Women are being lied to about money | Vivian Tu aka Your Rich BFF

Women are on track to control 40% of global wealth by 2030, so why are we still getting the worst financial advice in the room? On this week's episode of Broadlines, host Rae Williams sits down with Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, former Wall Street trader and two-time New York Times bestselling author. From why women in their 30s are quietly handing over their financial power, to what first-gen women were lied to about hard work and money, to the red flags to watch for in a partner, Vivian is here to give us the advice we were never supposed to have. Because you don't have to spend your money on stuff. You can buy a life you're proud of.

Follow Vivian Tu: @your.richbff

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Hosted by Rae Williams 
Directed by Sydney Kramer
Executive Produced by Sydney Kramer and Rachel Apirian
Produced by Rae Williams
Filmed & Edited by Davielle Waldner

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Broadlines is a production of The Female Quotient and recorded in Los Angeles, California. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Broadlines, a weekly video podcast by the female quotient, where real headlines meet real conversation. I'm Ray Williams, an entertainment lifestyle and culture journalist, and writing solo today, but we are talking about a topic that we've actually been talking about a lot and that I've personally been thinking about a lot, and of course, it's money, and specifically how to get the financial glow-up that we all deserve. And so that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today with our guests, because she's helped to change that. And it's Vivian 2, aka Uri H V F F, your favorite Wall Street girlies. And she is a former Wall Street trader, a two-time New York Times best-selling author. Her books are amazing, a Time 100 creator, the woman who has made millions of people feel like they finally had a friend in finance. I know we could all use that sometimes. And she made her first million by 27, which I love. She's here today to give us all of the financial blow-up tips that we actually need. Welcome to Broadlines, Vivian. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, we're gonna jump right in. Your first book was called Rich AF, and your second is Well in Doubt. And I told you this quick story earlier, but that is how I figured out like I actually needed to put money in my 401k because I was like, I was like, oh, that extra $500 or whatever it is. Like, I need that to live. But when I read and understood what it actually meant, I was like, okay, I'm gonna actually put this, set it, and forget it. And three years later, I was very thankful. So now I have to figure out the second part, but you know, one step at a time. So the titles of the book, as you can imagine, are amazing. Cheeky. Um, very cheeky, but Well in Dowed is actually about something a little bit more specific. It's what comes after you've mastered these basics. What is the next level of financial glow up that most women aren't thinking about? You know, I think it's just about giving yourself an opportunity to have the richest life possible. So in Rich AF, I teach all of the basics, right? Like asking for a raise, budgeting, saving, investing, paying down your debt. But then what? Do you buy the designer bag? Do you buy a fancy sports car? Like, sure, you could, but at the end of the day, I'm willing to gander that that doesn't actually really bring you joy. I think there are certain things that happen in our lives, some of these most major moments that are critical to making the right money decisions during those pivotal points. And if you think about the word well-endowed or like the phrase well-endowed, it's actually describing an endowment. And you've heard of this phrase, right? Like Harvard's endowment or your favorite philanthropy's endowment. An endowment is literally just a pile of money that gets invested so that any organization can further their mission into the future forever. That is what I want for every single person who reads Well Endowed. I want you to have a little pile of money that can be invested and take care of you for all of these major life milestones, whether that's making those really big purchases, so car, home, health stuff, health insurance, um, but also thinking about marriages, prenups, divorces. What about setting your kids up for financial success? Do you want to have children? Can you financially afford it? Yeah. And then after all of that, how do you have a beautiful today, a wonderful tomorrow? But when you leave this mortal earth, how do you leave a legacy and take care of the people you care and love about most forever? Yeah. And that's going to be through estate planning. So I teach all of these different little topics throughout the book. And I think just even wetting people's appetite to something else out there. Right. You don't have to spend your money on stuff. You can buy a life that you're proud of. That's the whole point of Well Endowed. Yeah. And I think a lot of people think that you have to kind of choose one lifestyle or the other. So it's like you make money and you have to spend it immediately. Or if you make money and you invest it, you can't enjoy your life at all. And then, you know, people make that choice when you can actually do a little bit of both. You just have to be smart about it. And I think it's important to learn how to do that. What do you think is a financial decision that women in their 30s are consistently getting wrong that compounds badly over time? I think the biggest mistake that women are making in their 30s are essentially becoming an NPC in their own life, like a non-player character. You essentially start to defer a lot of your financial choices because around then is when a lot of people start partnering up. Yeah. And, you know, I'm making some assumptions here, but in a heterosexual relationship, oftentimes a woman might come from her family and her dad has been managing the finances of their home. You get married, your husband manages the finances in your life. And then one day maybe your son will take care of them. The problem is we know that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. We know that more often than not, women outlive their partners. We know that most of us women will die alone. And I don't even mean that in a, oh, like you, you know, a sad way, but like more than likely, you will need to understand your own money at some point. But in our 30s, I see so many women give up that power, give up that agency, and just say, ah, my husband's better at it. So I'm gonna let him handle it. But if you let someone else handle something that is so important to your life, at some point you may not even know the login to your bank account. What if he leaves you for someone younger and hotter? Then you don't even know what's going on. You might not have a penny to your name. You know, to not even make it like such a disastrous story, I have had people DM me and say, I have had the best marriage on earth, loving husband 40 plus years. He just died of a heart attack. Yeah. I don't even know where to begin. And that is such a heartbreaking story because they had it all going. There was never any red flag. There was no problem. And yet this person is now in one of the most vulnerable, painful moments of their life while also having to figure out the money piece. Right. I don't want that for anybody. You know, you're grieving and then you're having to, you know, figure out where the login is, and then you're having to figure out all this stuff. And do we even know your accountant's name? Even a brother, even if it's not a partner, even just like, you know, my people that are around me, if I did have to take over some of that, or if I did have to know how close am I to, you know, their financial decisions or even just the knowledge. And I think that really does start in your in your 30s for a lot of people. Obviously, some people get, you know, married earlier or partner up earlier, but I think overwhelmingly in your 30s, I think that's when, you know, a lot of women have the enough financial stability, if you will, to start thinking to the future. One thing that we have in common, uh, we grew up in immigrant households. Yes. Um, so I'm I'm from Jamaica originally. So I've immigrant parents. We have a completely different financial system. We do not have a credit score system, any of that. Um, and I think when a lot of people come from other countries, it's just kind of like the American financial system is like, what is that? Like, um, you know, you mentioned that your parents were incredibly disciplined with money. And then you went to Wall Street, and those are kind of two very different financial educations. So, how did those two worlds shape your personal relationship with money? And which one do you think was in a way more useful? Growing up, my parents were so incredibly frugal. Like my dad washes Ziploc bags and reuses them. The very Caribbean thing to do as well. Yes, like and plastic cutlery. Oh, pla oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. Straws, like we are stealing the napkins from Chipotle. And so I think that there was always an emphasis placed on budgeting, saving, frugality. Um, but there was never a conversation around growing your wealth, demanding your power, you know, stepping into any sort of growth. That was never a conversation we had. Like that life was not for people like us. But when I started my career on Wall Street, I suddenly felt like the curtain to rich people got pulled back because my mentor was not from generational wealth. She had built it herself. She was the only other woman on the team, only other Asian on the team, only other Asian woman on the team. It's like a twofer. And she basically took me under her wing and explained all of these unspoken rules, unspoken cultural differences that I had to get hip to pretty quick. Yeah. And it genuinely felt like a rich dad-poor dad situation where my parents were so focused on making ourselves small. Whereas my mentor always told me, you can always make more money. You're never going to be able to save more than you make, though. So which one of these things should you be trying to maximize? She set me up in a way to think about money as like a tool that was infinite, that I could always get more of. There wasn't so much of a scarcity mindset. And so I do think that my mentor's teachings were certainly more useful in our current capitalist society. I'm grateful that I built healthy habits at home. I was never one to, you know, rack up credit card debt. I was never one to live beyond my means. And I think that foundation made it really easy for me to then also take on the education I got from my mentor. Do you ever find yourself uh going back to like maybe some of the habits that you learned, like just in culture? Because again, I think every culture but American culture is so different when it comes to money. Do you ever find yourself kind of going back into any of those habits and being like, what the fuck am I doing? Yeah. 1000%. I mean, I'm still someone who will, if I want a pair of really cute jeans, I'll check all of the retailers' websites, I'll check all of the department stores, I will check any sort of aggregator website. And then I will go on to Retail Me Not to try and find a discount code to see if there's an influencer who's got a code that I can use. And then by the way, I'm looking through all of my credit cards to figure out oh, are any of my credit cards offering me a bonus or like XYZ off if I spend so much money? I have now spent three and a half hours researching a pair of $150 jeans. And it's so funny because my husband caught me doing this one time. I was like mulling over a pair of jeans that were like $150. I kid you not three weeks. And he was like, I've done that. Why are you torturing yourself? The amount of time that you have now spent dedicated to trying to find the best deal on these jeans, which by the way, the maximum I could save is $150 if I got them free. Right. Realistically, I'm getting max 25% off. Yeah. He's like, I'll give you $30 to never talk about this again. Oh. $30 means I shouldn't have spent more than like 15 minutes thinking about this. And so I think valuing my own time and understanding that maybe I didn't get the absolute best deal of all deals because I treat every single purchase as if it's like the last garage sale to end all garage sales. I'm like, I'll give you a dollar for all of this. Um, I don't need to be doing that. Yeah. Because my time has value and I should be doing other things. What do you think that first generation women and even just immigrant women get wrong about money that nobody really talks about? Ooh, I would say first gen or immigrant women have been tricked into thinking that the harder they work, the more money they'll make. Yes. Maybe if I put my nose to the grindstone, my boss will notice me. No, no, babe. Like it is the talk about yourself competition. Yeah. I think we think that it is a meritocracy and it's not. Yeah. When we go into the workplace, we think that the better our output is, the more we should be paid at the end of the year. And that's actually not true. So the European Sociological Union did a study on intelligence, like IQ score and income. And they're correlated to a point. And that point, and they did this actually in, I want to say Sweden, where income inequality is actually much better. Like it's it's not as bad as it is in the US. So this is probably even worse in the US. But the rough uh equivalent of where intelligence and income start to diverge is 65 grand. Oh. After that point, people start keep making more money, but their IQ actually starts to drop. Oh. And so that is why every single job you've had, you thought your boss was less smart than you. This is true. I've had conversations with my mom, and we literally would say, Well, how did this person get this job? How did they mean? I had a boss, can I tell you? I had a boss, not gonna name names who, who would clip their fingernails at work and it made me want to peel my own skin off. I was like, How did this person get this job? Like you are a moron. And it turns out that person was the best at playing office politics. Yeah. They made sure the people who mattered liked them. They would tell people what they were gonna do, do a good job, and then tell everyone what they did. They had the receipts to back up their performance, even if it was not that good, they were able to prove it. And so what that taught me was that it doesn't matter what you do. It's more perception of what do people think you did. Exactly. And I I know with even with my own dad, you know, I'll I've I've been in jobs where he's like, well, they should be paying you more. You've worked really hard. Should you all doesn't matter? And right, but I I think for immigrant parents, I think that they, like you said, have this mentality of, you know, you work hard, you get paid more, you live this certain lifestyle, you do this. And I keep explaining to him that, like, you know, in this industry, this is what this looks like right now. And this is why I can't get more here or I won't get more here. This is what I need to do. And I think he's finally come to terms and been able to understand that, like, you know, it's not like I work my ass off and I'm dying and therefore I'm getting the money I deserve. It's just not that society anymore. So I do think that is a big thing that a lot of like immigrants and first generation people um still have. We we talked a little bit earlier about this HSBC uh report, the financial glow-up. And it said that the financial advice that women are getting has not kept pace with the complexity of women's actual lives. So, what is the industry missing about women? Why we're not getting this advice that we feel like matches our real lives? They did a study on 24,000 uh financial advisor and client interactions. And they found that essentially people who the financial advisors assumed to be less financially sophisticated were getting worse financial advice. Like they would get financial advice that more often than not sold them products that the bank created, meaning they were, you know, more churning more fees for the bank. And then on top of that, they were less likely to get fee reductions, which are oftentimes given to, you know, VIP clients or clients who are really sophisticated. And turns out women are not actually less sophisticated, but gender was being used as a proxy to determine who had financial literacy and who didn't. And so unfortunately, I think we have been, again, brainwashed by PR. Yeah. I don't know who is doing men's PR, but I want them. We would like to hire. Yeah. We are looking for a new PR agency of record. Our publicist has basically been going around and allowing the media to say things like, we are confessions of a shopaholic, we are two broke girls, we are in love with avocado toast and buying our lattes out every single day. We are irresponsible. We love to go to Sephora. All of these things, by the way, can be true. I just haven't seen any articles about men sports gambling or spending all their money on PS5s or masters tickets or Super Bowl tickets or any of the at-home like uh man cave gaming chair simulator, whatever the hell they're buying, which by the way, more expensive than my $20 lip gloss. But then what do we do in the situations where, you know, the the men are getting these kind of like passes for doing things? And maybe even in our relationships where we're like, okay, well, if I bought a $600 monitor, you would say I was the responsible, but you're buying a $600 monitor, and I actually want to you to not do that, maybe. Yeah. How do we even have those conversations in our relationships to kind of start to even things out so that we can even get the confidence to be like, well, we can spend money on things and maybe even walk into these meetings with our financial advisors feeling a bit more confident? Yeah, I would say it's really opening up that line of communication with your partner early and often. I told my now husband what I made about a month into us dating. And dating, I mean like first date, not even like we are exclusive. Like I had to because I moved into a roach-infested apartment, had to break my lease. That cost eight grand between me and my roommate. I had no savings left. I had to tell him I can't pay you rent, I can't like pay for vacation. I don't even know if I can pay for dinner tonight. Yeah. And he then told me what he made. We talked about our bonuses, we talked about whether or not we had debt, we talked about our investments, but it was all out on the table. We got fully financially naked. Yeah. And because of that, listen, me and my husband are a normal couple, we bicker, but we have never thought about money. Yeah. Because we haven't had to. We've had the conversation. And so if you have a partner at home who's making splurges without consulting you, especially if you guys have joint expenses that you pay for together, or maybe you are helping to financially support some of his ambitions. Like, you better say something. Yeah. You have now covered more rent. And for them to then be able to spend their money on a new monitor, like that came out of your pocket too. And so I would just say, be really on the same page. Me and my husband actually run by each other if we're going to make a purchase over $500. So it's like, you know, that way we know if the other person's comfortable with it. And it just makes me feel like we're always on the same page. No box shows up at the apartment and I'm like, what is this? Like, I shouldn't have to ask that question. Um, and so I just think that allows us to act as a team. It's us against the world, not you against me. Yeah. Um, and then back to the financial advisor of it all, I don't think everybody needs one. Yeah. I think if you have a very complicated financial situation, like you are someone who works out of multiple different states, or you own a small business, or you have multiple different income streams, like you're a freelancer and you might tour, whatever. Sure, a financial advisor might help make sense to manage cash flow and help do some of these things. But even if you make a lot of money, like if you're a high-powered attorney or a surgeon, your financial picture is actually really simple. You make a lot of money, maybe a million dollars a year as a heart surgeon, but you get paid from one place, probably the hospital where you work or the practice where you work. That's a W-2 job. It's not that complicated. You might be able to DIY your own investments or leverage a robo advisor, which will have less bias. And thus you are able to save on fees and still make really smart financial decisions for your future. Yeah. I think that's so smart too. And touching back on the relationship part, um, I think it's also important to have those conversations early. I like that you said that you on the first date, you were like, here's the money. Because it does get not the first date. The first date, I feel like we were still kind of coy about it, but like it was 30 days into our relationship because I had a financial emergency where I had to take all of my savings and spend it. And I felt very embarrassed. He was super understanding. And because we shared all of those financial details, I just felt like closer to him after. Yeah. I mean, I just I just moved in with my boyfriend and my mom said, Okay, so you're gonna be splitting bill that was in my name that I just transferred to the new apartment because it was already in my name. And I was like, Oh, like while we've talked about, we've talked about money and more and more, especially as this moving in process has has come in, we've put all of our financial cards on the table and said all of that, just even things like how you split bills is so important because at the end of the day, it comes down to your dollars and cents in your bank account. Um, and I think, I think a lot of women don't think about that till it's too late, and then they realize that they have different financial styles, and that kind of sucks. Speaking of that, another thing that a lot of uh women do when they're getting partnered is moving into a house. But is buying a home in 2026 still the American dream, still the thing that you want to either do by yourself, do with your partner? I know there's a lot of discourse in the ether about, you know, buying a home and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think buying a home, whether it's the American dream, it might be. Do I think it's always the best financial decision? Not necessarily. Can it be? Certainly. I feel like we have been told that if you don't buy a home, you're a loser, you're not financially successful, you'll never be wealthy. That's not true. Yeah. I know so many people now who actually don't own their primary homes and might have made real estate investments on investment properties. Yeah. I know people who are multi-multi-millionaires who rent. I know people who are very much into the idea of owning property, own multiple properties. These are all people who have figured out a style that works for them. For me, I would say if you are not going to be in one location living at that place for at least five to 10 years, the fixed closing costs and all of the frictional costs to buy a home probably don't make sense. Right. Also, you have to remember if you rent and your toilet explodes at 2 a.m., that's somebody else's problem. You call somebody, they come and fix it. They have to. Yeah. If you, you know, are uh if you are being harassed by your upstairs neighbor, you can literally just call the management in the building. Right. Whereas if you own your home, not only are you paying property taxes, but if anything breaks, that's your problem. Right. There are certain advantages, like the fact that your property has the opportunity to appreciate. Your property could be something that you're considering retiring in, which could be really nice for stability. Um, your property might even just be something that helps you ground, like as a person. And so there are advantages and disadvantages. There's no one size fits all for every single person. Would you recommend that a woman or anybody else that, you know, has come into money? And I always think of it as you have money now, like you're not really on the struggle bus anymore. It's not ramen. You Have a good job, you have an apartment, all of that is going well. Where do you actually begin in the next phase of your financial journey? I know for me, it was just putting that money in the 401k because you told me to in your book. Shameless vlog. You know, that has made all the difference for me because I said it and I forgot now when I look at it, I'm like, that $500 a month that I put aside, like I would have loved to have had that in my pocket. But now that I see what it's done and that they might come. The number looks big. 100%. So I got, so it's double. And I'm like, that's a that's a good bit of money and I feel so good. Well, where do where do women start? First and foremost, it's actually sitting down and understanding what you want. A woman who's like, I am ready to put down roots, live in this town forever, find a spouse, maybe start a family, is going to want very different things and have very different savings and investment goals than someone who's like, I'm trying to elbow my way into this new promotion at work that's going to transfer me to the London office. I'm ready to live out, you know, my uh London, like Taylor Swift London boy dreams. Like it's going to be amazing. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. What do you want out of life? Yeah. Do you plan on going back to school? Do you want to try and pivot your job? Is there something else that you want to be doing? That is going to help you one determine what you should be saving for, what you should be investing for. But also having different sinking funds for certain things is going to help you essentially earmark money for those different activities. So I have a sinking fund every single year for the winter holidays. Um, unfortunately, when you have articles written about you and how successful you are, people start to expect really, really good Christmas presents. Yeah. Like crazy gifts, let me tell you. I probably would. Um, so I have a Christmas fund. Great. I save that money every single year, like for Christmas. I have money for a potential car fund. I have money for maybe I want to upgrade my home fund. Um, maybe I want to buy a new home fund. I got to sell the current one that I have. There's funds for everything. I had a wedding fund, a big wedding fund, prior to me getting married. Um, that was a joint fund between me and my husband. Ask yourself, what are you trying to do in the next 12 months, two to three years, five years and 10 years? Yeah. That is the picture. Anything that is over 10 years, you got to be investing. Yeah. Stuff that you're gonna tap in the next 12 to 24 months, I would probably put in like a low risk, low reward investment opportunity, like a CD, certificate of deposit, um, because then you get to earn a little bit more interest. But that money is, again, still earmarked for these things that could pop up. And something in between those two allows you to kind of choose an investment product that might make sense for that time horizon. The reason why we do this is we want to maximize our money while it's sitting around waiting to be used, but also every dollar has to have a purpose. A little bit earlier, you talked about the shame that you had when, you know, you had this financial emergency, you kind of had nothing in the bank, you didn't even know if you could pay for dinner. And I think that's a shame that a lot of women feel. I know I've definitely felt it. I have definitely been in the place where you lower your uh brightness on your screen. Oh, that is to check the bank account before while you're at dinner or drinks to make sure that it is gonna go through. I think a lot of people can identify with that feeling and it doesn't feel good. Um, but now there's this new trend of like debt fluencing, they're calling it. So it's when people are posting their actual like numbers online, okay? It's like accountability content, okay, and like being very transparent about like what their finances are, like the whole internet. Well, that's what I was gonna ask. Is is how how do you feel about that and being openly transparent with it and even with your friends, or is it another way of just kind of performing? Because I feel like what are the habits behind that? Like, are you just telling us you're broke and why? Or like what are you doing? So, how do you feel about it? I actually like debt fluencing because I think it paints a more realistic picture for other people about what the average person is going through. I think we see so often on social media, every single one of our friends is in my nose over the summer. Yeah. Every single, like specifically my start. Yeah. We see so much of people dining out at all of the hottest, trendiest restaurants. We see them getting the facial, getting the nails done, getting the, you know, lymphatic drainage massage. I can't tell you the number of girls I have seen post on social media getting this lymphatic drainage, but I don't even know what that means. It looks really good though. Yeah, it does. Massaging all the nails. I don't. I don't even know. I'm ready to listen. All doing all this stuff. But that has set an unrealistic expectation of what a good life looks like. We have to remember nearly 50% of all people in America have credit card debt. Half. And you're telling me that some of these girlies that I'm seeing do all this stuff that I feel like I can't afford don't have credit card debt. Yeah. That would be crazy, actually, statistically unlikely. Yeah. And so I think that when people come out and say, hey, uh, for all of the great stuff you have seen on my page, just know that I am also feeling financial pressure. This is what I am not proud to show you. It's the it's the equivalent of the girl influencers that I love to follow, like uh Spencer Barbosa or Victoria Garrick Brown, who are like, hey, a girl's body who looks like this, and then they turn over and they scrunch and they're like, can also look like this. That is so reassuring to me to be like, am I the only one who looks like a little potbelly pig halfway through my vacation because I'm eating fries every day? Like, I am that is a normal body. Yeah. That is what a normal body looks like. And that same person can also pose and look unbelievable. And like I have those pics of me too. But like, I think it's really grounding to see what reality might be. And hearing other people have debt takes the shame out of having it. And so I really love that actually. We have been pretty direct about the fact who you end up with in life is one of your biggest financial decisions. And, you know, we've we've talked about this on the podcast, how that works. Um, what are the red flags that women sometimes miss financially uh because they're in love or in lust sometimes, I should say. Okay, so red flags for someone that you might be dating, starting to see. I would say first and foremost, no haters at home. I have dated men who saw my success and my achievements as a threat, as a personal indictment on them. And I'm sorry, but maybe you should just get your money up. Maybe you should just work a little harder. And I I jokingly say that, but your partner should be your number one cheerleader. My husband thinks the sun shines out of my butt. And I love that because I know that every single one of my wins is a win for him. Yeah. No one is prouder, no one is more supportive, no one has been a more conscientious partner than my husband. Right. And because of that, I have been able to take some monstrous swings at bat because I never had to ask myself, what happens if I strike out? Right. He said, Don't worry about it, you won't strike out. And I didn't strike out, I never did because he was my parachute. I always knew that if it didn't work out, he'd come and say, It's all right, we'll figure it out, no stress. I have been able to take bigger risks, win bigger, because I had a partner who didn't hate me. Yeah. And some of your partners, some of your boyfriends hate you. Some of your partners do not like you. Do not like you. Two, I would say, I don't want to be with somebody who feels the need to keep financial secrets. So I'm not gonna name names, but I know a guy who told me that he had a secret bank account that his wife didn't know about. My husband and I now call him secret bank account. Like that's his nickname. He's like saving your phone a secret bank account. No, like literally, literally, secret bank account. And it's so funny because I'm like, I am very much of a camp that like you should have your own money as an individual man, but so should your wife. You guys should have money that is yours together, hers and yours, like three categories. But the fact that you kept it a secret is weird. Like your wife should want you to have your own money, you should want your wife to have her own money, and then you should have money together that you use for joint expenses. And so I think anybody who's trying to keep a secret or tell a lie or even just white lie or it, you know, uh not share certain information, that's a red flag to me. Because if that was for any other category, whether it was fidelity or, you know, their friendships, you know, being friends with another guy that you don't like, or like if your partner lied to you about anything else, you would feel really, really weird about it. Money can't be an exception. Yeah. Do you feel the same is true for women having a secret account, given that, you know, the world is not set up for us? You know what I mean? Sometimes, and especially in relationships, I feel like we're taught you can, you know, you have your fuck you money. You can never be too careful, even if you're in the strongest relationship in the world, you have to have your, we call it your vex fund, your vex money to get out if you need to, like not planning for it, but just preparing just in case. Do you think that women on the flip side should have that secret account? I don't think it should be secret. I think your partner should know you have your own money and you have the agency to leave anytime that you want. Yeah. You should want to be in that relationship. You should want to stay. And they should be comfortable with you having that power and that agency. What Finfluencer advice that's currently going viral is actually gonna bankrupt people. You know, I get this question all the time of like what I don't like. And I think the one that I hate the most because I get the most questions about it, is people who are peddling life insurance, like it is the end all be all best investment product out there. Life insurance should not be positioned as an investment. Life insurance is life insurance. Yeah. The reason why people are oftentimes selling it as an investment is because there's typically two different types. There's term, which is like you, and then your family gets a little bit of money. Makes sense. That's a death benefit. Other types of life insurance, like whole life insurance, have the death benefit. I you get a little money, but also they have a cash benefit, which essentially a portion of cash starts to grow after you've paid premiums in for a certain amount of time. So over time, a little bit of a cash value grows and you can borrow against it, things like that. They call it infinite banking. The problem is this product actually makes no sense unless you already have a lot of other money. Right. Unless you already have a lot of other money being deployed into other investments. So for the average person, if you were to put your money into something like this instead of, oh, I don't know, the stock market, you actually wouldn't earn as much in gains and the cash value would pale in comparison versus the premiums you paid in. The premiums you pay into a policy like that could be 10x the amount that you pay into a term policy. Anyone who says anything is the best investment for everybody, those phrases don't work in finance. Like everybody, everyone, best. We don't use words like that, right? There's only best for you. Right. There is only what makes sense for your situation. And so I just find those scammers to be a little weird. Yeah. So your audience is also massive. So you have about 10 million people across platforms, which is incredible, which tells us that people are really interested in the glow up and interested in making their finances better. I didn't realize there were so many finance nerds out there. I love that. But even it's not even the nerds though. It's people that genuinely just want the best out of their life. And it's hard. We don't know where to begin sometimes. We are, you know, like as we've mentioned in the beginning, women are about to inherit all of this wealth. And it's like we want to know what to do with it. Cause as women, we are women. Like we're, I even don't know how to say it better, but we're we're interested in making sure that whatever we comes to us grows and is abundant and is to the best of our ability. So I think it's just people also just very curious. Um, but you know, consuming the financial content and then changing your behavior are two completely different things. That's the thing that I've had the most trouble with. I, like many women, followed you and some other financial influencers for years before I did anything with the information. Um, what's what's that first kind of step or the difference between consuming the financial content and actually getting in the mindset to actually do something about it? Yeah, I'm gonna need you guys to stop just hitting that little save button and thinking you're gonna go watch the video. You're not going to watch it later. Like you actually need Especially if you have ADHD. Yeah, like you need to get an accountability buddy. This is something that I did when I was trying to get right for my wedding. I told my friend, I was like, this is what my body comp needs to look like. I need to be all muscle. I'm gonna be shredded for my wedding. And I told her that's what I wanted. And then she would text me and be like, So you hit the gym today? Like, where are the weights at? Where's the Peloton at? I'm like, okay, okay. She now knows that I have this goal. She's keeping me accountable in the same way that I think having a friend that you go on your financial journey together with, especially if there's an end goal, yeah, like our trip to Mikanos, um, that gives you something to work towards, but also something that you can do as a team project. Yeah. So if both of us are going to open up high yield savings accounts, both of us are going to ask for raises at work, both of us are going to start investing, both of us are going to start a sinking fund for our vacation. And maybe even better, it's a joint sinking fund where we agree to put in the same amount every single month. And that way, by the time we're ready to go book the trip, we can split the hotel room, we can split all these costs. You know, I think having a friend do something with you is just so much easier. And they did a study on this. They had people go to the base of like a mountain and people who stood next to a friend felt like the slope of the mountain was less aggressive than people who stood alone. And I think that just says it's literally a perfect example of it is easier to go far when we go together. Exactly. I love that. What's the smallest change that someone can make this week? So they've listened to this episode and they're like, oh shit, I'm gonna get my financials right. And if this is the 15th time that you've said it to yourself, that's also fine, but you're gonna now do something. What's that one small thing? I would say switch from a traditional brick and mortar savings account, a traditional brick and mortar bank, to a high yield savings account. So I'm willing to gander that most people listening to this like got their bank account the same way I did. It was the first day of college orientation. We all went to the gym and all of the community business the boots, yeah. The boots. So there were so many boots. That's exactly what I did. And so this is where you would sign up for the different student organizations, you would sign up for whatever. There was a bank on campus, one of the major banks, and they basically said, if you open an account with us and promise to bank with us for the rest of your entire life, we will give you a frisbee. And I was like, maybe $50 in the account. And maybe that was the incentive. And I was like, hand over the frisbee right now. I'm in. And the problem is, is we got very used to the bank's bad behavior. The FDIC national average for a traditional savings account right now is 0.38%. So you put $100 in at the beginning of the year. At the end of the year, you have $100 and 38 cents. Yeah. What are you buying with 38 cents? Nothing. Nothing. They don't even give you the cents anymore. Yeah. They round it down. Whereas in a high yield savings account, right now, you could be earning anywhere between three and four percent in annual interest. So you put in $100 at the beginning of the year. At the end of the year, let's say you have three and a half extra dollars. Listen, it's still three and a half dollars, way better than 38 cents. Yeah. And imagine the more money you put into that savings account, that number ratchets up, you know, it's coordinated. It continues to grow. And so what I would say is why not earn more from the money that you're already parking at the bank for your rainy day fund? Because when you put your money into a bank, it's not just sitting there. They are lending it out. Yeah. Like you know what mortgage rates are right now, six, seven percent. You know what credit card rates are, 20 to 30%. Yeah. If the bank is making money on your money, don't you deserve to earn something for it too? Yeah. And if you do think about it, I mean, if you look at just even that $3.80, if you were doing that per week, if you were getting that on top of your money for a week per week, because that's what you're putting in. I mean, that is part of your grocery at Trader Joe's, like a bag of that chicken that you like that's gonna feed you for a week. And that's not something to sneeze at, especially if you're on your financial journey. So um, that is a very good point. I want to close with people who are kind of in on the opposite spectrum. So on the financial struggle and maybe never taking their finances super seriously. Um, what do you say to those people? It's never too late to start. I think you're never too young or too old to do something to change your life. I am someone who's on my third do-over, and I think people forget that. They're like, wow, like Vivian is very successful. She's lecturing at us. No. Vivian had one idea. I thought I was gonna work on Wall Street forever, I was gonna climb the corporate ladder, and maybe one day I would be the head of a desk. That shit didn't pan out. Okay. I left, I went to BuzzFeed. Then I thought I was gonna work in media. I was crushing it. I made a bunch of money, I made a bunch of friends. And guess what? I quit my job to take my little internet side hustle full time. I was a little internet girl. And now suddenly, on top of being just a social media creator, I have two books. I have pod a podcast. I I mean, uh my first book got licensed by Amazon. It's in a development deal right now. Like I have nine lives, and I think everybody deserves to have nine lives too. So if you feel like you've made a bunch of mistakes, if you feel like you're behind, don't. We are all on our own journeys. You can always start over and you can start tomorrow. Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much. We have a quick fill-in-the-blank that we would love for you to do. The financial glow-up is not about showing other people how much money you have. The money conversation women need to have but aren't having is how much we're making and telling our friends. The most financially dangerous thing a woman can do is give up her own power to anybody else. I knew I'd made it when. I knew I made it when my mom sent me one of my own videos off of Red Note, and someone had stolen my YouTube video to sell English language courses. And she was like, Vivian, I'm so proud of you. Someone is, you know, using your videos and they're saying your English is really good. And I was like, No, no, no, mom, this is bad. I have to call my lawyer now. But but she said my face was all over Chinese social media and she loved it. She loved it. And that's how I love that. That's how you knew. The one thing I wish financial advisors would stop telling women is the one thing that I think financial advisors need to stop telling women is that they have to essentially be more conservative. I think oftentimes women are naturally less risk tolerant, but we should actually look at the facts that we are starting to out-earn our male peers. We're all getting more educated. We are outliving those partners. Like we have the same risk tolerance as a guy our age, frankly, a little bit more. And I just think that we should be treated with the same level of expertise, the same level of rigor as our counterparts. Love it. Thank you so much. One quick last thing we have flags, a red flag, green flag. Let's do it. If you want to play it, we'll do it. I love a game. You let your partner handle most of the financial decisions because you think they're better at money than you. Nah. Oh. You plan to start investing next year. No. Because you will get paralysis by analysis and you're like, oh, I'll do it next week, next month, next year, and then you'll never do it. And then five years later, you'll have missed out on five years of gains. Yeah. You check your bank account every single day. I think if I'm honest, and especially for an investment portfolio, if you're checking every day during a downturn, you might hurt your own feelings. I'm not saying don't check it, but I would check it more consistently, regularly, like once a month. Okay, cool. You are selecting a financial advisor based on your values. Yeah, 100%. We want to make sure that we put our money where our mouth is. You have a separate account that nobody else knows about. I think that's fine if you're single. If you have a partner, I think it's worth having the conversation. I don't think they need to know the login. I don't think they need to even know what financial institution it's at. It can be yours, but you don't need to hide it. Yeah. You learned everything you know about money from your parents. Come on. Come on. Uh, our parents destroyed the economy and then we inherited a much worse world. Uh, I genuinely believe that they were living in a different reality. They were. You need to actually understand money in today's day and age. You did a debt consolidation. Oh, I love a debt consolidation because you pay your debt off faster and you pay less in interest. You invest 100% of your inheritance. Okay, so they both went up. Here's why. I think if you are investing 100% of your inheritance, That is smart. It's financially responsible. It could be great. But the reason why the red flag also went up is you inherited that money because someone out there in the world really loved you. And they probably wanted you to enjoy that money just a little bit. So I would say when you come into a big windfall of money, maybe do something responsible with 95% of it, but also set aside 5% to make sure that like you are living life, you are joyous, you feel happiness because somebody wanted you to have that. I love that. You didn't contribute to your 401k because your company doesn't match. Whether or not your company matches, putting your money into a tax advantage retirement account helps you legally avoid taxes. So I would still do it. Yeah. Okay. You keep a balance on your credit cards. I have heard that people are like, you should roll a tiny balance to keep your credit score high. No. Oh no, babe. Okay. Just keep that at zero. Pay it off in full on time every month. And I don't want to come off as tone deaf. If you are putting charges on your credit card because you need to get food for your kids, that is one conversation. Do what you need to do. I'm not here to point fingers and make you feel bad. However, if you are putting the newest craze, laboo boo, whatever, I don't even know. What are the kids buying these days? We don't know. If you're putting like discretionary expenses and you cannot afford to pay them off in full on time every single month, you need to have a very deep, dark conversation with yourself as to why you're overspending. Yeah. And I think some people genuinely think, I mean, I just thought it a while ago that you're supposed to keep like a little balance on your cards to keep your debt to credit. It's not worth helping. It's not worth to do it. You have turned down a job opportunity because of financial fear. We have to remember that every single job you have, you should be learning or earning. And in some cases, you have to take a step back to take more steps forward. Um, when I left JP Morgan and moved to BuzzFeed, I took a pay cut. And I was very worried about that. I was like, ooh, I don't love stepping back on that. Within three years' time, I was making more than what I would have made had I stayed. So the last one is you're better at managing everyone else's money than your own. That's on behalf of all the first daughters everywhere. I would say, here's the thing. I got both flags up. Here's why. I think it's great that you are better at managing other people's money because it tells me you know inherently what you should be doing in theory. If you are better at helping other people to do it than doing it yourself, that becomes a conversation of do you not have the right systems in place personally? Is there some sort of discipline issue that we can work around by automation? So you don't have to think about it. But I will say that like avoiding your own money problems, but trying to help other people, like that doesn't necessarily get you that far. You actually need to make sure that your situation is good as well. Cause, you know, we put on our own oxygen masks before helping others. Well, thank you so much. And thank you for being here today. I think my takeaway from all this is it's just not too late to start and it's not too late to start from scratch, and it's not too late to start in the middle of your journey. So I knew that like again, there are a lot of people who have made it in a way. They have money and it's kind of like, okay, well, what do I do with it now? Or they're midway through the conversation and they're like, well, how do I start? And there's people that have no clue. But I think my big takeaway is like, you know, start today and be conscious of the decisions that you're making when it comes to your money. So thank you so much. And of course, you can find Vivian on the internet, your rich BFF, her books, Well Endowed and Rich AF are on the internet. Find them. Audiobook is also read by her, which I personally Yeah, I do loses, of course, naturally. Thank you for tuning into Broadlines. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Broadlines, a production of the female quotient filmed in Los Angeles. If you liked this episode, and I know you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe. If you have a question, maybe a work question, or you have an idea for an episode, DM us at female quotient or leave a comment to get the conversation started. Hit that follow button while you're there. See you next week.