Your Rich BFF Vivian Tu on Making Money Choices That Support Your Life & Relationships

The following podcast is a deer media production. Welcome to RealPod. It's your host Victoria Garrick Brown and this is the podcast where we hold nothing back. Oh, so we're getting deep, huh? I really cried for 12 days straight. Why do I want to be perfect? There's nothing in my life that is perfect. Every week I'll bring you honest, unfiltered and eye-opening conversations to help uncover the real in all of us. I crave the type of content that you're talking about. I actually felt insecure. Oh, my God, I'm not going to cry. Let me just unload everything. New episodes every Wednesday leave those filters at the door because it's time to get real. Hello, everybody and welcome back to RealPod. I hope you're seeing green today because this episode is about money. I thought this would be a really great start to the year to have this conversation with none other than your rich BFF Vivian to it's a start to the year. So you want to make sure you're on top of your finances or you have a plan to get out of debt or you're setting yourself up for a successful future. And those are all the topics we're going to talk about today with Vivian for those of you who don't know Vivian, which I'd be surprised because she has over 10 million followers on social media. Probably seeing your rich BFF pop up somewhere. But Vivian is a former Wall Street trader turned expert public speaker, host, entrepreneur, New York Times best selling author, chief of financial empowerment at SoFi and the CEO and founder of the multi platform brand, your rich BFF. She's one of the most influential voices within financial education and she's been recognized on the time 100 creators list, the Forbes 30 under 30 list and she received the digital influencer of the year award at the 2024 unforgettable Gala. Not to mention Vivian is gearing up to release her second book, Well Endowed. It comes out in just a few days on February 3rd. You can pre-order this book today at your rich BFF dot com. It is so good. There are so many chapters that I needed in my life, especially the one about home purchasing in a state planning. Well endowed is just a practical roadmap to navigating the biggest financial decisions in adulthood, like home ownership, marriage, family planning, et cetera, and Viv is empowering readers to align their spending with their values, goals and legacy. In today's episode specifically on a real pod, we are getting into a lot. Viv's going to tell you how you can better your financial situation today. She's got quick tips. She's also going to help with those situations where you know when you're wondering, should I buy this? Do I treat myself? Do I save? Look, I'm not a math girl, but she gives us the easiest and most simple equation to help you make that decision every single time. She's also going to share how to have tough money conversations with your partner and what you need to discuss to ensure joint financial success as a couple. That part of the episode was super important and Viv even gets me to open up about mine and Max's financial situation and where we've hit roadblocks. So thank you for tuning into today's episode of a real pod, the place where you can feel seen, supportive and get practical tools to make your life better every single day. I hope this episode is the perfect way to start your thinking conversations and planning around money this new year. And if you enjoy it, be sure to send it to a friend and share the love without further ado. Let's dive in with your rich BFF, Vivian to this welcome to real pod. Thank you so much for having me. We have been desperately trying not to start yapping until we had the mics going. We literally had to go like this. I feel like we literally just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever we're together because we're actually friends. So this is going to be like, you know, we're going to have a little banter totally. And we're going to forget that we actually need to like provide value in this conversation. I just can't believe you haven't been on sooner. Like, I would have thought you've been on the podcast, but you haven't, you know what? It's because you've been on mine. Yes. But even then I was like, oh, I've been on your show and it's like, no, I haven't. Like, it just feels that way. But you were saying you feel like via social media. It's like you just know so much, I know way too much about you like aside from social media, like we are friends. Yeah. But there are things in your day to day life that I am now privy to that like, I probably don't need to know every detail about. Nope. And that's like on me. I would leave like, why am I posting so much? But you know what? Your energy. And I truly say this is like the greatest of all compliments. Like, I feel like anybody would want you to be their best friend. Oh my god. Viv. That is so sweet. You're like kind and supportive and like you, you don't do the negative like self-talk. But like, I just feel like you are exactly what like a good friend is. Oh my god. Thank you. I so appreciate that. That for sure, the no negative self-talk, like I will say, of course, I don't do that. However, sometimes when I'm like transplanted into different groups of women, it's so like common. Even the other day, I was, I scrolled back on my camera roll and I found this old video of me and it made me think something about my body and I was about to send it to my best friend, Aubrey and like, make this comment. And then I was like, no, but we don't do that. Like, I don't shit on like my past self, whether I was too small or too big or whatever the thing is in my mind. I love that. I feel like that's the kind of like mental self-awareness that so many of us need. But so many of us also lack because it does take effort. It's not something that happens overnight. No, it's not. And I would love to write a book about it. So we need to have a call because you've written so many books. No, okay. Just two. Just two. It's so many. Most people write zero books. There. So I would say writing two books is so many books. But yes, I appreciate the compliments. Thank you so much. And I want to do more work on that to help people. Yeah. The way that you're helping people with your expertise. I mean, you have your second book coming out in just a few days. It's called Well Endowed. Yeah. I'm a 12 year old boy. I love that. How does it feel? You know, honestly, I want to tell you it feels amazing and I am over the moon and so thrilled because I feel like that's like what I'm supposed to say. If I'm honest, I'm feeling very overwhelmed. I think people don't realize like how much goes into writing a book and like for the most part, people think like, oh, wow, like you signed with a publisher and they give you an advance to write a book, you do not get an advance to write a book. You get an advance to sell a book. So the writing of the book, which everybody thinks is the hardest part, is actually not that bad. But once you turn in your manuscript, then the marketing phase starts. You have to launch a cover. You have to decide the title. You have to come up with a full press plan. If you have a PR team, I highly encourage you getting a PR team if you're launching a book. And then there's constant marketing on your own socials because again, you're not being paid to write it. You're being paid to sell it. And what do you mean by that? An advance is an advance. You get that money. But keep in mind agent management attorney. So it's 30% off the top. All right. You're already down. Then if you want to work with a book coach, if you want to work with a collaborator, I'm fully transparent in it. Like, I have like a book coaching team and a collaborator that helps me. We sit down together. I brain dump and she helps me make sense of what I'm writing. And so that costs money. You have to pay that out of pocket. And then you get those payments in installments. And then from there, once you earn out, meaning you have sold enough copies that your split of the revenue makes up for the advance you got, then you start earning royalties. But people don't write books yet, Rich, truly writing a book is a labor of love. It is a passion project. If I wanted to make what I made doing the book, I should have just done brand deals, like churned more brand deals out. But for me, I love a book because it's one of the only ways that people can access long-form knowledge for free. You get to go to library. And you care so deeply about helping educate people on this top. I do. I do. That can be something that stuns a lot of people. I mean, you are your Rich BFF. You literally brand yourself as I am going to be your BFF in terms of all things money, investing, saving, how to be smart, how to build your net worth for yourself or future generations. Why is that topic so important to you? Because I think when people, especially women, think about money, it can be kind of an ik. Right? Because there's so many negative words associated with it. You're a gold digger. You're money-hungry. Oh, she doesn't care about her family. All she cares about is climbing the corporate ladder. There's this narrative around wanting financial success that makes you look a morally inferior person. But think about all of the rich men you know. We put them on magazines. We put them on pedestal. We don't treat rich women the same way. There's this weird obligation we put on them that they then have to give it all away, that they're forced to be philanthropic, that they have to care for their families. They have to do all of these things and it's like, I truly believe people should be doing those things. But why is there such a different language use? And for me, money is power because money allows you to leave a bad job, a bad relationship, a bad situation. And in fact, I talk about this in the book, 99% of cases of domestic violence include financial abuse because how can you leave if you can't get a roof over your head the next night? scary and I think when people understand money they feel so much more in to actually show up as their true self and like pursue the life that they want versus pursuing the life that they have to have to make ends meet. What you described as far as the gender, norms and stereotypes is so true because especially a lot of really successful female influencers, I just had Avery Woods on the podcast and she was talking about this how she literally went from being a nurse and you know needing an extra hundred dollars a month to now being able to fully support her family, bought a house in Palabasas, her husband's a stay at home dad, it's truly incredible and she gets so much hate and I feel like if I look at a successful guy, I don't know why I'm thinking of Brace and Di Shembo, he's a professional golfer and he makes all these really cool videos and they're in his giant house with these insane cars and everyone's there for the fun. They're like, this is a cool video, we love this thing you're doing, no one's like, I can't believe he's showing off his house, he's showing off his cars, guys don't say that about guys. They don't, but here's the other thing, can I tell you, this is so funny, I just did a little care cell, I moved into a new apartment in Miami, I'm renting by the way, renting, it's not like I bought this home, I'm renting somebody else's house and I showed some happy moments of me and my husband in this new apartment that we just moved into and I was making a joke about how like moving socks, which by the way, factually it does. And then I was like, you know, the next day, content went back to normal. I can't tell you the number of men in particular that were like, look at this, basically like this grubby woman who all she cares about is money, like flaunting her wealth, all of you other dumb girls, like following her, wanting this, you're never going to get it, like it was some of the nastiest, most hateful rhetoric I've seen in quite some time and I thought that was insane to me, because again, to your exact point, I have never ever seen someone go, wow, Dave Portino's house is really crazy. I also wanted to just say, as we start this episode, I am someone who I've always felt dumb, not like talking about money, but understanding it. I feel like I've hopped on the call as with financial advisors or with an accounting team and something about looking at an Excel spreadsheet or black text on a white piece of paper, I get very overwhelmed and my brain shuts down. And honestly, this past year, just with where my business has grown and what not, I felt inspired to be like, that's not going to cut it, Victoria. Like we're not going to have a fixed mindset of like, I don't know money, I can't understand this because if I want to really master being a business person, I need to force myself to learn to understand these things. And I say that because I think there's listeners who maybe feel the same, but feel a little bit too ashamed to admit it. Can I tell you why you feel that way? Because learning finance is like learning a foreign language. You get on that call and this is no shade to your advisor, but advisors love to do this. They love to throw out big jargony words to make themselves feel smarter and look smarter. So they're saying things like, oh, well, you know, the 401K, the Rafa, all right, the APY of that credit card and the AGI of your annual income, but you're like, what the, like you literally have no idea what they're saying. I think there's a lot of truth to that, especially in the meeting of my career, I will say our current financial advisor, I love so much has never made me feel dumb, has never, has never, like I, I feel comfortable to ask the question three different times until it computes for me. So to your point, I think you're right. And I think it's important for people to find someone who will go at their pace. You need to find someone who speaks your language, right, right. It is shameful that we as a society can't talk about money because guess what 50% of the country right now has credit card debt, 50. You literally go into a room of a hundred people, 50 of them have credit card debt. Why aren't we talking about it? Why is it debt such a moral failing? Like, if none of us know what's going on, why are we all pretending like we do? Wouldn't it just be easier if we all just reset and said, yeah, hell, none of us know anything. They didn't teach this to us K through 12. The past five decades of policy implementation have led to a deep divide between the haves and have nots. And frankly, the financial services industry is not incentivized to help regular people. They're incentivized to help people who have a lot of money already because the way that they cut a commission, they want to work with people who have the most money possible. So like, it is a shame that our system has failed us, but you should not feel shame. We're not knowing. This episode is brought to you by Premier Protein. And I love Premier Protein so much. I feel like I don't go a day anymore without having a protein drink because it is just so hard to ensure that we're getting enough protein and the amount that we need every single day. And sometimes I'm super busy. I just like can't think about that in every single meal. And I don't like to hyper fixate on it, right? So that's where Premier Protein is the solution. It's easy and delicious and a protein packed way to power your day. 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That's P-R-E-M-I-E-R protein premierprotein.com or at Amazon, Walmart or any other major retailers. And keep your eyes out for the cafe latte flavor. That is my favorite. This episode of RealPod is brought to you by BetterHelp. I love BetterHelp so much because they make seeing a therapist so easy and accessible. And look, the new year doesn't require a new you. Maybe just a less burden due and therapy can help more easily identify what ways you down or holds you back by offering an unbiased perspective to better understand your relationships, motivations and emotions. I find all the time I'm in therapy and my therapist will say something that just totally changes the way I think about a situation chip, a relationship or a person. And it's like from that moment on, my brain chemistry has been altered. And BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. So they know what quality means. 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Because more often than not, like I think human advisors as good as they are, they're expensive. And they largely only make sense for people who have complex financial situations. In your case, it is a complex financial situation. You're a 1099, you get money through all these different things. For the average attorney who's making 400 grand a year, which is a lot of money, they probably still don't need a financial advisor. Because they have a very simple financial situation. They work a W2 job. And so just because you make a lot of money doesn't mean you need a financial advisor. I think for people who are lost and completely out of sorts, I always say use the strip method. So when people ask me, how do I get rich? I say, you should strip. And then they're like, what? But strip, strip is an acronym. And S stands for savings. The first thing you want to do is just get three to six months of living expenses into a high-yield savings account. The reason this is so important is it helps to build your financial foundation. It means that you are just going to sleep easier at night. You don't have to the fear of like, what if my car breaks down? You don't have the fear of, well, what if I lose my job tomorrow? It just buys you time. So we got to get that done first. Then T stands for total debt. What I encourage people to do is to actually rank their debt from highest to lowest interest rate. And then make the minimum payment across everything to keep your credit scoring good standing. But then any additional funds you want to put towards debt pay down, you put towards the debt with the highest interest rate. This is typically going to be credit cards. Once you go past credit cards, you probably like personal loans. car loans, once you keep going from there, maybe like if you have like a six, seven percent mortgage rate, there's mortgages. If you graduated college around when I graduated, we're not gonna name exact time frames, you could have gotten a federal subsidized student loan at a three or four percent handle. It's literally just numbers on a number line, right? Credit card debt is at a 20, 30% interest rate. You know, 10 to 15 is car loans and personal loans. Mortgages, six, seven. And then like student loans from my era, three, four percent. The reason you're doing this is because it makes sense to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, 'cause that's the grossest debt. You wanna kill that first. - And honestly, for someone listening who's like, why is that interest rate what's important? There could be a two percent interest rate, which is not that high, or there could be a 10% interest rate where they're making money the longer you're in debt to them. - Correct. - So, exactly, perfect explanation. I love that you did that. - I was really scared. - No, that's perfect. It's just the cost of borrowing. The higher it is the worse, right? So you wanna do that. Then next up is retirement. I know most of the folks who are listening to this are not even thinking about retirement. They are very like decades away from retirement. I am decades away from retirement. But if you wanna retire one day, you gotta start today. And I always say retirement is a great place to take advantage of the government. The government treats us like we're little kids. If they don't want you to do something, you get slapped on the wrist, they don't want you to do it. If they do want you to do something, they put a piece of candy on a stick with like a string and they kind of like fish and pull you along, right? They want you to do something. They're incentivizing you. With retirement, there are accounts like a 401(k) or a Roth IRA or an IRA, that there are tax benefits to using. It's candy on a stick. And by using those accounts, you get to pay fewer taxes legally. It's totally okay to do 100% kosher fair game. The thing that comes with the slap on the wrist is like because you're putting these into retirement accounts, they don't want you taking that money out next week, right? And you can pay a penalty if you have to take it out early. So just keep that in mind. It's not just enough to have these accounts. You have to I, you have to invest. This is the scariest part for most people because it's not enough to just put the cash in the account. You actually have to pick stuff. And people are like, well, what do I pick? What do you recommend? Three things to pick that are just good investments. I will, I'll make it even easier for you. Let's do one thing. If you do not know what to invest in, just utilize a robot advisor. A robot advisor is basically like this next era of financial literacy because all you have to do is take a quick quiz about your money goals, how much you make, when you want to retire, what your family looks like. Yada, yada, yada. You'll answer all these questions about yourself. And then it'll spit out a portfolio that makes sense for you. It's personalized for you. Or you can opt for a target date retirement fund. This is one that's gonna have a year associated with it because that is the year that you are anticipating to retire. So I usually say pick the year you turned 65 or the closest year to it. Or just index funds. You can pick funds that track the broader market. But as you will have noticed, I didn't name any single stocks because people are like, well, what about Nvidia? What about Apple? What about Tesla? Okay, chill out. We are not investing in single stocks because there's too much risk. You could pick the right thing or you could pick wrong. And I worked in a job where I watched some of the brightest people that I've ever met in my life pick wrong. And they were working with very literally millions of dollars of technology, billions of dollars of research, and they still got it wrong. So what makes you think you are going to be able to cherry pick the perfect investment after 15 minutes on Yahoo Finance? You're not. So don't buy one thing, buy everything. That makes it a lot easier. And then last but not least, P. Do you want to do a fun exercise? Sure. Okay. I want you to close your eyes and imagine your perfect year. You get to live where you want to live. You drive what you want to drive. You go to go on the vacations you want to go on. You maybe have kids, maybe have pets. You're able to support them. You're able to do whatever you want. Think about in your mind what that year would cost you. And then for everybody listening, you take out the calculator on your phone that my calculus teacher told me I wouldn't have in my back pocket. And you divide that number by 0.04. That represents a really conservative 4% return on your money. And you will end up with the number of how many dollars you would need to have invested to essentially throw off how much you need to live every year a perfect life and never work again. And that is the P because you got to make a plan. Because if you don't know what happily ever after looks like, you don't get to have it. Wait, I need you to explain this one more time. Yeah, yeah. So what I got lost at the point zero, zero, four, let's say $100,000 is someone's dream year. Dream year. You divide it by 0.04, 0.04, okay. And then do you know that math? I don't. I believe it's 2.5 million. You tell me if I'm right, I'll tuck. Yep, 2.5 million. 2.5 million dollars. If you have 2.5 million dollars invested, returning you 4%, that's what that 0.04 represents. Returning you that, which is very conservative right now, like high-yield savings accounts can earn you 4%. Right, so like there's no risk in that. That's pretty much a guaranteed return. You can make 4% off of your 2.5 million every year. And it can afford you that dream life we just talked about. Oh, I get it. But you need 2.5 million dollars to invest. Correct. But think about this way. For many people, that actually helps them realize that their goals are a lot closer than they thought. In the sense of what, you don't need to make 10 million dollars in your lifetime, you need to make 2.5 million dollars. And it's not even you need to make 2.5, you just need to have invested 2.5. So like all the while, when you put 10,000 in, that starts to grow, that's working towards your benefit. By the time you have 100,000 invested, that's growing, that's working towards your benefit. And then it slowly compounds over time. And at a certain point when you get to 2.5, you know for a fact you never have to work in. Strip, baby, strip, baby, you got to strip. What are the biggest mistakes you see people in their 20s make financially? I would say first and foremost, like trying to keep up, like keeping up with the Joneses, used to be our parents, like looking across at their neighbors, the Joneses, literally. But now keeping up with the Joneses is keeping up with the Kardashians. Because we have these little tools in our hands that give us this unfiltered glimpses into other people's lives. And in some cases, it's our peers. In some cases, our friends. But in some cases, it's people that I have no business knowing what their private life looks like. I should not know what the inside of a private jet looks like 'cause I don't have private jet money. And unfortunately now, because we have this view, it's essentially convinced us that if we don't have all of these things, we have a bad life. But for the vast majority of people, we'll never have private jet money. And that doesn't mean you have a bad life. And so I think comparison really is the thief of joy. And in your 20s, you spend so much time trying to be someone that you're not and playing the comparison game with your friends. When, in fact, you should be focusing on yourself and focusing on yourself will not only benefit you personally, emotionally, but also financially. You know what I wanna add to that too? I grew up incredibly privileged. And one of the underrated biggest things I learned from that sort of environment and that sort of town is truly that money cannot buy happiness. And I know that people will say, I'd rather be crying in my walk-in closet than, and look, there's truth to having enough money to not be worried about your rent or your food, the bare necessities. And maybe more than that, right? Just a nice comfortable place. But to what you're saying, I think something to take from this episode is like, really, what is the life that you wanna live? Not like, I need to make the most of all my friends, I need to make more than these people, I need to make this much like, what do you actually need to be happy? Because anything that's measured numerically, followers on Instagram, amount of emails, amount of friends, like there can always be one more. And so you're never gonna be satisfied. Something else I wanna talk to you about was money in terms of relationships. Let's do it. - Let's do it. You are so recently married, we would say, yeah. Which was the most gorgeous wedding. Everything looked perfect, so happy for you. And now you can especially speak to what it's like to merge finances with someone, not merge finances with someone, what's your number one piece of financial advice for couples getting married? Ooh, I would say, set up your financial system. And the system is so important because it's going to dictate everything that happens going forward. So our system at home is a yours, mine, and ours. So we have ours money that goes towards a mortgage, that goes towards utilities, that goes towards basic groceries, things that we spend on together. Then we have yours, so my husband has his own money. So he can go golfing and pay those greens fees. He can go get his three week care cut. He gets to do all of these things and we don't have to talk about that. I am someone who also wants to have my own money. So I can go get my lashes done. I can go get my nails done. I can see my girlfriends. We can go out for drinks. I can buy gifts for people that I want to. It is so important to have your own sense of ownership because it gives you the opportunity to make decisions with your own life. I hate seeing someone who gives up all of their financial control when they get into a relationship. I know people who are like, oh, I got married and then we just had one joint bank account. In many states, if your husband or partner or whoever decides to run off and that money is joint. bank account money and it is set up a certain way, you have no legal recourse. What? That was half your money. I just think that like it is important to protect yourself. It is important to have a system and part of that system is having a prenup. What if one person makes eight acts the amount of money the other person does in the couple? Then my opinion is that they should not be splitting their joint expenses 50/50 because my feeling about this is yes 50/50 is easy on the math sure it's equal but it is not fair it's not equitable. I talk about this in well end out like it's not a commensurate burden on each of our financial situations. So say I make $65,000 a year and you make it's called $300,000 a year. You're making like nearly five times what I make we cannot go 50/50 on our rent like you need to be paying more in rent and frankly that is a conversation we need to have. What about though when that gives now one person in the relationship this sense of more ownership right let's just say that in a fight that person says well I pay more for the house and they go below the belt on what they agreed upon. I think that's a problem yeah because your partner should not ever make you feel less than for making less than and that's something that I really prioritize when I chose a partner because I knew that my husband was gonna have to be in my corner of the ring when I was down bad on my worst days and what I felt was so interesting is for the first five years of our relationship my husband meaningfully out earned me like the first year we met he made probably like 1.5 times as much as I was making at the height he was probably making three or four times as much as I was and he paid for more stuff he paid for all of our dinners he paid for our vacations that I certainly could not afford and he never ever made me feel some type of way about it your partner should never ever hold something like that over your head because if they do are they really a good partner like that feels very below the belt exactly how you set it right but like here's my thing there also does need to be a level of reality here right if I'm making 65 grand and you're making $300,000 a year like if we are both prioritizing our careers but your career we're married and your career takes you to a different city I also have to have the mental wherewithal to be like I have to follow you right because your finances are paying for more of our lifestyle this isn't to say everything is a unilateral decision but there needs to be a conversation about everything everything this episode of real pod is brought to you by cozy earth one of my favorites literally there's cozy earth in almost every room and level of my apartment because we have cozy earth blankets we have cozy earth bedding we have cozy earth towels cozy earth PJs I just can't get enough of cozy earth and if you have yet to try cozy earth what are you waiting for go to cozy earth calm and use my code real pod for up to 20% off there are so many amazing things I think my number one thing I would recommend is their incredible bedding I love their 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for full terms and conditions but definitely had to viewory dot com sash real pod they have so many amazing items of clothing versatile pieces different colorways i just got max a new hoodie from viewory he's obsessed with it everything from viewory truly is so dreamy so if you don't own viewory consider this your sign go to viewory dot com sash real pod for 20% off your first purchase and if you do own viewory keep it up and also head to viewory dot com sash real pod because you could never have enough viewory viewory is truly an investment in your happiness and once again they are offering 20% off your first purchase for real pod listeners get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at viewory dot com sash real pod that's viewory v-u-o-r-i dot com sash real pod exclusion supply visit the website for full terms and conditions i'm thinking back to when max and i were seriously dating and we knew we were going to marry each other and had to really get real about like what kind of life do we want to live together and like you especially if you're going to join your life with someone you have to want the same future yeah and like there are people who might think uh i don't really want to go on a vacation i want our kids to go to the the college in the city you know they might have those dreams and aspirations and then another person might say i want to travel i want to spend two months abroad i want to send our kids to boarding school and they have those dreams nothing wrong with either dream they're just different and that's going to be very hard to merge your life with someone who has a completely different view of how things should unfold and so a hundred percent you need to be on the same page for the type of life you're trying to build and how you're going to contribute the advice i always tell people is like you don't need to find a partner who has no debt you don't need to find a partner who earns a ton of money but you do need to find a partner who values a dollar the same way you do so like are you going to be cool if you know they're not saving any money and spending on a four hundred dollar t-shirt i'm not i am an incredibly frugal person i grew up a certain way because i have immigrant parents my husband is less frugal but he also is still very mindful about our spending we make a joke right like we are now making multiple seven figures a year and i'm very open about that i feel incredibly blessed i feel incredibly privileged you will never ever ever catch me paying a late fee you will never catch me paying for shipping i will not be drinking any of the water out of the mini bar like there are certain things that like on principle i feel like because i was raised a certain way i am not cool spending money on and because of that like we get along but i think frankly if he had come from a very different background if he had come from like this super elite east coast background versus like a classic midwestern middle class salt of the earth background like there might be things that we disagree on and it would it might lead to some hard feelings yeah and i think those are things you can overcome right but if you are someone who is very responsible with money and your partner is not i need you to like pause pump the brakes and take a real evaluate of thought of like is this relationship going to work i love that Vivian and then to offer like another side of it and how works in our relationship max and i definitely are two people who align on spending money to get time back in our lives or for convenience and so like him and i are like no questions asked with physical therapy stretch lab actual therapy a massage a facial like when we were looking at our mattress i was like oh my god do we need a mattress that's like this expensive and max was like sleep is priceless and i never thought about it that way but because we didn't have the verbiage to say do we value the dollar the same we're getting married but it is something that i feel like we're very similar on now can you think of a good disagreement you've had over money definitely and i'm happy to share like and max has said this before i make a substantial amount more max also makes great money i've tried to be very cautious of never going below the belt but i will say especially as we talk about a home purchase this something we bicker about quite often but more substantial than bicker we sit and we really hear each other is like the amount of pressure i feel when the house purchase is something he just won't understand right now because the majority of that mortgage the majority of that down payment the majority of keeping that house for the next five years rides on your back yes and and how hard i work and that's not to say that i don't believe that in a year two years max can skyrocket. I think he's, I tell him this all the time. I think he's so good at what he does, and I think he's just at the beginning of what he can achieve as a broadcaster. So, yes, we have arguments about this because he's so, we can do this. Look at what we've saved. Look at what we have. Like, he sees, and he's not wrong, but I have a much deeper emotional tie to what he's seeing, because I've, I've brought it in. That's blood, sweat, and tear money. So, I'm just way more emotional with money. I don't like high risk. Why do you think that is? I like to live below my means. I like to be financially comfortable. I definitely think it was a huge goal of mine to be financially independent as soon as possible, because I think I have some guilt for the privilege I've experienced in my life. And so this sooner or the way you shouldn't. I'm telling you, people love to throw the word generational wealth around, but they hate to see it in use. And you should be grateful. You should acknowledge. And you know what? I shouldn't feel guilty. I'm warming to that because my dad did not come from money. He made all of his money himself. That's why. Okay, I got it. What? So, you mentioned Yaya, your grandma, on, in your content. You are a family of immigrants. Your dad didn't come from money. Like, all that, like, they probably instilled values in you that are still very, like, immigrant that are still very, like, be frugal, work hard, save your money. I think they're straight to that for sure. Like, my dad is super smart about money. My dad literally thought pasta sauce was pink because his mom watered down the tomato sauce, you know, for his family of seven. But I also want to be like, really cautious to acknowledge my privilege because I think that's important. I think that's your only responsibility to do is acknowledge it, is to be grateful, but like, you don't get to pick who your parents are. Right. And I think that any parent in their right mind would try and provide their child as many advantages as possible. Yes, I agree. And I want to do the same for my kids, right? So I appreciate that. Yeah. How do you decide what's worth spending on? Ooh, I think it really depends on your values. So for me, what I like to do is I call this the Yorwich BFF. Is it worth an equation? I take the cost of something. And then I divide it by my hourly take home pay. So the reason I do this is because people have a really hard time visualizing what a dollar is. And I'm not trying to give you like your dad's lecture. Like, you don't understand. Well, like, good dollars. It's not that it's we can't visualize because money is like an abstract concept. But what you can visualize very easily is your time. And when you divide by your hourly take home pay, it tells you how many hours you have to sit at your desk or work at your job or be on your feet and do whatever you do for work to get that thing. So like, say your hourly take home pay is $20. Okay. And this is like post house. Can I give you the thing you're buying? Yeah. I was just ordering this for my mother-in-law, the road lip gloss, $20. Okay. So it's like, would you work an hour to have that road lip gloss? Would you do that? Yes. Well, here's the thing. If you don't have any other great lip glosses, if you love this product, you think it's really, really amazing. The answer is yes. Mm-hmm. But I'll ask you one. Would you spend five hours working for $20 an hour to buy one more pair of designer black leggings? No, because you already have 10 other pairs in your closet. Right. There's so many things in that scenario I need to know about. But correct. Like, five hours is a lot of work. A hundred and not actually have money you're putting in your account or paying for an essential need, right? I think that's a really great way to look at it. I love that equation. It's like, how much do I already have of this? Do I need it? Do I want it? Is the quality good? Will it last me the test of time? But like, I think through all these things, but the easiest thing for me to do is, am I willing to trade work for it? I love that. And lastly, because well endowed is coming out in a few days, what do you think is one chapter that is like surefire you believe going to change someone's life financially? That's a really good one is state planning. This is like one of the last chapters, but is state planning? I feel like everybody feels the word is state is like, is stately like my, you know, small mansion in Ireland in this hallmark movie where I find out that I'm actually a princess or whatever. But like, in a state is just like your life's work, your life's value. And I don't mean that it's like what your life is worth, but like what you have earned, what you own, all the things. And so, is state planning, I feel like most people think it's just a rich person thing, but is state planning is so much more than that. It's literally making a plan to have you get whatever you want. We talked about wanting to raise kids and give them opportunities. Say you and Max have two kids. Heaven forbid, something happens to you guys. Don't worry. We have been setting up our estate. So perfect. We've gone through every scenario of death of ourselves, our family. Exactly. So we're like, who's dead in this scenario? Like looking through it. Unfortunately, it's like you're, we're having like a lighthearted giggle about this. People hate having this conversation because they don't want to imagine this. No, it's tough. But it's so powerful because Heaven forbid, say you pass, say Max passes, would you feel comfortable with your 13 to 14 year old kid inheriting a shit ton of money all at once? No. I think about how smart I was at that age. No, but by making it a state plan, plan is the key word. You can say, I want them to be taken care of this way. They're going to go to this school. This amount of money will be given to them at 18 at 21 on their wedding day. When they buy their first home, you can make all of these stipulations. So even if you are not here on this mortal earth to take care of the people you love, you get to do it from beyond the grave. And that is the beauty of having a trust. You get to avoid probate, which is the court system. You get to dictate exactly what you want to have happen, having a living will, having just a will outline period of like what you want to have happen. It is literally just the easiest way for you to avoid having people guess what what Victoria would have wanted. No, Victoria wrote down what she wanted. And that's the beauty of it. Because everybody should have an estate plan. Yeah, it is crazy to think about the setup of it because I remember we were like, Oh, I had, I had, if Max and I passed away that I was leaving nothing to my parents because I'm assuming, hopefully, we all keep living long lives. And my parents don't have to be present for, you know, my passing. And then the guys like, respectfully, if we're here setting this up, we should like imagine if you did die tomorrow and your parents got nothing. Might not be like, yeah, yeah. We have it set up so that like if we pass like a small, a healthy but smaller percentage goes to our parents to make sure that they are taking care of that most of the money goes to our partner. Like we even have plans that outline like inheritance plans. Like we have an estimate of like children that we want to have. Like this is how much would go to them. We have philanthropic organizations that we've already named the head and opponent. Thank you. Yeah. But like, seriously, right, like things that you love. That's so smart. Things that you want to leave money behind too. And like, and then you know what, the estate planning is probably something a lot of people have not talked about. I don't see TikTok videos about it. I don't see short form content about it. So I'm so glad that you put it in the book. Viv, thank you so much. And genuinely, I'm so grateful for my early copy because I can't wait to dive into it literally tonight because this is also top of mind. And like I will text you when I'm done and as I'm reading, how lucky am I? I got the author on speed dial. So thank you for creating this resource for so many people to feel empowered and educated and become well in doubt. And for everybody listening, if you want to grab a copy of well in doubt, you can just preorder it at richbfbook.com. Love that domain, richbfbook.com preorder well in doubt, become well in doubt. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of RealPod. If this hit home or helped you in some way, send it to a friend, a teammate, Rumi, share the love, share the realness. New episodes of RealPod come out every single Wednesday. So make sure you are subscribed to this podcast so you never miss an episode. To leave a rating or review of the show, head to iTunes and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you. Not to mention you can stay connected with RealPod throughout the week, seeing behind the scenes info and sneak previews of upcoming guests by following the at RealPod account on Instagram. All information about today's show and guests will be linked in the description of this episode. Thanks again for listening. I love you guys so so much. Let's go dominate the day and as always, keep it real. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. And where are the good guys on our show every week we talk about Busy, Pop Culture stories? Maybe answer a couple of your voicemails. And go into a moment of the week that makes you say, "What are you nuts?" And I swear it's so much better than this promo. 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