100. The 10 Things Holding You Back from Your Financial Goals

This newly independent podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace was the first investment we ever made in her first 100k and it is the thing that I probably recommend most to business owners when they ask me what tools I should use. You need Squarespace because you need a beautiful website that works. You also need SEO tools so that you can get discovered and your business can get out there and you can post anything on Squarespace from courses to coaching anything that you need to sell you can do on Squarespace. Head on over to squarespace.com/ffpod for a free trial and when you're ready to launch your brand new website use offer code ffpod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I miss school. That may be kind of controversial to say because somebody kids are like I hate school but I was always the kid who loves school and I have a feeling you might have been the kid who loves school too because you're here learning on this podcast and masterclass is the best thing I've found since school. If you love learning, if you love thinking about things in a new way, if you love being the most interesting person in the room, masterclass is incredible. With plan starting at $10 a month build annually you get unlimited access to over 200 classes taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs, actors and more. You can strengthen your personal professional relationships with help from renowned psychotherapist Esther Perrell. That's definitely one that I love. You can look and feel better with courses on gut health, brain health, skin health. You can learn the principles of improv in your life with Amy Poler. You can turn your commute or work out into a classroom and I love audio mode on masterclass. You can listen to masterclass but you don't have to watch it if you can't at that point. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com/ffpod. That's 15% off at masterclass.com/ffpod. Masterclass.com/ffpod. Happy. Coffee right is going to get mad at us in a second. Hey, it is our 100th episode. Woohoo! I am so excited to see you all Christmas shaking her head at me which means we're having a good time. Team, I'm so excited. We could not have done this without you. We would not have hit 100 episodes. Crazy to think that we've done that many episodes of this show and I'm excited to do 100 more if you'll have me. I'm also about to go on a trip and I'm out of breath. I haven't moved. I'm really excited. I'm just excited. It's going to be a little loopy today. We are both celebrating and also an honor of the 100th episode of her first 100 K's podcast. We are going to dive into all of the things that are standing in your way of your own 100K and also thanking you so much for being here. We're going to give you all of the action pack goodness, all of the actionable advice you know and love while also starting with some cool mcgang and some out of breath dancing. Truly we're so excited and thankful that you're here. I get a little emotional every time we record an episode thanking you all so I'm not going to go super sappy but please know from me, from the her first 100K team, from our entire financial feminist movement. Truly could not do this without you and we're so thankful you're here and we're so excited to celebrate this 100th episode. So couple housekeeping things. One, we are running a birthday sale from July 10th my birthday to July 14th for our job interview package. It is our best selling product all about how to land a job, how to revamp your resume and cover letter, how to stand out on LinkedIn, how to answer common interview questions. We have all of that in there in an honor of my 29th birthday. We are doing 29% off through the 14th. So you can use code birthday to take advantage of that. That is my birthday gift to you. You always know that the way to support the show is by subscribing, writing and reviewing. We so appreciate it and it allows us to do 100 more of these episodes. So thank you, thank you, thank you. In honor of our 100th episode today, we're doing something a little different. Yep, we're going to do the celebrating. We're going to offer you some actionable advice of ways that you can better your financial journey and what sort of self-sabotaging behaviors, what sort of bad habits might be standing in your way to 100K. But most importantly, we're going to hear from you. Producer Kristen did some incredible interviews with financial feminist listeners, with members of the her for 100K community about their financial wins, about their money journeys. And so in her spurs, you're not just going to be hearing from me, but you're going to be hearing from real life people who are trying to navigate this financial capitalist hellscape just like you. And their tips and tricks along the way in addition to mine. So when you hear other voices, that's who you're hearing from. And I'm really, really, really excited to try this new format as a way to celebrate this whole community as well. We're going to run through 10 things today. 10 things that are standing in the way of your first 100K, whether that's 100K, debt paid off, 100K earned, 100K net worth, 100K saved, invested something else, and what we can do about it. So let's get started. Number one, so obvious, so important to talk about. The big thing that is outside of our control. But the first thing standing in your way that it's important to acknowledge is systemic oppression. It's not the thing we can solve overnight. It's not the thing that's going to be solved for you at an individual level, right? But it's really important for us to acknowledge this. The thing that might be standing in the way of you building wealth or you earning a living wage or you paying off debt is the very system that prevents that from happening. The system that is including but not limited to the system that perpetuates racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, a trillion dollar student debt crisis, lack of paid family leave, a stagnating minimum wage, a housing crisis, a climate crisis, and a bunch of other things that we spend this entire show talking about. It's not fun, right? It's not sexy. It's why many personal finance experts don't like to talk about it because it is the thing that's outside of our control. I say in my book that in the personal finance equation, about 20% are your personal choices, right? And we'll spend the rest of the episode talking about what we can do, but 80% is that circumstantial systemic oppression bullshit, right? That is only solved through us coming together, and protesting and voting and supporting legislation and volunteering and donating and turning the world into the kind of equitable community that we want to see. But the first thing to keep in mind is that if you are not progressing financially and you're doing everything you can, I see you, I hear you, and all of these other factors are at play. So give yourself some slack, offer yourself some grace. All of these things are a much bigger factor in your personal finance equation than your own personal choices. So what can we control? Numbers two through ten. Let's talk about number two. The second reason that you might not have hit your 100k, the second thing that's standing in your way to progressing in your financial life is not having a plan. I know that sounds so obvious, but like I say in my book, nothing changes in your life unless you change it. I think we get so bogged down and so stressed out when it comes to money that we just think, "Oh, eventually somebody's just going to hand us a like staples that was easy button," right? But there is no that was easy button for money. Just like there's no that was easy button for anything you want to change about your life or about your habits or about your goals, right? Nothing changes in your life unless you change it. So we have to have a plan and the only way we can make that plan is understanding the lay of the land. You can't actually set goals until you figure out what the current landscape is of your money, right? If you are avoiding your money, if you are not looking at your bills, if you have ostrich yourself, you're heading the sand and you're not trying to progress in your financial life because you're too overwhelmed and too ashamed and too guilty and too fearful, nothing's going to change. We have multiple episodes on this show. I have an entire section of my book about how to not only create a plan but how to get honest with yourself about the current landscape of your finances, but the biggest thing that might be holding you back is having no plan and having no semblance of understanding what your current financial situation is because you're too scared to look at it. So before we even make a plan, if you haven't looked at your money in a while, if you haven't checked your debt balance in a while, if you haven't looked at your bills in a while, if you You have Nick millered that shit and put it in a box in the closet. This is your opportunity to get a little comfortable being uncomfortable. Take a deep breath and just start looking at it. We have this idea that it will be better. Everything will be fixed if we just don't look at it. Your temper rarely going to feel better, but ultimately you're just going to cause yourself a lot of stress. Create a plan, but before that, understand what's actually going on so you can make an informed plan. I'm Scout Morgan and I originally heard about financial feminist. The short version is that Spotify recommended it to me and completely changed my life. So growing up my parents were solidly in middle class. Both of my parents lost their jobs on the same day in the recession, which definitely impacted how I looked at money. Because I was still pretty young at the time, but I was old enough to get a feel of what was going on and why everyone was so stressed. But my mom, even through all of the pretty hard times that we had, she still took the time to go listen, money is a tool. And if you use it, then it increases your options. So I've always gone into money with that kind of mindset. Before finding financial feminist, I was definitely in probably the lowest part of my life. I had moved across the country within the year. I've always wanted to live in New York. Since I was about eight years old, honestly, when I graduated from college, it was May 2020. I was still super scary. All of the lockdown was still happening. It was space first pandemic. I thought the world was ending. I just went, you know what, let's go for it. Because the guy I was seeing at the time suggested that I could live on his family's place in the cat skills, which is down closer to the city. So I said, yeah, the middle of the wood sounds great. It didn't work out long story short. But by the time I got to Western New York, I had ended up roaming with the boy I was dating, which is a weird situation to be in. It was definitely playing back into the money gives you options thing because I didn't really have a ton of money at the time. So I didn't have a ton of other options by the time that we broke out in the least ended. I did find my own apartment that I was able to afford on my own. It was very seedy, a very, very sketchy place. I would leave earlier for work and come home later from work just so I would avoid most of the people living in the building, which was great for overtime. But it also meant that I was burning myself out of my job because I was like, I don't really want to go home. I was having a ton of mental health issues. The job that I was working was technically in my field. So it was my first big girl job, more or less. But the pay was not first big girl job pay. So the overtime actually ended up being important for me to be able to make ends meet. I was looking for ways to get myself out of this really low point that I was in. And I guess the Spotify algorithm picked up on that because it suggested the podcast. And as soon as I listened to the first episode, something clicked in my brain. I was like, this is one of the biggest tools that I'm going to use to get myself out of this situation. When I was having those really hard mental health days, I would just out of instinct listen to the newest episode that came out. And I would end up like getting motivated to get myself back out there on indeed or on LinkedIn or whatever. One of the most impactful episodes for me was definitely the first one with the Bajanista herself. I was deep, deep in the job search. I was applying for at least two if not more jobs every single day on my lunch break. I was trying so hard to put myself out there and apply for jobs. And I would just get ghosted. I would just never hear anything back, which is super discouraging to deal with when you're already going through it. That episode was definitely double motivation and really helpful tips to stay on the grind and keep trying and keep putting myself out there. Because I do deserve a seat at the table. And if a job doesn't treat me that way, then I should find something better. I love humble bragging about my life now. So since I've started listening to the podcast, I did stay on the job hunt. I ended up getting what I now know to be my dream job. My new company treats all their employees like human beings, which is fantastic. I am now contributing to a 401k. I have one and I'm putting in 10% and I'm really proud of myself for that. My partner and I are in the middle moving right now. We're about to move into a house that we're renting together, which I'm very excited about. And we are actually saving up for a down payment on a house. One thing I would like to share, especially with anyone who was struggling to find a new job or find their place in the world, is to definitely keep on it. It's not always linear. I had a lot of really big ups and downs in this process and navigating through the high points and especially the low points is what gives me the confidence now to know that I can handle this dream life that I built for myself essentially. So definitely keep at it. Okay, number three, if you're not negotiating both in your work and in your life, you are losing a valuable opportunity to get a step closer to your first 100k. We have mad again, many episodes on the show about negotiating. We will link them all down below. Negotiating your work, your pay. Because what is expected, companies expect you to negotiate. They expect to have a conversation with you about compensation. So every time you don't do it, you not only lose the money that you could be earning temporarily with your salary, but you lose out on your earning potential for the rest of your life. On average, women who do not negotiate lose a million dollars more over the course of their lifetime than women who do. And as I mentioned in my book, are you willing to lose out on a million dollars just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation? Are you willing to lose out on a million dollars just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation? The answer should be hell now. In addition, there's other things we can negotiate. We can negotiate our bills. We can negotiate our interest rate on our debt. We can negotiate to get a better hotel room when we check in for a work trip. Again, we've talked to many episodes about this. I have an entire chapter on negotiating in my book Financial Feminist. If you're still holding out from negotiating because you're too scared to do it, I don't want you losing any money. I don't want you losing your career potential, your life potential, because you're so afraid of having an uncomfortable conversation. The way we get more comfortable negotiating is by negotiating in low-stakes scenarios. If you have children, I've said this before in the podcast, if you have children, you are a master negotiator. Oh, your partner wants sushi, but you had sushi last night and you say, "Hey, can we try something different?" That's a negotiation, right? Call Brenda at Capital One and ask for a lower interest rate. That's a low-stakes negotiation. She doesn't know you, she doesn't know your name, she doesn't remember. If you fuck up or you say something weird, that doesn't matter, right? Start building the muscle of negotiating. The more you do it, the more comfortable you will feel and the stronger that muscle gets. Do not lose a million dollars because you're afraid of a little, uncomfy conversation. I was literally talking to someone this morning who has an in-person business and is trying to do more with her digital business. She has crazy goals for this year, she wants to make $250K for her business this year and I was like, "Oh, then you need Squarespace. You need Squarespace." Squarespace is the best place to design a website, but also to sell things, especially if you're selling digital goods or things that need shipping. I love that you can use Squarespace to offer services and get paid. Consultations, courses, events, experiences, all of that can happen inside Squarespace so you're not paying like a different payment platform to handle it for you. You can also buy a domain on Squarespace. It makes it easy to find the best name for your business and you can make sure to sell anything from products to content to time all on your Squarespace site. Head on over to squarespace.com/sfpod for a free trial and when you're ready to launch your brand new website, use sfpod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, number four. Maybe you're letting other people's opinions be the thing that dictates your own. you're allowing. your family or your friends to dictate the kind of life that you're going to have. I did this for many years. My parents had certain expectations of the life that they wanted for me in order to make them proud of me and in order to please them, I made decisions that I didn't feel right for me and for the life that I wanted. And in doing so, yep, I kept my parents happy, but I wasn't happy. And not just financially, personally, this is not the life I want for any of you listening. I don't want your friends' opinions of you showing up on social media and trying to build a business. If they think you're cringed too bad, you're building a business, you're doing something scary. As Brunei Brown says, "You're in the arena," right? If your family is nervous when you talk about money at the dinner table, cool. You're bucking the status quo. On the same thread, maybe you're so concerned about what not just your friends and family think, but maybe you're concerned about just like what society views you as, whether that's a woman, a person of color, a queer person, a disabled person, right? There is a certain expectation of what we should be, right? I've talked about this again on this podcast in my book, when women have money, when any member of any marginalized group has money, society gets really uncomfortable with that. You start getting the questions like, "Why are you just grateful for what you have?" Right? Or like, "Why aren't you donating more?" Or, "You're being really braggy because they see you standing in your power." And that makes them uncomfortable. Or maybe you're allowing the opinions of somebody else or somebody else's life to dictate your own, right? There's this idea of keeping up with the Joneses. I think it's like the modern version is like keeping up with the people you see on Instagram, right? It's like, "Live life you want to live as long as you, your head can hit the pillow at night and you feel good about your decisions, that's what matters." As long as you are doing right by people and that you are living the life that you want, that's great. That's great. So if others' opinions or perspectives or judgment about you or your life is keeping you from building the life that you love, or if you're so focused on trying to chase somebody else's life instead of figuring out what that looks like for you, if you're so focused on chasing somebody else's success instead of determining what success looks like for you, or contentment looks like for you, or what satisfaction looks like to you, I encourage you to dig into that a little bit. My name is Irene Ocegina and I am currently a clinical therapist out of Fontana, California and I am 27 years old. My money story is, I think, pretty traditional for a lot of minority communities. We didn't really talk about money, it was something that was kind of hush hush. All I knew was grandma had a little stash under the bed somewhere and she carried it around in this safe that I mean she still has it to this day and everywhere we go she still carries that safe. That's like her little life savings. I was actually raised by my grandma and my aunt. Both of my parents were drug addicts when I was about seven years old. They got addicted to illicit substances and lost custody of both myself and my older brother. So it's just a little bit more of an understanding that sometimes not only cultural factors or other things but actual like family dynamics can cause a real difficulty in the way we understand finances. Like when I had met a good friend in college and she had told me her dad was paying for her housing and her food and all these things. Like this is the thing like people do this. Do you actually have enough money in your bank accounts to support your child? What is this? You know, I was 18 when I ended up at UCLA completely unaware of how to manage loans and my finances and all of these things that we're now smacking me in the face as an adult. I ended up getting to the point where after college I found myself in a ton of debt. Student debt. I had credit card debt accumulating itself over that time of being poor broke college student and then I got out of college ended up at like a little 9 to 5 job and I was like this is not working out for me. I'm barely floating by so I decided it was time to like really make that change. I found a better job which increased my income which was amazing and then the pandemic it I was considered a mental health provider so we've worked in the field I worked serving individuals that were experiencing homelessness at the time so I was not affected financially by the pandemic if anything it actually helped me quite a bit because all the money that I was earning I had nowhere to spend it. We weren't going out we weren't doing anything so I chipped away at that credit card debt like nobody's business savings accounts I finally opened my first retirement account just really finally got the ball rolling and within a year and a half I had paid off my $6,000 credit card debt and then I saved about $19,000 in just like various savings accounts. When I originally started off kind of getting into the financial education and knowledge space I came across Dave Rampe. It was the very first like big person that I encountered that was like doing personal finance and bought his book and I was reading through this thing and and watching his videos religiously. So a certain degree I did feel like it helped me it helped me get an understanding of finances in a way that I had never experienced before. I started realizing something doesn't feel quite right especially coming from a Hispanic family being a second generation so now having this person tell me that if you inherit money I'm like who inherits money like that's a thing all these millionaires that he's interviewing they're being like extremely frugal and like they don't buy a birthday gift for their friends they're like that's not me like that's not my culture and how I grew up. So I felt like there was definitely a disconnect between what he was teaching and how it could apply to my life in particular. I started listening to the podcast I put the book on order immediately and then when it did come out I just really felt like even though Tory isn't somebody from my community in particular I felt she respected the differences in other people's communities and backgrounds and she understood that she does have a privilege that other people don't. So it really did help me to understand and bring a more full cultural kind of understanding to my finances and how it would work best for me. Not this is a cookie cutter plan you're just gonna take it and run with it. I actually did invest in starting my own business to be able to be my own girl boss right you know we work for other people and we we do the job that we're told to do but being able to step out set our comfort zone and actually be able to do the things that we want to do we dream about. I think it's highly needed to have people that are there to encourage us to do that the thing that I would say to other people starting their journey in their finances and trying to get themselves set up is really be patient with yourself unless you were born into this world you really weren't taught how to do these things so have some grace and some space for yourself to really be able to process each step and start small we often compare ourselves to other people and it's extremely difficult to manage those expectations so be kind to yourself reach out for support and don't be afraid to ask questions talk to people communicate with others ask friends that you might not have thought that they're doing the same thing and feel comfortable starting those conversations that's what I think is is really important when you start this journey. Number five maybe you've believed the narrative that a finance chat needs to save you I just gave a workshop about this this week but we have been actively told that money is intimidating and scary and that we don't have enough knowledge about any of this to do it ourselves so we believe that somebody else needs to do it for us we have been told this for two reasons one we've been told this by the multi billion dollar finance industry the multi billion dollar industry that is Wall Street and traditional finance has told you that money is too scary has told you as a woman or as a member of a marginalized group that money is intimidating so that they can make money managing your money but as I mentioned in my book mentioned on this podcast they are bad at it only 25% of professional stockpickers outperformed individuals who invested for themselves in diversified investments I'm going to say that again 75% of you are better at investing than even the professionals they are building a multi billion dollar industry off of telling you basically that you're too dumb to understand and we know that's fucking bullshit. And number two, if they tell you it's too intimidating, if they tell you it's too scary, so that you hand over your money to a Wall Street Chad, you don't do it. If you're told it's too scary, if you're told investing is scary and gambling and you can lose all your money, you don't do it. So the very people who are gatekeeping wealth, the patriarchy, right? The patriarchy has the money and the power and the more they tell you it's scary, the more that they can gatekeep it, right? The less money therefore you will have and the less power you have. So you definitely need somebody to help you. This is really complicated. I'm here to help. There's many people out here who are here to help, but don't believe 100% of the time that you need somebody else to do this for you because you're scared. That is a lie that you have been fed. That is a lie you have been fed to prop up this multi-billion dollar traditional finance industry and to make sure that the patriarchy stays in power. Next one, maybe you don't have any accountability. Maybe you don't have a community to support you. One of the reasons that I was so public about my own 100K journey, right? Her first 100K, yes, is this financial media company, is this feminist company who talks about money, but the impetus around it was yes, all of those things, but also my own journey, my own journey to save 100K. And when I went public with it, it wasn't just to build a business, it was also to keep myself accountable. It was to hopefully walk the walk and talk the talk around, let's have conversations about money, let's not make this as taboo, but it was also so that I could stay accountable towards my goal. And that maybe I could inspire other people around me to set similar goals. And maybe we could build this community of support for each other. That is fucking powerful is a group of women supporting each other. Nothing more powerful. So maybe that is sharing your pay with your coworkers, right? Being transparent about your salary. Maybe that is showing up in our Facebook group. We have an entire free Facebook community that literally has multiple posts a day from people all over the world talking about money. It's entirely free. We'll link it down below. Maybe it's a book club around my book or another personal finance book. Maybe it's a DEI group at your company, right? Finding community is really, we are biologically wired to do it as human beings. We need it as human beings. And if you have communities for other aspects in your life, but you don't have a community to talk about money, to talk about your career, to talk about the debt, to talk about all of the wins and concerns that you have about navigating this financial journey. I would encourage you to find it. We've created a community here at Herfer Center K that is shame free, judgment free, jargon free, finance, bro free. And I would love to have you join it if you haven't already. My name is Johanna Albertson. I'm a PR director based in Los Angeles and I'm 29 years old. My relationship with money was always very contentious. Growing up, there was a lot of sensitivity around money. There were definite moments where I felt like an other because people around me had more things. I felt left out. I specifically remember an early memory where I went to the mall with my mom and really wanted to get something from Abercrombie because that was the hot place to get your clothes and she's straight up told me we can't afford that. One of the things that impacted my finances greatly was my father's role in our house as the seeming head of our financial future, but giving some advice that was not even factual. It wasn't something that was accurate to the realities of money. One thing in particular that I remember was I was filling out my very first W2 form for my first job out of college and I called my dad for some financial advice and he said for me to claim seven on my W2 and I was like, oh well that doesn't make sense because I don't have a child. I don't have these other things. So why would I do that? And he explained that's how I got the most money back on my taxes. So that's what I should do. I hung up the phone and my boss is next fan. She said, please please don't do that. That's not accurate. I started finding out more about money out of true necessity. I was not someone who moved to Los Angeles and had parents that could help me with rent or anything like that. So I was really navigating my personal finance future alone. There weren't a lot of resources to help me do that effectively and I found myself leaning on a lot of friends to be transparent asking them for advice. My best friend actually made me a budget spreadsheet for the first time and I used that same template to this day. I was a former Dave Ramsey person and I am so glad to have found financial fubbness to get me out of that because there's also other realities that are not accurate, like not needing a credit score where I had a credit score of 540 because my dad had forged some financial forms and my name and had tamed my credit. I didn't even know what a credit score was and the first apartment I applied for 12 me my credit score was 540 and I wouldn't be approved having to find that out and then luckily to be grounded in some of Tories realities like you do need a credit score and being able to recognize what that is and build myself back by getting a secured credit card making sure my payments were hit on time and then building myself back up to now a credit score of 800. So there's things that have happened through this podcast and before through friends that have absolutely changed my financial future and I could not have done it without them. I think it's so easy to feel hopeless especially as someone who's young just graduating feels like they have no resources at their disposal that they're always going to be four steps behind just wanting to share that there's such a strong community around you wherever you need it. So just not being shy about asking for help because there's people in your life it might not be your direct parent in my case it was an uncle that helped me and stepped in with some great advice but it could be a friend or a neighbor so not being shy about asking for some advice and a leg up in order to reroute yourself and get your footing because it just takes that one person to want to help in order to completely set your path in a different direction. I would also say to don't let your financial situation or seeming lack of knowledge that you back from doing things that would make you happy. An example that I have is I got my dog when I was 24 and I was in a better financial position than I was when I was say 22 but the positive mental health impacts like getting like a dog had on me absolutely helped me succeed in ways that I didn't even think about when I was getting him the ability to budget better knowing his interests are in under my responsibilities now and also just being able to have that extra positivity and encouragement so finding ways in your budget to add in those different things that can bring value to your every day. I think it's something that you should make space for. It's not always just about that scarcity that you have to do things that will also bring you joy along the way as you can build yourself up. Number seven what might be standing in the way of your 100k is this all or nothing mindset. You're all or nothing mindset might be killing you. It might be killing you. You might be thinking I can't pay off debt until I invest. You might be thinking I can't spend any money while I'm trying to save this emergency fund or you might be thinking I have to cut out everything I love everything that brings me joy these small luxuries because I am not worthy of them I don't deserve them and also I need to save that money. We've said many times on this show I sound like a broken record but here's the thing. Diocese don't work 99% of diets don't work because the more you tell me I can't have fried chicken the more I fucking want fried chicken and that is not a willpower thing that is a literal psychology thing. If you tell me I can't have something guess what not only do I want it it is also not sustainable. So there's a reason we put the word crash before diets it's because they're not sustainable it's not sustainable to cut out all joy from your life and nor is that fucking fun. It's also not sustainable to follow folks like Dave Ramsey who tell you that you need to have all of your debt gone before you start investing. Again I literally just gave a free workshop we also have a replay to that workshop I'll have Kristen drop it below but one of the common investing misconceptions is people say oh I need to have all my debt gone before I start investing not necessarily and it might be costing you millions of dollars. If you are trying to pay off your mortgage entirely before you start investing you are actually wasting time. and you're losing out on money. This all or nothing mindset, this feeling of, I have to scrimp and deprive myself in order to achieve my financial goals. It's just not true. It's not sustainable, it's not fun, it's not accurate, it's not going to actually get you to your goals. It's just gonna make you miserable. And it's gonna cause you to sabotage yourself later. Number eight, maybe you don't even know what you fucking want. When I interviewed Ramit Saiti for my book, quote, "When I ask people, what is your rich life? The most common answer I hear is, I want to do what I want when I want. I'll usually respond with, okay, that sounds great. So what do you want? Silence. What's really going on here is that most of us have never spent even 20 minutes truly articulating what our rich life is. If anything, we've articulated what we don't wanna do. When I ask that question, instead I'm looking for vivid, rich details. When they say things like, I want to travel, I ask, where do you wanna go? What seat on the airplane are you choosing? What do you wanna eat for your first dinner in Italy? Who do you wanna take with you? Tell me about that. So if you don't know what you truly want, how are you ever going to get there? This goes back to like having other people's opinions or lives dictate the life that you want or you think you want? Like truly what do you want? If you have not asked yourself like, what do you want? Not just out of your money and not just out of like your day to day, but what do you want your life to look like? What time do you wake up? Right, like Remy said, what time do you wake up? Who do you talk to? How do you spend your day? That is so powerful about every aspect of your life. You will show up better in your career. You will make changes in your relationships, both with your friends, with a partner, with yourself. You will demand better out of every aspect of your life and you will start to realize that this one beautiful, crazy life is all we get. If you don't know what you want, I need you to discover it. We have many episodes that can help you figure that out. But the first thing, like Remy says, is to start picturing, okay, I wanna travel. What does that actually look like? What does that taste like? What does it feel like? What does a typical day look like for you? Sketch that out. Again, what time do you wake up? Do you commute into work? Do you go to work at all? Do you work from home? Do you work for yourself? What city are you in? What do you eat for lunch? How many hours do you spend working? How many hours do you spend somewhere else? Do you have hobbies? What hobbies are those? How do you take care of yourself? How do you go outside? Are you taking walks? Are you going to the jammer you're going to work out classes? Are you spending time with your children and your family? What does that look like? Who is by your side in bed at night, if anybody at all? Right? What does that look like for you? My name's Katie. I am 25 years old. I currently live in Virginia, but I'm actually from Florida. And I work in the nonprofit sector. I came from a fairly tight belt kind of situation and I always like held on to my money really, really tight. And I'm still kind of working through that to be like, "You don't need to save every penny." I had parents who would educate us fairly well in money, but I know that they were going through some kind of difficulties when we were growing up, including the 2008 housing collapse. I had always been really appreciative of all the things that they gave me and that I knew that they worked for. So like going to college, I knew where all that money came from because it came from them. Moving forward into adulthood, I was always very conscientious of my finances. I knew how to save, and I was really good saver, but I didn't know what Roth IRA was and how to save that kind of money. I also knew that I was going to go into the service sector and the nonprofit sector, which is kind of notorious for lower wage jobs. Being able to be adaptive to that and still build a life that I could have values-based spending and build a life that I still want in a job that I want to. I started listening to Financial Fund Minists about a year ago and helped me pay down any kind of debt I had. I didn't have a huge amount of debt, but I was operating under the assumption that you had to keep a little bit of like credit card debt to raise your credit score. So I met credit score back higher. I started saving for retirement, which I didn't think that I was at the age to start doing. I've been able to connect a lot of the different episodes to the work that I do, realizing the impact that Financial Literacy does have on people that we serve specifically women. Being able to connect that a little bit more to our work. It's a really neat field to be around very skillful, passionate women. If you're interested in getting involved in the nonprofit world or if you're interested in contributing to nonprofits in a way, I would say the best way to do that is to reach out to your local nonprofits and see what they need. If you want to do a giving circle or if you want to do donations to really think locally, they're the ones who are going to need your most help and they're the ones who immediately impact your community. And there's a lot of really good ones out there. I think it's really helped me kind of be more stable in my own finances and pursue things that I didn't think that I would either be able to pursue or decide to do. The biggest part is like being able to step away from a situation that you don't want to be in, which I was lucky enough to be able to do. I was at a job that just didn't work for me and I felt really bad the whole time I was there. I've had enough in savings to be able to make a transition, be flexible and focus on the things that you value in your life. And the kind of life that you want to build for yourself. Number nine, in companionship with this like all or nothing mindset, your goals might be too sticky or not sticky enough. This concept of sticky goals I talk about in my book, but basically it's this idea that when you set especially financial goals, they need to be a little sticky, meaning that you don't get everything you want, but you're not depriving yourself. So if I am setting a goal where I want to make sure that I can spend money on eating out because I love food, and that is my life. I love spending money on food. A good sticky goal means that I'm not going out to eat for every meal. I'm not going out to eat for even most meals, but I am saying, okay, I don't get to go out to eat all the time, but I am also never not going out to eat. There has to be a balance there. Your goals need to be a little bit sticky, that you're not giving yourself everything you could have ever wanted. But at the same time, you're not depriving yourself. Maybe your goals right now are too sticky. Maybe they offer you no freedom, no flexibility, no permission to spend money on the things you actually love. Maybe they're too sticky. Or maybe they are not sticky enough. You are spending a lot of money on things you don't really care about all the time. And you make good money or at least, or, you know, being strategic, but you have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Your goal should just be a little bit sticky, little bit sticky. I'm at the point now where it is quality over quantity, especially when I am thinking about buying pieces from my wardrobe. For my closet, I am not looking for things that are going to fall apart on their third wear. I'm looking for structured pieces that are going to fit me well, no matter what season, and no matter where I'm at in my life for years and years and years. And this is why I love quince. The fabrics are elevated, the cuts are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense. Quince makes high quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics, like 100% European linen, 100% silk, and organic cotton. Quince works directly with safe ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. They are consistently rated 4.5 to 5 stars by thousands of customers. I've even bought a couch on quince. I love everything quince has. Every time I need a new thing in my outfit, I go to quince because I know I can find it. Right now, go to quince.com/ffpod for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear it and love it. And you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to quince.com/ffpod for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/ffpod Being a business owner is very overwhelming. There are a lot of things to think about all of the time between payroll and your competitors and just making enough revenue to survive being an entrepreneur is stressful. But it can become less stressful with net sweet by Oracle. Net sweet is the number one AI cloud ERP and it is trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It is helpful because it brings your financials, your inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth. So that you can make decisions that are data backed, also using AI in a way that just streamlines the entire process. And the cool thing about their AI tool is you can ask any question you've ever had from key customers to how much cash you have on hand to any inventory trends. And so whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions net sweet helps you stay ahead of the pack. Net sweet by Oracle is one of those things I'm going to continue to look into as her first 100 K grows. And if you own a business, especially a business doing significant revenue, this is a tool you should look into as well. Right now get our free business guide to mystifying AI at net sweet dot com slash f f pod. The guide is free to you at net sweet dot com slash f pod net sweet dot com slash f f pod. And finally, number 10. Money has no morality. And I need you to stop treating it like it does. What might be holding you back from your 100K is this perception that money or the pursuit of wealth is immoral. That people who pursue money are greedy or bad people. Here's the thing. Money is a stack of government issued paper. It is a stack of Benjamin Franklin's face on some tree babies. It has no inherent morality. It is neutral. Now what you do with it is where the morality starts coming in. There are plenty of people out there with money who are doing fantastic things in the world who are making a huge impact and also taking care of themselves. There's plenty of people out there who have a lot of money and who are bond villains. Who are terrible. The goal is not push away money, hit the bail button because money will make me a bad person or the pursuit of wealth is a bad wrong thing, but instead to unabashedly pursue wealth as a form of protest. Because here's the thing. Women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, disabled people, us having money is a form of protest in a society that does not want us to have it and does not feel comfortable with us having it. Because when women have money and other marginalized groups have money, we get to change the world to be a more equitable, joyful, pleasurable, safe place. That is the feeling I want for every single one of you listening. That's the feeling I want for you. Yes, you listening. And when you get that and when you start to achieve that, you start to open up doors, open up opportunities, open up this bullshit capitalist system so that we can start changing it. My book ends and begins with the same quote, which is, "When you have all you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence." It's this idea of you taking care of yourself, of using money as a tool to build a life that you love and feel safe and content with so that you can start inviting people to a table, start helping people build their own table and start tearing down the fences everybody else is built. Money is not morally good or morally bad. It is neutral. What you do with it has the power to change the world either for the better or for the worse. If you are believing that money is inherently bad or that pursuit of money is wrong or tacky or gross, and you need you to know that that is another lie you've been fed so that you don't pursue it so that the people who already have the money in the power get to continue having the money in the power. What's holding you back from progressing in your financial journey might be your own self-sabotage, which is completely understandable, completely normal. I see you. Money is a tool. That's it. Money is a tool to build the life that you love and to create a world where everybody gets access to joy and safety and pleasure. Team, those are our ten things that might be holding you back from achieving your first hundred K or from progressing in your financial journey. I want to thank all of the her first hundred K slash financial feminist community members who shared their story, shared their wins. We literally just shared them so many times on our Slack channel with our internal team because we were just it's so lovely to hear from you. We have an ability for you to leave us a voicemail. Many of these stories inspired you if any of these tips around building your hundred K, struck a cord, called jad a little bit, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave us a voicemail. Truly, after a hundred episodes, I am so proud of financial feminist the show. I know I speak for Kristen and the rest of our team when I say we are so thankful that you support it, that you're here week after week, that you share it with your friends and share it on social media and use it to actually make an impact in your life. It truly means the most to us. And through your support we can do a hundred more and a hundred more after that and keep giving you hundreds if that's what you'd like. So thank you for being here. I hope you're having a great day, a great summer. Thank you for being here. Happy hundredth episode and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a her first hundred K podcast. Financial feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields. Marketing and Administration by Karina Patel, Sophia Cohen, Collaudin Maws, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, Amanda LaFue, Masha Bachmikyeva, Kaelin Sprinkle, Samaya Molo Carrillo, and Harvey Carlson. Research by Ariel Johnson, audio engineering by Austin Fields, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire her first hundred K team and community for supporting this show. For more information about Financial Feminist, her first hundred K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.