult life have lived in some of the most expensive major metros, being New York City and Miami. And I think it’s really crazy because when you actually look at what a million dollars can get you in those two places … I’m really trying to speak to my own experience because I don’t want to extrapolate, but it’s not much. It does not buy you the yacht in the south of France. It does not buy you the Lambo. It does not buy you that Birkin bag. You cannot have that if you want to live and a million dollars does not get you there. What I will say is I think a lot of those comments stem from a place of just true frustration because the financial system has not served a lot of people for so long now, and it’s only gotten so much worse. And it’s been exacerbated by the fact that the middle class is shrinking, the cost of living is rising. And when you can’t afford groceries, to hear someone who looks like you and me, young women talk about how much money they have, it’s hurtful. I get it.
Tori Dunlap:
I totally understand. And I’m so empathetic to that because to your point, the system has fucked them and they are just like, I’m drowning. You’re now the human embodiment of everything-
Vivian Tu:
That they don’t have.
Tori Dunlap:
That I’m angry at. Right. Yeah. So I get where it comes from.
Vivian Tu:
Exactly. But I think it’s just best visually displayed … And you mentioned my video about the grain of sand. If you go and collect a gram of sand … A gram is roughly about a sugar packet worth of sand. I’ve got about two of those. Two sugar packets worth of sand. And you’re mad at me when that metaphor is extrapolated to how much money Elon Musk has. He has four times my body weight in sand. Why are you mad at someone who has two sugar packets of sand versus someone who has so much and frankly isn’t doing anything worthwhile with it at this point.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Right.
Vivian Tu:
I think the idea that there should be a … I don’t want to call it a wealth tax, but I want to call it a billionaire tax. Because if you have a billion dollars, you can do anything you want. Anything. And I really mean anything. You can buy a mega yacht, a home in pretty much wherever you could feasibly be.
Tori Dunlap:
20 homes.
Vivian Tu:
20 homes. 20 homes. You can get whatever you want. You can buy every car under the sun.
Tori Dunlap:
You can sway an election in almost any country.
Vivian Tu:
In any country. Literally. You can do anything and you wouldn’t miss the other 100 billion. You wouldn’t. And I think that money could be better used re-injected into the economy. Re-injected into small businesses, re-injected into causes of social good. I just think that that money has better use versus just-
Tori Dunlap:
Hoarding.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. It’s just hoarding. It’s literally hoarding. It’s like when COVID hit and people were buying 18 packs of toilet paper and I was wiping my ass with one ply. Let me tell you, if everybody just got the appropriate amount of toilet paper instead of 18 packs of the mega rolls, we could have all used two-ply. So I just think there’s a huge difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be a millionaire, with wanting financial wellness. Because frankly, to be financially stable, to be financially well these days at retirement, you’re going to need about seven figures. You’re going to need it.
Tori Dunlap:
You’re going to need probably multi seven figures for the average person.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. Probably multi. Exactly. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You can understand that the system is messed up, that we should be writing our legislators to change this while also understanding that there are rules of the game and you can’t just say, I’m not playing. You have to play along. You have to play to the best of your ability. You have to play responsibly. But all the while you can understand that the game’s not fair. That some people start life halfway down the Monopoly board and you started at go. You have to understand that.
Tori Dunlap:
You transitioned perfectly into what I wanted to relate, which is specifically with women. I’ve talked about this in my book. I know you talk about this with your work. Is I think that’s one of the lies that gets fed, is money is evil, money is bad. And so we push it away because we don’t want to be bad people. And as soon as women do start building wealth, as soon as folks like you and I show up online and we’re like, yep, this is the amount of money I have, I’m unapologetically pursuing wealth, our weaponization of altruism happens where typically men and women with internalized misogyny are like, “Why are you bragging? You shouldn’t have that amount of money. The pursuit of wealth is wrong. You should be donating more. You should be giving more.” And that’s the really interesting thing that happens is we’re so uncomfortable as a society with the pursuit of wealth for good reason.
Because for many people who are wealthy, they are pieces of shit. It’s to the point where we don’t do it ourselves and we actively push it away because we think it’s a bad thing. And then also, when we do start to become financially stable, when we do start to opt in to, “Nope, I’m going to negotiate for my worth. I’m going to start a business where I can make more money, I’m going to do these things.”, then society is like, oh, she’s no longer controllable. We’re going to tell her to play small again. It’s just so interesting to me that, again, I think part of the narrative is millionaires are bad, gets lumped into this feeling of don’t pursue wealth because it’s bad. When in actuality though, I think the way we fix it is members of marginalized groups getting more money.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. 100%.
Tori Dunlap:
That wasn’t a question, I guess, but I don’t know. It’s just-
Vivian Tu:
No, no, I get it. I get it.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s so ironic to me.
Vivian Tu:
I think we’ve all seen the headline in the last x, Y, Z number of months, MacKenzie Bezos has given away 50% of her wealth. Nothing bad happens when we give women more money. Nothing bad happens when we give Black, Indigenous, people of color money. Nothing bad happens when we give the LGBTQ community more money. Nothing bad happens. What happens is those dollars get re-injected into small businesses who may identify that way. That money is then used to create programs to uplift communities. We’ve all seen this cute little reel or whatever. I can’t remember. I’m not sporty, but this guy, he’s a football player and he’s talking to another member on his team. He’s an NFL player. And he’s like, “Yo, you want to come with me on Friday to go give out turkeys?” And some guy’s like, “What?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m giving out turkeys. It’s Thanksgiving. I’m revitalizing my community.” And he’s a young Black man who’s got it like that. He’s got that money. And he literally said, “I’m going back to the hood to give out Thanksgiving dinners.” And what does that tell you about where people’s heads are at when those communities make money? They want to bring up the crew they came up with. They want to help other people get on their feet.
That’s also the question that goes back to so many young immigrant kids helping to support their families. Sending money back. Where do you think that money goes? That money goes to your grandma, that money goes to your mom and dad, that money goes to your family. And so I love the idea of empowering. Both your and my mission is to empower communities that haven’t been taught how to be good with money, how to get good with money so that then they can help other people. On a one to 10 scale, if you are a seven on the money knowledge scale, you can teach fours and fives. If you’re a five on the money knowledge scale, you can teach twos and threes. And if you are someone who does this day in and day out, the hope is that you can teach everyone who may not have this information. And when we do that, more people get access. In the same way that opening up access to higher education or opening up access to resources is beneficial, opening up access to finance is like you say, our greatest form of protest.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Well, and it’s embracing that feeling too of just like, Nope, I’m going to pursue wealth. I don’t need to apologize for it. I’m going to pursue wealth because I know it’s going to set me up better. And that is an act of protest and I can use all of my influence and my power and my voice and all of the money I have to provide jobs, to grow a business, to revitalize a community. And I think that is just this moment where we tell members of marginalized communities to not want money as a way to continue to keep them playing small.
Vivian Tu:
And don’t you think it’s so interesting that when a rich white guy in a suit talks about how much money he has, people are like, oh yeah. They’re creaming their pants. They’re so excited.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, literally. Elon Musk is worshiped.
Vivian Tu:
Worshiped.
Tori Dunlap:
Again, I say this in my book. I’m like, Elon Musk is worshiped. He can sneeze and people are like, I want to suck his dick. Versus … Yeah.
Vivian Tu:
It’s crazy. I just think that, I remember when I was starting out … Lest we forget, I put in my time on Wall Street. I didn’t just start. I had to pass the series 7, the 63, I got my 55. I had to get all these licenses. I had to make sure that I had not committed any financial crimes. There was a vetting … I had to pee in a cup so that they were like no drug usage. I had to do all of these things to get that job. And I gutted it out and I was good at my job. And when I started making content, people were like, “What makes you qualified to talk about this?” And I’m like, you didn’t ask the 15-year-old boy in his mom’s basement why he was qualified to talk about this. Homeboy has never had a job. He has never ever had a brokerage account. He doesn’t have retirement savings but me, someone who literally went to U Chicago, did all of these right things, got the right job, passed all these exams and licensing, went through every single hoop, you don’t trust me? What’s wrong with you?
Tori Dunlap:
I’m in an event four months ago where I was paid $25,000 to come keynote. I am signing copies of my New York Times bestselling financial book, and a white man in his 50s comes up and goes, “What you had to say was really interesting, but what are your qualifications?” I’m literally signing books and I’m like this right here. And I just handed a little book and I was like, “I’m doing just fine. Thank you.” It’s crazy. It’s crazy.
Vivian Tu:
What a weird neg. Was he hitting on you?
Tori Dunlap:
I know. No. I think maybe he was well-intentioned. It was a big community of financial advisors and I think they were trying to figure out if you don’t have a CPA, how did you get around this? But just the way it came out was just like, but what are your qualifications? And I’m like, here you go. Here’s the book. I’m doing just fine. It’s just so funny.
Vivian Tu:
So good.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s so funny. Speaking of books, you have a book coming out?
Vivian Tu:
Yes.
Tori Dunlap:
And I’m very excited.
Vivian Tu:
Yes.
Tori Dunlap:
It is called Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. Can I say … Is it rich as fuck?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. Rich as Fuck but we’re calling it Rich AF, just making sure it’s nice and PG.
Tori Dunlap:
Because The Today Show … When I going on Good Morning America, because my subtitle has bullshit, they were like … I was just like, “Just say BS. It’s fine. You could say BS and we could keep moving.” Okay, I’m going to own it. Hear it. Rich As Fuck: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. It discusses how to live like a rich person. Can we dive into a few examples of how to live like a rich person?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I think one thing people don’t realize is that rich people are really lazy. They always love to talk about hard work, but only when you’re the one pumping their gas or running their DoorDash to them. Rich people are lazy. And I want to show people how they can be effectively lazy and have their money working hard to make them more money versus their bodies, their minds, and their labor. Because at the end of the day, we all are all human. You can probably only work a max amount per day before at a certain point, your body will give out, your mind will give out, you will burn out, but money don’t sleep. It does not get tired. You don’t have to give it a lunch break. Your money can keep working for you forever and I think it’s really important to call that out because it shows that rich people are not inherently harder workers than us, than the regular people.
I would say another fun little tidbit that I love to share is how rich people are very entitled. And in some cases that’s some Karen yelling at some poor 22-year-old cashier at the front of the McDonald’s line. I’m not saying do that. But I want to help give people a little bit of that sense of entitlement because your business is worth something and it is so important to remember that you are worth something and that your bank should be bending over backwards to do right by you because your business is valuable to them. And you don’t have to be J Lo walking in with $300 million for them to give a fuck. You can ask for things. You can negotiate. You can be powerful because you should be entitled. You have value.
Tori Dunlap:
I couldn’t agree with that more. I think there’s this, again, element of play small, play small. Don’t take up too much space. Don’t ask for things.
Vivian Tu:
Don’t make waves.
Tori Dunlap:
Don’t make waves. Totally. People ask me all the time, they’re like, “How do you get free hotel upgrades everywhere you go?” And I’m like, I ask. I ask. When I check in, I go, “Hey, do you have any complimentary upgrades?” And sometimes they tell me no, but most of the time they’re like, “Yeah, sure.” I just ask. Yeah, I think that’s so important.
Vivian Tu:
Exactly.
Tori Dunlap:
And also this belief too, that you don’t get an extra gold star if you make things harder than they have to be.
Vivian Tu:
No. You also don’t get an extra gold star for making them easier for other people because it’s their job to help you.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Right. If you can automate your bills, automate your bills. If you can automate your savings, automate your savings. If you can find a couple of investments that you like, you can just purchase those investments over and over and over and over and over again. It doesn’t have to be hard in order to work. It doesn’t have to be difficult in order to be effective. If we’re discussing more mindset stuff, outside of the obvious systemic factors that affect women, people of color, LGBTQ, disabled folks, what mindset do you feel stands in the way of most people when it comes to finances? And we’ve already started talking about a few of these things, but what do you see is the biggest reason from your mindset standpoint that people aren’t able to build wealth to feel financially well?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I think one thing that people struggle with a lot is … I know there’s a psychological concept behind this, but essentially status quo bias. So if you are living a life that you like that you’re like, “Okay, cool. Everything is good. I was able to buy my coffee this morning and I went to my job and I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. And then I come home to my apartment that’s okay, and I watched a TV show and then I go to bed.” You are comfortable with that life. Is it the best life you could possibly be living? No. Is it bad? No. You still have an okay life. People are sometimes very resistant to change because change feels hard. You’re going to have to overhaul your entire life.
But in reality, you can make one little change once a week, once a month, and overall that will level up your life over time versus being like, okay, well suddenly instead of coffee, I’m going to start drinking tea even though you hate tea. And instead of driving to work, I’m going to ride a bicycle. You don’t even like riding a bicycle. And I’m going to change jobs because this one pays more, but I don’t even like this company or my new boss. Instead of coming home and relaxing, I’m going to go run a half-marathon. You don’t have to change every single part of your life. You are allowed to want comfort. You are allowed to want those creature comforts. You are allowed to want to do things you like. But making small substantive changes over time is going to make you a better person, is going to make your money way better and is going to give you a better life overall.
Tori Dunlap:
The theme of this show lately for probably the past year has been getting comfortable being uncomfortable. And we don’t mean unsafe, but it’s that feeling of when your head hits the pillow and you’re like, I don’t know if I’m satisfied with my life. I don’t know if I’m satisfied, maybe with my partner, with my job, with where I live, what I’m doing. And again, the narrative, you’re so right, that’s fed to us is it’s just like, it’s fine, it’s fine though. It’s fine. And it’s like, I don’t want you to live a life that’s just fine.
Vivian Tu:
Fine. Right.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s not fun. You get one shot. You get one shot. And if you’re just like, it’s fine and you can actually do something about it, even if that feels scary, well, beautiful. Doesn’t work out. Okay. You can make a different decision. That’s okay.
Vivian Tu:
In the movie of your life, do not be a cameo. Do not be an extra. Do not be part of the cast. You are the main fucking character. You are the protagonist. You live that life exactly how you want.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep. One of my last questions for you. It’s what I lovingly call Cayman Island shit even though it’s legal. Talk to me about some tax strategies, legal loopholes. I’ll literally go into my accountant’s office and be like, “What Cayman Island shit am I not doing that I could be doing?”
Vivian Tu:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
So talk to me about some of the things that most people have no idea about, but that they can likely take advantage of.
Vivian Tu:
I want to think about my favorite Cayman Island shit. Well, I am relearning how to drive. I lived in New York for six years and before that I lived in Chicago for four years. Okay. It’s 10 years I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car.
Tori Dunlap:
No. I understand now what you meant by that. For those of you who can’t see, I gave this confused look. In my head I was like that you had learned wrong and then were relearning as opposed to you just hadn’t done it in a while. I was like, are you breaking with your left foot?
Vivian Tu:
No.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s what happened in my head and that’s why I gave you a confused look. But what you’ve said makes total sense. I’m having a day. You’re relearning how to drive.
Vivian Tu:
Yes. I learned how to drive when I was 16, 18, whatever. Normal age. And then I didn’t do it for a decade. And so now I’m relearning how to drive and be a safe driver. And I think once I get more comfortable with driving again, I’m going to think about buying a vehicle. And one of my favorite Cayman Island shit things is that if you are a business owner, there is something called a Section 179 deduction. And essentially if you get a vehicle over 6,000 pounds, you are able to essentially deduct the cost of that vehicle all in year one versus amortizing it over the next five years. So what that really means is the government will help you pay for that car. And obviously there are some caveats in that if you end up selling the car, you have to recapture that depreciation. But if you are a business owner who plans on buying a car, not leasing, if you plan on driving it until the wheels fall off, this is a great way to save on a vehicle over 6,000 pounds.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. This is maybe my own stupidity. What’s over 6,000 pounds? Because in my head it’s a semi-truck, but it can’t be.
Vivian Tu:
No. No. No. You want to know why everybody in LA drives a G Wagon? That’s why. Like a Range Rover, a Porsche Cayenne. Even just like a-
Tori Dunlap:
I have a Toyota RAV4.
Vivian Tu:
I was going to say.
Tori Dunlap:
[inaudible 00:47:19] Google.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah, you should Google how much of those weigh because I don’t know that off the top of my head, but it’s very much-
Tori Dunlap:
I’m really Googling it. It’s like 3,600 pounds.
Vivian Tu:
Okay. So you might need the Highlander or what’s the bigger Toyota? I’m trying to think. Highlander-
Tori Dunlap:
I have a 2014 RAV4 that I bought when I was 22 and that’s still the car I drive.
Vivian Tu:
The Highlander is not even heavy enough. Maybe it’s a Toyota Sienna that you can do it with. Nope, the Sienna’s not heavy enough.
Tori Dunlap:
This is where we’re at now.
Vivian Tu:
Right. You got to do this. But there is a reason why there are so many people in Hollywood who drive G Wagons, and it’s not just because they’re cool looking, it’s because they’re taking these write-offs.
Tori Dunlap:
They can write them off. Interesting. Okay. But you’re in New York. Are you going to feel comfortable getting a big car?
Vivian Tu:
Okay. So I don’t know that I told you this, but I am living officially in Miami.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t know I knew that. I knew you were splitting your time, but I didn’t realize. Amazing. How are you liking it?
Vivian Tu:
I like it a lot. I think it’s a little challenging because I don’t drive and Miami is quite spread apart, but the weather’s much, much better. And I love that it’s sunny. I’m a big swimmer, so I actually open water swim in the ocean. And the other week I saw a stingray and I made sure not to touch it, but it’s cool.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s amazing.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Cool. I went to Miami for the first time and we should talk about it. Yeah. I did not see the things that I should have. I went and I was like, okay. I was between Miami and … Is it Fort Lauderdale? No. This is where my geography is bad. It’s whatever is in between those. That’s where I was staying. Okay. What else do you hope that people take away from your book? If somebody has closed the book, what is the feeling you want them to have?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I want people to be able to read the book from page one to page … I believe it’s 336. It might be off by one or two depending on where the final proofs come in. But I want them to be able to level up their life. I think a big question that you and I probably both get is like, what do I do if I don’t know anything? Where do I start? How do I begin? What can I do? And I hope that my book does that for people because that feeling of helplessness, I had it. I had it at 22 when I moved to New York and I was making my Wall Street income and living paycheck to paycheck and spending all my money on tequila at a shitty dive bar on Friday, Saturday nights. And I don’t want people to feel that way anymore. I just don’t think it’s necessary. I think this book is going to be able to serve as a nice roadmap that you can check things off one by one and feel a lot better about wherever you are on your financial journey. Oh, you’re going to love this. If people do want to pre-order, there is a pre-order URL, which is richaf.me because it’s a manifestation. And I wanted people to know that everybody deserves to be rich AF.
Tori Dunlap:
I love it. It’s so good talking to you. I appreciate your work and I appreciate … It’s just very, very … I don’t know if validating is the right word. It’s very comforting to have somebody else who’s also … I think we’re just very in sync about why we’re doing this, what we’re doing it for, both for ourselves and for our communities. And it’s just really amazing to watch you succeed and to also know that, yeah, I’m not the only one doing this. You’re not the only one doing this. There’s people out there who are … We’re all trying to do the same thing and just very comforting. So where can people find you? Where can people buy the book?
Vivian Tu:
You guys can find me all over social media as Your Rich BFF and you can find the book at richaf.me. It comes out December 26th, but you can pre-order it now.
Tori Dunlap:
Amazing. Thank you for being here.
Vivian Tu:
That you for having me.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much to Vivian for coming on. She and I just constantly, every time we talk, we have pretty much the exact same business. We’re out here just trying to help women and marginalized people get more money and to become financially educated in a way that’s accessible and nonjudgmental. And if you bought my book, you’re going to like her book too. Again, it’s called Rich AF, available wherever you get your books and makes a great holiday gift and maybe pair it with Financial Feminist and you’ve got a one two punch. So thank you as always for being here. I hope you have a great, safe, restful rest of 2023. We will see you back here in 2024. And oh boy, you are not ready for the shit we’re doing in 2024. It’s going to be so exciting y’all. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, for continuing to support our work and for taking an active role in bettering your own money and bettering the world. And I hope you have a great rest of the year and we’ll see you back here very, very soon.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, associate producer, Tamisha Grant, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sophia Cohen, Khalil Dumaz, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, Amanda La Fleur, Masha Bachmetyeva, Kailyn Sprinkle, Sumaya Mulla-Carillo, and Harvey Carlson. Researched by Ariel Johnson, audio engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, 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 team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.
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 one million women negotiate salary, 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 almost 250,000 on Instagram and more than 1.6 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.
