If your grocery bill makes you want to cry, hi, same.
You’re probably not bad at shopping or cooking. You’re just tired, and the takeout app knows it.
Carleigh Bodrug is back! She’s the CEO and founder of PlantYou, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a self-taught plant-based home cook, and the author of the brand-new cookbook Quickies. Her first episode was one of our most-loved ever, so I brought her back to tackle one of the biggest line items on your budget right now: food. We get into why convenience wins at 6 PM, how to actually cut your grocery bill, how to stop throwing money in the trash (literally), and why a food system works the same way a money system does. It’s practical, it’s shame-free, and there is a salad kit eaten out of a mixing bowl.
Key takeaways:
You don’t have a motivation problem. You have a time problem
Carleigh’s opening point reframes the whole episode. When you’re maxed out, healthy eating is usually the first thing to go, and you default to delivery or the drive-through. That costs more, makes you feel worse, and feeds the cycle. The fix is making the healthy option faster, not guilting yourself harder.
Meal prep is ingredient prep
Forget five days of identical Tupperware. Carleigh’s version: when you get groceries home, take 20 minutes to chop your bell peppers, make a pot of quinoa, and blend one sauce. Then see how those pieces show up across multiple meals. You’re removing the barriers between you and dinner before 6 PM even happens. If it’s washed and cut, you’ll eat it. If it’s not, it’s going in the trash in two weeks.
The cheapest food is the food you already own
Before you go to the store, shop your fridge and pantry. Write down what you have (that’s your “free food” starting list), plan meals around it, then fill in the gaps. Carleigh admits she used to come home with a new bag of oats while four half-eaten bags sat in her pantry. Beyond that: shop sales and in-season produce, lean on cheap staples like beans, lentils, oats, and rice, and maybe don’t go to Costco “just for strawberries.”
Convenience food can actually save you money
Pre-cut watermelon costs more than a whole one. It’s still the better deal if the whole one ends up in the garbage. Frozen fruits and veggies are harvested and frozen fast, they’re easy to prep, and they don’t wilt in the back of your fridge. Grocery delivery costs more too, but if it’s the thing that gets you cooking instead of ordering, it can still come out ahead. Time is money.
Build a system so you don’t need willpower
Pick one grocery-and-prep day a week. Shop your pantry, write out Monday through Friday on a plain piece of paper (no app, no fancy journal), and choose recipes with overlapping ingredients so nothing goes to waste. A chickpea curry with bell peppers on Monday means a roasted red pepper pasta on Tuesday. Pair cooking with something you love, like a podcast or reality TV, and plan a couple of takeout or restaurant nights on purpose. Same principle as your money: structure beats white-knuckling it.
Perfection is the enemy of good (and dinner)
Carleigh, a literal cookbook author, eats a taco kit every week. Being consistent 70–80% of the time beats being perfect for three days and then quitting. Figure out your four or five go-to “safe meals,” keep a few fail-safes for nights when you have nothing left, and when you fall off the wagon, just get back on.
Stop throwing your grocery money away
Food waste is money waste. If you’re paying for broccoli by weight, the stem is the heaviest part, and most of us toss it. Shave it and throw it in a stir-fry or pesto. Beet and radish tops make great greens. The liquid from a can of chickpeas (aquafaba) works as an egg-white swap and even makes chocolate mousse. And keep a “garbage bowl” while you cook: bag your veggie scraps in the freezer, then simmer them into free broth.
You’re not bad at cooking, and you’re not bad at money
Both are learned skills. You didn’t come out of the womb speaking Italian or playing the tuba. Immerse yourself: cookbooks, Food Network, food writers, friends who cook. Start with low-stakes recipes (plant-based cooking is very forgiving), set out your ingredients before you start, and if something flops, eat something else and try again
Notable quotes
“People don’t have a motivation problem. They have a time problem.”
“I like to think of cooking at home as one of the greatest investments you can make for your life.”
“If you’re paying for broccoli by weight, the stem is the heaviest part, and we’re all throwing it away.”
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro
00:42 What Happens to Healthy Habits When You’re Maxed Out
04:16 The Psychology of Pre-Cut Food
07:26 Shop Your Pantry First
11:15 The Deeper Psychology of Convenience
12:51 Cooking as an Investment in Yourself
18:23 Building a System That Beats Willpower
24:52 How “Quickies” Was Born
28:08 What Makes a Recipe Actually Quick
32:00 Perfection Is the Enemy of Good
35:33 Using Every Scrap: Reducing Food Waste
39:31 Cooking Is a Learned Skill
43:54 Rapid Fire Speed Round
Thanks to Rocket Money for sponsoring this episode!
Thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode!
Carleigh’s Links:
PlantYou Quickies book
Carleigh’s Instagram
How to Lower Your Grocery Bill and Stop Food Waste
Additional Resources Mentioned:
millionaire mindset: parenting yourself episode
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Meet Carleigh
Carleigh Bodrug is the CEO and Founder of PlantYou, a #1 New York Times Bestselling cookbook author and self-taught plant-based home cook, famous for her simple takes on plant-based, healthy and approachable recipes. Carleigh has been featured in Good Morning America, Live with Kelly & Mark, Access Daily and Eating Well.
Boasting over 13 million followers between her social channels, Carleigh has gripped social media with her simple and delicious recipes that make plants the star of the show. Her first book, PlantYou: 140+ Ridiculously Easy, Amazingly Delicious Plant-Based Oil-Free Recipes
(2/15/22) sold out TWICE. The second, Scrappy Cooking: 140+ Plant-Based Zero-Waste Recipes That Are Good For You, Your Wallet and the Planet (4/4/234, Hachette Go), was a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Her highly anticipated third cookbook, Quickies: 140+ Nourishing Plant-Based Recipes for Busy People—is a practical, approachable guide for anyone who wants to eat healthier without spending hours in the kitchen. At its core, Quickies is about making home cooking simple, speedy, and realistic, while staying true to the PlantYou mission: helping people eat more plants without the overwhelm or burnout that often comes with “healthy eating.”
Carleigh founded PlantYou in 2016 after the World Health Organization announced that red and processed meat were now considered Group 1 and Group 2 Carcinogens. Which was especially shocking as Carleigh grew up on a “meat and potatoes” diet. Armed with a bachelors degree in media theory and journalism, Carleigh began her own research, reading landmark and life-changing books, including The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and finally enrolled in a one-year holistic health coach course to become more versed in nutrition. The science was clear. The healthiest approach to eating was a whole-
foods and plant-based lifestyle.
With little-to-no cooking skills and a tiny apartment kitchen, Carleigh started experimenting with plants. She began cooking vegan meals by simply replacing the meat in her favorite childhood recipes with plants. “It was obvious to me that there was a need for truly simple and approachable recipes in the vegan space,” Carleigh shares. For Carleigh, eating more plants is about health, sustainability, affordability, and compassion.
When she’s not cooking, traveling or thrifting, Carleigh lives in Canada with her husband Jesse, son Wes, their cat, King Tut and dog Peach.
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
We know that spending money on groceries is at an all-time high, so we’re doing something about it today. Today’s guest is Carleigh Bodrug, and she is a returner guest to Financial Feminist. She’s the CEO and Founder of PlantYou, a number one New York Times bestselling author and a self-taught plant-based home cook. She has a brand new cookbook out called Quickies, and we’re talking today about how to actually save money on your grocery bill, about how to cook more at home in a way that doesn’t make you want to die, and more broadly, how to save money on one of the biggest line items on people’s budgets right now, food. Her first episode on Financial Feminist was one of our best performing episodes ever, and we’re so excited for you to hear her practical tactical tips today. Let’s get into it.
But first, a word from our sponsors.
We’re so excited to have you back on the show. I think everyone has good intentions about eating well and then shit hits the fan. So what actually happens to healthy habits when a person’s just maxed out?
Carleigh Bodrug:
I’m a big believer that people don’t have a motivation problem. They have a time problem. So when we are maxed out, one of the first things to fall to the wayside is healthy eating and we opt for convenience foods. And unfortunately, that’s like a funnel down, because when we opt for convenience foods, we’re usually spending more money, we’re eating worse, and then we’re just in a vicious cycle of not feeling great, our bank account is hurting, and you know the deal. So I’m a big advocate for replacing that with healthier habits, quicker meals, and delicious food.
Tori Dunlap:
When you’re exhausted, I think healthy and cheap both lose to quick or fast. Why does the convenience option always seem to win at 6:00 PM?
Carleigh Bodrug:
I just became a mom in the past year and I think-
Tori Dunlap:
Congratulations.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh, thank you. Prior to being pregnant, to be honest, because pregnancy is a doozy for anyone listening, if you’ve been pregnant, you know. So prior to that, I don’t think I really had the full understanding picture of what that meant to be maxed out and really needing convenience foods as opposed to a healthy meal. And unfortunately what happens is, when you spend your whole day working, you’re a busy person and you’re filling up everybody else’s cup, that is just the easiest thing at 6:00 PM to say Uber Eats, drive through, can I just pop a meal from my freezer into the microwave? And listen, no shame, I still do that on some hard days. But my whole goal with PlantYou in general is to give people tools so that the majority of the time they can get something decent on the table that’s going to make them feel good and also save money.
Tori Dunlap:
One of the things we talked about last time you were on the show and that I love following you for, is meal prep. And I know everyone who’s on the internet has seen content about meal prep, but why do you think it’s so effective for people?
Carleigh Bodrug:
I think when we talk about meal prep, often the image that comes to mind is all of these plastic Tupperware containers that have the same meal that you need to eat Monday to Friday, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Overnight oats for breakfast, some sort of pasta for lunch and curry for dinner, and you’re eating that all five days. I think if we reframe it to meal prep being ingredient prep, we can go a long way and it can be incredibly impactful.
So what I suggest to people, if you’re new to the concept of meal prep, is when you get your groceries home after say you grocery shop on a Sunday, taking out 20 minutes to cut up your bell peppers, to maybe make a pot of quinoa, and maybe whip up a sauce in a blender and see how those can serve you for multiple meals throughout the week. And what that’s going to do is we’re all about relieving the boundaries to making the healthy meal at the end of the night. So if you already have your quinoa prepped, maybe you prepped some grated tofu, or if you’re not vegan, maybe you marinated some chicken, if that’s already done at that 5:00, 6:00 PM, you’ve already relieved that boundary to getting from A to B.
Tori Dunlap:
I think about that a lot because I’m sure we discussed this last time too, I am sometimes guilty of buying food and then it sits in the back of the fridge, and it ends up going to waste. And I’m like, “Why did I buy my $5 strawberries just to throw them in the trash or the clamshell spinach?” And there is something psychologically about if it’s washed and cut, I will eat it. If it is not washed and it’s not cut and it’s not prepped, I will not eat it. And I think I can speak for everybody listening where that is a common thing. It’s the same way if I go to the grocery store and if they’ve already cut the watermelon for me, I will buy the cut watermelon, before I’ll buy a huge watermelon that I have to cut myself. So talk to me about just those little switches, is what you’re saying here.
Carleigh Bodrug:
You are certainly not alone. And I think so often, even as moms, I think trying to get dinner on the table is so difficult. I think we beat ourselves up. You’re talking about the watermelon being precut from the grocery store, and that relieves a boundary for you, you’re actually going to eat it. Well, there’s nothing wrong with purchasing that if you’re actually going to eat it, because the reality is as Americans, we toss up to 40% of the food that we buy. So if you put that, we’re on a financial podcast. We all know grocery bills are just crazy these days. If you just actually put that into perspective and think about if you’re actually going to eat the food that you buy, how much money you would save.
But on top of that, a couple of other ways that we can relieve those boundaries to eating healthier and actually eating the food you buy, is I am a huge fan of frozen vegetables and fruit. So people often think of frozen vegetables and fruit as not as healthy as the fresh stuff, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Because usually when food is frozen, especially fruits and vegetables, it’s harvested and then it’s frozen right away. So that means it’s at peak freshness. Where I’m in Canada, that food is usually traveling for several days if it’s fresh. So by the time you get it, it’s been sitting there decomposing away for several days.
So frozen is fabulous in that way and usually easier to prep. We just made a noodle dish before this where we added some frozen edamame. It took two minutes. We didn’t have to shell edamame to get there. So I don’t think that there is anything wrong with relying on convenience foods if that is what’s going to get you to eat healthier. And if you think about it from a financial perspective, yes, that cut up watermelon, it might be a couple dollars more. However, it’s better than buying the watermelon that is uncut and throwing it away.
Tori Dunlap:
You just said the thing that I feel like we have to talk about, which is as much as I love cooking at home, I’m even seeing content where sometimes restaurants are cheaper at this point because groceries are so expensive. Now, I do think groceries are cheaper than restaurants still, 100%. But how can someone walk through the grocery store and on a budget actually still eat healthy, and also reflect their financial needs at a time where one egg is like $14?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So the cheapest food is going to be the food you already have at home, and you should be shopping your fridge and pantry before you ever head to the grocery store.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, so important.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The way it works for me, and before I implemented this system in my household, man, I would go to the grocery store every week and I would come home with a bag of oats every week with four others half-eaten in my pantry. So not claiming I am some perfect grocery shopper here. However, if you go into your pantry and you go into your fridge, and you make a list of what you already got, that’s a great base starting point. That’s basically the free food starting point for your shopping list. And then try and annotate meals from there, and then fill them in with what you’re going to get from the grocery store.
Of course, there’s tips for saving on your grocery bill. You can shop coupons, in season food, especially if you live in a warmer climate, shopping something like a farmer’s market can often be a way to save money. Shopping the outer aisles of the grocery store, like you said, eggs are crazy. I’ve heard meat prices are crazy, but shopping those sales I think can really drive it down. And then we want to look at pantry staples, things like beans, lentils, oats, rice. These are really great cornerstones of a healthy diet that are often really cheap. And if you \think to yourself, okay, maybe you have a Costco membership, although every time I walk into Costco, somehow the bill is like $800.
Tori Dunlap:
Absolutely.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I don’t know if this is a money saving tip.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, because we bought a wake board that I didn’t need. Yes. It’s like I bought something crazy that I was like, “Oh, I need this thing.” Yeah.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Every time. Every time. I was in there last week and I bought a Brookstone and I was like, oh I was coming in here for, I think it was strawberries and-
Tori Dunlap:
I need a foot massager now. $400 later.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yes, exactly. So maybe avoid Costco, but if you buy bulk, think about stocking your pantry with these staples because it’s going to help you, of course, reduce the cost for those things that you are eating every week.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. One of the things since I bought my house last year is I have a garden. Now I have a big garden, but for people at home, the fact that you can get a basil plant, and that’s actually cheaper than buying the basil in the little clamshell.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
And I literally, before I came on with you, I went and watered my basil today, and they are the four biggest plants you’ve ever seen. And instead of buying herbs every time or instead of getting bored with my meals, it’s like, okay, if I toss some fresh herbs in something that I’ve already made, it just tastes better. I’m more likely to eat it. And also then I’m not spending a ton of money. So you can also think about what can I just grow on my countertop, or what can I grow on my balcony if you have a tiny outdoor space? And I think even those small things, one, save you money, but two, if you put them in your food, you’re more likely to eat them.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I love that. We just started raised beds this year. Everybody assumes I’m some crazy gardener because PlantYou, I guess, and I eat plant-based, but we just started gardening this year. And I just put seeds in the soil and I’m like, okay, let’s see what happens. We’ve got beets, carrots, cilantro, kale. I have so much that I can’t even keep up. So if you’re intimidated by gardening, I would say grab some seeds from the store. They’re very affordable. Put them in soil and see what happens because you can get a lot of vegetables. And just to your point, amping up a meal with something like cilantro or dill and maybe a drizzle of olive oil can take that from being something that feels like, oh, I don’t really want to eat this, to something you’re more excited about and it is more restaurant quality.
Tori Dunlap:
So we were talking about this default to takeout or this default to, I’m so tired, I’m so burned out. And I want to delve into a bit of the psychology around that even more because one of the things that I’ve realized in working with people around money is a lot of the things that get bought out of convenience, whether that’s food or the water bottle or whatever, is it’s just you probably haven’t planned your day. You probably haven’t sat down and actually looked at, what do I need today? And so you end up just grabbing the easy thing. And even deeper, it tells me that there’s something going on, there’s an avoidance happening there. I think a lot of these things you can relate back to realizing, you’re somehow dysregulated or you’re somehow not actually looking at your life holistically.
And I think again of when I go to the airport, I always have my water bottle. Because if not, I’m buying my $6 water at the airport. And I think the equivalent of that is the, I get to the end of the day, I’m so tired, I’m so burned out that I’m just going to buy food. When really it might be you’re really miserable at your job, or you are of course struggling with money the way so many people are. So how can we think more holistically about the food that we eat and the way we eat it actually both benefiting our life, but also helping us get in that routine or re-regulate ourselves? Does that make sense?
Carleigh Bodrug:
It makes perfect sense. And I think it’s a lot to do with value systems. So I like to think of cooking at home as one of the greatest investments you can make for your life. And let me tell you why. We don’t often think of it that way though. So that’s the problem. If you’re not thinking of cooking as something high on your value system, then it’s going to fall to the wayside. But why it is so important is because the food that we eat is integral to our health. And you see these Instagram Reels that come up, and I don’t know why this is coming to mind, but it’s often like if you have a child and you are not going to try and be healthy if you’re pouring all of yourself into that child, later down the line, they might not have a healthy parent.
So if you are making an investment in your health by cooking at home and feeding yourself a healthy diet, it is going to pay off in the long run. We hope things happen. So that’s number one, doing an assessment of your life and seeing what your values are. Now, there are people out there, if you have all the funds in the world and you can have a private chef, or you can have meal prep done, I think that’s awesome too. But eating at home is going to take you really far.
Number two, I think that everybody needs to slow down. We’re go, go, go, go, go. And if we just took even 15 minutes on the Sunday or the day off, and you don’t need anything fancy for this, you do not need an app, you do not need a special fancy journal, you just need a piece of paper, and you write down Monday to Friday breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we just took the time to plan out what we actually want to eat for the week, leaving some flexibility. Because we all know that the drive-through is going to call one of those nights, and you might end up going for brunch with your friends, you need to leave some fun in there, but actually take the time to plan. I think that goes so far, because they say a body in motion stays in motion. So if you’ve planned, then you’re going to stick to it, and then feel better and then continue.
It’s like also going to the gym. I don’t know if I’ve fallen in and out of gym practice so many times, and when you’re in it and you’re going three or four times a week, it feels easy. But as soon as you take a week off, it feels impossible. So you just got to get that momentum going. But I think it’s often that value system where we’re pouring so much into other things, whether it be our job, our children, our relationships, that it falls to the wayside. But really when you think about your health and what dictates your health, what we’re putting in our bodies is probably up there, number one or two with exercise. So we have to prioritize it if we want to live a long and healthy life.
Tori Dunlap:
I did an episode earlier this year around parenting yourself. And one of the things that I realized is, I’m more likely to eat crappy food, especially that is expensive just because I haven’t eaten all day. And in the same way that you are a mom now, you think about probably snacks and what does my child need? I have to do that for myself and everyone has to do that for themselves. If you’re going to be out all day, you need to pack snacks. You need to pack water. Because I think that that is really a perfect example of what I’m talking about here, is when you haven’t planned ahead, when you haven’t at least understood like, “Oh, I should probably pack a snack or I should probably do this,” you will end up spending more money on things that don’t make you feel as good.
And then that cycle is so hard to break, because if I go all day without eating, I’m going to be ravenous at 6:00 PM, and I’m going to be like, “How can I eat everything in sight? And also I can’t spend the 10 minutes driving home. I have to get something now because I’m so hungry.” That’s how it manifests for me. So now I’ve learned I need to pack a string cheese. I need to pack a protein bar. I need to make sure my water bottle’s full.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Exactly. And you probably feel so much better when you’re in that routine. And I think humans really thrive on routine. I don’t know about you, but I like to think of myself as someone who would be jet-setting and loves to travel. And I do in the right circumstances, but there’s nothing like being in the kind of routine, like going to the gym, eating healthy, making sure that you have snacks on the go and you’re hydrating. Being in that flow feels so good, and everything else benefits at the end of it. And I remember when I first started my business, and I’m sure you can relate to this, I used to think to myself that I had to sacrifice everything in order to be a successful entrepreneur. It didn’t matter if I was eating healthy or sleeping well or anything like that. I just needed to be working and grinding, as they say.
But what I learned over the many years that I’ve been doing this, is actually when I’m taking care of myself and pouring into my own cup, my business and the other things in my life, like my relationships, my relationship with parenting is so much better because I have the energy and the vitality to show up.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep. Yeah. All of what we’re talking about here is you have to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. And I think food is fuel at the end of the day. I love food, I love to eat, and I love making sure that I feel well-fed enough to also go out and accomplish all the things I want to accomplish. And we talked about this last time, but I love home cooking because it feels very meditative for me, and it’s where I can be a little more creative than I maybe can in other aspects of my life. And it is actually where I can shut my brain off.
One of the things that I love that you talk about is the same thing we talk about when it comes to money, is rather than feeling like you have to do it all yourself, creating systems and that a system really takes the decisions out of it. So walk me through how we would build a system. We talked about meal prep. I know that’s part of it, but why is a system going to beat trying harder every single time?
Carleigh Bodrug:
A system should become passive. I think it’s that book where we talk about habit building that you need to repeat things week after week, or day after day to actually build them into your life. And this is no different when we’re talking about cooking and meal planning. So if you’re starting from scratch, say you’re in a rut and you’ve been eating out, and you’re hitting the drive-through every day and not feeling good about yourself, start from blank. So I always recommend that people set a day where they go grocery shopping and they do a little bit of meal prep. So this needs to be your you hopefully have one day or one afternoon off in a week. So that would mean hitting the grocery store, shopping your fridge and pantry first, making a meal plan on a piece of paper, heading to the grocery store, getting home and prepping a few elements.
And when I say making a meal plan, you want to be a little more strategic about this. So I often talk to people about making sure that the recipes that they’re going to make, and go on a blog, go on Pinterest, Google, whatever kind of food you like, and make sure that they have overlapping ingredients. So maybe you’re having a chickpea curry this week, and then you’re going to have something that chickpea curry has bell peppers in it. So maybe on Tuesday you’re going to have a roasted red pepper pasta sauce. That is going to really save you money and make sure that you’re not wasting ingredients. So once you shop, you’re going to prep those ingredients and then get into forward momentum. Fall in love with cooking. I always love turning on a podcast like The Financial Feminist.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you.
Carleigh Bodrug:
They say habit stacking. So if you’re not a big fan of cooking, pair it with something that you really look forward to in the day. Maybe it’s listening to a podcast, turning on a reality TV show if you can see your TV from your kitchen, and getting into, like you said, a meditative state of cooking. And I think it’s really fun and a great opportunity to share food. So whether you’re in a relationship or you’re single, having a friend over and making it an experience like that is fantastic. And we’re not talking about a gourmet dinner every night. We’re not trying to achieve restaurant quality in our homes. We’re just trying to feed our bodies, make it taste good, make it somewhat healthy. So make sure the stakes are low and get into the rhythm of it. And also make sure that you’re building in, if you’re going from zero to 100, that you’re building in a couple of days a week where you are going to get takeout, or you are going to go to a restaurant with friends.
And the last thing I want to say on this as well is, I’m a big fan of grocery delivery. If you can afford it, it is a bit more expensive, but if that’s kind of the barrier, again, you can’t see yourself, maybe you have a couple kids and you’re like, “Oh my goodness, I cannot imagine heading to the grocery store today.” Yes, it might cost a little more, but so does gas these days. So get your groceries delivered and that’s going to save you time because time is money.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. So exactly what Carleigh was saying about systems, this is what you need for your money. Just the same way that you need a system for your food, and for meal prep, and for cooking, you also need a system with a clear order of operations that replaces feeling like you need willpower and feeling like you need shame in order to achieve your goals with structure. This is where the 100K Club comes in. We have so many resources in the 100K Club that have helped people not only reach their 100K, but save money, pay off debt, boost their credit scores, and just feel better about their money narratives. For less than $100, you get exclusive videos shot by me, you get a community, you get so many incredible resources that we have put together for the first time all in one place. You can go to herfirst100k.com/ffpod to get more information. And again, it’s just $97.
All right, back to the episode. I love the idea too of, this is something I especially did in my early 20s when I wasn’t making as much money, is people would invite me out to eat and I’d be like, “Oh, I already went out to eat once this week. I can’t afford to do it again. Come over and I’ll cook for you.” Or we would cook together and that became the experience. And I think that that is a great way that we can make cooking actually the date night, or the date with friends, as opposed to, again, we’re going out to a bar and then we’re going out to a restaurant and suddenly $150 are gone. It’s just like if we can have that same experience of being with the people that we love and being social, but in our own homes, I think it’s something that I still do with friends. It’s so helpful both for budget, but also just for having that shared experience.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I want to talk about this for a second, because I feel like social media has ruined hosting in a way. I feel like when I was a kid-
Tori Dunlap:
It is such a chore now. It is like, have a welcome drink, and also have the most perfect table you’ve ever seen. And if that gives you joy, great. And I’m also like, now you’re going to come over on a whim. I just did this with a friend the other day. It was like, I’m making a salad kit. It’s a pre-made salad kit. I’m doing some chicken in the air fryer. Come on over. This is what I’m making.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. When I was a kid, my parents would have friends dropping in. They would come, everybody can have a plate. They wouldn’t worry about their house being perfectly clean. And I don’t know what psychologically, and I can’t think that it’s just me, but if somebody’s coming over, I’m like, “Get the broom. We’ve got to make it look like nobody lives here.” And it’s toxic.
Tori Dunlap:
Get the good napkins.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Get the good napkins and the silverware. I’m hoping we are going to have a resurgence of just what you said. You have a salad kit and you’re like, “Come on over.” Because why is going out to eat $150 every time? We cannot afford it. So I think additionally, there’s also something just so nice about sharing a meal in someone’s home. So I think it’s a beautiful thing rather than going out all the time and thinking about the cost of that, thinking about even starting a little dinner club with your friends, that’s not crazy, is a great way to start cooking at home and also practicing the skill of cooking.
Tori Dunlap:
And if you get joy out of really fancy hosting, amazing.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
And also take some of the pressure off on a normal Tuesday. Don’t feel like, “Oh, I can’t have them over unless I’ve perfectly structured my table.” You can have both.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I agree.
Tori Dunlap:
So you have this new book out and I’m so excited about it. It’s literally called Quickies, which is the cutest title. And you wrote it, of course, during one of the busiest times, I think, of your whole life. What did that teach you about time that you maybe didn’t understand when you had more of it?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Honestly, so the idea of Quickies came after my mother had passed. So my mom had a long journey with cancer, really, really horrible. And I was deep in grief. Suddenly, for the first time of my life, I really didn’t feel like cooking. I was like, “Oh.” And the whole process of her journey had really burnt me out as well. So the idea was born from that. I knew I wanted to start trying for a family soon, and I knew that these times in my life, this season of my life where I had all the time in the world to spend in the kitchen and enjoying that was coming to a close. And I really began to understand some of the pressures, whether it be grief, work, having a kid, being pregnant, what that felt like when you really, just from a survival aspect, needed to fuel yourself with good food.
So that’s how Quickies was born. And we decided when we were recipe testing for this book that we were going to time everything, because I did not want to put out a recipe book that was like, this is a 20-minute recipe, and then really it’s going to take you 45 minutes.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep. That’s so common, by the way. We talked about this last time, but my partner has learned to cook, and I will say he is slower than I think most people are, which is fine. But a 45-minute recipe takes a normal person, I think, an hour and 15, which is frustrating enough, but it’ll take him two hours. And so it’s so frustrating when you sit down and you’re like, “I have a half hour. Oh, great. It says half hour.” And you’re here for an hour and a half and you’re like, “How did this happen?” Suddenly all your time is gone.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Exactly. And I did not want to put out something where I’m promising that, and then what you said is the result. So my sister and I worked on the recipes and she’s really good at keeping me honest. So we would start a timer and test everything. And these are the recipes since we’ve had the book, I have been living off of this thing. And my husband as well, he’ll sometimes take Wes up for his afternoon nap. And when I come down, Jesse will have made one of the recipes from Quickies and he’s like, “It’s so quick.” I’m like, “Thank goodness.”
So they’re born out of this really authentic, busy season of life. They are not a five-star spread that you’re going to serve at Christmas, but they serve a purpose. They are super high in fiber, which is extremely important to me. My dad’s a colon cancer survivor, and fiber is a really important element. We see colon cancer cases rising in young people. So they’re high in fiber, they’re entirely plant-based. If you’re not plant-based, I guarantee that you can love them, or you can swap in your meat if you would like. And they’re easy and they’re freaking quick. So I’m just excited. I guess the greatest part about putting out a book is seeing it in people’s hands and it helping people. So I’m excited to see that moment.
Tori Dunlap:
So when you’re thinking about Quickies, when you were formulating these recipes, what are the things that make it quick? Obviously, everybody needs to buy the book. We need to do the recipes, but what did you realize? What were the hacks or the things that made a recipe quicker than a normal recipe?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I’ve become a huge fan of something called a dump dinner, which is a really unattractive name for a really beautiful concept, which is, you throw everything either into a casserole dish in a pan, and then either throw it in the oven or on the stove top. So we have a whole chapter dedicated to this in the book, and it’s called dump and bake, not dump dinners. The publisher wouldn’t let me do that. But regardless of that, so I look at speed as two different things. To me, there’s really quick 50-minute recipes. We made one today. It’s like a stove top curry ramen noodle. Ramen noodles cook up really quick. So it’s truly 15 minutes. You’re using frozen edamame, so that speeds it up. I often in these recipes cut out something like chopping garlic, and we’ll use ground garlic instead. So cutting up those elements where you’re spending a lot of hands-on time chopping.
But then there’s the other element here where I’m a big fan of a recipe that you do all of the work that takes about five, 10 minutes, and then the stove does the work. So a recipe could be 60 minutes, but in reality, it took five minutes of hands-on time, which is really valuable now as a parent. I do not have time to be chopping, simmering, stirring. So a lot of the recipes are just pop in the oven. And then we also have a lot of meal prep recipes. Because I think this is another aspect of the time thing. We have a great, it’s a chickpea flour-based breakfast sandwich. It’s like, think of an egg McMuffin, a plant-based spin on that. And we make a whole sheet pan of it and we have sun-dried tomatoes, spinach in it, and then you can freeze these breakfast sandwiches.
So you’re getting time back during the week. So there’s all these different elements that flow into what I believe can be considered a quick recipe.
Tori Dunlap:
I do this so much and it’s helped my life. I even just mentioned the salad kit. I probably eat two to three a week with my partner, and we just literally put chicken nuggets. I get them at Costco. They’re like the chicken chunks. I put them in the air fryer. I put the salad kit in a huge bowl. It’s the most unattractive bowl. It’s like a mixing bowl. And I wait my 10 minutes for my chicken to be done and then it’s dinner. And then we literally just have two forks, and we pass the bowl back and forth.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I love that.
Tori Dunlap:
And that’s what we do so many nights when I can’t be bothered, when I can’t be asked. And it’s great. And it’s the same thing when I do cook of finding certain things that are going to be cheap at the grocery store, but are going to make a bigger impact. So yeah, a lot of canned goods and thinking about what can I mix that’s frozen, or canned and fresh? And that’s just so helpful in terms of your budget, but also in terms of how quickly you’re cooking and getting it done.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Your chicken nugget salad reminds me of this chapter I have in the book. It’s called Save Our Sanity Suppers, and it’s exactly the concept that you’re talking about. So it’s taking store-bought meals. So say mac and cheese, a pack of mac and cheese, or frozen pizza, or something like a taco kit and showing how you can boost it up with nutrition. So we do this at least once a week. We buy a taco kit from the store, and then instead of ground beef, we take a thing of tofu, crumble it up with my hands, add the taco seasoning pack, throw it in the oven and serve that up. And I think if you have meals like that that you can rely on instead of calling Uber Eats, I think it’s a fabulous way to save money and probably eat more nutrition. Because at the end of the day, eating a meal in is almost always going to be healthier than eating out.
Tori Dunlap:
I think one of the reasons that, first that I love following you and love your content, but that this first episode you came on and did was such a success is that I think you take a very practical view of food. It’s not pretentious at all, and I really, really appreciate that. So how do we decouple our need for perfection even in the kitchen, when people are already struggling to eat healthy?
Carleigh Bodrug:
It’s realizing that perfection is impossible and the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of good. So what I mean by that, I know we’ve talked about this gym analogy a couple of times, but I used to think to have the body and the life I wanted, I needed to be in the gym five to six days a week, at least an hour each session. Well, now in this busy season of my life, I just got to make it there. If I do three days a week, I’m like, perfect. That’s fantastic. So I think it’s just lowering the bar and being realistic with ourselves, and understanding that the more consistent we can be, the better it is. But if you, I don’t know if we like the term fall off the wagon, don’t look at that as a failure, just get back on. We all are going to have times in busy seasons in our life where we’re relying on takeout more, where we’re going to restaurants more, maybe spending more money, fueling our bodies with food that we maybe don’t feel good about.
Just try and get back on, because being consistent 70 to 80% of the time is going to be way more effective from both a financial and a health perspective than being perfect and then being like, I can’t do this. Because basically no one can. Nobody is perfect. I, as a cookbook author, I’m having the taco kit every week. So that right there.
Tori Dunlap:
And I think you have to have those fail safes for when it is just like, I do not have a second tonight. It’s just not happening. And you have to give yourself that option, because it is so easy to order DoorDash. It is so easy to go get takeout. And again, we’re not victimizing or demonizing those, but I think it is a level of if you are trying to save money, this is one of the easiest ways to save money. It just is. It’s so much easier.
Carleigh Bodrug:
This is something I want to talk about too, is I think a lot of people, and this might be also a product of Instagram, is that people think when they’re trying to eat more at home or eat healthier that they need to be making all of these different food and different gourmet meals every night of the week. We really cycle through and it sounds like you’re the same, the same four or five dishes every single week. We might change up the protein, or change up the herbs that we’re putting on top, and that’s a really great thing for gut diversity. However, you need to come up with your staple meals so that when you’re in those moments, you can just whip things together. And these are often going to be inspired by your favorite restaurant menus. Maybe you love chicken salad, so you have now your like-
Tori Dunlap:
Chicken caesar salad baby and Diet Coke.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Exactly. Now you have your chicken Caesar salad that you know you can whip up and there’s no barrier to that. For us, we’re making pasta, or taco kit, and some kind of curry every single week. And when you know that, it just gets so much easier, like anything. Once you’re into the rhythm and you know your safe meals that you love, I promise you guys, cooking at home can be so joyous and second nature rather than feeling like a real grind.
Tori Dunlap:
I can’t talk to you without talking about food waste and thinking more strategically about reusing food. It was mostly the focus of your last cookbook, but I think especially even since we chatted last, groceries I think are probably sometimes double in the past year, two years. So how can we think more strategically about the scraps or the things that we would normally throw away? How can we reuse those and get the most out of them?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Listen, we throw out up to 40% of our food. And when you think about that from a grocery bill perspective, I think the last statistic on this was so many years ago when they said the average American family wastes around $1,800 worth of food. I have to think it’s probably double that now.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, it’s got to be more than that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Given the way the grocery prices have skyrocketed. So when we’re going to talk about food waste, number one, it’s being more mindful about the food that we’re buying. Doing all of these things that we’ve talked about in this episode, the meal planning, developing a shopping list, thinking more, “Okay, I’m going to buy the cut up watermelon rather than the full watermelon because I’m actually going to eat it.”
Tori Dunlap:
Or prepping your food. Prepping your food as soon as it gets in the house.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Frozen fruits and veg, if you’re a single person, we all buy that well-intentioned box of spinach and then it’s sitting in the back of the fridge looking at us like, “Eat me,” and then it wilts. So that’s number one. And that is the low-hanging fruit here, because we want to slash our grocery bills. It is insane out there. Number two, we throw out so much food that we can be eating. So I often use the example of broccoli here, the stems. If you’re paying for broccoli by weight, the stem is the heaviest part, and we’re paying for that and then we’re all throwing it away, and it’s absolutely delicious. So you can just shave off the outer woody edge and then chop it up, throw it into a stir-fry, grate it up, put it into pasta, blend it up, make a pesto. It’s fantastic. It’s adjacent to asparagus.
The other things that are coming to mind, radish tops and beet tops, maybe you’re a fan of beets, or maybe you juice or something like that. If you throw out your beet tops, they make fabulous salad greens or you can even make beet chips. Radish tops, the same. I love to use, people are always wowed at the aquafaba, which is the liquid in a can of chickpeas. So if you’re a big chickpea eater, I’m a huge fan of canned chickpeas. I want to be the person who makes my beans every week, but I am not. So I am a canned chickpea girl. And you can just keep that liquid. It’s fabulous for breading things. So we’ll often take tofu and use it as an egg white replacement, but you can also make desserts for it so you can foam it like you would meringue. It’s the coolest thing. And add melted chocolate and it makes a delicious chocolate mousse.
So those are a few of the ones that people are always wowed at and can implement into their lives really effortlessly. But I just challenge people to start thinking about things that you often throw away and maybe potentially you could be using it.
Tori Dunlap:
I always take any veggie scraps. They go in a huge Ziploc bag, they go in my freezer, and then when the Ziploc bag is full, I make veggie broth.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Exactly. We just posted a video on that. Rachel Ray coined the term so many years ago in her 30-minute meals.
Tori Dunlap:
The garbage bowl.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The garbage bowl. The garbage bowl. So if you have a garbage bowl, yeah, this is a great way also to reduce some of that mess during prep, which I think is a lot of the reason people hate cooking, is put out a bowl when you are chopping things up. Add your onion tops, your garlic peels, your carrot greens or the end of the carrot. And do just what you said, plop them in a Ziploc bag. When that’s full, you just add it to a pot with water about three inches above, simmer it away for a couple of hours, and you have your own free vegetable broth from those scraps. So they’ve given you new life.
Tori Dunlap:
The thing I hear about cooking is the same thing I hear about money, which is I’m bad at this. I’m bad at cooking or I’m bad at money. How do we view this as just a teachable skill? This is something you can learn.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I don’t think anybody’s bad at cooking. First of all, I want to give a little plug for plant-based cooking, because I don’t know about you, but when I was trying to cook with meat so many years ago, I’ve been vegan now for 10 years, the thought of under cooking chicken terrified me, overcooking steak. Plant-based cooking, if you want to start somewhere, the stakes are low. You can always fix something.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s so true.
Carleigh Bodrug:
If you make a stew that’s full of plants and it’s a little bit salty, add a little more coconut milk or broth, or the opposite problem, add a little salt. Nothing’s going to make you sick. Well, that’s ironic. We have the poop parasite going around as we record this.
Tori Dunlap:
But yeah, I think there is such an intimidation of, am I cooking my steak properly? Am I cooking my pork properly? I definitely, I am a meat eater. Get yourself a thermometer. That’s the easiest thing. But yeah, the intimidation factor immediately gets cut in half, I think, if you’re not having to deal with any of that.
Carleigh Bodrug:
And this is something that you don’t have to be good off off the hop. Choose something that really inspires you. Follow it step-by-step. I always say when anybody’s learning cooking, one really good place to start is by cutting up and setting out all of your ingredients first, which is traditionally known as mise en place, but it makes the actual sequence of cooking go a lot easier. So say you have a roasted red pepper pasta or something, you get out all of those components before you actually make the dish. It’s going to make things go a lot better. And then if the worst case scenario, the dish doesn’t end up good, you move on and you eat something else. The stakes are not high, a lot less high than with money. What do you say about people who are intimidated by money?
Tori Dunlap:
I say it’s a learned skill, and I say that the belief that you’re bad with money has been ingrained in you because we view it as our self-worth. It’s like, I should just be magically good at this. But you didn’t come out of the womb speaking Italian or playing the tuba. If you want to speak a new language, if you want to learn a new instrument, if you want to learn how to cook, you have to learn, you have to teach yourself, you have to follow people and go to cooking classes. And the way I learned, and we talked about this last time, is I dated a lot of people who are really, really good at cooking. That was it. I dated a couple of people who were actual chefs and I just watched them cook. And that’s how my partner’s learning from me, is he watches me cook and we also watch so much fucking Food Network.
And that’s the easiest way I think is you just start immersing yourself the same way you’d learn a language is it’s like, okay, I’m going to go take classes and I’m going to try to speak to people who speak fluent French or fluent Italian. And you’re just going to surround yourself and you’re going to start picking things up. I would also say, yes, the cookbooks are so great. And also people are food writers. I have finally read Anthony Bourdain this year, and there is something so… It’s going to make me teary, but that’s a whole other thing. It’s like I listen to his audiobooks and there’s something so gratifying about one, hearing his love of food is just so great. But also, I have learned things about food and about cooking from just hearing this very real experience of this person living their life. And I think that there’s ways to learn about the skill you’re trying to learn without sitting down and writing an essay about it.
You can make learning about cooking or anything else, money, as fun as learning about something that you think you would enjoy. You will learn to love it after hearing people who are so excited about it. Even this episode, every time I talk to you, I’m like, “Oh God, I love food. I love cooking. I love her cookbooks.” It’s just like you get the passion from somebody else.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. And at some point you just got to get in there and do the thing. And I’m sure you agree with investing.
Tori Dunlap:
Absolutely.
Carleigh Bodrug:
At some point, just do the thing and over time you’re going to get better and better. So I hope this episode inspires people to get in the kitchen because that would just be so cool.
Tori Dunlap:
Speaking of that, do you want to do a speed round really quick? I have so many questions for you rapid fire.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. These always make me nervous, but let’s do it.
Tori Dunlap:
They’re all going to be easily answerable, hopefully. Fastest way to get a real dinner on the table when you got zero energy.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Dump and bake. 100%. Actually, no, I need to change my answer. Not dump and bake. That’s the fastest prep. I can get a dump and bake if I’m throwing things into a casserole dish done in five minutes flat, but one pan. So we have a ton of one pan dinners, but I literally just made one with ramen noodles and a whole bunch of veggies, frozen veggies, and it came together in probably 15 minutes.
Tori Dunlap:
One thing to prep on a Sunday that saves you all week.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Sauce. So we love something called cashew cream. It’s blending cashews, lemon juice, water, and salt. And we add this as a base of Caesar dressing, drizzle on grain bowls, add to pasta sauce to make them creamy. So I think sauce is a really good element that removes a barrier to making food delicious.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, that’s probably a salad dressing too. You could do a bunch of things with that. That sounds so good. I’m realizing I’m hungry. I got to go eat lunch after this. The move for a vegetable that’s about to go bad tomorrow.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Freeze it. I would say freeze it, unless you’re going to eat it right now and right then. A lot of vegetables are freezer and fabulous for smoothies. So I freeze something like kale and make a great green smoothie the next week.
Tori Dunlap:
I’ll also say cauliflower. I love cauliflower. It’s always the one that seems to go bad on me. I’m making it that same night. It’s like quick roast in the air fryer and I can just eat it. I literally have a head of cauliflower that I need to cook today. And that’s what I’m probably going to do is roast it. Also, cauliflower pasta, mixing it in with pasta. I love doing that.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So good.
Tori Dunlap:
You’re hack for real flavor when you have no time to build it.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Lemon juice and fresh herbs. So if a meal is ever feeling flat at the end, I love to add a squeeze of lemon. And I’m a huge fan of cilantro. Some people hate it, some people love it.
Tori Dunlap:
Taste soapy. Taste soapy to me, which is genetic.
Carleigh Bodrug:
This is the weirdest thing. People will think I’m lying when I say this. I used to have the soap gene. I don’t know what has happened in the last-
Tori Dunlap:
And you don’t anymore?
Carleigh Bodrug:
No. I don’t know if I just [inaudible 00:46:43] eat it enough.
Tori Dunlap:
Maybe it’s your pregnancy.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I don’t know. I love it now.
Tori Dunlap:
Because I heard that does change your taste buds. Interesting. I will eat it. It just tastes soapy to me and I just tolerate it.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. It’s the weirdest thing. Maybe you can adjust it, but a fresh herb’s going to make punch something up. But whenever something’s tasting flat, and a lot of people under salt their meals, so that can be a huge offender.
Tori Dunlap:
I was just going to say it’s probably under salted too. Yeah. If you don’t know how to salt your food, and I would say anybody listening who doesn’t know actually how to cook, you don’t know how to salt your food. You need to watch the Food Network, you need to see what they do, or watch your videos. You can see you are not using enough salt, and no, salt’s not bad for you. Under salted food is bad for you. I am so passionate about this. It’s so important to me.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I agree completely.
Tori Dunlap:
I think I already know the answer to this, but a pantry staple you’d never be caught without.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Beans, canned beans. We have them always, and they’re such a healthy, eat more beans. I swear I’m not working for Big Bean Co, but you can do so many things like drain a can of chickpeas and throw them into a salad and you’ve made it a meal.
Tori Dunlap:
And finally, a cleanup shortcut that actually keeps you sane.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The garbage bowl. I recommend that. Rachel Ray, not my idea, but you got to put out a bowl when you are doing your prep because when you have your scraps everywhere, it makes for a very overwhelming experience. So concentrate them and then save them.
Tori Dunlap:
So my final question to you, for a woman listening who’s just really struggling in the kitchen right now, she feels too tired, too broke, there’s too much going on. What is the one thing you want her to stop believing about herself and about her ability to cook?
Carleigh Bodrug:
I want you to start believing that you can nourish your body, and that you can make an investment in yourself by learning the skill of cooking even just one day a week. Take one day a week and cook a home cooked meal, open up a cookbook, open up a page from Pinterest or your favorite blogger and try a new recipe. Because week after week, if you do that, I promise you that you’re going to be nourishing your body, you’re going to learn a wonderful new skill, and Monday’s going to turn into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So that’s what I would hope.
Tori Dunlap:
I am so excited for this cookbook. Plug away, my friend. Where can people find it?
Carleigh Bodrug:
It’s called PlantYou Quickies. You can find it anywhere books are sold. We’re big fans of supporting local bookstores if you have one. And you can find PlantYou, where I’m no doubt going to be talking about this book, at any of your favorite social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. It’s just Plant Y-O-U, and that’s me.
Tori Dunlap:
Amazing. Thank you. Thanks for coming back.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So much fun. 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 Ellice Ellis and Tamisha Grant. Audio and video engineering by Jonathan Kirk. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Rae Wong, Daryl Ann Ingman, Meghan Walker, Marciella Baietto, Demi Ganim, Taylor Toll, Zoe Rezek and Stormy McBride. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
