Before you budget, invest, or open a single new account, you need to know the story you’re telling yourself about money.
So we’re starting where every money plan should start: with you. Grab a pen (or your Notes app), because this one comes with homework.
You told us Financial Foundations was your favorite series, so we brought it back. Presented by State Farm, these are short, actionable episodes, each one covering a single personal finance pillar and giving you one thing to go do. We’re following along with my book, Financial Feminist, so if you have a copy, pull it out. In episode one, I’m walking you through your first money memory, the exact order to tackle your financial goals, and how to actually stay consistent with a monthly money date. If you’ve ever asked “Okay, but what do I do first with my money?”, start here.
Key takeaways:
Your first money memory is still running the show
The fastest way to understand how you see money is your first money memory. What’s the first time you remember thinking about money, and what did you decide about money and the people who have it because of it? Then look at your family: were they savers or spenders, and was money a source of stress or ease?
Move from shame into awareness
That memory shows up in money talks with your partner, in asking for a raise, and in pricing your work. These are mindfulness questions, not a reason to beat yourself up, because you can’t change a pattern you can’t see. So ask yourself: do you even want to keep carrying the beliefs you picked up as a kid?
Follow the financial order of operations
Priority one is an emergency fund with at least three months of living expenses in a high-yield savings account (a savings account that pays you a lot more interest than a standard one). Priority two is paying off high-interest debt like credit cards, where the average interest rate is around 22%. Then, at the same time, invest for retirement while paying down lower-interest debt and save for the big stuff, like a house, kids, or a business.
Your emergency fund comes first, no matter what
Even if you have debt. It keeps a surprise expense from turning into new debt, it lets you sleep at night, and if you’re part of a marginalized group, it’s your escape hatch out of a bad relationship, a toxic job, or an unsafe apartment.
Why investing beats racing to pay off low-interest debt
Your money can grow faster in the stock market than low-interest debt costs you. Investing also gets compound interest working for you, which is just your interest earning interest earning interest.
Stop ostriching your money
Ignoring your money (hi, Nick Miller’s box of bills on New Girl) is easy, and so is getting motivated for a week and falling off. Consistency comes from financial self-care: the uncomfortable stuff you do now so future you has a better life, including looking at your money.
Put a money date on your calendar
Once a month, set aside time to write down every account and balance, name specific goals (think “max out my Roth IRA,” not “be rich”), and find the sticky points costing you money. I do mine on Sunday nights, and the full practice is in chapter seven of my book. No judgment allowed. Just notice, like an anthropologist in your own life.
Notable quotes
“We want to move from shame and embarrassment into awareness.”
“I need you to have enough money to escape a bad, toxic, or even unsafe, unhealthy situation. Whether that is a relationship, a job, an apartment, I need you having enough money to give yourself an escape hatch.”
“Self-care is the things you do in the moment that feel uncomfortable, but that you know make future you’s life better.”
Homework:
- Start a money diary. Either on your phone or in a notebook, write down every purchase you make for the next two weeks. Every. Single. One.
- Next to what the purchase was and the total, write how it made you feel. Use words or emojis or whatever makes the most sense to you.
- Keep this exercise –– we’re bringing it back next time!
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro
01:03 Welcome to Financial Foundations
02:17 Your financial narrative and your first money memory
03:54 How your money memory shows up today
06:05 The financial order of operations
06:56 Why your emergency fund comes first
08:26 Priority two: high-interest debt
09:18 Priority three: investing for retirement and paying down low-interest debt
10:04 Priority four: saving for the big stuff
11:04 Staying consistent and the ostrich effect
12:37 Financial self-care and the money date
13:33 How to run your money date, step by step
15:15 Your homework: the money diary
To find all of the resources mentioned in this episode including my free money quiz and my partner recommendation for your emergency fund), visit: https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
Tori Dunlap:
One thing I’ve learned from talking to hundreds of investors, founders, and business leaders is that planning for the future isn’t just about growing assets, it’s also about protecting the people who matter most. Life comes with a lot of important milestones. Maybe you’re buying a house, starting a family, planning for college, or simply thinking more intentionally about your financial future. As those responsibilities grow, it’s worth making sure you protect those that you love. Not sure what kind of life insurance you may need, concerned about how much it may cost? Think life insurance is too complicated. Your local State Farm agent can help answer these questions. They can help you explore your options for life insurance so you can choose coverage that you can adjust as your family’s needs change over time. Financial protection for your loved ones, when it matters most. Learn about life insurance at statefarm.com.
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
But first, a word from our sponsors.
Hi, financial feminists, welcome back to the show. I am so excited to welcome you to our first episode of Financial Foundations. This is a series that we have restarted because we got so much incredible feedback from people saying that this series was their favorite. These are short, actionable episodes, a curriculum of sorts. And a lot of the questions we get are just, “How do I get started? What do I do next with my money?” So, each episode goes through one personal finance pillar and gives you one thing to go do. So we’re giving you really actionable information in short bursts. We’re going to follow along pretty closely in this series with my first book, Financial Feminist. So, if you have a copy of Financial Feminist, go ahead and pull it out. If you don’t, it is 12 bucks on Amazon, or less than $25 at your independent bookstore. It is at herfirst100k.com/book, and you can get a copy there. And this is a great series to share with friends or family, and you might even want to start a little financial accountability club while you work through it. So, let’s get into it.
The first thing we need to do before we talk about anything actionable when it comes to money is to start understanding our financial narratives. These are the ways we view money, the ways we view the pursuit of money, the ways we view people with money. And one of the easiest ways to immediately understand how you view money and how you see money interacting in the world is through your first money memory. So you’re going to grab a pen, or open up a Google Doc or your Notes app. And we have way more on this practice in chapter one of my book.
But your first money memory is the first time you remember thinking about money. So, simply ask yourself, what was that first time? Was it positive, was it negative, or was it neutral? And from that money memory, what did you conclude about money and the people who have it? Other questions to ask yourself are, what was your family like with money? Were they good savers? Did they spend a lot of money they didn’t have? Was money a source of stress or conflict? Did they have open conversations around money? This was my experience, right? I had parents who were very open around money, but ironically also very closed off when it came to how much money they had or how much money they were making. Was this a taboo subject in your house? Was money a source of ease and positivity and pride, or was it more anxiety and stress?
The final thing we want to think about is, how are you carrying that money memory now? How is that showing up in the way you manage money, the way you view people with it, and your pursuit, or not pursuit, of getting more money? If you are carrying this money memory into the way you manage money now, my follow-up question is, do you want to? Do you want to carry the beliefs you have around money that were cemented as a child with you? This matters so much when we think about the ways we are managing money because it will show up in every aspect of your financial life. If you view money as evil and the people who have money as bad people, you will push away money for your entire life. If money was a source of stress or shame, what will likely happen is you’ll either see money as a source of stress or shame, or the exact opposite. You will be so frugal because you’re so afraid of the other shoe dropping.
This will show up in conversations with your partner around money. It’ll show up in you asking for a raise or raising your own prices, if you’re a business owner. And it will show up in your feelings of shame, fear, and anxiety, maybe about not knowing things like this sooner, feeling shame around your debt, or just feeling shame for not knowing anything about money in the first place. These are not shame questions, these are mindfulness questions. So, as you’re thinking about your first money memory, it’s going to be so easy to categorize this experience or to think about the ways that you are being impacted by this money memory as bad. It’s shameful, it’s embarrassing. We want to move from shame and embarrassment into awareness. Because the only way we can actually change our financial life is if we’re aware of our patterns. So, that is your first exercise. Think about your first money memory and think about how it’s currently showing up in your life.
The second thing we need to think about as we are setting goals is, if we don’t know what we’re doing financially, we don’t know what to do in what order, it is incredibly overwhelming. So, what you’re doing and what financial goal you have is based on your values and your goals. We have so much more, again, in chapter three of my book, called The Financial Game Plan. But the question I get most is, “Okay, Tori, I have student debt, but also I think I need an emergency fund, but don’t I need to be investing? And maybe I want to buy a house someday. What do I do first?” Priority number one, your emergency fund. You need to have at least three months of living expenses in a high yield savings account.
Now, why do we save an emergency fund first? Well, regardless of whether you have debt or not, regardless of how much debt you have, you need an emergency fund first for a couple reasons. One, I don’t want you going into more debt, or debt in the first place, trying to pay for an emergency. Especially in this economic climate right now, I need you to have some money in the bank that is going to prevent you from having to go immediately into debt.
The second reason we prioritize an emergency fund first is because we value mental health here at Her First $100K. We value mental health here on the Financial Feminist Podcast. And something about your head hitting the pillow at night and knowing you’re going to be okay, knowing that no matter what happens tomorrow, you can get through it financially. And that money is not an additional source of stress if you get laid off or if something medically happens, that is such a reassuring, calming feeling. Because during moments of stress, the last thing I want you thinking about is, can I afford it?
And finally, especially if you’re a member of a marginalized group, I need you to have enough money to escape a bad, toxic, or even unsafe, unhealthy situation. Whether that is a relationship, a job, an apartment, I need you having enough money to give yourself an escape hatch.
So, after we save that three-month emergency fund in a high yield savings account, you need to pay off your high interest debt. That is priority number two. This is credit cards, right? We are looking at credit card debts right now with the average interest rate being around 22%. That’s really, really high. So, after that emergency fund gets saved, we then want to prioritize paying off our debt faster. And if you have credit card debt or any other kind of debt, and we’ll get to that in a second, we actually have an upcoming episode about how to pay that off in addition to a lot of episodes in our back catalog about paying off debt quickly. So, stay tuned for episode three in Financial Foundations in this series about how to pay off debt.
The third priority. So, after we have saved our emergency fund and paid off our high interest debt, we’re then going to prioritize investing for retirement while paying down lower interest debt like student loans, mortgages, and car loans. The reason though that we’re leaning more towards investing rather than paying off our low interest debt is that we can be making more money in the stock market. It can be growing at a higher rate than it costs us to be in debt. And investing for retirement allows us to use compound interest. And compound interest simply defined is when your interest earns interest earns interest. It’s what makes investing so powerful because it allows your money to work as hard as you do.
And finally, priority number four is a packaged deal, you’re going to work on three and four at the same time. Number four is the big stuff. It’s what I call the big stuff. It’s buying a house, having children, retiring early, starting a business, getting married. Those big life events that require some savings. So, we have all of this recapped in chapter three of my book in even more detail as well as how to prioritize each of these things.
But as a quick reminder, priority number one is an emergency fund. That should be your number one goal regardless of what’s going on in your financial life. That is where you start. Number two is paying off that high interest debt, which includes credit card debt. Priorities three and four are done at the same time. Three is investing for retirement while paying down your lower interest debt, and four is saving for that big stuff.
Now, you might wonder, how do I do all of these things consistently? Because I think consistency really is the difficult challenge here. The education is one thing, that’s why podcasts like this exist, that’s why we do the work that we do. But staying consistent is actually how we get to our financial goals. And the truth is that we stay consistent by getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Growth does not happen when we’re comfortable and when we ostrich ourselves.
We talk about this in my book as well, but the ostrich effect is real. It’s like burying your head in the sand and acting like your problems don’t exist. It is Nick Miller from New Girl, his box of bills in the closet. It is Andy and April’s bills in the freezer from Parks and Rec. It is so common that it’s become this trope in sitcoms, and there’s a reason for that. It’s so easy to ignore our money. It’s so easy to get motivated for a couple days or maybe even a couple weeks, but then to fall off when things get hard. So the best way to stay consistent is through financial self-care. And self-care is hard stuff. Self-care is not easy. I think we want to glamorize self-care as face masks and bubble baths and a glass bottle of wine. And in reality, self-care is the things you do in the moment that feel uncomfortable, but that you know make future use life better.
Things like working out when you don’t want to work out and eating a salad when you’d rather have fried chicken, and having a hard conversation and going to therapy. And, yeah, looking at your money. So, the best way to do this is through a practice called a money date. I have this whole practice sketched out in chapter seven of my book. I do mine once a month on a Sunday night. This money date is non-negotiable. It is dedicated specific set aside time in my calendar where I am looking at my money. I’m checking in to see how things are going. I’m making any tweaks that I have to make. I’m opening up any accounts that I’ve been putting off. I am checking to see not only am I making progress, but it’s easy to feel motivated when I actually know the progress I’m making.
So, step number one, you’re going to write down all of your accounts and the balances on that account. So your bank accounts, your investing accounts, but also your debt and any major bills. Step number two, you’re going to write down where you want to be, and I want you to get specific. I want to be rich or I want to save money, that’s not good enough. That is not specific enough. Max out my Roth IRA every year. That’s specific enough. I want to be debt-free before my wedding. I want to travel three times a year. Those things are specific. You know you’ve done it or you know you haven’t.
Step three in the money date is finding those sticky points, the car payment, the student loans, the dining out budget, the things that are costing you money and that are not optimized that are easy fixes. And then you want to think about, what are my broader goals? Or what are the things that I need to do over a longer period of time to get me where I want to be? The key here, we are not judging ourselves. We are not getting mad and angry and upset and shaming ourselves. We are just noticing. We’re like anthropologists in our own life. We’re like, oh, that’s interesting. That’s interesting I bought that thing that I don’t even remember buying. I see it here in my credit card statement. I could not tell you what it is. That’s interesting. Right? And I need you to keep all of this, because you will need it later.
Okay, finally, let’s talk about some really, really actionable things you can do immediately after you listen to this episode. First, we’re going to do what’s called a money diary. It is tracking your spending. You are tracking your discretionary spending for at least two weeks. Really, a month is better. And for each purchase you’re writing where, where did you spend money? How much? Why? And how it made you feel. So, I went to a coffee shop, I bought a $7 mocha. I was there to meet a friend and it made me feel good because I got to have friend time. Right? This is helping you answer the where the hell did my money go question that happens at the end of the month. And this is also helping you determine whether your spending is matching your values.
Money is psychological. It is emotional. It is not about math and numbers and spreadsheets, it is about your feelings. And so, as we view our spending through the lens of not only what we value, but also how we were feeling when we spent money, you’ll start to realize that you’re making a lot of spending decisions because of your emotions. And I want you to keep this light. This is a practice that should be easy. You’re like drawing an emoji when you’re talking about your feelings, okay?
And some of your questions to sit with after this practice, after you do it in the Notes app of your phone, or even in a notebook if you want, what do I like spending money on? What do I not like spending money on? Where am I spending money without truly being present in my body and in my situation? And again, hang on to that money diary, we’re going to use it in episode two.
As we wrap up this episode, before you go, I want you to take our free money personality quiz. It’s going to show you where to get started in your financial journey. It’s going to give you a personalized money plan for free. It’s at herfirst100k.com/ffpod, and the link is also in our show notes.
So, I am so excited to restart this financial foundation series. I am so thankful to our incredible sponsor, State Farm. They not only sponsored the first round of financial foundations, but they are back sponsoring this round as well. We’re so thankful for them supporting our show. And we will see you back here for episode two. A huge thanks to State Farm for supporting our mission here at Her First $100K and making the Financial Foundations series possible. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Neither State Farm nor its agents give tax or legal advice.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, 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 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.
