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If you’re over 30 and not sure where to start with finances, this episode is for you.

Just like your skincare regimen changes with age, so should how you manage your finances. 

In this episode, Tori is joined by Britt and Laurie-Anne of the Dow Janes to talk about managing your money in your 30s and beyond. They even get into where they disagree about certain financial goals and dive into the why’s behind both of their methods.

You’ll learn:

• Why The Dow Janes have a different view of emergency funds and finances in partnerships

• How managing money in your 30s is different than in your 20s

• Why it’s never too late for women to start getting into their finances

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Tori Dunlap: One of, is one of you still in Idaho? Were you,

[00:00:03] Britt Williams Baker: No, I’m in Northern California, just north of San Francisco,

[00:00:06] Tori Dunlap: last time I talked to you, you were in Idaho, right?

[00:00:09] Britt Williams Baker: I think we were probably both.

[00:00:11] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, I think we were both in Idaho. Cuz we had a whole discussion about how my mom is also from Idaho. From Yes. She would spends like summers in Sun Valley.

[00:00:20] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah, exactly.

[00:00:22] Tori Dunlap: so

[00:00:22] Britt Williams Baker: Lori Ann’s just outside Portland

[00:00:24] Tori Dunlap: okay, cool. Okay, so you guys are pretty close. So we’re just, we’re just West coast in it today.

[00:00:28] It was like Seattle, Portland, just got the whole, the whole line down the coast. I love it. We do this with every personal finance expert we have on the podcast. And so I would love to kick off by asking can you both share your first money memories the first time you remember thinking about money?

[00:00:47] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, I can, mine, mine like popped into my head right away. I can remember being, I don’t know, probably six. My aunt had given me a wallet for Christmas, so it was my first wallet and it had $20 in it, which was an enormous amount of money. So much money. And she was taking all of the kids to McDonald’s to like get happy meals and, you know, whatever.

[00:01:11] And we were using like the money from our wallets to do it. And I don’t know what happened, but I ended up losing my wallet on that trip and it was like, I felt so much shame and I,

[00:01:24] Tori Dunlap: Oh,

[00:01:25] Laurie-Ann King: I felt that loss of losing it and, you know, it stuck with me. It’s definitely a formative memory of money for me.

[00:01:33] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Wow.

[00:01:35] Britt Williams Baker: from around the same age. I was also six and I remember going to sleep in, I think like the bottom bed of the bunk bed, and my dad came into tuck me goodnight. And I had this, this deep fear that we were running out of. That for some reason there was not enough money to pay the bills. And so what I said to my dad at six was, you can have all the money in my piggy bank if it would help And it was this, like, thinking about it now, it just feels like so sad. And just to, to track that the scarcity and the fear that, you know, was I was six. There wasn’t a lot of reason for that that was likely ingrained and comes from, you know, generations back. But just that the fear that I carried with me, and it just reminds me of the work we do with Women of the healing piece, that you have to start with healing because money is so deep and so emotional for so many people.

[00:02:34] Tori Dunlap: The first chapter of my book is, it’s like, let’s just talk about the emotions of money, because you can’t make a budget. You can’t start paying off debt. You can’t do any of that until you start digging into why. So Brit, was that, was that actual, like, was your family actually struggling or were you, was that more of a scarcity?

[00:02:49] You were just afraid? Interesting.

[00:02:51] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah. It was just a scarcity wasn’t a, I don’t know what I overheard that I made that story up, but yeah.

[00:02:59] Tori Dunlap: Did you find that that memory colored your experience with money as you grew up?

[00:03:04] Britt Williams Baker: I think so. I think, you know, Lorianne and I talk openly about our own healing, money healing story, and mine was absolutely one of scarcity, one of learning that there is enough, it’s gonna be okay. Like learning to feel comfortable. Yeah.

[00:03:20] Tori Dunlap: We found in our work that the first couple money memories that you, you remember, have a, have a very big impact on how you end up viewing money in the long term because Yeah, it’s, it’s cemented by age seven as you guys probably know. Like it starts really early. I would love to hear from each of you how you got into the financial education world.

[00:03:40] Brit, we can start with you. You casually went to Harvard Business School and have a background of personal finance. So talk to us, tell us a bit about your journey

[00:03:48] Laurie-Ann King: She just, she just went on a whim

[00:03:50] Tori Dunlap: I know just casual, just casually went like what? Like it’s hard. Yeah.

[00:03:58] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah. So my money, my financial education started at a pretty young age. My parents they, we had an allowance. We had what my dad called the daddy bank, where we earned compound interest if we calculated it ourselves. And so money was, it was taught to us pretty at a pretty young age. My grandfather taught me to invest in the stock market, so I did that when I was in college.

[00:04:17] And then when I moved back to the Bay Area after Harvard Business School, friends just kept asking me how to invest. They thought there was something that I learned at business school, like, teach me to invest. I think I should be doing this. You know, I’m in my thirties working, I should be. So I started this club in my living room, called it Dow James after the name of my mom’s investment club she was in when I was a little girl, and it just kind of took off.

[00:04:43] People heard about Dow James, they’d see me out and say, when’s the next Dow James meeting? Everyone wanted to be in it, and it was this kind of like book club for money where we talked openly about, you know, you know, how much did you spend on groceries last month? What should I be spending, what do we need to have saved for retirement?

[00:04:58] Just conversations that otherwise weren’t happening.

[00:05:04] Tori Dunlap: and Lorianne, what was your experience?

[00:05:05] Laurie-Ann King: Hmm. Well, I, I kind of enter the story around that moment, but I’m gonna back up a little bit further

[00:05:11] Tori Dunlap: Well, cuz you’re an energy

[00:05:12] Laurie-Ann King: come together. Yeah, yeah. So I started off in a little bit of a more woowoo way with money where gosh, my personal story, you know, I didn’t grow up with a lot of money or family of five living on a nurse’s salary.

[00:05:26] So we, we, we had enough, but we had like, just enough, and both my parents got really sick when I was in the eighth grade. My mom had a brain hemorrhage and my dad had a heart attack in the same year, and they were both like, Really scary experiences and impacted their ability to work. And so, you know, we had kind of just been getting by and then we were not getting by.

[00:05:50] And I grew up in Canada and this happened in Canada and I’m really grateful for the, the system there because I think if we had been living in the US and it happened here, like I’m not sure my family would’ve been able to recover financially from it and. So that was, that was a pretty formative experience for me and I was like, okay, I don’t, I don’t want to be unsafe when I grow up.

[00:06:13] And so I did all the right things, like worked hard, got the good job, was making decent money. But I did not have any financial education growing up and I didn’t know how to manage the money I was making. And so, you know, a few years after working, like selling my soul corporate job, probably kind of similar to your experience story was like, okay, what do I actually have to show for this?

[00:06:36] Well I have debt and it didn’t feel very good. So I started to take my finances really seriously when I got engaged. My husband is a registered investment advisor and he comes from a money family. Like his dad was a financial planner, his grandfather was a financial planner. Both his brothers work in finance.

[00:06:56] It’s like money is just talked about all the time, which at first was super uncomfortable for me. But then I started like learning and getting to realize like, oh, it’s okay. It’s not this taboo thing. Like you can actually talk and learn about this. And so when we combined our finances I. and I had debt.

[00:07:16] My husband’s like, what is this? Like what are you doing with this credit card debt? This is not okay.

[00:07:21] Tori Dunlap: compute.

[00:07:22] Laurie-Ann King: does not work. This is like not, and I like didn’t even know what the big deal was, you know? It was like normal to me. So, it created a lot of stress in my marriage and it was something we had to really actively work on to learn how we manage finances together.

[00:07:36] And so we went through a pretty painful experience of learning how to budget and it totally changed our life. But it was very hard to do . And around this time is when Brit had been running the Dow Janes meetings in person in, in California, and she had found that all these women were coming who were super excited to learn how to invest.

[00:07:58] And a lot of them didn’t actually have any money saved to start investing with. And so she realized, oh, I gotta back up a little bit and teach some personal finance basics. And that’s when she asked me to come teach like a workshop on budgeting. And I taught one around values-based budgeting and thinking about how you’re spending your money in alignment with your values and as an amplifier of your voice out in the world.

[00:08:20] And because the way I learned budgeting had been so painful and restrictive, and it was like, this is, this is not the way people should learn how to do this skill. This is actually an amazing skill to have. Like it is life changing, to know how to be intentional and in control of your money. But most of the way it’s taught is as this like super restrictive Limiting experience.

[00:08:42] So that’s when Brit and I kind of started doing this together. And I guess I skipped the energy healing part in there. Sorry.

[00:08:48] Tori Dunlap: tell me about that. Because I actually started working with an energy coach two years ago. I am not a woohoo person. I was like very skeptical, but I was in a really hard place in my life and I had a good friend of mine just be like, work with an energy coach. Like what do you have to lose? And then I started working with her and I was like, oh, interesting.

[00:09:05] Okay. This is very helpful.

[00:09:08] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah. What do you have to gain

[00:09:10] Tori Dunlap: especially like how do you jump from that to money?

[00:09:13] Laurie-Ann King: It actually, they actually really moved in tandem together for me. So, when I left my corporate career, I actually started off in relationship coaching. , I was like, I, I don’t know what I wanna do, but I know I wanna help people. And I love, love. And as I just shared, my marriage had been hard in the very beginning, a lot to do with money.

[00:09:33] And it’s like I learned a lot in figuring out how to navigate that conflict and this process. And so I started off relationship coaching. And the more I did that, the more other things bubbled up, including talking to women around sexuality and talking to women about money. And I actually saw there was this link to those two elements.

[00:09:53] And from an energetic perspective, our first two chakras, energy centers in our body, our root chakra is all about our right to exist and our resources, which in the modern world, the number one resource. Money. And then our next chakra, our sacral chakra is where our sexuality lives. And so these are like two foundational elements to ourself.

[00:10:15] And I just started finding, as I was working with women actually around their sexuality, their money situation would start to shift. Or as I worked around their money, their relationship situation would start to shift. So there was just always this, this connection in the way that I was doing the work. My first really successful online business, I was teaching a course called Orgasmic Manifesting, and it was all about the energetics of sexuality and attracting what you want into your life. And it focused a lot actually on attracting money. And it was ama, I mean, it is amazing. It’s like the course is still available.

[00:10:50] I don’t really work on it at all, but it’s a really amazing connection. And then I found I was helping women create more income, like they were drawing more money into their life, but they were in the same situation that I had been in in my corporate career where they didn’t have the skills to actually manage the money, and it wasn’t improving their quality of life at all.

[00:11:12] Tori Dunlap: That’s one of the things I’m so worried about specifically with like the dawn of like the social media creator, popular, like so many, I’m the person on TikTok that people are sliding into my dms being like, a, a huge brand offered me $500. I have 3 million followers.

[00:11:28] Should I take it? And I’m like, no, , no, you shouldn’t take it. And like, my biggest fear is that they’re gonna get a bunch of money, these 19 year olds, 20 year olds, even older than that, but they just don’t know how to manage it. And I’m like, I, I am so worried that that’s gonna end up happening. And I, we already have seen it, right?

[00:11:46] That we have a bunch of, especially women, like women creators, women influencers who are making really good money. And I don
‘t know if they have the tools to be able to manage it well. And it terrifies me.

[00:11:56] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, I mean your, your fears are likely very founded. Most people don’t, most people are not taught how to do a skill that we are asked to do multiple times every single day, which is make decisions with money

[00:12:12] Tori Dunlap: And then we feel guilty that we don’t know how, but like I don’t feel guilty that I don’t know how to figure skate, but I weirdly feel guilty. Right. If you don’t, if you don’t know how to money, you feel weirdly guilty. Like you should have learned this at some point. Yeah. Laureate, can we talk about budgeting really quick?

[00:12:27] Because what you said is in total alignment with what I believe, which is like budgeting is like a permission slip to be able to spend money on things that you love and as opposed to you feeling guilty or depriving yourself. So talk to me a bit about your mental switch from like deprivation, scarcity, and maybe Brett you can chime in as well to like abundance in addition to like Yeah, value-based spending.

[00:12:49] I can actually spend money on basically whatever I want, as long as it’s like I have some guardrails. So can you talk to me about.

[00:12:55] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, for sure, for sure. So when I, when I first learned budgeting, it was coming from, well, I’ve overspent, so I have debt. Now I need to learn how to, how to spend within my means and live within my means. And so that’s the way. I approached it initially and that’s the way it’s kind of taught. If you like, you know, look up a YouTube video on how to budget, they’re gonna say like, all right, write down your category set how much you can spend in each category.

[00:13:18] And then fingers crossed, at the end of the month you’re under it, which almost no one ever is because there’s actually like six additional skills you need to successfully budget, which involve reviewing your budget along the way, . And that’s the way it started. And then as I was doing it, I realized this is actually about designing my life, like the things that I want to have in my life.

[00:13:42] So many of them I can create through money or I can create faster through money, or I could get help to, you know, have it happen if it’s not something that’s directly related to money, but it’s something that having money would either help me have the time to put towards it or actually buy it and have it in my life.

[00:14:01] And when I realized that, that. Doing my budget was actually designing the life I wanted to live. It became very easy because I just know I wanna have a great life as far as I can tell. We get one shot at this thing and I’m like, well, why would I aim for anything lower than what I truly want? And part of what I want is to feel safe if you’re a member.

[00:14:22] When I said, you know, I didn’t feel that way growing up. And so that involves taking care of future me and my perspective has always been, if I’m here right now making decisions about money, I know that I’m okay in this moment and I don’t know what the future holds. It might be harder in the future. So I wanna do what I can right now to protect future me and make, make it likely that it’s gonna stay easy for her because I have put money aside that she can draw on if things get difficult.

[00:14:56] And then once I’ve done that, The rest is mine to spend, and I’m gonna spend it in ways that enhance my life and enhance the life of people that I love, because that brings me joy.

[00:15:07] Tori Dunlap: yeah. Well, and so you said, which is so important, this idea of safety, Brit, I think all of our work is very similar, right? We work with women. You, I think you both work with women who are slightly older than our typical demographic, but I think one of the things that we talk about so much on this podcast is that when women have money, it’s not just the ability to buy nice things, right?

[00:15:32] It’s actual safety. It’s the ability to make choices, to leave bad situations to, you know, to take a job that may might pay less money, but is better for their mental health to leave an abusive relationship. Can you speak to how you’ve seen that play out with women that you coach?

[00:15:53] Britt Williams Baker: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. We have a phrase that we say at Dow James, which is Women with money have more choices and louder voices, and so it’s both the.

[00:16:03] Tori Dunlap: Please tell me. You’ve trademarked that. Trademarked the hell out of that. That’s lovely. Yeah. We talk about more choices, but I love Oh, louder voices. That’s so

[00:16:11] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah, and it’s, it really, I mean, I, I wish it weren’t the case in our modern day that money does carry so much power, but it just does. And so when you have money, you can vote with your dollar, you can spend it on things that you care about or choose to not spend it on things that you don’t support. And so it really becomes your, your voting power, your way of speaking up and then as well with choice, just giving you more options.

[00:16:36] Yeah. To leave the job, to leave the relationship, to go do that thing that you’re passionate about. And we’ve seen this, the, my favorite story from our program is this woman named Sylvia who. She’s living in New York, barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, like just kind of struggling when it comes to money.

[00:16:56] And she’s been a dancer, loves dance, and just doesn’t have time for a dance in her life anymore, or can’t even afford the classes to go to dance class. And in our work, she can got clear on why she was budgeting, what her reason for doing it was. And she set up this, her single goal was to go on a staycation.

[00:17:17] And so she saved up enough money to be able to actually enjoy New York for a weekend. I think it might have even been a whole week and a whole weekend. So she saved up money to go to the dance classes, to I think even go to a show to have cocktails out on the town, like had designed this entire week for herself.

[00:17:36] And the best part about her sharing of this story is that she’s like, every drink I had, every class I went to was guilt free. I felt so proud of myself for having saved enough to be able to do this, that it was, it was just part of the budget and I could enjoy it on a, on a level so much deeper than when you’re just doing it, like crossing your fingers.

[00:17:56] It’s gonna work out at the end of the month.

[00:17:59] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Or taking the vacation and realizing like you’re putting it all on a credit card.

[00:18:03] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, right. She, she did this while she paid off debt, like she got out of credit card debt during this same, the same year, and she’s like, I didn’t think I could afford to do this even before I was paying off the debt, and now I’m doing both. Because she got so much clearer on how she wanted to spend her money.

[00:18:20] Tori Dunlap: Right. And that pina colada tas
tes a little better when you realize that you’re putting it on a credit card. Right. It’s like there’s no full way to like, enjoy your vacation or enjoy Yeah. Your, your, your week. If you’re realizing that all of it is gonna come back to bite you at some point. Yeah. And I love, I love that she planned ahead and I think we talked with Ramit Sati on a previous episode about he, he calls it like, what is your rich life, right?

[00:18:47] Like, what is, what is the version of your life that you wanna live? Not that somebody else is telling you to live, not the society wants you to live, but like, what makes sense for you? And I love that she was very specific and it was what she, you know, it wasn’t this, you know, she didn’t take a month off.

[00:19:04] She didn’t like even have to travel anywhere. It was just like, no, I wanna do this thing. And you know, Lori, Annie, were talking about budgeting, right? This idea that budgeting is the permission slip, right? You do it guilt free because you’ve planned ahead rather than depriving yourself of the things you really lo want or the things you really love.

[00:19:21] Yeah.

[00:19:23] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah,

[00:19:23] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah, we have this other incredible woman in our program named Mary, who is in her fifties, has five kids, you know, grown kids. And she and her husband have had debt for their entire lives. They’ve just always had a line of debt that they’ve been carrying with them, and her husband has been managing the finances.

[00:19:42] And she joined our program Million dollar a Year. She’s in it for a year, goes through a lot of hard things, but stays focused, stays committed to it, and decides to take over running the family finances from her husband. And so she takes it over and she starts building a budget for the household. And for the first time in their entire life, she paid off over $20,000 of

[00:20:02] Laurie-Ann King: I th I think it was like 80. I mean, I might be wrong, but my memories, I’m pretty sure she paid off $80,000 of debt.

[00:20:09] Britt Williams Baker: and they were debt free for the first time in their marriage. And she just, the, the confidence that came from her taking over and being able to do that for them. Yeah, it’s phenomenal.

[00:20:22] Tori Dunlap: Well, and so you mentioned Mary, right in her fifties. We very much talked to like a millennial and then sometimes Gen Z audience. We have women who are, especially if you’re listening, hello in, you know, late thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. But I think for you guys, you do work with women that are slightly older than the demographic I tend to hit.

[00:20:41] What do you think are some of the differences in the way of thinking about money for those women versus, you know, maybe somebody in their twenties or early.

[00:20:52] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, it’s Well, I’m, I’m gonna say one thing before I answer your question, if that’s okay. When Brit and I first started, we really set out to help people in their thirties. We thought we were gonna be helping a lot of people like the original Dow Janes people who came to our in-person meetings, where were, who were really Britt’s friends.

[00:21:10] And as we started actually marketing our program, we were really surprised at how broad the range of women who were attracted and wanting the help were, we were like not expecting to be helping women in their forties, fifties, sixties. And I mean, we also have, have some millennial clients as well, but really we were really most surprised by the older demographic and realized, okay, these are, these are people who.

[00:21:38] being completely ignored in the current financial industry. And you know, if you don’t already have money to invest, you go to a financial advisor. They want nothing to do with you because they don’t make any money off of you. And so this, this demographic of women who are getting closer to the end of their working life and are not yet prepared for retirement is a, a population that really needs help and really wants help and has had no idea who can help them because, Everyone in the industry is somehow motivated to make money off of them in not such a transparent way.

[00:22:18] It’s not like they charge you for a conversation. They charge you inside of the, you know, investments that you make, or they charge you inside of the life insurance plan that they sell you, that you may or may not actually need. And so we’ve created something where we charge people for our help, but it’s really upfront and it’s really transparent.

[00:22:35] You’re paying for that and you’re getting, you know, you’re getting what you’re paying for. And so I would say the, the main mindset differences that we’ve seen is the level of fear that’s associated with their situation. You know, the older you are, the less time you have to course correct the situation.

[00:22:52] And so it starts to feel scarier and scarier and more and more painful. And sometimes that creates. A bigger cycle of avoidance. It’s like, okay, this feels bad, so I don’t wanna look at it or deal with it, but the more I don’t look at it or deal with it, the worse it gets and the scarier it feels.

[00:23:10] Tori Dunlap: Yeah.

[00:23:10] Laurie-Ann King: say any other differences?

[00:23:11] Brit?

[00:23:13] Britt Williams Baker: Fear is exactly what I was gonna say. The other piece is urgency. Just as you’re, you know, there’s people who get into their forties and fifties and think, you know, I should have figured this out. Like all of a sudden, this isn’t a luxury to know how to manage your money. It’s essential because you’re either in debt or on your own post divorce or looming retirement.

[00:23:33] And so it becomes this thing that you really just have to take care of and. So noticed the, the willingness to take action and do the hard thing and really stick with it when it feels overwhelming.

[00:23:46] Laurie-Ann King: . I think there’s also this realization that it’s not gonna work out on its own. . I think when you’re younger you can bury your head in the sand a little bit and like, oh, that’s a problem for later. That’s a problem for future me. Okay, well we’re talking to the future mes and they’re realizing no one else is coming to do this for them.

[00:24:07] There’s no like white knight that’s gonna scoop, scoop them up and pay off their debt in a magical,

[00:24:13] Tori Dunlap: That was easy button for money. I say that multiple times in my book, like I wish there was just a button that you could press that was just like debt free button boom. That doesn’t exist.

[00:24:24] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, so there’s, there’s like a realization that they need to face the reality cuz no one else is going to do it. Yeah, but also like kudos. There’s so much courage. We see so much courage of the women in our program that they
are willing to do it. And when they get into a group that’s supportive, that where they can see other people in their situation who have done it, who have made that switch and course corrected their fi, their finances, it starts to feel so much more accessible.

[00:24:54] And they do it like we, we get to witness. People have miraculous shifts in their finances and they do it themselves and they own that. And they’re empowered in the process.

[00:25:05] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Do you find that it’s a lot of women in heteronormative relationships who their male partner was handling the money and either that partner passed away, they divorced, something shifted. Is that the vast majority of, of people that you work with?

[00:25:20] Britt Williams Baker: It’s not the majority but it is about 25%.

[00:25:24] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Just pretty significant.

[00:25:26] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah.

[00:25:27] Tori Dunlap: Well, and the realization too that, yeah.

[00:25:29] I mean, even in 2022, Even with if, if you’re in your early twenties and you’re in a relationship with a man like that I think is unfortunately still like women are handling budgeting maybe, and like saving and coupon clipping. But men are handling the wealth building, they’re handling the investing, they’re handling, you know, the, the big truly like money changing decisions and yeah,

[00:25:55] Laurie-Ann King: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:25:56] Tori Dunlap: what we’re all trying to change or at least become more equitable.

[00:25:59] But it’s so interesting that like, I can see the mistakes, right, of, of potentially, I, I shouldn’t even call them mistakes because it’s, it’s conditioned, right? And it’s taught of, of women who are older, and yet we still have women now in their twenties who are getting into relationships and it’s still, it’s still inequitable in terms of the management of money.

[00:26:20] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah. You really have to advocate for yourself. You really do. And I experienced it in my own marriage and my husband, he’s pretty woke, you know, he works, he works at our company, he coaches some of our members. He truly wants women to be financially empowered. And even in our relationship there have been moments or ways where he has either had an approach to like an investing decision or actually made an investing decision and not included me.

[00:26:51] And it’s like, whoa, hey, what’s going on? Hold the phone. Let’s talk about this. Oh, interesting. You know, and I’m thinking of a time early in our relationship, I think we were. Either engaged or very newly married, but we had totally combined our finances and he made a really significant investment in in a, a friend’s investment fund.

[00:27:13] And he invested all money that he brought to the relationship. So like, you know, I, I didn’t actually have any claim to that money or anything was totally his money, but he invested it without talking to me about it. And I thought it was really interesting that I didn’t even occur, like someone whose opinion might be helpful in making that decision.

[00:27:34] Right. It was like, oh, maybe even just like, let me, you know, ask for what I think about it and that

[00:27:41] Tori Dunlap: Yeah.

[00:27:42] Laurie-Ann King: yeah, it was like, you know, your money, your, your decision for sure. But I would really love. get to talk about it with you. And so that was, I’m so grateful that that actually did happen early on in our relationship and that I felt confident enough to get pissed about it until we could talk about it and have those conversations and, and change the way we do it.

[00:28:04] But it’s, it just really truly is ingrained in our culture that men make the investment decisions and like women are frivolous spenders and need to be controlled when it comes to money.

[00:28:18] Tori Dunlap: Yep. The the like, oh, she’s going to the mall again. I’m like, it’s not a good joke anymore, guys. Like it’s not a good joke anymore.

[00:28:26] Laurie-Ann King: I was watching

[00:28:27] Tori Dunlap: Oh, go ahead.

[00:28:27] Laurie-Ann King: well, sorry, I’m like a little embarrassed to say I was watching some Bachelor in Paradise last night

[00:28:32] Tori Dunlap: it’s fine.

[00:28:33] Laurie-Ann King: and 

[00:28:33] Tori Dunlap: I watched Fuckboy Island. Have you guys seen Fuckboy Island?

[00:28:37] Laurie-Ann King: Nope. It definitely sounds like I thing I’m gonna watch.

[00:28:40] Tori Dunlap: I do not, I hate reality dating shows. I like refuse to watch them. I hate them. And then my boyfriend was like, you have to watch the show. And it’s, it’s, he’s like, I’m addicted to it. And I started watching it.

[00:28:52] It’s by Nicki. It’s hosted by Nicki Glazer, which I think is the best. The best. Like it’s the reason I was in. But yeah, you basically, you date good guys or nice guys versus fuck boys. And if you choose a fuckboy at the end, the fuckboy gets to pick whether he takes the a hundred K or he splits it evenly 50 50.

[00:29:11] Laurie-Ann King: Oh, I’m watching. I’m sold. I’m so,

[00:29:13] Tori Dunlap: But you know who the fuck boys are. So you have all of these women choosing fuck boys, like you have all of them at the end choosing fuck boys. And I’m like yeah, because every

[00:29:23] Laurie-Ann King: wait, wait. The contestants know what,

[00:29:26] Tori Dunlap: Huh. They know about like four episodes before they’re supposed to choose who the fuck boys are and who the nice guys are.

[00:29:32] And yet they still choose the fuck boys. Cuz all the fuck boys obviously know how to play this game. Right? And they’re like, you know what, you’ve really changed me. Like I really feel connection with you. And sometimes the fuck boys do split the money to their credit and sometimes they do not. And so, oh my god, it’s such a fun show.

[00:29:47] It’s ridiculous. It’s, they’re all, you know, they’re all like drinking and they’re making out with each other. There’s three women and then like 25 men. It’s insane. Anyway, bachelor in Paradise.

[00:30:00] Laurie-Ann King: Well, I can’t wait to watch that. Okay. On Bachelor in

[00:30:02] Tori Dunlap: B O. Fuck Boy Island. Yeah. Not sponsored, just fantastic

[00:30:07] Laurie-Ann King: there was a, a scene where one of the women they were like all sharing their scars and one of the women didn’t have a pinky finger. And she was like, sh talking about how she lost her pinky. And first of all, she was owning it. It was so badass. I was like, loved this scene. And and then she says, when I go get my nails done, I get 10% off.

[00:30:25] And everybody laughs cuz she’s like missing a finger and she’s talking about, but the guy that she was most interested in dating goes, she’s a saver. And I just loved it. He noticed that

[00:30:37] Tori Dunlap: so sweet? I hate the Bachelor and that’s so sweet.

[00:30:45] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah. He’s, he’s like a single dad, one of the, you know, forlorn stories where the wife passed away and he’s now there to like, find love again. 

[00:30:53] Tori Dunlap: That’s so hysterical about Bachelor in Paradise. That’s so. She’s a saver. Let’s talk about, speaking of like dating, can we talk specifically about the importance of finances, both in marriage and partnership and in divorce?

[00:31:08] Because many women get married and they don’t go through the prenup process and they don’t protect themselves when it comes to their independent finances. So what are some ways that women can protect themselves financially before getting married or before partnering with somebody?

[00:31:26] Britt Williams Baker: yeah. We, so we mostly work with people on the other side. We are not at all giving recommendations as people are going into marriage. It’s not our expertise place. So I don’t know a ton on this topic, but I’ve listened to a little bit about prenuptials and the importance of, basically there’s this, there’s this idea when people get married, they think they’re, you know, they have all the fantasy of how it’s gonna work out, and they don’t, it’s just not fun to think about the potential of it not going well.

[00:31:58] And so it’s a place where people don’t actually want to dig in, but they, they don’t realize is that they’re essentially signing a prenup with whatever state they’re getting married in. And a lot of people don’t look into what the rules are. And so, It’s either like you take this boiler plate prenuptial that the state of California or the state of Illinois or the state of Texas is giving you, or you write your own.

[00:32:22] And the, it’s an act doing a prenuptial, I would put it this way, instead of it being like a expecting the worst case, it’s a first act for the woman to take, take some, like, take a place. , what’s, what am I trying to say? Like, take a stand of confidence and ownership of, of their future, of, Hey, I’m gonna have a say in our financial decisions starting right now.

[00:32:47] And here’s, here are my expectations. And I mean, people can get creative and say like, if you cheat on me, you give me all your money. , there’s like things you can write in that really you know, set yourself up for the future you wanna have.

[00:32:59] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. No, and I, I so appreciate you bringing that up. I think it was Aaron Lowry, who’s broke millennial, who says, like, if you don’t make a prenup, the state makes one for you, right? Like, like if you don’t, if you don’t decide what you want, the, the state laws have already decided for you. So I think there is all of this like weird shame and like, yeah, there’s like, I don’t want this relationship to fail, and me signing a prenup means that I think it’s destined to fail.

[00:33:27] And I’m like, I wouldn’t enter a business decision with somebody without a contract. And that isn’t because I think that, you know, eventually we’re gonna hate each other and need to like separate assets or whatever. But like, I wouldn’t enter any sort of business deal without a contract. And yes, marriage you hope is full of love, but it’s also a legally binding agreement.

[00:33:49] And so if I’m going to enter this legally binding agreement with somebody, Especially the person who I love and respect. I wanna make sure that both of us are taken care of and that both of us have a very distinct plan of what’s gonna happen as opposed to letting the state government or the state laws decide what that looks like for us.

[00:34:08] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah.

[00:34:08] Britt Williams Baker: and I mean, with a 50% chance of divorce, it’s just the smartest thing to do. Just protect yourself.

[00:34:14] Tori Dunlap: right. And it’s even too, I think, you know, the opening two conversations a about money in general. Right. And one thing I am, I, you know, I very much talk about like, personal finance is personal, but one thing I refuse to , like I, I refuse to counsel women on, like, a lot of people are like, I’m gonna fully combine my finances.

[00:34:32] And I a hundred percent disagree with that. Like, you need some of your own separate money. Like even if it’s just a small emergency fund and you have joint accounts, I think the ideal for me is that you have separate accounts and then a joint account for your shared expenses, but I’ve seen so many women get done really dirty because they don’t have any sort of money to their name, and so you need some sort of money on the side.

[00:34:58] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, it’s it’s tough. It’s a tricky thing to navigate. It really is. And I think before, before even getting to the, the level of marriage, if you’re just dating someone and you’re starting to like think about shared finances and combined finances, I think the best thing you can do to protect yourself in the beginning is try and get transparency.

[00:35:18] Understand what the other person’s financial situation is like, know who you’re dating from a financial perspective and. . That doesn’t mean you have to make any like decisions about the relationship based on that person’s financial reality, but you should know what it is because if you’re considering having a future with this person, you’re also considering having a future with their finances.

[00:35:39] And and then when it comes to actually combining finances, Britt and I, we put together a workshop in our program to help people navigate this because it is so tricky and there. Like a lot of different aspects to finances. There’s how much you earn, there’s how much of what you earn goes towards Shared expenses goes towards individual expenses.

[00:36:00] There’s who’s actually responsible for keeping a budget or managing the money? Who’s responsible for making spending decisions? Who’s responsible for paying bills, like the actual work that is involved on managing your finances. And then there’s also decision rights. And who gets to make those choices?

[00:36:15] And are they consensus decisions? Are they unilateral decisions? Is there a certain dollar amount that if you’re gonna spend more than this now you need to have a conversation like how you do it. There’s a lot of nuance to it. And in, in our work with women, we really, there are times where we will be prescriptive and say, this is how we suggest doing it.

[00:36:36] And then there’s other times, I would say actually majority of the times where we really try to empower and inform people to make their own decisions and say, . Yeah. Here’s, here’s the lay of the land, here’s what I personally do. Here’s what Brit personally does, and you choose for yourself. And here are some of the pros and cons to, you know, of the different, different options.

[00:36:56] And when it comes to managing money and partnership, Brit and I do it totally differently. Like my husband and I, we have a hundred percent combined finances. Was that like really well thought out? No. I mean, what happened was I moved from Canada to the US and I didn’t have any bank accounts or anything in the us and I met with I can still like remember the moment where I’m in the kitchen with my husband and his father-in-law, who’s a financial advisor who’s looked at, you know, a lot of people’s money situations for a long time.

[00:37:24] He’s in a very good, stable marriage. And he says, combine your finances. Every, every marriage I’ve ever looked at where they had, didn’t have combined finances. It wasn’t a good marriage. , that was his like, perspective on it. And so my husband just added me to all of his accounts and I didn’t bring a lot of money to the table.

[00:37:42] So, you know, for the person who that was risky for, it was riskier for him than it was for me. But it also wasn’t a very good way to navigate, like building credit and things like that in the us, which I didn’t know I needed to do. And then Brits on the other end of the spectrum where her and her husband are mostly separate finances and they share expenses and you know, it works really well for them.

[00:38:03] And what I’m doing works really well for me. But I also know, like I’m, I’m more at risk based on the situation that I’m in.

[00:38:11] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. And I have so much empathy and compassion for anybody regardless of the situation. I wanna be clear on that. For me, I’ve just, what I’ve seen is like there are so many people who are entering marriages and they believe, oh, if I have my separate money, that means I don’t trust my partner. And that’s not it at all.

[00:38:27] Like that’s not it at all. And that’s the narrative I think that Yeah. Has been pushed. I think of like Dave Ramsey, like all the time, right? And as he is like unique, fully combined finances. And if you’re separating your money, it’s because you don’t trust and you don’t have a good relationship. And I’m like, no, I don’t think that’s it at all.

[00:38:43] And the same way that I think a lot of people are successful fully combining their finances. You just, to your point, you take on more risk. You take on more risk. And unfortunately the risk in a heteronormative relationship tends to fall on on the woman. Like that’s, I think, yeah. What

[00:38:58] Laurie-Ann King: Totally. And it’s, it’s not lost on me that that advice that I’ve heard both from my father-in-law and from Dave Ramsey is like coming from older white men. Right. . It’s like the . Yeah.

[00:39:10] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So can we break down? By either like decade or by your progression through your financial life, what sort of goals that women should have If someone’s like in listening right now and they feel behind because they haven’t started investing yet, they have debt, like what can you share with them?

[00:39:30] Britt Williams Baker: For that person, you’re doing the right thing. Don’t invest until you’ve cleared your debt. So we have a really specific roadmap for people to follow that you have to move up the roadmap. And when it comes to personal finance, it’s really important to do things in the right order because if you do things out of order, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.

[00:39:49] You’re basically spending money to try to make money, but it’s not gonna work out. So the way to do it is you start at the bottom of our pyramid with spending less than you make each month. So that means that you’re taking home more than you’re spending. And most people actually don’t even know that number.

[00:40:07] They don’t know if they are saving money each month. So that’s the first thing, is to get really clear on knowing are you able to save money each month? If you’re able to save money, then you can move up the roadmap to the next step, which is paying off high interest rate debt. And high interest rate debt is anything with an interest rate over 7%.

[00:40:24] So most credit cards, some personal loans, some car loans, that’s the most important piece because that is actually costing you more than anything else. With a 20% interest rate, 30% interest rate, sometimes you’re never, you’re not gonna make that up by investing. So that is actually the most expensive piece in your financial life, and you have to pay that off first. Then you wanna save up an emergency fund, and for that it’s usually three to six months of expenses. If you’re, if you have like a great backup plan, you could save less if you’re kind of on your own and. Don’t really have a backup plan, you maybe wanna save more. And the reason that we have you save an emergency plan before you start investing is so you can invest for the long-term.

[00:41:04] Five plus years being long-term. And when people, this is the mistake that most people make, is they start investing when they don’t have an emergency fund. And so then when the market goes down and they have a, they get in a car accident and they have to pull their money outta their investments, and that’s when you lose money from investing. So we really emphasize having your emergency fund before you start investing. It’s okay to wait, you know you’re not ready to invest. That’s okay. That’s a good thing. It means you’re doing things in the right order. Save your emergency fund first, then you’re ready to invest and start thinking about long-term retirement future planning.

[00:41:40] And you can invest at that point pretty safely and securely. A lot of people have this fear that investing is scary, but when you do it in this order, it doesn’t have to be scary at all.

[00:41:50] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. So this is the interesting part about personal finance is like Brit, I am very much like you need an emergency fund first before you start paying off debt. Like I have a whole, what I call the financial game plan is very similar to your guys’. I think Pyramid is like, we have that in episode five and it’s like I am like, you do not start paying off debt.

[00:42:08] You do not start investing. Nothing happens until you have that emergency fund. So this is,

[00:42:12] Britt Williams Baker: and how much, what would you say of what amount would you put paying off debt?

[00:42:19] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, if people are like, they have a ton of debt and it’s really giving them a lot of anxiety, I’ll be okay with like one month of living expenses.

[00:42:27] But like, I truly, especially after pandemic, I’m just like, I think you need an emergency fund that’s going to sustain you for a little bit of time before you start paying off debt. Just becau
se Yeah, , we’re in the wild, wild west at this point in the last two years. Like absolutely unprecedented. Right. And then I think a lot of people who didn’t have any sort of savings, right?

[00:42:50] And like, like, I wanna be clear, a thousand dollars one month, whatever you have, is better than nothing in savings. But yeah, I’m, I’m very much of like, I don’t want you going into more debt, trying to pay for an emergency. And then I, I find that my clients like they, they sleep better at night knowing that they have something in the bank, should something happen.

[00:43:09] But yeah, this is, this is personal finance. It’s so interesting.

[00:43:12] Britt Williams Baker: Well, and I think we could debate this and it’s interesting cuz we, there’s places where we agree with you actually. It’s like we left out the step of have at least a thousand dollars that you’re saving on the side because you don’t wanna go further into debt. And the way I’ve thought about it is this debt is costing you so much that if you have three months of emergencies Yeah.

[00:43:34] Tori Dunlap: And once you free up that debt, in theory, you have more money to contribute to a savings account.

[00:43:39] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or you could, you know, the ideal is we’re keeping people from going back into debt. And so if they have this. The worst case is they are paying off their debt and they have to start using their credit cards again. And the reason that, actually, let me back up for a second. , the, one of the reasons that we have it this way is because of the mindset piece of becoming debt free.

[00:44:04] So if you can take what you have sitting in your three months emergency fund and actually pay off that last credit card and become debt free with, you know, a $7,000 payment, and then you’re starting from zero, you can see yourself as someone who is debt free and going forward, you’re gonna make different decisions.

[00:44:22] And so really getting people into that place of believing, you know, I can be debt free, I can start saving. That’s another reason we have it that way.

[00:44:30] Tori Dunlap: Well, and it might feel potentially more of a win to become debt free than it does to save a three month emergency fund.

[00:44:37] Laurie-Ann King: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:37] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah. Feels like a success.

[00:44:39] Tori Dunlap: Right. Right.

[00:44:40] Laurie-Ann King: I mean, ul ultimately the best plan is the plan you actually follow, right? It’s

[00:44:44] Tori Dunlap: Yes,

[00:44:45] Laurie-Ann King: if anyone is listening and they’re like, oh, I, you know, I definitely wanna pay off my debt first, or no, I want my emergency fund saving source. If you have a strong feeling like that, trust it and do it in that order.

[00:44:54] We’ve just seen a lot of our clients come to us with $20,000 in credit card debt and $50,000 in savings, and we’re like, Hey, this doesn’t make any sense. We actually wanna use that money to pay off the debt because that is preventing you from investing successfully. And it can feel really scary to let go of that money in savings.

[00:45:14] There’s like a lot of feelings of safety attached to it.

[00:45:17] Tori Dunlap: And I think for me and our. $50,000 in savings is a crazy amount of money. . Like that’s, that’s not a thing, right? So like they’re just excited to get a couple thousand in savings or maybe 10,000 in savings. So like it’s also right at like a different potentially demographic or financial situation.

[00:45:34] It’s a lot easier if somebody has a lot in savings to be like, you should be paying off the debt that you have. And then you still have $20,000 left over for I think the majority of people in my audience, that’s just not the reality. The reality is, is they’re just trying to save up to that a thousand dollars or three months of living expenses.

[00:45:49] So yeah, this is the interesting part about personal finance. I’m also just, as everybody knows, I’m just so anti Dave Ramsey and I think like his focus on just like getting outta debt at all costs just like exhausts me. And of course I know that you guys are, you know, like value-based spending, sustainable, like debt payoff, all of those things.

[00:46:08] But I think everybody just has this like default state of like, this debt has to be gone no matter what. And I’m like, I think you need a little bit in savings to, to build yourself up and give yourself that financial foundation and then work to pay off your debt.

[00:46:22] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, we, we, we teach a lot about debt in our program actually, because there is good debt and bad debt, right? Like not

[00:46:28] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Talk to me about

[00:46:29] Laurie-Ann King: equal . Well, okay, so bad debt is debt that you have incurred and the benefit that you realize from the debt is already gone. Like it’s already used up and yet you are still paying for the debt.

[00:46:43] Yeah, so it’s like consumer purchases. So you bought a new TV and now you’ve got the new tv, but it’s gone down in value since you bought it and you are still paying for it. Now that’s bad debt. And if it has an interest rate, which we kind of demark the interest rate into high and low interest when it’s over 7% because that’s an average return you’re gonna get, right?

[00:47:04] So any interest that’s up over that amount means it doesn’t make any financial sense for you to invest for your future. If you are carrying that debt, it is more expensive. You’ll be losing money by investing. And so good debt, it can be debt that you have used strategically, which is why in the business world they refer to debt as leverage.

[00:47:26] What’s what’s leverage? It’s like a lever. You can do a little bit and you can get an outsized result from it. So something like debt we can use strategically to buy assets like real estate for example. And you can buy a lot more than you could if you didn’t have access to the debt financing. And so we teach about good debt and bad debt because when debt is used properly, it can really help you build wealth.

[00:47:53] When debt is used improperly, then it works against you and it can really prevent you from building wealth. And that mindset you were talking about, Tori, of people like come and have this kind of panicked reaction about their debt and feel like I have to get out of it as fast as possible. And I’m like, my life is not okay until I’m out of this debt.

[00:48:12] We had, we, we differentiate between what we call sprint debt and marathon debt and some debt is sprint debt, like it is harming your ability to build wealth and protect future you by continuing to carry that debt. So if
you’re tolerating that debt, it would be better to take a little sprint and make it a focused effort and, and clear it.

[00:48:33] And then there’s debt that we call marathon debt, which let’s say student loan debt, for example, we can consider that marathon debt depending on your interest rates because that’s an investment that you made to get an education that hopefully increased your earning potential for the rest of your life.

[00:48:50] And so if you are actually, you know, working the career that you use to get the, get you use the debt for, to finance that education that’s benefiting you over the long term of your life. And it’s okay to pay that debt down over the long term of your life. . All of that being said, like I said earlier, the best plan is the plan you will actually follow.

[00:49:12] And people have different relationships to debt. For some people it just feels like handcuffs. They’re like not interested in having debt. And other people they can see debt as an instrument or as a tool that they can use. And this is another place where Brit and I have really different relationships to debt.

[00:49:29] Like Brit bought our house in cash. I just refinanced, you know, before interest rates went up. Cuz I was like, I’m gonna get that money at 2%. I’m gonna invest it at 7% hot. Damn I just made 5%. You know? And like, it doesn’t phase me at all. I’m very comfortable with it when it’s used strategically. And so that’s just for people to, to decide and explore.

[00:49:46] But that immediate reaction, that debt is bad. You know, certain types of debt are, are bad for your financial health and certain types of debt can be used positively for your financial health.

[00:49:58] Tori Dunlap: Totally. So we were talking about the mindset of money and the emotions and the psychology, . You guys call it facts versus feelings. Can you explain what you mean,

[00:50:10] Britt Williams Baker: Yeah, so one of the things, one of the things we say is that you can’t sort through money financially until you’ve seen it emotionally. And there’s a lot of feelings that are holding people back from actually taking action. So this is a big one that comes up with debt, with the identity around having debt.

[00:50:28] So a feeling is, you know, I am, I. Unworthy because I have credit card debt or I’m a bad person, or I’m dumb because I have credit card debt. And so really dropping into this shame space of really making it about you and who you are. So that’s a money feeling. A money fact is I have $20,000 of credit card debt.

[00:50:49] I also wasn’t given a financial education in high school. I also never learned how to use a credit card when I was given one on my college campus. Like those are facts. It doesn’t mean anything about you. And now you can make, take action to changing that situation if you want. And so it’s really stepping out of the, any feelings of shame or making it about you to just being the situation on the table, kind of seeing it as something separate from yourself.

[00:51:15] There’s this debt that I have and now I’m gonna clear it,

[00:51:18] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, there are so many similarities to how we teach money because for us, for us over here, like again, when we were writing the book, when I was writing the book, it was all about like, what are the narratives that you’re believing about money? So almost every chapter we spend like debunking the narratives.

[00:51:30] So yeah, if I have dead, I’m a bad person. Oh, people who have money are bad people.

[00:51:35] Britt Williams Baker: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:36] Tori Dunlap: can’t buy you happiness. Like all of Yeah. Investing is complicated. Investing’s intimidating. Investing’s risky. Like the, all of the narratives you were told about money versus what is the actual, the, the, you know, the reality of that.

[00:51:49] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it, the money feelings also come up in some of the specifics of dealing with your money. So we might have a money feeling like I’m drowning in debt, and you’ll know that you’re using a feeling if it’s like, if you’re not actually saying real numbers and you’re talking about a physical sensation like this debt is weighing me down or holding me back, or I’m drowning in it.

[00:52:16] Okay. We’re using language that creates strong emotions. Just think about those words, drowning, being held down, like those are real survival, scary situations versus. , I have $6,000 of debt, or my monthly minimum is $600 and I only have $400. Those are facts. Those are things we can work with. It’s really hard to work with like feelings that are related to death or being like restricted, imprisoned, you know, to just notice that language and see, okay, how can I translate this into an actual just fact-based statement that isn’t as scary to start working with.

[00:52:57] Tori Dunlap: Well, and your energy coach like flag must pop up too, where you’re like having very physical sensations, right? Like weighing me down, drowning, like holding me back. Right. These are all very like physical manifestations in your body of what it feels like to be in debt. And that, as we all know, has severe impacts on your physical health, your mental health, the way you carry yourself in the world.

[00:53:20] Like literally physically, if you feel these like Yeah. Physical manifestations of, of money.

[00:53:27] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah. The language we use matters, right? Like words have an emotional and an energetic weight to them, and a lot of the words that we use around money in the negative, especially often have to do with the physical body, but are just like very intense. Even if you think about someone saying, oh, it cost me an arm and a leg.

[00:53:50] Imagine that losing an arm and a leg to get what you, whatever it was you bought. It’s like really, really warped ways of talking about dollars and cents.

[00:54:01] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. Yep. You’re so right. So one of my last questions for you all. What do you hope Dow James grows into in the coming years? Like, what is, what is, what is the goal for you both

[00:54:16] Laurie-Ann King: What’s so excited to listen to Prince answer for this question?

[00:54:22] Tori Dunlap: She’s like, let me take notes about the future of our company.

[00:54:24] Britt Williams Baker: So Dow James is a three year old business. And yet we have grown really quickly in those three years and have really seen what in need there is for education, for community, for affordable coaching when it comes to money. And we have built our business. We’ve been really lean, you know, it’s basically been lorianne and at the helm for. And me, it’s been me and Lorianne at the helm doing most of it for for three years. And, you know, we have, we have independent contractors here and there. We have a lot of agencies helping us. And the next phase of Dow Janes is really is building out our c
ompany. So whether that’s a a new app that we’re developing, whether it is, you know, expanding our product line to really build financial freedom and create more choice for women potentially an ethical investing line of getting helping people create values, aligned investments.

[00:55:23] There’s a lot of different directions we could go. We’ve been. Really focused on the million dollar year and it is incredible for getting results. And so that will continue to remain our main foundational program for getting people, you know, from either debt or minimal savings to being ready to invest.

[00:55:40] And then basically from there, what happens after the million dollar year is what we’ll be building out next. Yeah. We’re also pretty excited to be a business that’s doing business differently, so treating our employees really well. Doing profit sharing, having, you know, compensation that feels lets people live a really good life.

[00:56:01] You know, that’s what we’re I think either, no, someone else I was listening to, but yeah, kind of like an anti-capitalist. We’re anti-capitalist capitalists, you know, wanting to, we’re in business, we love business. We’re making money, we’re helping other people make money and yet wanting to create a better world with that.

[00:56:20] Tori Dunlap: Totally amazing. Lorianne, anything to add?

[00:56:24] Laurie-Ann King: Yeah, I think I think on the notion of doing business differently, it’s been really amazing to get to build this company with my best friend. You know, Brit and I have been best friends for a decade, and there’s. There’s just so much that’s been available to us through sisterhood and doing this together and our love for one another and wanting this to be not only a great company that’s out there having a great impact in the world, but something that’s really great for each of us in our lives.

[00:56:52] And getting, you know, to add that into the filtering decision. And, you know, we thought early on in starting the company, do we wanna go raise capital? Do we wanna get VC money so we can like go, you know, lightning fast And we don’t, you know, we wanna go as fast as we can while still loving our lives. And in building the company, we’ve always said we wanna build something that we could sell if we want to, but we wanna run it in a way that we’re never gonna wanna sell it.

[00:57:22] And, you know, getting to do that and. and really practice that and live at a super high level of integrity as people who are doing well by doing good in the world. It’s just like, it’s a really fun challenge to take on. And, you know, Brit went to Harvard Business School, I studied business in our undergrad, and so we have the, we have the imprint of how business has always been done and now getting to take it into our own hands and really intentionally create our culture and our systems and our decisions.

[00:57:57] And, you know, we’re like learning what is the decision making criteria, if it’s not profit at all costs, what, what are those ways that we decide? So it’s just, it’s a really fun challenge to take on in terms of a, a company level. Goals, what do we wanna be? We, we wanna be big. We wanna help as many people as we can.

[00:58:17] And we don’t know what that number is yet. We know we haven’t hit it. We feel like we’re just getting started and and we’re really excited to keep going.

[00:58:25] Tori Dunlap: Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you?

[00:58:31] Britt Williams Baker: dow.com is the where you can start. And then all of our links are from there. We’re have a pretty great Instagram influence at Dow dot Janes, and then our YouTube channel is really helpful. Just free educational videos that we drop each week. So find us on YouTube. We’re also on Pinterest, TikTok. Yeah,