← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1932: Ask Farnoosh: Should You Downgrade Your Life to Upgrade Your Finances?
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So money episode 1932 ask Farnoosh.
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You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourselves. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
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Welcome back to Sew Money Everybody. January 16, 2026. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. You're listening to our AskFarnoosh Fridays, where we get into what's happening in your money life and what's happening in the world around us, because those two things are often more connected than we realize. Before we get into your questions today, I want to begin with a few items that have been on my mind this week, including the headlines, some reflections, and some personal context. And there was an interest event this week that reminded me of how we can protect ourselves when things seem a little suspicious in our lives. There are actually people that we have access to, important people that can help us out. And I want to talk about that in a moment. But first, I was on Instagram this week and I noticed people were sharing photographs and video of themselves from 10 years ago. A look back to 2016. Me and I decided to. To jump on that trend, like a good trend. And it was fun. What were you up to 10 years ago? Is my question for you. What were you doing 10 years ago? It makes you wonder if you were to make the most of this year so that in 10 years you could look back and have some great photos, might change your take on things, might change your approach to life. In 2016, I was 36 at that point. I'd been married, I think, four years. I had a two year old. I had just started hosting, hosting a show on CNBC called Follow the Leader. I began writing for, oh, the Oprah Magazine, a column there. I think I was already writing that column. And as life has it, that show on CNBC got canceled in the same year. Disappointing, destabilizing. But almost simultaneously, I found out that I was pregnant with our daughter. So that was pretty meaningful. I feel like it was meant to be. I wrote about it in a healthy state of panic, this fear of endings that we often have. And that was definitely one of them for me. The fear of that show getting canceled. Because I had worked myself up so much for that show. I felt like my entire career had led up to that show. I had really advocated for that show. I worked really hard for that show. But in order for a TV show to really hit it and do well, there are so many stars that have to align that are not in one person's control, right? There's like a whole slew of things. And I learned that. And long story short, we did not get a renewal. But the thing about endings is that it's an opportunity, right, to reflect on your life and think about with this thing, this event going away, where is my life going to go next? What do I want my life to represent next? What is the space that I want to create? What do I want to invite into my life that can fill this void in a way that maybe if that show had continued, I couldn't invite? And really, I thought if we got renewed, if we actually got a season two, I'm not sure I'd be able to do it if I was pregnant. Truthfully, getting on a plane every other day and the physical demands of that show, the physical exhaustion, all of that, I'm not sure I would have wanted both to happen at the same time. So I was very grateful with the timing of everything. So that was my 2016. And this podcast in 2016 was only two years old. And I remember being on the road filming at CNBC show Follow the Leader and bringing my microphone with me because I was still recording this podcast on the road and interviewing Sally Krawchak remotely from my hotel in Los Angeles. And you can go back and listen to that interview if you'd like. She told me her biggest financial mistake. And by the way, Sally Krawcheck, for those of you who don't know, huge Wall street guru. She was the founder and former CEO of Elevest, an investing platform for women launched in 2016. Previously the head of bank of America's global wealth and investment management division, she's been called the most powerful woman on Wall Street. And she told me that her biggest money mistake was investing too much of her money in her company stock. And it came to bite when 2008, 2009 rolled around and she was working for that company. That financial company tanked, as did so many financial stocks during that year, and her net worth went down with it. She said she should have known better, Right? She lost a significant portion of her investment wealth in a single day. And it really reminded me just one, that diversification is so important. Now, we say don't put more than 10% of your investment portfolio in a single stock. And even if you work at this company, 10% max. And even the smartest people, even the insiders, even the smartest woman on Wall street, they face risk. And sometimes they underestimate that risk. So 2016 was not a straight line. Lots of pivots, a lot of uncertainty, but also growth and gratitude. That was fun. Thank you, Internet. Thank you, Instagram. Okay. Tracking the financial news this week, I noticed a few important headlines. One, Saks filing for bankruptcy. Coincidentally, I shopped on Saks.com last week and got a couple of items. Didn't like them, returned them through the mail. They charged me $10, by the way, to return them through FedEx. Fine. But I'm glad I did before I saw this headline, because the thing about bankruptcies in retail is that you definitely want to move quickly with any sorts of returns, using of gift cards, things of that nature. If a company goes under, you're often the last in line as the customer to be serviced. So thankfully, I've returned those items. They were reimbursed on my credit card, refunded pretty quickly, just my psa. And the reason Saks is going under here, as opposed to a lot of the luxury category doing well lately, is because, honestly, when was the last time you went inside a department store when you did buy luxury, how did you buy it? You probably bought it directly from the luxury goods retailer, right? Or you bought it off of a social media site as the intermediary or a fashion retail site. That was in Saks. Also in the news, the nation's biggest banks reported pretty sour quarterly earnings. They include bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo. Those banks all missed expectations. Their stocks fell. The reasons ranged from delayed merger deals to stubborn expenses, to questions about whether AI tools are are delivering meaningful efficiency yet. And another big headwind is that President Trump has been floating this idea of a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, which might sound appealing to us, but not so much for these banks, right? They make a lot of money off of those interest rates. That being said, there's no clear legal pathway for Trump to actually make this a law. And banks are warning mostly behind the scenes, though, that rate capsules could restrict access to credit for people with weaker credit. So markets are reacting very quickly to this. Bank stocks with large credit card exposure were hit hard. Anyway. I think the President's got his hands full right now with so much global turmoil, don't we think? Speaking of, I want to acknowledge something that is not a money headline but is deeply personal to me. I've been watching what is happening in Iran closely and I just want to take a moment to recognize that. For those of you who don't know, my parents left Iran in the late the late 1970s. We are Iranian. I'm 100% Iranian. I was born here in the U.S. my parents took me back to Iran after I was born here. We went back for a year and I celebrated my first birthday in Shiraz. But then we came back to the States and I've never been back since. My parents have gone back and forth. My brother has been back and forth. I have never been there since that year in 1980. I have wanted to go back, but it's been tricky, Right. As a journalist and sometimes as a journalist who has spoken unfavorably towards the regime. And so it's been risky. My parents have definitely cautioned against that. Women journalists from outside the country, let alone from inside the country, are not welcomed in Iran. And so that's why I haven't been back. But watching what's going on there right now, like many in the Iranian diaspora, I have a lot of emotions, mixed emotions. I do hope the current regime collapses. I've been hoping for this for my entire life. But at the same time, I'm really afraid of what might come next, because we know regime change is really difficult. History shows us that power vacuums can lead to a lot of instability, a lot of violence. I'll read you what I wrote. A friend of mine who reached out this week who said, I hope you and your friends and family are all doing okay. And I said, thank you so much. It feels like we're here once every few years, but this time feels like a collapse is possible. But then what is on the other side? Thank you for reaching out. Out. Iranians need to be free. What a better world we'd have. Yeah. I don't have answers, but I just want to acknowledge the moment because for many of us global events, they're not abstract. In local news, I interviewed our New Jersey attorney General this week, Matt Platkin, he's actually the outgoing attorney General. Next week, our new governor, Mikey Sherrill, takes office, and there'll be a new attorney general on her team. But Matt Platkin serv. Our Attorney General, gave us a lot of insights. I interviewed him for the Montclair pod here in New Jersey. I host that show, and he gave us a lot of reminders about how, as consumers, we do have a state attorney. This is the people's attorney. So if you have any suspicions about what might be going on at retailers, at banks, wherever you're doing business, this is a department at the state level that needs to know. In fact, he talked about how he noticed in some Facebook groups people were talking about faulty scales at Whole Foods in our neighborhood, and they did investigation and found that this was the case at multiple Whole Foods. And I always tell people, when you suspect fraud, scams, bad actors, or systemic abuse, whether it's involving schools, businesses, financial institutions, consumer products, the Attorney General's office is often the first line of defense. And it's an important reminder right now, in a moment when trust feels really fragile and accountability matters more than ever. All right, shifting gears. In case you missed any of our shows this week, I want to remind you to check them out. On Monday, we sat down with Jesse Mecham, who's the founder of probably the most popular budgeting tool out there. It's definitely one of the oldest, longest standing. You need a budget commonly known as YNAB. We talked about how to budget smart in 2026 and the hidden habits of people never worry about money. And Jesse's got the data, 21 years worth of information, data and habits that he has been observing from his YNAB customers. And then on Wednesday, new rules for retirement planning. What actually matters Today, Christine Benz was my guest. She's the director of personal finance and retirement planning at Morningstar. She's helped millions of investors make sense of their money at every stage of their life. And in this episode we talk about how to save for a sustainable and meaningful retirement. Okay, we're going to read our reviewer of the week and then we're going to get to the mailbag. This week we're going to say thank you to 99gel, who writes so money is one of the best. I've been listening for about five years now and I've learned so much in that time. Farnoosh brings relevant new guests to the show every episode and even answers listeners questions on Fridays. Yes I do. She makes every subject very approachable and engaging while giving her thoughts on subjects as well. I always look forward to learning something new when a so Money episode comes on 99 J E L. Thank you so much for your review. If you I'd love to give you a free money session, just email me farnish@somoneypodcast.com or DM me on Instagram. Let me know you left this review. I'll send you a link to schedule a time to chat with me and we'll get it on the calendar, starting the year with a little wardrobe refresh I have to tell you about Quince. If you love pieces that feel polished but still effortless, Quince is one of those brands you'll reach for again and again because everything just works. From their soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that honestly feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts that make getting dressed feel easy. These are true wardrobe essentials that are crafted to last season after season. One of the things I really appreciate about Quinn's is the quality. Every piece is thoughtfully designed to become something you rely on, not something you wear once. And forget about and everything from Quinn's is made with premium materials in ethical trusted factories, then priced far below what other luxury brands charge. And I'll say this personally, I am loving my Mongolian cashmere batwing sweater from Quinn. I've picked it up in a couple of colors and it has become a staple in my daily mom uniform. It gives just a little edge to an otherwise simple outfit. Refresh your wardrobe with Quinn. Don't wait. Go to quince.com sewoney for free shipping on your order and 365 day return. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com somoney to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com somoney I'm Farnoosh Tarabi, host of so Money and this episode is sponsored by Gelt. 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No more slow replies, no more surprises, no more spreadsheets and email chaos. Just a slick dashboard, clear next steps and year round support. Schedule a call@joingelt.com today and learn how your taxes can become a lever for growth. That's join GLT.com and schedule your discovery call today. Furnish tarabi listeners get 10% off their first year of service. Just mention my name on your intake form. 2026 is the year you stop thinking about it and start doing it. We all have ideas, skills, that thing people keep telling us we should turn into a business. But January goes fast and if we're not careful, February shows up with the same old story. This is your moment to take action and the most powerful move you can make in 2026 is starting your business with Shopify Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from household names to first time business owners just getting started. 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Okay, now to answer your money questions, the first question comes from Morgan and it's about reducing their living expenses in their lives. She and her fiance live in Charleston, South Carolina. Love Charleston. I was just there. Not just I was there a few years ago for a bachelorette party. Beautiful city. And she said the rent there though, has exploded in the last few years and it's up 30, 40%. Morgan says we recently had the opportunity to move apartments, saving us approximately $600 a month. The new place is built in the 1970s, so it is older and our current place was built in 2020. It's got a gym, it's got a pool. So we're working very hard to weigh the pros and cons of moving. My interest is to be more financially free. Saving $600 a month would help us save to buy a home one day could help us to invest. And that's what's drawing me to this other place. It's a hard line between bucking down before we start a family and our future and staying comfortable with what we've got. Of course there are expenses with moving and we'd have to pay a month of double rent. Overall savings for the first year would be about 1000 dol. But rent after that would be a savings of $7000 a year. That's almost $15,000 after living there for three years. I know this is all emotional, but I'm wondering, what are your thoughts? How many chances does somebody get to reduce their living expenses in their lives when everything else seems to go up and up? We are a couple grossing over $200,000 in our late 20s, which is pretty high considering where we live. All right, Morgan, thank you so much for your question. It's a fantastic question. I just want to start by saying something very clearly here. You have the right instincts. You're not overthinking this. You are embarking on a potential opportunity. And these don't come along too often. Especially right now, as you mentioned, cost of living is really high. They're rising faster than wages. So I'm going to help us break this down in a way that feels practical, that feels grounded, and that might help not just you, but a lot of people in the audience listening. Okay, so let's separate what we often conflate, which is lifestyle and leverage. We want to separate lifestyle from leverage and just name what this really is. This is a question about whether you want leverage in your financial life right now. I was in this same place five years ago, six years ago, I had a very nice apartment in Brooklyn. I was very comfortable, three bedrooms, downtown Brooklyn, comfortable mortgage. But I had all this equity in my home. And the question for me really boiled down to leverage. Do I want to be rich on paper, or do I want to actually leverage this equity and execute on it, do something with it, to actually advance my life? And I did. I chose the latter. I chose to cash out and move to the suburbs. For you, right now, the reality is reducing fixed housing costs. And not just you, everybody listening. If you can reduce your fixed housing costs, this is one of the biggest impact financial moves, highest impact financial moves that most of us will ever have in our lives. And you are staring right now at a $600 a month lever. I know the first year you're saying $1,000 is the only savings because, yes, you've got moving costs and whatnot and other things. But. But in three years, 15 grand is not a little amount of money. Most people will never get that chance to shore up that kind of cash in their budget without major disruption or without a windfall. So do acknowledge that this is a rare opportunity. The second step is to run that three year test, which you've already begun to do. You've already zoomed out past year, one year One can be misleading. A lot of times we just focus on the immediate. You did a good thing, you took it out to three years. And so ask yourself, where would we rather be three years from now? Not just financially, but also emotionally with this money, how will we feel? Scenario A, how would we feel staying put financially and emotionally? Scenario B, what if we move and we save $7,000 a year starting in year two? Now attach some specific uses to that $15,000. What if we use this towards a down payment on our home in the future? What if we invested this money? What if we used it to give ourselves some cushion to change jobs, to start a business? We interviewed Jesse Mecham this week, right? What did he tell us? Assign your dollars a job. If you can assign every dollar of that $600 you're saving every month a job before you move and you gain clarity around that, that might give you more excitement to make this shift and it might make it easier to do. And I think one reason this could feel scary, besides of course, the uncertainty of it, is that it does feel like you're downgrading. You've got this nice apartment, pool, amenities, and you're going to this older place. So my recommendation is give it a defined time horizon. 2 years, 3 years maximum. This is not forever. Get that in your heads. This is a strategic move. Like when we sold our home in Brooklyn. What did we do next? We didn't go right into our next forever home. We rented as a strategic move into a smaller apartment. It was cramped, it was not a great layout. We didn't love it. We wouldn't have preferred to live there, but we needed to move and live somewhere so that we could buy ourselves some time to then properly assess the buying market to buy something and move and cash out and then rent and then buy again. Like we didn't have endless money to just buy and to just sell and buy simultaneously. So think about yourselves as strategists. And then as far as this new apartment, although I know it's not as fancy as where you're currently living, it's important to remember what your non negotiables are. Actually when you are thinking about your living space where you live, this is where people go wrong. They assume that all comfort is essential. It's not. You want to make a list of the absolute non negotiables that you need, right? You need something that's going to make commuting easy. Maybe you need something that is low on noise, big on light because you're working from home. The Nice to haves like the gym, the pool, the finishes. Those are great for comfort but not necessities. And if the older apartment meets your non negotiables, then the rest is preference. It's not necessity. So just keep that in mind too. And again, it's not forever, so it's your call in the end. But I hope that this thought process can help to crystallize what you're going to do. If the older apartment at the end of the day feels safe, is functional, it's livable. I mean, those are compelling reasons to potentially move. But do it intentionally. Do it with a plan to save. Do it with a defined timeline. Do it with, with an agreement with your fiance on why you're doing this. Like a shared goal. Because this could be life changing. It could really give you a leg up. It could really advance your financial goals, accelerate your financial life. It's a strategy that you're implementing. You look back on it and be like, we're really glad we did this strategic thing. We got a little uncomfortable. We got a little scrappy for a few years, but the reward was worth it. All right, next up, Trish on Instagram who says that she's 45. She just quit her job to go back to school. Get this, her local college has free tuition for those over the age of 25. Can you believe this? Trish, where do you live? I would take classes once, you know, I find more time to do that, but that's something I would definitely, definitely leverage. She says, I'm not taking out any debt to do this. And I've a good emergency fund in place. I plan on taking the next year off to focus on school and family. What should I do with my 401k in the meantime? I'd love to do some socially responsible investing with it. There's currently about $130,000 in my 401k. All right, Trish. Well, if you'd like to continue contributing to your 401k, the only way you can do this now because you don't work for your company anymore is you must transfer this 401k into a traditional IRA, which you can do at your existing benefits manager. If you're wherever your 401k is parked, whether that's Fidelity, Charles Schwab, you can just speak with them and ask about your transfer options. I would like to open up a traditional ira. Let's do this direct transfer. Then you can start contributing to your fund. And if you'd like to do more socially responsible investing, a lot of these major investment firms that I just mentioned have options. You just let them know that this is a category of investing that you want to integrate into your existing portfolio. Talk to the specialist. There's a. They should be able to guide you. Trish says, P.S. i'm taking business classes and all the years of listening to you is already helping me get those A's. Well, I'm just amazing. Kidding. Trish, congratulations. This sounds so great. What an opportunity. I am truly envious of you. All right, next question is from Jeff, our friend in the audience. He asks Farnoosh, how do you think about building generosity into a business model without undermining the financial foundation, especially in the first year? Right now we're debating whether community work should be time boxed, revenue gated, or treated like a fixed operating expense. Are there guardrails, pacing strategies, or mental frameworks that you recommend so that the mission survives long enough to matter? All right, this is a really thoughtful question, Jeff. It's one of the most thoughtful business questions I think I've gotten in a very long time. And the fact that you're thinking about this, this in the first year of your business is really admirable. But I just want to start with a core principle and very basic here. A business needs money to grow, right? A business that doesn't survive financially, it cannot serve anyone. So your generosity does need to be baked in and designed. The first step is probably to separate the mission from the mechanics and get clear on the why. You know, you have the why for your business and have so have a why for why you want to give back and then from there to find the how without putting the business at risk. And in year one, I don't know a lot of businesses that have a lot of money to go around. I know a lot of founders who don't even pay themselves. And if you're not paying yourself in year one, I don't think it's selfish to not donate to charity. Also in that first year, I think that you're, you're doing what you got to do to build a business. You can still, as you said, give your time. You can donate equipment, you can donate your services. I don't know what kind of business you're in, but I think the how could change right year after year. But thinking about that ahead of time is important to bake it into the business model and also to, to design the why and also to figure out the why as a component of your financials. So treat your generosity as an operational decision, not an emotional One, and that's going to mean having rules, having limits. So my back of the napkin advice here again, I don't know the kind of business that you have, I don't know your, I don't know what kind of financials you've got in the first year, but if you're like a typical startup, who is that is scrappy in the first year? Year one, I would say make the generosity time boxed, because time is the one resource that you can cap without threatening your cash flow. So you could choose one day per quarter, you could define the number of hours, define the scope of work, and you can put on the calendar. You don't have to be spontaneous about it. And this way you can stick to something, you can be consistent, you can plan for it and you won't burn out financially or emotionally. And then as far as actually giving money to a charity, being generous with money, I would, I would wait to do that until you have actual data. Revenue gated generosity is fantastic, but only once revenue is predictable, like in year one. You don't really know your true margins or your client acquisition costs. So avoid tying your generosity to projected income. I'd say revisit your revenue based giving at the end of this year once you have the real numbers. And then for everybody who's interested in this, I think it's a good time to at the beginning of the year, if you're interested in giving back as a business owner and big in building that into your business model to define what community impact means to you as a founder. And it's not just the impact that you're giving the community outside of your business, but also the community that you're building inside your business, right? Paying yourselves, your workers fairly and ethically, providing reliable and professional services to your customers. And Jeff, one thing you could just do now after this podcast is just write down your giving policy and draft that you know you can. Things like what you want to support, how often you want to support it, what are the conditions if you're going to do it in year one and it's going to be time based again, what are the parameters around that? I think that's the probably the safest, the most risk averse way to do it in year one and then eventually you can step it up and give with your financial resources. Again, great question, awesome question. Next is an anonymous friend in the audience who is 37 and at long last she says I am one job away from hitting the six figure mark for a salary. I currently make 85,000 a year, but I think I can hit the 100,000 mark if I were to job hun. I have also amassed a net worth of $250,000. No debt. Together, these are huge milestones for me. Well, I'll say so. Quarter of a million dollars by 37. I would give you a big hug if you were here. The downside? Our audience member says, I want to now be a stay at home mom to my 17 month old. It is so hard to drop out of the workforce as it has taken me so long to get to this place of financial security. My husband earns more do and says he can support us if I were to make this jump to becoming a stay at home mom. I feel like you've discussed this in previous episodes, but now that I'm trying to make this decision for myself, I'm all sorts of confused. Looking forward to any of your thoughts. All right, well, I just want to say first, congratulations on all of your financial accomplishments. Again, like I said, so incredible that by your age you have saved a net worth of $250,000 and that you are close to hitting the six figure ear. I know what it's like to be a mom and have a career and feel like you're at a crossroads. Now, personally, for me, it was never a question. I was always going to work. But I know even with that in mind, becoming a mom, becoming a parent, there's so many emotions, so many feelings in those first few weeks, few months. You definitely feel sad when you leave your child. That is totally normal. And so this is an extremely personal choice. But I will say that if you are my best friend and we were talking, I'll be extremely candid with you and I would not encourage you to give up your career. Not to undermine stay at home parents out there. I think that they have incredibly difficult jobs, jobs that we don't appreciate enough. But you have to understand where I'm coming from, right? I'm a woman who is the breadwinner in her marriage. When I was a kid, I thought if I have my own money, if I have my own car with gas in it, I can do anything and I can go anywhere on my own terms. Agency is extremely important to me. I grew up not seeing a lot of that represented in the women in my community. And so I became a child who grew up to be a woman who was very hungry for financial independence and also wanted to be a mom. You can do both. And this, this topic is like a whole podcast on its own. Like it's a whole show on its own, you know, with several episodes. One of my favorite posters on this topic is Sarah Dean, who launched the Shameless Mom Academy. It's a podcast, it's a whole platform and she tackles this topic a lot. I've actually been on her podcast to talk about my views on stay at home parenting. She's been on my show and I'll tell you, you're not going to be able to finish this conversation with somebody without hurt feelings, without someone getting upset. This is again so personal. So I'm going to stick to the financials. I'm going to give you some numbers maybe to hold on to and to consider as you make this personal decision. The first is that that in your lifetime, in your career lifetime, when you opt out of the workforce, your average earnings will fall. Sheryl Sandberg wrote in her book Lean in that women's average annual Earnings drop by 20% if they're out of the workforce for just one year. 30% drop after two or three years, which is the average amount of time that professional women off ramp from the workforce. And you don't just lose your salary when you're not working, you also lose the ability to pay into Social Security, lose the access to a workplace 401k and all that compounding, right? So there are many financial losses when you become a stay at home parent. I'm talking to men, I'm talking to women. So that's one thing. There are also studies that find that dual income couples are more secure. Couples are less likely to split than those in marriages with just one working spouse. According to the book Getting to 5050 How Working Parents can have it all. And that may be resource for you. Marriages in which there is a sole breadwinner get divorced at a rate 14% above average. And why is this? The authors of that book say it's got a lot to do with the fact that dual income marriages have more financial stability. Being a sole breadwinner. A sole breadwinner, like you're the only. Like if your husband were to take on the sole job of providing financially for your family, that comes with a lot of stress. And if you have a partner who's also working to share the weight of that financial stress, that can lead, the authors argue, to more harmony, more compatibility and vice versa. If you are the sole caregiver at home full time, you may find that it's hard to connect with your partner and find common ground and relate to your partner. So it's hard for both partners when you're each doing isolated Work. And you're not really overlapping, right? You're not really understanding the constraints of working out of the home and vice versa. Again, some of you could be listening to this and being like, that's B.S. i'm a stay at home parent, wouldn't have it any other way. So this is not the end all. But I'm just telling you, you asked for resources, you asked for facts, some studies. And I'm just sharing this with you so that you can make your decision, you can listen to all of this and at the end of the day still decide that personally it's important for you to stay at home with your child because that is where you source a lot of your sense of self worth. And that's what I want to end on here. That the reason that I, I work and I've always worked and I've had and I have children and I won't stop working is because I source a tremendous amount of my sense of self worth, feeling like a contributor to my, not just my family, but to society when I work outside the home. And of course I'm working right now inside the home, but you know what I mean, that I have something else to hang my hat on. In addition to being supermom, I am super career woman Arnoosh. And, and that's important to me. Again, it's personal. And I do agree with all of these stats. I do think that. And I, because I've seen it, you know, anecdotally in my life, other people's marriages falling apart because it's just one person working and that's a lot to shoulder. Now that doesn't mean that you can't take time off and then go back into the workforce. A lot of people do that successfully. So my advice, if you were my girlfriend again, if we were sitting around having coffee, I wouldn't say drop out of the workforce entirely. What you're, you've already told me that you are a value you in the workplace, you're making good money, you've built up all this wealth. You don't stop, don't kill the momentum. Maybe take a pause, right, Be with your child. When your child goes off to school full time, you probably will have more time and you might want to go back to work. And by the way, I'll end on this as far as like the whole stay at home parent debate because one of the things that often comes up is whether or not it's better for the kids to have a consistent caregiver home. You know, whether that's mom or dad, there are schools of thought that then that child grows up to be more, like, adjusted and more successful. So if that's what's part of what's like gnawing at you, like you're worried that your child's not going to have the quote, unquote, stability growing up, that being there for him day in and day out is what he needs to be set up for success later in life. I would say that consistency is important. Stability helps, but that doesn't have to be entirely sourced from you. You know, it's really about creating an environment for your child where they can feel safe and they can feel loved and they can feel like they can go to you or the other parent or a caregiver or someone in the community, like, that they have people they can go to reliably that you don't have to sacrifice your career to set your child up for success. The most important thing that children need to see is that you are happy, that you are happy with your choices. So if going to work every day is going to make you miserable and you're coming home miserable and your kid sees a frown on your face at suppertime every night, that's not good. That doesn't mean you got to abandon your career. Maybe it means you need to get a new job that lights you up. So just be happy with your choices. And then when you're ready to get back into the workplace, I want you to circle back with me because I have a lot of advice for how to read re ramp, how to ramp back onto the career highway after having taken some time off. And we have a lot of podcasts of parents who've done just that on the show. But thank you so much for your question. It's been a while since I've tackled this, and I know it's always very sensitive. I'm open to everybody's opinions. This is just my take. Doesn't have to be everybody's take, but I do want to promote, at the end of the day, female financial independence. And you can't do that if you're not earning money. You can take breaks, but I like to encourage women and everybody, but especially women, to keep an eye on their finances throughout their lives. So, so important. And on that, I'm going to end. I could have gone longer, but I wanted to end. It's a long weekend. Martin Luther King Jr. S birthday on Monday. It's also the so money birthday weekend. So we're going to have a lot to celebrate in our house this weekend. Keep in touch. Stick with me on Instagram. Thanks for listening. I hope your weekend is so money.
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