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Tricia Cleppe grew up sitting on the counters of cash and bail bonds stores.

The daughter of an immigrant Filipino mother living in the south, Tricia has one of the most fascinating backstories, and we loved every minute of this episode. Tricia and Tori dive deep into the history of racism in America, how the predatory cash and bail bonds industry targets and harms minorities, and how these industries can have a more ethical future.

They also talked about southern culture and its roots in evangelicalism, the patriarchal lie “money is evil,” and so much more.

This episode is a must-listen and will change the way you see systemic poverty, racism, and the American justice system forever.

Bonus! If you’re playing the Financial Feminist drinking game, take a shot every time Tori and Tricia talk about our favorite not-so-favorite financial advice guru. #youknowwho

Tricia’s Links:

The Woman Wave – Tricia’s Podcast

Instagram

Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take my free money personality quiz for customized resources just for you!

Timestamps:

6:50 – How Tricia’s money story was influenced by growing up as the daughter of a Filipino immigrant in the south.

11:20 – How check-cashing and bail bonds work, and why it’s so predatory, especially towards minorities.

15:15 – How “proximity” to whiteness only aids in the expansion of white supremacy.

18:15 – Why cash bail exists, how it works, and the way that the criminal justice system and those who participate in it continually benefit monetarily from systemic racism.

30:50 – How the narratives are beginning to change in response to the BLM movement and the response to hate crimes against the AAPI community.

34:40 – How the southern (and often evangelical) community justifies the immorality of predatory loans and systemic racism.

39:30 – How Tricia’s mom leaving the bail bonds and check cashing industry informed her scarcity mindset.

42:30 – Why it’s expensive to be poor in America.

44:20 – The “money is evil” lie, and how this belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

48:10 – The incredibly fascinating history of race as a social construct in America.

56:48  – Yeah, we talked about D*ve R*msey again. Take a shot!

1:04:00 – What is active love and how can we practice it?

1:08:15 – Can check-cashing companies ever be ethical? What’s promising, and what to be skeptical of.

1:15:00 – What adult Tricia would tell childhood Tricia

Resources from this episode:
Our HYSA Partner Recommendation (terms apply)

Just Mercy

Payday Loans: Will Anything Better Replace It?

The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons

Report: more than 55% of black households are ‘underbanked’ or ‘unbanked’

Why it costs so much to be poor in America

Inventing Black & White

Your local post office could become a bank if this bill passes

NAACP: Criminal Justice Fact Sheet

Payday Loan Facts and the CFPB Impact

Fast Cash and Payday Loans

The Military Lending Act 5 years later

Do Payday Loans Cause Bankruptcy?

An Analysis of Consumer Use of Payday Loans

Overdraft Fees-CFPB

2017 Financially Underserved Market Study

Bail Reform-Vox

California Supreme Court ends Cash Bail for those who can’t Afford it

The Effects of Pre-Trial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges

SF-PreTrial Impact

Bail Project

Bail Industry-Mother Jones

Transcripts

Tori Dunlap:

Team, hi. Welcome back to the Financial Feminist podcast. I’m Tori Dunlap, money speaker and educator, founder for Her First 100K and that girl who says, “Oh, eat a vegetable tomorrow” while halfway through a Popeye’s chicken sandwich.

Tori Dunlap:

Today’s guest is one of my amazing coaching clients turned good friends, Tricia Cleppe. Her wedding invite is actually up on my refrigerator. She’s one of
those women that you could just stay up all night talking to and not about fluffy shit either. She and I have very similar backgrounds. We both worked in marketing and work in marketing. She also co-hosts one of my favorite podcasts called the Women Wave. Be sure to check that out. We’ll link it in the show notes.

Tori Dunlap:

Tricia’s story is a doozy, but in the best way possible. She’s a woman of color who grew up in the South, and as a kid, she helped her mother run a check-cashing and cash bail business. Yeah, we not only talk about the financial and emotional impact that this had on her. If you’ve ever felt shame around money because of the way you grew up, this is a must listen episode but we also talk about race, wealth, inequality, and more.

Tori Dunlap:

You all, I can’t even begin to tell you how worth your time this episode is. Please, if you love the show, rate and review, subscribe, tell your friends, we appreciate your support of our mission and this movement. Without further ado, let’s go ahead and get into it.

Tori Dunlap:

Tell us a bit about yourself. You and I have known each, what it was like, two years, three years?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah. Two or three years, yes, introduced by our dear friend [Kieran 00:01:40]. When we met, I was freelancing full time and kind of running my own small business. Me, myself, and I doing freelance marketing work, copywriting, a lot of mostly copywriting. We met because I definitely was asking Kieran, our friend, who also runs her own business doing freelance work and consulting, that I just didn’t know where to start with money. I was so confused.

Tricia Cleppe:

Money to me has always been this weird, magical, saying that exists out there and doesn’t exist here. All I know about money is that I never have enough of it. As soon as I get it, it goes away. That’s like…

Tori Dunlap:

Sure.

Tricia Cleppe:

… that’s like my entire understanding of how money works.

Tori Dunlap:

Money and I are not friends. We don’t get along.

Tricia Cleppe:

We’re not.

Tori Dunlap:

We don’t talk. We don’t hang out.

Tricia Cleppe:

What is this concept that you’re talking about, like savings. For a really long time, I was just in survival mode. This idea of contributing to a savings account, or having an emergency fund felt like something that was so far away from something I could have because there was no extra in the paycheck at the end of groceries and rent. I just had a very, I wouldn’t even say like a bad relationship with money. I was just, I was terrified of it. Just would to now of conversations about it, because it just felt so overwhelming to me.

Tricia Cleppe:

Then, my father passed away who I didn’t have much of a relationship with but my mom who had been divorced from him since I was four, had gotten a life insurance policy, years and years and years, literally decades before, and continued paying towards it, paying towards it. When he passed away, me and my brother each got money from his life insurance. It wasn’t a lot but it was more money than I’ve ever seen in a cheque for sure and that I’ve ever seen deposited into my account.

Tricia Cleppe:

I finally had this sort of nest egg, and I paid off my student loans with it. I paid off my credit card debt. Then, there was this little chunk leftover and I just wanted to protect it and I didn’t know what to do with it. Kieran invited me to your free workshop that you did.

Tori Dunlap:

This was like 2019…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… May, April, May of 2019.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. That’s where we met and then we worked together one on one. I did a couple one on one sessions with you. Used some of your downloadable tools and really got my shit together, truly, got my emergency fund, my Roth IRA, and just feeling, just a simple, nonjudgmental budget every month of just knowing what my boundaries are really helps me. I’m feeling, I’m in such a better place now. Thanks to your help. Also, at that-

Tori Dunlap:

No, and you worked super hard to make it happen too.

Tricia Cleppe:

Totally.

Tori Dunlap:

I’ve been, I’m so proud of you and everything that you’ve been able to do financially. It’s just been really cool to watch.

Tricia Cleppe:

Thank you. At that same workshop, I actually met my now boss as well.

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 00:05:34].

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. All the things, all the things happened. It was a magical day.

Tori Dunlap:

I’ll tell listeners, we are all kind of part of this, I don’t know, Seattle female entrepreneur group chat.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s better in real life group chat and then as COVID started, it’s all gone over text and Zoom and that sort of thing. Honestly, if you don’t have a group like this in your life, you need to get one, like it’s-

Tricia Cleppe:

You have to have one.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s labeled the hype squad in our group chat of just like we send each other our accomplishments. We ask each other questions. We go like, “Hey, have you heard of this person and can I get an intro, if any of you know this person?” Yeah, it’s amazing.

Tricia Cleppe:

Hey, I feel like s
hit. Anybody else?

Tori Dunlap:

Oh yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

Anybody have tips for getting out of a rut? You just need people. You just need community. That is my number one lesson in life and what I encourage other people to find is friends. It sounds so simple, but you need them. You need community, and you need to be in touch with your community. It makes such a difference in your life.

Tori Dunlap:

Yup, without a doubt. Tell me a bit and we’ll kind of transition into what we’re looking to talk about today but tell me a bit about how you grew up around money and what your family situation was when it comes to personal finance, especially as a woman of color.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. I’m biracial. My father is white, but my mother who raised me as a single mother is Filipino. She came to America in her 30s and raised us here. I grew up the daughter of a Filipino immigrant, single mother in the American South, which is quite an interesting-

Tori Dunlap:

A recipe.

Tricia Cleppe:

Quite an interesting way to grow up. It’s so funny, I tell people about my childhood sometimes. Sometimes, I have to edit it, or I don’t even go there because I literally think people will think I’m lying because it’s so bizarre, kind of the situation that I grew up in, but I grew up, the daughter of a brown woman immigrant in America, in the American self.

Tricia Cleppe:

I grew up as an evangelical fundamental Baptist Church in school, church three times a week and then school at the same church complex, truly evangelical. I’m talking like Liberty University, Jerry Falwell. All of the people that you are hearing about now, as these [kooks 00:08:29], that’s who I literally grew up around, and were my-

Tori Dunlap:

Were you speaking in tongues, Tricia?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes, yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Oh. We’re going to have to go on a whole tangent about that.

Tricia Cleppe:

Okay, I grew up in this like Barry White, extremely white. Like the whitest white in the south community you could possibly imagine and so much shame around everything. Women couldn’t show their legs, couldn’t sing on the same platform in the choir as the men. It was one of those. It was one of those. I definitely grew up in a very shame-based upbringing on all the things, right? Not just money, but all the things.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

How we got there was because my mother, when she came to the US, when she immigrated here, she got a job. One of her first jobs after her first marriage was at a check-cashing store in Miami. She just worked there. It was a job that she got. Then, when she moved to Miami, from Miami to North Carolina with my father, she met the man who became my godfather, and he owned multiple locations of check-cashing and bail bonding stores throughout the Southeast. My mom went on to manage that business for nearly 15 years.

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Tricia Cleppe:

I grew up literally every single day going with her to that office. It was in Downtown Raleigh. I won’t name any names because we’re all, my family.

Tori Dunlap:

Libel?

Tricia Cleppe:

That and people in my family are in different places with their reckoning, and processing and then privacy. Not everyone in my family is down to talk about their shit on podcast. Fair enough.

Tori Dunlap:

Never mind.

Tricia Cleppe:

Also, am I allowed to cuss on this?

Tori Dunlap:

Yes, of course.

Tricia Cleppe:

Okay. My mom ended up working at a check-cashing and bail, managing a multi-location check-cashing and bail bonding store.

Tori Dunlap:

Can we stop there and give definitions of both of those things, if you wouldn’t mind and I’m happy to pop in…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… with any expertise that we need but I want everybody to be on a level playing field of what those two things are.

Tricia Cleppe:

Totally. They’re both horrible things.

Tori Dunlap:

Predatory as fuck.

Tricia Cleppe:

Predatory as hell. Literally my shirt on the back, I don’t know if you can see, I’m going to turn around for you but it says fuck cash bail.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, there you go. Mine says equal pay [inaudible 00:11:14]. This is merch by the way. I don’t know if you see.

Tricia Cleppe:

Oh my God.

Tori Dunlap:

Anyway.

Tricia Cleppe:

Okay, check-cashing and bail bonding, here’s just a rundown, for people who are employed, they receive checks, disability checks, Social Security checks, unemployment checks, or they have an actual job. And they receive their payment via cheque, which most people do, if you’re not getting a direct deposit but there is a huge uphill battle that a lot of people don’t realize on getting a bank account from like an actual bank.

Tori Dunlap:

Huge.

Tricia Cleppe:

You need
IDs, there’s background checks, there’s credit checks. There are a lot of bank accounts require you to have a minimum amount in your account or they charge you if, overdraft fees are a big thing that happened.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s if you have a bank account in your community, which plenty of places don’t especially disenfranchises black and brown people and this is assuming you trust banks, which have repeatedly given black and brown people reasons to not trust them. This is assuming you even have access to a bank account, you have all of these hoops you have to jump through. We’re talking about this with another guest on the show but 30% of black people are under or unbanked, meaning that they either are not taking full advantage of the banks and credit unions that are offered to them, or that they just don’t have access at all or they haven’t had a bank account. Yeah, there’s all of those hoops to jump through. That’s even if you can get to those hoops.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, exactly. What check-cashing stores serve to do in a predatory and horrible way, is to allow people to cash those checks that they have, and they need to get the cash from but they charge anywhere between 7 to 14% or higher of the total amount of that check.

Tricia Cleppe:

Growing up, I literally went to work with my mom and would literally take people cute little girl, cute little Asian girl at the front of the, behind the bulletproof glass and they push their check underneath then I would take it back and climb up on the stool and do it in the cash register and members would pay 7%, non-members will pay 14%. I remember-pressing buttons.

Tori Dunlap:

What was memberships? What does that mean?

Tricia Cleppe:

You could become a member of the, sort of like having a bank account with the check-cashing store but not really, but you basically got paid an upfront fee of like 50 bucks or whatever to be a member. Then, you could cash your checks for 7% of the overall total versus 14% every check.

Tori Dunlap:

But you’re they’re taking the checks as a young girl.

Tricia Cleppe:

I am literally the young girl. I’m literally there taking the checks, counting the money. I mean, I have all, most of my childhood photos are at the check-cashing store of me…

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Tricia Cleppe:

… balancing the checks at the end of the night with my mom or I learned how to count because we would count the cash on the ground. That was my life. That’s just how I grew up and my godfather, who I am not in contact with anymore, but who I’ve come to learn is a white southern man with a lot of concepts about other people and other groups. I would call him racist.

Tricia Cleppe:

Now, I don’t think I had the words or the courage to express that when I was any younger but he was the one that for all of the predatory aspects from my mother’s perspective, she is a single, brown immigrant living in the South. She needs to keep a roof over her kid’s head. She has four kids. Keep a roof over their heads, pay for their school, and my godfather was this really respected member of the community in the city that we grew up in, knew the state senators, knew judges, knew the police departments. Our pastor’s son worked at the check-cashing store, just extremely well respected man in the community.

Tricia Cleppe:

For my mother, she saw this as a great stepping stone and a billet like it really gave us this access to community that we probably wouldn’t have access before. He was one that got us involved in the evangelical church, because of course, he was involved in, he was a member of that church with [crosstalk 00:15:57].

Tori Dunlap:

Well, it sounds like social currency too, right?

Tricia Cleppe:

100%.

Tori Dunlap:

Because it was the way to meet people and to move up in society.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

This person is influential. You can get connected in into these may be closed doors communities that you hadn’t had access to before.

Tricia Cleppe:

Certainly not a Filipino, immigrant, single mom was not getting access to the-

Tori Dunlap:

White state senators in the South. Yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

A 100%. That speaks to this kind of grand bargain that a lot of minorities fall into in America when it comes to white supremacy, is his proximity to whiteness. You think like, if you can just get closer, if you can just make friends, if you can just assimilate, if you can just go through the same education systems and you can come out the other side as close as you can get, as close as you can get, that’s what you’re fighting for. It’s just a farce. It’s not true. It’s not a method of protection. In fact, it doesn’t do anything to protect you. All it does is protect white supremacy, which then in turn harms you.

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tricia Cleppe:

That’s how I grew up is, that’s check-cashing. That was really my mom’s, that’s really the part of the business that my mom truly managed, ran. Then, there was the bail bonding office. You walked in, check-cashing was on the first floor, you walk down stairs and bail bonding office, one of them is on the bottom floor.

Tricia Cleppe:

I mean, on the bottom floor, I remember, I would always hang out down there because that’s where the TVs were and my godfather was, and he would sit at his desk all day and there would just be people coming through all day long. Of course, all black and brown because you know, that carceral state in America massively incarcerates black and brown people over white people. I don’t think [crosstalk 00:17:50].

Tori Dunlap:

What would you say if you had to give, how many out of 10 people were white versus people of color?

Tricia Cleppe:

90% were people of color.

Tori Dunlap:

Nine out of 10 people that walk through the door were black or brown…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… and maybe one was white.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. They were coming to, it’s a family member of somebody who has been arrested, put in jail and needs cash to pay their cash bail, to be released from jail until their court date. How cash bail works is another extremely predatory system in America that says if you get arrested, you can be held in jail until your court date but the judge and we know that judges, there have been many studies, there’s lots of academia around this, that judges place higher bail amounts on people of color.

Tricia Cleppe:

You’re talking about this whole system that relies on racism, not from the arrests and the policing of communities, to the economic state of the communities most affected who they just don’t have as much discretionary income to pay 10,000 12,000, $20,000 in cash upfront for bailing a loved one out of jail but the alternative is that person sits in jail for six months, sometimes years, literally years.

Tori Dunlap:

Well, until their trial, right?

Tricia Cleppe:

Until their trial. They’re not supposed to be stuck in jail for extended amounts of time but that happens all the time. There’s a massive amount of people that are incarcerated right now in America that have never been convicted of a crime, they’re just waiting for their court date and they don’t have the money to get out in the meantime.

Tori Dunlap:

In our research for this too, even if your case is dismissed, you don’t get a refund on your cash bail. There’s no refund policy.

Tricia Cleppe:

Oh no.

Tori Dunlap:

If you pay this cash bail to assumingly get out of jail, and your case is dismissed, you’re not prosecuted, you’re not charged with anything, you are still out that money.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yup.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s the other thing is it’s like, maybe if, again, the whole thing’s predatory bullshit, but maybe you get your money back if you don’t, if you aren’t charged for a crime? Nope.

Tricia Cleppe:

No.

Tori Dunlap:

You’re not. You don’t get your money back, either.

Tricia Cleppe:

No, and that doesn’t even speak to when there are laws in this country that say a police officer, they can go in and raid your house and take your belongings, and then keep them. Even if you are not convicted of that crime, and it is proven that your property was taken without any guilty verdict, you don’t get that property back. You actually have to go to court and prove that that property wasn’t involved in a crime that you were just proved to not be a part of and that costs money too.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s just so fucked up. In my experience growing up, this is something that I’ve had to really, I’m still very much processing it but I literally grew up, every car my family drove, literally, every car my family drove up until my mom, maybe three, four years ago, she was still driving a car from my godfather.

Tricia Cleppe:

Every single car we drove growing up was a piece of collateral that a black or brown family member put up for to get their family member out of jail and then, for cash bail, and they couldn’t pay back.

Tori Dunlap:

I just got chills in the worst place.

Tricia Cleppe:

It is.

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 00:21:50] man.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s some serious shit that I’ve like, now being older and understanding context and having learned things about how this country is run, it is very heavy but there’s something extremely unsettling when I think back on my favorite childhood memory of going to Disney World, the one and only time we drove to Florida in a minivan put up for collateral by a black grandmother to get her grandson out of jail for a drug charge for honestly, probably cannabis, which is now legal in most places, and white people are profiting off of while others are still left in prison.

Tricia Cleppe:

That is heavy. It’s heavy for me to come to these realizations about my family’s place and complicity in these horrible predatory systems. I think my mom ended up leaving that job for a host of reasons. Life was pretty difficult. I mean, everything was tied in. That was our whole community. We didn’t have, I didn’t have a lot of family. I didn’t have any blood family on my mom’s side here in the States.

Tricia Cleppe:

The house we rented, the house I grew up in was next door to my godfather and my godmother, and we rented it from them. When she quit, all of that stuff was thrown into turmoil. Life was really difficult but looking back, I’m so happy that she had the bravery to kind of step away from something that was really just a horrible environment for any of us to be in but I think what I learned is all about, like I said that bargain that a lot of us make, white supremacy is this thing that is so big, and it has so many different tentacles and systems that uphold it but all of them require participation, every single one of them.

Tricia Cleppe:

We participated in it. There’s lots of excuses that I could make for my family. I understand my mom was a single mom, Asian woman trying to just provide for her family. I don’t begrudge her for that. You don’t know what you don’t know but it doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it less heavy to kind of think through the lives that we intersected with, and the systems that we upheld and the cash we took from people. I mean, literally took from people.

Tricia Cleppe:

None of that is beyond me. It is not lost on me b
ut it was a really pretty uncanny masterclass on how these systems work together. I mean, I’m literally, eight years old, nine years old and watching black families come in to put their collateral up for other family members. Hispanic families come in to put up collateral for their family members to get them out of jail, and then they can’t pay it off and then my family gets to use that car or that the money that we’re taking from people’s checks that they need is what paid the rent for the home for my mom to rent from my rich, white godfather.

Tori Dunlap:

But I’m assuming as a kid, how much do you know about what’s happening?

Tricia Cleppe:

Nothing.

Tori Dunlap:

Right. You’re like, I mean, this is going to sound awful but I’m wondering if you as a kid were like, “Oh, new car? Cool.”

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. Oh, yeah. That was 100%. I remember being so excited every time we got to upgrade, but I’m not kidding when I say like, there was one of the bail bonding offices, you would go out in the backyard, and there’s this gigantic wooden fence, and you would open up the fence and there was just this graveyard of belonging, people’s belongings. We had boats, motorcycles, cars, trailers, anything you could imagine people put up for collateral, and oftentimes didn’t get back because they couldn’t, not because the person skipped bail, the person went to their court date, and was either convicted or not but you have interest due, an insane amount of interest due.

Tori Dunlap:

Let’s explain that. You come in, and I’m somebody’s wife, I’m somebody’s daughter, and I’m there to pay to get this person out of jail. What does that look like? Just financially, what are the steps there?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, I mean, growing up, I always knew my godfather to just have a fat lot of cash on him at all times, and was on call at all times to go to the courthouse or to go to whatever local precinct that people were being held in, but he would get a call and meet with whatever family member or loved one or person that was going to be bailing the person out. The justice system, the judges, and those like them, are the ones that set the bail amount. It could be anywhere between, I believe the minimum that he was dealing with was like $10,000 bails. He would-

Tori Dunlap:

That’s the minimum?

Tricia Cleppe:

Minimum. He would say, “Okay, this is the amount of bail that is due. I can do that but here’s the terms. You have to put up something that is equal to three times the amount of that bail to ensure that I’ll be able to recoup my costs.

Tori Dunlap:

Your loss, right.

Tricia Cleppe:

Then, I’ll put my cash up for it. Your loved one can get out of jail until their court date. They have to show up at court or else obviously, the bail is, no one gets it back, and then all money is lost. That’s where the collateral comes in. That very rarely happened. When it did, he has bounty hunters to go find them. Then, if somebody does get out of jail, or they’re convicted, you still get the bail money back but the charge, I don’t remember the interest number, but you charged double digit interest on top of what they’re paying. If somebody’s in jail or somebody’s bail is, their court date takes six months, you’re paying six months of interest on that $10,000 bail that he had to put up.

Tricia Cleppe:

A lot of people would just forgo their collateral as payment for that interest that they couldn’t pay in cash. We would end up with all sorts of possessions. I mean, I literally, I grew up, there was one time where we had a boat that had like a jet ski that you could pull out of the boat and it was this U-shaped floating boat and then you could park your jet ski back into it. Just crazy shit that I remember having a farm, tons and tons of different forms of collateral that people put up and never got back.

Tori Dunlap:

Are they doing rings? Is this like a pawn shop where they’re bringing diamond rings and stuff?

Tricia Cleppe:

Oh yeah. Tons of jewelry, tons of jewelry, TVs, just any belonging, any belonging.

Tori Dunlap:

Then is your godfather going and selling that or is he just, okay, because I’m assuming like a [inaudible 00:29:35] junkyard full of cars, are you selling that? How are you making money?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, selling the cars often and all of the belongings. A lot of it keeping, you know?

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tricia Cleppe:

Keep that as your own car or keep, my mom would drive but I was literally brought home from the hospital in a bulletproof baby blue Cadillac that my mom had gotten from a cash bail collateral. That whole, that’s how I grew up. That’s how I first got introduced to money, were these like horrible predatory systems. I didn’t know at the time any, I mean, I didn’t know any different. Like I said, literally our pastor’s son worked at the check-cashing store.

Tricia Cleppe:

I never knew these things were predatory or bad. I just knew that they were and I knew that it was the family business. It wasn’t until, really, honestly, college The year since that I’ve fully started unpacking just how fucked up and horrible it is. There’s a lot of conversations right now with the rise in hate crimes, and violence, and violent rhetoric towards the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community, and also the black community, the Black Lives Matter movement, tons of just awful stories, it seems like every day of police brutality, and murder by cops.

Tricia Cleppe:

There is a really important conversation, I think that is starting to take place, especially in the Asian community about this idea of the model minority and this zero sum game that white supremacy requires of us that says, only one other is allowed to win here. You’re either with us, or you’re with them.

Tricia Cleppe:

I don’t ever remember my mother explicitly saying those things but every day, that’s the lesson I was learning, visually in the environment I was in, every day I was learning. We can choose which team we’re on here. We can be this model minority of an other where you keep your head down, you work for
the man, you stay quiet, you don’t ask too many questions, and you get the job done. Eventually it’ll pay off or you’re with them. That was really the choice that I was visually seeing every day.

Tricia Cleppe:

Then, the environment was requiring of me but I don’t ever remember my mother explicitly saying it, but it’s definitely the lesson I learned growing up. I’ve had to unlearn a lot of since. Yeah. Interesting childhood, to say the least.

Tori Dunlap:

I’ve done a ton of research on payday loans. Was that factored into this as well? Were there payday loans?

Tricia Cleppe:

We didn’t have any payday loans. Obviously, these things are all very much interconnected in financial schemes but no. That was the one predatory financial scheme that my childhood did not involve, unbelievably.

Tori Dunlap:

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. That’s all one word better H-E-L-P.

Sophia Cohen:

H-E-L-P, it’s like a jingle.

Tori Dunlap:

Exactly. Sophia and I have both been seen a better health therapist for the past few weeks now and we are totally and completely bought in. It’s been such a great experience for both of us, wouldn’t you agree?

Sophia Cohen:

Totally. I’ve already noticed an improvement in the main concern I came into therapy with. My therapist has given me some highly actionable tactics for intervention. I feel like I have a new toolbox I can use whenever I need it.

Tori Dunlap:

We love a good toolbox.

Sophia Cohen:

Absolutely. Something I didn’t expect was such a good explanation of why she was giving me these tools. I really understand not only how to use them, but the reason behind it. Now, we’re already working on my secondary goal.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s so great. My goal is to work on boundary setting. Honestly, I was a little intimidated meeting with my therapist for the first time.

Sophia Cohen:

No shame, no shame.

Tori Dunlap:

Well, I went into my first appointment nervous. I think it’s always like that when you’re meeting a new therapist, but she immediately put my mind at ease with her thoughtfulness and empathy. It was so obvious to me how much she truly loves helping people and I can definitely relate to that.

Sophia Cohen:

Just a little, yeah?

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, a little bit, [inaudible 00:34:03] too. We just want to say a special thank you to BetterHelp for supporting this podcast and Her First 100k community as a special offer for… We’ll just do that last part. As a special offer for… Getting too far ahead of myself. As a special offer for Financial Feminist listeners, get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/ffpodcast. That’s 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/ffpodcast.

Tori Dunlap:

If you are growing up in this evangelical, Christian community, and yet they’re actively taking part in obviously predatory behavior, but just morally and ethically shady at best behavior? Was this discussed, what the moral quandary of this?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

How did they justify it? Did they feel the need to justify it? How did these two parts fit together?

Tricia Cleppe:

I genuinely don’t believe, I mean, the church and school I went to still exists. My godfather is still very much who he’s always been. No. I don’t think that they feel any need to try to bridge the two, what the Bible actually teaches and what they’re actually doing. I don’t think there was ever, I don’t think there still is ever any real incentive to explore those things. This is not to say that all forms of Christianity exploit and whatever, totally not-

Tori Dunlap:

Well, these are, largely, of course, they’re part of a bigger system, but these are individuals too, her making … I’m assuming this was not on behalf of the church?

Tricia Cleppe:

No.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

No, but I mean, it is, you’re seeing kind of this, pardon the pun, but this come to Jesus moment with evangelicalism in America today. Some of the worst practices that have come from it, and how it can be exploited from these just totally farce, really expensive, fake universities that are going accredited, or schools, lots of private schools. I mean, the one I grew up in very much this way, non-accredited with non-accredited teachers, that get money from the state without having to apply by the State Education rules of separation of church and state.

Tricia Cleppe:

There’s lots of things that are also packed into that whole world. I think that a lot of people are learning about it. In fact, the shooter that killed eight people in Georgia just a couple weeks ago, that sparked a lot of conversation about evangelicalism and the shame-based teachings and what they can lead to, especially when it comes to sex education, or misogyny. I think all of these conversations are coming to ahead, but they’re all very much interconnected.

Tricia Cleppe:

There is a long, long, long history, especially in the south, of the white clergy very much being at the front lines of white supremacy and Jim Crow. That is a very known history of the church in the south. We all carry history with us. The history that I was brought into the church, and the teachings that I grew up learning are not new by any stretch of the word.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s interesting the different types of sort of, there’s different types of racism, obviously but there’s the saying that in the south, it doesn’t matter how close you are, in the south, they don’t care how close other people are, black people, Asians, it doesn’t matter how close you are as long as you don’t get too high. In the north, and in the west, it doesn’t matter how high you get, but I do care how
close you are to me. That’s why you have redlining and you have the different neighborhoods and these things.

Tricia Cleppe:

In the south, I very much grew up with the type of racism where my godfather had “tons of black friends.” There were always black and brown people that worked for him, including my mom and others. From a visual perspective, there was no diversity issue in the employment practices, but there was always him on top.

Tricia Cleppe:

There was always that level of supremacy but that was the type, that concept of in the south, you can be as close as you want to the white man, but you can’t be above them and everywhere else you can be as above him as you want, but you can’t be very close. That was definitely a lesson that I learned that racism looks very different, depending on the context, but it’s all racism at the end of the day.

Tori Dunlap:

Growing up in this environment, growing up with this relationship to money, what did that do to you? What did that duty, the way you saw money, and what was the lens that you proceeded through life with because of that experience?

Tricia Cleppe:

I mean, I think growing up, we didn’t ever have much especially when my mom quit. Then, she went into working multiple jobs.

Tori Dunlap:

Did she quit when you were still a kid?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, when I was in seventh grade. When I was in seventh grade is when I got, I had to get out of that. When we left that, that also meant we had to leave my scholarship that helped pay for the private school I had gone to since I was in kindergarten.

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 00:40:19] house, right as well?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Was that a moral decision for her or was that just like?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah. It was very much a moral decision for her. It was tough. It was really tough. Actually, halfway through seventh grade, I ended up going to live with my oldest brother who’s 12 years older than me, who then, because my mom, she was struggling so much financially to provide for us. Also, she has a son in ninth grade, a daughter in seventh grade and she’s working from 6:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night.

Tricia Cleppe:

She worked at a bank. She just retired from Bank of America just this June. She worked for them for the rest of my life but then at night, she worked at the JCPenney’s shoe department. She worked two jobs every day, worked every weekend. She really struggled. We actually, my brother and I, moved out of my mom’s house when I was 12. He was 15, and moved in with my oldest brother. He raised us until I went to college. I lived with him for the rest of my childhood until I left home.

Tricia Cleppe:

Fortunately, got us full ride scholarship, for the most part, and was able to move on in life but I think what it all taught me was that the lesson I brought with me was that money comes and goes very quickly. It’s like a scary thing. It can leave you at any moment, and it can leave you feeling, if you don’t have enough, you’re fucked, is how I felt.

Tricia Cleppe:

I think I really, I was just so solely focused on providing for myself, and setting up a life that can have a little bit of financial freedom in it but it took me a really long time to get to the realization that you can have a good relationship with money that isn’t fear-based, that isn’t shame-based. You can set yourself up for success even if you don’t have a ton, you don’t need to have a ton of it to still feel some freedom around it, and not feel so scared of it.

Tricia Cleppe:

The other lesson that I learned is that it’s extremely expensive to be poor in America. It’s extremely fucking expensive. The interest, the additional charges that you have to pay, overdraft fees, if you don’t have a bank account, you have to pay 7%, 14% of your paycheck, or your disability check. That’s the other lesson that I learned.

Tricia Cleppe:

Bryan Stevenson, who wrote Just Mercy, which is my favorite book, he has the quote that there are two justice systems in America, one treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent and that is 100% true. I saw it. I saw it every day how easy it was for somebody who came from more wealth, could do something horrible or the same as another person who didn’t come from wealth, and be out on cash bail the next day, like it’s nothing. Meanwhile, somebody else’s grandma’s literally giving my godfather the deed to her house.

Tricia Cleppe:

I learned a lot. I think I’m finally starting to unlearn a lot of the worst lessons, but it’s like, this is my life. That was my life. That was my lived experience. I am still processing a lot of it, and what it means, and the lessons I took from it. Some of them I’m aware of, but I know that there are other things that I was taught or that I absorbed in those nearly 15 years of being in that environment that I haven’t quite necessarily worked through but I’m getting there, every day a little bit closer.

Tori Dunlap:

I mean, I’m sitting here like good bad chills six different times. I’m like tears in my eyes. What I can’t help but think, is obviously, working with clients. I think so many people come to me, and they’re like, people who have money are evil or money is evil. I don’t think that. I think that inherently, money is not a bad thing. It’s what you do with it, then that is really makes the difference, right?

Tori Dunlap:

I don’t think people who have money and I’m talking like, I’m not talking Jeff Bezos’ money. I’m talking, they have money. They’re doing fine, right? They’re not evil if they are making bad choices with that money. If they are exploiting people, if they are doing things, that’s an issue, but I imagine if, I mean, again, I’m a white woman, so I couldn’t really have your same experience but I would leave that thinking, money is bad. Money is evil. People who have money are evil. I don’t want it.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, that was my lesson for a really long time. It made me very avoidant of figuring out my own money issues. What that serve to do was create, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because, I feel like money is evil, and I want nothing to do with it. I’ve seen what mone
y does to people and what power does to people, and I don’t want any part of it. Then, in return, I’m avoiding money, and money topics and financial health.

Tori Dunlap:

You’re losing out because of it, or you’re having…

Tricia Cleppe:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

… financial hardship because of it.

Tricia Cleppe:

Then, it’s telling me, “Well see? Money is evil because you don’t have enough of it.”

Tori Dunlap:

Will you do it again? Let’s just recap. It’s so great. If you view money as evil, you’re like, I’m not going to get it. I’m not going to, I don’t want money. It’s bad.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s just, yeah, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then, you say, “This is bad. I don’t want to participate.” Then, you avoid the participation and what you think is like this evil rigged system, which then perpetuates the evil rigged system because here I am, yet another woman of color, who can’t seem to get a leg up on the whole financial thing, despite being fully employed, despite having-

Tori Dunlap:

Being smart and well-spoken and…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… educated and-

Tricia Cleppe:

For me, [crosstalk 00:46:35] to do it. Yeah. I’ve come a long way in that, but I still, I mean, I still every day fight this fight that like morality around capitalism, and this rugged individualism that this country requires of people. It’s true. It’s very true that in America, we have it set up where the richest of the, it’s like socialism for the rich, and then rugged capitalism and individualism for everyone else.

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and the rich ones, the patriarchal bullshit, the patriarchy is telling us these money narratives that aren’t applicable to their life. They’re telling women, people of color, “Money is evil. You don’t want it. If you want money, you are bad,” because then you stay poor or you stay disenfranchised, or then they stay in power, they profit off of your science, right?

Tori Dunlap:

That’s what I talk about all the time of like, the talking about money as taboo, talking about money is bad is perpetuated by the same people who are having conversations about money, constantly, are telling us it’s bad because they profit off of us not talking about it, or us not wanting money or agency or all of these things.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Then, to your point, when we start to get the money, when we start having these conversations, but it’s ingrained in us that we shouldn’t want these things, that we’re bad for wanting them. It’s a cycle.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah. It’s set up that way on purpose.

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s doing exactly what it was set up to do. That’s another, that’s definitely one of the things that I learned. I keep talking about this grand bargain with white supremacy that people feel they have to make some times of, it all relies on the idea that people with way more in common than they have in conflict, deciding they have more in conflict than they have in common. That’s like the whole jig of it, you know? That’s not new. That’s from the fucking jump of all of this…

Tori Dunlap:

Very well said.

Tricia Cleppe:

… from the 1600s. I’m obsessed with learning about where all this shit came from.

Tori Dunlap:

I’ve learned so much from you. I remember you posted especially during the Black Lives Matter resurgence, this concept that, I think you posted about this, that race is like a learned concept.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s a total concept that they came up with and say-

Tori Dunlap:

In order to, what was an indentured servitude versus slavery.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Quick tangent, will you…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… because this blew my mind.

Tricia Cleppe:

This is very, this is actually really important, though. It’s so applicable to today. It’s definitely something that I really encourage like my Asian brothers and sisters that are thinking about these things to really consider because I think we often get caught up in this model minority and then versus us mentality. We have to realize that that whole game and that whole construct is set up from the people that want to keep you down.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s going to [crosstalk 00:49:42]. Yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

Let’s, okay, we got to travel back to late 1600s, early 1700s in Virginia. The colonies first began and the colonizers first came, it wasn’t there were just the enslaved people that were stolen from Africa and brought here, and then everyone else was the bourgeoisie or aristocracy rich, land owning, white people. There was absolutely this middle echelon of people that came to the colonies and to America, as sort of this last resort. They were really struggling in the countries that they were coming from, Spain, England, Britain, and they came to America or the colonies at the time to try to find a differ
ent way.

Tricia Cleppe:

They were extremely poor. Many of them acted as indentured servants. They weren’t enslaved people. They came there on their own volition, which is obviously a very important distinction but as far as socioeconomics of their class, they were poor, and they were stuck working for somebody for basically no money. It became clear that the enslaved people and the indentured servants and the lower class, poor whites that came here had a lot more in common than they had in conflict and they started talking. They joined forces. What ensued was called Bacon’s Rebellion. It was led by a man who actually really, to overcomplicate it, but he was-

Tori Dunlap:

He was on to making BLTs. Love the BLT.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes, yes. He was actually related to the governor of Virginia at the time, and was trying to encourage the governor of Virginia to wage war on the indigenous populations nearby to gather more land. The governor did not want to do that. Thought it would backfire.

Tricia Cleppe:

This guy helps basically create a rebellion to take over the Virginia government, and banded together, enslaved people, brought here from Africa, and indentured servants. They did. Those forces came together. Obviously, had the people power and the numbers behind them. They did overthrow the Virginia government. They really did it. They took over the capital of Virginia, this gigantic, one of the main colonies.

Tricia Cleppe:

After that, the aristocracy, the rich, land owning whites came together and said, “Whatever the fuck just happened? We cannot let that happen again.” That’s where they came up with this construct of the one drop rule, where if you have even one drop of indigenous blood, or African blood in you, then you don’t have access to this new set of benefits we’re allowing white people to have.

Tricia Cleppe:

That was the start of the rich, top 1% creating this idea based on this classification of race, where they said, even if you’re poor and white, you’re still seen as better than poor and black and enslaved.

Tori Dunlap:

In order for the white people to band together…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… against, yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

In order for people who actually have more in common with the enslaved people than they do the aristocracy, the aristocracy decided we’ll give them just enough for them to help them feel superior over that group, so that they don’t have any interest in combining their forces and combining their power. They started giving poor whites, small parcels of land. They started giving poor whites access to certain parts of society and culture that they were restricting from other from the others and the others were indigenous, or even at the time, there were free black people in America that were not enslaved. That came from some of the European countries.

Tricia Cleppe:

That’s really where the concept of race bloomed and was first codified into law. It was part of colonial law for literally hundreds of years. It’s the basis of the three-fifths amendment. It’s the basis so many laws and pieces of our history that have gone on to create these really horrific racial violence and white supremacy, but it was all made up.

Tricia Cleppe:

The top people decided that they wanted to make sure people that had more in common than in conflict were given an ability to have more in conflict than they have in common with those people. That is the whole jig. It is all… That is what the whole concept of white supremacy, it relies on that belief.

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and they gave them this social currency.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Right? Of like, cool, we will give you community, we’ll give you these things.

Tricia Cleppe:

We can’t give you-

Tori Dunlap:

But still-

Tricia Cleppe:

You can’t have all of it.

Tori Dunlap:

Right, right.

Tricia Cleppe:

We’re not crazy. You can’t have all of it, but you can have a little bit more than we’re giving those people, enough for you to make you feel superior where you’re not going to tie your wagon to that post. You’re going to tie it to ours. I mean, if you can’t see the parallels in that today, I don’t know, where, what dimension you’re looking at.

Tricia Cleppe:

You see, I mean, I see it every day. You see poor, uneducated white folks who would benefit more from the left’s agenda than the right’s voting for Donald Trump against their own self-interest. You see it.

Tori Dunlap:

Or a huge Hispanic population voting for Donald Trump…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… because, “Oh, this man is rich, and I want to be rich.” Therefore, I’ve done a ton of research about that as well of just this idea around, I think, I wish I knew this stat off the top of my head. I’ll cut in here after and post with the stat but there’s some crazy statistic that says the majority of people in America, think they are going to be rich, when in actuality, very, very, very small percentage of them actually will.

Tori Dunlap:

Hi, everybody. This is Tori in post. I feel like Cusco and Emperor’s New Groove coming in to scratch out Pasha and say this story is about me, not him. Anyway, I’m here with the statistic. Over half, depending on the study, as high as 60% of people think they will be millionaires someday. In 2020, only 7% of people actually were. All right, back to the episode.

Tori Dunlap:

We’re sold this, I mean, it is a lie in order for, people like Trump to get
elected or, systems to continue to profit off of these people. We have another episode about MLMs. We talked about…

Tricia Cleppe:

[crosstalk 00:56:41].

Tori Dunlap:

… the predatory nature of all of that. Oh, yeah. This whole, but I’ve realized this entire podcast season is just going to be about shame apparently, because there’s so much of this bullshit. That’s just like shame and judgment suck, and they are so much drenched in money.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

But yeah, I think it’s so interesting when you consider just, of course, the shame and the narratives that we get fed about money based on who we listen to or based on who we trust.

Tricia Cleppe:

I mean, we both share a deep dislike…

Tori Dunlap:

Are you going to do it? Are you [crosstalk 00:57:13]?

Tricia Cleppe:

… or for Dave Ramsey.

Tori Dunlap:

Uh-Uh-huh (affirmative). I need like a shot counter. I need to take a shot every time on this podcast that I mentioned. I need a different name for him because usually when I write his name, I star out his vowels. It’s like an expletive, I don’t say it.

Tricia Cleppe:

Truly. No, but you don’t want his fan base.

Tori Dunlap:

Juju. I don’t want our Juju.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

I don’t need it.

Tricia Cleppe:

You don’t need any of that but yeah, I mean, he who shall not be named, that guy, I mean, runs [crosstalk 00:57:47]. He runs rampant in evangelical circles and-

Tori Dunlap:

He goes to churches.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

He goes to the evangelical churches. It’s like financial peace, financial freedom. God wants you to have this. God wants you-

Tricia Cleppe:

And then tells them their credit score doesn’t matter. It’s-

Tori Dunlap:

Which completely disenfranchises black and brown people.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

That is credit scores are kind of ridiculous. Just…

Tricia Cleppe:

I mean, the system-

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, we’re one of the only countries that has one. It doesn’t make any sense but if you do-

Tricia Cleppe:

The system is fucked to be sure.

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, of course but that is one of your best tools for getting out of poverty…

Tricia Cleppe:

I know.

Tori Dunlap:

… for accelerating your life.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Actively telling you, “Oh, you don’t need one.” “Okay, how are you going to buy a house?” He’s like, “Oh, you can prove it this way and this way and this way?” I’m like, “No. No.”

Tricia Cleppe:

No.

Tori Dunlap:

That not only makes things exponentially more complicated, that doesn’t really work.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Then, of course, we’re going to tell you, you don’t have a credit score and if you do, it’s because you love debt, which is what he says. A credit score is an I love debt score. Of course, we profit off of your self-hatred.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah. I had an experience with somebody who I love very, very much is very close to me, who listened to this man’s advice, and came to believe their credit score didn’t matter and they didn’t need to do all of these things to protect them, have since really struggled and I’ve had to reach out for help from other people and loved ones and who have kind of had to come to their rescue because they listened to this horrible advice from this guy that sells millions and millions and millions of copies of his books, getting just shilling, fucking snake oil.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s insane to me that this guy still has a platform. That he’s one of many of those people that MLMs prey on that same almost like exact same consumer base. It’s just really sad and I hope that changes. I really do. Again, credit, I’m not here to be, I love credit scores and I think the credit system is wonderful.

Tori Dunlap:

No. It’s ridiculous and veiled and very non-transparent. It’s-

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s horrible and abolish it, all about that, but until that comes, having a credit score is the only way to get out of poverty in America. I mean, that is for everything. You need it for everything. I signed up for internet at our new apartment in Brooklyn, and they had to do a credit [crosstalk 01:00:28].

Tori Dunlap:

Did they check your credit score?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes. It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere.

Tori Dunlap:

It is. That’s ridiculous.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s insane.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. It’s back to… I actually, I get this feedback a lot. People are like, “Oh, yeah, I hate that Dave Ramsey makes money teaching these things.” I don’t have a problem. I do the same thing. I make money off of education. It’s, am I profiting off of your self-hatred? God, I hope not and two, am I promoting things that are bad for you?

Tricia Cleppe:

Are you telling the truth?

Tori Dunlap:

Right. Yes. Yes. Now, this is interrogation, Tricia. Yes. Say it? No.

Tricia Cleppe:

I mean, it’s really [crosstalk 01:01:11]. Are you telling the truth?

Tori Dunlap:

Are you telling the truth? Are you… That’s why I call him the diet pill of personal finance because, he tells you you’re fat and then it’s like, “Oh, take this pill that I will sell to you.”

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s like, I’m going to make you feel ashamed. I’m going to make you feel judged. I’m going to make you feel all of these things about your money and about your life, buy my book, buy my products, sign up for my $2,000 course or whatever. and then you’ll feel better.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s like, well, I didn’t really have this self-esteem. I mean, maybe we all have bullshit around money but like, “Oh, I didn’t have this exact issue until you pointed it out to me. Now, you’re giving me the solution, which is money in your pocket. Great.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s upsetting to say the least. I hope something that people are catching on to, I hope-

Tori Dunlap:

I think they are. I feel a shift.

Tricia Cleppe:

I do too. I really have and maybe that’s me being too optimistic but I do feel like we’re in a moment where a lot of, I’m sure there is more bull shittery to come fill the void whenever those get expelled but I know that the particular brands of bullshit that I grew up around, people are starting to shed light on them. I’m really happy to see that and it’s not going to fix everything.

Tricia Cleppe:

Getting rid of cash bail is not going to fix everything in America. Getting rid of predatory financial lending, or check-cashing isn’t going to fix everything but it’s a start. We need it. I’m hopeful. I believe hope is a practice and something you have to fight through to keep and hold on to. I think it’s revolutionary to feel hopeful. I think it’s revolutionary to feel optimistic, not naïve. I don’t think anyone should be naive about the problems we’re facing. I will be the first to tell you that I think this country is pretty fucked up but-

Tori Dunlap:

I will second that motion.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes, but I am hopeful. The fact that I know that I have grown from where I came up and what I was taught, and the environment that I was raised in that I have come out the other side, knowing those things are wrong, and learning new lessons. That, to me, is evidence that it’s possible for anyone. I hold on to that pretty tightly. I don’t subscribe to the idea that being critical of a system or a country means that you don’t love it. I very much subscribe to the idea that that’s the only way. If you love something-

Tori Dunlap:

Set it free.

Tricia Cleppe:

That, like James Baldwin has a quote, that’s, I’m going to butcher it, but if I love you, I have to tell you about the things that you can’t see. To me, that’s active love and active love is everything. For me, active love for myself looks like getting my shit together when it comes to money and braving it and facing that head on, that’s active love for myself.

Tricia Cleppe:

Active love is leaving that fucking toxic job that beats you down every day. I quit a job a few years ago and I literally told them that I felt like I had to check my values at the door every time I walked in, and it felt so freeing to say that out loud and to just speak my truth and walk away. I know a lot of people aren’t always in a position to walk away from a job that pays them money. Totally understand that and have been there but I didn’t have to this time. That was active love for myself.

Tricia Cleppe:

I believe talking about these systems that we’re talking about uncovering predatory lending schemes, uncovering things about the cash bail system, and the justice system that works differently for rich and poor, talking about the fact that poverty is actually really freaking expensive. It’s really expensive to pay rent your whole life and not a mortgage towards a home that you own. It’s really expensive to pay overdraft fees. It’s really expensive to just use a debit card and not a credit card where you can be earning points and money on top of money that you’re spending.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s expensive to not have choices.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s expensive to not have choices. For me, this is not criticism born out of hatred. It’s criticism born out of love, and an active love that says, actually, these things can be changed. We are not stuck on this path that we’re currently on. Things change all the time and just because it feels like things have mostly been changing for the worse, doesn’t mean that they always have to be going that direction but it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of learning.

Tricia Cleppe:

You actually have to seek out this type of information. You have to read some books, maybe read some articles, listen to a different type of community than the one that you are around and you grew up in. I just wanted to get that out because I oftentimes feel like when I speak about America, and I criticize the current systems, I don’t know if I’m always heard in the way I w
ant to be heard. Let me be clear, my mom came to this country because she loves it. We’re here, because we love it.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s like it’s any healthy relationship, right?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

If I hurt your feelings, if I am rude to you, I expect you to or I would hope, you could come to me and say, “Hey, this thing that happened really hurt my feelings. Can we talk about it?” Right? That’s what a healthy relationship is.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

You can have that relationship with your country, which is like, I love this country enough to be this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong.

Tricia Cleppe:

Oh my God, [crosstalk 01:07:25]. Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Exactly.

Tricia Cleppe:

Then, you have to be willing to understand that some abusive relationships, that person doesn’t come back because you’ve grown.

Tori Dunlap:

Yup.

Tricia Cleppe:

You have to understand that there are some people who are abused day in and day out in this country, who are vilified, abused…

Tori Dunlap:

Lives threatened.

Tricia Cleppe:

… lives threatened, and just do not feel safe for good reason. Those people don’t owe anything to anyone…

Tori Dunlap:

Nope.

Tricia Cleppe:

… and they certainly don’t owe some sense of self-sabotaging loyalty. All of these things have some nuance to them.

Tori Dunlap:

Do you think there’s an ethical way that check-cashing establishments can be run?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah. Totally. I mean, I think that there are lots of really great ideas for how to do that in a community-centered, non-predatory and publicly created way. There are, and I wish I had, I should have written them down but there are bills right now that proposed and you can do this on the local level and then you can also do it federally would be sick as fuck, but they’re proposing in post offices having-

Tori Dunlap:

Elizabeth Warren…

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

… I think is one of the [crosstalk 01:08:50].

Tricia Cleppe:

Having the public banking and post offices. I mean, having a public banking option-

Tori Dunlap:

For these shorter term loans, right?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah and for check-cashing, and for your basic banking needs that you can walk into a post office. There are post offices in the most rural of places in America, for a reason, it’s because there was a public effort pushed by and funded by the federal government to get those post offices in the most rural of places. That access that we were talking about that a lot of people don’t have, that a big banking branch is, there’s not a Bank of America in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina, but there’s always a post office. The idea is that-

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 01:09:34] I think.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

They have to be able to get to your house to deliver your mail.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, exactly and so you have to and having the ability to walk into a post office and be able to cash a check or to have banking services that aren’t available to you any other way, I think you can absolutely do that. I would be wary, I would say of startups or new financial technologies that are coming out that say they’re disrupting predatory, financial…

Tori Dunlap:

Lending.

Tricia Cleppe:

… lending or banking issues. Some of them may have the best of intentions, but it doesn’t, it’s not enough to harm people less. It’s only good if you’re not harming people, period. I have seen a lot of that. It does help some people. I’m specific and I won’t name any of these companies, but I’m thinking of things that are like the, I can’t even think of the one of the names right now but that you can pay in installments, like interest free and [crosstalk 01:10:49].

Tori Dunlap:

Buy now, pay later?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Whoa! Afterpay instead.

Tricia Cleppe:

Afterpay. Yeah. These modern day layaway, interest-free payment plans for things you want to buy, that isn’t helping people. That-

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and it’s marketed towards white people trying to buy things on Instagram.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s who it’s marketed to. It’s like, “Oh, do you want this coat that just went on sale, but you don’t have the money right now?” That’s a ver
y different market and clientele, then I can’t afford groceries and I don’t know where money is coming from next.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah, exactly. There’s a plethora of new FinTech technologies that are really shiny and new right now that I think people are really hopeful about, and they spin this story of they’re disrupting predatory practices, and they’re allowing more access to whatever. Some of it may be true but for me, the only ethical way to truly offer a check-cashing service or a banking to the unbanked service, is if it’s a publicly-created community-driven effort and it’s not going to be funded by VC’s and hedge funds and Wall Street tycoons…

Tori Dunlap:

Who are trying to make money…

Tricia Cleppe:

… who are trying to make a buck.

Tori Dunlap:

… which again, there’s nothing wrong with that but if you’re going about it to, again, be predatory for people, then yes.

Tricia Cleppe:

If your marketing is all about how you’re not predatory, then you need to not be predatory. That-

Tori Dunlap:

Sounds [inaudible 01:12:31].

Tricia Cleppe:

That I mean, call me crazy but I just think that it’s not enough to do less harm. The goal should be to not harm people. That’s a blanket statement. Now, I’m getting into the weeds because I’m like harm reduction is like a valid way to go about things. I totally believe in harm reduction, and all of those sorts of tactics, but specifically in the context of predatory lending, there are so many people that say, “Okay, I want to do cash bail, but I want to do it where it’s 10% interest.” You are not disrupting a predatory system. You’re just making it slightly less predatory, so that you can feel better about offering those services.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s a whole conversation of playing within the system, right?

Tricia Cleppe:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

There’s certain, and again, sometimes justifiable times we have to play within the system in order to progress. That’s like, “Oh, well, we’ll just take this system that’s predatory, and to your point, make it less predatory.” It’s like, yeah, this is not, I don’t think one of those times where we take one for the team, right? We don’t just say like, “Yeah, this system, [inaudible 01:13:56] take a while. We’ll just create a better Band-Aid in the meantime.

Tricia Cleppe:

Right, exactly. When, I think a lot of times that serves to stifle like true innovation on the problem, because people feel a little bit more comfortable with it and feel like it’s not hurting as many people as bad as those.

Tori Dunlap:

Which on paper it is, but it’s like, you still haven’t gotten to the root of the problem, which is that this practice is predatory regardless of the interest rate.

Tricia Cleppe:

It’s going to always be predatory unless the system at the heart of it is actually changed. To answer your question, yes, I think it is possible to offer ethical check-cashing services, but I don’t think there’s any way to do it where it’s a private interest at the heart of it. I think it has to be a publicly-funded, federal type of program like the one at post offices that people are trying to get past now.

Tori Dunlap:

If you were to meet childhood Tricia…

Tricia Cleppe:

Oh.

Tori Dunlap:

… what would you tell her?

Tricia Cleppe:

Childhood Tricia, she still is very much inside of my heart, and I am constantly having to soothe her throughout the day and let her know, I’ve grown up, and it’s okay and you can just take a nap in there. We’ve got it under control. I constantly have to do that. I talk to baby Tricia.

Tori Dunlap:

I do that to childhood me all the time.

Tricia Cleppe:

All the time, all the time. I mean, I literally, I have conversations with her every day. I think what I would do if I saw childhood Tricia, is I would ask if I could just give her a hug, and just let her know, just give it time. It’ll pass. It’ll pass. Everything feels so big, and it is big growing up, and you haven’t built up that resilience, that you get to trade off of later in life.

Tricia Cleppe:

I would tell her to just take a deep breath, and that this too will pass, and it’ll all be worth it in the end. We can all only ever speak from our own experience. I hope when I’m speaking, everyone knows that that’s where it’s coming from. All I know is what I know and what I have learned, and I’m not finished yet. I still have so much work to do. I can only speak about what I know, and what I experienced and what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.

Tricia Cleppe:

But let me tell you, no one is going to tell me that I didn’t see it and then I didn’t experience it. No one is going to tell me that I didn’t experience and see firsthand the way that the systems in this country keep people down and hold people under the water and suffocate them until they feel like they can’t do anything. I have seen it. I’m not letting anybody tell me that I didn’t see it. I’m not letting anybody tell me that I didn’t experience it firsthand. That’s where I’m at.

Tricia Cleppe:

The one thing I will say, I was just having this conversation with my aunt and uncle the other day, is I grew up in love. I grew up loved and in community that loved me and cared for me. It really did take a village, truly, especially when my mom left and was working multiple jobs, I was enveloped in love and community my whole life, literally my whole life.

Tricia Cleppe:

Yes, it was traumatic in a lot of ways but I never, ever, ever, literally not once in my life, have felt unloved, ever. I’ve always known that there is somebody on my team, that there’s somebody there for me and that community will catch me. That’s something I have literally always known my whole life, and has been taught and instilled in me every day.

Tricia Cleppe:

Things were different. Growing up with a father that was addicted to drugs was not easy, but for me, you find acts of love in a lot of different ways. For me, him leaving and deciding, you know what, maybe I’m not the best person to be a dad, and maybe I’m not the best influence to be around my kids, to me, that’s an act of love. That’s how I view it, is he [crosstalk 01:18:34] his own ego out of it and his you ego around being a father and having kids and being an influence on them.

Tricia Cleppe:

I experienced a lot of love in my life. I have, I’ve come to know a lot of actions of people that might not on the face look like acts of love but if you actually take the time to think about the position that they were in, or the mindset that they were coming to that moment in, there are so many acts of love that carried me through my life. I never, ever once felt like I was living in trauma. I always felt like I was living in love, always. I just want to make that clear. I tell people that all the time that things were certainly not perfect and they were definitely unique and traumatic in a lot of ways but love has a way.

Tori Dunlap:

Wow, you all, I cannot thank Tricia enough for sharing her story. Her vulnerability in this episode is just astounding. She is just so smart. I’m just so honored to call her a friend and a client. This might be my favorite interview episode of the season. You can follow her @tclep, T-C-L-E-P on Instagram or subscribe to her podcast, The Woman Wave. It is so worth your time. It’s one of my favorite shows.

Tori Dunlap:

Team, we are halfway through season one of Financial Feminist and I just have to take a moment, the outpouring of love of support of this show, I honestly, I’m at a loss for words. I’ve said this a couple times, but my goal for the show, I wanted to be in the top 20 business podcasts. That is what I wrote on my journal. That’s what I tried to manifest.

Tori Dunlap:

Less than 72 hours after launching the first episode, we were the number one business podcast and we peaked at number 16 on all the charts. We beat NPR, Dave Ramsey, Tim Ferriss. We were the only women-founded, women-hosted, women-focused podcast in the top 25 and that is entirely because of you. It is entirely because you showed up, you reviewed, you subscribed, you shared with friends. I am over the moon. I am so overjoyed. I cannot thank you enough.

Tori Dunlap:

I was honestly pretty nervous launching the show. I’m proud of the show, of course but you don’t know when you’re creating something if it’s going to resonate with somebody else and especially in the new medium. We’ve tested a million types of content on Instagram, million types of content on TikTok. We’ve never done a podcast before. When you’re releasing something that you’ve worked really hard on and that your team has worked really hard on out into the world, you hope, you hope it goes well, right? You hope it’s well received.

Tori Dunlap:

I just cannot thank you enough for your support of the show. It truly means the world and I hope you know that this is our community and we’re building a movement here at Her First 100k. We are building a movement. We are changing the way people get financially educated. We are acknowledging systemic oppression. We are avoiding shame and judgment. We are creating a safe space to talk about this taboo topic and I’m so thankful you’re along for the ride.

Tori Dunlap:

If you want more information about what we discussed in this episode, Tricia, myself and this show, you can check out our detailed show notes @financialfeminist podcast.com We do spend a lot of time on those show notes. Feel free to pop in and look at resources. If you’re looking to learn more about the things we discussed in the show, get more information, research it more. We have a bunch of resources in those show notes that our team has put together. Please deepen your knowledge, deepen your learning. Take a look. I can’t wait to see you back here next week Financial Feminists, talk to you soon.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist. Financial Feminist is produced and hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Theme song and audio production by Jonah Cohen Sound. Administration and marketing by Olivia Kolkana, Sophia Cohen and Kristen Fields. Research by Arielle Johnson. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton and photography by Sarah Wolfe.

Tori Dunlap:

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 our sponsors, go to financialfeministpodcast.com.