The Birthday Episode: 10 Lessons at 35

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That's code mrsdowjones50off at factormeals.com. See website for more details. The other day I was going through my desk and I found a journal right from when I graduated and it had pen and paper how much I spent each day. At this time, I think I was making around $40,000 and access cash flow was pretty tight. So I had to watch every penny. I think about how far we've come with technology and advancements. To help us with this stuff. We don't need a journal with pen and paper anymore. The answers are out there. And Monarch is one of those answers. Monarch is literally, it's like having a financial advisor in your pocket. So you can use AI to help see what you're spending. Monarch will help you have full visibility in your accounts. It will help you see your trends. It will help you set goals, map out big purchases. See if you're actually on track to where you wanted to be. You can ask Monarch. Monarch's AI assistant. Anything about your finances. Like, hey, how much should I spend on travel last summer? Can I afford this vacation without touching my savings? You can spot things you wouldn't think about before. Like, oh, hey, has my spending gone up or just inflation? I was using pen and paper. Now you can use tools like a full financial advisor in your pocket. And that's called Monarch. So what you want to do is you want to go to monarch.com. Use code trading. The first year of Monarch Core. Half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50% off your first year. Just go to monarch.com with code trading. This is Financial Tea. What's up, zippers? Welcome back to Financial Tea, the podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals, and of course, financial pop culture. So the rumors are true. I am turning 35. I don't think that I'm being dramatic when I say, like, this is a very big age. It's a scary age. And it feels like if you are not married with three kids and a billion-dollar company, society does not let you turn 35 quietly without judging yourself. There is a charge to this birthday. There's pressure. And I've been feeling it before I could even name it. So today, I just wanted to talk about how I am approaching this milestone. Like, I was originally going to do 35 things. I learned turning 35. But, you know, that is a lot of things. So let's just do 10. Time is money. 10 is my lucky number anyways. I was born on July 10th. So it just feels right. But before I get into lists, I just want to say something about taking stock, which is not about, like, taking stock in a company, although we love that, too. But I feel like that freeze can be a little toxic. Like, when you hit a big birthday, there's this instinct to, like, audit your life. Am I married? Am I a mother? Am I where I want to be financially? But here's the thing. Some of those goalposts, you genuinely cannot rush. And I think that's a good thing. And, like, if you take stock and you're not where you pictured, that can feel like a verdict on you. Like, you're behind. But I really don't think it's a verdict. I think it's more like an arrow. That's what I'm telling myself. It's just pointing me towards what I actually want, not telling me that I failed to get there yet. So I hope that you'll take that to heart, too. And don't rush the milestones just because you feel behind. Just like you shouldn't rush to invest just because you're getting older if you haven't built your emergency fund and haven't paid down your debt. Like, the timing has to be right for things. And just because you have a birthday. It doesn't mean that everything's going to line up. But I do think understanding which way you're trending and what you actually want more of, like, that part is really good and powerful and is worth noting. And that's why birthdays are great. And one more thing I've been thinking about a lot before I get into the list is the issue with lists, like the 30 under 30 list, all these lists that, like, make you feel like you have to be a successful ingenue. Like, we just live in this culture that absolutely worships youth. You have to be a breakout overnight sensation. I just want to say, like, that is not the reality for 99% of people. It is so much more common to find your footing and yourself in your 30s and 40s and 50s. And that is not too late. Like, Taylor Swift has been famous for two decades. And I would say, arguably, she's peaking right now in her mid-30s. Also think about Sex and the City, obviously, constantly all the time. Those women were all in their mid-30s, 40s, living full, complicated lives. We need more of those stories because I feel like you, the youth culture, has sold us this really false timeline of what success is supposed to look like. And nothing is too late. So let's get into it. But first, let's get into the MDJ Market Report. OK, our first story today is about Paul Rudd because, yes, the man is a national treasure. He never ages. But also, randomly, you guys, he did invest in pop-up bagels. People aren't talking about that enough. And when you invest in pop-up bagels, you're basically investing and making sure every street in America looks the same. Like, every downtown. Every downtown is going to have a Blank Street, a Sweetgreen, a Van Leeuwen, a Pop-Up, a Kaba. And if you've noticed this, too, it's not your imagination. Yes, all these businesses have different products, but they all have the same financial playbook where they are really easy to scale. And so they're everywhere. And it's not because they're not scaling because they make better coffees or salads or bagels or ice cream, although I do really like pop-up bagels. It's mostly just because their businesses are so copy-pastable. And that is what Paul is investing in. And honestly, he got in really early. And the company recently sold a stake to investors at a roughly $300 million valuation, which blew my mind. Because I was like, $300 million for a bagel company? That's insane. But they already have franchise agreements signed for roughly 300 more locations. And that 300 more locations doesn't have anything to do with America suddenly wanting to eat 10 times more bagels. It just has everything to do with investors basically betting that they can stamp out the exact same bagel shop 300 times over, which I feel like is really easy to pop up because they don't have that many SKUs. They have really small storefronts. It's great. And that is sort of the whole private equity Wall Street playbook. Like they're not paying for what a business is today. They're basically paying for how big they can make it and how fast that they can then sell it for more than they paid. And so to do that, they look for businesses like Pop-Up, like Kava, like Sweetgreen, like Van Leeuwen that can be replicated with as little money as they can. They have as little friction as possible. They have simple menus. They've got standardized operations. They've got centralized production. They don't have that many employees. They've got low operating costs. And they can give you the same customer experience, whether you're in New York or Denver or Nashville, because that consistency definitely scales. Just think about McDonald's. You know what I mean? They are so consistent. But the issue is, is that craft doesn't scale. Like I grew up in New York. I had the place on my corner with like the 30,000 people. 30-year-old bagel recipes and the guys who are hand-rolling every single one. And they've got 20 different homemade cream cheeses and lox. And it's like a little bit dirty, but you can get a customized bagel that's like so creative. And that's what makes a neighborhood spot special, especially when you're hungover. And it's also exactly what makes it so impossible to scale. So to be clear, I'm not saying that private equity is evil. I'm not saying Paul Rudd is evil. I'm not saying Pop-Up Bagels is bad. I love Pop-Up. I love Pop-Up Bagels. They arrive hot. They're so good at delivery. And I also, you know, with the private equity thing, you know, these investors are funding real jobs, real growth, 300 locations franchised. That's amazing for like American business. But I just think that it's important to note that every financial system has a trade-off. And this is ours. Like when we reward these businesses that are scaling the fastest, we then stop rewarding the businesses that make a place really feel like a place, which I feel like is like the best part of living in a neighborhood. And you're not going to notice it until your favorite cafe. Closes or until like the 40 year old deli becomes location number 47 or until you land in a new city and realize that you've already eaten at like half of the restaurants there back home. So this is a really good opportunity to vote with your dollars. Like if you don't want every downtown in America to feel interchangeable, try the weird coffee shop, buy your bagels from the families that's been making them for 40 years, because every dollar that you spend is really casting a vote for the kind of neighborhood that you want to live in. And, you know, Wall Street is just going to keep investing in these businesses that can be copied forever. But the rest of us consumers get to decide if we want to live somewhere that's more one of a kind. And the truth is like Paul Rudd can stay ageless, but I would rather my neighborhood stay original. Okay. For my second story in the market report, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey apparently have a new addition to the family. I was shocked at this. You guys, they have gotten a dog, a fluffy white Samoyed. They're like those Alaskan dogs. It honestly feels very on brand, although I am shocked that, you know, America's most famous cat lady has a puppy and that she's in her dog mom era and I just want to know like I hope he doesn't chew up her journals we need those journals but because I am Mrs. Dow Jones I do have one piece of unsolicited advice for Taylor Travis and literally everyone with a pet including myself be careful where you take your animals for health care because one of the craziest things I learned this week that made so much sense considering the medical journey I've been on with mystery Wall Street takeovers have been taking over the veterinary system and you probably never heard about this but you're going to hear about it now because it is costing all of us this is insane data but over the last decade veterinary prices have risen more than twice as fast as overall inflation and most people are just assuming like oh our medicine is so expensive you know supply chains are a mess but guys that is only part of the story and the real story here is private mother freaking equity they did a roll-up your neighborhood veterinarian is going to be taking care of your animals for the rest of your life used to be exactly that your neighborhood vet I mean when I grew up we had a country house in Bedford and I literally worked at the vet it was so mom-pop it was usually owned by the doctor whose name was on the building they knew your dog's personality they remembered your family like if money was tight they'd often work with you because they own the practice but then Wall Street noticed something that Swifties have sort of known forever which is like people will do absolutely anything for something they love be it buy $1,000 heiress tour tickets or for their animals they will skip it and they're going to be taking care of their animals for the rest of their life they will get vacations they will eat ramen for a week they'll put thousands of dollars on a credit card all this before we ever tell our dog like sorry we can't afford that medical treatment so to investors even though that's so nefarious it is an incredible business so private equity firms and giant corporations started to buy veterinary clinics across America so like just think about this in 2011 corporations owned only about 8 of veterinary practices but today they control roughly half of the veterinary practices in the United States so if you're interested in buying veterinary practices in the United States if you're interested in buying veterinary practices in the United States if you're interested in buying veterinary practices in the United States more than 75% of specialty and emergency animal hospitals so that is a huge jump and the craziest thing and this is why nobody really realizes it is that they usually don't change the name so like the sign might still say like Main Street Animal Hospital and it will look really local and like the receptionist may have worked there for years but behind the scenes their pricing software their financial targets their profits are all flowing back to corporate owners and investment funds and this is the exact same financial playbook that we've watched happen with pop-up bagels that we were just talking about and sweetgreen and van Leeuwen but the problem with this and I really am so upset about it because I can tell you guys another time about all the that I've gone through in mysteries health and like a lot of it has come down to bad vets is that medicine is not supposed to run like a merch line like private equity firms typically want to sell these businesses within three to five years so that means that every clinic has pressure to grow revenue so that means tighter appointment schedules like you're not going to really get that much time with the vet it means production goals for veterinarians it means more expensive diagnostic testing becoming the default like they're going to upsell you every chance you get and like obviously we're emotionally connected to the animals so we're going to say yes but it also changes something much more emotional which is that there used to be a spectrum of care like your vet used to say here's the gold standard treatment but financially I also have this lower cost option that still has a really good chance of working so you as the pet parent could decide and do what worked in your budget but now more clinics are encouraged to offer one standardized protocol so like if you can't afford it you're suddenly having these heartbreaking conversations that have as much to do with money as medicine like you either do that or you put your dog down so if you're not into that I'm definitely not into that here's what I'm doing instead first if you can find an independently owned veterinarian an organization that I've been using a lot is the independent owned veterinarian an organization that I've been using a lot is the independent owned veterinarian an organization that I've been using a lot is the independent veterinary practitioners association and this will help you identify clinics that still answer to doctors instead of shareholders so that's major make sure that you're not going to one of these private equity owned clinics stay away from bond vet they suck second start a pet emergency fund throw 50 or 100 a month into a high yield savings account automate it I have this for mystery it's so so helpful this is for vaccines for ear infections for dental cleanings like those expenses will then stop feeling like financial emergencies and will just make your life easier and then I love pet insurance but I have had a unique experience with it because my dog had cancer really young so I like got the best experience with my pet insurance because I actually was able to really milk it you could also just consider catastrophic pet insurance which has a high deductible and a low premium and will protect you against the truly devastating bills like major surgery or cancer treatment or emergency hospitalization these can easily run you into the thousands and so I definitely would recommend just having some sort of you know guard up between you and that expense insurance is important so I'm happy that now you have tools to avoid this and yes stay away from those private equity vet clinics they are so freaking evil and then yeah this is my 35th birthday episode so the vibes today have to be absolutely immaculate in the market report and I'm sorry that I kicked things off with like a deep dive into private equity by the way I just like really love bagels and my dog and I just want to make sure that you guys understand how the world is like actually working right now because we can avoid it but yeah before we wrap I just want to throw a Hail Mary pass into a topic I get flooded with questions about like aside from wedding etiquette I would say the number one social phenomenon that causes financial anxiety is the dreaded birthday dinner split so I'm having a birthday dinner tomorrow I want to break it down I want to say I feel incredibly fortunate that this year I am in the position to handle the bill so I'm taking like 10 of my closest friends to Mr Chow in Tribeca which is an absolute institution one of my favorite restaurants we're going to sit on the patio we're going to have lychee martinis we're going to have squab and lettuce wraps it's going to be a night and we're doing the prefix menu it's 120 ahead so then everyone's going to get cocktails and tax and tip it's probably going to be around like two thousand dollars which is a lot but I am treating this entire cost as like a birthday gift to myself because I love investing experiences and I love my friends but also I will say don't compare your spending to mine the golden rule of money is that like we all make different amounts and everything is relative so like maybe I make more than you maybe I make less and that sounds crazy to spend two thousand dollars on the dinner but like my spending plan is different than yours and it's all relative to how much I'm actually investing in saving so anyways this dinner has been planned for it's been saved for fits comfortably into my budget it's a gift to myself but I best been thinking about how much money we spend celebrating certain milestones so I'm going to take a little break and I'm going to go through some milestones and like 35 is this really weird birthday where I don't know it's like one of those big numbers and by the way I'm single like I don't own a house I haven't hit any of the traditional American dream milestones so but over the last decade I've happily flown to weddings I bought bridesmaid dresses I paid for hotel rooms I've gone to bridal showers baby showers engagement parties I bought registry gifts like you name it I've been shelling out money on my friends hitting those American dream milestones and I wouldn't change a thing don't get me wrong because I definitely love celebrating the people that I love but it did make me realize something like we have built an entire economy celebrating marriage and babies like we have the registries we have the showers we have the parties and we have all these amazing traditions that say like this milestone matters but where are the rituals for becoming financially mother freaking independent like where is the party for paying off your student loans I once went to a party for a girl who paid off her credit card debt it was so fun like I thought that was freaking genius where's the registry for maxing out your 401k for 10 years where's the celebration for building a business or writing a book or just creating a life that gives you freedom one of the things that behavioral psychologists talk about is that celebrating progress will really reinforce behavior like we celebrate what we value and I actually think that we would have more financially confident people if we celebrated wealth building a little more too so that's what this dinner is for it's actually not for my birthday it's a celebration of wealth building it's a celebration of every year I kept investing in my myself and in my finances when it wasn't exciting every year I bet on myself every year I built my business instead of chasing someone else's definition of success like I'm really proud of where I am at 35 it might not be like where my mom was she had three kids at this age she was out of the workforce but every year that I chose long-term freedom over short-term flexing or pressures I think that's really worth celebrating and I'm not saying that those milestones are more important than getting married or having kids I just think that our lives deserve more than one script and especially as women like we're really the first generation of women that belong to ourselves like couldn't have our own credit cards till 1974 we couldn't open our own businesses till the 80s like we need to celebrate making our own decisions and being able to have our independence don't wait for society to tell you that your life is important enough to throw a party throw the party for yourself it doesn't have to be a Mr Chow but you know you deserve to wear a crown and to do things that make you feel really special and that also by the way it's a real use of money because one of the greatest returns that your money can buy is really just creating moments that remind you how far you've come and that's what this birthday is all about and I also just really want to thank you guys because when I think about my 35th birthday and where I'm at something that grounds me and makes me feel so excited for the future is just that I get to do this work and that we are together and that we are going through this life and we are becoming financially independent and wealthy and I just love you guys and I hope that you are staying rich and that you have a great weekend and that you enjoy this episode so yeah see you next week when I'm 30 mother freaking five Here are the 10 things I learned heading into lucky number 35. So number one is have a board of directors. You guys, this is something that no one tells you about life and it's such a good hack, but you can actually make your own board of directors from whoever you want. And as you get older, you actually need more mentors, not less, but they don't have to be alive. They don't have to actually know who you are. They don't have to know that you exist, but you just keep them in your back pocket as like little voices in your head. A few years ago, I started to build my personal board of directors. I've got Sarah Blakely on there, Helen Gurley Brown, who started Cosmopolitan, Zaza Gabor, Kiki Palmer, Ina Garten, all wildly different women, different decades, different industries, different ways of being a woman in public. But when I'm stuck on a money decision, on a career decision, on a how I do I want to carry myself decision, I just ask what one of them would do or even what do I want to make for dinner? I just ask Ina Garten in my head. I'd say Sarah Blakely is definitely the president of my board of directors. I've got Sarah Blakely because obviously she built Spanx into a billion dollar company. She's the first female billionaire in America, but it's not what she did. It's how she lives that really makes me be obsessed with her. Like she's always on like a solo trip just to think and be alone with her thoughts and her journals and her books or like taking all of her friends from middle school on a trip on a private plane or like giving money away, enormous sums. I feel like she has a family. She has a husband. She has a business, but what's actually the coolest part of her is Sarah. Which is something that anyone can nurture about themselves and she just has like a really deep connection to herself and like, I don't know, I feel like she's just vibes. And so that to me is the blueprint where you like build the thing, you take care of yourself inside of it, you give generously and then you don't let your success cost you your people. So I would say yeah, definitely make sure that you have people in your head who you can talk to even if they are borrowed. Number two, the flip side of lifestyle creep. So obviously I talk about lifestyle creep on this show all the time. You get a raise, your spending creeps up to meet it, you end up having no money to actually invest. So your net worth stays the same and you're on this hedonic treadmill. But I feel like nobody talks about the flip side of lifestyle creep, which is like the costs that just sort of appear as you age that you've never really had to budget for before because as you get older, things just get so expensive. Like, first of all, I just want to say your wardrobe is not an investment. I've tried to do the math on this. I want to say that clearly. Pinterest will tell you otherwise, Instagram influencers will tell you otherwise. It's really not but you know what is, when you take stock of the things that are accruing quietly in the background of your life right now, like the ones that didn't exist five years ago. So like skincare, therapy, a nicer mattress because now you're 35 and your back hurts more like, you know, flights home more often to see your family because your parents are aging like this is the real lifestyle creep of your 30s. And I feel like it deserves a line item, not a guilt trip. And it's okay, just as long as you have money to actually invest. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and washable silk. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted and made to be worn again and again. Quince also has premium stretch denim, leather bags, footwear and beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry. 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So you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com slash Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off and use code Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year. Wall supplies last until 1031, 2026. That's code Mrs. Dow Jones 50 off at factormeals.com. 89% of dog parents consider their dog their best friend and 31% would even let their dog eat off their own fork. Safe to say people are obsessed with their pets. And I just want to shout out my perfect poodle mystery. Mystery, you're the you're the man. Love you. If anyone gets being dog obsessed, it's me, but it's also Ollie. They deliver fresh human greed food in five minutes. Five drool worthy flavors so mystery can live his best life too. From the moment you start your subscription, everything is tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned and you get a pup tainer and scoop for easy storing and serving. Since switching to Ollie, mystery just has like a new pup in his step. Get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com slash T. Tell them all about your dog and use code T to get 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, it's risk free with their obsession guarantee. That's O L L I E.com slash T and enter code T to get 70% off your first box. Ollie feed the obsession. Number three, start where you are. This one means a lot to me because I've spent basically my whole life single like obviously I've dated but no one who I actually liked. Don't tell them I said that. But there's this idea that like, your financial life starts when you have a partner, and like that's when you are allowed to start making financial decisions and moves. And so there's so many women who I feel like are single and doing well financially. And they have the desire to like use their money towards things. But they feel like they should wait because they haven't met the person yet. And they don't know like what life will actually become. And I just want you to start wherever you are with exactly what you have, not some future date start now. And this could mean investing, this can mean buying, house, this could mean, you know, going on that trip or living abroad. But every year that you wait is a year that you don't get back. And I firmly believe you're going to have everything that you want in life, but it just might not be in the order that you expect. So don't sit around waiting for anything, build the life that you want now and then I promise the rest is going to come. Number four, health is wealth, which by the way, is a really cool saying that I just made up. No one has ever said that before. This one's going to be really short because it doesn't need to be complicated. But please prioritize preventative health care like get your freaking manograms, get the blood work, I'm paying out of pocket for so much freaking blood work these days. Go to the doctor, I'd be at the dentist, you guys like, I think of health care as something that you use to deal with when something's wrong. But now I really look at it as a financial strategy because catching something earlier is cheaper in money and time and years of your life. And I just feel like as you get older, you really do need to start like not treating yourself like such a trash bin and lifting a weight going on a walk. Like all these things that sort of suck, but you have to do the blood work, especially I feel like is really important. I've been getting a lot of blood work. Do I like needles? No. Do I know what any of the things that they're testing for actually are? Also, no, I've been using chat GBT for that. I'm sure it's horrible that it knows so much about my health. And that you know, Sam Altman is doing something nefarious with the data. But nevertheless, now I know more about my money. And now I know which vitamins to take, which is awesome. Okay, number five is caretaking upwards. This is a one I want to slow down on a little bit, because I think it's maybe the most important thing on the list. And the thing that women end up talking about the least, because somewhere in your 30s, I think that the caretaking starts to flow upward, like your parents start needing things, logistical help, medical advocacy, sometimes money, instead of you needing things from them. And there's no clean timeline for this could happen in your 40s, could happen in your 20s. And no one tells you when it starts, but just sort of creeps in. But when you're also thinking about having kids, you're like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And you're staring down this barrel of what they call basically the sandwich generation, which is when you're caught between the generation above you and the generation below you. It's really hard because you're expected to give to both ends at once. So I just want to acknowledge this and say that caretaking, it's such a massive wealth killer for women, you guys, like, statistically, we are the ones who step back from work, we downshift our careers, we leave the workforce entirely to take care of aging parents. And like, it doesn't just cost us a paycheck. It costs us a lot of money. And so I think it's really important that we take care of it completely devastates your timeline, your earning trajectory, your compound interest curve in ways that are basically impossible to claw back later, as well as it degrades your sense of self, because I think that we all get so much identity from our careers. And I love my parents so much. So this is not to say that, like, I'm going to kick them to the curb. But I just think that put a boundary up now before you're too exhausted to think clearly, like you can offer your religious school support, time, presence, but protect your capital. And that's not unloving. the thing that's actually going to let you keep showing up for the next. 30 years instead of burning out in five. Number six, don't rush the milestones. Okay. So I was single for a long time, like genuinely for most of my life so far. Um, and I recently gone to a relationship and I just want to tell you about the strange sort of specific beauty of finding love later, because I don't think that we talk about it enough. And also about staying single for a long time, because there's also a beauty in that too. So I just think that like, if I had met my partner in my twenties and yeah, I'm calling him my partner. I think I would have just bent myself completely around him, like compromise my career, sacrifice my goals, like sort of just let my life start orbiting his a little. And I don't say that with regret. Like, I think it's just what happens when you're young and you're sort of figuring out where you end and someone else begins. And it's easy to just be like two halves make one versus like two people make two. So I think like meeting him now, we're two fully formed. We have our own money. We have our own independence. We have our own lives that we were already like into and want to keep before we found each other. Like we're not clinging to anything out of the fear of being alone. We're choosing each other. And I'm not going to pretend there's not biology present here. Like if you want biological children, there's of course the timeline. I'm not going to soften that. And if you haven't listened to our episode on the economics of freezing your eggs, definitely go listen to that one next. But outside of that one biological reality, like I'm not going to soften that. And if you haven't listened to our episode on the you do not have to rush. Don't rush the house. Don't rush the marriage. Don't rush the kid. Like 35 is an arbitrary number that society decided to be scared of. So let it be arbitrary. Do what's right for you on your timeline, not the one you inherited. And you're going to end up in a much better place. And also, like I said, there's such a beauty in being single. I think having the opportunity to really grow yourself, especially as you get older, you have more resources, you know yourself more is so cool. And you're going to get into a relationship one day if that's what you want. And you're going to be necessarily, you know, you're going to be nostalgic for those times because they were really good times. Okay, guys, when I first started Mrs. Dow Jones, I was selling a lot of merch and it was a business idea that I was sitting on. 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I want to say the thing that nobody wants to say out loud. Keeping yourself looking good isn't just vanity, it's actually economics. Economists have a name for it. It's called the beauty premium. People who are perceived as polished and well put together and young, tend to earn meaningfully more than their average presenting peers. I know this sounds shallow because it definitely kind of is, but in corporate and entrepreneurial spaces, looking rested and high maintenance gets unfairly read as competence. So at 35, I have started to think about investing in how I present myself, not as vanity, but really as career and life maintenance. I'm not going to go out without a fight. And here's how I actually think about the truth. I'm going to go out without a fight. Cost per wear. Like a $2,000 designer bag sits in your closet most of the week, but like your face, you're wearing every single second of every day. Like if a $600 Botox treatment, even though it doesn't work for me, every four months makes you feel rested and powerful. And every Zoom call, the cost per wear is honestly pennies. But this part matters. Don't put it on a credit card. Don't buy now, pay later it. You need to treat your aesthetic enhancements as you get older as a fixed expense, like as a subscription, the same way that you would treat like car insurance. Like if it's $600 for Botox every four months, then that's $150 a month. So automate that deposit into a high yield savings account. I call mine the glow up fund. And if the cash isn't there, then don't book the appointment. Pick your poison. If you want the higher impact treatments, maybe that means skipping the $150 a month manicure for press-ons and like reallocating that money instead. I've done a lot of this myself. And I think like, yeah, you just have to figure out what's worth it, but it has to be funded. Honestly, not borrowed against your future, but like no shame in the game. You know, we're 35 girls. Maybe we're older. We got to make sure we stay tight. Okay. Number eight, confidence follows action. I think about this all the time because I think that people think that their financial lives are going to change. Like one day they're going to wake up and they're going to want to change it, but you're never going to feel ready or confident before you do the hard thing. You just have to do it anyway. So like send the pitch, ask for the raise, record the episode, post the video because confidence isn't a precondition. It's a pre-condition. And I think take action first, scared and unsure, and then the confidence will show up afterwards built from the evidence that you can actually do the thing. So like waiting to wait, I think it's just a very convincing form of procrastination. So just remember that confidence follows action and not the other way around. Number nine, be selfish. I am putting this in capital letters because I mean it, you need to be selfish. This doesn't mean that you have to like forget your relationships and things like this. It just means like, as you get older, you need to be more confident. You're going to have more on your plate and make sure that you actually take the time to nurture yourself and to take time for yourself. Like, you know, do the things that actually help you get to know yourself and stay in a good place with yourself versus like getting swallowed by all of your responsibilities. This isn't about disappearing on the people you love. It's really a practice. This is going to be the theme of my 35th year, just prioritizing myself on purpose. Like just the way that I did when I was single, the way that I did when I was younger, because I think that otherwise, you know, it's a hard thing to do. It's much harder than we talk about, but I think that you get so much out of it. And number 10 is have a birthday money date. You know, usually your money dates are just like going through your credit card statements and things like that, but make sure that you go through your net worth, track it annually, make a goal for next year. This isn't to judge yourself, but I just think it's like, you need to hold yourself accountable. You want to see the line move. And this is just like a good moment. This is also a great moment to like cancel to figure out what you value, to make a plan. Do I want to move this year? What trips do I want to take? Like think about your next year in a bigger way and how you actually want to spend your money. And remember like 35 is not a deadline. It's a really just a good place to pause and to take the arrows direction and just keep going. So if you're also at a turning point with your age, I, you know, happy birthday. And I hope that it's your best year yet. And remember to just like not take it too seriously. And that's my 35. Those are the 10 things. But I will really say that one thing underneath all of them is just stop waiting for permission to take yourself seriously, like your money, your time, your face, your boundaries, your love story, like all that gets to happen on your timeline, not the one that you were handed. I just want to thank you so much for being here for this, for being a sipper. I know this is a little bit more vulnerable than our usual episodes, but it just felt right for this birthday. And as always, stay rich. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. For the first time ever, Texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings. It's called Free Nights in Cool Summer. You get free nights every night all year long plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. It's a first-of-its-kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. Discover how much more you could save with Free Nights in Cool Summer. TXU Energy. Energy for everything. Visit TXU.com for more information. Rep number 10004.