← Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
Well Endowed LIVE: Why “Financially Naked” Couples Build More Wealth!
00:35:53
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- [00:00]
A
I moved into an apartment downtown. It was beautiful. And I found out one weekend in that there was an infestation of German cockroaches. Why do I mention it?
- [00:09]
B
Oh, specifically German.
- [00:10]
A
Specifically German. I had been dating my now husband for 30 days and I'm like, can I spend the night at your place? And then I spent the night at his place for three weeks. And I was like, listen, I'm about to spend $8,000 with my roommate to break our lease. And that was 100% of the money I had in my savings. Control alt deleted.
- [00:37]
B
How are we doing tonight?
- [00:39]
A
All right.
- [00:41]
B
Oh, Vivian, thank you so much for having me. And thank you for asking me to do this. Listen, I know y' all are all huge fans of Vivian's, but I am such a nerd. I nerded out, okay, when I found her on the Interwebs like a couple years ago. And I know you all did too, and you love her books. And we're so excited tonight to be in a conversation about your new book about just fat, juicy, gorgeous, well endowed wallets and that is. I am just so thrilled to talk to you about all things finance. Cause I pick her brain all the time. I'll DM her and be like, is this a good investment? She's like, that's insider trading. I can't tell you. But I know y' all are just burning with questions as well. So I'm gonna stick to a couple questions that I have and then we're gonna open it up to anybody who has anything you wanna ask. Okay. The floor is yours. But let's. Okay, so in well endowed, you emphasize being smart with money and wise with money. Tell us the difference and why. It is so important to know the difference of the two.
- [01:37]
C
Port for the show comes from Walmart. Right now, Walmart's dropping prices all over with thousands of rollbacks and more on items across their app and in stores. Items like TVs and mattresses. Because the only thing better than laying in bed watching TV is laying in that bed and watching that TV that you know you got at a great price. That's one way to sleep better at night. You can shop these amazing price drops on the Walmart app online and in stores right now.
- [02:04]
A
Yeah, I think being smart with your money is the basic stuff, right? It's following the rules. It's the really simple cut and dry, like white and black. Easy to determine what is the right answer thing to do. And we do this all the time, right? We Google what is the right answer to this Question. And I talked a lot about this in my first book, Rich AF of this is how you budget. This is how you say, this is how you invest. But being wise with your money is really what well endowed covers. It's all those really uncomfortable gray moments of yes, I would like to go to my friend's bachelorette, but this is the seventh wedding that I have been invited to this year and I cannot spend another $2,500 to, to go to Nashville and drink out of the same little penis straws. And like I, I can't do the, the, the pizza tour where we all.
- [02:54]
B
Those should be banned. We all know that those are banned. Why am I biking to drink?
- [02:58]
A
I don't like this. Yes. And it's so silly, but these conversations around the really important moments in your life. So whether it's buying those big purchases, the home, the car insurance, whether it's talking to someone who you might want to make your life partner forever and then maybe having it not work out, it's about maybe you want to have the next generation. Maybe you want to just have a really fun time today and then not completely regret it when you're supposed to be retiring. These are all the moments where the wisdom really comes in.
- [03:30]
B
The wisdom. I like that. And I think one thing that we both agree on is like working smarter, not harder. Right. And I feel like this book is really great at explaining things. And I said this earlier to you this morning.
- [03:40]
C
Yeah.
- [03:41]
A
She.
- [03:41]
B
I feel like you're really great at making things digestible. Like I did not understand insurance. Health insurance makes no sense. What's a ppo? What's an hmo? And you have a whole chapter about breaking down and what to ask for and how to utilize these tools for good and not evil. And we love that.
- [03:56]
A
Yeah. Because guess what I hate the fact that we are literally just listing three digit letters. Hmo, ppo, epo, hdhp, hsa, fsa. What does any of that mean? And why did we label them these things? I think so often finance communities put so much jargon in place to make people like you and me feel really stupid because I wasn't born to parents who had this knowledge. My parents are immigrants. If you read the dedication, the book is dedicated to them. They never ever felt rich a day in their life until I basically told them last year that like I could retire them. Which by the way, I am. My parents retirement plan. Yeah, no, don't clap. They should have been.
- [04:43]
B
Everyone in this room, their parents retirement plan. And you got a boomer parent. They're like, you paying for that? You're picking up the bill.
- [04:50]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I just think it's so annoying that all of us have to feel like financial literacy is out of touch just because we don't speak the language. It's not that complicated. This is not calculus. This is like seventh grade algebra. I think everybody is smart enough to get it. We just have to start getting the dictionary of what these terms mean and breaking it down.
- [05:12]
B
I love that you discuss how marketing and consumerism influence our perception of value.
- [05:19]
A
Evil.
- [05:20]
B
Evil, yeah.
- [05:21]
A
Okay.
- [05:22]
B
Break it down for a sister.
- [05:23]
A
Okay, so in my past life, I worked at buzzfeed, and my buzzfeed co workers, by the way, are sitting here and they're like, oh, tell them the evil we did. So basically, I worked in digital media strategy sales, which is just a really fancy way of saying I made the Internet a worse place. I was putting ads on the Internet. And something that I would turn and work with my team to do is actually say, hey, I don't want to just reach everybody. I want to reach specifically Latino Americans who are heads of household, by the way. They specifically like Charmin toilet paper and they're left handed. And, you know, I'm, you know, making a little bit of a joke out of it. But the targeting on you now is so specific. We can get that data on you based off of the content you're consuming, your past search history. And on every page that you go to, just envision this, you go and you see the most beautiful pair of leather boots. And you're so excited for these shoes, but they're really pricey. And you're like, you know what, let me take a beat. Let me try to figure out if this is actually a good idea or not. And then you close the webpage, you go, you make lunch, you come back, you open up Instagram. The boots, they're in your feed. Okay, well, I got to read evil. And then later you're like, oh, that's a really interesting headline article about Justin Bieber. Let me go read that on some website. The boots, they're back. The ad is right there. Before I can read the Justin Bieber article, I have to click past the boots. You start to think that it is divine intervention for you to have these. No, no, no. I am the divine intervention. I am the one who wants you to buy the boots so that my company gets paid for advertising them to you. And so I think that we need to work on general media literacy as a part of consumerism. But because if you don't have that. You don't understand what the incentives are to show you and make you buy stuff versus you actually wanting it or someone like me deciding that you should have it.
- [07:30]
B
How do you think social media has changed our, like, the way we think about money and how we spend it and. Cause I mean, obviously this ties into it too. Cause, I mean, I'll be on the Instagram. I mean, the amount of. The amount of shit I've bought off TikTok is insane, right? Insane.
- [07:45]
A
Yeah.
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B
My husband's like another box from TikTok and Instagram. Like, you betcha.
- [07:49]
A
Oh, my gosh, it's. It's so insidious. And again, to answer this evil, I always joke about keeping up with the Joneses. My parents, your parents, they probably looked across their, you know, front window to their neighbors and were like, oh, my God, the Joneses, they got a brand new flat screen TV or, oh, they got a new car. But their perception was limited to a neighborhood that they could already get into. Everybody in that neighborhood, whether it was the biggest house in the neighborhood or the smallest house in the neighborhood, was in roughly the same tax bracket. Now, though, I can see the inside of a Kardashian jet, I have no business knowing what the inside of a private jet looks like because I don't have private jet money. And I think if you start being exposed to these things so constantly, I'm going to name a couple just tropes, right? Private islands for vacations. Oh, by the way, you are constantly getting, you know, physical beauty treatments done. You have to have a Birkin bag. You have to have one of those fancy Rolex watches. You have to have, you have to have, you have to have, you have to have. You start looking at your own life and you think you have a bad life in comparison. I'm telling you right now, you don't need a jet to be happy. You don't need a private island to be happy. And frankly, a lot of the people who have those things are weird, but also maybe they're not happy. And I feel like for us, comparison really is the thief of joy. And while social media has been such an incredible tool to give a democratization of knowledge, it has also opened your eyes to every single thing that you don't have. Versus reminding you to look at yourself and appreciate the things that you do.
- [09:37]
B
Amen. You talk about in the book, you know, navigating relationships, whether they be with family or they're with friends or specifically your spouse or your future partner, and you talk about getting financially naked, which sounds taboo, but can you break down what it means to just drop trow and show your bank account to your partner? I mean, walk us through the steps of how to really go into a relationship and a partnership with one foot in the right direction by getting financially naked?
- [10:04]
A
Yeah. Okay, so I'll tell you a terrible story, but then hopefully you'll learn a good lesson. The terrible story is that When I was 23 or 24, I moved into an apartment downtown in Nolita. It was a walk up, it was beautiful. I suddenly thought I was going to live out my friend's sex in the city dream. Okay. And I had moved from midtown. You know, I was literally living next to a law firm. Like, it was oppressive. I was so excited to be a downtown cool girl. And I moved in and I found out one weekend in that there was an infestation. Look at every single New Yorker in this room's face just go. Infestation of German cockroaches. Why do I mention it?
- [10:47]
B
Oh, specifically German. Specifically German. Didn't know it was that niche.
- [10:51]
A
Let me tell you why this is important. Because the really big cockroaches that you see are American cockroaches and they do not breed as quickly. A German cockroach, however, is. Is very small. But if you find one, go ahead and assume there are 30,000 of them in the walls.
- [11:08]
B
No.
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A
And I move into this roach infested apartment. By the way, one of them dies in my ice tray. Ice tray. How did it even get in there? How? And I basically immediately burned the place down. I tried, I thought about it, I took a weekend or bag. And I had been dating my now husband for 30 days. And I'm like, can I spend the night at your place? And then I spent the night at his place for three weeks. And at a certain point, I had to tell him what was going on. And I was like, listen, I'm about to spend $8,000 with my roommate to break our lease. And that was 100% of the money I had in my savings my entire first year of working on Wall street, just, you know, gutting it out day in, day out. It was just control alt deleted. And I had to tell my then hus. My then boyfriend, that I didn't have any money to pay him for staying at his apartment for a full month. That I really wasn't going to be able to go on any nice dates and pay for my half of them. I wasn't even sure how I was going to afford new furniture or like, anything. And I was so embarrassed. It wasn't my fault, but it felt like I should be ashamed for being gross and dirty and just covered in cockroaches. And I was so sad. And I thought that he was gonna, like, make fun of me. I don't know why I thought all these things. He was so kind, and he said, listen, I never expected you to pay rent, but since we're sharing, I told him. I told him exactly how much I made, how little money I had, and that I couldn't do any of this stuff. And he was like, okay, well, this is how much I make, so don't worry about it. We can still go to dinner. And almost nine years later. He's my husband now, but we had to get financially naked 30 days into dating each other. And while I don't encourage everyone to do it 30 days into dating anybody, I do think getting financially naked with someone is a really great way to make sure that you are on the same page about money. I'm not saying you have to date someone who is super rich. You don't have to date someone who is debt free. You don't have to date someone who has a trust fund coming. But you do have to date someone who values a dollar the same way you do. And when you do that and you get on the same page, you really get to eliminate one of the top two reasons couples fight, which are intimacy and money. Now imagine you can eliminate half of those.
- [13:41]
B
He's like, I'll cover your rent now, but then later on, you have to name a book after. After my penis. Yeah. That's why it's well down. Obviously, that was the deal. He's like, you got to let everybody know.
- [13:51]
A
You got to let everybody know. Yeah. Okay, you caught me.
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, you got me.
- [13:55]
A
Okay.
- [13:56]
B
You know, you talk about a partnership, specifically, like, running it like a business. And I. And I love that because I told my husband one day I was mad at him about money, about something. I was like, this is, you know, this is a boardroom, and right now you're about to get kicked off the board because you're not carrying your weight. Can you tell the audience a little bit? Build that out a little bit more of why relationships. You have to treat them like a business partnership, not just a romantic partnership.
- [14:19]
A
Yeah. Everybody loves to say that love and care and whatever is enough.
- [14:25]
B
Ew. Yeah.
- [14:26]
A
It's not okay. The divorce rate is what it is because of a lot of things. But I do think a big part of that is because people don't treat their relationships like a business Hi friends.
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C
Quick pause in our show to take a question from my besties in phone a friend presented by Walmart Jamie asks How do I make the most of a savings event?
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A
Great question.
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C
Here are a few things to keep in mind when searching for good deals actually worth your money.
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A
1.
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C
Start with your foundation first. Before diving into any deals event, you need to have a clear spending plan. 2. Pay full price for things that cost more to fix later. If buying cheap means you'll need to replace it soon, invest upfront. Think quality mattress. This affects your health and productivity for your work, a reliable car or professional services for things that matter to you personally. 3. Set your limits before the excitement hits and decide exactly how much you can spend without touching your emergency fund or derailing other financial goals. Many people in similar situations find success by creating a separate deals fund. Maybe 200 to $500 depending on what you can comfortably afford for. Hunt for discounts on consumables and replaceable items. Anything you'll use up or that doesn't have long term consequences if it's not perfect. 5. Consider your cost per use calculation. If you'll use something daily for years, paying full price for quality makes sense.
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A
6.
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C
Your personal values should guide the splurge decisions. Spend full price on things that align with what truly matters to you, whether that's supporting certain brands, investing in your health or buying tools that help your business grow. The takeaway here is to invest big for long term purchases, but look for the sale on more temporary items. Now back to our show. Support for the show comes from Walmart. You already know Walmart has low prices,
- [16:18]
A
but what if they were to go even lower?
- [16:21]
C
It's time to talk about their rollbacks. Right now Walmart's got thousands of rollbacks and more on items that have been sitting on wish lists for months.
- [16:29]
A
You know the ones I'm talking about?
- [16:31]
C
Those items you keep bookmarked and every few days you check back in just
- [16:34]
A
waiting for the price to drop.
- [16:36]
C
Things like that Robo vacuum.
- [16:38]
A
You've probably thought about it, you debated
- [16:40]
C
it, but now it's at a price where you can feel great making your robovac dreams come true. Say goodbye to the dust bunnies while you sit back and think about how much you saved. From tech to home to anything at all. You name it, Walmart's got it for way, way less. You can start saving and shop these amazing rollbacks and more right now on the Walmart app online and in stores. And seriously, those little robot vacuums Need a loving home.
- [17:06]
A
When I go into business with anybody, there is a very clear division of labor. There is a very clear how are both of us going to be compensated? What are we both getting out of this? And what happens if things don't go right, right there. There are literally in my employment contracts that I have people on my team sign, it's like, these are the reasons why you could potentially be fired. This is what you are entitled to if you are fired. Da, da da, da. Fortunately, I haven't had to fire anybody, but it's all written out just in case, in the same exact way we should be treating our relationships like this because then it is so cut and dry. But when you leave it all up to chance, you guys may not be on the same page about what you're getting into. And I truly believe that every single person in this room, I hope, needs to have a prenup.
- [18:00]
B
Period.
- [18:00]
A
Period. That's the other sounds actually just get
- [18:02]
B
a prenup, full stop.
- [18:03]
A
Yeah. Because if you don't write one yourself with an attorney, each of you gets an attorney, the state gets to write it. And I don't care where you sit on the political spectrum, you can't possibly trust the government more than you trust this person that you are getting into bed with every single night. I hope not at least. And so if you want to dictate the terms of your life, of your marriage, you need to be writing it yourself. In the same way that you buy car insurance, you buy health insurance, you don't plan on getting sick, you don't plan on getting in wreck, you have to have marriage insurance.
- [18:38]
B
Marriage insurance. I love that. You know, you also talk about investing, obviously and, but you talk about very important type of investing. Investing in yourself, investing in health and self care and joy. How do you balance what you spend on investing in yourself and the other financial obligations that you have? Walk us through that balance.
- [18:58]
A
Yeah, I love to think through how can I be as happy as possible today, but still when I'm 60, 65, I hope you and I are competing for whoever has the best golf score in Naples, Florida. Right. And you don't get to do that unless you've planned for it. So I think one of the easiest budgeting strategies I encourage everybody to try is super simple finger to the wind. It's just called the 50, 30, 20 method. You allocate 50% of your after tax take home pay to needs. So this is baseline food, your rent, things like that, 30% towards wants. So this is getting your nails done. Going out to eat all of the nice stuff in life, that's gives it meaning. And I don't think you should cut all of those things out because once you take the joy out of this process, it becomes a yo yo diet. Right? You go full cold turkey, you live the super austere life. Same with dry January. What happens February 1st? You're throwing a party at your house and then the last 20%. I really encourage people to take care of future you. So this is saving, paying down your debt and investing for the future. Because no one else is going to take care of you the way that you can. And also you need to take care of yourself because you love the people in your life. It should not be your child's obligation. This is not specifically directed at my parents, but it should not be your child's obligation to care for you in retirement. If they can, if they would like to. That is a testament to your relationship. I think that's a wonderful thing. But you taking care of yourself for them is the greatest gift that you
- [20:35]
B
can give and not just taking care of them and like, you know, as they, they age. But I think that we all find, because I'm a, I'm a millennial, like having to force our parents a little bit to like take care of yourself.
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A
They're my kids now.
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B
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So I have a 78 year old toddler from Boston who drinks a lot of wine and runs around my house. And I'd be like, go to the doctor.
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A
Right.
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B
Like you have to be on it. And I think our generation is really starting. I mean, you know, the pendulum swings both ways. Like eventually we'll take self care, the we'll all become robots. But really is hard dealing with those relationships with your loved ones being like, we're all investing in ourselves because if we don't, then it's somebody else's burden down the road.
- [21:09]
A
Exactly, exactly. And you know, like, let me see your blood work panel from your physical because I feel like you lied to me about your cholesterol.
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B
They always lie about the cholesterol.
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A
1,000%.
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B
I want to read this off the card just so I make sure I don't misquote you. But you redefine retirement as a stage where working for money becomes optional. So how can readers start planning for this stage no matter their current financial situation?
- [21:34]
A
So I think we have to talk about the reframe first. Right. So a lot of people imagine retirement is you quit cold turkey, you never work again, you wake up, you go to bridge club, you take a long walk around. Like, it's like, so lame. Like, that's not what I want for my retirement. I want my retirement to be really fun. And I talk about this in the book, but I moved into this building in Florida and all of my neighbors were retirees. They were all older than me. Like, my best friend's name is Susan. She has daughters that are my age, if not a little older. And I realized that these retirees had a jam packed schedule. Like they were volunteering, they were going to the Pilates class, they were going for that long walk. They were playing tennis. But also, there was a guy that I met on the treadmill. Yes, I know all of my friends are like 80 now, but he was still driving in from the Miami beach to Miami proper to check in on all of his commercial real estate every single day. And I was like, you want to fight traffic there and back during rush hour to do this? Like, why? Because if I was you, I'd be chilling. And, you know, I think it gave him a sense of purpose. And that's what I want for all of you in your retirement. Retirement doesn't mean you do nothing. It just means you get to decide what you want to do based solely on joy and. And satisfaction versus I need to do this for money. My nightmare is getting served one of those TikToks about like an elder doing doordash. It makes me sick. I like. And then they put the sad music behind it and I'm like, I'm done. I'm cooked. But, like, I don't want you to have to do stuff ever again. I want you to get to do stuff.
- [23:19]
B
Yeah. Get it. It's really taking the power back and having the choices. Yeah, speaking of choices, you talk about that FU number hard pivot.
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A
Can you expl.
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B
What is it and why is it so important to your financial future?
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A
Yeah, it's so funny. I actually had Heather calculate her FU number earlier. It's a huge number. It's huge.
- [23:41]
B
I was a little confused, but yeah, I'd rather have more than less.
- [23:44]
A
Yes, fair. Fair for fair. So I think it's really good for framing your retirement around your FU number, which is the amount of money you would need to be able to kick over your desk and tell your boss f you. And the reason why this is a powerful number is because it essentially backs into how much you would need to have invested, earning you a return to have that amount of money completely replace your labor income. So everybody just close your eyes for a second. Imagine your perfect year. You get to live where you live, wherever you want to live. You get to travel, you get to support whoever you want to support. So that may include kids, that may include your parents, it may include a pet, it may include a spouse. You get to buy the things you want to buy. I encourage you not to envision a lime green Lamborghini, but you know, be mindful of your thoughts, but imagine what your perfect year would cost. Now open your eyes. And this part is so funny. My calculus teacher in high school was like, you're not going to have a calculator in your pocket at all times. We all have iPhones now. We all have phones that can do this. But basically you take that number, you just thought of how much money you would need to live your perfect year, and you divide by 0.04. That is representative of 4% right now. 4% you can get from a high yield savings account, you can get from basically a risk free return. And more likely you'll probably get somewhere between 8 to 10% per year on average if you're invested in the S&P 500. What this does it. It will calculate a number that once you have that invested, you will never have to work for money ever again. Your investments will have replaced the money you make from labor, and then you can just live your life. But for me, I actually like to calculate this three ways. There's a bare bones version, there's a regular version, and then there's like the I've moved to Bora Bora, I have deleted my Instagram please do not contact me version. And if I never get there, I'll still have had a beautiful, wonderful life. But why I like to do this calculation is this is the pivot. You start to think about money very differently once you start getting closer to your bare bones number where your investments are starting to replace your labor income. You no longer have to say yes to that really annoying job relocation that you don't actually want to do, but are terrified that your career will stall if you don't take. You don't have to be going above and beyond and staying late and breaking your back to try and earn extra $10,000 a year. You don't have to be doing that. You can do that if you still love it, if you want, if that's something that's really important to yourself and your person. But again, you don't have to do anything. You get to do those things. And now money is not the factor that you're valuing, it's your time Speaking
- [26:45]
B
of time, we're always getting. I'm sure you get pulled in a lot of different directions with your loved ones. And I'm sure you've gotten a couple phone calls from some, you know, cousins maybe you didn't know you had. And they're like, hey, Viv, I need. Need 20. 20 grand.
- [26:58]
A
I gotta pick really quick. Yeah, a small business loan.
- [27:00]
B
Yeah, small business loan. You mentioned the three Cs to consider when you're gonna give money to a loved one. And I just wanna read these out. Convenience, comfort and consumerism. Can you explain this?
- [27:11]
A
Yeah. So when you're actually thinking about lending money to your family, full stop, don't do it. You don't loan money to family, ever. You only gift. Because with gifting, one, you can set an annual budget for it, and once you hit the budget, you're done. But two, then there is no resentment from your end because I'm going to promise you, you're not seeing that money ever again. Now back to our three Cs. Okay,
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B
you said that was such conviction. Okay, so I'm not going to.
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A
You're never going to. Cool. Uncle Tony's restaurant is not taking off. It's not taking off.
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B
Okay, so how are. Break the down. Break down the gifting.
- [27:53]
A
Yes. Okay, so convenience, comfort, consumerism. If the person is asking you for money for any of these three reasons, convenience, they are. They just couldn't be bothered to do something themselves. They couldn't be bothered to apply for some sort of grant and they just want to take the easy way out. That's strike one. Comfort is, is this actually going to make a meaningful improvement in this person's life or is it just going to make them more comfortable? Because then my question to you is, why not just make yourself more comfortable? That's two. And then consumerism, is this something that they're buying just to buy and they want to show off? Because when I tell you family at some point will come to you for a legitimate reason and you are going to want to give money to them. I know someone in my life, her sister was actually in a violent relationship and she needed money to get on her feet. And so that friend gave her, frankly, a large sum of money to get her out. That is not consumerism. That is not comfort, and that is not convenience. That is important. And that was a great reason to give money to family. Maybe you have a parent that is sick, needs some sort of medical procedure. That is not convenience, comfort or consumerism. You want to help them. But if Uncle Tony Needs a new Mustang. Does he need it?
- [29:25]
B
Does he need it?
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A
He doesn't need it.
- [29:27]
B
Do kids need allowance? What are your thoughts on that? What's your take on giving kids allowance or paying them for chores and things that they're doing around the house?
- [29:35]
A
Yeah, I think that you can give your kids an allowance. However, it can't be for the bare minimum. Okay. So, like, it's so funny because I grew up in an immigrant Chinese home, and I found out that some of my white peers were getting an allowance for getting A's on their report card. If I didn't bring home all A's on my report card, I was dead. I knew. I was like, oh, I guess I am just homeless now. Like, I don't get to go home. Yeah. The only B I was ever allowed was allowed. This is so embarrassing. P.E.
- [30:11]
B
yeah.
- [30:11]
A
Because I was not very coordinated, and my mom was like, I don't think this one's that important. I was like, cool. Gotcha. Understood we're on the same page. But, like, I think it's important to motivate children to do the right thing. But also, like, being a part of a home, like cleaning your own room. You should not get an allowance for that. But say you decide to have your kid make lunch on Saturday for the entire family. That saves you a little bit of time on your own. They get to learn a life skill. Yeah. You can give them allowance for that. Or maybe you have a very large lawn, and they say, instead of dad mowing the lawn, I'll mow the lawn. That could be something for an allowance. But you should clean your own bathroom. You should take care of the dog, because the dog is a shared dog. That is our family. That. That is something we do together. You get benefit from this. So you can't be expected to be paid for doing to take care of yourself. But above and beyond, sure. Like, do I think it's, you know, necessary to give your kid an allowance for getting good grades? Absolutely not. Maybe just because that's how I was raised. But if your kid ends up, you know, getting an incredible score on the sat, maybe that is worth a pizza party. Maybe that's worth a small gift. Like, these are things that are milestone moments that you want to celebrate. It's not just about the money. It's about will your kid remember how you treated them? Will they understand the value of a dollar, and is it going to have a positive memory for them to remind them to do smart things and make good choices in the future?
- [31:47]
B
I love that. What Would you tell your younger self what is the one piece of financial advice you wish you could go back? Oh, young Vivian.
- [31:54]
A
Oh, man, I made every mistake in the book, if I'm honest. Like, I was spending money that I did not have. I was trying to buy all the cute clothes, like I was doing all of that. I closed my oldest line of credit. It was a rinky dinky credit card. When I got the Amex Platinum, when I got the Chase Sapphire Reserve, I was like, I don't need this anymore. I, you know, I closed my oldest line of credit, dropped my credit score 80 points. I had a traditional brick and mortar savings account for years and years and years before I got a high yield savings account that actually earned me more interest. I feel like I was the one who also didn't have a budget. And because I worked on Wall street and was making so much money, by the way, my first year on Wall street, my salary was $85,000. So like, it's not bad money, certainly not bad for a first job out of college. But like, I wasn't making money hand over fist. Like I was, you know, kind of living paycheck to paycheck, especially after Rochella, you know. So I think that we have to remember that there are so many mistakes that we can make, but they don't have to be the end all, be all. There are very few mistakes in life that you make that you can't undo, that you can't get out of. And, you know, you have to learn from them. I can't go back and fix that credit score. I just had to wait for time to fix it. And honestly, I wish I could go back and just get myself to start investing earlier, but hindsight's 20 20.
- [33:20]
B
I want to say congratulations on all your success. I mean, look at all these wonderful people who've come out with thoughtful questions. I mean, you're really getting people to think in a different way about their money. And again, you're making it digestible and tangible and it's not so scary. And I want to thank you just as you know, I'm. I'm such a fan of yours. And congratulations on the book. But I got one last question to really bring this full circle. What does it mean to be well endowed?
- [33:42]
A
Okay, so everybody is joking about this headline, right? Hehe. Ha ha. But if you actually think about what well endowed is describing, you're describing an endowment being well endowed. You have a big endowment. Things like Harvard's endowment, your favorite charity's endowment. An endowment is literally just a pile of money that can be invested and grow so that an organization's mission can be continued into the future. And simply put, that is what I want for every single one of you. I want you to be able to build a financial life where you feel confident going forward every single day. I don't want you to wake up in the morning and not know if you are going to have the financial future that you want. We all deserve to have a rich life now, but also still be able to retire, to be able to leave a legacy, to be able to build a family and feel comfortable providing for them. And that is what it means to be well endowed.
- [34:44]
B
Ladies and gentlemen, Vivian too. Congratulations.
- [34:46]
A
Thank you.
- [34:47]
B
Stick around for the meet and greet, the book signing, but let's give it up for well endowed.
- [34:52]
A
Thank you guys so much for coming. I really appreciate it. I know how cold it is outside.
- [34:58]
C
Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast network. If you like the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastorrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related
- [35:19]
A
news and you can follow me at
- [35:21]
C
YourRichBFF for even more financial know how. See you next week.
- [35:25]
A
Bye.
- [35:26]
C
Thanks to Walmart for their support. One more time to close us out. Right now, Walmart's got thousands of rollbacks and more with super low prices that makes saving feel like it's part of the plan. From calendars to everything organization, Walmart's got exactly what you need to reset, refocus and stay on track with those financial goals you set way back in January. It's okay.
- [35:47]
A
We can just say that the new year starts now.
- [35:49]
C
Shop now on the Walmart app online and in stores to save big time.