Hey Financial Feminists! I’m so excited to celebrate our 200th episode with you all. Can you believe it? We’ve actually done more than 200 episodes when you count the bonus and exclusive content, but hitting this milestone feels incredible. We started this journey together in May 2021, and when the show debuted, we became the number one business podcast—remaining the only women-hosted, women-focused show in the top rankings for months. I want to express my deepest gratitude to both our long-time listeners and those who have recently joined us. Your unwavering support is the reason we’ve come this far.
I also want to give a massive shoutout to my phenomenal all-women team at Her First $100K. They’re the ones who make this podcast possible, working tirelessly behind the scenes. By supporting the show, you’re not just tuning into important conversations; you’re also supporting women’s employment and leadership.
I’m thrilled to tease a new way for you to experience the Her First $100K community. While I can’t spill all the details just yet, we’ve been working on an exciting project that’s launching in January. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it! To be the first to know, join our secret waitlist.
In this special episode, we listened to some incredible voicemails from members of our community:
- Emily from Austin, Texas shared how she secured her dream job after reading my book “Financial Feminist.” She confidently negotiated $10,000 above the original offer and secured amazing benefits like a 10% 401(k) match and unlimited PTO.
- Gwendolyn reflected on her financial wins over the past year, including negotiating her wage, receiving a promotion with multiple raises, and paying off her personal credit cards. She reminds us all to take a moment to celebrate our achievements.
- Jess told us about her significant career move, where she increased her salary by $100,000 compared to her last job using the strategies we’ve discussed on the podcast. She’s even interviewing for a full-time professor position that could boost her income further.
Key takeaways
- Financial education as empowerment: Understanding personal finance is crucial for gaining control over your life and breaking free from systemic barriers.
- Money equals options: Having money isn’t just about wealth—it’s about the choices and freedoms it affords, from leaving toxic situations to accessing quality healthcare.
- Debunking money myths: Challenging the belief that pursuing wealth is selfish or that money can’t buy happiness; in reality, financial stability can significantly improve well-being.
- Financial wellness Is wellness: Money impacts every aspect of life, including physical health, mental health, and the ability to support others.
Notable quotes
“Your hope was not stupid.”
“You cannot pick yourself back up again until you’ve fallen apart.”
“Community is all that we have and all that we’ve ever had, really.”
“You cannot escape the riptide if you’re caught in the riptide.”
“The moment we stop hoping is the moment that this world doesn’t become fun to live in anymore.”
Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. Here’s to 200 more episodes!
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
My eyebrows are finally growing back, by the way. This is my advice to anybody under the age of 20, don’t pluck your eyebrows, especially at the corners. Do not do it. I over plucked my eyebrows when I was 15 and then I didn’t want to wait for them to grow back, so I kept plucking the same spot. And if you’re on video, you can see it’s like right here. And I plucked them all the way back to here, and then you just had to keep plucking them or else it looks ridiculous. And then probably three, four years ago I was like, I need to stop doing this and I need to let them grow back. And so I’ve been through this one little regrowth period where I’m starting to finally get little wispies here that if I drag them over and press them, actually look like an eyebrow.
My advice to everybody, don’t over pluck your eyebrows until you’re 100% sure that that is the shape you want your eyebrows to look for pretty much the rest of your God damn life. Hi, Financial Feminists. This is episode 200. We have done technically way over 200 episodes because we’ve done bonus episodes and we’ve done exclusive episodes that we haven’t considered to be directly part of the canon. Today we are recording our 200th episode, two hundo. This feels very exciting. We started this show in May of 2021, and at the time the show came out, we only did 12 episodes for our first season, and yet we were the number one business podcast when we debuted. We continued to be the only women hosted, women focused show in the top 30, maybe even the top 40 for six months after the show first aired, and it’s just been a really incredible journey.
I think a lot of you have discovered our work because of the Financial Feminist podcast. It is the thing that I probably get most often when I’m either out in public or out in event, is I know you from the podcast or I listen to your podcast. So if you’re an oldie but a goodie, we really, really appreciate all of your support. If you’ve been here months, years, we couldn’t do the show without you. And if you’re new to the show as of fairly recently, we’re really excited to have you. I just want to thank before we get into the rest of the episode that I have a whole team behind me who does this. I get to sit on a mic and record and talk to really cool people because we have a whole team at Her First $100K that help make this show possible.
So a reminder that when you listen to this show and when you support our work, you’re not just supporting the ability for me to have these conversations and to educate millions and millions of women, you also give us the opportunity as a team to employ women to produce this show. We are entirely woman produced and woman led. And you just supporting the show, subscribing, sharing it has allowed us to do 200 plus episodes and hopefully 200 more. So we just are very, very thankful for you. So for our 100th episode, we celebrated our community. And for our 200th episode, we’re going to celebrate our community. So we’re building a new way to experience Her First $100K community. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but it’s coming out in January and we’re really excited about it. We’ve been working for literally like nine months on this very exciting project. You can make sure to know about it first at herfirst1001k.com/secret-waitlist. We can’t wait to see you and show you everything we’ve been working on. So again, herfirst100k.com/secret-waitlist and you’ll be the first to know what we’ve been building that’s launching in January.
Okay, let’s take some voicemails. I like to listen to these cold and get some reactions. These are some wins from our community and we always like celebrating you all before we proceed to the rest of the episode. Okay, this first one’s from Emily.
Speaker 2:
Hey, Tori, my name is Emily and I’m from Austin, Texas. My recent financial win is that just the week after I picked up a copy of your book, The Financial Feminist, I went into a final round interview for basically my dream job, which was very quickly followed by a job offer. And thanks to your chapter on salary negotiation, I was able to confidently negotiate $10,000 above and beyond the original salary offer as well as secure some amazing benefits including a 10% 401k match-
Tori Dunlap:
10% match.
Speaker 2:
… Unlimited PTO, and even $1,000 company contribution to an HSA. So thanks to you and your sage advice, I finally feel like for the first time in my life, at 42 years old, I am able to double down on my retirement savings and make a very comfortable life for myself. Thank you so much for what you do.
Tori Dunlap:
Yay. Emily, congratulations first of all. Getting a brand new job that feels like the dream job and then $10,000 more, and 10% 401k match, and a bunch of other cool benefits. Yeah, it sounds like that total compensation package is pretty high and we love that. And I love that you took the negotiation chapter of the book and used those resources and made it happen. Congratulations, that’s fantastic. And like you said, the cool thing about making more money is that you get to do more things with the money like pay off your debt or prioritize your retirement or make sure that you’re taking care of, and I love that for you. Congratulations. It’s a huge win. Okay, let’s take our next voicemail. This one is from Gwendolyn.
Speaker 3:
This is a great opportunity for me to actually reflect on that I have had a lot of financial wins this past year, even though I still would like to see my progress. I was able to negotiate my wage at work, I was able to get a promotion and then multiple raises, as well as paying off both of my personal credit cards. So that actually is a huger win when I sit down and actually reflect on it. So yeah, thank you for giving me this chance to celebrate that.
Tori Dunlap:
We got another salary negotiation and paying off two credit cards. Gwendolyn, that’s huge. And I think this is also a good time, let her be a reminder to you all as well. When we get in the thick of it, we forget to celebrate ourselves. And we’ve talked about this on the show before with guests when we set goals and then we achieve them, it’s like, okay, cool, we’re onto the next thing. Please take an opportunity to reflect on what has went well for you financially over the past year and actually sit and celebrate that. Both because you deserve to be celebrated, but also if you do want your progress to be most effective, you have to reflect on that progress. Psychologically, your brain needs a reason to keep going, needs a reason to feel motivated, and if you don’t realize your own wins and you don’t sit with them for a little bit, your brain doesn’t think anything happened and it’s very hard to keep going on your financial journey. So this is a great opportunity. Take it like Gwendolyn to sit and actually go like, okay, what did I accomplish this year? What are my money wins for the year? And not only to celebrate yourself but also use it as encouragement to keep going. So congrats to you. I love that. Okay, our last voicemail. This is from Jess.
Speaker 4:
Hey y’all, just wanted to share a financial win. I’m in the process of switching jobs and because I use the strategies that Tori teaches, I was able to sign a contract today for 50,000 more than the next highest offer I received-
Tori Dunlap:
Everybody’s getting more money.
Speaker 4:
… And in total, my salary is increasing by 100,000 per year compared to my last job.
Tori Dunlap:
Wow.
Speaker 4:
I’m also in the process of interviewing for a second position as a full-time professor. And if I’m able to secure that position, I’ll be making even more. And I’m so freaking thankful that I found Her First $100K, I would not have had these strategies if I hadn’t and you’re helping me move into a financially secure future and I’m so thankful.
Tori Dunlap:
Daddy professor, okay. Everybody’s negotiating more money and I fucking love it. That was the theme of these wins today. $100,000 more, that is life-changing amounts of money. So that’s just amazing. Congratulations. And I hope you become a professor. I hope you get the promotion you want too. Look at everybody, you’re making more money. We fucking love it. Let this be inspiration to you all, negotiate your salary, earn more money, and then learn what to do with that money once you have more of it. So for our 200th episode, we are going to talk about something that this entire show is basically here for and based on. I had a post recently that went viral on both TikTok and Instagram and this episode is kind of inspired by that post, which is that if you’re unhappy, I have the solution for you.
Let’s call it a solution. When we talk about money, when we talk about becoming financially educated, when we talk about personal finance in general, it is very easy to believe that this is a niche topic. It’s very easy to look at personal finance as a genre, as a collection of books, a collection of podcasts, a collection of Instagram accounts, a collection of radio shows, and yes, I’m looking at one particular person in that, and think, okay, this is great and this is good information and it’s this very niche topic. We know, because you listen to this show and because we have these conversations a lot and because we just listen to all of these wins from our community, that personal finance is not niche. It is not for a particular group of people. It is not the thing that feels like this exclusive club that no one else is allowed in, and that also is not broadly applicable to everyone.
As you and I know, when we talk about money, we talk about all of the options that money can provide us. When we talk about personal finance, we talk about not just Excel spreadsheets and a number in a bank account and your stock gains, we talk about how money can be used as a tool to build a life that you love and a life that you want. Yet society has tried to convince us that personal finance, becoming financially educated, is not a broader conversation, it is not part of overall wellness, and it is definitely not for women. It is definitely not for people of color, for queer folks, for disabled people, for anybody who isn’t a cisgender straight white man. We know better. We know that personal finance, becoming financially educated, is our best form of protest. We know that becoming financially educated means, again, not just a number in a bank account, but options and choices.
I think people want to label personal finance as this niche thing because well many reasons. One, we weren’t taught it in school, so it doesn’t feel super applicable or important. Two, it’s been gate-kept from us for years by the system, the patriarchy that wants to keep us from having this information. And finally, it feels niche because not many people are making the connection between money and options or money and choices. And only when you start to experience in your own life the choices and the options that you get when you’re financially stable, does the connection become really clear. So when I talk about getting rich, when I talk about having money, when I’m talking about pursuing wealth unabashedly, what I mean by that is having the options and the choices to live a stable, whole, thriving life. I don’t just want a number in a bank account.
I don’t want money just to have money. I want what money can buy me. I want the choices and the flexibility and the options that money can buy me. And the lie that money can’t buy you happiness is utter bullshit, that’s just not true. Yes, the idea is true that if you buy a Ferrari and you’re depressed, it’s not going to make you happy, right? But the whole money can’t buy you happiness myth. When you believe it, you are believing a lie from the patriarchy to keep you playing small. Because if you don’t pursue money because you think it’s wrong, if you don’t pursue money because you don’t think it can make you happy, if you don’t pursue money because you’re worried that you’re going to be labeled greedy or gauche or impolite or you think that rich people are gross, generally, what only happens is that it affects and hurts you.
It doesn’t hurt anybody else, it just hurts you. So when I talk about pursuing wealth, pursuing money, again, I’m not just doing it for a stack of government issue paper, that doesn’t get me anything. I want what money can buy me. When we’re talking about these options, we have so many examples. I can give you examples from my own life first. When I had money, I was able to leave a toxic job with a boss that made me feel every day like I was worthless, made me feel every day like I was scraping by by the skin of my teeth. Having money allowed me to escape the deep anxiety that I felt walking into a job where I spent 40 plus hours a week. Having money meant being able to start a business and to grow a business, to be able to employ other people, to be able to help impact millions of you, to be able to grow and sustain a movement of advocacy, of focus on something that I could see made real change.
Having money meant that I am able to go to therapy. And go to a good therapist who does not take my insurance and I have to pay out of pocket, but I’m getting the care that I need. Having money means being able to move out of a 600 square foot apartment where I lived for four years, especially during COVID, and ran an entire business from and be able to have a bedroom that is just my dedicated office. Having money means that I’m able to get potentially life-saving health care that I might need in the future. Including but not limited to an abortion, birth control, access to the best doctors. Having money means that I know that not just 30-year-old me will be protected, but also 40-year-old me, 50-year-old me, 65-year-old me. And if I choose to have children that my family will be protected as well.
Having money means that when I was super, super stressed about the election and about the state of the world, I could literally just pull out my credit card and donate to the campaigns and the kind of policies I wanted to see more of, and donate to causes and organizations in my community. Having money means having options. Having money means that you have a safe dependable car to get to work every day. Having money means having options so that you can take care of ailing family members and how to afford it is the last thing on your mind. Having money means having options, and that means the ability to leave an abusive relationship that you don’t feel safe in anymore. All of these examples are straight from our community, from women that I know, whose names I know, whose lives have gotten not only better but absolutely transformed and changed because they have money.
When you have money, everything in your life changes. You never have to stay in a situation that doesn’t respect you. You can say yes to the things you want to say yes to, and you can say no to the things you want to say no to. You don’t ever have to give an answer that feels inauthentic or that you don’t want to do just because you need the money or just because you don’t want to miss this opportunity. When we talk about having money, it means having choices. Every option opens up to you when you have money. And not only does your life start looking really different, it starts to completely change. Because if you want anything in life, a different job, a business, children, buying a house, again, going to therapy, being able to donate to causes you believe in, being able to move at a whim, being able to feel safe and secure and whole and joyful, you need money.
That’s why I don’t understand why it’s considered this niche topic. And I think that’s changing due to my work, due to other people’s work in this space. Because financial wellness is wellness. You can’t have the rest of it. You can’t go to the gym if you don’t have money. You can’t eat good food if you don’t have money. You can’t go to a good therapist if you don’t have money. And if you’re a member of a marginalized group, this is your best form of protest, is having money, having a financial education because I need you to be uncontrollable. An uncontrollable woman is the patriarchy’s worst nightmare. And yes, I am quoting myself from my own God damn book. But an uncontrollable woman is the patriarchy’s worst nightmare. The patriarchy wants to keep you controllable. It wants you to conform, it wants you to hate your life, it wants you to feel broke and depressed and sad and anxious, and like you have no agency. And the best thing you can do to fight the patriarchy is to be uncontrollable. And the best way to get uncontrollable, have your own God damn money.
So how do we actually do this? We have to become obsessed with personal finance. We have to be obsessed, in a healthy way, with learning everything we possibly can about money. And we’re recording this after the election. We’re recording this knowing that we’re about to embark on four plus years of more Donald Trump. I need you to become obsessed with learning everything you possibly can about how to save more money, about how to pay off more debt, about how to invest, about how to negotiate more money like we just heard from our three community members. Because I need you whole, stable, joyful, content so that we can work to fight a system together. Because you can’t fight the system when you are broke, when you are depressed, when you are scared, when you are sad, when you are overworked and tired and burned out, you can’t. You also can’t show up, as we talked about on the post-election episode, you can’t show up as love in the room if you are not doing well, if you are not whole.
And I think this is one of the myths that is so pervasive is that we’re taught as women to be constantly selfless. We are taught to be constantly putting other people before ourselves. Which is a beautiful, lovely trait and also it’s the thing that burns us out and that leads us feeling like any decision we make for ourselves, even if it is to better our own lives so that other people can also be okay, that feels selfish and wrong. If you are still holding on to the belief that pursuing wealth is wrong or is selfish, I need you to let that go. I need you to let that go as we head into next year. Because you, again, stable and content and well-fed, I mean literally and metaphorically, is the best fucking middle finger to a society and a system that wants to keep you feeling powerless, that wants to keep you feeling controllable.
So in the spirit of a financial education being our best form of protest, you need to think about the diet you feed yourself. And I’m not just meaning physical here, I’m talking about what sort of information you are feeding yourself. As I mentioned on the post-election episode, I am not listening to the news all that often. I personally have unsubscribed even from podcasts that I think are well-produced and well-informed because I was doing too much. I was listening to too much election and news content and it was stressing me out. And it’s not effective, it’s not helpful. It’s the maga riptide. So I’m thinking now about what sort of media can I consume that fills me up, that doesn’t deplete me, that doesn’t make me feel scared or make me feel powerless or make me feel worried, but instead reminds me and teaches me things.
I like to think this show is one of those things for you. I sometimes go back and listen to my own show because I need to hear it again, either from past me or from a guest. What podcasts are you listening to? What books are you reading? I don’t read a lot of self-development books, I read fairy smut because that helps me recharge. That helps me feel joyful and present so that I can go do this work elsewhere. And when we’re talking specifically about financial education, if you’re not following us on Instagram already @herfirst100K, go follow us. If you’re not following other people in this space who are talking about money as a form of protest, that’s a great place to start. If you’re not reading books and not taking this seriously, please let this be an opportunity for you to take it seriously.
I need you to become obsessed with this thing because every other aspect of your life unlocks when you learn how to save money, when you learn how to pay off your credit cards or your student loans, when you learn the strategies to invest and build your wealth, when you learn how to start a business, or to negotiate your salary, or to how to find a job that compensates you fairly. If we get our financial shit together, all of the other shit togethers fall in place. So when we title this episode, or when I go on Instagram and talk about buying happiness, what we really mean is being able to buy those options for yourself. We don’t mean consuming more, we don’t mean buying this one thing that TikTok has promised will make you look hotter or be happier or get a man or whatever. We’re not talking about that. We are talking about using a financial education to have agency in our lives, to have freedom in our lives, to feel like you can take on any situation that arises because you have the money, you have the flexibility.
And in a system, on a good day, that makes us feel small and powerless and especially in a system that I think is about to get a whole lot worse, this is your best form of protest against that system. Is to learn everything you possibly can about personal finance, to learn everything you possibly can about bettering your money, and then using that information to not only better your life, but to better communities around you. Talk about money with your friends. That is an act of protest. Negotiating your salary, act of protest. Saving an emergency fund, act to protest. Listening to our podcast or someone else’s podcast that talks about money, act to protest.
Because we also know that all of this information has largely been gate kept from us. And like I said before, there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why personal finance education has felt niche, there’s a reason why personal finance education has largely just been for cisgender straight white men, and it’s so they can continue having options and choices in a society that they built. So if I encourage you to do one thing, as we round out this year and as we head into next year, I want you to think about the diet you’re consuming, what information you’re getting and who it’s coming from and how it’s being delivered. And think about what you can do in a sustainable way to learn everything you can about bettering your money.
Because truly, if you want to be happy, if you want to feel content, if you want to feel safe, having money is the best solution for that. It is the best solution. It doesn’t fix everything, but it is the best solution. I am way happier now that I have money. I am way more content now that I have money. I am in relationships because I want to be there, not because I’m forced to be there. I am dating my partner knowing that I will never have to be financially dependent on him. I show up in our business knowing that we can make strategic decisions that are sometimes difficult because we have money and we have flexibility.
I can buy myself nice things. And I’ve avoided saying that until now because I want to get my point across, but also having money means that you get to stay in nicer hotels and get to buy yourself nice things every once in a while. And that is also joyful and lovely in a society that wants to, again, make you believe that you are not worth that. And, again, I get to throw money at causes I believe in. I literally did this the other day. I just sat down with my credit card and was like, okay, this place, okay, this money. This place, this money. This place, this money. This women’s charity, this money. It was so freeing.
So as we move into 2025 and beyond, as we move into this very unpredictable landscape, I need you getting money. I need you educating yourself about money, educating your community about money, coming together to talk about money because it is your best form of protest. As we round out our 200th episode, thank you financial feminists for being here. Thank you for the support of our work. I think more than ever, shameless plug, we’re really going to need female voices. We’re really going to need women voices in the business and finance space, talking about systemic oppression, talking about money as a form of protest. And you listening to the show, sharing it, discussing it with your friends is the best way you can support our work, and we really appreciate it. We’re really excited for 200 plus more episodes. Thank you for being here. Go get money babes. Go get money. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Sciortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew.
Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Sasha Bonnar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram, and Meghan Walker, 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 the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests, and episode show notes visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
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.
