If you’re making good money and still feel broke, stressed, or behind, something is off and it’s not you.
Today, I’m joined by my friend Vivian Tu, former Wall Street trader, CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF, and New York Times bestselling author of Well Endowed, to talk about what it really takes to get rich and stay rich. We’re calling out why paying your bills and saving is not the finish line, how optimization culture keeps high earners trapped in a constant game of “never enough,” and how to start using your money as a tool to buy time, freedom, and real security instead of status symbols. This episode is about ditching performative wealth, building systems that quietly grow your money, and finally feeling powerful, calm, and in control of your financial life.
Key takeaways:
Getting rich isn’t about how much you earn, it’s about how intentionally your money is working for you.
Vivian explains that many people reach a point where they’re making good money and doing “everything right,” yet still feel stuck because their money doesn’t have a clear job. Getting and staying rich requires moving beyond reactive money management into proactive wealth building—investing consistently, planning for future life events, and building systems that run quietly in the background so money grows without constant effort.
True wealth is measured by freedom, not status.
Designer purchases, luxury optics, and lifestyle inflation don’t create lasting richness. Vivian reframes wealth as the ability to control your time, take care of the people you love, and make decisions without money being the deciding factor. Staying rich means prioritizing spending that meaningfully improves your quality of life rather than purchases meant to signal success.
Financial 2.0 is about infrastructure, not willpower.
Once your foundation is solid, wealth building becomes less about discipline and more about systems: high-yield savings, intentional investing, insurance comparisons, estate planning, and automated contributions. These structures remove friction and reduce decision fatigue, which is key to staying rich long-term.
High earners still struggle because cost of living, lifestyle creep, and lack of planning erase progress.
HENRYs (High Earners, Not Rich Yet) often feel behind because higher income doesn’t automatically translate to wealth. Without a plan, increased earnings simply fuel higher spending. Staying rich requires directing extra income toward investments and long-term goals instead of letting lifestyle inflation quietly consume it.
Strategic spending starts with one powerful question: desire or display?
Before buying, asking “Do I want this or do I want people to know I have it?” exposes whether a purchase aligns with your real values. Rich people who stay rich consistently choose purchases that improve daily life—like sleep, health, and time—over items meant to impress others.
You don’t need perfection—you need progress.
All-or-nothing thinking keeps people from building wealth at all. Small, consistent actions compound over time, and doing something is always better than doing nothing. Staying rich means committing to steady improvement rather than waiting for the “perfect” moment or strategy.
Notable quotes
“True financial richness is not having to think about money at all and not having finances be a factor in your decision making.”
“I think we have to think about each and everything that we purchase…[and ask] Did I want this because I actually wanted it or did I want it because I wanted people to know I have it.”
“Having a lot of money and investing a lot of money doesn’t necessarily make you a lot of money. Having a lot of time is what makes you a lot of money.”
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro
00:51 Money traumas from childhood & the Chinese buffet story
03:17 How money narratives dictate everyday decisions
06:16 Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing
08:14 Money as a tool to buy your best life
10:47 What comes after financial basics (Finance 2.0)
13:01 Building infrastructure vs. working harder
15:38 Strategic spending: “Do I want this or do I want people to know I have it?”
18:33 The sleep investment story
24:48 Why HENRYs (High Earners Not Rich Yet) feel stressed
28:21 The B-plus life trap & lifestyle inflation
31:24 Wasted opportunity, potential, and time
33:20 Kids will make you poorer – childcare costs
36:10 The prenup with built-in raises for childcare
37:34 Unpaid labor & the “good mom” trap
38:53 Cooking as unpaid labor vs. celebrity chef art
40:06 Speaking kindly to yourself about money
42:31 Making peace with your own financial timeline
45:07 The all-or-nothing mindset is killing progress
49:56 15 minutes is better than no minutes
50:17 Book takeaway: Chase security, stability & freedom
51:30 Where to get the book & tour announcement
Vivian’s Links:
Website: https://www.yourrichbff.com/
Get your copy of Well Endowed: http://richbffbook.com/
Visit herfirst100k.com/ffpod to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show!
RESOURCES:
Looking for accountability, live coaching, and deeper financial education? Join the $100K Club
Register for our free investing workshop: https://herfirst100k.com/secrets
Feeling Overwhelmed? Start here!
Our HYSA Partner Recommendation (terms apply)
Behind the Scenes and Extended Clips on Youtube
Leave Financial Feminist a Voicemail
Financial Feminist on Instagram
Take our FREE Money Personality Quiz
Meet Vivian
On a global mission to make the financial industry accessible for all, Vivian Tu is a former Wall Street trader turned expert, public speaker, host, entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, Chief of Financial Empowerment at SoFi, and the CEO and Founder of the multi-platform brand, Your Rich BFF. Her approachable, culturally fluent take on financial literacy has earned her a community of over 10 million followers and a place among the most influential voices within financial education. Vivian has been recognized on the TIME100 Creators list (2025), Forbes 30 Under 30 (2023), Forbes Top Creators (2022 & 2023), and received the “Digital Influencer of the Year” Award at the 2024 Unforgettable Gala, honoring Asian and Pacific Islander achievements in entertainment.
Vivian is gearing up to release her second book, Well Endowed, with HarperCollins on February 3, 2026. Picking up where her first bestselling book, Rich AF, left off, Well Endowed offers a fun, practical roadmap to navigating the biggest financial decisions in adulthood (homeownership, marriage, family planning, etc.), empowering readers to align their spending with their values, goals, and legacy.
In March 2023, Vivian expanded her reach with the launch of “Networth and Chill,” a groundbreaking podcast that immediately topped the Business charts and is now in its third season. The show was nominated in the “Best Business + Finance” category at the 2024 iHeart Podcast Awards, solidifying its place as one of the leading voices in the financial podcasting Space. Her debut New York Times bestseller, Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life, was published in December 2023 by Penguin Random House after a competitive seven-figure auction.
Achieving millionaire status at just 27, Vivian’s financial success is a direct result of her strategic mindset. Her drive, ambition, diverse skill set, and passion has transformed her into one of today’s most desirable public speakers and brand collaborators. To date, she has given several panels and keynote presentations at events including the SXSW Conference and Festivals, Snapchat’s Financial Seminar, Forbes’ Top Creator event, BuzzFeed’s Content Creators Showcase, Glow Recipe’s Empowerment Summit, NextShark’s AAPI College Readiness Conference, and Her Campus Media’s Her Conference, to name just a few. Brand/organization partnerships thus far include SoFi, Marshalls, Substack, Amazon, Allergan Aesthetics, Skinceuticals, Nestle CRUNCH, Lululemon, Metlife, Carnival Cruise Line, Carmax, Adobe, Zola, and much more.
Vivian’s journey to success began in Baltimore, MD, where she was born to Chinese immigrant parents, who surrounded her with love and instilled the value of every penny spent. Throughout high school, she excelled in academics, becoming valedictorian of her class, and co-founding a tech startup as part of an AP Computer Science project, which sparked her early knack for entrepreneurship. Vivian went on to attend the University of Chicago, where she double majored in Public Policy and Environmental Studies and graduated with honors before entering the workforce in New York City as an equity trader at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Although she excelled working under the only other Asian woman on her team, who served as a close mentor and the very early “blueprint” for Your Rich BFF, after two and a half years, Vivian’s experiences with burnout and a toxic work environment came to a head and she decided to leave Wall Street behind. She transitioned to a job in digital media strategy sales at BuzzFeed, where she became a top seller within two years. While at BuzzFeed, many coworkers turned to Vivian for their personal finance questions, and she soon recognized how great the need was for financial literacy and education beyond the big banks, especially for marginalized and minority communities. To better consolidate and share her financial savvy, she posted her first video on the internet, and within 24 hours, it had gone viral and earned her over 100,000 followers in just one week.
Vivian stands at the intersection of financial literacy, culture, and digital influence, redefining what wealth education looks like for a new generation.
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
You’re doing everything right. You’re making good money, you’re paying off your debt, you’re maybe even investing, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. Today, we’re talking about why and how to go from financially frozen to financially fearless. On a global mission to make the financial industry accessible for all, my friend and yours, Vivian Tu, is a former Wall Street trader, turned expert, public speaker, host, entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author and the CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF. And today, she returns to Financial Feminists to talk about why paying your bills and saving isn’t the finish line. It’s actually just the starting point. Why optimization culture can leave high earners feeling perpetually behind. We also talk about using money as a tool to buy time, freedom, and security, not status. Strategic spending, asking, “Do I want this or do I want people to know I have it?” And reframing the self-talk around money, perfection, and timelines. Let’s get into it.
But first, a word from our sponsors. Okay, Vivian, your new book starts from the idea that paying your bills and saving is just the beginning. Why do so many people who are objectively doing well still feel anxious or behind financially?
Vivian Tu:
I think it has a lot to do with how we were raised, some of those money traumas from childhood. So in my book, Well Endowed, this is literally the first story I tell. Growing up, I went to a Chinese buffet. My parents didn’t have a lot of money at the time and we were working with a shoestring budget. So when we would go, I would immediately reach my little handout, trying to grab a piece of pizza, and my mom would slap it away and there was just a routine that we would have to do.
First, you go to the seafood section, you wait for the people in the back to bring out the fresh crab and lobster and all of that. You eat as much seafood as you possibly can because seafood’s the most expensive food. Then you move on to the meats. I’m talking beef, pork, lamb, not chicken. Chicken is cheap. Then you move on to the vegetables, but not cheap vegetables like broccoli. I’m talking, we’re eating pea shoots or snow peas, expensive vegetables. And then finally, if you’ve eaten through all three levels of that, you could finally at the end, maybe have some carbs and a little bit of dessert.
And I think that type of optimization has basically felt like a birthright for me. But that also means that now, I am still someone who to this day, even though I’m in a very different financial position now, I feel very anxious sometimes about money and how I’m spending my money and if it’s optimized. And I don’t think everybody has this weird psyche. I think a lot of the money traumas that we inherit from our parents end up showing up in our lives, even though our lives and their lives might be two separate movie franchises and they have nothing in common.
Tori Dunlap:
When you think about the stories that were told, we talk so much about that in our work of the money narratives you’ve been told, but even just that story is so indicative of I think a lot of people getting raised around money, which is we go out to eat once a month and you definitely don’t order an appetizer and you’re only drinking water. And if you’re at a buffet, yeah, you’re having the nicest thing possible that we can’t get anywhere else. So can you talk about how those pervasive money narratives that we might not even realize are in the back of our minds are dictating our everyday decisions?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I mean, I think it just really, really seeps into everything that you do. If you hear from your parents, “We can’t afford that, we can’t afford that, we can’t afford that.”, you grow up thinking, you very literally can’t afford that. And I talk so much about how to raise financially-savvy children or even set them up for financial success in this book. But one of the biggest things is like, I feel like you shouldn’t say the phrase, “We can’t afford that.” We should be saying, “No, you can’t have this candy bar because there’s too much sugar in it. I don’t want you to spoil your dinner.” But using the cop out, if we can’t afford that or it’s too expensive, it really does do a number on so many people. And then in the future, you feel like you have the scarcity mindset that it’s really hard to get past.
And I also think that there are so many opposing mindsets that get inherited. So things like, “Oh, well, the Johnsons, they drive a really beat up car. They must be having a hard financial time.” Okay. So now, in my head, I think anybody who drives something that’s not a Mercedes-Benz or a Range Rover is poor. So I think, well, I don’t want to be considered poor. So then I go and spend way too much money on my first vehicle, which by the way, depreciates 10% as soon as I whip it off the lot. And so we don’t necessarily make the smartest decisions, we make the ones that we’ve been conditioned to make.
Tori Dunlap:
And on the flip side of that, we see, I don’t know, that the Petersons are driving the nicest car on the block and we’re like, “Oh, they’re rich.” They might be, to quote that commercial from like 20 years ago, in debt up to their eyeballs and trying to perform wealth. So yeah, it’s the perception of all of that. And it’s very easy to write that off, but you’re exactly right that so much of that seeps into the way we think about money. You said you reached this moment where you knew the price of everything, but the value of nothing, which is such a good quote. When did that realization change how you think about money now?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. So I, as dutiful Chinese daughter, only kid to immigrant parents, I sent my parents on an all expenses paid vacation. I paid for business class flights for them to and from Asia. They had a really, really wonderful time. And on their return flight, my parents still live in Maryland and it’s a smaller airport, so they were like, “Okay, let’s make a pit stop in New York.” Perfect. They come, they’re staying with us, and the following morning, I take them out to dim sum. We have a morning, we come back to the apartment and what do I do? I get to see my parents maybe twice a year if I’m lucky. I whip open my laptop, I start checking emails. As much as I can appreciate that my job and those emails are the reason why I was able to pay for that vacation and pay for those flights and pay for dim sum, it’s such a shame that I can know the price of all of these things that I paid for, but I don’t understand where my parents’ values actually lie, what they value.
And it was very clear to me when my mom made a little comment of like, “Oh, man, back to emails already.” It broke my heart. I don’t get to see them a lot and I think they’re in their late 60s, early 70s. I’m at a point where I’m counting Christmases, I’m counting birthdays. I get a finite number left with them. And it just felt crazy that in the very limited time we have together, I would go straight back to working. I work for myself, you work for yourself. I have the flexibility to not be doing that and instead, I thought that would be the right thing to do. And as soon as she said that, I closed my laptop and I was like, “You know what? Let’s go do something.” It completely changed my mindset of, “What is this all for? What’s the point? What am I doing this for?”
And it’s not because I want the newest lime green Lamborghini sports car, whatever. It’s because I want to have the security and stability to be able to be in charge of my own time. I want to be able to take care of the people that matter most to me. And that does include business class flights and stays at the Ritz and the Four Seasons, whatever. But it’s not that that my parents appreciated. It was the fact that I thought of them. It’s the fact that I thought to take them to dim sum, invite them to come visit me and take that time off of work.
And I think we all have to come to a realization that one more designer shoe purchase isn’t going to get you to that state of nirvana, but maybe being able to retire your parents might, and maybe being able to promise your kids an education might, and maybe being able to go months and months and months without having an argument with your significant other over money, it might. And so this whole book really just focuses on what can you do with your money to buy you the best life possible?
Tori Dunlap:
That I think is the transformation when you start viewing money as a tool, not the end all be all, but also not the thing that’s your enemy, the, “I don’t have enough of it,” or, “I am so afraid to look at it,” or, “I’m so afraid to take a risk,” whether that’s just investing in the stock market or starting a business. The real transformation, I think, happens when you realize that money is the tool to unlock everything in your life and that your money and your happiness and your health and the health of the people you care about radically transforms when you start using money as your best tool in your toolkit.
Vivian Tu:
100% agree.
Tori Dunlap:
I got to pivot because your book’s a dick joke. The title of your book is a fucking dick joke and I love it. I think that we both approach personal finance and personal finance education with a little irreverence. So talk to me about the title of this book.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I knew you would appreciate this one. We’ve been friends for so long.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s good. It’s good.
Vivian Tu:
I feel like this is right up your silly, our sense of humor. So you’ve heard the term well-endowed. Usually, it’s to describe hehe, haha. We’re talking about penises, we’re talking about boobs, whatever. Great. But if you actually boil down the words and you think about it, well-endowed. Well is describing being endowed and endowed is describing an endowment. So what actually is an endowment? You’ve heard the phrase Harvard’s endowment, or maybe a rich person donates a big pile of money to your favorite charity. Your charity now has a big endowment. An endowment, simply put, is just a pile of money and resources that can be invested and grow so that any organization’s mission can be furthered into the future. And that’s it. That’s really simple.
So the whole point of this book is I want every single person who reads it to be well-endowed. I want you to be able to have your little pile of money that you invest and it grows and it buys you the life that you want so that you can have the house and the car and if you want it, you can have the happy family and relationship and the smart financially-savvy kids. And then you can have the retirement you deserve and have a good day today. All the while at the very end of your life, you can focus on estate planning so that not only do you leave this Earth better than you found it, you get to leave something behind, the little legacy to the people you care about most.
Tori Dunlap:
All of the things you’re talking about, I know everybody’s on board with, but there’s this misconception as you and I talk to literally millions of people about money every day. And one of the questions I get all the time for somebody who’s already investing, who has already paid off debt, who has the stable job, is that they think, okay, finance 2.0 or 201 is going to be really complicated and it’s not as complicated as people think it is. What actually comes next to the person who has got their financial foundation in order?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I think it’s really taking the hard part out of it. It’s building infrastructure. I feel like for me, I have little to no willpower and I know this about myself and that’s the reason why I have to pack my gym bag the night before, because if the gym bag’s not packed, if I’m not already wearing the yoga pants, I’m not going. In the same way that I think 2.0 or 201 finance isn’t about working harder, it’s about building the infrastructure to make smart decisions early on. So that’s if you want a home, you got to make sure that your money is keeping up with inflation. It’s not just sitting there, it’s maybe you have it in a certificate of deposit so that it can earn as much interest as possible in the two years before you need to actually make a down payment.
It’s, “Hey, I have a system to actually compare different insurance policies to see which one makes the most sense for me and my life.” It’s I have a script that I can do to take to my partner and say, “I would like to have a prenup before we get married.” Infrastructure for your children, whether that be a custodial Roth IRA, a 529, a UTMA or UGMA account to set them up for the future. And it’s of course building out trust, wills, like power of attorney, healthcare directives, so that you have it all figured out. It’s not about constantly having to think about these things all day. In fact, that’s the exact opposite message that I hope people take away is that 201 is so that you get to think about money less.
Tori Dunlap:
As business owners, I think the advice that we get and that people give, which is so accurate for scaling a business is the exact same advice, which is eventually, you get to the point where you want to stop working so hard and pushing all the boulders up the hill. You want to get to a point where your revenue is more systematized, your onboarding’s more systematized. And this is what we’re talking about here. And I think one of the best conclusions I can take from what you just talked about is none of this is sexy because I think that’s the common misconception is, “Okay, I’ve built my financial plan, so now I need to hire this wealth manager who’s going to… I’m going to pay him this fee and he’s going to do all this fancy maneuvering with my accounts and that’s how I’m going to build my wealth.”
And it’s like, all of this actually, as you keep going, it loses sexiness as you go. It’s not very exciting. Talking about a will, talking about all of this is not very exciting, but it’s the very things… Systems are not sexy. And so talk to me about the feeling of, “Oh, this needs to be complicated in order to work.”
Vivian Tu:
The best example I can give to everybody listening is that really truly building wealth is not staying at a hotel, it’s building a hotel. So when you stay at a hotel, there are certain white glove expectations, right? There’s the housekeeper who comes in every day and cleans up after you, and there is everybody who’s just waiting at your beck and call for your room service order and everything is so perfect, right? You love going to a hotel. Great. You know what all that costs? Money, okay? We are not in the business of spending money. We are in the business of preserving, growing, and making money. And so when I say building a hotel, it’s all about those infrastructure and that system. When you go to your hotel room at night and you pick up the phone, you have like 18 different buttons you can press.
You want to talk to the front desk, there’s a specific situation that’s going to happen there. You want to talk to the concierge? Different situation. Room service, different situation. Housekeeping, different situation. And so that is exactly how I think people need to think about this. You are building out those teams right now for your own financial future. So if you want to build out a healthy relationship, you got to put infrastructure in place in your relationship. You want to set your kids up for financial success while not letting them turn into dirt bags, you better start early. You better make sure you’re not traumatizing them the way my parents traumatized me. And I say that jokingly, tongue in cheek, but it’s true. When you have infrastructure in place, it takes all the guesswork out and it just makes it easier. But the hard part is building that infrastructure.
It sucks. You’re going to be doing paperwork, you’re going to be on calls with lawyers, you are going to be having to probably do a lot of research. And it is not the most fun experience, but you’ll be certainly glad you did it. And I always say, if there is anything that you can do for yourself is just make sure that tomorrow you is not mad at today you.
Tori Dunlap:
And I have said many times in this show that that’s real self-care and everybody wants to talk about self-care like it’s bubble baths and face masks and a bottle of wine and all of those things are fine, but those are self-soothing actions. It’s the hard shit in the moment. The things that don’t feel super comfortable that make future you’s life better, like having hard conversation with your partner or going to therapy or yeah, looking at your money and creating systems for it.
Vivian Tu:
And Tori, you’re exactly right. We talk all the time now. I think going to therapy is so much more common. We’re able to talk about it so freely, but don’t you think people would be better off if they went to financial therapy given that finances are usually number one or two in terms of stressors for people? If you can eliminate one of those things, you may not feel as mentally bad as you do or emotionally bad as you do because there isn’t that monkey riding around on your back when you’re at home, when you’re at work, you’re constantly thinking about your bills, you’re constantly thinking about your debt, you’re constantly thinking about all of these other things. What if you could just focus on your job? What if you could just focus on your kids? What if you could just focus on your partner and you weren’t stressed about money? I think this is one of the most tangible things you can do to practice self-care.
Tori Dunlap:
I think I saw a thread a couple weeks ago that were like 90% of your anxiety will go away once you’re financially stable. And it’s like, “Yeah, that’s pretty true.” Now, that’s easier said than done in a system that actively wants to gatekeep wealth and gatekeep money and there’s racism and sexism and ableism and all of the other things. But at the same time, I think, especially while there’s so much chaos in the world right now, your best investment of time is your financial education. Your best thing you can do right now to be in control of the things you can control is to take your financial education fucking seriously.
Vivian Tu:
100%.
Tori Dunlap:
When we talk about being good with money to then being more strategic with money, can you walk us through a strategic spending audit that someone could do this week?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m not going to give too much away, but a question that I encourage everybody listening to think about their next purchase is actually, “Do I want this or do I want people to know I have it?” And I feel like that changed my life because when I think about a lot of the things, especially like the cult following items that people want to buy, let’s take the Birkin bag, for example, there are so few people on this planet who can actually appreciate a Birkin bag for what it is. Those are people who are in the fashion industry, maybe they have a real appreciation for the leather stitching, maybe they know the full history of Jane Birkin and it is like a true item that they want. For most of us, I just want people to know that I can afford a Birkin. I feel like being seen with a Birkin is cool, but you know what else holds stuff just as well? Literally any other bag, and it’s also not $20,000.
So I think we have to think about each and everything that we purchased, and frankly, things that we’ve already purchased. Did I want this because I actually wanted it or did I want it because I wanted people to know I have it. So I’ll give you two great examples of things that I actually wanted. I am a psycho about my sleep because I’m a really bad sleeper. I wake up a lot, I have a hard time getting to bed. So me and my husband invested in a purple mattress that’s this thick, so thick, has the special waffle grid, whatever, helps your back. We have silk sheets, 100% silk sheets. Can you imagine? I feel like a seal every night when I get into bed. We have special pillows because so shameful, but I’m a front sleeper, so I smoosh my face all night. So I need to have a really special pillow. I have my special pillow. We have a noise machine, we have blackout shades. I have invested very literally thousands of dollars into sleeping better. And until now, I haven’t really told anybody about that.
But even if I couldn’t tell anybody about it, I wake up a better person. I wake up more ready to tackle a day because I have those things and they were well worth the purchase, especially since I’m using them every single night for seven to eight hours. I feel like we have to know in our lives what we are buying because we want them and what we are buying for optics. And if I’m honest with you, a lot of the things that I bought in my early 20s were all for optics.
Designer beanie. Sorry, did I think I was going to Aspen every weekend? I’m not. It’s itchy, by the way. The hat’s not comfortable. The heels that are 18 inches high and so painful and maybe have red bottoms, I didn’t need them. I just wanted people to know that I had them. And so I feel like we really need to do a little introspection when we spend about how it makes us feel. And there’s a dozen other things that I ask people to question when they are making purchases so that we are just smarter consumers because let me tell you, that marketing industry is insidious. I would know. I worked in it.
Tori Dunlap:
I think a lot of people can relate to the, I’m trying to impress somebody else or I’m trying to assert my status of like, “Oh, yeah, I’m somebody worth respecting.” I think another version of this is I’m buying this thing to prove to myself that I have money because that was me when I started making money, is I saw, “Oh, when you start making money, you buy designer goods.” And again, we’re picking on designer goods. If you love that, great. But that was what I was told to do as a woman, is, “Oh, when you start making good money, you buy designer things.” And I did that and did nothing for me. I own three designer pieces, it’s a Gucci belt and a YSL passport holder and both of those I use all the time. I owe nothing designer past those two things.
And yet it was not so much so people could see the Gucci logo. It was more for me going, “Oh, no, this is something you’re supposed to do and this confirms to you in your mind that you are wealthy now.” But that didn’t actually give me any joy when I look at my bank account and I’m like, “Wow, I’m protecting myself and I’m protecting my retirement and I’m doing all the things I want to do.” That actually asserts to me, “Yep, you are doing the things that you need to do to protect yourself.” So I don’t know, does that connect with you as well? Because I think that’s a version of this that is less like, look at me, I’m rich and more like, “Me, look at me, I’m rich.”
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I would say it’s not even necessarily me, look at me, I’m rich, but chasing after something that you desire. But this purchase isn’t going to be the thing that gets it for you.
Tori Dunlap:
Right, right. It’s a disconnect. It’s a mismatch.
Vivian Tu:
I’m trying to think like, okay, so this is like, let’s pick on birth control and yogurt. In every birth control and yogurt ad, you see a bunch of incredibly beautiful, diverse women that look like they could all be a part of the UN and they’re all like, “Hehe, haha, look at me and my best friends, me and this yogurt.” It’s like, if I buy this yogurt, maybe I will have a ton of girlfriends or maybe if I use this one specific hair product, I too will have an incredibly hot boyfriend who’s half naked on his motorcycle and the wind will blow through my hair.
Tori Dunlap:
Or perfume. Perfume’s the big one, I think.
Vivian Tu:
Perfume is [inaudible 00:23:35].
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I can be Dua Lipa.
Vivian Tu:
You don’t become rich by buying those things. You don’t become sexy by buying those things. You don’t become popular for buying those things, but they make you feel a certain way. And the thing is is that that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to help you believe that by having this association, that their brand with you, you will get that. And unfortunately, the only way that you are going to get those things is through a lot of personal work, whether that be going through therapy, going to the gym, getting cosmetic surgery. And I’m not encouraging people to do these things, but I promise you, using a certain face cream is not suddenly going to give you the jawline of Dua Lipa. It’s not happening.
Tori Dunlap:
And I think that in a environment and in a system right now where there is so much chaos, we’re trying to control what we can control. And for many people that is, “Oh, I’m going to spend money so that I can solve this very specific problem that TikTok has made me realize I have tech neck or my 11s and my eyebrows. And if I solve that problem, then I’m controlling this concrete thing to make myself feel better.” And I’m like, “I want you to channel that same energy into taking your financial education seriously because that’s something that’s actually going to fix your life and actually going to help you, that’s going to give you the same feeling of control that the 11 wrinkle prevention stickers never could.”
Vivian Tu:
Yeah, exactly.
Tori Dunlap:
We’ve been talking a lot about HENRYs internally, which the acronym is-
Vivian Tu:
High earner, not rich yet.
Tori Dunlap:
High earners, not rich yet. Yep, exactly. Why do you think this group in particular gets so caught up and stressed about money even though they’re doing fine?
Vivian Tu:
Because a HENRY is typically defined as someone who’s making over $100,000 a year, and in many places where there are a higher concentration of HENRYs because you can get higher paying jobs, they’re also higher cost of living areas. And these people, if you’re making $105,000 a year, you’re upper poor. You are still very much with the rest of us. And I think people forget that to get a $100,000 job, more often than not, and you’re a young person, you’re probably living in a major metro. So rent is a certain cost in those areas, more expensive. Your food is naturally more expensive because the grocery stores, they just charge more. They’re going to charge more than the Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And I literally use that reference because my husband is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I’ve been to the grocery store and I was amazed at the prices.
And I just think that people forget that it’s not just about the top line number. You have the bottom line number. Someone who is earning more in a major city and spending more may not necessarily be saving, putting money away for investing or paying down their debt more effectively than someone who makes a more modest living, but is living somewhere that’s a little bit cheaper. And so I think when we as a society see HENRYs, there’s not that much empathy given to them because they’re making $100,000 a year, but it’s very literally the middle poor and the upper poor fighting each other. We are fighting over crumbs when in fact, yes, these people are better off than many, but they’re still not doing amazing. They’re still working individuals that are still being taxed at ordinary income rates. So they’re giving up, let’s call it 25, 30% of their income.
And so I think we need to reframe HENRYs are not our enemy. People who make six figures are not our enemy. Frankly, millionaires, the humble millionaire next door who saved his entire life, who worked really hard, climbed the corporate ladder, that person is not your enemy. You want to get mad? Get mad at the corporations that are not necessarily paying their fair share of taxes, people who use exploitative business practices to make a ton of money and do not actually compensate their employees. And frankly, we should be mad at people who have so much wealth that there is no possible chance of them spending it and having it recirculate into the economy because it’s being hoarded. So I just think we need to stop fighting with each other down here and start looking up the pyramid.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. And I think we talk about that a lot more in the first episode you did on this show. So if you want to hear more about that, go listen to her first episode. I think the other trap with HENRYs, if they’re making the $100,000-ish a year, is that you’re making enough money where a lot of the initial problems go away. So it’s actually easier to ignore your finances to the point where suddenly you’re like, “Oh, I don’t really know what’s going on. I can just kind of spend, but I think I’m spending too much.” It’s a lot easier to ignore it.” When you are making less money, you know where every dollar’s going because you have to.
And then I also think with people who are, let’s say you’re 200,000 or even $300,000, the common trap there is that kind of similar, you have not given your money a job and so you’re making good money, but you have no idea what to do with it and you don’t know where you should be investing it. Yeah, you don’t know where to grow it. So talk to me about that person who is, yeah, making actually decent money, but is in the analysis paralysis, “Oh, yeah, do I work with a wealth advisor? Because that’s what, I don’t know, the guy from work told me to do.” What are they doing wrong or what can they be doing better with their money?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. To your exact point, Suzy Welch, a friend of mine, she’s an NYU professor and an incredible author, she coined this term of a B+ life. When you have a B+ life, you’re not that incentivized to change it. When you have a C- life, you’re like, “I have to do everything to fix this.” You have an A+ life, you’re like, “I will do anything to maintain this.” B+, you can tread. You can tread water for years. The problem for someone who’s making 200,000, maybe even 300,000, is that you start making a little bit more money, you start spending a little bit more money, your lifestyle inflates, and you still don’t have the financial education and you were bad with money when you were making 80 grand a year, you’re still bad with money now making 300, you just have more zeros to play with.
And so I think it’s still really important that these people do the basics, whether that’s opening up a high yield savings account to make sure that their savings are growing, paying down high interest rate debt, making sure that they have a debt payoff plan that focuses on ranking from highest to lowest interest rate, making sure that they have access to all of those retirement accounts with tax benefits like a 401(k), an IRA or Roth IRA, making sure that they’re actually invested, not just, “Oh, I put my cash in the account.” No, no, no, babes. You’re not done. You actually have to buy stuff. I’m talking target date retirement funds, I’m talking index funds, I’m talking sector funds. And then last but not least, making a plan. It’s really easy to feel, especially if you’re the first person in your family to ever make that kind of money, that you’re set forever.
You’re not though, because even if you make $300,000 a year, in this current climate, you cannot save your way to rich. You cannot save your way to retirement. You need to invest your way there. And so it’s all about making a plan, making a plan of like, “Hey, I’m going to have some big spending years coming up. I have a wedding. I have a kid on the way. I have a house that I’d like to buy, a car I’d like to buy. I have to do all of these things.” Making sure that you have the money that you need to live your best life. It’s not about amassing money. It’s about using that money to get what you want.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s one of the things that breaks my heart I think most is when I start talking to women who are making a decent salary or whose household income is, yeah, great. You can do a lot with that. And then they have nothing to show for it. And I say this a lot with business owners as well. A lot of women start a business and they start making more money than they’ve ever made before. And it might not be somebody listening $200,000, but maybe it’s just that next jump in your lifestyle and you’re like, “Holy shit.” But then they don’t have a plan. They don’t know what to do with it. And it’s just such a waste and it breaks my heart because it’s like, I need you to know what you’re doing with your money because if you’re making good money and you’re working hard and you have gotten to a point where you feel compensated fairly, which a lot of people can’t say, but then you’re doing nothing with it, that’s such a disconnect.
Vivian Tu:
There’s nothing worse than wasted opportunity, wasted potential, and wasted time. I feel like you and I are like the old man screaming off the mountain into the abyss.
Tori Dunlap:
We really are. We really are.
Vivian Tu:
But having a lot of money and investing a lot of money doesn’t necessarily make you a lot of money. Having a lot of time is what makes you a lot of money because that’s how compound interest math works. So the longer your money is invested, the more consistent you are, the earlier you start, the better off you’re going to be. That’s not to say you can’t start later, but if you want to get to where the person who started in their 20s is, you’re going to have to put more in. And so it’s just all about making sure that you are taking full advantage of every opportunity you are presented, and back to my Chinese buffet, optimizing so that you get the most value out of those dollars.
Tori Dunlap:
What I’m really excited about this next book from you is that we are talking about a lot of what I jokingly call the big life stuff. So yeah, it’s the house and the retirement and the kids. And what I love is that you said when it comes to children, they’re going to make you poorer. And I think that’s the secret thing that nobody wants to say out loud. But having kids, if that’s important to you, that is going to change the way you manage your money. Kids are fucking expensive.
Vivian Tu:
Guaranteed.
Tori Dunlap:
So what financial realities do prospective parents most underestimate?
Vivian Tu:
So I feel like when people think about having kids, they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, how much could Pampers cost?” Or how much could the [inaudible 00:34:02]?
Tori Dunlap:
A lot, by the way. A lot.
Vivian Tu:
The stroller and the formula. But people don’t realize that for most people who have children, the number one expense is actually childcare. So if you have any intention of going back to work or frankly even just need a little bit of help at night, because let’s be honest, in many cases, if you cannot get some sort of help, whether that’s family coming or hired help or whatever, you are going to be living at a CIA black site for the first couple months. You are not sleeping. It is crazy. You’re going to be tortured. It is so important for people to realize that those childcare expenses are getting higher and higher and higher.
Right now, in many major cities actually, there are wait lists. People are getting on wait lists for childcare before the kids are born because there is such a lack and such a insufficient supply for how much demand there is for childcare. And who could blame people? You’re saying, “Oh, all of a sudden, families don’t need to be two income anymore?” Of course they do right now. It’s a very tough economic time and childcare is so, so expensive, but I think it’s really underestimated because it’s not something that they grow out of very quickly. You might need childcare for very literally a decade. And so maybe they get to 10, maybe they start getting into their preteens. They can be a latchkey kid like I was, but it’s going to be a long haul and you have to make a very important decision with your family of does one of us take a step back from our career?
So not only are you either in one case, you’re paying for childcare out of pocket in cash, but in another case, you are literally paying through not getting that paycheck and you’re missing out on all of those incremental gains, those promotions, those raises, and the investing you could have done on all of those dollars in the meantime. And so it just becomes a very, very compounded expense. And so that’s why I start the chapter with kids will make you poor. It’s a decision that still doesn’t deter people. Knowing what I know, I still full well intend to probably have a kid or two, but I have come to the full realization that that will make me less rich and that’s okay, but I need to be prepared for that.
Tori Dunlap:
I have to tell you a story that I know you’re going to appreciate. I have two friends of mine, they live in New York, a couple years ago, they got married and like we did, like we do, I sat at drinks with them and talked about their prenup. And one of the things that they wrote into their prenup, they each had their separate lawyers and she literally was like, it’s a man and a woman, and she was literally like, “If we have children, it is written in the prenup that not only am I getting a stipend, but also, I am getting basically raises that are commiserate with what I would be getting because I’m taking time off work to raise these children. The raise is commiserate with what I would be getting if I had continued my corporate job. And also, if I do go back to work, we are thinking about all of the lost time on investing and all of those raises.” And she had written all of that into the prenup.
And this is what we’re talking about is like, yes, the cost of kids absolutely is childcare and diapers and college maybe, and all of those things, but it’s also the cost, especially for women, because women do the vast majority of the unpaid labor, it is the cost for women’s financial stability and also just the emotional decision to decide, do I be a “good mom” and stay home or do I go and keep working? And it’s just like that is the complex things we’re talking about here and the cost quite literally financially of that kind of decision.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. And I feel like the phrase good mom is so loaded.
Tori Dunlap:
Of course it is. I put it in air quotes for anybody who’s not watching, who’s listening. Yes.
Vivian Tu:
Good mom is so loaded because to be a good mom, you literally have to have eight arms, you have to have Hermione’s time turner, be able to be in two places at once. You have to literally not need to sleep. You have to be super woman. But to be a good dad, you just have to be kind. Yeah. And so I just think that a lot of this unpaid labor is put on women. And this is something that changed my brain chemistry and I feel like I’m going to tell you and it’s going to change yours, but we are already kind of on this train, but it’s so interesting how a task, when done by a woman, is unpaid, but when it’s done by a man, it’s art. So think about cooking at home. Who cooks most of the meals? More often in a traditional, if we’re assuming since, mom does. Mom does not get paid to cook those meals. Mom just does it. It’s unpaid labor. It’s the slop she’s cooking up in the kitchen.
Suddenly, some guy with a goatee and a full arm sleeve tattoo with a fun little hat is making food in a kitchen, he is a celebrity chef, has earned a Michelin star, and gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to not only run his own restaurant, but maybe even be on television. It is so interesting. And by that, I mean, it’s like one of those phrases where I’m like, “Don’t you think it’s funny how…” And then I go into my rant, but don’t you think it’s funny how that’s the case?
Tori Dunlap:
We’re so fun at dinner parties. Literally my partner has now jokingly done at dinner, he pantomimes pulling up a soapbox for me because I’m like, “Here we go. We’re going on our feminist soapbox again.” But one of the things I literally was going to bring up at the very first metaphor you gave about the lobster is that’s the same thing of there are some things that are luxurious if you’re rich, but ridiculous if you’re poor, and lobsters and crab started as the poor man’s food.
Vivian Tu:
Poor people food, yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Because it was hard to eat.
Vivian Tu:
[inaudible 00:39:57].
Tori Dunlap:
It was hard to get into. Right. And so I think about that all the time. Speaking another language is sophisticated if you’re rich, but I don’t know, use a pejorative horrible word here for people who are immigrants, right? And it’s like, this is the same thing where so much of the way we view money and the way we view progress is just societal norms that I think anybody listening to this show is no longer interested in. So for people listening, I ask you, are those narratives serving you? And if they’re not, then you need to stop believing them.
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I really do think that how you speak to yourself, especially when it comes to money, is how you’ll actually change your behavior and your views.
Tori Dunlap:
Absolutely.
Vivian Tu:
And not even just about money, but I think about all of the horrible, and I truly mean disgusting, nasty, horrible, terrible things I’ve ever thought about myself, never in a million years would I have ever said that to my best friend. She probably has some of those same habits, if I’m honest, but I would never say that. I would never say some of the terrible things I think about myself to her. And she would never say any of the terrible things that she says to herself to me. And I think if we all started treating ourselves like our own best friend, which we should be, by the way, we’d all be a lot kinder. You’re not stupid, you’re not behind, you’re not bad with money, you are on your money journey, you are figuring it out. You haven’t been taught this before, but you are going to make today a better day than yesterday and tomorrow a better day than today. And that’s how it is. Simple.
I started doing this really cringe thing, which I’m obsessed with in the morning and I look at myself in the mirror, I’m brushing my teeth, I get ready, and I’m like, “Everything is amazing. You are the luckiest girl in the world and you’re going to do great.” And it’s simple. And I just say it to myself every day, and you know what? Today’s going to be great. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
Tori Dunlap:
I talk out loud to myself all the time. No, but I think I have a whole episode I’ll do eventually in my head that’s basically, anything that you’ve been told is crazy is actually the stuff that you should be doing, which is like talking to yourself. You think of the crazy, old lady who’s talking to herself, it’s like, no, you actually should be talking to yourself. When I’m upset, I literally, and again, it’s so cringe and so cheesy, but it works. No one’s around to see me. Who fucking cares? I put my hand on my heart and my hand on my belly and I literally out loud, I tell myself, “You are safe, you’re okay. I have got you. This is really scary. I know, Tori. It’s really, really scary and we’re going to figure it out together.” It’s literally making me cry. Just this is the way I speak to myself. And yes, my life is transformed by doing that. So why wouldn’t we?
All the crazy things that you’re told are people being insane. It’s like, no, no, actually the insane people are doing the things that will actually help you build a life that you want. When you were talking about everybody being on their own timeline, I think people feel this pressure to make the right financial decisions at the right age. How can people make peace with timing when their life milestones are not lining up with the traditional financial advice or what they see online?
Vivian Tu:
I think this is kind of a funny question because I feel like you and I are both victim to this. As two members of the Forbes 30 Under 30 [inaudible 00:43:30].
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Yeah. [inaudible 00:43:34].
Vivian Tu:
No, I think there is this invisible timeline that people think that we should be on that if you don’t get on that list or if you don’t find the love of your life by this age, or if you don’t have a kid by this age, it’s too late, or if you don’t buy a house, you’re a fucking loser. All of these things, they’re fake. They’re literally set up based on arbitrary timelines. I know people who have fallen in love with their significant other in their mid 40s and they have gone on to have the best life ever. I know people who were in a different relationship and got divorced and then found the love of their life later on. So you get a do-over. You can get a couple do-overs if you’d like, but I just feel like you have to realize we did not all start this race from the same point.
Some people are born on third base. You’ve heard that phrase before. It literally means they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They have every advantage, every privilege. And some people aren’t even born in the fucking parking lot. They are so outside. They are by the illegal hotdog stand that’s a mile out where there’re people who are parking and walking. And so you have to realize you may not have the same start as everybody else. I think you and I probably are born somewhere between the parking lot and third base. Many people are, but I think you can appreciate all of the privileges you were born with and all the things that have gone right in your life, but you can also realize that there are invisible factors that hold certain people back from certain things and recognize that when your time will come, it’ll come. And if it doesn’t come, it’s probably not meant for you and that is okay too. A happy life looks very different for every single person.
Tori Dunlap:
We get a question a lot in our stock market school community from women who are 40 plus who are like, “Oh, is it too late for me to save for retirement?” Like, “Oh, it’s all fucked. So why should I do anything at all?” And the thing I tell them is, “Yeah, I do wish you started when you were 20. I do, but there was probably a million reasons why you didn’t get started.” You didn’t have access to this education. You were not taught this. You were raising babies. You were focused on other things. You were just trying to make ends meet. Somebody scammed you. There’s a million reasons why you were not able to contribute to your Roth IRA until you were 42 or 48 or… Whatever age we want to pick.
And I think that the all or nothing mindset, the either I do it perfectly or I don’t do it at all, I have multimillions of dollars in my retirement account or it’s hopeless for me and I may as well have zero, is one of the most damaging things I see women believe when doing anything. When like, oh, I either go to the gym and I work out for an hour and I walk out a sweaty mess and I’m tired and sore or I do nothing, I sit on the couch, I do no workout. It’s like, no, walk around the block for 10 minutes. That is better than nothing. Okay. $50,000 safe for retirement? Yeah, we wish you had more, but that is better than nothing. So I know you believe this too. When you’re talking about with everything you’re discussing in this book, how is the all or nothing mindset killing people from creating the life that they need and becoming well-endowed?
Vivian Tu:
Yeah. I mean, I think I’m going to take a page out of a good friend of mine’s book, Reshma Saujani. She’s the founder of Girls Who Code. Basically, she was teaching young students how to code, as the name suggests, and she would write a line of code and all the boys would write a line. Some of them would be right, some of them would be wrong. And then the girls, many of them, they would have nothing on their screens. And she was like, “That’s weird. Are y’all paying attention or are you not interested? What’s going on?” They ran the keystrokes back on those computers and all of the girls had written lines of code and then deleted them and then tried again and then deleted them because they were so worried that there was going to be something wrong or it wasn’t the perfect line or everything wasn’t perfect that they just refused to do anything and showed up with nothing.
And I think that’s such a microcosm of how we speak to young women versus young men, which is young women are told to be perfect and young men are told to be brave. And so I feel like especially with Well Endowed, my recommendation for folks is these are all personal decisions. There is no wrong answer. The only wrong move you can make is not having the conversation, not assessing with yourself if you actually want these things, not talking to your partner, not even thinking about whether or not your children need to have this financial future, not having a discussion with an estate planning attorney of how do I set myself up for the future? It’s better to do something than nothing. It’s better to get a prenup off of online software that’ll get you 99% of the way there. Maybe there’s like one weird loophole you didn’t imagine, but frankly, you’ll probably never come to that because let’s be real, the people who actually get prenups usually have easier divorces than most.
And so I just think that the idea of all or nothing is such a mistake. I’ll never forget this. One of my first coworkers at my first job, she was a D1 athlete and she asked me one day after work, she was like, “What are you going to do tonight?” And I was like, “I don’t know, girl. I think I’m not feeling the best. I don’t really feel like taking this workout class. I’m probably just going to put on…” I told her, I was like, “I’m probably just going to put on this 15 minute YouTube video and do some stretches.” And she said to me, “15 minutes is better than no minutes, baby.” And to hear someone who had been an athlete at that level say that made me realize that we’re all human.
Heaven forbid, I don’t feel like working out the hardest I’ve ever worked on my period. Sorry, don’t want to do that. It is still okay to give 20% if that’s all you have to give because you’ll be able to give 80 later in the week. You’ll be able to give 100 later in the week. And it’s better to do a little bit. Those little things, those 15 minute increments add up so quickly. If you take every speedy, quickie, 15-minute workout I have ever done in my lifetime, I bet you that adds up to dozens and dozens of hours of workout and I am that much more flexible, that much healthier, that much more physically fit, have stronger muscles because of that.
Tori Dunlap:
And the irony is that you’re so afraid of making the wrong decision when actually, the only wrong decision is making no decision. That’s the only wrong decision when it comes to money, is if you’re so afraid and you’ve let fear dictate your decisions around money, which I can almost guarantee everybody listening has done over and over and over again. If you’re so afraid of making a mistake, then you should just do something because the worst mistake you can make is doing nothing. I am just so thankful you’re back on the show. I am so excited for this book. I just love talking about money with you because we view it the same way. I think we educate people in the same way about it. If someone walks away from reading this book, what have they learned? What is their biggest takeaway?
Vivian Tu:
I think their biggest takeaway should be that you should be chasing security and stability and freedom in your life because true financial richness is not having to think about money at all and not having finances be a factor in your decision making. And if you read this book, if you follow the instructions, if you actually do the checklist, I don’t even just want people to read this. I want them to do the checklists at the end of each chapter. I truly believe that this book will help you get closer to that. And just for everybody listening, I will be going on tour with this book and someone, someone very special, someone you may know, Tori Dunlap, host of Financial Feminist, is actually going to be my very special moderator at my tour stop in Seattle. So, come see us.
Tori Dunlap:
Would love to… Yeah, we have a ton of Seattle listeners. So yeah, hometown show for me. Would love to have you come out and support her incredible book. Okay. Plug away, my friend. Where can people get it? What’s it called? Go.
Vivian Tu:
Yes. Everybody, please grab a copy, it’s called Well Endowed. You can order yours at richbffbook.com. Not only do you get this incredible book, but if you pre-order it, you will actually get a bunch of other freebie resources, things like an outline of my trust and will, a buy versus rent home calculator. I actually can’t even take credit for that. My husband built it and I made him make it user-friendly for everyone. A relationship equity calculator of how you should be splitting big things like rent if you and your partner don’t make the same amount of money, things like a wedding planning checklist because obviously, I do talk about weddings and divorces in this book, and even a list of things that you can do to help raise smarter, more financially sound children. There’s so many, so many freebies. Please grab a copy, richbffbook.com.
Tori Dunlap:
Love it. Thank you. Thanks for being here.
Vivian Tu:
Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First $100K. If you love the show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you’re looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to http://herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
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, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
