Unlock Your Financial Freedom: Getting Rich with Vivian Tu

there's this huge shame put around debt when a single mom goes to the grocery store and puts her groceries on a credit card knowing that she can't pay that credit card off we call that debt but when a rich person takes out debt we call it leverage and we put them on the cover of [Music] magazines okay Vivien it is so interesting to me how you moved from being a stock market Trader to doing content creation fulltime it is such like two different worlds how did that even happen yeah it does seem a little different now that we're talking about it and saying it out loud right um so I started my career as an equities Trader at JP Morgan and that's to your point a fancy way of saying stocks so it's not as crazy as what you saw in Wolf of Wall Street nothing like that CU that's all the reference I have yeah uh I was mostly just sitting at a desk desk um there were six monitors and I would do you know trades from my desk it was busy it was crazy sometimes people yelled but it wasn't as bad as the movies um and that was great for two and a half years but I ended up leaving the industry and when I got to my new job at BuzzFeed I worked in strategy sales so nothing to do with finance and all of my new colleagues were like Viv you come from Wall Street like what's the point of us being friends if you can't rebalance my 401k for me or which health insurance plan did you pick or our St are are Company stock options even worth anything and I got so many of the same questions I said why don't I just put this on the internet cuz you guys are wasting my time I've answered this question four times now let me say you a link yeah literally let me send you the link um and the very first video I put out was the middle of the pandemic January 1st of 2021 and I basically said I'm seeing a lot of people who have no credentials who have no information and no education in the space who are saying things like put your stimulus check into Bitcoin or put your stimulus check into Tesla calls and those stimulus checks were for rent and food they were for necessity so like don't gamble with necessity money that doesn't make any sense and I was like listen I don't have a get-rich quick scheme but I can teach you how to be good with your money it's not that hard and that video ended up popping off 3 million views had 100,000 followers by the end of the week that's amazing did you expect such interest in finance no no are you joking like finan is so boring usually yeah and I think it comes with a bad rap that it's like very tough to understand and there's a lot of jargon and it's really for old people and you know that young people don't care and I think there were so so many myths and misconceptions both from like pop culture but also on my end that I was like I don't think people are going to like care about this but as it turns out like these days you have to care yeah because money impacts everything that we do from the house the house or apartment we can live in the groceries we buy the clothes we wear the trips we want to take the school we want to go to like it affects everything and unless you are planning on on living off the grid in your own little cabin chopping your own wood and like you know using solar panels that which how would you pay for the solar panels like you need money and we need to talk about it I want to go back to some of the points in your journey because it's so interesting to me that you walked into an industry like Wall Street when I think about Wall Street I think to your point right The Wolf of Wall Street I think men how was it to be a young woman in that environment well I'm not not going to lie to you when I showed up the team was 30 to 40 men and me in the room and you and me and the only other woman there my luck would have it ended up becoming my manager and she they really were going for the the twofer on diversity cuz she was also an Asian woman um and I felt so lucky because even though no one else looked like me she looked like me and for the first time I could see myself belonging in that room belonging to the Society of rich people mhm belonging in a high-powered position where I was an important person because it's really easy to be like a little kid and like dream about being a doctor or an astronaut or you know whatever but when you don't see anybody who looks like you achieve what you want what how what makes you think you can do it where's the road map there and so for me to see that another Asian woman had gotten to be exactly where I wanted to be it felt like reassurance or just a word of encouragement that like she's smart enough to do it you can do it too you know to me it's a huge part uh the whole aspect of exposure because you can believe in something you don't see of course and um I think that this is I mean your stars aign to be able to walk into a place and see you know a future you but um also in terms of money mindset I think you mentioned somewhere in your book where when you walked in you learned that rich people don't focus on saving they're focus on investing and building their wealth and I feel like it's very different than what most of us Carry in Our Minds in terms of money how did your money mindset change when you exposed to that kind of environment yeah so you know growing up I had Chinese immigrant parents very frugal like clip coupons we're looking for savings and is that important yes but we have such a narrative in our culture like Society generally that like women are shopaholics or over Spenders or you're bad with your money cuz you're irresponsible and like you love to go to the department store and buy stuff you don't need and like that's not true because that's only half of the money equation yes you can cut back on all of those things but we rarely talk about working hard so that we can make more money and then having our money work harder for us and this was just so perfectly shown to me in my first job because all of these guys would be so so blasé Blas about handing out their credit card this was the best part of working this job by the way every single day at lunch somebody would be would get hungry first it typically wasn't me because I never wanted to pay and these guys that was the rule if you get hungry first you pay well no the rule was like if you're the one who's like yo what are we having for lunch like you got to pull up your credit card oh my okay so what you know one of the older guys would always be like what are we having for lunch and you know they would wait till people started like saying stuffff and you'd be like salad or we'll get you know a PE bowl or we'll get something whatever and once you would once someone would say something that they wanted they would be like okay that trades that was like the line that trades they would pull out their credit card and give it to me and then I would go and get lunch for the entire row or the team or this like the group that had agreed to get lunch together and I would be buying lunch for like four or five people every single day and and it was crazy to me because often times I was swiping these credit cards for $100 $120 each day and I'm like do these people not care that we're spending 120 bucks on lunch every single day and they've bought lunch four days this week like that's $500 right there and that was crazy to me and the craziest part was my not my boss but my boss's boss so like really senior guy on the desk was like yo Viv just so you know anytime somebody hands you cash instead of a credit card you should pocket the change and I'm like what and he was like yeah back in the day when you know when I was a kid when I was young when I was your age when my senior would give me a $100 bill to go get lunch for everybody if there was change and it was enough that I didn't think he was going to miss it I would just pocket it I love how it's like its own little you know Society own rules rules and I was like I'm not going to do that I was so afraid of getting fired so I was like I'm not going to do that but these people didn't care about the extra dollar or two they didn't care about an extra $10 or $20 frankly for them that was nothing the incremental money to spend on that didn't matter because they were more focused on the thousands of dollars I have in my savings account right now how can I get that out of my savings account as quickly as humanly possible into Investments that are earning me big money and how do I make my money work hard for me that way I don't have to worry about these lunches I don't have to worry about canceling my Netflix subscription to get the ad version like they don't care they want to make more money not try to cut out every little thing that brings them joy in their life which I feel like is what you see online from these you know financial advisors or things like that gurus it's always feels like they're taking away the little joy that you get throughout the day you know we're already like it's hard enough to just be a human and don't take away my matcha my avocado yes you and I have heard the line because we are you know roughly the same age like Millennials can't afford homes because you like coffee and avocado toast like are you joking I did the math okay if it's not the avocado toast like if we went and get a coffee and bought a coffee every single day of an entire year 365 days of coffee $5 a day on coffee roughly it works out to be about $1,800 $1,900 each year where where do you know where I can get a home for a down payment of $18 to $1,900 cuz let me know if you do I definitely will um it's crazy like this rhetoric that our little treats are what's holding us back financially is just false and it's kind of what's keeping us playing small and I think that there's a lot of for Millennials and for uh genz there's a lot of these misconceptions out there right that we carry what other ones do you feel you see all the time and you just want to be like stop this is not a thing anymore you know I think one of the biggest ones is that all debt is bad Ulta all debt oh I was like Ulta the you're like please don't tell me this oh all de okay yeah so I think like there's this huge shame put around debt like if you have debt you're a bad person you're irresponsible you're stupid that's not true debt is not bad debt is not a swear word and the only example and the only justification you need to know this is true is that we use a different word for rich people versus poor people when a single mom who is having a hard time making ends meet goes to the grocery store and puts her groceries on a credit card knowing that she can't pay that credit card off we call that debt we wag our finger and we say you're so irresponsible what a bad mom what a bad parent you're so lazy you should get a better job what we say all these horrible things MH but rich people love debt I'm telling you this as a consider myself a rich person I have a mortgage on my home that is seven figures yeah seven figures of debt mom probably took out $100 on that credit card and we're making fun of her I have seven figures of debth MH but when a rich person takes out debt we call it leverage because it allows them to have their money in two places at once and we put them on the cover of magazines and we say look at this Visionary look at how smart they are to use debt as a tool I get it one of them is to afford a necessity and one of them is to make more money but like it's really really challenging the way we talk about what regular people should do and what rich people actually do and debt is not bad debt is a resource thatt is a tool just like everything else is and we shouldn't shame people for using it that's amazing cuz it it makes me think about what other terms that we use that are kind of limiting our access and ability to see where we can put our money how we can advance in the financial aspect um and it takes me back also to my childhood cuz I grew up also in an immigrant household um my mom immigrated like two three times and money to me was always a bit of like a source of evil so it talk to me about that yes it was really interesting it was always like in my household my mother was always the one who was pushing she was always like okay we need to go you need to get a better apartment we need to get a couch we need to get you need to go get lessons so she did what she needed to do in order to achieve those things yeah on the other hand I had a stepdad that was just always like we're going to end up on the street there's nothing to eat you know and the environment was also of debt everything was debt and actually back I grew up in Israel and in Israel um I think I guess here they do the same right when you go to grocery store you can pay with payments you can split like your bill in payments I don't can you do that I I guess I don't know if it's in the US so I know you can't do it in person but I know that there are now places where you can like pay in installments online yeah exactly so Dad but with literally single so you can imagine that that obviously created this false idea of access uh to money and you just kind of put it everywhere so it's literally was an environment of we're always in debt it's always going to end we're about to be on the street and although my mom created um you know an environment where I felt like I had everything I needed I in a way started being moving a like Theo myself I guess from this idea of money and thinking back at it now like I don't have I only recently not recently but in the past I would say maybe 10 years since I started um dating my husband where I've learned to appreciate money to Value money to look at money in a different way before that I was just kind of ignoring it I'm like don't think about it you know whatever comes comes whatever goes goes and it came from a place of fear because I didn't want it to control me cuz I saw how it controlled so many people people around me when I was a child in a negative way with you know it wasn't necessarily frugality that scared me it was the being irresponsible like everyone was so responsible around me with money and it took me a long long time to break away from that for you growing up in your household you mentioned that you know it was about saving everywhere you could you walk into the situation where you start seeing okay the terms I've used are not relevant the ways I went about money is not it's not applicable to me anymore how did you what are the steps you started taking to really change that narrative for yourself I have a horrible story to share with you okay um so I was a big saver and I saved all my money and my first year in New York I lived in a studio with another girl girl so like it was like a glorified dorm room we would like sit up and we would like look at each other Charlie and the Chocolate Factory style um but we lived well together and then the second year we moved downtown cuz we thought we were cool girls and we ended up moving into a roach infested apartment delicious I know horrible uh we ended up paying $8,000 to break our lease wow so it was $4,000 from her $4,000 for me and that $4,000 was pretty much every dollar I had saved over the past year and to be a year into working and feel like you are no financially better off than when you started is such a horrible feeling imagine just treading water for a year I don't have anything more than when I came to the city I'm not any better off I'm you know I don't have anything more and that was when I was like oh I like really need to change my life it was your aha moment it was like a really low Point yeah like you know felt like Rock Bottom I was living paycheck to paycheck people nobody believes this when I started my job on Wall Street and I came to New York I came to the city with the money that the company gave me for my relocation bonus so that was like money that I was given to deliberately move I moved I got an apartment you know I did all the stuff I was living paycheck to paycheck before the first bonus came in because my rent was High Cost of Living in New York is very high and I wanted to go out on weekends I was young I was in my early 20s I wanted to have a good time and over that year I slowly scrimped and saved and scrimped and saved until I had that $4,000 and then it was gone and for it wasn't even like I spent that $4,000 on a vacation I got to enjoy I spent it breaking my lease and that sucked and I'm very lucky in that throughout this whole period you know my mentor my manager at work had been telling me to put money into like my 40 andk or whatever but I was like I need to do more than that because I don't ever want to feel the way this apartment has made me feel ever again I felt so helpless not just because I'm afraid of bugs but that feeling of like someone has backed me into a corner I can't get out of this lease I was rented a shitty apartment that they knew had a bug infestation and now I'm the one paying for it mhm and so I really started then and there working my way back up I first and foremost ratcheted my emergency fund back up so I had to save a little bit more over time I made sure typically my rule of thumb for most people is 3 to 6 months I had 3 months and then I was like okay now I can move on fortunately I didn't have any debt I will say it's a huge privilege and I acknowledge my privilege in many videos when I talk about student debt I went to the University of Chicago I got a merit scholarship because I was a really good high school student so they just basically give you money for being smart I got private scholarships through a bunch of things I applied to and then my parents helped me pay for the rest of it mhm for parents who were coupon Clippers and Savers giving me a private school education that in total you know obviously I had scholarships but like that education was a quarter of a million dollars MH they that was Blood Sweat and Tears money that they put into my education so I feel very grateful I didn't have any debt but I would say for anybody who needs the road map it's get that emergency fund then pay off any High interest rate debt so first and foremost credit card debt I didn't have any I moved on to the retirement piece R so this is my strip method savings total debt R is retirement I had my 401k I opened up a Roth IRA M and so I'm putting money away for retirement then I made this mistake and I don't want anyone else to make it I invest it's not enough to put money into your 401k it's not enough to put money into your Roth IRA you have to buy stuff otherwise it just sits in cash right so then I bought things so index funds that track the S&P 500 I bought sector funds in Tech and real estate cuz those were spaces that I felt like were doing well I bought Target date retirement funds in my 401k so they would essentially change as I got older to become less risky but since I was young they were still pretty aggressive I was making a good return on them and then P of my strip method is plan I took a long hard look in my in the mirror here and I was like you don't want this apartment situation to ever happen again what's your plan how are you going to prevent this from happening MH what is your career trajectory that you are going to be able to make more money get a nicer apartment have a better life and I just sit down with myself and think about that and it's not always a nice conversation feel like it's a very scary conversation because even when you're at a low point you already know how it feels and it's more comfortable quote unquote to stay there to sit there cuz you kind of yeah well literally my money mind I was like not it's fine it's fine um I got lucky because I was earning money in my career and it paid for food and living and then I met my husband I was still young I got married so I kind of went into you know already uh into a life that was kind of set up but for a lot of women that's not the case right a lot of us um not a lot of women just don't really understand how to even go about it and what I love about what you just shared your your plan that you expand and talk on uh in your new book Rich um is those steps like those actionable items that you can take you know you explaining those to me it sound like you need to have a lot of capital to even get to that first or second step but tell me like if I really look into this emergency fund like how does it it look like could it be $3,000 can it be $4,000 so your starting point can be literally whatever you need it to be um it's really based on your expenses so you can have a Bare Bones 3 months and a very luxurious 9 months whatever you feel comfortable with and that's like a range right so Bare Bones 3 months is like what money do I need for rent what do I need for groceries what do I need for transportation and that's it then you can have a 9-month emergency fund that's like I cover my rent I cover my groceries I cover my transpo but I also cover things like my Netflix subscription my kids dance lessons these are all things that you can plan for in advance because what an emergency fund really does is it buys you time so the reason we have these is if we get laid off if we get hurt if something happens so that we cannot earn money for that amount of time that money Bridges the Gap so you don't have to take on additional debt and that's really helpful especially in this environment where people do get laid off people who are incredibly smart incredibly talented and do not get fired for a reason they can just get laid off this this emergency fund buys you enough time to job hunt and find a new place to get paid to once again start building back up that emergency fund I will say this is something that you need to recalibrate every few years if not more because my emergency fund when I was a single gal living with my roommate and my expenses were low you know my rent I think my first apartment my rent the reason why we agreed to live in a studio together my rent was only $1,600 um you know I was barely buying groceries because I was was getting lunch covered for me at work I was thinking about that guy we're like he paid for lunch um you know I would just have a small dinner whatever my other expenses other than that I would say were like a train ticket home for the holidays and that's about it now I have a mortgage and that's a little scarier than renting because that home can be repossessed I have rent so I have my mortgage for New York my rent in Miami I have more expenses now because I have a business MH so like my business has its own separate emergency fund to make sure that I can keep making payroll I've got you know a partner what if he gets out of work or like he gets laid off I still have to be able to cover his food his living his stuff in the same way that he's probably thinking the same thing about me like oh if for some reason there's a LOL in viv's business I have to be able to cover those expenses for her and your emergency fund will likely get bigger as you get older especially when you have kids especially when you have a pet especially when more and more people count on you MH but whatever that means for you change it every couple months change it every couple years so that it fits your lifestyle that emergency fund is not what you use to invest right that's a different okay I'm just taking it back we have the basic your B Bare Bones yes correct you have the emergency fund and then you have the access that you invest correct so your emergency fund should be kept in a high yield savings account it's basically a traditional savings account but you earn more interest why would you not want more interest right imagine if I'm like hey valyria you can give me $100 and at the end of the year I'll give you 46 cents or at the end of the year I'll give you $4.50 which one would you want $ exactly so it's the same thing with your bank right you are able to just get more interest at a high yield savings account than you would at a traditional savings account um and it's just a great way to make your money earn money for you and essentially keep up with inflation none of that is to be touched for investing because investing we're doing it for the long haul 85% of day Traders lose money over a long-term period interesting investing is not the same as trading we are not buying and selling things over a period of a day we're not doing it over a period of a week and we're not doing it over a period of months investing is for years and there are less risky Investments that you can invest in if your time Horizon is 5 years there are more risky things that you can invest in over 40 years but the higher the risk typically the higher the reward so we have to be really mindful about timeline because it all comes down to this it's not about money everything when it comes to finances comes down to time okay expend on that I love that that's you see that's a mindset shift that's what I'm looking for cuz I feel like we're all stuck on the surface but there's more so take me deeper the biggest myth is that you have to have a lot of money to be an investor MH that's not true now this is not the age of our parents generation you don't need hundreds of dollars thousands of dollars to invest you can start for as little as $1 because you are now able to buy something called a fractional share so a share is essentially I'm trying to like do this for the camera a share is a teeny tiny sliver of a company right or something and a fractional share is a teeny tinier slice of that one chair and you are now able to do that so is that a recent development or was that always I would say that's like probably in the past decade or so um but it may it means that if if you want to buy something and the share price is $300 you can still buy it for $5 and you just won't have a full share you'll have a fraction of one and that's great it allows you to get invested early and often and that is the benefit because compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world it's essentially saying you are able to use the money that you have to make you more money and the money that you earned off of your money can then continue to make more money over time so it's like an exponential growth curve right everyone thinks that you need to somehow you know I'm thinking of that Zach galanakis meme that where he's like looking at all the math and the numbers and like be like a genius and like pick the perfect investment that's not true when I worked on Wall Street hedge funds blew up all the time they had a lot more resources and a lot more time and a lot more brains in this space working on this one trade idea than you will never have access to they still got it wrong but it has been shown that if you invest in a diversified portfolio over a period of 40 years the odds of you not losing money are greater than 99% those are not losing money okay great odds but the odds of you tripling your money is 95% right like those are great odds that is not gambling that is making a calculated decision and so my advice is that don't Focus so much on the exact dollar value you have to put in focus on how early can I start because the more time my money has to sit around to be invested the more it can work hard for me and sure maybe you're listening to this and you're in your early 20s you can only put in$ 510 $20 okay who's to say by the time you turn 30 you won't be making more at your job you can then put in more money yeah by the time you're 40 you can put in even more by the time you're 50 you are just funneling money into these Investments and then that really sets you up for a really wonderful retirement when you turn 60 the reason why it's so important to invest early and often is because we're all chasing after something similar it's how quickly can we get to our Fu number should I break down what that is I yes please I loved that whole Fu part so yes please expend so an Fu number is exactly how many dollars you would need to have invested earning you a return so that you could kick over your desk tell your boss F you and never work a day in your life again if you don't want to yeah it gives you Choice exactly like listen when I retire I'll probably still work I'll probably sit on some charity board and like volunteer whatever but I I don't want to just sit on my hands but I don't think you have to work for money anymore mhm and and your Fu number is calculated by doing this close your eyes and imagine your perfect year you get to live in the house you want to live in you get to buy the food and eat the food you want you even get to take a couple vacations you maybe help your kids through school you pay for close your eyes guys yeah you you're able to fund Rover's heartworm medication so he can run around and you know go to Doggy Daycare and do all of these things MH what does that year cost everybody has a different number in their mind yeah okay then you take that number and you divide it by 0.04 that 0.04 represent 4% which is a very conservative return on your investment and you can get four to 5% right now at a risk-free high yield savings account so you know you can get that odds are good you'll get more but four is very a conservative number when you divide by 0.04 I love to joke like four my friends who are not good at math when you divide by a decimal it gives you a bigger number you will get a number and that is what you will want to have invested so that the interest or capital gains or Returns on your money are funding your lifestyle and you will never need to work again I love it there's a formula you guys a a formula I it's not it's like I love the idea of manifestation yeah but it's not just please let me be rich please let me be rich it's what is the formula how can I get there because you can make every single one of your dreams come true yeah but you have to have a plan to get there which I think is interesting you know I'm talking about I found you on social media obviously and you know when I look at what social media represents today because that is what the younger generation is exposed to this is what we compare ourselves to um and we see so much content of 20 year olds that are you know being like if you don't have a Lambo by the age of 22 you're doing it wrong um and what I love about your work is that you are obviously very focused on Financial Freedom and literacy but longevity yeah and Longevity is a huge thing and that's another thing that not a lot of us talk about exposed to on a daily basis you know so longevity is that formula longevity is to be able to work backwards from those numbers to be able to one day have that Fu lifestyle right and I think there's something that you know we don't talk about especially when you have a career like you and me do you don't get 40 years yeah when you are a Creator when you are an influencer when you run your own business I'm sorry but like we haven't even seen the full life cycle of what an influencer is but from what I've noticed you get five maybe 10 good years MH where you can make a lot more money than the average job but guess what the average accountant works for 40 years the average teacher works for 40 years the average doctor lawyer firefighter police officer they work for 40 years you and I and people who are running their own you know brands you have to make the same amount of money that you would otherwise have made over a lifetime MH in a shorter period of time and it's not about getting rich baby it's about staying Rich yeah and if you are not being smart with the Oodles of money you're making right now you are going to wake up in 10 years and think oh where did all my money go and what what skills do I even have now cuz you're not going to be able to be hired back at a traditional job unless you're willing to take a massive pay cut go back to school or make some sacrifices right and it's crazy to me because I have so many friends who are creators or influencers and I see some of the craziest Behavior like what I need real life examples like popping bottles at the club I've seen a bill sign for $30,000 at the club and I was like I'm going to throw up people who go on shopping spree at cardier at you know Louis Vuitton at chenel Dior all of these designer Brands and they're not getting a bag they're not getting a bracelet they're not getting a watch they're going in and they're dropping 100 grand and I'm like do you think this money audacity like I'm like do you think this money falls out of the sky yes but that's what I'm saying right there's this again especially with creator economy that created this image of like it's money that's literally falling off the sky right everyone is working now to go viral and then swim in money you see so many I mean only fans the 20-year-olds with the the Lambos like kill me though right but even the only fans girl I mean I am so I read a story an article a couple of months ago of this one girl I don't even remember her name but she took her money and bought real estate and I was like yes yes that's what I want to see so it's really about how you're moving with that money how you're building that longevity um and that to me is what makes me excited for the younger generation but I have to say the landscape right now is still very juvenile with the approach to money right super because what people don't realize is that especially when you're in that type of line of work I would say that like you know I feel very fortunate and that like my brand is very education focused so even when I get older even when I'm don't look like this like I know like people will probably still listen to me right but like no shade to people who do only fans it is a very legitimate form of work but like there is a timer on it there's a timer on it like absolutely there will always be a hotter cuter better new it girl and you get your moment but you better make your moment count yeah and there are people on there making what I make in a year in a day absolutely and so I'm like listen more power to you but with that money there's a lot of responsibility because you're earning a lifetime's worth of money in a very short period of time and if you are not smart if you are buying liabilities and not assets you will wake up with a bunch of stuff that you can no longer afford mhm and have no idea where all that money went absolutely so I want to navigate away from the only fans that's its own you know Lifest even Creator economy its own thing let's go back to um you know the majority of people that are working at offices and jobs and have like career regular careers I loved your point in your book about knowing your work yeah I think it is very important to know your work your worth in a workplace but also knowing how to utilize it yeah you presented a little system in the book can you share that one yeah um I'm assuming you're talking about my brag book that's one of them you actually brought up a couple of things where I'm like these are such amazing things to remember so the first one was the red light green light yes okay so we'll go through them in the order that you want um red flag green flag is basically understanding the differences of like what in your workplace can and cannot be changed so like I compare them to my two workplace scenarios I didn't mention this earlier but I left Wall Street because I had a bad boss my initial manager amazing love her still my mentor to this day dedicated the book to her I love her a year and a half in the head of my desk got let go and they brought in a new boss he fired half the team and moved me to go go work for his best friend and this guy sucked he was so rude and so mean and he didn't like things about me that were never going to change he didn't like that I was a girl he didn't like how my nails click clacked on the keyboard he didn't like how I dressed and that's not something that I was going to be able to change mhm I knew I was never going to get a fair Shake because of who he was and because of who I was that's a red flag whereas when I got to my job at BuzzFeed there was certainly an inner circle of like cool kids but they were the cool kids because they were the top performers and all I had to do to get in that cool kid Circle was be a top performer and I was always really okay with being judged on the Merit of my work and so I was able to like essentially fight my way in to that inner circle and suddenly everybody at the company was bending over backwards to help me make my deals work mhm and I just think it's good to know what you can and cannot change and what is going to make a deep impact on your experience your pay and your ability to essentially progress in your career absolutely so that's first one of them I would say another important thing is the brag book I love the brag bug anytime anything good happens to you typically a lot of us are working over email now so make a little folder in your email label it brag book raise receipts promo pitch whatever and then put the year so it's you know it's early 2024 just put brag book 2024 and now throughout this entire year anytime someone sends an email and is like wow you're so amazing or this project couldn't have happened without you you save the team forward it to that email or forward it to that inbox in that little folder and then when it comes for midyear reviews or endof year reviews typically the way it's worked for me is you get ask to write the most annoying self- review and you you have to be like these are three things I did amazing and these are two things that I could improve upon it's like okay sick this sucks you're like writing a five paragraph essay for work um use the folder you now have a laundry list of everything you crushed and screenshots I love that it's so easy you don't exhibit a exhibit a literally be like please refer to this email like you literally have proof and the really important part about when you're asking for money and when you're asking for a raise is being able to point to numbers I saved the team this many hours by creating a better system I increased the social media following by XYZ I wrote this many articles I saved the company this many or earned this many dollars in revenue for the company that's really what moves the needle yeah and so when you have all those emails it's a cheat sheet it's literally a crib sheet for that write up and you don't have to search through your inbox you're like I can't find it forget it like you literally have all the proof you need and that is how you make sure that every year you are able to ask for 10 to 15% I'm not saying you get 10 to 15% every year but if you don't ask the answer is no absolutely I think it's also an amazing exercise of you know working on your confidence and self-awareness because I think that to your point when I think about an exercise of sitting down at the end of the year and trying to come up with you know what I did great this year you can play small and I think a lot of us do in a way right it's it's not something that comes naturally to most of us being like listen I made this company better right so having that kind of resource is wonderful it's also something I would probably open up multiple times a week to just be like yeah I'm that girl like that's I'm that girl I'm that girl you know just a reminder and it goes back to that money mindset right cuz we've been told that like asking for more money makes us greedy M or you know caring about money makes us gold diggers that word doesn't exist I'm so sorry but like it's a job yeah like I'm not here for my health like this is not a hobby not hobby like I work here for money we have a contractual obligation I do this you give me money like that's that's like it's crazy to me that people are like you should be doing it for the Love of the Game it's like the love of what I love sitting at home on my couch eating chips I don't love working but you know what I think you are allowed to like your job you allowed to like your boss but no when you ask for money that money doesn't come out of your boss's pocket that money comes out of a business banking account that is set aside for labor costs you deserve to be paid I wish I met you at like 18 years old I mean I wish I met me now at 18 years old because at 18 I wasn't confident at 18 I wasn't so self assured I totally did not understand the value of myself worth like I mean even at like 21 22 I was like ooh this boy texted me at 4:00 a.m. must mean he likes me like no that's not what that means my most limiting resource right now again it goes back to this it's not money it's time absolutely I only have so many hours in the day I need to get sleep I need to rest I need to eat and like the very limited time I have now I don't have time to around and that's something that money taught you yeah you see this is this is one thing that I still need to get to and I feel like my husband and I talk about it all the time Gary's always like you got to be more like Cutthroat yeah because your time worth so much and you are giving it away without even realizing it um and a lot of it comes from that feeling of guilt or don't want to bother other people so it's still me you know battling with my own younger self she's still in there doing her thing but um it's I love that money made you realize all these things and gave you this confidence and awareness of how much you worth and how to ask for it which also brings me to the point of negotiating let's do it so negotiation to me I believe that it is something you're born with and I know that that's not the case I was not born with it and I'm it's honestly on my to-do list like I would love to crush it at negotiation I feel like I would be great and actually in business negotiation I I can be more um you know more aggressive but it's the small little like I always gave myself little projects of like okay I'm going to go to the market and I'm going to buy this trinket and I'm going to negotiate it never works I don't do well what is like what is that secret sauce for negotiation the secret sauce is are you willing to walk away how does that work in you have to really know your value in this one and listen I get it negotiation is like like I'm stressed but I like I want you to remember if you negotiate and they say no you are no worse off than you currently are and two you are willing to walk away because you know your value those are the two important things to remember and I think a great example of this is that like rich people love to negotiate these are some these are some of the cheapest people I know I'm like God you are really just like getting into it with like an 18-year-old customer service rep over $23 like is this really worth doing but they love it because it is a sport and even though they have the money to pay for it they don't want to MH so I would say some of the things that you should practice on this is an easy one everybody has this your cell phone bill okay you're probably paying hundreds of dollars on that cell phone bill because we all have cell phones and we all need unlimited data and we all need unlimited you know calling and texting whatever call your cell phone provider and tell them that although you're happy with the service the monthly costs have just gotten to be a little too high and that you're considering switching to a competitor that you'd like to cancel your subscription and to transfer you to the cancellations Department they're not transferring you to the cancellations Department are you joking they're sending you to customer retention so you're going to get sent to customer attention and you're going basically just GNA just do the same song and dance you you're going to do the same song and dance yeah and listen sometimes the customer service person's having a bad day and they're going to be like off you can leave you can hang up on them they're not going to cancel your subscription they're not going to cancel your plan until you say yes finally do it they're not going to MH it is not in like they are not allowed to do that so what you're going to say is you're going to say like hey I'm happy with a service what can you do for me don't be a yes or no question leave it open-ended let them talk just shut up and be quiet for a second because I am someone who very much feels the need to fill awkward silences sometimes you just need to let it be awkward for a minute let them fill it sometimes they're like oh well we can give you the introductory rate for the next year or we can do this or we can do that or we can give you the next three phones free or like they'll do something for you if you're happy with that great but we're not done we're not done even when you're happy I'm not happy okay I want you to push again be like great can you lock that raate in for 2 years don't want to have this conversation again because you don't like negotiating lock it in for two or you know just make it so that you know that you've taken two bites at the Apple okay and if it works out I probably just save you a couple hundred bucks in in what 12 minutes of time yeah making a couple hundred bucks in 12 minutes is pretty good use in this economy for this it's a great use your time if it doesn't work just hang up mhm and try again tomorrow try again tomorrow you are no worse off youve wasted 12 minutes do it while you're on the treadmill do it while you are cooking up breakfast do it while you are painting your toenails like this is not something that needs to be stressful it is something that you need to incorporate into your daily life and just never be afraid to walk away know the value of your business my guess is you cover your phone plan for you your husband maybe kids I don't know if they're old enough to even have phones yet but but it's coming up it's coming it's scary they're getting them younger and younger now I know um you know maybe you have business lines for your team whatever like your business is worth something you are worth something and I think people forget that they think that like if they're not JLo walking in with $350 million to spend that they're chop liver yeah no that's absolutely how I think it's not because your business is worth something your business is valuable you are you are valuable I had somebody DM me they were like I really want to talk to a financial adviser but I'm middle class and the way she said it like made me so sad because she said middle class like she was embarrassed of that word and I told her I was like middle class means your needs are met it means you still have money for discretionary expenses you live a good life life you work hard and you deserve everything you have it is an honor to be middle class and any financial adviser you talk to any certified financial planner any accountant any lawyer any person who provides Professional Services that you talk to better treat you like such MH your business has value you have value don't be afraid to ask for stuff that's a big one cuz I think that is probably one of the biggest kind of roadblocks for a lot of people right we always feel like we need to be me at least we need to be at a certain place to earn a certain you know door opened do you ever wear like fancy clothes when you go shopping at a fancy store so that the customer service rep doesn't think like you're just like what do you do here you don't belong yes yes I'm past that point in my life but you need to be past that point in every other aspect of life aspect you see that's a good analogy too to keep in mind I love that I want to go back to you mentioned how your um emergency fund was one way when you were in your early 20s now you are in a relationship you recently got engaged I'm not wearing my ring cuz I'm wearing all gold jewelry today but um yeah I probably should wear it more you can you can mix just saying I know I but it's like is it something for you you're good at it though yeah just play around you know yeah it's possible but now you are you newly engaged congratulations and I feel like money and relationships is also another area that feels very awkward people don't really know how to mesh the to especially when you get together um at a stage where you have a career you already make money you kind of understand where you're going what you want to achieve how did it go for you like how did you with your partner sit down and walk through this like okay these are my goals especially for you you're like I know where I want to be yeah I was I've always been like this like I've always known where I wanted to go but when we met met neither of us were making that much money he made a little bit more than me and over the next four years of Our dating he really advanced in his career and it started to take off and at one point he was probably making like four times as much as I was mhm and I felt so grateful and lucky that he never made me feel bad about it that's huge we were never 50/50 partners I know equal no I'm just kidding um no e because I don't believe I don't believe in equality absolutely not especially not there I believe in equity and there's a huge difference what's the difference equality is you and me we're dating MH you know you make half a million dollars a year I make $50,000 a year we go 50/50 on our rent on our apartment it's equal it's not fair mhm whereas Equity is if you you and I are dating you make half a million dollars I make $50,000 and you pay for most of the rent and I pay for my portion and it is pro-rated based on how much we make because it is then a comparable burden on our financial situations it's the same percentage of your income as it is for me versus me paying way more rent than I can afford yeah he always let us do that and never made me feel bad about it never made me feel like I wasn't pulling my weight he would pay for almost all of our meals with the exception of his birthday and like special occasions where I would pay so you didn't have to go through like an awkward we we did have to have a conversation because when I was at that roach infested apartment I was like I'm so sad I have a roach Med Department he let me move in with him MH and I didn't pay rent mhm love it but you know we've always had really big goals and we've been really transparent with each other about how much we make and how we are going to plan to get there over the past two three years things have really changed I want to say three years ago we made roughly the same amount of money MH over the past two years now I probably make five times as much as he does and that's not to say he doesn't make an incredible living I just have a very unique opportunity right now and now I pay for more stuff and that's cool like we split our mortgage 50/50 but the rent in Miami I pay entirely by myself he doesn't contribute to that he still pays for every meal because most of the time I'm too lazy to bring out anything but my cell phone he's like do you have keys I'm like no he's like do you have a ID I'm like no I mean that's why you have a you know a partner yeah I'm like you got pockets this dress doesn't have pockets what am I supposed to do um he's like okay but like you didn't even bring your ID I was like why do I need ID he's like what if something happens I'm like I don't know they'll have your ID I'm always like that I'm like you know what the universe would just do its thing we'll figure out he always gives me a hard time too he's like for all the purses you've bought you don't like to use any of them he I'm always like can you put this in your phone in your pocket like my phone in your pocket he's like but you know what the day you'll stop doing it he'll be like what what's wrong you don't love me anymore yeah literally that's how it works so they're deep down they're very grateful but did you have um a sit down you had a sit down you had an official sit down um again your character and the way you are I I can see how it went very kind of clearly uh and again especially when you guys are aligned on the goals that you want to achieve as a couple but if you ever heard maybe your friend or any instances where those conversations just kind of don't go well like what do people how do people go about that like navigate all the time I think money is an incredibly touchy subject but what you want to do is talk about it early and often again back to early and often time first date you can ask about money you just don't say hey show me your payub like you you go and you say if money were not an object what is your dream vacation that gives you an insight into how they value money cuz some people are going to say I would take a six-month backpacking trip down in Chile mhm that tells you something about how they value money money is for adventure for experiences someone would say I would spend two weeks lounging in Bora Bora completely horizontal with a p colada in my hand the entire time for them money is used to relax if they say I would take my entire family on a vacation to Disneyland and we would get the special tour guide that costs like 10 grand a day so we don't have to wait in any of the lines it tells tell you that they use money for family it tells you what people value money is just a medium of what people value or you know say I give you $1,000 what do you spend it on I give you $10,000 what do you spend it on it tells you exactly what they value I love that and that's first date and also you should probably discuss who's paying tonight I am personally of the camp that whoever invite space no stop it right now I don't like that camp that camp is not why you think the you think the guy should always pay yes first date absolutely well typically I will say I had I don't think I've ever invited a man on a first date well first of all yeah but even if you did I just think that that's I don't know there's some there's some aspect of chivalry yes you know like show it to me give me we start with that yeah and then the rest can be you know figured out later you know I think for me the first date who invite pays typically does air on the side of the man in a heterosexual relation relationship but I do want to be mindful because when my fiance and I started dating we were both very young neither of us were making a lot of money and I wanted to keep going on dates with him MH and by date 456 I didn't want this guy that I really liked digging himself in a financial hole just to be able to take me out cuz I I could see that there was a surplus in my budget from all of those meals that he was paying for so I was like listen like I'm happy to cover meals every so often because like we are eating them together and like we're spending a lot of time together and eventually it became that like he would say I will cover more of our expenses cuz I have more money coming in you save and invest your money and when we ended up buying our home together I put in I want to say $100,000 more MH but we are 50/50 owners on the home but that's that's a different level that's partnership that's a whole other you know and that I agree with absolutely um but first date they got to pay they got to pay you're like I'm I'm a special gal and you won't convince me otherwise um you know what I do want to talk about your book Rich AF uh because I got an early copy of it I got to read it I read it in a matter of days and I thought you're a fast reader I am a fast reader but I was was also so f fascinated because it was so you broke it down in such like a simple way um it wasn't intimidating it wasn't scary it wasn't this like oh my God I have to now you know cut off everything I love and appreciate uh so I can you know have some Financial Freedom and I really adore you for putting that out there in such a nice digestible way and I know it's going to be of so much value to young men and women that are out there in the world trying to navigate the this insane Financial economy that we have Financial economy just an economy that we are part of uh so thank you what would you if you had to think of you know the the kind of jams and the lessons you want people to leave with after reading your book what those would be you are not bad with money you just haven't been taught about it this is not something we cover in our public schooling education it's I think it's a shame that we don't M but just because you don't know about money doesn't make you a bad person and it's never ever too late to learn I think it is okay to acknowledge that the system is not fair that we need to be writing our legislators that we need to be changing how certain systems are because they do disproportionately disadvantage women they disadvantage people of color they disadvantage the lgbtq community they dis Advantage immigrants they disadvantage people who are low income yes that is all true but just because the system isn't perfect or even good doesn't mean you can wipe your hands and say I'm not going to play I'm not going to play this game you have to play because if you are of that Community if you are someone who isn't supposed to be rich by participating by becoming Wealthy by becoming financially stable you are then able to help lift up people around you and that is an act of love and self-care and Rebellion all at once and it is so important to know that you deserve to be rich AF because you are going to do something with that when you are rich it is not just a privilege to do do something with that it is an obligation and by making sure that there are more dollars being put into women's Pockets into people of color Pockets into all of those Pockets we are ensuring that that education and that money gets then filtered down through those businesses through those families and education is almost more valuable in this case than the money because if you know what you're supposed to do you can make the money doing whatever you can and then use your money to make you more money but this is the education we never got in school and we so desperately need I had a question there where I wanted to ask you do you feel like money buys happiness and I feel like you kind of answered it with this um cuz it's not directly buys happiness but it's the I think money buys you the ability to be happy because if you have money mhm your basic needs are met and you have the opportunity to make choices in your life that bring you Joy you don't even have the ability to make choices that bring you Joy if you don't have the bare minimum the Baseline the basic needs met so yes I do think money does buy you the opportunity to be happy we're back to that choice you just want to have choices you want to have choices I love it Vivian this was so fun I've learned so much but I knew I'm GNA learn so much because my whole book is highlighted um but the book The episode will be out when the book will be already out so highly highly recommend to check out the book Rich a f you I promise you even if you think you know everything you're going to learn some more um and I had the you know privilege to have a husband that's very well versed in finance but this really gave me another chance to learn small little nuggets and just even give tips to younger people around me right cuz I have now all these pH es and all these Concepts that you shared in the book uh but also made me think about my own money mindset and um and I thank you so much for that where can people find you everybody can find me as your Rich BFF all over social media and if you want to order a copy of Rich AF the winning money mindset that'll change your life go to Rich af. me I made the URL a manifestation so that we can you know you did yeah Rich me cuz me I want to be rich which you are yeah I love that awesome thank you so much thank you thank you so much for watching this episode I hope you enjoyed it don't miss my newest episode right here and if you're listening to the podcast on Apple or Spotify please go and leave a review with your biggest takeaway I love reading your thoughts and if you have any suggestions for guests or topics you can leave them in the comment section and always always remember you are not alone

Channel: Valeria Lipovetsky

Views: 391,560

Keywords: valeria lipovetsky, model, fashion, mom of three, not alone, podcast, valeria, podcast by valeria, valeria lipovetsky not alone, Unlock your financial freedom, getting rich with Vivian Tu, how to get rich, get rich Af, Unlock your financial freedom Vivian Tu, Get Rich, Getting Rich, valeria lipovetsky podcast, Podcast, Vivian Tu, Get rich AF, Get rich, rich, freedom, not alone by valeria lipovetsky, rich af, yourrichbff, rich bff, finance basics, how to finance, how to invest

Id: 0cLRVxu1re0

Length: 67min 59sec (4079 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 09 2024