November 16, 2022 • 51 mins
Tis the Season and the perfect timing for an episode on FINANCES! We walk to the founder of The Financial Diet Chelsea Fagan, she gives us a rundown on everything love and money and how they go hand and hand. Yes! You and your partner should have an open dialogue about money and/or even with potential bae, Chelsea expounds on why it’s important to have this conversation relatively early. She offers some open-ended questions that can work as a gentle entry point to the larger picture. Keeping in mind the ultimate goal whether with a partner or not; is to define how money and good money management, can offer you more freedom.
So, do you have a healthy, holistic, totally communicative, and unburdened relationship with money?
Learn More: TheFinancialDiet.Com
Connect: @ZuriHall @TheFinancialDiet
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
H m hm, Hot happy mess. Celebrate your magic in
the middle of life's messes. Hot happy that I'm seriall
and this is hot, happy may cute, happy Wednesday. What's
(00:25):
going on? I'm zuri. This is hot, happy mess and
let's get into it. Quick life update. The holidays are
slowly creeping up. They are upon us. I'm excited. The
house is generally clean and in a state of cohesion,
so that's a plus. I was about to do the
(00:46):
absolute most and try to finally get my dining room
to table together um for home entertaining and like really
making things perfect on the main level. But then I
was like, z you're going home for the holiday days? Bro,
Like why? And then I said, you know what, You're right,
because yes, I have full blown conversations with myself. So
(01:08):
I am behaving. I am not going to buy a
new dining table. I am going to save that money
and be good because I told myself, I'm I'm raining
in the spending as we inch towards Q four. Christmas
gifts are my love. I'm sending Yola. Okay, so everybody
in Salita when I touched down, yes, I still need
(01:29):
you to kind of pick me up from the airport. No,
I will not be bearing gifts. I say that now,
but I love giving gifts. It's one of my love languages.
So everybody's probably gonna get something, but something small. Okay,
A budget is a budget. Um. I hope you're enjoying
your weeks as we lead into the holiday season. I'm
curious to know how are you celebrating. What's your favorite
(01:52):
holiday cocktail. I've been sipping on Manhattan's lately. It's a
vibe very kind of a stronger dream but delicious um
and definitely tastes festive and wintry um. I want to
experiment with some some autumn winter cocktails too, So if
you have any recommendations sliding my d ms, let me know.
(02:12):
I'm gonna try them. But I am definitely loving all
the dinum, all the plaid, all the basic bitch attire.
Sign me up. I love fall is like you know
how they have like a mating season. I don't know
where I'm going with this analogy, but to do with
me and it's like you start hearing like the cockas
(02:33):
or whatever. You're like, oh, it's go time, like this
is my season. Autumn as soon as like one leaf
changes from green to orange ish or brown, which in
l A really takes a long time. I'm like, say, least,
I'm going to Target. I'm picking up all the pumpkin
spice candles, all the pumpkin spice flavored lattes, all the
(02:54):
pumpkin spice coffee from Starbucks on my way back to
the house. Basic bitch energy all season long. And I
love it. And I don't even like pumpkin, like I
don't eat pumpkin. Pumpkin bis not something I can wrap
my mind around. Sweet, but satify absolutely. But anyways, fall
(03:14):
I love it. Let me ask you something, speaking of fall,
have you ever fallen in love? See what I did
there without talking about finances. Oh it's a touchy subjects,
I know, but I don't recommend you fall in love
and not talk about finances. We all have heard, you know,
(03:36):
people say that money can be one of the biggest
deal breakers and relationships. It can be the cause of
a lot of fighting and relationships. And I really truly
believe it is so important to be on the same
page and compatible with your partner when it comes to
building a financial life together, because it's serious stuff and
(03:57):
if you're not compatible. It's better to know that sooner
than later, and certainly before you start merging finances. So
today's episode is a fun one but also a very
important one as well. We're talking about all things money
and relationships, how to have the conversation, how to bring
it up, what needs to be discussed, so much more. Um,
you guys are going to really like this one. Chelsea
(04:21):
is incredible. I'm talking to the founder of the Financial Diet,
Chelsea Fagan. Chelsea is going to give us the rundown
on everything loving money and her personal experiences with it.
This is such an important episode that we all need.
These tools are important to have with our partners. You
are going to love it. Send it to a friend
right now. Share this episode and then you can talk
(04:42):
about it together. Hey, send it to your partner or
send it to potential bay and based on how they react,
you know if you're going on the next day or not. Okay,
without further agi, Chelsea is here. Chelsea Fagan is a writer,
home cook and the founder and CEO of The Financial
die It based in Manhattan. You started the Financial Diet
(05:03):
in late It was just a personal blog at that point,
and at this point it's really expanded to something so impressive.
I mean, it's a cross platform media company. It's a
premier digital destination for young women, especially looking to talk
about money. And I personally am so passionate about this
because I didn't grow up being taught financial literacy and
(05:23):
so I had to really stumble through it in my
early and mid twenties, and I just it doesn't have
to be that hard, um, but it is when you
don't have the education or the resources. So I love
the mission behind what you're doing. I love what you've accomplished.
I'm curious to know how you got into it when
you started that personal blog. Was it really just I
don't know what I'm doing and I'm going to document
(05:43):
the process pretty much. I'm definitely someone who thrives with
external accountability. So having the visibility because I did already have, um,
you know, a decently sized audience, not huge, but enough
people to kind of keep me accountable. UM. So yeah,
was definitely for that purpose. Okay, so that's what started it.
(06:04):
And here you are now, UM, talk to me a
little bit about the evolution of the brand. At what
point did you realize, Okay, I've got something here, and
I want to make more with it. Yeah, So essentially
I UM on like day three of having published just
again the personal Tumbler um I was approached by my
(06:26):
co founder, Lauren Verheig, who was working at an ad
agency in New Jersey at the time and was looking
for projects to fill out her portfolio that she was
kind of taking on for free. She reached out she
asked if she could redesign the blog as part of
that portfolio. UM I said yes, UM, And then you know,
(06:46):
very quickly, you know, the audience for the project grew.
We were approached UM just around Christmas of that first
year Ineen we had started in I started the blog
in AUGUSTE and at Christmas we were approached by John
and Hank Green, who are really really established internet creators.
They have a very large educational production company UM and
(07:09):
they have several UM foundations that give grants to digital
creators who are doing things in the educational space generally
that they kind of want to see more of UM.
So they reached out to us to give us a
grant and UM you know, it wasn't much, was five
thousand dollars, but we kind of took that as a
serious enough sign as well as they're interested in us
to UM leave our jobs and pursue TFD full time. UM.
(07:33):
And it just kind of grew from there and now
we're eleven staff, UM tons of contractors, all women, based
out of our office here in Manhattan. That's awesome. And
t f D the Financial Diet dot com. When people
go to the website, now, if someone's listening and hearing
about the platform for the first time, what can they expect.
So we actually don't publish on our website anymore. Our
(07:54):
website is just a hub where you can go to
other places. All of our kind of UM article based
content is in our new letter. We just do newsletters UM.
But you know, in terms of what people can expect,
you know, we try to be pretty diversified across you know, video,
podcast articles, UM. Our biggest, the biggest part of what
we do now is events, both in person and digital.
(08:17):
So that's everything from a one evening workshop on credit
cards all the way to full day conferences or four
week kind of UM deep dive classes on things like
investing or budgeting. UM. So you know, pretty full service
as far as media companies go. And what I'm most
looking forward to talking with you about today. Is this
(08:37):
intersection of money and relationships. Those are two things that
we talked about a lot. I'm not happy mess I
enjoy conversations about each of them. So we thought it
was high time to just sort of combine the two
and explore how they intersect. You know, whether it's romantic relationships,
platonic or familial relationships. Money makes people weird, It makes
things awkward, and sometimes, um, what you don't know can
(09:00):
very much hurt you. I've I've experienced that, and I
think it's time that we just sort of remove the
stigma around some uncomfortable conversations when it comes to money, um,
particularly when it takes more than one person to um
handle it correctly, save and invest. And there's a bit
of a collaboration there. Uh So talk to me a
little bit about, uh, your perspective when it comes to
(09:23):
let's just kick it off with romantic relationship. Right at
what point do you recommend that someone start talking about
money with a potential or prospective partner or do you
wait until you're in the relationship to quote unquote go there.
I would definitely say prior to being in a relationship.
I think once you're you know, you've been on a
(09:43):
few dates, Um you're thinking this is someone you might
want to be seeing exclusively. UM. You know. I think
there are a lot of entry points to a conversation
about money, but I think what is kind of most
important is that anyone who is extre only reticent or
turned off or um aggressive about conversations around money very uncomfortable,
(10:07):
very kg all that kind of stuff that's a red
flag in and of itself, and not just about money. UM.
So that's really something that you want to establish super
early on, especially as a woman, because typically in heterosexual relationships,
women are going to have they're gonna earn less, they're
going to have less control over long term financial decision
making and planning. They're going to um, you know, have
(10:30):
a a pretty unfair powered dynamic if, for example, the
two of you have children, um, you know, as far
as who's expected to take on the primary caregiver role,
expected to kind of sacrifice in terms of career. You know.
So women really can't afford, in particular, not to have
these conversations. And I think there's often a fear that like, oh,
(10:50):
is this going to seem too fast or is this
going to seem like I'm not fun or any of
those things. But again, anyone who is worth dating long
term or maybe even marrying is going to be someone
who's going to be rational and adult and empathetic about
talking about money, even relatively early on. What do you
recommend for scripts when it comes to that. I'm big
(11:12):
on asking about you know, UM, potential or ideal prompts
to start those conversations, because I agree that they're important
to have. But it's one thing in theory. It's another
thing when you're across from the dinner table with you know,
some guy, you're on date number three with UM, and
you actually have to go there. So how do you
recommend that we sort of broach the subject delicately but firmly,
(11:37):
you know, I mean part of the reason I say
that this is probably something that should happen only in
the context of you both kind of feeling like and
I mean, you never know, right like you have to
someone infer from the other person. But if it's seeming
like you're both moving towards exclusivity, um, you know, I
think that opens a nice framing for the conversation, which
is that you know, hey, I'm really I'm really loving
(12:00):
the time I'm spending with you, I'm really feeling, you know,
pretty strongly about you, and you know, I think you're
someone that I could really care about, and I think
you know anyone that I feel like I could really
care about. I want to make sure that we're on
the same page when it comes to you know, compatibility
and the bigger life stuff and things like that. So
you know, I'd love to hear kind of your philosophy
(12:20):
on money. You know where you land in terms of
you know your long term goals, you know what's important
to you, how do you like to spend I think
asking questions that are kind of that are very open ended,
that are very much allowing the other person to share
about themselves, you know, their history, their priorities, and really
(12:41):
framing it in the context of, you know, what is
the future going to look like? What do you want
it to look like? You know, because ultimately you know
any of these decisions we talk about where you want
to live, whether you want kids, whether you want to
get married, if you want a big wedding, you know
you want to live um, if you want to move,
fund a lot, if you want to buy all of
(13:01):
this stuff. These are all financial questions, and I think
we have a tendency to feel like talking about money
kind of dirties anything romantic or takes away from it,
and I think it's quite the opposite. I think it's
much more. I want to make sure that these things
that we want to do are not just shared goals,
(13:21):
but they are also things that we're actively working toward
in a constructive way, rather than just sort of hoping
that they happen. Yeah, yeah, really good point. And you know,
when I start thinking about relationship and having those conversations
that are so important, you know, relationship in general, even
when we're talking about love and affection and things like that,
it's always like, start with yourself right, self love, self acceptance,
(13:44):
self self self. And the same can be said for money,
because I've certainly been in you know, relationships where it's
off the perspective on money are limiting beliefs around money,
our ideas about what money is for or not for.
And I say that to say, doing the work quote
unquote financially for oneself is also really important in my opinion,
(14:06):
before you decided to partner up, so you can figure
out who aligns most with sort of your financial mission
totally curious to know what that was like for you
as you evolved as an individual, as you sort of
figured out how you felt about money and what you
wanted it to do for you. What was that evolution
like and when did you get to a point where
you felt like you were even at a place to
(14:26):
partner up financially. Well. I met my husband when I
was twenty two, So okay, we were not having this
kind of adult conversation. Let me tell you, like, you're like,
we were in it, we're doing it. No, Yeah, I was,
I mean, yeah, an idiot, and we really grew together
and we I mean definitely, I think there's been, you know, uh,
(14:50):
an evolution on both sides for for the better. He
was always much more stoic and serious about money than
I was. Um, but it just wasn't even a concern
at that time, and I had none of it. So
I was, you know, I was very much living a
very reckless life. And I didn't start t D until
we had been together for several years already. Um, so
that I can't say that, I mean, it's very much
(15:11):
to do as I say, not as I did, kind
of a thing. But if I could go back I
would definitely do it um the right way, and I
think that would have spared us some uh tough moments
or disagreements or what have you. But you know, in
terms of thinking about how that's evolved, as far as
what the goals are, as far as limiting beliefs, all
(15:31):
of those things, I think one of the most clarifying
things when it comes to money, because ultimately money is
just a tool, right, Like we should never look at
money is the actual goal in and of itself. Like
there are people who are just really motivated by earning more,
by seeing a bigger number in their net worth, by
you know, being able to afford more consumer items for
(15:54):
the sake of having them and for the sake of status.
And I mean, I don't want to generalize, but I
think for most people that's a pretty unhealthy way to be.
And I don't think it's particularly fulfilling, and I don't
think it's a holistic way to live. But if you're
sort of I think living rightly with money, it means
deciding on the life that you want, the community that
(16:15):
you want, the things that you want to accomplish in life,
the things that you want to be able to give
and then figuring out how money is sort of the
you know the building blocks of that. You know, how
are you how are you leveraging money to get there?
And so you know, from my husband and I were
both we don't want children, UM. We know that we're
our biggest priority in life for both of us is
(16:37):
freedom and flexibility. You know, that means travel, that means
professional flexibility. Like my husband is UM not a US citizen,
and he's been going through some immigration drama the past
couple of years, so he hasn't worked in UM a
while now, like over six months, and that's something that
he can afford to do that we can afford to
do UM. And he is not. I mean, he's going
(16:58):
to get his authorization soon, but he's not in a
rush to immediately go back. He's going to take his
time and find the right position UM. And you know,
there's a lot of contributing factors to that. Financially, obviously
not having children is probably the biggest one, but it's
also you know, living below your means, it's buying less
house than you can afford because your priority is not
like I know many people who their priority is they
(17:18):
want you know, a big beautiful house with a big
yard and maybe a pool, and they want to have,
you know, a big family and do all of these
things that are amazing, but they also they also cost
a lot, and they also preclude a lot of other
life paths. So I really think ultimately money management is
the second part of it. The bigger part of it
(17:39):
is what is your ultimate priority in life? And I
don't think you can always be distilled down to a
word or two, But I think the more you can
get to something that's like freedom, uh, you know, experiences, uh, family,
um stability, whatever these words are, I think it's really
important to pick that and then work awkwards from it.
(18:00):
And I will say, as a last note on that, like, yes,
I'm much better at handling money on just like a
budget level, but that's easy, Like there's not that much
to learn, and when you do, like you're good. What's
been clarifying over the years is really realizing, um, what
I want my money to do for me? Really great advice,
And you brought up budgeting and how that's really just
(18:21):
sort of a tip of the iceberg. It's why am
I budgeting? What do I want to save and invest
this money for? Um? What are some of the resources
that you used earlier on. Obviously, now you have t
f D and others therefore have it UM. But when
you were first getting into this journey to financial literacy,
what helped you? What would you recommend? What mistakes did
you make in the beginning of that journey, UM that
(18:43):
we can avoid by learning from your lessons, you know,
I would say the number one thing was that I
downloaded Mint early on UM, which is just a budgeting
tool that I found really easy to use and just helps,
you know, get all your money in one place and
really kind of visualize your money and UM track your
purchases and your habits and all of those things. I
(19:04):
think that was the first step, you know, as far
as resources, you know, I definitely started following other women
in the personal finance community who were already out there,
you know, several of whom have become good personal friends
of mine at this point, but women like Aaron Lowry
of of Broke Millennial, Amanda Holden Um who's an investment
(19:26):
expert and former trader who we work with both of
them a lot as well, UM, you know. But I
think again, as far as mistakes, I think the number
one thing that I would just remind people that I
wasn't a mistake so much as what I um misunderstood
was that it's really not it's not complicated, there's not
(19:47):
really math involved. You don't if you know good money management,
you're not really doing much. In fact, in a lot
of cases, the best, the most effective part of money
management is not touching it, not looking at it, not
messing around with it. Not you once your money's in
the market, close your eyes to whatever is going on
because you're in it for the long haul, you know,
or especially your automatic especially right now, Oh my god, please,
(20:10):
I don't couldn't tell you what's happening because I'm not
looking at it. But um, you know, we're setting up
automatic debbits and you know, doing all of those things
that helped prevent um human error. So I definitely overthought
it at first. Okay, okay, um that is actually really
comforting to hear. Right. So, I've been on this journey
for quite some time now, but I did get to
(20:32):
a point where it was just like set it and
forget it, And it has saved me so much mental
and emotional bandwidth because I first remembered, you know, two
years ago, almost three years ago now, at the start
of the pandemic, and I mean, the market was just
doing some crazy things. And I watched two people close
in my life specifically just ride the waves emotionally every morning,
(20:55):
like with the stock market. They woke up and depending
on what happened on any given day, their mood, their
their day, their experience um changed and it was a
crazy time. And now retroactively, obviously you look back hindsight,
they come out on the other side of that and
everything is generally fine. But being tethered to the way
(21:17):
your money is moving in the day to day really
isn't the best idea for one's mental health, I feel,
And it sounds like you agree, absolutely not, Yeah, that's
I mean, I think that's like also just like a
general life lesson, like anything that's out of your control,
like learn what you can do, learn where you have
(21:38):
energy to direct where you can make an impact. But like,
I mean, I feel the same way about a lot
of issues in the world, like don't drive yourself crazy
over focusing on things that you have no control over. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,
when we talk about families and those dynamics. Growing up,
we didn't really talk about money too much, at least
not about you know, how to of it invested. Um.
(22:01):
I grew up hearing cash under the mattress, cash under
the mattress, which is basically the worst place to put
your cash. Um. It was only my twenties at even
wrapped my mind around inflation. And what's so wild to
me is growing up in school, you know, and I
went to probably arguably the best private school in northwest Ohio.
We were not taught uh, financial literacy, I mean, history, geography, biology,
(22:26):
all of the things that no one's asked me about.
Since I graduate, I've got you covered. But we didn't
really talk about that stuff. And so because I didn't
have it in my household growing up necessarily or my
immediate family, I was really flying blind once I got
into the real world. I'm curious to know what was
that like for you, that sort of familial dynamic. Were
there conversations around money? Were there not? Do you feel
(22:48):
like that set you up for failure or success based
on what happened? You mentioned that you grew up hearing
a lot about keeping cash under the mattress? Me, do
you mind if I asked where you're any either, if
you're parents immigrants, UM No, but they're from the Deep South,
and so my mom's a military brat and my my
father is from the Deep South and you know, grew
(23:11):
up sort of. I don't want to speak for them specifically,
but I will say in my family, like even the
extended family, there was sort of a lack of trust
around the banks and government and financial institutions, UM, and
people in positions of power having your money right. So
(23:32):
I can, UM, I can empathize even with that. I can.
I can understand where it comes from. But it doesn't
mean that it was the right advice for them to
have been given or giving. That's what I'm curious to know.
Why you ask, well, because that's a really really common
thing with especially you know, immigrant UH communities that are
(23:58):
obviously English is a second language. They typically you know,
we're talking about often communities that are fairly underbanked. UM.
I mean even my husband who's an immigrant from uh,
you know, a visa free travel country in the EU. UM,
it was really difficult for him to get properly banked
in a lot of different ways and to get set
up in all of our systems and to even understand
(24:19):
the task code and to do things like that. Um.
You know, I'm it's kind of surprising to have, you know,
that distrustpaired with someone who's in the military. But I'm
sure that's a deep dive for another day. That's obviously
totally but it is. I mean, you really, over the years,
we've really pulled out a lot of these threads and
see a lot of these common threads. And you know,
(24:41):
for me, I grew up quite low income. I'm pretty
transparent about that. My family is more middle class now,
but when I was young, you know, government subsidies, you know,
not we were we were never homeless, we were never
we didn't ever not have enough food. So I do
want to be careful about not you know, overstating, but
(25:01):
money was definitely a super precarious thing. My family didn't
necessarily have that same quite that same level of mistrust,
although the their immigrant parents, the ones that were did,
so you know that I think was ambient in the
in the environment. But I think being lower income is
another area where you'll see a lot of that. Um.
(25:23):
You know, very very uh reticent to use credit or
to take on debt. Um really really wary of investing
in the stock market. You know, a lot of the
you know, wealth building vehicles and a lot of these
systems like credit, like investing, you know, and whatnot. Like
(25:47):
those are really really scary to a lot of communities
and definitely was scary to you know, my family growing up,
and still to this day, you know, not to put
their business out there, but I still have to get
on them about like you know, we gotta gotta set up,
you've gotta have that retirement account built out, you know. Um.
So you know, from my perspective, I you know, I've
(26:09):
I've done a lot of content about you know, sort
of the emotional and mental stuff that comes with growing
up in that environment. And you know, for a lot
of people like you as an example, like even with
a lot of access in other ways, like going to
this elite school, you're still not given the tools right
to understand this stuff. So it's not even necessarily it's
(26:30):
not just an immigrant thing, it's not just a low
income thing. You know. It's especially with women, it is
a really really systemic issue. Um. And you know, we
see a ton of women every day who like literally
their brother would be taught a lot of financial management
stuff and they would not, um. You know, so I
definitely I hear a lot from our community from people
(26:53):
who have to support family members or who are very
frustrated with their rents and their elders in the way
that they handle money or their attitudes around money. Um.
And again this is only compounded when you have like,
for example, um, you know, huge parts of the country
that either don't speak or speak very little English, So
(27:14):
you know, even interfacing with these systems, it's really difficult.
But I think my overall advice two people who are
trying to navigate the family stuff is that ultimately it
is not a child's responsibility to manage their parents finances,
and it does not help anyone to perpetuate a cycle
(27:37):
of generational poverty or generational dependence. Like if you're sabotaging
your own financial health in order to help support your parents,
which we see a ton of, that helps no one, right, Like,
all your potentially doing is just further off putting that
onto your own kids. One day, we are going to
have to help you because you couldn't build out your
own retirement. Um. And Similarly, you know, there's only so
(28:01):
much a lot of people can do to overcome or
correct form or try to sort of work on as
an adult child the dynamics that they were raised with.
I think it's important to just focus on whether you're
having your own children or your you know, you have
other children in your community, niece's, nephew's friends, children, maybe
(28:21):
you work with children, whatever it might be. Like, just
ensuring that they're going to have better tools than you
did is I think the most important part, because ultimately,
I just I think the most common themes that we
hear in these relationships are resentment, guilt, obligation, um, you know, anxiety,
(28:42):
all of these things. And this is really a mental
health issue and in many cases should be talked about
with like a counselor or something. Um. But it's the
last thing. Yeah, just to reiterate is like, do not
sabotage your own financial health too help your parents financially.
M Do you have any steadfast rules when it comes
(29:03):
to loaning money to a friend or a family member.
You know, some people say just don't let anyone borrow
anything that you are not okay with never seeing again,
so that you can just make peace with that and
then hope you get the money back. Are you a
hard and fast don't do it person? Or what's your
perspective on that, I totally agree with what that point
that never do it if you can't afford to treat
(29:24):
it as a gift. And I would actually go one
step further, especially if you're talking about lending to someone
that you're close with, is I would give them the
money if you're going to do it, and say, listen, UM,
if you want to pay this back, you pay this
back when you can as you can. UM. Don't give
them a schedule, don't give them payment terms, let them
(29:44):
do it on their own terms. Because I do think
that where it gets very fraught is when people are
not either willing or able to do what they agreed to.
And if you're only doing it things that you can
afford to treat as a gift you want to give
(30:05):
yourself and that other person, I think the luxury of
not having um potential areas of messing up or conflict
or intimidation or you know, on their end, resentment or
anxiety of like I can't believe, you know, I have
to pay my cousin or my friend or my sister
(30:27):
whoever back, you know, and and feeling that stress of
suddenly having to view this person who is a close
personal relationship now is like a creditor, you know. UM.
So I do think in general, like you know, we
I recently did a video about this about kind of
I think that we generationally You mentioned earlier how we
(30:47):
talked quite a lot about the self when we talk
about um, you know, relationships, mental health, mental health, etcetera.
And I really agree with that, and I think it
can be good, But I think it can also be
quite dangerous because I do think that it can sometimes
make us quite frankly stingy with others. It can make
us a little too self focused. It can make us, um,
(31:09):
live less generously, less empathetically, less community oriented. Um. And
so I do think that if you know, if someone
is coming to you for money that you love, it's
probably one of two situations, right. Either they want to
make a big life move that they're not ready to
make yet financially on their own, like buying a home
(31:29):
or moving or whatever it might be. And then the
other one might be that they're in real financial distress.
And in both cases, if you're wanting to help this person,
it should be out of love and empathy, um and
because you genuinely want to help that situation, not because
you're looking to kind of maximize your returns, and someone
might say, well, you know what, if they want me
(31:51):
to invest in a business, you know that I'm not
necessarily so sure about or I want to make sure
I'm getting my money like whatever. We hear that a lot.
Don't invest in that business. Don't invest in anything that
you don't genuinely feel really good about. M okay, really
really great advice, and I appreciate you encouraging folks to
really consider more heavily the emotional aspect and the relational
(32:15):
aspect of giving money to to make sure your heart's
in the right place. It certainly helps with managing the
resentment right if you gave purely or genuinely, UM, it's
much harder, or at least there's there's a higher threshold
before you sort of get to your wits end or
become a little bit resentful about how you may or
may not get that money back or what does or
(32:35):
doesn't happen with that quote unquote investment. UM. I would
love if you could briefly, UM break down financial abuse.
I just want to talk about it for just a
few here. What is it exactly? Because I'll be honest
that's a term that's newer to me, and I'm not
entirely sure what all would fall under that umbrella. So
what is financial abuse? So I should clarify here that
(32:57):
I'm not a therapist, although we've spoken to their this
about that, and they'll say, you know, financial abuses in
a term you know in the in the literature. It's
not something that has like a hard and fast definition,
But I would say in general, it's anything under the
umbrella of using UH finances as a form of coercion,
control um, shame um you know, or or really any
(33:20):
kind of manipulative or harmful UH dynamic UM in a couple.
Generally speaking, there are very few from what I've read,
from what we've learned at t f D, there are
very few examples of domestic abuse or even I mean
sometimes there are abusers within families. Parents abused children, children
(33:41):
can abuse parents. You know, all of these that it's
not limited to domestic relationships romantic relationships, but to speak
broadly about them, there are very few examples of abusive
relationships where finances are not a part of it UM.
And generally, if a person is going to be abusing
you financially they're probably also going to be emotionally abusive
or manipulative or you know, engaging in gas lighting or
(34:04):
any of these things. So, UM, you know, it's really
when money is used as a tool, um to negative ends.
And this happens a lot more than we think. I
believe in heterosexual relationships and um sort of piggybacking on
that idea, No, I won't even say that, because there
(34:25):
are two very different things. Um. Transitioning to the concept
of financial infidelity. Uh, when I read the definition, I
could see how people easily, you know, sort of fall
into that trap. Um. Sometimes it's tempting. I'll be honest.
Sometimes I've been moments where I'm like, oh, I'm just
I just want to avoid this conversation. So I just
I'm gonna take this money over here and not talk
(34:46):
about what I'm about to do with it because it's
gonna be a thing. Um. But could you break down
for our audience what exactly financial infidelity is, um, and
then also what are your thoughts on it? Do you think?
I mean, I've see if ever, if everyone's on the
same page to each his own. So are you one
of those who subscribes to a joint account and the
individual accounts is something you recommend for folks? Is it
(35:09):
sort of to each his own whatever floats your boat? Um?
What is financial infidelity and what can we do to
avoid it in our relationships? I mean similar to you know,
romantic or sexual infidelity. It's you know, any financial activity
that you're engaging in that you're either in that you're
hiding from your partner essentially that you're being deceptive about.
(35:32):
You could be doing it out of emission, you could
be doing it actively in lying. Um, there's a whole
spectrum um in general, my my heart and fosti vule,
especially again in heterosexual relationships where these power dynamics are
so present. Is no matter how combined most of your
finances are, there always need to be separate accounts, especially
(35:53):
for the woman. I recommend that everyone have at least
their own emergency fund as well as their own kind
of fun account that you know, it doesn't have to
be much, maybe just like a hundred or soabucks you
know here and there to spend on things that you
don't want to have to have a conversation about that
you don't want to have to like be on board
with you know, because there are plenty of things that
(36:15):
you know, I buy that, my husband is like, that's
a waste of money, and vice versa, and I and
I don't think it serves either of us to have
to feel like each party has to rubber stamp every
financial decision. There should be I think the ability to UM,
to be flexible with your own money and to to
do what is appealing to you without having to make
it a big deal. But I think, you know, financial
(36:38):
and fidelity happens quite a lot, and often it will
happen UM a very common dynamic that we'll see as
women hiding purchases from their spouse, UM that and again
in heterospectual relationships. And you know, I that's bad, don't
do that. But I also I understand why that happens
in a lot of relationships because especially when women have
(37:00):
children and their career prospects are diminished, maybe they're not
working at all, maybe they're working part time, they're earning less,
they're um having less and less control over their money
in society, it's not shocking that that's going to sometimes
channel itself into exerting control and decision making and agency
(37:24):
in other less ideal areas tell the truth, Chelsea. Have
you ever it's not just a little purchase, just a
little something something, And later your husband was like, what
the actually, like we talked about this or we did it,
and he's just like, wait, what is this? Like some
massive Amazon thing just lands at the door and now
(37:44):
here's a combo to be Oh for sure, I mean
I do it. Like so I see a cosmetic dermatologist
that had skin and shoes my whole life. And also
I'm not thirty three, so you know botox, you know four?
You know that ae just here. Yeah, well I'm not
(38:08):
I'm not far off in January. But suffice to say,
like there have been times where you know, he's like,
what could what kind of a laser could possibly cost?
You know, and I'm like, listen, this is just like
this is something that is going to be a part
of my life probably till I die, like some tasteful,
(38:29):
you know, cosmetic procedures every now and again. Um, that's
a decision that I've made between myself and me, and
you know, I don't I wasn't hiding necessarily, but like
I wasn't seeking approval on that before I did it,
because I knew it was just going to be an
argument of like, you look fine, you don't need to
go spend you know whatever. But I think especially for
(38:52):
women like I don't know a single again, had a
respextual woman really who doesn't have some level of like
how hair cost four hundred dollars or you know what
I'm saying, like that kind of a thing, They're just
gonna have to get over it is my take a
hundred percent. I love you saying, um, it was a
decision I made between myself and me. I think I'll
(39:13):
be stealing that to you for the rest of this
year's Slash My Life, So thank you. So that was
a decision between myself and me. We sat down a
really great job about it. I love it. I love it.
You have been quoted as saying very few people have
a totally healthy, totally holistic, totally communicative, and totally unburdened
(39:34):
relationship with money themselves, let alone when they come into
long term financial cohabitation with another person, which I think
is really insightful and so spot on. I'm curious to
know what are maybe one or two really emotionally charged
questions that people seem to avoid or may not even
realize that they should be having but aren't when it
comes to money and their partner. Mm hmm. I'm mean,
(40:01):
I think, to go back to our earlier conversation, it's
not even so much about the money aspect, because like
there's the usual stuff of like I'm a saver, he's
a spender vice versa, like one's avoidant, one is micromanaging,
blah blah blah blah blah, and those are you know,
those are real logistical issues that can be overcome but
definitely need to be addressed. But those are really just
(40:22):
questions of um, logistics of administration, of you know, how
individual budget decisions are made on a day to day level. UM.
I think what is really difficult for people is the
philosophical questions about what is important to us in life financially.
And again, we tend to think of things as not
(40:44):
being financial, but this is America. Almost everything is a
financial decision. Like very few things are not right and
so like even something you know, obviously the kids, the wedding,
the fat and the other prenups pre MEI are and
non negotiable, but like when it comes to things like okay,
well do you want to be in your job forever,
(41:05):
Like do you maybe want to change careers? Do you
want to go back to school? Do you feel comfortable
if we live on one person's income for a while,
Like all of these kind of questions, I think people
really don't think to ask until they're presented with the issue,
and then it becomes quite stressful. Um. And then I
think on top of that, especially when it comes to
a lot of these life moves, buying a home, having
(41:28):
a kid, having a big wedding, you know, all of
these sort of I think very heteronormative UM milestones, Like
we have to keep in mind that, like, first of all,
a lot of them came from a very different economy
where it was a lot more affordable for people, Even
things like going to college, sending your kids to college,
all of these things. I think people have a tendency
(41:50):
now to just treat as a given and then get
mad at themselves if they don't have it or if
they're not able to afford it. And the truth is
that a lot of people who have of these things
that we consider the adult milestones are aspirational. Like they're
heavily in debt, you know, they're putting this on credit cards,
they're not able to maintain this lifestyle. And the truth
(42:10):
is that financially, unless you are a crazy high earner,
you can't have it all. You can't do it all.
It's you have to make choices. And I do think
that there's not enough of a conversation of like, for example,
if you're going to buy a home, for example, I
don't think enough people. I think so many people treated
as like, well, that's what you do when you're an adult,
which first of all, not at all necessarily. And there
(42:33):
are a lot of housing markets right now that I
think you would be a fool to try and buy
into because of the prices and whatnot. But um, like,
there is not enough of a discussion of like, okay,
but then what is that costing us on the other side,
what does that mean? Because like, for example, with a home,
if you're buying a home, and you're even remotely savvy
(42:55):
about it, you need to plan to be in that
home for probably close to ten years, if you know,
if you have to, if you are going to maybe
want to move, change careers, earn less money, do any
of these things, you better not want to do that
for ten years, because you could be selling into a
bad market, and I don't think and so a lot
(43:15):
of people, I think, just look at the shiny object
and they don't think enough about what is it? What
are we giving up on the other side, and are
we okay with that? Right? You mentioned pre nups towards
the start of that answer, and very briefly it felt
like you were an advocate for that, like you. I
think you said something to the effect of, like, yes.
(43:36):
So one of my questions was, how do you feel
about pre nups post nups? Um? Should everyone be getting them?
Should you only be getting them under certain circumstances? And
how do you start that conversation? That's the conversation that
for me is like, it's awkward. I don't even I
don't know where where to begin. I think it's important,
(43:58):
but I have no idea where to begin. Prenups I
think are a must for everyone. Um, postnups, I've heard
from a lot of attorneys are not. You can get them.
But I've heard from a lot of attorneys they don't
really hold up in courts. So yeah, I don't get
the point of them either. I'm like, if you tied
the knot and you didn't sign anything, and then you're like, actually,
just kidding, let's backpedal on that complete lack of you know,
(44:22):
right right exactly. And we've actually, um also in you know,
our interviews and things heard from UH therapists experts in
psychology that postnups are actually often a tool of financial abusers,
and you know, because they can. I mean, you're really
(44:43):
in many cases coercing a person into, like you said,
kind of giving up the initial agreement that was made
when you got married. Um. And you know, as as
lawyers have explained it to us, you know, the post
nup often fails because when you're doing a prenup, there
is a specific agreement being made, um in exchange for
(45:04):
a marriage you know, as opposed to a post up,
which is just like I don't know, like, what's the
what are we agreeing to here? Exactly? We're just like, actually,
never mind, I no longer want to have the same
marriage laws. UM. So definitely prenup not posting up is
the first and second. I mean, if if it's something
that feels awkward to you, I think that's all the
more reason, not you personally, but in general, like it's
(45:26):
all the more reason to talk about these things really
early like I would say in the earlier stages updating,
when you're having these open philosophical conversations about money, you know,
I think it's totally cool and chic honestly to be
like you know, for me, having a prenup is really
important because I want to make sure that, if you know,
God forbid, we ended up not together, that everyone is
(45:49):
really treated fairly, and that we're dividing our assets and
we're making these calls based on a moment in time
where we loved each other the most, where we were
really how be with each other. You know, because when
you're writing a pre nup, you're about to get married,
you probably are the most in love, you know, at
least infastuated. You're probably more generous than you'll ever be
(46:09):
in your life because you just love me so much
and you never think you're gonna get divorced. So you know,
I would definitely kind of approach it that way. Okay,
really great advice as we wrap things up here, what
are some free resources that you suggest for women who
are seeking to build their financial independence, um and and
really grow when it comes to showing up for themselves financially. MHM.
(46:35):
Definitely nerd uh nerd wallet has a lot of really
good calculators when it comes to you calculating things like
for your investment, retirement, you know, net worth, all that stuff.
Um Mint is a really great app that's free for budgeting.
I really like it a lot. Um I would say, definitely,
uh it sounds corny. But the library, I mean basically
(46:56):
every good financial book ever is offered through the library.
And like you can now with you have like a
Kindle or even just on your iPhone, you can get
like the Libby app which allows you to get library
books downloaded in the free. Yeah. Yeah, you never book again. Yeah, yeah,
there's no reason. Okay, that's really good to know. Yeah.
And you know, there's some really great financial podcasts out there.
(47:18):
You know. I listen to basically every morning, I do
the Financial Times News Brief. It's a really good you know,
get the top line information every morning about what's going
on in the world, and then I'm like, okay, now
I can just not think about that for the rest
of the day. Your podcast, right, you have Financial Confessions, Yes,
our podcast though that podcast is definitely like it's a
(47:38):
lot more just like entertainment in the sense that we're
talking about, you know, life through a financial lens. Um.
So each episode is very different and it's kind of
lifestyle based, so it's not as much about the nitty gritty,
but definitely level two I would say when you're looking
to just kind of integrate a more holistic financial perspective
into all of your life choices. Okay, got it, And
this podcast is all about best life minus the burn
(48:00):
out with everything that you're doing, everything that you're building,
um in particularly in the space of finance, which can
get overwhelming and heavy sometimes. UM. How do you prioritize balance?
Just personally? What does self care look like for you?
Do you have daily rituals? What do you do to
battle to burnout? So I only work a four day
work week at TMT. We switched to affording work week
(48:21):
lash year, so I don't really ever have burnout. I
don't work that much. I love it. Um Yeah. I
mean I ride my bike every day almost I you know,
I try to have a pretty active social life, you know.
I I hate to say it because it sounds terrible
to say, but it's really the truth. I don't have kids.
I mean I've worked for day work week and I
(48:41):
don't have kids. Like probably no one is as well
rested or relaxed or self care a lot of time. Honestly,
I am and look, I want kids. I love kids.
But the older I get and the longer I go
without them, I'm like, I get it. I get why
folks don't have them. I am chilling me and my puppy.
What I'm not working, And it's a great life. Very
(49:04):
it's a great life. It is. And I do feel
like that's another thing that are not not enough people
really think about, is you know, if you are someone
We have several working mothers on the team, and they
love it. It's what they wanted. It's not a choice
they would ever regret that. They both say over and
over again, like this is only something you should do
(49:26):
if you absolutely want it, because it is as ton
of work. It's um well, I love that. Also, you're
very brave for riding your bicycle through Manhattan. To me,
that sounds like stress on a stick. But I'm getting braver.
I'm getting braver. Okay. If people want to keep up
(49:47):
with you, where where can we find you? Um So?
I probably would say on Twitter mostly uh Chelsea Underscore
pagan um is where I tweet but follow the Financial
Diet everywhere. We do a lot of cool stuff. Okay, awesome, Chelsea,
this was great. Thank you so much for your wisdom,
your expertise. Our audience is gonna love it. So I
appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. I'm happy
(50:10):
said thank you so much Chelsea for joining me on
the podcast this week. That was a great conversation. So
many gyms, so many takeaways. Let's get this money all.
Let's be financially smart and savvy and awesome if you
can do it with a partner. Okay, be sure to
check out Hot Happy Mess dot com and the episode
show notes if you want resources from Chelsea or the
(50:31):
Financial Diet. And if you're loving what you're hearing, don't
be shy. The love is what keeps team Hot Happy
Mess going. So if you can leave us a five
star rating and maybe a couple of quick sentences about
why you love the podcast or what you're enjoying right now,
it moves mountains in my heart. Okay. You can follow
me on Instagram at Zeri Hall and at Hot Happy Mess.
(50:53):
Hit me up in the d M s. I love
seeing your messages. I respond as often as I can
and you could very well end up on the podcast.
If you're into that, I will talk to you next week.
Have a good one fighting fight. H
H m hm, Hot happy mess. Celebrate your magic in
the middle of life's messes. Hot happy that I'm seriall
and this is hot, happy may cute, happy Wednesday. What's
(00:25):
going on? I'm zuri. This is hot, happy mess and
let's get into it. Quick life update. The holidays are
slowly creeping up. They are upon us. I'm excited. The
house is generally clean and in a state of cohesion,
so that's a plus. I was about to do the
(00:46):
absolute most and try to finally get my dining room
to table together um for home entertaining and like really
making things perfect on the main level. But then I
was like, z you're going home for the holiday days? Bro,
Like why? And then I said, you know what, You're right,
because yes, I have full blown conversations with myself. So
(01:08):
I am behaving. I am not going to buy a
new dining table. I am going to save that money
and be good because I told myself, I'm I'm raining
in the spending as we inch towards Q four. Christmas
gifts are my love. I'm sending Yola. Okay, so everybody
in Salita when I touched down, yes, I still need
(01:29):
you to kind of pick me up from the airport. No,
I will not be bearing gifts. I say that now,
but I love giving gifts. It's one of my love languages.
So everybody's probably gonna get something, but something small. Okay,
A budget is a budget. Um. I hope you're enjoying
your weeks as we lead into the holiday season. I'm
curious to know how are you celebrating. What's your favorite
(01:52):
holiday cocktail. I've been sipping on Manhattan's lately. It's a
vibe very kind of a stronger dream but delicious um
and definitely tastes festive and wintry um. I want to
experiment with some some autumn winter cocktails too, So if
you have any recommendations sliding my d ms, let me know.
(02:12):
I'm gonna try them. But I am definitely loving all
the dinum, all the plaid, all the basic bitch attire.
Sign me up. I love fall is like you know
how they have like a mating season. I don't know
where I'm going with this analogy, but to do with
me and it's like you start hearing like the cockas
(02:33):
or whatever. You're like, oh, it's go time, like this
is my season. Autumn as soon as like one leaf
changes from green to orange ish or brown, which in
l A really takes a long time. I'm like, say, least,
I'm going to Target. I'm picking up all the pumpkin
spice candles, all the pumpkin spice flavored lattes, all the
(02:54):
pumpkin spice coffee from Starbucks on my way back to
the house. Basic bitch energy all season long. And I
love it. And I don't even like pumpkin, like I
don't eat pumpkin. Pumpkin bis not something I can wrap
my mind around. Sweet, but satify absolutely. But anyways, fall
(03:14):
I love it. Let me ask you something, speaking of fall,
have you ever fallen in love? See what I did
there without talking about finances. Oh it's a touchy subjects,
I know, but I don't recommend you fall in love
and not talk about finances. We all have heard, you know,
(03:36):
people say that money can be one of the biggest
deal breakers and relationships. It can be the cause of
a lot of fighting and relationships. And I really truly
believe it is so important to be on the same
page and compatible with your partner when it comes to
building a financial life together, because it's serious stuff and
(03:57):
if you're not compatible. It's better to know that sooner
than later, and certainly before you start merging finances. So
today's episode is a fun one but also a very
important one as well. We're talking about all things money
and relationships, how to have the conversation, how to bring
it up, what needs to be discussed, so much more. Um,
you guys are going to really like this one. Chelsea
(04:21):
is incredible. I'm talking to the founder of the Financial Diet,
Chelsea Fagan. Chelsea is going to give us the rundown
on everything loving money and her personal experiences with it.
This is such an important episode that we all need.
These tools are important to have with our partners. You
are going to love it. Send it to a friend
right now. Share this episode and then you can talk
(04:42):
about it together. Hey, send it to your partner or
send it to potential bay and based on how they react,
you know if you're going on the next day or not. Okay,
without further agi, Chelsea is here. Chelsea Fagan is a writer,
home cook and the founder and CEO of The Financial
die It based in Manhattan. You started the Financial Diet
(05:03):
in late It was just a personal blog at that point,
and at this point it's really expanded to something so impressive.
I mean, it's a cross platform media company. It's a
premier digital destination for young women, especially looking to talk
about money. And I personally am so passionate about this
because I didn't grow up being taught financial literacy and
(05:23):
so I had to really stumble through it in my
early and mid twenties, and I just it doesn't have
to be that hard, um, but it is when you
don't have the education or the resources. So I love
the mission behind what you're doing. I love what you've accomplished.
I'm curious to know how you got into it when
you started that personal blog. Was it really just I
don't know what I'm doing and I'm going to document
(05:43):
the process pretty much. I'm definitely someone who thrives with
external accountability. So having the visibility because I did already have, um,
you know, a decently sized audience, not huge, but enough
people to kind of keep me accountable. UM. So yeah,
was definitely for that purpose. Okay, so that's what started it.
(06:04):
And here you are now, UM, talk to me a
little bit about the evolution of the brand. At what
point did you realize, Okay, I've got something here, and
I want to make more with it. Yeah, So essentially
I UM on like day three of having published just
again the personal Tumbler um I was approached by my
(06:26):
co founder, Lauren Verheig, who was working at an ad
agency in New Jersey at the time and was looking
for projects to fill out her portfolio that she was
kind of taking on for free. She reached out she
asked if she could redesign the blog as part of
that portfolio. UM I said yes, UM, And then you know,
(06:46):
very quickly, you know, the audience for the project grew.
We were approached UM just around Christmas of that first
year Ineen we had started in I started the blog
in AUGUSTE and at Christmas we were approached by John
and Hank Green, who are really really established internet creators.
They have a very large educational production company UM and
(07:09):
they have several UM foundations that give grants to digital
creators who are doing things in the educational space generally
that they kind of want to see more of UM.
So they reached out to us to give us a
grant and UM you know, it wasn't much, was five
thousand dollars, but we kind of took that as a
serious enough sign as well as they're interested in us
to UM leave our jobs and pursue TFD full time. UM.
(07:33):
And it just kind of grew from there and now
we're eleven staff, UM tons of contractors, all women, based
out of our office here in Manhattan. That's awesome. And
t f D the Financial Diet dot com. When people
go to the website, now, if someone's listening and hearing
about the platform for the first time, what can they expect.
So we actually don't publish on our website anymore. Our
(07:54):
website is just a hub where you can go to
other places. All of our kind of UM article based
content is in our new letter. We just do newsletters UM.
But you know, in terms of what people can expect,
you know, we try to be pretty diversified across you know, video,
podcast articles, UM. Our biggest, the biggest part of what
we do now is events, both in person and digital.
(08:17):
So that's everything from a one evening workshop on credit
cards all the way to full day conferences or four
week kind of UM deep dive classes on things like
investing or budgeting. UM. So you know, pretty full service
as far as media companies go. And what I'm most
looking forward to talking with you about today. Is this
(08:37):
intersection of money and relationships. Those are two things that
we talked about a lot. I'm not happy mess I
enjoy conversations about each of them. So we thought it
was high time to just sort of combine the two
and explore how they intersect. You know, whether it's romantic relationships,
platonic or familial relationships. Money makes people weird, It makes
things awkward, and sometimes, um, what you don't know can
(09:00):
very much hurt you. I've I've experienced that, and I
think it's time that we just sort of remove the
stigma around some uncomfortable conversations when it comes to money, um,
particularly when it takes more than one person to um
handle it correctly, save and invest. And there's a bit
of a collaboration there. Uh So talk to me a
little bit about, uh, your perspective when it comes to
(09:23):
let's just kick it off with romantic relationship. Right at
what point do you recommend that someone start talking about
money with a potential or prospective partner or do you
wait until you're in the relationship to quote unquote go there.
I would definitely say prior to being in a relationship.
I think once you're you know, you've been on a
(09:43):
few dates, Um you're thinking this is someone you might
want to be seeing exclusively. UM. You know. I think
there are a lot of entry points to a conversation
about money, but I think what is kind of most
important is that anyone who is extre only reticent or
turned off or um aggressive about conversations around money very uncomfortable,
(10:07):
very kg all that kind of stuff that's a red
flag in and of itself, and not just about money. UM.
So that's really something that you want to establish super
early on, especially as a woman, because typically in heterosexual relationships,
women are going to have they're gonna earn less, they're
going to have less control over long term financial decision
making and planning. They're going to um, you know, have
(10:30):
a a pretty unfair powered dynamic if, for example, the
two of you have children, um, you know, as far
as who's expected to take on the primary caregiver role,
expected to kind of sacrifice in terms of career. You know.
So women really can't afford, in particular, not to have
these conversations. And I think there's often a fear that like, oh,
(10:50):
is this going to seem too fast or is this
going to seem like I'm not fun or any of
those things. But again, anyone who is worth dating long
term or maybe even marrying is going to be someone
who's going to be rational and adult and empathetic about
talking about money, even relatively early on. What do you
recommend for scripts when it comes to that. I'm big
(11:12):
on asking about you know, UM, potential or ideal prompts
to start those conversations, because I agree that they're important
to have. But it's one thing in theory. It's another
thing when you're across from the dinner table with you know,
some guy, you're on date number three with UM, and
you actually have to go there. So how do you
recommend that we sort of broach the subject delicately but firmly,
(11:37):
you know, I mean part of the reason I say
that this is probably something that should happen only in
the context of you both kind of feeling like and
I mean, you never know, right like you have to
someone infer from the other person. But if it's seeming
like you're both moving towards exclusivity, um, you know, I
think that opens a nice framing for the conversation, which
is that you know, hey, I'm really I'm really loving
(12:00):
the time I'm spending with you, I'm really feeling, you know,
pretty strongly about you, and you know, I think you're
someone that I could really care about, and I think
you know anyone that I feel like I could really
care about. I want to make sure that we're on
the same page when it comes to you know, compatibility
and the bigger life stuff and things like that. So
you know, I'd love to hear kind of your philosophy
(12:20):
on money. You know where you land in terms of
you know your long term goals, you know what's important
to you, how do you like to spend I think
asking questions that are kind of that are very open ended,
that are very much allowing the other person to share
about themselves, you know, their history, their priorities, and really
(12:41):
framing it in the context of, you know, what is
the future going to look like? What do you want
it to look like? You know, because ultimately you know
any of these decisions we talk about where you want
to live, whether you want kids, whether you want to
get married, if you want a big wedding, you know
you want to live um, if you want to move,
fund a lot, if you want to buy all of
(13:01):
this stuff. These are all financial questions, and I think
we have a tendency to feel like talking about money
kind of dirties anything romantic or takes away from it,
and I think it's quite the opposite. I think it's
much more. I want to make sure that these things
that we want to do are not just shared goals,
(13:21):
but they are also things that we're actively working toward
in a constructive way, rather than just sort of hoping
that they happen. Yeah, yeah, really good point. And you know,
when I start thinking about relationship and having those conversations
that are so important, you know, relationship in general, even
when we're talking about love and affection and things like that,
it's always like, start with yourself right, self love, self acceptance,
(13:44):
self self self. And the same can be said for money,
because I've certainly been in you know, relationships where it's
off the perspective on money are limiting beliefs around money,
our ideas about what money is for or not for.
And I say that to say, doing the work quote
unquote financially for oneself is also really important in my opinion,
(14:06):
before you decided to partner up, so you can figure
out who aligns most with sort of your financial mission
totally curious to know what that was like for you
as you evolved as an individual, as you sort of
figured out how you felt about money and what you
wanted it to do for you. What was that evolution
like and when did you get to a point where
you felt like you were even at a place to
(14:26):
partner up financially. Well. I met my husband when I
was twenty two, So okay, we were not having this
kind of adult conversation. Let me tell you, like, you're like,
we were in it, we're doing it. No, Yeah, I was,
I mean, yeah, an idiot, and we really grew together
and we I mean definitely, I think there's been, you know, uh,
(14:50):
an evolution on both sides for for the better. He
was always much more stoic and serious about money than
I was. Um, but it just wasn't even a concern
at that time, and I had none of it. So
I was, you know, I was very much living a
very reckless life. And I didn't start t D until
we had been together for several years already. Um, so
that I can't say that, I mean, it's very much
(15:11):
to do as I say, not as I did, kind
of a thing. But if I could go back I
would definitely do it um the right way, and I
think that would have spared us some uh tough moments
or disagreements or what have you. But you know, in
terms of thinking about how that's evolved, as far as
what the goals are, as far as limiting beliefs, all
(15:31):
of those things, I think one of the most clarifying
things when it comes to money, because ultimately money is
just a tool, right, Like we should never look at
money is the actual goal in and of itself. Like
there are people who are just really motivated by earning more,
by seeing a bigger number in their net worth, by
you know, being able to afford more consumer items for
(15:54):
the sake of having them and for the sake of status.
And I mean, I don't want to generalize, but I
think for most people that's a pretty unhealthy way to be.
And I don't think it's particularly fulfilling, and I don't
think it's a holistic way to live. But if you're
sort of I think living rightly with money, it means
deciding on the life that you want, the community that
(16:15):
you want, the things that you want to accomplish in life,
the things that you want to be able to give
and then figuring out how money is sort of the
you know the building blocks of that. You know, how
are you how are you leveraging money to get there?
And so you know, from my husband and I were
both we don't want children, UM. We know that we're
our biggest priority in life for both of us is
(16:37):
freedom and flexibility. You know, that means travel, that means
professional flexibility. Like my husband is UM not a US citizen,
and he's been going through some immigration drama the past
couple of years, so he hasn't worked in UM a
while now, like over six months, and that's something that
he can afford to do that we can afford to
do UM. And he is not. I mean, he's going
(16:58):
to get his authorization soon, but he's not in a
rush to immediately go back. He's going to take his
time and find the right position UM. And you know,
there's a lot of contributing factors to that. Financially, obviously
not having children is probably the biggest one, but it's
also you know, living below your means, it's buying less
house than you can afford because your priority is not
like I know many people who their priority is they
(17:18):
want you know, a big beautiful house with a big
yard and maybe a pool, and they want to have,
you know, a big family and do all of these
things that are amazing, but they also they also cost
a lot, and they also preclude a lot of other
life paths. So I really think ultimately money management is
the second part of it. The bigger part of it
(17:39):
is what is your ultimate priority in life? And I
don't think you can always be distilled down to a
word or two, But I think the more you can
get to something that's like freedom, uh, you know, experiences, uh, family,
um stability, whatever these words are, I think it's really
important to pick that and then work awkwards from it.
(18:00):
And I will say, as a last note on that, like, yes,
I'm much better at handling money on just like a
budget level, but that's easy, Like there's not that much
to learn, and when you do, like you're good. What's
been clarifying over the years is really realizing, um, what
I want my money to do for me? Really great advice,
And you brought up budgeting and how that's really just
(18:21):
sort of a tip of the iceberg. It's why am
I budgeting? What do I want to save and invest
this money for? Um? What are some of the resources
that you used earlier on. Obviously, now you have t
f D and others therefore have it UM. But when
you were first getting into this journey to financial literacy,
what helped you? What would you recommend? What mistakes did
you make in the beginning of that journey, UM that
(18:43):
we can avoid by learning from your lessons, you know,
I would say the number one thing was that I
downloaded Mint early on UM, which is just a budgeting
tool that I found really easy to use and just helps,
you know, get all your money in one place and
really kind of visualize your money and UM track your
purchases and your habits and all of those things. I
(19:04):
think that was the first step, you know, as far
as resources, you know, I definitely started following other women
in the personal finance community who were already out there,
you know, several of whom have become good personal friends
of mine at this point, but women like Aaron Lowry
of of Broke Millennial, Amanda Holden Um who's an investment
(19:26):
expert and former trader who we work with both of
them a lot as well, UM, you know. But I
think again, as far as mistakes, I think the number
one thing that I would just remind people that I
wasn't a mistake so much as what I um misunderstood
was that it's really not it's not complicated, there's not
(19:47):
really math involved. You don't if you know good money management,
you're not really doing much. In fact, in a lot
of cases, the best, the most effective part of money
management is not touching it, not looking at it, not
messing around with it. Not you once your money's in
the market, close your eyes to whatever is going on
because you're in it for the long haul, you know,
or especially your automatic especially right now, Oh my god, please,
(20:10):
I don't couldn't tell you what's happening because I'm not
looking at it. But um, you know, we're setting up
automatic debbits and you know, doing all of those things
that helped prevent um human error. So I definitely overthought
it at first. Okay, okay, um that is actually really
comforting to hear. Right. So, I've been on this journey
for quite some time now, but I did get to
(20:32):
a point where it was just like set it and
forget it, And it has saved me so much mental
and emotional bandwidth because I first remembered, you know, two
years ago, almost three years ago now, at the start
of the pandemic, and I mean, the market was just
doing some crazy things. And I watched two people close
in my life specifically just ride the waves emotionally every morning,
(20:55):
like with the stock market. They woke up and depending
on what happened on any given day, their mood, their
their day, their experience um changed and it was a
crazy time. And now retroactively, obviously you look back hindsight,
they come out on the other side of that and
everything is generally fine. But being tethered to the way
(21:17):
your money is moving in the day to day really
isn't the best idea for one's mental health, I feel,
And it sounds like you agree, absolutely not, Yeah, that's
I mean, I think that's like also just like a
general life lesson, like anything that's out of your control,
like learn what you can do, learn where you have
(21:38):
energy to direct where you can make an impact. But like,
I mean, I feel the same way about a lot
of issues in the world, like don't drive yourself crazy
over focusing on things that you have no control over. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,
when we talk about families and those dynamics. Growing up,
we didn't really talk about money too much, at least
not about you know, how to of it invested. Um.
(22:01):
I grew up hearing cash under the mattress, cash under
the mattress, which is basically the worst place to put
your cash. Um. It was only my twenties at even
wrapped my mind around inflation. And what's so wild to
me is growing up in school, you know, and I
went to probably arguably the best private school in northwest Ohio.
We were not taught uh, financial literacy, I mean, history, geography, biology,
(22:26):
all of the things that no one's asked me about.
Since I graduate, I've got you covered. But we didn't
really talk about that stuff. And so because I didn't
have it in my household growing up necessarily or my
immediate family, I was really flying blind once I got
into the real world. I'm curious to know what was
that like for you, that sort of familial dynamic. Were
there conversations around money? Were there not? Do you feel
(22:48):
like that set you up for failure or success based
on what happened? You mentioned that you grew up hearing
a lot about keeping cash under the mattress? Me, do
you mind if I asked where you're any either, if
you're parents immigrants, UM No, but they're from the Deep South,
and so my mom's a military brat and my my
father is from the Deep South and you know, grew
(23:11):
up sort of. I don't want to speak for them specifically,
but I will say in my family, like even the
extended family, there was sort of a lack of trust
around the banks and government and financial institutions, UM, and
people in positions of power having your money right. So
(23:32):
I can, UM, I can empathize even with that. I can.
I can understand where it comes from. But it doesn't
mean that it was the right advice for them to
have been given or giving. That's what I'm curious to know.
Why you ask, well, because that's a really really common
thing with especially you know, immigrant UH communities that are
(23:58):
obviously English is a second language. They typically you know,
we're talking about often communities that are fairly underbanked. UM.
I mean even my husband who's an immigrant from uh,
you know, a visa free travel country in the EU. UM,
it was really difficult for him to get properly banked
in a lot of different ways and to get set
up in all of our systems and to even understand
(24:19):
the task code and to do things like that. Um.
You know, I'm it's kind of surprising to have, you know,
that distrustpaired with someone who's in the military. But I'm
sure that's a deep dive for another day. That's obviously
totally but it is. I mean, you really, over the years,
we've really pulled out a lot of these threads and
see a lot of these common threads. And you know,
(24:41):
for me, I grew up quite low income. I'm pretty
transparent about that. My family is more middle class now,
but when I was young, you know, government subsidies, you know,
not we were we were never homeless, we were never
we didn't ever not have enough food. So I do
want to be careful about not you know, overstating, but
(25:01):
money was definitely a super precarious thing. My family didn't
necessarily have that same quite that same level of mistrust,
although the their immigrant parents, the ones that were did,
so you know that I think was ambient in the
in the environment. But I think being lower income is
another area where you'll see a lot of that. Um.
(25:23):
You know, very very uh reticent to use credit or
to take on debt. Um really really wary of investing
in the stock market. You know, a lot of the
you know, wealth building vehicles and a lot of these
systems like credit, like investing, you know, and whatnot. Like
(25:47):
those are really really scary to a lot of communities
and definitely was scary to you know, my family growing up,
and still to this day, you know, not to put
their business out there, but I still have to get
on them about like you know, we gotta gotta set up,
you've gotta have that retirement account built out, you know. Um.
So you know, from my perspective, I you know, I've
(26:09):
I've done a lot of content about you know, sort
of the emotional and mental stuff that comes with growing
up in that environment. And you know, for a lot
of people like you as an example, like even with
a lot of access in other ways, like going to
this elite school, you're still not given the tools right
to understand this stuff. So it's not even necessarily it's
(26:30):
not just an immigrant thing, it's not just a low
income thing. You know. It's especially with women, it is
a really really systemic issue. Um. And you know, we
see a ton of women every day who like literally
their brother would be taught a lot of financial management
stuff and they would not, um. You know, so I
definitely I hear a lot from our community from people
(26:53):
who have to support family members or who are very
frustrated with their rents and their elders in the way
that they handle money or their attitudes around money. Um.
And again this is only compounded when you have like,
for example, um, you know, huge parts of the country
that either don't speak or speak very little English, So
(27:14):
you know, even interfacing with these systems, it's really difficult.
But I think my overall advice two people who are
trying to navigate the family stuff is that ultimately it
is not a child's responsibility to manage their parents finances,
and it does not help anyone to perpetuate a cycle
(27:37):
of generational poverty or generational dependence. Like if you're sabotaging
your own financial health in order to help support your parents,
which we see a ton of, that helps no one, right, Like,
all your potentially doing is just further off putting that
onto your own kids. One day, we are going to
have to help you because you couldn't build out your
own retirement. Um. And Similarly, you know, there's only so
(28:01):
much a lot of people can do to overcome or
correct form or try to sort of work on as
an adult child the dynamics that they were raised with.
I think it's important to just focus on whether you're
having your own children or your you know, you have
other children in your community, niece's, nephew's friends, children, maybe
(28:21):
you work with children, whatever it might be. Like, just
ensuring that they're going to have better tools than you
did is I think the most important part, because ultimately,
I just I think the most common themes that we
hear in these relationships are resentment, guilt, obligation, um, you know, anxiety,
(28:42):
all of these things. And this is really a mental
health issue and in many cases should be talked about
with like a counselor or something. Um. But it's the
last thing. Yeah, just to reiterate is like, do not
sabotage your own financial health too help your parents financially.
M Do you have any steadfast rules when it comes
(29:03):
to loaning money to a friend or a family member.
You know, some people say just don't let anyone borrow
anything that you are not okay with never seeing again,
so that you can just make peace with that and
then hope you get the money back. Are you a
hard and fast don't do it person? Or what's your
perspective on that, I totally agree with what that point
that never do it if you can't afford to treat
(29:24):
it as a gift. And I would actually go one
step further, especially if you're talking about lending to someone
that you're close with, is I would give them the
money if you're going to do it, and say, listen, UM,
if you want to pay this back, you pay this
back when you can as you can. UM. Don't give
them a schedule, don't give them payment terms, let them
(29:44):
do it on their own terms. Because I do think
that where it gets very fraught is when people are
not either willing or able to do what they agreed to.
And if you're only doing it things that you can
afford to treat as a gift you want to give
(30:05):
yourself and that other person, I think the luxury of
not having um potential areas of messing up or conflict
or intimidation or you know, on their end, resentment or
anxiety of like I can't believe, you know, I have
to pay my cousin or my friend or my sister
(30:27):
whoever back, you know, and and feeling that stress of
suddenly having to view this person who is a close
personal relationship now is like a creditor, you know. UM.
So I do think in general, like you know, we
I recently did a video about this about kind of
I think that we generationally You mentioned earlier how we
(30:47):
talked quite a lot about the self when we talk
about um, you know, relationships, mental health, mental health, etcetera.
And I really agree with that, and I think it
can be good, But I think it can also be
quite dangerous because I do think that it can sometimes
make us quite frankly stingy with others. It can make
us a little too self focused. It can make us, um,
(31:09):
live less generously, less empathetically, less community oriented. Um. And
so I do think that if you know, if someone
is coming to you for money that you love, it's
probably one of two situations, right. Either they want to
make a big life move that they're not ready to
make yet financially on their own, like buying a home
(31:29):
or moving or whatever it might be. And then the
other one might be that they're in real financial distress.
And in both cases, if you're wanting to help this person,
it should be out of love and empathy, um and
because you genuinely want to help that situation, not because
you're looking to kind of maximize your returns, and someone
might say, well, you know what, if they want me
(31:51):
to invest in a business, you know that I'm not
necessarily so sure about or I want to make sure
I'm getting my money like whatever. We hear that a lot.
Don't invest in that business. Don't invest in anything that
you don't genuinely feel really good about. M okay, really
really great advice, and I appreciate you encouraging folks to
really consider more heavily the emotional aspect and the relational
(32:15):
aspect of giving money to to make sure your heart's
in the right place. It certainly helps with managing the
resentment right if you gave purely or genuinely, UM, it's
much harder, or at least there's there's a higher threshold
before you sort of get to your wits end or
become a little bit resentful about how you may or
may not get that money back or what does or
(32:35):
doesn't happen with that quote unquote investment. UM. I would
love if you could briefly, UM break down financial abuse.
I just want to talk about it for just a
few here. What is it exactly? Because I'll be honest
that's a term that's newer to me, and I'm not
entirely sure what all would fall under that umbrella. So
what is financial abuse? So I should clarify here that
(32:57):
I'm not a therapist, although we've spoken to their this
about that, and they'll say, you know, financial abuses in
a term you know in the in the literature. It's
not something that has like a hard and fast definition,
But I would say in general, it's anything under the
umbrella of using UH finances as a form of coercion,
control um, shame um you know, or or really any
(33:20):
kind of manipulative or harmful UH dynamic UM in a couple.
Generally speaking, there are very few from what I've read,
from what we've learned at t f D, there are
very few examples of domestic abuse or even I mean
sometimes there are abusers within families. Parents abused children, children
(33:41):
can abuse parents. You know, all of these that it's
not limited to domestic relationships romantic relationships, but to speak
broadly about them, there are very few examples of abusive
relationships where finances are not a part of it UM.
And generally, if a person is going to be abusing
you financially they're probably also going to be emotionally abusive
or manipulative or you know, engaging in gas lighting or
(34:04):
any of these things. So, UM, you know, it's really
when money is used as a tool, um to negative ends.
And this happens a lot more than we think. I
believe in heterosexual relationships and um sort of piggybacking on
that idea, No, I won't even say that, because there
(34:25):
are two very different things. Um. Transitioning to the concept
of financial infidelity. Uh, when I read the definition, I
could see how people easily, you know, sort of fall
into that trap. Um. Sometimes it's tempting. I'll be honest.
Sometimes I've been moments where I'm like, oh, I'm just
I just want to avoid this conversation. So I just
I'm gonna take this money over here and not talk
(34:46):
about what I'm about to do with it because it's
gonna be a thing. Um. But could you break down
for our audience what exactly financial infidelity is, um, and
then also what are your thoughts on it? Do you think?
I mean, I've see if ever, if everyone's on the
same page to each his own. So are you one
of those who subscribes to a joint account and the
individual accounts is something you recommend for folks? Is it
(35:09):
sort of to each his own whatever floats your boat? Um?
What is financial infidelity and what can we do to
avoid it in our relationships? I mean similar to you know,
romantic or sexual infidelity. It's you know, any financial activity
that you're engaging in that you're either in that you're
hiding from your partner essentially that you're being deceptive about.
(35:32):
You could be doing it out of emission, you could
be doing it actively in lying. Um, there's a whole
spectrum um in general, my my heart and fosti vule,
especially again in heterosexual relationships where these power dynamics are
so present. Is no matter how combined most of your
finances are, there always need to be separate accounts, especially
(35:53):
for the woman. I recommend that everyone have at least
their own emergency fund as well as their own kind
of fun account that you know, it doesn't have to
be much, maybe just like a hundred or soabucks you
know here and there to spend on things that you
don't want to have to have a conversation about that
you don't want to have to like be on board
with you know, because there are plenty of things that
(36:15):
you know, I buy that, my husband is like, that's
a waste of money, and vice versa, and I and
I don't think it serves either of us to have
to feel like each party has to rubber stamp every
financial decision. There should be I think the ability to UM,
to be flexible with your own money and to to
do what is appealing to you without having to make
it a big deal. But I think, you know, financial
(36:38):
and fidelity happens quite a lot, and often it will
happen UM a very common dynamic that we'll see as
women hiding purchases from their spouse, UM that and again
in heterospectual relationships. And you know, I that's bad, don't
do that. But I also I understand why that happens
in a lot of relationships because especially when women have
(37:00):
children and their career prospects are diminished, maybe they're not
working at all, maybe they're working part time, they're earning less,
they're um having less and less control over their money
in society, it's not shocking that that's going to sometimes
channel itself into exerting control and decision making and agency
(37:24):
in other less ideal areas tell the truth, Chelsea. Have
you ever it's not just a little purchase, just a
little something something, And later your husband was like, what
the actually, like we talked about this or we did it,
and he's just like, wait, what is this? Like some
massive Amazon thing just lands at the door and now
(37:44):
here's a combo to be Oh for sure, I mean
I do it. Like so I see a cosmetic dermatologist
that had skin and shoes my whole life. And also
I'm not thirty three, so you know botox, you know four?
You know that ae just here. Yeah, well I'm not
(38:08):
I'm not far off in January. But suffice to say,
like there have been times where you know, he's like,
what could what kind of a laser could possibly cost?
You know, and I'm like, listen, this is just like
this is something that is going to be a part
of my life probably till I die, like some tasteful,
(38:29):
you know, cosmetic procedures every now and again. Um, that's
a decision that I've made between myself and me, and
you know, I don't I wasn't hiding necessarily, but like
I wasn't seeking approval on that before I did it,
because I knew it was just going to be an
argument of like, you look fine, you don't need to
go spend you know whatever. But I think especially for
(38:52):
women like I don't know a single again, had a
respextual woman really who doesn't have some level of like
how hair cost four hundred dollars or you know what
I'm saying, like that kind of a thing, They're just
gonna have to get over it is my take a
hundred percent. I love you saying, um, it was a
decision I made between myself and me. I think I'll
(39:13):
be stealing that to you for the rest of this
year's Slash My Life, So thank you. So that was
a decision between myself and me. We sat down a
really great job about it. I love it. I love it.
You have been quoted as saying very few people have
a totally healthy, totally holistic, totally communicative, and totally unburdened
(39:34):
relationship with money themselves, let alone when they come into
long term financial cohabitation with another person, which I think
is really insightful and so spot on. I'm curious to
know what are maybe one or two really emotionally charged
questions that people seem to avoid or may not even
realize that they should be having but aren't when it
comes to money and their partner. Mm hmm. I'm mean,
(40:01):
I think, to go back to our earlier conversation, it's
not even so much about the money aspect, because like
there's the usual stuff of like I'm a saver, he's
a spender vice versa, like one's avoidant, one is micromanaging,
blah blah blah blah blah, and those are you know,
those are real logistical issues that can be overcome but
definitely need to be addressed. But those are really just
(40:22):
questions of um, logistics of administration, of you know, how
individual budget decisions are made on a day to day level. UM.
I think what is really difficult for people is the
philosophical questions about what is important to us in life financially.
And again, we tend to think of things as not
(40:44):
being financial, but this is America. Almost everything is a
financial decision. Like very few things are not right and
so like even something you know, obviously the kids, the wedding,
the fat and the other prenups pre MEI are and
non negotiable, but like when it comes to things like okay,
well do you want to be in your job forever,
(41:05):
Like do you maybe want to change careers? Do you
want to go back to school? Do you feel comfortable
if we live on one person's income for a while,
Like all of these kind of questions, I think people
really don't think to ask until they're presented with the issue,
and then it becomes quite stressful. Um. And then I
think on top of that, especially when it comes to
a lot of these life moves, buying a home, having
(41:28):
a kid, having a big wedding, you know, all of
these sort of I think very heteronormative UM milestones, Like
we have to keep in mind that, like, first of all,
a lot of them came from a very different economy
where it was a lot more affordable for people, Even
things like going to college, sending your kids to college,
all of these things. I think people have a tendency
(41:50):
now to just treat as a given and then get
mad at themselves if they don't have it or if
they're not able to afford it. And the truth is
that a lot of people who have of these things
that we consider the adult milestones are aspirational. Like they're
heavily in debt, you know, they're putting this on credit cards,
they're not able to maintain this lifestyle. And the truth
(42:10):
is that financially, unless you are a crazy high earner,
you can't have it all. You can't do it all.
It's you have to make choices. And I do think
that there's not enough of a conversation of like, for example,
if you're going to buy a home, for example, I
don't think enough people. I think so many people treated
as like, well, that's what you do when you're an adult,
which first of all, not at all necessarily. And there
(42:33):
are a lot of housing markets right now that I
think you would be a fool to try and buy
into because of the prices and whatnot. But um, like,
there is not enough of a discussion of like, okay,
but then what is that costing us on the other side,
what does that mean? Because like, for example, with a home,
if you're buying a home, and you're even remotely savvy
(42:55):
about it, you need to plan to be in that
home for probably close to ten years, if you know,
if you have to, if you are going to maybe
want to move, change careers, earn less money, do any
of these things, you better not want to do that
for ten years, because you could be selling into a
bad market, and I don't think and so a lot
(43:15):
of people, I think, just look at the shiny object
and they don't think enough about what is it? What
are we giving up on the other side, and are
we okay with that? Right? You mentioned pre nups towards
the start of that answer, and very briefly it felt
like you were an advocate for that, like you. I
think you said something to the effect of, like, yes.
(43:36):
So one of my questions was, how do you feel
about pre nups post nups? Um? Should everyone be getting them?
Should you only be getting them under certain circumstances? And
how do you start that conversation? That's the conversation that
for me is like, it's awkward. I don't even I
don't know where where to begin. I think it's important,
(43:58):
but I have no idea where to begin. Prenups I
think are a must for everyone. Um, postnups, I've heard
from a lot of attorneys are not. You can get them.
But I've heard from a lot of attorneys they don't
really hold up in courts. So yeah, I don't get
the point of them either. I'm like, if you tied
the knot and you didn't sign anything, and then you're like, actually,
just kidding, let's backpedal on that complete lack of you know,
(44:22):
right right exactly. And we've actually, um also in you know,
our interviews and things heard from UH therapists experts in
psychology that postnups are actually often a tool of financial abusers,
and you know, because they can. I mean, you're really
(44:43):
in many cases coercing a person into, like you said,
kind of giving up the initial agreement that was made
when you got married. Um. And you know, as as
lawyers have explained it to us, you know, the post
nup often fails because when you're doing a prenup, there
is a specific agreement being made, um in exchange for
(45:04):
a marriage you know, as opposed to a post up,
which is just like I don't know, like, what's the
what are we agreeing to here? Exactly? We're just like, actually,
never mind, I no longer want to have the same
marriage laws. UM. So definitely prenup not posting up is
the first and second. I mean, if if it's something
that feels awkward to you, I think that's all the
more reason, not you personally, but in general, like it's
(45:26):
all the more reason to talk about these things really
early like I would say in the earlier stages updating,
when you're having these open philosophical conversations about money, you know,
I think it's totally cool and chic honestly to be
like you know, for me, having a prenup is really
important because I want to make sure that, if you know,
God forbid, we ended up not together, that everyone is
(45:49):
really treated fairly, and that we're dividing our assets and
we're making these calls based on a moment in time
where we loved each other the most, where we were
really how be with each other. You know, because when
you're writing a pre nup, you're about to get married,
you probably are the most in love, you know, at
least infastuated. You're probably more generous than you'll ever be
(46:09):
in your life because you just love me so much
and you never think you're gonna get divorced. So you know,
I would definitely kind of approach it that way. Okay,
really great advice as we wrap things up here, what
are some free resources that you suggest for women who
are seeking to build their financial independence, um and and
really grow when it comes to showing up for themselves financially. MHM.
(46:35):
Definitely nerd uh nerd wallet has a lot of really
good calculators when it comes to you calculating things like
for your investment, retirement, you know, net worth, all that stuff.
Um Mint is a really great app that's free for budgeting.
I really like it a lot. Um I would say, definitely,
uh it sounds corny. But the library, I mean basically
(46:56):
every good financial book ever is offered through the library.
And like you can now with you have like a
Kindle or even just on your iPhone, you can get
like the Libby app which allows you to get library
books downloaded in the free. Yeah. Yeah, you never book again. Yeah, yeah,
there's no reason. Okay, that's really good to know. Yeah.
And you know, there's some really great financial podcasts out there.
(47:18):
You know. I listen to basically every morning, I do
the Financial Times News Brief. It's a really good you know,
get the top line information every morning about what's going
on in the world, and then I'm like, okay, now
I can just not think about that for the rest
of the day. Your podcast, right, you have Financial Confessions, Yes,
our podcast though that podcast is definitely like it's a
(47:38):
lot more just like entertainment in the sense that we're
talking about, you know, life through a financial lens. Um.
So each episode is very different and it's kind of
lifestyle based, so it's not as much about the nitty gritty,
but definitely level two I would say when you're looking
to just kind of integrate a more holistic financial perspective
into all of your life choices. Okay, got it, And
this podcast is all about best life minus the burn
(48:00):
out with everything that you're doing, everything that you're building,
um in particularly in the space of finance, which can
get overwhelming and heavy sometimes. UM. How do you prioritize balance?
Just personally? What does self care look like for you?
Do you have daily rituals? What do you do to
battle to burnout? So I only work a four day
work week at TMT. We switched to affording work week
(48:21):
lash year, so I don't really ever have burnout. I
don't work that much. I love it. Um Yeah. I
mean I ride my bike every day almost I you know,
I try to have a pretty active social life, you know.
I I hate to say it because it sounds terrible
to say, but it's really the truth. I don't have kids.
I mean I've worked for day work week and I
(48:41):
don't have kids. Like probably no one is as well
rested or relaxed or self care a lot of time. Honestly,
I am and look, I want kids. I love kids.
But the older I get and the longer I go
without them, I'm like, I get it. I get why
folks don't have them. I am chilling me and my puppy.
What I'm not working, And it's a great life. Very
(49:04):
it's a great life. It is. And I do feel
like that's another thing that are not not enough people
really think about, is you know, if you are someone
We have several working mothers on the team, and they
love it. It's what they wanted. It's not a choice
they would ever regret that. They both say over and
over again, like this is only something you should do
(49:26):
if you absolutely want it, because it is as ton
of work. It's um well, I love that. Also, you're
very brave for riding your bicycle through Manhattan. To me,
that sounds like stress on a stick. But I'm getting braver.
I'm getting braver. Okay. If people want to keep up
(49:47):
with you, where where can we find you? Um So?
I probably would say on Twitter mostly uh Chelsea Underscore
pagan um is where I tweet but follow the Financial
Diet everywhere. We do a lot of cool stuff. Okay, awesome, Chelsea,
this was great. Thank you so much for your wisdom,
your expertise. Our audience is gonna love it. So I
appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. I'm happy
(50:10):
said thank you so much Chelsea for joining me on
the podcast this week. That was a great conversation. So
many gyms, so many takeaways. Let's get this money all.
Let's be financially smart and savvy and awesome if you
can do it with a partner. Okay, be sure to
check out Hot Happy Mess dot com and the episode
show notes if you want resources from Chelsea or the
(50:31):
Financial Diet. And if you're loving what you're hearing, don't
be shy. The love is what keeps team Hot Happy
Mess going. So if you can leave us a five
star rating and maybe a couple of quick sentences about
why you love the podcast or what you're enjoying right now,
it moves mountains in my heart. Okay. You can follow
me on Instagram at Zeri Hall and at Hot Happy Mess.
(50:53):
Hit me up in the d M s. I love
seeing your messages. I respond as often as I can
and you could very well end up on the podcast.
If you're into that, I will talk to you next week.
Have a good one fighting fight. H
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