Money Money Money
11/30/18 - We put the personal in personal finance. No lectures, no shame, we turn to Tonya Rapley and Lindsey Stanberry to help us unlock the secrets of making money work for you, whatever your financial picture.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: Money Money Money
[Ads]
(1:05)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Let's get this money, boo-boo!
Ann: Money, money, money! I'm so excited about today's episode. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Love talking about money.
Ann: Definitely what we're about today, putting the personal in personal finance.
[Theme Song]
(1:55)
Ann: How's your money in 2018? What is your biggest money revelation of this . . .
Aminatou: [Sighs] You know, my biggest money revelation of this year is that money is a thing you have to do every day. I say this because I am the person that for a long time if a phone number called me that I didn't recognize I would not pick up. I never opened any of my bills. I just like -- I know in the pit of my stomach how broke I am at all times. [Laughs] And I know that like . . .
Ann: And I don't need the specifics, right?
Aminatou: Right, I don't need the specifics and I know the danger game that I'm playing every time I swipe my card. But I will say that like this year I made like healthy decisions around it. It's like I checked the calendar. I checked the bank account. And I just know. It's like now I know everything. I know my credit score. I know how much money I owe or don't owe anymore. I know when the checks are coming in. I have a grasp around it. That doesn't mean that everything is going well but I don't have that fear anymore. If you don't know, you can't start making a plan to un-fuck your money.
Ann: Right. The place that I always hate being in, whether it's with money or anything else, is not even knowing the right questions to ask. And I feel like doing the ostrich head in . . . is the ostrich the one that puts its head in the sand?
Aminatou: Yes, ostrich. Ostrich. Got it. [Laughs]
Ann: Ostriching in terms of your bills and your money means you never know what questions to be asking right?
Aminatou: Yep.
Ann: Because if you're looking you can say like oh, what is up with this charge? Or is it normal that I have, you know, negative dollars in this type of account but maybe too much in this other type of account? Or whatever, you know? For me it's just like acknowledging my ignorance and trying to figure out what questions I should be asking, like that is the bar I've set for myself. Like not know it all; just know better questions to ask.
Aminatou: Right. And the thing -- I'm so glad that you're saying that because the other thing that I will say is the biggest lesson I've learned this year is that everything is negotiable. In order to negotiate you need to be able to ask questions. Like I found out that even your tuition bills in college, you can ask to negotiate those.
Ann: Wow.
(4:00)
Aminatou: You don't have to take sticker price on everything in your life, even these big ticket items. And being financially savvy and financially confident is how you get to that place.
Ann: Also knowing when it's important for you personally to haggle, right? Like oh god, if I don't make X amount on this next thing I'm doing or if I spend too much on this next thing then my finances are not going to work out this month. And that doesn't mean get your money right for all of time but I've got to make a different decision in the near-term. And maybe I'm also talking as a freelancer where you have more short-term flexibility sometimes in terms of what you need to do to make rent or whatever.
Aminatou: Yeah, absolutely.
Ann: But also more pressure on the flip side.
Aminatou: Right. But I just think the worst thing that can happen is people will say no, and that's not the end of the world. I haggled my ginormous hospital bill that I got this year that was like tens of thousands of dollars, that bill, I haggled it down. I only paid 40% of it.
Ann: Oh my god, I hope you just are about to drop the mic and walk away from this podcast because that is astounding. So impressed.
Aminatou: I'm telling you. I called them and I was like "Let's walk through this bill because I see a lot of things here that I don't know about." I'm like "Are you sure about all of this?" And this is a thing too where I was like because I'm a freelancer our money comes in differently. But I was like "Here's the deal: I can't afford to pay this many thousands of dollars bill. What would it take, if I could pay you an amount all cash right now today, what would you take?" And it was like 40% off what it was. And I was like handshake, let's do it. And this is with the hospital because they know. They know. The sticker price is always garbage. I don't know. I've been telling all my friends this. I was like especially with hospital bills just call them and be like "Dawg, I'm not made out of doubloons. What can we do here?"
(5:55)
Ann: The doubloon economy.
Aminatou: The doubloon economy. I was like please, I'm not Oprah so what do you -- what is it going to take for all of us to be happy? And that works. It works with your cable bill if you call them and you're like hey . . . because there's always those introductory periods and then two years later the bill goes from great 99 to too many doubloons 99. And so you just call them and you're like hmm, what can you do for me? Because I might be switching providers. And also if that person says no to you just hang up and call again. It's fine!
But these are all things that you have to do all the time. You have to have a level of confidence about it. There is no shame about it. And this is America. Let the people who have money pay for the things that they can afford and let the rest of us also pay for what we can afford.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: There is no shame in asking, you know, especially the hospital system where everything is overpriced for them to cut you a deal.
Ann: Sorry, I'm still really sitting with that 40% number and like my . . .
Aminatou: 40%.
Ann: My already extreme respect and awe for you has like -- has increased even more. I'm like holy shit, I can't even believe that.
Aminatou: Listen, I can't buy the soft knits I need to survive in this world with these kinds of hospital bills.
Ann: [Laughs] That's true, you like a luxury knit.
Aminatou: And also I'm just really . . . all of these things I've been learning have mostly been through following and listening to other women talk about their money. I wasn't born knowing that you could haggle or negotiate everything. The woman personal finance community is so generous. They will tell you everything. Like money advice that I always feel that, you know, I should probably go into an adviser to pay a lot of money for I have learned through so many women online and in podcasts who talk about that stuff.
Ann: Well that is a great segue because I talked to an icon of personal finance.
Aminatou: Yes!
(7:48)
Ann: Tonya Rapley of MyFabFinance.
Aminatou: Yes! Who co-hosted a podcast with me for State Farm called Colorful Lives.
Ann: Yes, and who is an incredibly fun and easy to talk to person about topics that can be so fraught and so alienating and so difficult. She makes everything so human and so manageable. She's the author of an e-book called Seven Life-Changing Money Tips. She offers debt elimination courses and like community resources on myfabfinance.com and is overall just like an icon of not ostriching I would say.
Aminatou: Yeah, no. I mean all of the things that I was telling you I learned this year, I learned them all from Tonya. [Laughs]
Ann: The secret is out.
Aminatou: Yeah, the secret is out, you know? And also I feel like if you're one of those people who is like ugh, doing money means that I have to deprive myself of everything that I like or whatever, Tonya is not there. Her website is literally called MyFabFinance, you know what I mean?
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: She is like -- and she is fabulous.
[Interview Starts]
Ann: Thanks for being on the podcast.
Tonya: Thank you for having me.
Ann: For folks who are not familiar with your work maybe you can talk about the work that you do and what you're busy with right now.
Tonya: Yeah. So I am a financial educator. Not a financial adviser, financial educator.
Ann: [Laughs]
Tonya: I educate people on how to basically take control of their money so their money is no longer controlling them. And one of the things I've really wrapped into the work that I do, so I'm also the founder of MyFabFinance. And so one of the things I've wrapped into the work that I do is really helping people understand how money is a tool to help them live lives that they love. Because I think that so many people become obsessed with that bottom line rather than I want to have this so that I can experience that. So helping them become clear on what their goals are and what their finances need to be for them to be in alignment with their goals and experience their ultimate life vision.
(9:45)
So started out just purely as financial education. Has slowly moved into consulting with finance brands on creating products that accurately and appropriately serve millennial audiences, whether that's from their marketing to the actual product design, and the campaign roll-outs, and now have moved into financial talent as well. I never knew that was a thing.
Ann: What is that?
(10:10)
Tonya: Financial talent . . . [Laughs] So recently I just finished a project with Britain Co and Robinhood where I taught their Investing 101 class.
Ann: Oh cool.
Tonya: And so it is kind of just teaching these classes, ensuring that the topics are broken down in a way that the everyday person can understand it because a lot of times at these finance companies they have a bunch of ex-finance people at the back of these FinTech companies and they're speaking in jargon that the everyday person can't understand. So I've lent my talent to that.
Ann: So would you consider yourself a finfluencer? [Laughs]
Tonya: Finfluencer. I haven't heard that word but I think I am a finfluencer to some degree which I'm very proud of. I'm proud of that.
Ann: Yeah.
Tonya: I am, yeah.
Ann: You know, you have this really cool philosophy about money as a goal enabler. Was there a time in your life when that was not your view on finances?
Tonya: Yeah, definitely. My relationship with money has evolved and that's why everything that we start with with MyFabFinance really is helping people address and assess their relationship with money because it felt like I was in bondage to earning money for a while. I worked in non-profit in New York City.
Ann: Oh wow.
Tonya: Which is not a lucrative career field, while I had other friends who were marketing directors and everything else and they were living their best life and I was trying to live mine. And I would say I wasn't using the money I was earning properly to achieve my goals and I wasn't earning to my full potential either. And so there was also some resentment because I felt like I had done everything I was supposed to do. I went to college. I got good grades. I moved to New York and chased my dreams and money was not enabling me to live my best life like it was my peers.
(11:55)
Ann: So it's interesting. I have definitely felt that period before but I think I have mostly just chalked that up to well, I picked an industry that isn't very well-compensated and this is just the way it has to be forever. And I'm curious how you then started to make this transition to feeling like you had a little more control over your options and the way you saw things.
Tonya: Yeah. So yeah, the non-profit I worked in was classic non-profit overworked/underpaid and the executive director that we had at the time really made me feel that that was the best that I could do. And I ended up leaving that job and going somewhere else to another non-profit that blew that one out of the water.
Ann: [Laughs]
Tonya: I got there, first day. This is before I properly knew how to negotiate and I asked about the benefits package. They're like "Oh, we cover 100%." I was like "100% of what?" They're like "We cover 100% of your benefits." I was like excuse me, is this the military?
Ann: Is that a thing? [Laughs]
Tonya: Did I sign up for the military? And I ended up going to this non-profit. It was a $15,00 raise. Basically any educational opportunities I wanted to pursue were available to me. If I wanted a standing desk I had a standing desk the next week. The vacation -- it was the polar opposite. And so that began to broaden my horizons to what was possible and not allowing someone else to define my working conditions.
So then it came to the point where well, if I'm working for someone else and experiencing this improvement in the quality of my life what if I was to work for myself? How would that change my quality of life? And so I slowly started building MyFabFinance to the point where I could work for myself. But it really took leaving that one job where they told me that this was the best that I could do to go into something better to just kind of remove that cap that I had placed on myself to see what else was possible.
(13:55)
Ann: Mmm. What is an idea that maybe you got from your family growing up or maybe from the media or however it is that all of us learn about money, what's an idea that you had that you now realize was so wrong and you had to let go of?
Tonya: Yes, that I had to attend an Ivy League school to be wealthy.
Ann: Hmm.
Tonya: That was something that I saw in a lot of the people who were deemed successful by the media, whether they dropped out or whatever. They attended Ivy League schools and my parents placed a high emphasis on education and so forth. So I ended up going to college in Miami Florida, Florida International University, and it was a great school for my degree but I think I still felt like well success and wealth is reserved for people who go to the Ivys. And I had to change that narrative for myself and I think that starting to meet other people who were incredibly successful who went to these schools I had never heard of or who didn't even go to college and so forth, meeting my husband who never went to college, worked in film and production, and our first couple years together he was out-earning me and I had a college degree. I think I've proven that to myself that you don't have to attend an Ivy League institution to be successful in business or financially. I've proven that to myself. I've proven that to my family. Hopefully family members who look up to me and the young people that I mentor now.
Ann: Right.
Tonya: So yeah.
Ann: Yeah. So when I think about personal finance sometimes it is this like real big picture thing like what is my annual income? Or what is a big picture budget? I wonder how you educate people through MyFabFinance or maybe even in your personal life about dialing down to the daily and the weekly in terms of the choices.
Tonya: Yeah.
Ann: And do you have any tips on that?
Tonya: Yeah, I mean because it is a big picture thing. Your financial picture whether it's savings, budgeting, mindset, investing, income, and so forth. But there are all these different elements that impact one another too and most of it is impacted by your income and your mindset. And so usually I encourage people to break it down by looking at what is the most pressing financial goal that you want to accomplish in the next year? Or what do you want to accomplish by the end of this year? It's going to be impacted by your finances whether it's transitioning to a new job or transitioning to working for yourself, relocating, paying off debt, whatever it may be. Your finances are going to play a role in that picture.
(16:25)
So we look at what their biggest goal is and okay, in order for you to achieve this goal where do your finances need to be for you to achieve this? So credit, yeah. I mean if you're going to be applying for a new apartment or something like that then yeah, we need to look at your credit to make sure that you can get approved. But do you have savings in place for you to relocate? Are you earning enough income right now to build your savings and do everything else that you need to do? So we really look at what your biggest goal is for the year and then aligning your finances based on that.
Because what happens is a lot of people take action with their finances based on knee-jerk responses or a reaction to a life event. So whether it is getting a call from a collection company and now saying oh, I need to get out of debt. But it's like what are you in debt for? Are you in debt because you didn't have savings in the first place? Let's build your savings. And I really like to get people out of the habit of being reactionary when it comes to their finances and being proactive when it comes to their finances so that we are identifying what you want to accomplish and any potential obstacles that you might encounter in how to prepare your finances for that.
Ann: So does that look like a pretty classic make a budget and, you know, set yourself some limits in a week-to-week spending kind of way?
Tonya: Not all the time because everyone doesn't have a budgeting issue. And that's the same, people assume the budget is the end all, be all. And a budget is important. Usually we'll do a budget just so I can see where people's finances are going. I'm very honest about the fact that I don't necessarily live by a strict budget. I make sure that I allocate money to the things I say I need to allocate my money towards whether that's living expenses, like paying student loans off or paying any debt or paying my team and so forth. And then I've gotten to the point where I'm financially responsible enough to be like okay Tonya, you tapped out for this week. You've done enough. Okay, let's not spend any more money.
(18:15)
But for some people a budget -- yes you definitely should do a budget to see what you're spending your money on but for everyone that isn't about abiding by a budget, or you know, it could be setting up an inconvenient savings account so they're saving more money. And by inconvenient I mean one that's not connected to their primary banking institution. So your check isn't being deposited in XYZ bank and then your saving is with XYZ bank, and so you overspend in your checking account and then you automatically transfer your savings over because they're connected. By inconvenient bank account I mean setting it up at two different banking institutions so that you're creating a barrier around that and actually achieving your savings goal which has nothing really to do with your budget; it's just creating boundaries around some of your financial behaviors.
And so I think a budget is important for understanding where you are and where your money is going and kind of reining you in but there needs to be so much more than just that. You really need to start to create systems in place that save you from yourself when it comes to your overspending.
Ann: Yeah, and so what are some of those other tools that you recommend? I love the idea of an inconvenient banking account. I'm just filing that away right now, yeah. Yeah.
Tonya: Yeah, make it inconvenient because there have been so many times where I'm like oh, wow, I forgot I had money in there. Just really money stashed in different accounts.
Ann: Like does your Venmo count for that when I forget to empty the Venmo? [Laughs]
Tonya: It can. It can. The other day I was going on PayPal. I was like why do I have so much money in PayPal?
Ann: Yes.
Tonya: Oh, let me put that in my other savings, my long-term savings account. And yeah, it can actually. That's great and that's a good position to be in when you're just like finding money. Like let me hide this from myself in a more intentional manner. But also using some of the FinTech companies that have been developed to help encourage healthy financial behaviors. So there's Digit and Capital and a few others that automatically save money for you and create a rainy day account so they're automatically just socking money away for you.
(20:05)
Ann: Is that like rounding up a certain amount from your purchases? Or is it a recurring monthly thing? Or how does it work?
Tonya: They don't round up. Most of them they look at your spending habits and they say "Okay, this person gets paid on Fridays. It is Wednesday and they have more than they normally would in their checking account. Let's go ahead and put some of this money into a rainy day fund."
Ann: Oh, wow, so it just automatically does that?
Tonya: Yeah, automatically transfers. Other tools that I suggest people to use like that inconvenient savings account, I trick myself a lot when it comes to money. I trick myself into not having as much as I thought I did and that works. Just being in tune with your money, checking your bank account balance every morning.
Ann: Do you do that every morning?
Tonya: Yeah I do.
Ann: Wow.
Tonya: Because if I'm going to check Instagram and Twitter first thing in the morning I need to check my bank -- I need to be in tap because you're able to catch things a lot quicker. So even just being on top of things, so AmEx, I just went through this with American Express. A lot of times we get in the habit of just paying things often, or just paying things off like oh, okay, this is what they say I owe.
Ann: Yep.
Tonya: And I looked at my AmEx bill and I was like hmm, this seems like a little more. Not a lot more, but it seems like a little more than what I'd spend. And I went through and I had like $400 worth of Uber charges that were not mine.
Ann: [Gasps] Oh my god.
Tonya: Yes, and I called American Express and they were amazing but it really is important to just be on top. Routinely check.
Ann: It's so funny when you were talking earlier about mindset, like this is where that really comes into play for me because I think about checking my bank account as something akin to making a dentist appointment, or you know what I mean? Something that I'm like oh, god, it's good to do. I'm an adult, but I hate it.
Tonya: I know.
(21:50)
Ann: Is there a way that you reprogram that for yourself?
Tonya: I mean, you know, the more financially responsible you become the more it's like okay, let's see how good we were. [Laughter] But I mean even if I know -- like I am not perfect when it comes to my money. I am not the person who is like I'm the Mother Theresa of money. No. Like my brand is called MyFabFinance for a reason. I like things. I like to buy things.
Ann: [Laughs]
Tonya: And so for me sometimes it's like a yoke up, like my bank account is like hey, hold on, you went a little hard yesterday. And I need that too. And so for me it is just better to know what I'm dealing with so that I can start to correct those behaviors instead of assuming no, it's okay. We're all good. We're all good until we're not good. And so for me that is one of the reasons. It's like I would rather know than not know because not knowing is expensive.
Ann: For sure. Is there an area of personal finance where you feel like you're maybe still out of your depth or you're still learning?
Tonya: Oh my gosh, yeah, investing. Absolutely.
Ann: That's how I am. Investing, what is it?
Tonya: Investing. And I actually, like I just taught the Investing 101 class.
Ann: You did.
Tonya: Yeah, and that was great because I created the entire curriculum and so forth and it really was kind of a lesson for me. I was like oh, okay, I know -- and then when we started going back-and-forth with the client I realized I knew more than I actually gave myself credit for which is very common. I think they say, especially with women, we often don't give ourselves enough credit and we think that other people are more informed about certain things that we're actually pretty informed about. And there's some things I just don't care to learn about when it comes to money.
Ann: Like what?
Tonya: The nuances of investing. I don't care to become a day trader. I don't care to know m accounts in the manner that my financial adviser does. I know surface-level information and there are just certain things where I feel like there is more for me to offer the world than for me to become an expert in this particular aspect of finance. And I know people who do it really well and I can recommend people to that but that is not my calling.
Ann: At what point did you know you were ready for a financial adviser? Or what is a good baseline?
(23:55)
Tonya: When I had money! [Laughs]
Ann: Yeah, what does that even mean though? Not to pry into your finances.
Tonya: No, yeah.
Ann: But for real I don't have one and I'm like do I need one?
Tonya: It was to the point that I had enough money set aside that I was nervous that if I did something wrong with it I'd lose it. I was like okay, I don't trust myself with this amount. It was I had a lump sum of like $6,000 and went to a financial adviser and I was like ":Here, can we put this somewhere where I don't do something like . . ." I mean now, now that I've learned more and so forth I have my own accounts I manage. I'm comfortable managing a couple thousand myself. But the larger amounts, definitely with my financial adviser.
(24:30)
And that's the thing is you don't have to work with a financial adviser when you're starting out. You know, if you're saying I'm going to do $100 this week, $300 next month, and so forth, there's so many different FinTech companies out there where you can kind of get started like Stash and Robinhood. I love both of those for helping people just understand how the market works. And when you start working with larger sums of money that you're really -- that you would be affected if you lost it.
Ann: Yeah.
Tonya: That's when it's time to look into a financial adviser.
Ann: That's a good rule of thumb. Yeah. You mentioned earlier what is a goal I want to accomplish this year as being something that can guide your personal finance choices. How do you balance a one-year goal with maybe like a five-year goal or, you know, something that's even bigger and weight those things?
Tonya: Yeah. I think your goals should stack up. I think your goals should stack to each other. And honestly if you have a one-year goal I think that it should be part of your five-year vision and it should be helping you achieve your five-year goal. I can use myself as an example. My five-year goal when I started MyFabFinance was to actually, if I wanted to start a family, to actually be able to experience the maternity leave and the maternity experience that I wanted to. And so that next year goal was to create a profitable business and to generate XYZ in revenue and the following year goal was to actually work in that business full time. And then the next year, because I lived in New York City and I refused to have a baby in New York City, the next year was for me to be able to relocate and leave New York City.
(26:00)
And then the following year it was like okay, so we've done all these things and now we're saving for this baby. But all these goals built towards one another and the next goal is to purchase property in North Caroline and start investing in real estate. And so everything starts to kind of build towards each other. There's like stair steps. It's your goal, you know what I mean? It shouldn't be so different that it's separate -- so separate from your five-year goal that it takes away from your five-year goal. It should be like okay, I want to travel the world so and so and so this year, by the end of this year, but how does that add to your five-year life vision? It's kind of just a natural flow since it's part of your life. It's part of your ultimate life vision.
Ann: I have never heard anyone talk about long-term goal setting that way. Thank you. That is really helpful. [Laughs]
Tonya: Yeah, it's like a stair step, like going up the stairs and everything just builds on another.
Ann: Ugh, genius. Okay, last question, what is one piece of financial advice that you would give anyone regardless of where they're at? What is a good thing for everyone to implement?
Tonya: Hmm, I would say commit to doing at least one thing you said that you would do with your money. Whether that's weekly, monthly. If that is dining out less, if that is putting aside more money in savings. And that's not limiting you to one thing. So if there are three things that you want to do with your money within a specific time frame, but a lot of financial success is about doing what you said you would do with your money And small actions lead up to big impacts. And so by deciding to, you know, cut your overhead or cut out subscription services that you no longer need for your business that allows you to in turn maybe save more money or put more money towards your debt and so forth, allowing you to do more things you said you would do with your money. It doesn't have to be extremely difficult. It is just committing to doing one or a few things that you said you wanted to do and that you would do with your money because then that starts to build up your responsibility or your -- that muscle, kind of like working out. It starts to strengthen your level of commitment to yourself and your ability to do things that you said that you would do. It becomes more habitual than kind of like this activity that it's just like oh, how the hell did that happen? It becomes possible. It becomes easier or second nature to you.
Ann: Tonya thank you so much.
Tonya: Thank you!
(28:20)
Ann: Where can our listeners find more of your wisdom?
Tonya: They can find me at MyFabFinance, so My Fab, F-A-B, Finance. I'm uniformly branded on all social media platforms. So yeah, they can find me on those platforms. And then how I've been balancing mommypreneurism, like balancing traveling and being pregnant and so forth. I know that was a big fear that I had was how is getting pregnant going to impact my business?
And so I have my own personal brand tonya.rapley, Tonya with an O dot Rapley, where I just kind of share those experiences as well. And for people who are interested in maintaining their career while starting a family because it was . . . it was terrifying for me.
Ann: Well, and we just heard about how much work you did to build to it too so like . . .
Tonya: Yeah.
Ann: Yeah, I can't imagine. You probably have so much to say about that in practice.
Tonya: Yeah, definitely. But I mean one of the things I learned is don't allow people to impose their fears or their limitations or experiences on you because so many people are like "Are you sure you should be flying?" I'm like I talked to the doctor about it. I'm good. I share that on my personal, so if anyone is interested in the woman who is behind the brand then that's where they can follow me.
Ann: Fabulous. Thank you so much Tonya. [Laughter]
Tonya: Thank you.
[Interview Ends]
Ann: Is Tonya not the best? Like seriously.
Aminatou: I just want to hand over all my bank accounts to Tonya and be like just do everything. Thank you.
Ann: I mean the thing that she says about asking questions about what do you want money for, we understand that there is no ethical consumption or money management under capitalism but also asking that question of okay, it's actually for all of us, not just about hoarding money as if that were possible anyway. It's about like what do you want your life to look like and what do you need to enable that? And starting with those questions I think is so powerful. The idea is not just like oh my god, everyone is doing it better than me and I have to catch up somehow to them. It's like what is my personal set of needs and desires in this life and how do I make money work for me towards those personal specific goals? And I find that so liberating as opposed to just you should've saved X amount of money by the time you're Y age.
(30:40)
Aminatou: Right. And also just like having values around what you want to spend your money on, right? And not depriving yourself, and you're right, just knowing what it is that you . . . what is it that money buys you? Does it buy you time? Does it buy you access? Does it buy you soft things that you want? Does it buy you comfort? Knowing all of that I feel makes you feel more confident in the decisions that you make.
Ann: Yeah. So yeah, follow Tonya, check out MyFabFinance, she's the best.
Aminatou: Let's take a break.
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(34:05)
Aminatou: Now that we're back from the break I talked to somebody whose work we talk about a lot on the podcast. I talked to Lindsey Stanberry who is the work and money director at Refinery29. So if you have read a money diary that is her project. She wrote the money diaries book. There are actual money diaries like you see online divided in all these great categories and they're definitely a cross-section of the country so it is people from everywhere, like women from everywhere, women who hold different kinds of jobs, women that are in a relationship, women that are single, women that are saving to buy a house, whatever. And then there is also this very practical advice in there and Lindsey talks about her own experience. Part of her story is that she wrote this viral story years ago, like maybe three or four years ago at this point, How I Saved $100,000 to Buy an Apartment. And I remember seeing the headline and I clicked on it immediately, like who are these people?
Ann: I'm literally Googling it right now. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Yeah. The thing that I've always appreciated about Lindsey's work is she is honest about how money works across different layers of privilege. And so, you know, not everybody can save $100,000 to buy an apartment certainly. But if you can and you want to here is an insight into a certain kind of person doing that. I think that when women share how their money works it is one of the best acts of generosity you can do for other women. Instead of comparing yourself to everybody in the money diary or the woman who runs the money diary section they're telling you where their starting points are. I think that it shows more than making you angry or jealous that some people have more than you or feeling sad that people have less than you it shows you that everybody handles their money differently and there's not a right answer for everything and that, you know, it's possible to build the kind of life that you want based on decisions that you make around money.
[Interview Starts]
(36:05)
Aminatou: Hi Lindsey. Thanks for coming on Call Your Girlfriend. Can you tell us the idea behind the Money Diaries book?
Lindsey: Yes, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So the idea behind the Money Diaries book is the series is really popular and at the same time we were doing some really good financial content but they weren't kind of meshing together on the site. I really wanted to figure out a way to have them kind of work together better, and what better way than a book? So that was the idea that it would be both money diaries and this great financial advice married in one great work book.
Aminatou: Why do you think the money diaries are so controversial? And I use the word controversial so loosely because clearly people are voyeurs and we love finding out how other people spend their money but there is . . . I feel like there's so much strife that goes along with that conversation.
Lindsey: I think a big part of it is that in the past women haven't had the opportunity to tell their financial stories and this is really the first time that they are on such a big platform. And so it invites controversy. And I've kind of come to terms with that, like I think that when I started it the hope was it would be a really happy place where it was like we were empowering women to talk about their money. But I've come to understand that we are providing kind of another service to people to be able to kind of vent their feelings about this. And yes I wish people were nicer but I'm also actually okay with it kind of being messy.
(38:00)
Aminatou: What about it is messy specifically?
Lindsey: I think that anyone familiar with the comment section knows how critical women can be of each other. We see it especially with the higher earners which is really interesting. And then the diary went viral this summer with the intern. You know I think that opened up a lot of controversy and conversations about privilege and wealth and generational wealth and that's not an easy conversation for anyone to have privately or publicly.
Aminatou: I find it really fascinating that you point out that the higher earners are the ones where people have these kinds of conversations because clearly the point is with so much of this advice how do we get women to make more money? And we want to encourage that. But there's so much judgment that comes along with that.
Lindsey: There's so much judgment it's crazy. And it comes from everyone. It's like really intense. I was talking to my senior editor Bourree Lam about it one day and she was pointing out that especially with women of color earning six figures people just don't know how to handle it. And I think that there's a lot of jealousy but then I also think that like I said at the beginning women are just now telling their financial stories. And so it's also this feeling that we don't have these role models so we don't really know how to respond to them.
Aminatou: That's fair. What are some other very surprising things that you found out while you were writing and reporting this book?
Lindsey: I have been really amazed how open women want to be in telling their stories, and like I'd be on calls with perfect strangers and they would tell me these stories that my friends would never dream of telling me. There's a young woman in the book who the section was on how couples split their finances, you know, if they do everything together or yours/mine/ours or with this woman's situation she has a kid but her and her husband keep their finances completely separate and I thought that was really interesting. And I was on the call with her and we were five minutes into the call and she was like "It was an unplanned pregnancy and we had only been dating for five months and all of a sudden our relationship was accelerated." And I was just like this is not at all how I expected this conversation to go.
(40:20)
But she also clearly wanted to share this. It was important to put some context to her earning and her spending and how they had managed to work out a system, and I think that that's really interesting that women really, really, really want to talk about this. But the anonymity of the diaries and the book allows them to be open in ways that they maybe are not being with friends and family.
Aminatou: I'm glad that you brought up context. What do you think are useful contexts when people generally talk about how much money they make or how they're spending their money?
Lindsey: Like how far back in our history can we go, right? I loved on your episode when you talked about the viral diary, when you talked about secret white people wealth. And I do think that these conversations are really interesting because oftentimes how we are raised really impacts how we spend and save now for better and worse. And I think it's really interesting because we see at Refinery that people take a lot of advice from their parents when it comes to their finances and I often wonder if that's a problem because our parents don't . . . they don't have the same experiences that we have. Like it seems to me that it would make more sense to talk to your friend who's in a similar socioeconomic background -- socioeconomic situation right now -- about how they spend and save rather than your parents who might have a totally different story than you.
But I think context is really important because without that you don't know the whole story right? And that poor intern over the summer got so much flack about the $3,000 a month that she was getting from her parents but I think I pointed out in the article that I wrote in response to the controversy that she's one of the few people that actually shared that information. A lot of times I think people get that and they just don't tell. So you're like wait, how do they afford that?
(42:10)
Aminatou: Yeah, I mean if we . . . the summer intern was fascinating to me because people got so mad but it is a self-reported diary. And I think another thing that goes on there that I think about a lot whenever people share these kinds of diaries is how much judgment there is in how you spend. And I remember she talked about how she'd bought an expensive yogurt and the amount of judgment that comes along usually with how young women spend their money is something I don't see when I read the version of this in the Wall Street Journal, right? There's so many layers to unpack there.
Lindsey: We don't usually feature men's diaries so it's hard to say specifically if it's sexist. I think it is. But you know if it had been a 22-year-old white dude we all would've been really annoyed with him too. But I do think it's fascinating how upset people get over the way people choose to spend their money and nobody pointed out that the intern packed her lunch almost every day. But, you know, when you're getting $3,000 a month from your parents I don't think that you get points for being virtuous because you pack your lunch to save money, right? I don't know why we feel like we need to be judgy of people and how they spend.
We did this story at Refinery last year on equal pay day about women who don't want to share their salaries and why. And one of the things a woman said was that she didn't want to share her salary because she didn't want people judging the way she spent her money. Whether they thought that she had enough that she could do things that she didn't want to do, that's an issue, or that she didn't have enough and she shouldn't be buying whatever. And I wonder if we'll ever be able to let go of that. I'm not sure we will.
(44:00)
Aminatou: I mean it's the most American thing, like paternalism over money if you look at the way that we talk about welfare in this country and, you know, there's an entire political party that wants to make sure that people work or do -- or meet certain requirements before they're able to access some of that. It doesn't surprise me that we feel that way on this very basic level about people. But I want to go back to the thing that you were saying about talking to your parents about money. I do think that talking to your parents about money is useful because for a lot of people that's kind of the first ladder for how you understand money right? Like I grew up in a house where my dad talked a lot about saving but we never talked about anything else. Like I didn't know how much money he made. I didn't know how to balance a checkbook until I was later in high school. And so I did not have very basic financial literacy and I have seen how that has had repercussions later in my life. I was wondering if you're comfortable talking about how your parents educated you about money.
Lindsey: I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I actually was talking to my mom about it last week. I come from an incredibly privileged background. You know, my dad's a doctor. My mom was a pharmacist. I went to private school. We weren't like rich but we were like, you know, they did well for themselves. And I don't remember them ever talking about money at all. You know, we would ask for things and sometimes my mom would say yes and sometimes she would say no. It wasn't like we had everything handed to us. And I worked in high school and college but I'm not really sure where I learned about money. I just kind of, you know, it just was always there and it wasn't until . . . my husband and I saved a lot of money to buy this apartment in New York City and I wrote about that story and that's how I ended up working at Refinery and writing about work and money. And it wasn't until after I read that that I was like wait a second, I should get some kind of financial education. I should understand the stock market and how my 401(K) is invested and what a credit score is.
(46:05)
But I wish I had had that earlier and I think that I'm very lucky that I've never had to really worry about that but that's not a good plan, right? Not having to worry about it. You don't ever know when things will change and so having a better sense of what comes in, what goes out, how you're investing, how you're saving is something I think that you should learn from childhood.
Aminatou: Do you have any apps or particular systems for how you keep tab of your own money?
Lindsey: I just obsessively check everything. I check my bank balance every morning. I check my credit card once a week. I'm also married to somebody who is very cheap. [Laughs] Poor Ken, I talk about him too much. He's a good sport. So that helps. Being in a marriage with someone who doesn't like to spend money is a good way to not spend money. And also we have very similar values. This has come up a lot when I've been talking about the book is how do you push back against a society that encourages us to shop all the time and to need the next new great, shiny object? And I think that's really hard and I think that that is one reason that people have trouble saving money. It's not the only reason by far.
Aminatou: Yeah, it's always interesting, this idea of consumerism, where I know that that's always the thing that I'm most excited about in the money diaries. And then every once in a while the site will feature -- and even the book features these people who have these really ambitious savings goals. And I was like oh, that is also a thing that you can spire to and you can talk about this way. I was wondering if you can talk about from the people that you've interviewed if you have a sense of how to balance short-term goals versus long-term goals when it comes to finances?
(47:50)
Lindsey: Yeah, I talked to a lot of financial advisers about this. It's hard and I think it's just about radical prioritization. It's like figuring out what really matters to you. And I kind of hate how the financial services industry puts a lot of emphasis on home buying and retirement. Both important and great goals, and retirement obviously is a good goal. But I think sometimes we do that at the detriment of the short term and the immediate and first of all having the short-term and the immediate and first of all having an emergency fund which is so crucial. But then also having some experiences and doing things.
I was interviewed on another podcast and they asked me if I had any money regrets from my 20s. Ken and I saved a lot of money to buy that apartment and that came at the sacrifice of traveling in our 20s and now we have a toddler and we don't go anywhere. We pay for daycare. So I think that it's just really about sitting down and figuring out what you want and what you want to do with your money and how you want to like -- how you want to make it work for you.
I was just interviewing this woman and she said she likes to think about how you want to spend your money in terms of thinking about bigger goals of like are you investing in women and people of color? Those kinds of things I also think that as you make more money are great things to think about.
Aminatou: That makes sense. Is there a consistent mistake that you hear from people that they're making and you just want to tear your hair out?
Lindsey: They never look at their money at all. They just ignore it. I say throughout the book I give you the tools that you need to have really uncomfortable conversations and I think that the bigger problem that I have is in general people just don't want to be uncomfortable and so they ignore really hard things. And none of this financial stuff is very -- like the actual doing of it. I was terrible at math in high school. This is not math; this is just like getting your life together. And it's not going to be fun and sometimes it's going to make you really annoyed or make you feel bad. But I think on the other end it can be really empowering and really freeing. And I think especially for women, especially in this political climate, I feel more strongly than ever that when we can't control the world around us we can control our money or at least take steps to control it and that can be really powerful.
Aminatou: Is there an area of finance that you feel that you're out of your depth and you're learning about more?
(50:20)
Lindsey: I'm terrible about investing. I freak out when I think about how much money I've missed out on in the stock market so I'm always working on that, and I'm really bad at negotiating. I tell a really embarrassing story in the book about how I once asked my boss for a raise while I was three beers tipsy at a holiday party. That's just embarrassing. But it still makes me really anxious and I've helped a lot of other people. But that's another thing about women, we're really good at supporting other people. And I think, you know, when you're thinking about building out your network, like making sure you've got those people who are negotiating on your behalf is such a game changer.
Aminatou: Right. It's like when I think about the book and the writing that you do it's one of the steps to getting women to get their money right because clearly being able to talk about it, not being afraid to open your bills when they show up, and getting all that under control is one thing. But there is also just like the larger picture of the fact that we don't get paid enough. Equal pay is not here. Daycare is really expensive. If you get pregnant, you know, you fall back in earnings and all these things. So I wonder how when you talk to women about . . . because this is truly personal finance/personal responsibility, like what you can do, how you balance that with the larger picture that, you know we don't have great policies so that women are in charge of their finances and so that they actually have enough money to make all these decisions.
Lindsey: It's really depressing and I try not to crawl back in bed and pull my covers back over my head. Yeah, there are systemic problems. There are so man issues. I think that's one of the reasons why we have to be more transparent about our salaries even though it makes us uncomfortable and that we have to start talking about money. If I'm going to be conspiratorial it's like well of course men don't want us talking about this stuff; it's the thing that's held us back all these years. And so while I can't fix the systemic problems tomorrow I think that these small steps can be very radical and game-changing and powerful. And if we did it en masse that would be amazing.
I say in the book one of my dreams -- my goal that I've been working at Refinery for a long time is wouldn't it be amazing if everyone went into a job interview and asked about maternity leave regardless of their plans to have a child? Man, woman, any age, like period. It would take away that stigma of whether or not maternity leave is something that's going to hold you back in your career. Or if men started actually like advocating and negotiating on behalf of other women. I was talking to this really awesome financial adviser Manicia Decor (?) last week and she was talking about how she has this new guerilla tactic where she's got a team at her office of women and they all amplify each other but then they bring in male advocates to also amplify them. She said it's changed things so radically. And I think it's those little things you have to believe in otherwise we're just going to go crazy.
Aminatou: I know, but the cynical part of me is like instead of everybody begging for maternity leave maternity leave was just a thing? And what if instead of having to have guerilla tactics [Laughs] men would take parental leave at the same rate that women took them? So that's something that I think about a lot when we talk about this stuff because at the end of the day so much of it rests on personal responsibility and there's just so much that you can do. And I think that's why . . . that's why I think context is so important, you know, in cases like this because the difference between like you can make the same amount of money but if somebody's parents are helping them with the down payment, that's how you're winning the rat race is you have all these other cheat codes essentially. I'm wondering though if you had to give everybody one piece of advice, not that there is one financial piece of advice, but you were like everybody in America needs to read my book and they need to know this thing, what is the thing?
(54:25)
Lindsey: I agree with you. I'm cynical too. I totally agree with you on this. But I also think cynicism only takes you so far and then you have to, I don't know, do something. But it sucks. Like the current political climate and the fact that yes, wouldn't it be nice if we had maternity leave and equal pay? It seems so simple. The one piece of advice that I would give anyone -- like really super simple -- open a high-yield savings account. It's so easy. Just do it. And then I would say know that everyone feels weird about this. Everyone. Like if you've got a lot of money you feel weird about I;t you've got no money you feel weird about it. I take some comfort in that. It makes me uncomfortable and I write about it and talk about it for a living and I'm not good at it. Like nobody is perfect and that's cool.
Aminatou: Thank you for preaching the gospel of the high-yield savings account. It's so important. Ann Friedman, I hope you're listening to this. Okay, my favorite CYG question: what do you splurge on?
Lindsey: Oh, two things. Shoes, which has gotten to be a really bad habit that I need to rein in, and two, I take a private Pilates class which is absolutely the biggest splurge ever. But like I said I have a toddler and I have like no time and so I go once a week, once every other week to see this woman who also has two kids and we talk about kids. And she used to work in media so we talk about work and it's like therapy and having a friend and exercise all in one. And I was telling my boss that I want to write a story about how when you become a working mother you have to start paying for your friendships because it's the only way you have time to hang out with your friends, so I'm like paying for a friendship. But she's awesome and it is like the best thing I do for myself.
Aminatou: I support all your splurge choices. Lindsey thank you so much for coming on CYG. The Money Diaries book is out now wherever you buy books and you can find Lindsey's work on Refinery29.
Lindsey: Thank you so much. This was so fun.
[Interview Ends]
(56:30)
Ann: Ugh, so thanks to Lindsey and Tonya who are icons of money management I have to say.
Aminatou: I love it. I love it so much and I'm just so happy that this is a space that exists, you know? Like I -- long-time stan of Suze Orman, you know, the OG I will say.
Ann: Oh my god.
Aminatou: Will say. But you know Suze Orman is problematic for many reasons so . . .
Ann: I know. I was like don't get me started.
Aminatou: No, exactly. But I will say it's actually a complicated conversation, right? In the sense that I remember the first time that a woman at work -- an older woman at work -- gave me a Suze Orman book and she was like "This is what you need to succeed in life." And I read the whole thing and at the time it was the advice that I needed but at the same time Suze Orman, somebody who sells financial products, and those financial products do not align with my values and I think they're sometimes very predatory. So basically the point that I'm trying to make is I'm just happy there are many kinds of women who talk about money, and Tonya and Lindsey specifically are very conscious of, you know, making sure that the conversation is nuanced and I really appreciate that.
Ann: 100%. So good luck to everyone out there on their personal money journey. [Laughter]
Aminatou: See you at the bank boo-boo.
Ann: Ugh, see you in my like bank website where I'm checking my balance and every transaction every single morning.
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.