April 12, 2021 • 42 mins
Jennifer Barrett is a longtime financial journalist and she has written for publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Money, and Newsweek. She has accomplished so much in the world of money: Jennifer has developed and hosted a popular personal finance video course on Udemy, given a TEDx talk on the importance of wealth-building, and she’s also appeared on many TV shows as well. And central to our conversation today, she also has a new book that just came out, that’s titled “Think Like a Breadwinner” which is all about empowering women who want to earn more money. This is a helpful episode for everyone out there, but especially for the working woman.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and
Matt's and today we're discussing how to Think Like a
Breadwinner with Jennifer Barrett. Yeah, we are excited for our
(00:27):
conversation today with Jennifer Barrett's. Jennifer is a long time
financial journalist and she has written for publications like The
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Money, as well as
a newsweek. She is. She's prolific, She's seemingly everywhere. She's
developed and hosted a popular personal finance video course on
You to Me. She's given a ted X talk on
the importance of wealth building, and she's also you know,
(00:49):
appeared on many TV shows as well. And as impressive
as all that is, she also has a new book
that just came out that's titled Think Like a Breadwinner,
which is all about empowering women who want to earn
more money. So this is going to be a helpful
episode for everybody, but especially for the working woman. So Jennifer,
thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Thanks
(01:10):
so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
I really love your podcast. Thanks Jennifer, and you know
we're glad to have you here. With us and Matt.
We're talking with Jennifer before we begin the show, and
Jennifer mentioned that she loved craft beer. So yeah, we're
drinking a banana cream pie style bereau of the show
right now while we while we have this combo. But
Matt and I we always drink a craft beer on
(01:31):
our episodes because it's something that we love, is something
that we suplore John, while we're also being intentional and
trying to save well for the future. So yeah, we
want to know from you, what's your craft beer equivalent? Oh,
it is craft beer one for one, the exact same thing. Yes,
I was just thinking that we could spend an entire
episode just geeking out on beers. Um I I am
(01:54):
a total beer geek. In fact, I am looking. I'm
not drinking just yet today, but um I just splur
just on a four pack of mckeller Limited series. Yes,
very good, um Bred your beer, Yeah, I love them.
But we're also very close to Other Half Frewery, which,
oh my gosh, so dangerous. That's right, because you are
in Brooklyn, aren't you. We are literally walking distance from
(02:17):
Other Half and they have some amazing beers. I probably
don't need to tell you. In fact, I was just
thinking they have one called Banana Pandan, which you might
like as part of their Pastry Town series. Anyway, it's
very easy to drop you on a four pack. It
is way too easy just on four beers, and they're strong,
so you have to sip them. So I think it
(02:38):
sort of works out, you know, like price per sip
or something. You know, I'm not drinking all four in
an evening, so I think I gotta take value into
accounts for sure. It's it's yeah, you drink it more
like wine than you know, than like a natty light.
And that's what we try to anytime someone hasn't heard
of the show and we're talking about it, we have
to kind of explain to them as like we're not
like just crushing beers on the show, smashing the cans
(02:59):
in our forehead. We're literally splitting the six we're sharing it.
It matters up perfection fancy tulip glasses, but we love
it even the proper glass. Yes, exactly. We're big fans
of Other Half for sure. Man. One that sticks out
in my mind wasn't wasn't it an Other Half that
did the wedge salad collaboration they made like all these
vegetable super hoppy. I mean high on them, not a
(03:21):
big I'm not a big hophead. But I can stick
to those pastry stouts. I do love the pastry stouts.
But now that half in the hands of a lesser brewery,
that may have been disastrous. I think vegetable combination, I
think other half can pull it off. They totally can.
They They make me want to drink my veggies. You know, well, well, Jennifer,
you're also the We didn't mention this in your bio,
(03:42):
but you're also the chief education officer at Acorns, the
the app that allows you to stash away money. Uh.
We're big fans of the app, and you know we've
talked about it on the show. And so how has
your time at Acorns? What is that like? I guess,
first of all, being part of a cutting edge fintech company,
uh like? And how has that changed how you view
money yourself? Sure? UM, I mean it's exciting, right. It's
(04:04):
not the first startup I worked for. UM. I worked
for the Street dot Com in a short lived joint
venture with the New York Times was my first experience,
and then I worked at Daily Worth, which was a
financial media company that targeted women and I loved it,
but unfortunately they went under, which is always a risk
with a startup. I don't think that's going to be
energy With Acorns, we're doing very well. We have over
(04:24):
nine million users and UM I really have grown just
by leaps and balance since I joined five years ago. UM.
But the reason I went, I mean, I know you
mentioned UM. I was a journalist for a very long
time financial journalist, and I felt like, UM I was
just writing the same headlines over and over again, which
was like, you know, Americans don't save enough to cover
(04:45):
a four in a dollar or a thousand dollar emergency.
We're on the brink of a retirement crisis, you know,
just these really scary headlines. And I was starting to
get really frustrated and wondering, you know, we're giving people
good information here UM through financial journalism, Why are people
still not making the decisions they need to in order
to set themselves up? And so we had actually covered Acorns.
(05:06):
I was working at CNBC UM as Personal Finance editor
before I joined Acorns, and I was intrigued by the
concept of investing spare change, which was the first UM
feature that we launched with and I thought, this is
incredible because it removes so many of the mental barriers
for a lot of people. Right, if you were just
(05:27):
investing spare change, you know how big a risk is that, Right?
What else are you going to do with it? Is
sitting in your couch gathering dust? Right, So why not
invest it? Um? And it was just so easy in
the way that it was connected with spending. You know,
you you link your card and every time you spend,
we round up your purchases and we invest the change.
Just made it so simple and then we were invested
ere they were at the TUM. I wasn't there yet.
(05:48):
They were investing it into pre selected portfolios that had
exposure to a wide range you know, thousands of stocks
and bonds and so it was automatically diversified. So it
was really like about as simple as it could be. Yeah, um, yeah,
So that's what was intriguing to me. I was really
drawn by the mission and I wanted to be a
part of the solution. And I've been here now for
(06:09):
more than five years and now I'm the chief Education Officer,
so I get the chance to educate our users and um,
you know, and the general public about the topic that
I love almost as much as beer, which is nice. Well,
that's cool, that's cool. Yeah, And Acorns is doing a
great job at simplifying things, and Matt and I believe
that simplification is such a huge part of making personal
(06:31):
finance relevant to to everybody. Right and uh, And Jennifer
in your book, in your new book, you you start
to detail, Um, let's go back even further, right, because
you wrote about money, but you you talk about how
in your late twenties you weren't doing all that great
with money and calling that out. Hey you called yourself out, Okay,
(06:54):
but like, what was that time like for you? What
were you starting to realize about your money situation? Kind
of yeah, as your you know, approach approaching that mark. Yeah,
I mean, oh, I made a lot of mistakes in
my twenties. I know a lot of us do. And
when I look back now, I can trace a lot
of it back to the fact that I was not
thinking like a breadwinner. So I was not making money
(07:14):
choices from a place of how can I ensure I
am able to take care of myself financially for life
and maybe others too. Um, I wasn't raised that way.
I wasn't thinking about money that way. Um, And culturally
most women are not raised to think of themselves as breadwinners.
But it really isn't conscious, right. I think the cultural
prescription that we get as women is often this, get
(07:36):
a career, get married, save some for a rainy day,
and save some for retirement. And that's what I was doing.
And it was really it was actually in my early
thirties that I really had a wake up call and
I realized, like, this leaves out a whole chunk of
our lives, you know, like the decades between saving for
a nice handbag or girls getaway post pandemic and retirement.
And we were in a situation at the time. We
(07:59):
were in a tiny one bedroom in New York, which
is not uncommon, but sharing it with the toddler, and
it was unsustainable. And I had a moment where I realized,
I am in no position here to help us, to
help us afford at a bigger place, certainly not to
buy a place here. Um, you know, not even sure
I could afford to have a second child, you know,
(08:19):
looking at my own finances. And that was a huge
wake up call for me because Up until that point,
I thought I was doing okay financially. But I realized,
I think in that moment that there's a material difference
between being able to cover the bills and then being
able to build wealth to support the life you want. Um.
And that was a turning point for me. Yeah, and
(08:42):
and and for not just you personally, but you you know,
you've discovered that lots of women we're facing similar realizations, right.
You know what, what did you find after kind of
digging into the data about you know, just women at large,
you know, just across the entire population. Yeah, I mean
I I realized I certainly was not alone. Um. And
I think, if you know, even though women are the
(09:03):
main or soul breadwinner now in more than forty of
households with kids under eighteen, we have not really caught
up to this reality yet culturally. So even if you
look at the research, research shows that parents actually speak
differently to their daughters about money than they do to
their sons. So they're more likely to teach their girls
how to budget and how to spend smartly, and they're
(09:24):
more likely to teach their sons how to build credit
and how to invest to build wealth and those are
critical skills for everyone, but women are just a lot
less likely to get that training or even to get
the message of how important it is to invest to
grow their wealth. And so I realized that so much
of this came down to the fact that we are
really not um socialized to think of ourselves like breadwinners,
(09:47):
and that informs so many of the money choices that
we make, especially early on. So it helps to explain
in part why we disproportionately choose the lowest paying careers,
the lowest paying majors, even in the highest paying jor
as we picked the lowest paying paths. Um. You know,
I don't need to tell you we save and invest
less than men. Um we have, we're earning less. And
(10:08):
you know, if you look at the gender wealth gap,
it's thirty two cents for every single woman compared to
a dollar for every man on average. Obviously, but that's
a huge gap, and it's not entirely explained by the
fact that we aren't perceiving ourselves as breadwinners and sort
of making money choices from that place. But that really
does help explain a lot of it, because we sort
(10:29):
of know what to do at this point with our
money or at least the basics. So a lot of
this is around these internal barriers that we have UM
to making those choices. And also if we don't believe
that our income is as important as our partners, we
may not treat it that way. UM. And and we're
really it's time to shift that. I think there's a
huge opportunity to shift the way we're thinking about ourselves
(10:52):
and our capabilities, UM and the role we can play
in our partnerships. Yeah. You you mentioned too in the
book that you had some of some fans about your
husband making more money than you did, challenging these previously
held money in relational beliefs. Was that the biggest struggle?
And how did you do that? And how did you
guys do that together? Yeah? I had two big wake
(11:12):
up calls. The first was that the one I talked
about a little bit earlier, UM, when I was sort
of asking myself like, hey, I thought I was this
independent woman. How am I in a situation now where
some of the things that are most important to me
or at stake and realizing that, you know, I had
some pretty deep seated assumptions about the role that my
partner would play and I think they were based largely
(11:34):
on the fact that, you know, my my own father
had been the sole breadwinner for much of my childhood
and then the primary one, And so that was the
model I had. My mom stepped out of the workforce.
I shouldn't say stepped out. I mean, it's never that simple,
but she didn't work for a long time and then
started working again just before they got divorced. So that
was the model I had growing up. And I think, um,
(11:55):
just deep down in my subconscious I sort of assumed
it would be a similar situation aation when I got married. Now,
my husband was earning more than me. But but right
before that wake up call, he had had, you know,
his um company he'd worked for had gone under. He'd
gotten a new job that paid a little bit less,
so that the gap between our earnings was smaller. But
I was still sort of holding on to this idea
(12:15):
that he would be the one to take the lead,
and not even consciously, I had to really, you know,
I realized that's what I was still holding onto. So yeah,
we we did have to have a conversation about that,
and I said, I really want to be more active
financially and making sure that we can afford the things
we both really want, which was having a second kid,
staying in New York City, buying a place of our own,
(12:37):
and um so, I you know, I said to him,
I'm committed to doing my part to make sure we
can make that happen. And it was for him, but
it was also for me because I wanted to feel
more secure about our future and feel like I was
contributing to it as well, and have more of a
sense of agency, you know, over my own life rather
than than kind of leaning on someone else for that.
(12:59):
That was the first one, and then the second part
of that was I realized that I had not negotiated
my salary at the magazine where I was working at
the time. I've been there seven years, and just after
I got back from Eternity leave, I found out that
someone had been hired in a similar role who had
just did a couple of years more experience than I
did at fifty more than Oh my god, it was
(13:23):
like a punch of legat. I can't even tell you
it was. I mean, it really, oh it was incredible,
and I just thought to myself, I mean, I remember
I cried when I found out because I realized in
that moment so many things that I'd assumed just were
not the case. Like I had assumed if I worked hard,
I would get rewarded for it financially. And I hadn't
really negotiated my two big promotions, really have not negotiated
(13:47):
a big race for either of them. Um. But more
than that, I realized I've been there seven years, and
I started thinking about, oh my god, the money that
I've missed out on for seven years, not just in earnings,
but in the amount of money I could have been
setting us odd, investing, putting toward my retirement, all of
those things. Um. And so I really, in one quick
moment realized like the ripple effect of not negotiating your
(14:09):
salary at every stage. So I think both those things
kind of happened around the same time. And of course
my husband was very supportive. But I said to him,
then I don't think I can stay where I am.
I'm going to look for better paint. Yeah, so that
was a part of it, too. Nice. Well, I mean, yeah,
it sounds like your husband was on board, right, I
mean you basically you talked about having shared goals, essentially,
like you sat down, you talked through the things that
(14:30):
you both want to work towards. Uh. And by the way,
we're going to talk more about that negotiating like a
little bit later because we don't want to that's definitely important.
But you know, as we're talking about you personally here,
has making more than your husband had you know, any
negative effects on your relationship. I mean, I think it
was a little bit of an adjustment for both of
us because we had different role models growing up. Right,
(14:52):
both of our fathers had been the solar primary bread
winners from most of our childhoods UM and I had
some ideas about what motherhood would look like too, and
it it hadn't involved me being the primary breadwinner at
the time. And so UM, once we had our second
since we really needed to sit down, and so we
had to have a really candid conversation about what it
(15:15):
would look like if I stayed in the primary bread
winner role. Kind of support I needed there, and you know,
how we could divide the household responsibilities and child care
in a way that felt fair for both of us.
And of course I wanted him to feel like he
could continue to pursue his professional goals too, So it
did require um some really good communication around it and
(15:39):
getting to a place where we each felt like, you know,
we were supporting each other and operating like a partnership
because this was this was a little unusual for both
of us. There there was no roadmap there, so we
were sort of making making up our own rules as
we went along. Nice hey, Jennifer. One of my favorite
chapters is actually a chapter in the book called the
Joy of Breadwinning. And I want to ask you, uh
(16:00):
some about that and talk about how how good it
can be um for for women in particular. We'll get
to some questions, uh, some more questions with you about
thinking like a breadwinner right after this break, All right,
we are back. We're talking with Jennifer Barrett about how
(16:22):
to think like a breadwinner. Uh. And Jennifer, even you know,
even when women earn more than their husbands, you say that,
you know, there are still these mental hurdles that that
need to be overcome. And so can you explain to
us and explain to our listeners, like what is the
difference between just being a breadwinner versus thinking like one? Sure?
I interviewed over a d women for this book, and
(16:43):
some of them, many of them were in the breadwinner role.
And what I heard from from them, and research supports
this too, is that, you know, there are some women
who are breadwinners by choice, and there are some women
who are breadwinners by chance. And in the last recession,
the Great Recession, men disproportionately lost, you know, the majority
of jobs, and some of those jobs were not replaced,
(17:05):
and so literally millions of women suddenly found themselves in
the main breadwinning role. And that's really when we started
to see this paradigm shift in the breadwinning model. UM.
But the distinction was, you know, if you're a woman
who suddenly finds yourself in the main earner role because
your husband lost his job or he's now making less
money than he used to, UM, that is very different
(17:25):
than coming in with a breadwinner mindset and saying like,
I'm going to make the money choices that will help
support me, help support my future, help support you know,
my family or my potential family in the future. And
so a lot of women who found themselves in that
role really didn't feel prepared for it because you're not
just earning more, you are now the one who is
carrying most of the financial responsibilities. And mean, let's be honest,
(17:48):
if you're earning more, you are also sort of expected
to be the one who's planning for the future. You know,
who's investing for the future, who's making a lot of
those um taking a lot of those actions too. So
I I talk about that distinction a lot in the book,
um that you know, one of the reasons we want
to raise more women to think like breadwinners is because
of how empowering it is to feel that way whether
(18:09):
or not you become the main earner in a relationship,
but also because so many women are going to end
up in that role and you really want to be
prepared for it. Yeah, even if you don't become the
main breadwinner in your family as a female, thinking like
a breadwinner still has a really big impact, right. And
I think my favorite chapter, like I said before the break,
(18:31):
was the Joy of Breadwinning, and so like, yeah, what
do you think in that regard that women gain by
by thinking like a breadwinner? Sure? And we actually that
was the original title of the book too. So yeah,
I feel so strongly about that because I really wanted
to shift the way we think about breadwinning is something
that's not a burden, but that is really such a
benefit to us and and for me it I mean
(18:52):
it really I it built my confidence up, my sense
of security, the possibilities I saw from myself, my sense
of what my capabilities were around not just wealth building,
but from my career really for every aspect of my life.
So there is so much joy in breadwinning. I cannot
tell you how amazing it felt when I put down
(19:14):
most of the money uh for the down payment on
the home we still live in today, and just walking
around the apartment knowing that I had contributed so much
to making it happen. I mean, it was amazing. It's
just an incredible feeling to know that you can provide
for yourself, that you can provide for the people you love,
that you have that capability. And so whether or not
(19:34):
I stay in the main earning role is sort of irrelevant.
It's really about knowing that we're capable of doing that
and and also building the skills right that's important to
to um to flex those muscles because women in particular,
I mean, no one in America is getting great uh
foundation in financial literacy right now. It's we are really
(19:55):
lacking in that area. Um it's it's it's yeah, and
you know this. You talked about this a lot, um,
but I think women in particular are are less likely
to both get that education and get the message about
how important it is to be saving and investing for
your future, not just for retirement. Yeah, and Jennifer, in
the book, you mentioned what you call the sneaky self
(20:17):
sabotaging beliefs that are, yeah, that are hard to even
pinpoint because you know, they've been so conditioned into who
you are, like you know, since childhood. And so how
do you suggest that women start to kind of like
unravel the subconscious beliefs that are that are holding them back.
Is it as simple as not watching like snow White
and Sleeping Beauty and instead looking to Mowanna and Frozen,
(20:41):
you know, like you talked about kind of like the
classic Disney tropes, but it truly is ingrained in us.
But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on, yeah, how
to kind of fight back and unravel those subconscious beliefs. Yeah,
I think, Um, we're not really waiting for a prince
to save us per se, but um, at least we
don't think we are. I think if you look at
the way, um, overall, you know, the choices that women
(21:02):
are making with their money. You could almost argue that
from a financial perspective, it is almost as if we
are waiting for someone to rescue us sometimes. But I
will say that that conditioning comes from so many places.
It's really not just Disney. It's just this overall belief
that our income is not as critical as men's um
and that's pervasive in the workplace. It's you know, it's
(21:23):
the assumption upon which many policies are based. You know,
right down to paid leave. You know, the fact that
we have maternity leave and often not paid for most
of it, and very little paternity leaves. So there there
are a lot of ways that this shows up that
may not be obvious. And then and of course the
messaging that a lot of us get growing up. And
it's not intentional. So, you know, women who did have
(21:44):
a breadwinning mindset and from the get go, they often
had some experience in their childhood where either you know,
they were raised by a single mom or they had
a mom who said to them, you know, you need
to be able to take care of yourself. They got
some kind of counter programming to the you know, the
over arching cultural conditioning that we get but for most
of us, we we don't. So I think the first
step is being aware of that, just being aware of
(22:06):
all these messages that are really sort of subconsciously saying
we don't need to start investing right away, we don't
need to be in a position to take care of
ourselves for life, We don't need to expect to be
able to take care of a family, because Number one,
that that's really just not true anymore. But just keeping
in mind that our culture just hasn't quite caught up
to that reality, and being aware of how disempowering some
(22:29):
of those messages can be, and then really examining kind
of your own money stories and money beliefs, So looking
back at your childhood and thinking about the money messages
that came out of that. For me in my twenties,
you know, I made a series of bad mistakes with
my money, and I really had this idea. I talked
about this in the book, that I was bad with money,
(22:50):
and that just got cemented in my brain. Right, I
am bad with money, and um, you know other women
I've talked to have said the same thing. Oh I'm
bad with money. Oh I just don't like to think
about money. You know, math is hard whatever, whatever the
message is, um, I really had to work to overwrite
that programming to say, like, I am good with money.
You know, just because I made a few mistakes doesn't
(23:10):
mean I'm bad with money. In fact, you know, the
more I taught myself about investing and all of that
and then I was covering personal finance, really became much
more knowledgeable. I realized I'm actually pretty good with money.
I just never got a really good education around what
to do UM with my money and how to build wealth.
And so now my message is I am good with money.
And that completely transformed my relationship with money. UM. So
(23:34):
it's huge just first being aware and then thinking about
how to transform those beliefs into more empowering ones that
will really help support you in your goals. Yeah. And
then that can be kind of a process, right, a
process of learning and then a process of having essentially
an internal conversation. UM that that helps you to change
the way you perceive even yourself. And and I think
(23:58):
like one of the things you you mentioned in the book,
you said that many women aren't raised to think like breadwinners,
but are instead encouraged to marry one that that's one
of those like self sabotaging beliefs that you're talking about
right exactly exactly, and it's not you know, I I
have this conversation with women all the time where I
don't think it's we're not going back like twenty thirty years,
(24:18):
where it's like a man is going to save me necessarily,
But there is still a belief that you know, we're
not going to be fully financially responsible for ourselves. Sort
of lets us off the hook a little bit, I think,
and so there's less of a sense of urgency, Like
if you think to yourself, I am fully responsible for
myself financially for life fully and probably a family too.
If you're operating from that belief, um, you are going
(24:41):
to make very different choices. You know, You're going to
be thinking about I need to I need to build
my credit so that I can buy home. I need
to start investing early on so I make sure I
have enough money to afford the things that I want
and make sure I have enough for retirement. And there's
just more of a sense of urgency around that if
you expect to be in the breadwinning role. And my
message to women is like whether or not you expect
(25:01):
to be in that role. It is really beneficial to
think that way because the more um you know, the
more you're able to build wealth, the more choices you
have in your life, you know, and and the more
security you have in knowing that you can support the
life that you want. You don't need to ever feel
like you you have to depend on someone else for that, Jeffer.
You know, status are shown too, you know, with the
pandemic that that's caused around like two and a half
(25:23):
million women to leave the workforce during the pandemic, and
so you know, this is bad news for the economy,
you know, it's and it's bad news for the earning
ability of those women, you know, in the future if
they do want to kind of get back into the workforce. So, actually,
after the break, we're gonna talk through some of the
practical steps that women can take to becoming breadwinners and
their families. And we'll get to that right after this.
(25:53):
All right, we're back. We're talking with Jennifer Barrett. She's
written an awesome book about how to think like a breadwinner.
And Jennifer, we've come some of the mindset stuff that
is of course important, like those ingrained beliefs hold a
lot of power over over all of us and and
over women in thinking, being able to think like a
breadwinner and some of the things that that are ingrained
in in us from childhood even But what are some
(26:15):
of the practical financial steps that it takes to reach
breadwinner status? Sure? I think it starts with your earnings, right,
because your income is the springboard for all your wealth
building efforts, and so you want to make sure that
you're making as much as you can at any point
in time, and that means negotiating, of course. And if
you are going to negotiate, make sure you are well
aware of what your market value is. That's so important
(26:37):
really all the time, even if you're in a job
you love, making sure that you're getting paid on the
high end of what your market value is for the
skills you bring in the role you're in, and then
quantifying your successes in your role at say, when you
come in to negotiate for a raise or anything like that,
that you come in with quantifiable data of how you're
bringing value to the company, because the numbers don't lie,
(26:59):
and that helps take a lot of the emotion out
of it too. So number one, your earnings being really
strategic in the way that you plan your career, and
then the choices you make around that to make sure
you're earning enough to support the life that you want. Um.
And then number two, Oh my god, I mean invest
I cannot like, I cannot say that enough. I I
often tell women, use every paycheck as an opportunity to
(27:21):
become less dependent on the next paycheck. Yeah, so I'll
say that's great, that's great. Yes, use every paycheck as
an opportunity to become less dependent on the next one. Yeah.
And what that really means is that you look at
that money coming in and you think, how much of
this can I immediately take and put towards my future
and start growing it, um, so that I become increasingly
(27:43):
less dependent on my paychecks. And that is one way
to sort of wean yourself off the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, which,
by the way, that's where I was. You know, when
I had my wake up call, was living paycheck to
paycheck and I still had credit card debt. So so
I know, I know how difficult this can be, but
it really starts with like, Okay, I'm going to take
a little chunk every month, put it into a regular
investment account or a roth I array, something you know
(28:05):
I can touch before retirement. UM, put some more money
into savings. Start growing that money. Because the more your
money works for you, the less you have to work
for your money. You know, that's the bottom line. And
as you as you build your wealth, m I mean, god,
the sense of security that comes with that, but also
the choices, right because as you become less dependent on
(28:26):
your paycheck, all sorts of possibilities open up. Like for me,
I was able to pull back to reduce my hours
as I was working on this book. UM, I'm not
sure I would have been comfortable doing that if I
hadn't already built up quite a bit of money in
my investment accounts and our investment accounts and then our savings.
So I was you know, I was able to do
that without taking a hit, um, in part because I
(28:47):
planned for it. So those are the sorts of choices
that you have when you start, when you start saving
and investing for your future. So that's so important, and
I think, honestly those are the two most important things
you can do. And then just being really mindful with
your spending. So I would ask myself on a regular basis, like,
are the money choices I'm making me bringing me closer
(29:07):
to this future that I want or further away? And
that's a good gut check. Yeah yeah, yeah. Well so
I mean that that second point was investing, right. Uh
And in the book to you give the analogy that
putting away money it's sort of like building a boat.
Can you kind of explain that for folks, because that's
such a great way to talk about it as to
what it can do for you? Sure, I mean the
way I used to think about savings and the way
(29:29):
that is sort of portrayed in you know, not to.
I was part of women's media, so I was probably
part of this. But um, in women's media, we often
talk about savings is like saving for that handbag or
a girl's getaway or something like that, very short term thinking.
But what I realized was savings is really about you know,
more savings, more choices. It's really about um giving yourself
(29:50):
the freedom to be able to walk away from a
situation that is not UM, that is not good, that
does not support you. So, for example, if you were
living paycheck to pay check, are perceiving yourself as a
living paycheck to paycheck and being so dependent on that.
Think about how you're showing up at work right You're
afraid to speak up. You're afraid to rock the boat.
You're afraid to stand up if your boss to something
(30:12):
that makes you uncomfortable even do you know what I mean?
Like you're just you're giving up some of your power
there and and so that's savings is a big part
of that. And I even talk in the book about
you know, there are more examples that I put in
the book, but so many, so many instances of sexual
harassment and and microaggressions and overt um you know what
would definitely get someone in trouble these days. Um that
(30:35):
I put up with early in my career. And I thought,
my god, you know, as I as I set aside
more money and savings and investment and I moved up
in my career, I just wouldn't put up with that anymore. UM.
But I realized, you know, you, if you feel like
you can't cover the rent on your own, if you
feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck, you leave yourself
very vulnerable and and you could get stuck in a
(30:57):
in a situation you don't want to be in simply
because you don't think you can afford to get out,
and that God, that is a terrible place to be. Yeah,
Matt and I've talked about the concept of peace out money,
and you know, some people call it a few money,
but yeah, really friendly exactly, but it can really be
(31:17):
that that you know, boat to allow you to to quit,
to get out of the toxic situation. And it's really
really important, especially I think for for women, right um,
And to Jennifer, you talk about you tackle the question
of having it all in chapter thirteen in the book.
For lots of women, I think it feels like they
have to make a choice between having a career and
(31:38):
then having a family having kids. So, um, like, can
our female listeners, can women have it all? And do
they have to choose between those things? Or is that
like a false echonomy? I think it is a false echonomy.
But I understand why so many women feel that way.
And you know, initially, I I was really torn to
when I, um, when I first became the main bread
(32:00):
owner and we have these two young kids, because so
much of our identities is wrapped up in being a
mom and being a good mom and what that means
and um, it's really hard. It's really hard to do
it all. Um, I agree, but I think that that's
kind of the wrong question to ask to. You know.
The whole point of thinking like a breadwinner is that
it's thinking about what you want to have in your
(32:21):
life and and what are the choices you need to
make to support that. And I think that's a much
more empowering way to look at it than feeling like
we have to live up to some have it all ideal,
because we have the opportunity to define having it all
however we want to. And I can speak from experience now.
You know, I've been the primary breadwinner for over a
decade now, and we have two lovely boys, and I
(32:42):
feel very very close to them. Um, I feel fully
involved as a mother. So I can tell you from
personal experience it is one a dred percent possible. Doesn't
mean it's not, you know, it doesn't mean it's easy,
and it doesn't mean it doesn't require, you know, some
conversations with your partner to make sure that you both
feel like you are splitting the household responsibilities and the
(33:04):
bread winning responsibilities in a fair way. But it is.
It is entirely possible. It really is. And I think
it's becoming easier and easier the more aware we are
of some of these external barriers too, and and um,
we're addressing them, you know, and paid leave, all of
these things, these are flexibility, remote work, all of these
things are part of the national conversation right now, and
(33:25):
so I really am hopeful that we're going to see
a lot of progress on all those fronts. Nice and Jennifer,
one last question here for you before we let you go.
You know, you detail how much of the problem it
can be corrected, you know, early on in childhood. I've
got three girls. Joel's got to what do you tell
the parents of young girls about how to think like
the breadwinners that they are capable of becoming. Oh, I
(33:47):
mean the first, um, the first opportunity is really to
start speaking to them about investing, and when you talk
to them about the career that they might want later,
looking at what that career pays, you know, looking at
what does stop, and just being really listic about like
what is the life that you want to have and
what kind of earnings do you want to have and
how are you going to use that support your life,
and if there's a disconnect between what their expectations are
(34:08):
and the kind of earnings they can expect from whatever
it is they're interested in, to have those conversations early on,
like how are you going to close that gap? Are
there different ways to look at your career, different opportunities
that will allow you to earn more? Does this mean
that you're gonna have to pick up a second job
when you start? Just to make sure that you're in
a good position, Like how do you start saving and
investing early on to make sure you're set up just
really having those honest conversations about the skills that you
(34:32):
need to be successful as an adults, really to be
able to support yourself and the life you want, you know, Jennifer,
reading your book actually made me think about talking starting
to talk with my seven year old and my five
year old girls about like I'd opened up five nine
plans for them, and I realized, oh, man, just in
a few months time, like they've grown a decent bit
and it maybe want to like not just look at
(34:53):
that on my computer screen alone, but then bring them
into it and kind of help them see like how
investing can make a difference, and like I wouldn't have
thought about that if it weren't for reading your book.
So I just want to say thank you, Like you're
helping me raise girls that can think like brend winners.
So I appreciate that makes me so happy. It really
does to hear that. Well, thank thank you. And and
so how can our listeners find out more about you
(35:15):
and in your new book, Um, Well, you can go
to Jennifer Barrett dot com. It's be a double R, E,
double T and you can find out all about the
book and how to order it and more about me
if you want to learn more about um and of
course a corns dot com. That's that's where I work,
and you can find out everything you want to know
about a corns on that website. Well, Jennifer, thanks so
(35:37):
much for spending some time with us today. This has
been an awesome conversation. Uh, yeah, we appreciate it. Thank you.
This has been great. All right, man, I love that
chat with Jennifer. She brought a lot of interesting knowledge
and I think just a lot of like help in
this conversation because I think I think she's right in
a lot of ways, like our culture has just not
come around to the reality of the fact that almost
(35:58):
half of women are the breadwinners and her families. And
so there's just an important conversation that needs to go
alongside of this. And I'm glad Jennifer's voice is in
the ring and this book is out there because I
think it is going to be helpful to a whole
lot of women. Um, but I want to know from you,
what was your big takeaway from this combo? Yeah? Yeah,
So I kind of lashed onto the idea that she
was talking about when she was having these discussions with
(36:19):
her husband, right, she talked about how they were able
to you know, it sounds like they sat down and
they talked through it. They talk through what their goals
or what their shared goals were. They she talked through security, like,
you know, the the gained sense of security that she
would have by also being you know, being able to
earn more money. And so that just kind of raised
a flag for me that it is important for us
to be talking about these things with our partners. You know,
(36:40):
it's important for us to be to have our own
personal finances figured out, but if you're in a relationship,
it is important to make sure that you're talking about
these things together as a couple. I think it's even
something important to discuss before you're in a long term,
committed relationship, before you're married. You know, like once you
start dating, if you're a woman and you have the
goal of earning a lot of money, you know, you
see yourself being in the office, this is something you
(37:03):
want to pursue. You really love your work, or or
there's you know this other aspect, there's something else out
there that you want to pursue that is really important
to talk about. And you know, we kind of just
barely touched on this um but I just really like
the I don't know, the couple's therapy aspect of sitting
down talking through your goals, figuring out those goals, because
once you're on the same page, gosh, you can accomplish
so much more when you're both you know, going in
(37:25):
the same direction as opposed to you know, you both
not necessarily even pulling in opposite directions, but just slightly askew.
You know, like if you're both kind of pulling in
slightly different directions as opposed to the same direction, you're
not gonna get nearly as far when it comes to
just your happiness you know, within that relationship. But yeah, yeah,
but also to the different goals that you're gonna be
able to achieve as a couple. So yeah, that's something
that stood up to me. But what about you? Yeah,
(37:46):
I thought what what Jennifer talked about when it came
to being aware of the subconscious messaging that we've received
for our whole lives. And I think in those conversations
that you have to have with your partner, there's a
lot of that that's gonna have to be dealt with,
and you might have to discuss things that might seem trivial,
like well, in my family, my dad was the breadwinner,
and I think that effects, you know, how I have
(38:07):
thought about money or how I've thought about my role
in this family when it comes to bringing home the bacon.
And it's not just gonna be like one combo to
that you know that that solves everything, But it's gonna
be a series of combos. But it's also in those conversations,
it's going to be unraveling some of those things that
have become ingrained over a whole lot of years of
just cultural norms and the way that I think, in particular,
(38:30):
females have been left out of the money conversations in
a lot of households, kids in general oftentimes are left out.
And that's why again, like what I said to Jennifer
at the end, I am thankful, like it is provoking
me to start those conversations even younger, even about investing,
you know, not just about saving, but but helping them
see the compounding power of money so that they can
get interested in that from a young age and and
(38:52):
realize its power, um, so that they can maybe think
like breadwinners earlier on and find some joy in it. So, yeah, man,
I don't know, I thought that was a great conversation.
I'm glad we were able to have Jennifer on. Yeah.
And that's not to say too that if you and
your partner decide that what you want are what some
folks would call more traditional roles, that that's not okay.
It's just that it's something to talk about, because everybody
(39:12):
has different goals, uh, And so you might come down
on the side of the fence where it's like, okay, cool,
both of our roles are gonna look just like our parents,
you know, like if it's a more traditional approach where
you know, the mail is going to be the you know,
the main breadwinner, but you also might identify that like
you know what you know for us, that's actually not
going to be the case. Or even something that Kate
and I have talked about, you know, like often the
(39:33):
future potentially kind of switching the roles up a little
bit and making sure that, you know, we've talked about
how I want to make sure that she has opportunities
as well to pursue some of the things that she
wants to. That's an ongoing conversation that we've had and
and so I guess I say that to to point
out that it's it's not like it's locked in necessarily.
Oftentimes you know it will be because once you advance
in your career, it's it's tougher to switch things up,
(39:54):
but it can be more fluid. Uh, just make sure
you're talking about it. I love it, and you know
what else I love Matt loved this beer we had
on the show, and the fact too that Jennifer loves
Kraft Beer. Did she was dropped. I mean, those are
the kind of breweries that we like to drink as well.
So we all our other half totally need a at
some point at least Yeah, meet up and grab some
beers with Jennifer. Yeah, this one we on this episode
(40:15):
we had a dass Yummy, which is a what's it's
a banana cream pie sour? Yeah. What were your thoughts
on this beer from usel Finch. That's the name of
the brewery. It's an amazing name. I've never had a
beer by them before, uzel Finch. I feel like we've
been having more banana beers on the show lately, like yeah,
which which is kind of randoh, it's interesting, But this
is I think my favorite banana beer yet. It was
(40:37):
really really good and it was like perfectly tart, and
so it definitely had that banana cream pie style thing
going on, with that little tartness that you get when
you're eating a banana cream pie. I really really like
this one. I think I've mentioned before I'm not like
I'll eat a banana here and again, like banana runts
though are often the flavor I get in banana beers,
and I just don't really dig banana runts, but not
(41:00):
a whole lot of banana runs flavor and there's not.
This one feels a little more natural banana taste and
along with the tartness. Man, I really dug it. Yeah,
it's almost like like it's got all the banana fla
like I wanted to say, it almost tastes like it's
an unwrite banana because of that kind of tartness, except
that there's still good banana flavor, because a lot of
times when you have an unwrite banana bana that's too green,
there's just no banana flavor there. And so they've got
(41:21):
the right amount of banana flavor here while at the
same time a nice little bit of tartness. Um and
dude also too. I saw on the can that, speaking
of women, the head brewer at this brewery is a woman,
and so I feel like that's quite appropriate given our
conversation today with Jennifer, we need more women in the
craft of your industry. Heck, yeah, man, that's for sure.
I'm all about it. All right, Well, that's gonna do
it for today's episode. We'll have links up in our
(41:42):
show notes on our website at how to money dot com. Yeah. There,
you can find a link to Jennifer's book in her
site if you want to learn more and support her there,
and also too, if you've been listening to the show
and you you found it helpful. We would love for
you to head over to wherever it is that you
listen to podcasts and leave us a solid review, letting
others know that you appreciate the podcast and we appreciate you.
So Joel, that's gonna be a buddy until next time.
(42:04):
Best friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and
Matt's and today we're discussing how to Think Like a
Breadwinner with Jennifer Barrett. Yeah, we are excited for our
(00:27):
conversation today with Jennifer Barrett's. Jennifer is a long time
financial journalist and she has written for publications like The
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Money, as well as
a newsweek. She is. She's prolific, She's seemingly everywhere. She's
developed and hosted a popular personal finance video course on
You to Me. She's given a ted X talk on
the importance of wealth building, and she's also you know,
(00:49):
appeared on many TV shows as well. And as impressive
as all that is, she also has a new book
that just came out that's titled Think Like a Breadwinner,
which is all about empowering women who want to earn
more money. So this is going to be a helpful
episode for everybody, but especially for the working woman. So Jennifer,
thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Thanks
(01:10):
so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
I really love your podcast. Thanks Jennifer, and you know
we're glad to have you here. With us and Matt.
We're talking with Jennifer before we begin the show, and
Jennifer mentioned that she loved craft beer. So yeah, we're
drinking a banana cream pie style bereau of the show
right now while we while we have this combo. But
Matt and I we always drink a craft beer on
(01:31):
our episodes because it's something that we love, is something
that we suplore John, while we're also being intentional and
trying to save well for the future. So yeah, we
want to know from you, what's your craft beer equivalent? Oh,
it is craft beer one for one, the exact same thing. Yes,
I was just thinking that we could spend an entire
episode just geeking out on beers. Um I I am
(01:54):
a total beer geek. In fact, I am looking. I'm
not drinking just yet today, but um I just splur
just on a four pack of mckeller Limited series. Yes,
very good, um Bred your beer, Yeah, I love them.
But we're also very close to Other Half Frewery, which,
oh my gosh, so dangerous. That's right, because you are
in Brooklyn, aren't you. We are literally walking distance from
(02:17):
Other Half and they have some amazing beers. I probably
don't need to tell you. In fact, I was just
thinking they have one called Banana Pandan, which you might
like as part of their Pastry Town series. Anyway, it's
very easy to drop you on a four pack. It
is way too easy just on four beers, and they're strong,
so you have to sip them. So I think it
(02:38):
sort of works out, you know, like price per sip
or something. You know, I'm not drinking all four in
an evening, so I think I gotta take value into
accounts for sure. It's it's yeah, you drink it more
like wine than you know, than like a natty light.
And that's what we try to anytime someone hasn't heard
of the show and we're talking about it, we have
to kind of explain to them as like we're not
like just crushing beers on the show, smashing the cans
(02:59):
in our forehead. We're literally splitting the six we're sharing it.
It matters up perfection fancy tulip glasses, but we love
it even the proper glass. Yes, exactly. We're big fans
of Other Half for sure. Man. One that sticks out
in my mind wasn't wasn't it an Other Half that
did the wedge salad collaboration they made like all these
vegetable super hoppy. I mean high on them, not a
(03:21):
big I'm not a big hophead. But I can stick
to those pastry stouts. I do love the pastry stouts.
But now that half in the hands of a lesser brewery,
that may have been disastrous. I think vegetable combination, I
think other half can pull it off. They totally can.
They They make me want to drink my veggies. You know, well, well, Jennifer,
you're also the We didn't mention this in your bio,
(03:42):
but you're also the chief education officer at Acorns, the
the app that allows you to stash away money. Uh.
We're big fans of the app, and you know we've
talked about it on the show. And so how has
your time at Acorns? What is that like? I guess,
first of all, being part of a cutting edge fintech company,
uh like? And how has that changed how you view
money yourself? Sure? UM, I mean it's exciting, right. It's
(04:04):
not the first startup I worked for. UM. I worked
for the Street dot Com in a short lived joint
venture with the New York Times was my first experience,
and then I worked at Daily Worth, which was a
financial media company that targeted women and I loved it,
but unfortunately they went under, which is always a risk
with a startup. I don't think that's going to be
energy With Acorns, we're doing very well. We have over
(04:24):
nine million users and UM I really have grown just
by leaps and balance since I joined five years ago. UM.
But the reason I went, I mean, I know you
mentioned UM. I was a journalist for a very long
time financial journalist, and I felt like, UM I was
just writing the same headlines over and over again, which
was like, you know, Americans don't save enough to cover
(04:45):
a four in a dollar or a thousand dollar emergency.
We're on the brink of a retirement crisis, you know,
just these really scary headlines. And I was starting to
get really frustrated and wondering, you know, we're giving people
good information here UM through financial journalism, Why are people
still not making the decisions they need to in order
to set themselves up? And so we had actually covered Acorns.
(05:06):
I was working at CNBC UM as Personal Finance editor
before I joined Acorns, and I was intrigued by the
concept of investing spare change, which was the first UM
feature that we launched with and I thought, this is
incredible because it removes so many of the mental barriers
for a lot of people. Right, if you were just
(05:27):
investing spare change, you know how big a risk is that, Right?
What else are you going to do with it? Is
sitting in your couch gathering dust? Right, So why not
invest it? Um? And it was just so easy in
the way that it was connected with spending. You know,
you you link your card and every time you spend,
we round up your purchases and we invest the change.
Just made it so simple and then we were invested
ere they were at the TUM. I wasn't there yet.
(05:48):
They were investing it into pre selected portfolios that had
exposure to a wide range you know, thousands of stocks
and bonds and so it was automatically diversified. So it
was really like about as simple as it could be. Yeah, um, yeah,
So that's what was intriguing to me. I was really
drawn by the mission and I wanted to be a
part of the solution. And I've been here now for
(06:09):
more than five years and now I'm the chief Education Officer,
so I get the chance to educate our users and um,
you know, and the general public about the topic that
I love almost as much as beer, which is nice. Well,
that's cool, that's cool. Yeah, And Acorns is doing a
great job at simplifying things, and Matt and I believe
that simplification is such a huge part of making personal
(06:31):
finance relevant to to everybody. Right and uh, And Jennifer
in your book, in your new book, you you start
to detail, Um, let's go back even further, right, because
you wrote about money, but you you talk about how
in your late twenties you weren't doing all that great
with money and calling that out. Hey you called yourself out, Okay,
(06:54):
but like, what was that time like for you? What
were you starting to realize about your money situation? Kind
of yeah, as your you know, approach approaching that mark. Yeah,
I mean, oh, I made a lot of mistakes in
my twenties. I know a lot of us do. And
when I look back now, I can trace a lot
of it back to the fact that I was not
thinking like a breadwinner. So I was not making money
(07:14):
choices from a place of how can I ensure I
am able to take care of myself financially for life
and maybe others too. Um, I wasn't raised that way.
I wasn't thinking about money that way. Um, And culturally
most women are not raised to think of themselves as breadwinners.
But it really isn't conscious, right. I think the cultural
prescription that we get as women is often this, get
(07:36):
a career, get married, save some for a rainy day,
and save some for retirement. And that's what I was doing.
And it was really it was actually in my early
thirties that I really had a wake up call and
I realized, like, this leaves out a whole chunk of
our lives, you know, like the decades between saving for
a nice handbag or girls getaway post pandemic and retirement.
And we were in a situation at the time. We
(07:59):
were in a tiny one bedroom in New York, which
is not uncommon, but sharing it with the toddler, and
it was unsustainable. And I had a moment where I realized,
I am in no position here to help us, to
help us afford at a bigger place, certainly not to
buy a place here. Um, you know, not even sure
I could afford to have a second child, you know,
(08:19):
looking at my own finances. And that was a huge
wake up call for me because Up until that point,
I thought I was doing okay financially. But I realized,
I think in that moment that there's a material difference
between being able to cover the bills and then being
able to build wealth to support the life you want. Um.
And that was a turning point for me. Yeah, and
(08:42):
and and for not just you personally, but you you know,
you've discovered that lots of women we're facing similar realizations, right.
You know what, what did you find after kind of
digging into the data about you know, just women at large,
you know, just across the entire population. Yeah, I mean
I I realized I certainly was not alone. Um. And
I think, if you know, even though women are the
(09:03):
main or soul breadwinner now in more than forty of
households with kids under eighteen, we have not really caught
up to this reality yet culturally. So even if you
look at the research, research shows that parents actually speak
differently to their daughters about money than they do to
their sons. So they're more likely to teach their girls
how to budget and how to spend smartly, and they're
(09:24):
more likely to teach their sons how to build credit
and how to invest to build wealth and those are
critical skills for everyone, but women are just a lot
less likely to get that training or even to get
the message of how important it is to invest to
grow their wealth. And so I realized that so much
of this came down to the fact that we are
really not um socialized to think of ourselves like breadwinners,
(09:47):
and that informs so many of the money choices that
we make, especially early on. So it helps to explain
in part why we disproportionately choose the lowest paying careers,
the lowest paying majors, even in the highest paying jor
as we picked the lowest paying paths. Um. You know,
I don't need to tell you we save and invest
less than men. Um we have, we're earning less. And
(10:08):
you know, if you look at the gender wealth gap,
it's thirty two cents for every single woman compared to
a dollar for every man on average. Obviously, but that's
a huge gap, and it's not entirely explained by the
fact that we aren't perceiving ourselves as breadwinners and sort
of making money choices from that place. But that really
does help explain a lot of it, because we sort
(10:29):
of know what to do at this point with our
money or at least the basics. So a lot of
this is around these internal barriers that we have UM
to making those choices. And also if we don't believe
that our income is as important as our partners, we
may not treat it that way. UM. And and we're
really it's time to shift that. I think there's a
huge opportunity to shift the way we're thinking about ourselves
(10:52):
and our capabilities, UM and the role we can play
in our partnerships. Yeah. You you mentioned too in the
book that you had some of some fans about your
husband making more money than you did, challenging these previously
held money in relational beliefs. Was that the biggest struggle?
And how did you do that? And how did you
guys do that together? Yeah? I had two big wake
(11:12):
up calls. The first was that the one I talked
about a little bit earlier, UM, when I was sort
of asking myself like, hey, I thought I was this
independent woman. How am I in a situation now where
some of the things that are most important to me
or at stake and realizing that, you know, I had
some pretty deep seated assumptions about the role that my
partner would play and I think they were based largely
(11:34):
on the fact that, you know, my my own father
had been the sole breadwinner for much of my childhood
and then the primary one, And so that was the
model I had. My mom stepped out of the workforce.
I shouldn't say stepped out. I mean, it's never that simple,
but she didn't work for a long time and then
started working again just before they got divorced. So that
was the model I had growing up. And I think, um,
(11:55):
just deep down in my subconscious I sort of assumed
it would be a similar situation aation when I got married. Now,
my husband was earning more than me. But but right
before that wake up call, he had had, you know,
his um company he'd worked for had gone under. He'd
gotten a new job that paid a little bit less,
so that the gap between our earnings was smaller. But
I was still sort of holding on to this idea
(12:15):
that he would be the one to take the lead,
and not even consciously, I had to really, you know,
I realized that's what I was still holding onto. So yeah,
we we did have to have a conversation about that,
and I said, I really want to be more active
financially and making sure that we can afford the things
we both really want, which was having a second kid,
staying in New York City, buying a place of our own,
(12:37):
and um so, I you know, I said to him,
I'm committed to doing my part to make sure we
can make that happen. And it was for him, but
it was also for me because I wanted to feel
more secure about our future and feel like I was
contributing to it as well, and have more of a
sense of agency, you know, over my own life rather
than than kind of leaning on someone else for that.
(12:59):
That was the first one, and then the second part
of that was I realized that I had not negotiated
my salary at the magazine where I was working at
the time. I've been there seven years, and just after
I got back from Eternity leave, I found out that
someone had been hired in a similar role who had
just did a couple of years more experience than I
did at fifty more than Oh my god, it was
(13:23):
like a punch of legat. I can't even tell you
it was. I mean, it really, oh it was incredible,
and I just thought to myself, I mean, I remember
I cried when I found out because I realized in
that moment so many things that I'd assumed just were
not the case. Like I had assumed if I worked hard,
I would get rewarded for it financially. And I hadn't
really negotiated my two big promotions, really have not negotiated
(13:47):
a big race for either of them. Um. But more
than that, I realized I've been there seven years, and
I started thinking about, oh my god, the money that
I've missed out on for seven years, not just in earnings,
but in the amount of money I could have been
setting us odd, investing, putting toward my retirement, all of
those things. Um. And so I really, in one quick
moment realized like the ripple effect of not negotiating your
(14:09):
salary at every stage. So I think both those things
kind of happened around the same time. And of course
my husband was very supportive. But I said to him,
then I don't think I can stay where I am.
I'm going to look for better paint. Yeah, so that
was a part of it, too. Nice. Well, I mean, yeah,
it sounds like your husband was on board, right, I
mean you basically you talked about having shared goals, essentially,
like you sat down, you talked through the things that
(14:30):
you both want to work towards. Uh. And by the way,
we're going to talk more about that negotiating like a
little bit later because we don't want to that's definitely important.
But you know, as we're talking about you personally here,
has making more than your husband had you know, any
negative effects on your relationship. I mean, I think it
was a little bit of an adjustment for both of
us because we had different role models growing up. Right,
(14:52):
both of our fathers had been the solar primary bread
winners from most of our childhoods UM and I had
some ideas about what motherhood would look like too, and
it it hadn't involved me being the primary breadwinner at
the time. And so UM, once we had our second
since we really needed to sit down, and so we
had to have a really candid conversation about what it
(15:15):
would look like if I stayed in the primary bread
winner role. Kind of support I needed there, and you know,
how we could divide the household responsibilities and child care
in a way that felt fair for both of us.
And of course I wanted him to feel like he
could continue to pursue his professional goals too, So it
did require um some really good communication around it and
(15:39):
getting to a place where we each felt like, you know,
we were supporting each other and operating like a partnership
because this was this was a little unusual for both
of us. There there was no roadmap there, so we
were sort of making making up our own rules as
we went along. Nice hey, Jennifer. One of my favorite
chapters is actually a chapter in the book called the
Joy of Breadwinning. And I want to ask you, uh
(16:00):
some about that and talk about how how good it
can be um for for women in particular. We'll get
to some questions, uh, some more questions with you about
thinking like a breadwinner right after this break, All right,
we are back. We're talking with Jennifer Barrett about how
(16:22):
to think like a breadwinner. Uh. And Jennifer, even you know,
even when women earn more than their husbands, you say that,
you know, there are still these mental hurdles that that
need to be overcome. And so can you explain to
us and explain to our listeners, like what is the
difference between just being a breadwinner versus thinking like one? Sure?
I interviewed over a d women for this book, and
(16:43):
some of them, many of them were in the breadwinner role.
And what I heard from from them, and research supports
this too, is that, you know, there are some women
who are breadwinners by choice, and there are some women
who are breadwinners by chance. And in the last recession,
the Great Recession, men disproportionately lost, you know, the majority
of jobs, and some of those jobs were not replaced,
(17:05):
and so literally millions of women suddenly found themselves in
the main breadwinning role. And that's really when we started
to see this paradigm shift in the breadwinning model. UM.
But the distinction was, you know, if you're a woman
who suddenly finds yourself in the main earner role because
your husband lost his job or he's now making less
money than he used to, UM, that is very different
(17:25):
than coming in with a breadwinner mindset and saying like,
I'm going to make the money choices that will help
support me, help support my future, help support you know,
my family or my potential family in the future. And
so a lot of women who found themselves in that
role really didn't feel prepared for it because you're not
just earning more, you are now the one who is
carrying most of the financial responsibilities. And mean, let's be honest,
(17:48):
if you're earning more, you are also sort of expected
to be the one who's planning for the future. You know,
who's investing for the future, who's making a lot of
those um taking a lot of those actions too. So
I I talk about that distinction a lot in the book,
um that you know, one of the reasons we want
to raise more women to think like breadwinners is because
of how empowering it is to feel that way whether
(18:09):
or not you become the main earner in a relationship,
but also because so many women are going to end
up in that role and you really want to be
prepared for it. Yeah, even if you don't become the
main breadwinner in your family as a female, thinking like
a breadwinner still has a really big impact, right. And
I think my favorite chapter, like I said before the break,
(18:31):
was the Joy of Breadwinning, and so like, yeah, what
do you think in that regard that women gain by
by thinking like a breadwinner? Sure? And we actually that
was the original title of the book too. So yeah,
I feel so strongly about that because I really wanted
to shift the way we think about breadwinning is something
that's not a burden, but that is really such a
benefit to us and and for me it I mean
(18:52):
it really I it built my confidence up, my sense
of security, the possibilities I saw from myself, my sense
of what my capabilities were around not just wealth building,
but from my career really for every aspect of my life.
So there is so much joy in breadwinning. I cannot
tell you how amazing it felt when I put down
(19:14):
most of the money uh for the down payment on
the home we still live in today, and just walking
around the apartment knowing that I had contributed so much
to making it happen. I mean, it was amazing. It's
just an incredible feeling to know that you can provide
for yourself, that you can provide for the people you love,
that you have that capability. And so whether or not
(19:34):
I stay in the main earning role is sort of irrelevant.
It's really about knowing that we're capable of doing that
and and also building the skills right that's important to
to um to flex those muscles because women in particular,
I mean, no one in America is getting great uh
foundation in financial literacy right now. It's we are really
(19:55):
lacking in that area. Um it's it's it's yeah, and
you know this. You talked about this a lot, um,
but I think women in particular are are less likely
to both get that education and get the message about
how important it is to be saving and investing for
your future, not just for retirement. Yeah, and Jennifer, in
the book, you mentioned what you call the sneaky self
(20:17):
sabotaging beliefs that are, yeah, that are hard to even
pinpoint because you know, they've been so conditioned into who
you are, like you know, since childhood. And so how
do you suggest that women start to kind of like
unravel the subconscious beliefs that are that are holding them back.
Is it as simple as not watching like snow White
and Sleeping Beauty and instead looking to Mowanna and Frozen,
(20:41):
you know, like you talked about kind of like the
classic Disney tropes, but it truly is ingrained in us.
But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on, yeah, how
to kind of fight back and unravel those subconscious beliefs. Yeah,
I think, Um, we're not really waiting for a prince
to save us per se, but um, at least we
don't think we are. I think if you look at
the way, um, overall, you know, the choices that women
(21:02):
are making with their money. You could almost argue that
from a financial perspective, it is almost as if we
are waiting for someone to rescue us sometimes. But I
will say that that conditioning comes from so many places.
It's really not just Disney. It's just this overall belief
that our income is not as critical as men's um
and that's pervasive in the workplace. It's you know, it's
(21:23):
the assumption upon which many policies are based. You know,
right down to paid leave. You know, the fact that
we have maternity leave and often not paid for most
of it, and very little paternity leaves. So there there
are a lot of ways that this shows up that
may not be obvious. And then and of course the
messaging that a lot of us get growing up. And
it's not intentional. So, you know, women who did have
(21:44):
a breadwinning mindset and from the get go, they often
had some experience in their childhood where either you know,
they were raised by a single mom or they had
a mom who said to them, you know, you need
to be able to take care of yourself. They got
some kind of counter programming to the you know, the
over arching cultural conditioning that we get but for most
of us, we we don't. So I think the first
step is being aware of that, just being aware of
(22:06):
all these messages that are really sort of subconsciously saying
we don't need to start investing right away, we don't
need to be in a position to take care of
ourselves for life, We don't need to expect to be
able to take care of a family, because Number one,
that that's really just not true anymore. But just keeping
in mind that our culture just hasn't quite caught up
to that reality, and being aware of how disempowering some
(22:29):
of those messages can be, and then really examining kind
of your own money stories and money beliefs, So looking
back at your childhood and thinking about the money messages
that came out of that. For me in my twenties,
you know, I made a series of bad mistakes with
my money, and I really had this idea. I talked
about this in the book, that I was bad with money,
(22:50):
and that just got cemented in my brain. Right, I
am bad with money, and um, you know other women
I've talked to have said the same thing. Oh I'm
bad with money. Oh I just don't like to think
about money. You know, math is hard whatever, whatever the
message is, um, I really had to work to overwrite
that programming to say, like, I am good with money.
You know, just because I made a few mistakes doesn't
(23:10):
mean I'm bad with money. In fact, you know, the
more I taught myself about investing and all of that
and then I was covering personal finance, really became much
more knowledgeable. I realized I'm actually pretty good with money.
I just never got a really good education around what
to do UM with my money and how to build wealth.
And so now my message is I am good with money.
And that completely transformed my relationship with money. UM. So
(23:34):
it's huge just first being aware and then thinking about
how to transform those beliefs into more empowering ones that
will really help support you in your goals. Yeah. And
then that can be kind of a process, right, a
process of learning and then a process of having essentially
an internal conversation. UM that that helps you to change
the way you perceive even yourself. And and I think
(23:58):
like one of the things you you mentioned in the book,
you said that many women aren't raised to think like breadwinners,
but are instead encouraged to marry one that that's one
of those like self sabotaging beliefs that you're talking about
right exactly exactly, and it's not you know, I I
have this conversation with women all the time where I
don't think it's we're not going back like twenty thirty years,
(24:18):
where it's like a man is going to save me necessarily,
But there is still a belief that you know, we're
not going to be fully financially responsible for ourselves. Sort
of lets us off the hook a little bit, I think,
and so there's less of a sense of urgency, Like
if you think to yourself, I am fully responsible for
myself financially for life fully and probably a family too.
If you're operating from that belief, um, you are going
(24:41):
to make very different choices. You know, You're going to
be thinking about I need to I need to build
my credit so that I can buy home. I need
to start investing early on so I make sure I
have enough money to afford the things that I want
and make sure I have enough for retirement. And there's
just more of a sense of urgency around that if
you expect to be in the breadwinning role. And my
message to women is like whether or not you expect
(25:01):
to be in that role. It is really beneficial to
think that way because the more um you know, the
more you're able to build wealth, the more choices you
have in your life, you know, and and the more
security you have in knowing that you can support the
life that you want. You don't need to ever feel
like you you have to depend on someone else for that, Jeffer.
You know, status are shown too, you know, with the
pandemic that that's caused around like two and a half
(25:23):
million women to leave the workforce during the pandemic, and
so you know, this is bad news for the economy,
you know, it's and it's bad news for the earning
ability of those women, you know, in the future if
they do want to kind of get back into the workforce. So, actually,
after the break, we're gonna talk through some of the
practical steps that women can take to becoming breadwinners and
their families. And we'll get to that right after this.
(25:53):
All right, we're back. We're talking with Jennifer Barrett. She's
written an awesome book about how to think like a breadwinner.
And Jennifer, we've come some of the mindset stuff that
is of course important, like those ingrained beliefs hold a
lot of power over over all of us and and
over women in thinking, being able to think like a
breadwinner and some of the things that that are ingrained
in in us from childhood even But what are some
(26:15):
of the practical financial steps that it takes to reach
breadwinner status? Sure? I think it starts with your earnings, right,
because your income is the springboard for all your wealth
building efforts, and so you want to make sure that
you're making as much as you can at any point
in time, and that means negotiating, of course. And if
you are going to negotiate, make sure you are well
aware of what your market value is. That's so important
(26:37):
really all the time, even if you're in a job
you love, making sure that you're getting paid on the
high end of what your market value is for the
skills you bring in the role you're in, and then
quantifying your successes in your role at say, when you
come in to negotiate for a raise or anything like that,
that you come in with quantifiable data of how you're
bringing value to the company, because the numbers don't lie,
(26:59):
and that helps take a lot of the emotion out
of it too. So number one, your earnings being really
strategic in the way that you plan your career, and
then the choices you make around that to make sure
you're earning enough to support the life that you want. Um.
And then number two, Oh my god, I mean invest
I cannot like, I cannot say that enough. I I
often tell women, use every paycheck as an opportunity to
(27:21):
become less dependent on the next paycheck. Yeah, so I'll
say that's great, that's great. Yes, use every paycheck as
an opportunity to become less dependent on the next one. Yeah.
And what that really means is that you look at
that money coming in and you think, how much of
this can I immediately take and put towards my future
and start growing it, um, so that I become increasingly
(27:43):
less dependent on my paychecks. And that is one way
to sort of wean yourself off the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, which,
by the way, that's where I was. You know, when
I had my wake up call, was living paycheck to
paycheck and I still had credit card debt. So so
I know, I know how difficult this can be, but
it really starts with like, Okay, I'm going to take
a little chunk every month, put it into a regular
investment account or a roth I array, something you know
(28:05):
I can touch before retirement. UM, put some more money
into savings. Start growing that money. Because the more your
money works for you, the less you have to work
for your money. You know, that's the bottom line. And
as you as you build your wealth, m I mean, god,
the sense of security that comes with that, but also
the choices, right because as you become less dependent on
(28:26):
your paycheck, all sorts of possibilities open up. Like for me,
I was able to pull back to reduce my hours
as I was working on this book. UM, I'm not
sure I would have been comfortable doing that if I
hadn't already built up quite a bit of money in
my investment accounts and our investment accounts and then our savings.
So I was you know, I was able to do
that without taking a hit, um, in part because I
(28:47):
planned for it. So those are the sorts of choices
that you have when you start, when you start saving
and investing for your future. So that's so important, and
I think, honestly those are the two most important things
you can do. And then just being really mindful with
your spending. So I would ask myself on a regular basis, like,
are the money choices I'm making me bringing me closer
(29:07):
to this future that I want or further away? And
that's a good gut check. Yeah yeah, yeah. Well so
I mean that that second point was investing, right. Uh
And in the book to you give the analogy that
putting away money it's sort of like building a boat.
Can you kind of explain that for folks, because that's
such a great way to talk about it as to
what it can do for you? Sure, I mean the
way I used to think about savings and the way
(29:29):
that is sort of portrayed in you know, not to.
I was part of women's media, so I was probably
part of this. But um, in women's media, we often
talk about savings is like saving for that handbag or
a girl's getaway or something like that, very short term thinking.
But what I realized was savings is really about you know,
more savings, more choices. It's really about um giving yourself
(29:50):
the freedom to be able to walk away from a
situation that is not UM, that is not good, that
does not support you. So, for example, if you were
living paycheck to pay check, are perceiving yourself as a
living paycheck to paycheck and being so dependent on that.
Think about how you're showing up at work right You're
afraid to speak up. You're afraid to rock the boat.
You're afraid to stand up if your boss to something
(30:12):
that makes you uncomfortable even do you know what I mean?
Like you're just you're giving up some of your power
there and and so that's savings is a big part
of that. And I even talk in the book about
you know, there are more examples that I put in
the book, but so many, so many instances of sexual
harassment and and microaggressions and overt um you know what
would definitely get someone in trouble these days. Um that
(30:35):
I put up with early in my career. And I thought,
my god, you know, as I as I set aside
more money and savings and investment and I moved up
in my career, I just wouldn't put up with that anymore. UM.
But I realized, you know, you, if you feel like
you can't cover the rent on your own, if you
feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck, you leave yourself
very vulnerable and and you could get stuck in a
(30:57):
in a situation you don't want to be in simply
because you don't think you can afford to get out,
and that God, that is a terrible place to be. Yeah,
Matt and I've talked about the concept of peace out money,
and you know, some people call it a few money,
but yeah, really friendly exactly, but it can really be
(31:17):
that that you know, boat to allow you to to quit,
to get out of the toxic situation. And it's really
really important, especially I think for for women, right um,
And to Jennifer, you talk about you tackle the question
of having it all in chapter thirteen in the book.
For lots of women, I think it feels like they
have to make a choice between having a career and
(31:38):
then having a family having kids. So, um, like, can
our female listeners, can women have it all? And do
they have to choose between those things? Or is that
like a false echonomy? I think it is a false echonomy.
But I understand why so many women feel that way.
And you know, initially, I I was really torn to
when I, um, when I first became the main bread
(32:00):
owner and we have these two young kids, because so
much of our identities is wrapped up in being a
mom and being a good mom and what that means
and um, it's really hard. It's really hard to do
it all. Um, I agree, but I think that that's
kind of the wrong question to ask to. You know.
The whole point of thinking like a breadwinner is that
it's thinking about what you want to have in your
(32:21):
life and and what are the choices you need to
make to support that. And I think that's a much
more empowering way to look at it than feeling like
we have to live up to some have it all ideal,
because we have the opportunity to define having it all
however we want to. And I can speak from experience now.
You know, I've been the primary breadwinner for over a
decade now, and we have two lovely boys, and I
(32:42):
feel very very close to them. Um, I feel fully
involved as a mother. So I can tell you from
personal experience it is one a dred percent possible. Doesn't
mean it's not, you know, it doesn't mean it's easy,
and it doesn't mean it doesn't require, you know, some
conversations with your partner to make sure that you both
feel like you are splitting the household responsibilities and the
(33:04):
bread winning responsibilities in a fair way. But it is.
It is entirely possible. It really is. And I think
it's becoming easier and easier the more aware we are
of some of these external barriers too, and and um,
we're addressing them, you know, and paid leave, all of
these things, these are flexibility, remote work, all of these
things are part of the national conversation right now, and
(33:25):
so I really am hopeful that we're going to see
a lot of progress on all those fronts. Nice and Jennifer,
one last question here for you before we let you go.
You know, you detail how much of the problem it
can be corrected, you know, early on in childhood. I've
got three girls. Joel's got to what do you tell
the parents of young girls about how to think like
the breadwinners that they are capable of becoming. Oh, I
(33:47):
mean the first, um, the first opportunity is really to
start speaking to them about investing, and when you talk
to them about the career that they might want later,
looking at what that career pays, you know, looking at
what does stop, and just being really listic about like
what is the life that you want to have and
what kind of earnings do you want to have and
how are you going to use that support your life,
and if there's a disconnect between what their expectations are
(34:08):
and the kind of earnings they can expect from whatever
it is they're interested in, to have those conversations early on,
like how are you going to close that gap? Are
there different ways to look at your career, different opportunities
that will allow you to earn more? Does this mean
that you're gonna have to pick up a second job
when you start? Just to make sure that you're in
a good position, Like how do you start saving and
investing early on to make sure you're set up just
really having those honest conversations about the skills that you
(34:32):
need to be successful as an adults, really to be
able to support yourself and the life you want, you know, Jennifer,
reading your book actually made me think about talking starting
to talk with my seven year old and my five
year old girls about like I'd opened up five nine
plans for them, and I realized, oh, man, just in
a few months time, like they've grown a decent bit
and it maybe want to like not just look at
(34:53):
that on my computer screen alone, but then bring them
into it and kind of help them see like how
investing can make a difference, and like I wouldn't have
thought about that if it weren't for reading your book.
So I just want to say thank you, Like you're
helping me raise girls that can think like brend winners.
So I appreciate that makes me so happy. It really
does to hear that. Well, thank thank you. And and
so how can our listeners find out more about you
(35:15):
and in your new book, Um, Well, you can go
to Jennifer Barrett dot com. It's be a double R, E,
double T and you can find out all about the
book and how to order it and more about me
if you want to learn more about um and of
course a corns dot com. That's that's where I work,
and you can find out everything you want to know
about a corns on that website. Well, Jennifer, thanks so
(35:37):
much for spending some time with us today. This has
been an awesome conversation. Uh, yeah, we appreciate it. Thank you.
This has been great. All right, man, I love that
chat with Jennifer. She brought a lot of interesting knowledge
and I think just a lot of like help in
this conversation because I think I think she's right in
a lot of ways, like our culture has just not
come around to the reality of the fact that almost
(35:58):
half of women are the breadwinners and her families. And
so there's just an important conversation that needs to go
alongside of this. And I'm glad Jennifer's voice is in
the ring and this book is out there because I
think it is going to be helpful to a whole
lot of women. Um, but I want to know from you,
what was your big takeaway from this combo? Yeah? Yeah,
So I kind of lashed onto the idea that she
was talking about when she was having these discussions with
(36:19):
her husband, right, she talked about how they were able
to you know, it sounds like they sat down and
they talked through it. They talk through what their goals
or what their shared goals were. They she talked through security, like,
you know, the the gained sense of security that she
would have by also being you know, being able to
earn more money. And so that just kind of raised
a flag for me that it is important for us
to be talking about these things with our partners. You know,
(36:40):
it's important for us to be to have our own
personal finances figured out, but if you're in a relationship,
it is important to make sure that you're talking about
these things together as a couple. I think it's even
something important to discuss before you're in a long term,
committed relationship, before you're married. You know, like once you
start dating, if you're a woman and you have the
goal of earning a lot of money, you know, you
see yourself being in the office, this is something you
(37:03):
want to pursue. You really love your work, or or
there's you know this other aspect, there's something else out
there that you want to pursue that is really important
to talk about. And you know, we kind of just
barely touched on this um but I just really like
the I don't know, the couple's therapy aspect of sitting
down talking through your goals, figuring out those goals, because
once you're on the same page, gosh, you can accomplish
so much more when you're both you know, going in
(37:25):
the same direction as opposed to you know, you both
not necessarily even pulling in opposite directions, but just slightly askew.
You know, like if you're both kind of pulling in
slightly different directions as opposed to the same direction, you're
not gonna get nearly as far when it comes to
just your happiness you know, within that relationship. But yeah, yeah,
but also to the different goals that you're gonna be
able to achieve as a couple. So yeah, that's something
that stood up to me. But what about you? Yeah,
(37:46):
I thought what what Jennifer talked about when it came
to being aware of the subconscious messaging that we've received
for our whole lives. And I think in those conversations
that you have to have with your partner, there's a
lot of that that's gonna have to be dealt with,
and you might have to discuss things that might seem trivial,
like well, in my family, my dad was the breadwinner,
and I think that effects, you know, how I have
(38:07):
thought about money or how I've thought about my role
in this family when it comes to bringing home the bacon.
And it's not just gonna be like one combo to
that you know that that solves everything, But it's gonna
be a series of combos. But it's also in those conversations,
it's going to be unraveling some of those things that
have become ingrained over a whole lot of years of
just cultural norms and the way that I think, in particular,
(38:30):
females have been left out of the money conversations in
a lot of households, kids in general oftentimes are left out.
And that's why again, like what I said to Jennifer
at the end, I am thankful, like it is provoking
me to start those conversations even younger, even about investing,
you know, not just about saving, but but helping them
see the compounding power of money so that they can
get interested in that from a young age and and
(38:52):
realize its power, um, so that they can maybe think
like breadwinners earlier on and find some joy in it. So, yeah, man,
I don't know, I thought that was a great conversation.
I'm glad we were able to have Jennifer on. Yeah.
And that's not to say too that if you and
your partner decide that what you want are what some
folks would call more traditional roles, that that's not okay.
It's just that it's something to talk about, because everybody
(39:12):
has different goals, uh, And so you might come down
on the side of the fence where it's like, okay, cool,
both of our roles are gonna look just like our parents,
you know, like if it's a more traditional approach where
you know, the mail is going to be the you know,
the main breadwinner, but you also might identify that like
you know what you know for us, that's actually not
going to be the case. Or even something that Kate
and I have talked about, you know, like often the
(39:33):
future potentially kind of switching the roles up a little
bit and making sure that, you know, we've talked about
how I want to make sure that she has opportunities
as well to pursue some of the things that she
wants to. That's an ongoing conversation that we've had and
and so I guess I say that to to point
out that it's it's not like it's locked in necessarily.
Oftentimes you know it will be because once you advance
in your career, it's it's tougher to switch things up,
(39:54):
but it can be more fluid. Uh, just make sure
you're talking about it. I love it, and you know
what else I love Matt loved this beer we had
on the show, and the fact too that Jennifer loves
Kraft Beer. Did she was dropped. I mean, those are
the kind of breweries that we like to drink as well.
So we all our other half totally need a at
some point at least Yeah, meet up and grab some
beers with Jennifer. Yeah, this one we on this episode
(40:15):
we had a dass Yummy, which is a what's it's
a banana cream pie sour? Yeah. What were your thoughts
on this beer from usel Finch. That's the name of
the brewery. It's an amazing name. I've never had a
beer by them before, uzel Finch. I feel like we've
been having more banana beers on the show lately, like yeah,
which which is kind of randoh, it's interesting, But this
is I think my favorite banana beer yet. It was
(40:37):
really really good and it was like perfectly tart, and
so it definitely had that banana cream pie style thing
going on, with that little tartness that you get when
you're eating a banana cream pie. I really really like
this one. I think I've mentioned before I'm not like
I'll eat a banana here and again, like banana runts
though are often the flavor I get in banana beers,
and I just don't really dig banana runts, but not
(41:00):
a whole lot of banana runs flavor and there's not.
This one feels a little more natural banana taste and
along with the tartness. Man, I really dug it. Yeah,
it's almost like like it's got all the banana fla
like I wanted to say, it almost tastes like it's
an unwrite banana because of that kind of tartness, except
that there's still good banana flavor, because a lot of
times when you have an unwrite banana bana that's too green,
there's just no banana flavor there. And so they've got
(41:21):
the right amount of banana flavor here while at the
same time a nice little bit of tartness. Um and
dude also too. I saw on the can that, speaking
of women, the head brewer at this brewery is a woman,
and so I feel like that's quite appropriate given our
conversation today with Jennifer, we need more women in the
craft of your industry. Heck, yeah, man, that's for sure.
I'm all about it. All right, Well, that's gonna do
it for today's episode. We'll have links up in our
(41:42):
show notes on our website at how to money dot com. Yeah. There,
you can find a link to Jennifer's book in her
site if you want to learn more and support her there,
and also too, if you've been listening to the show
and you you found it helpful. We would love for
you to head over to wherever it is that you
listen to podcasts and leave us a solid review, letting
others know that you appreciate the podcast and we appreciate you.
So Joel, that's gonna be a buddy until next time.
(42:04):
Best friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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