Your Rich BFF dishes on dopamine spending and the new money minefield, with Vivian Tu

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/fafd904811f4dcf9

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If you don't think you're gonna be able to
afford a home or you don't think you're gonna be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estee Louder lipstick index.
Of
Oh well I can't afford a new TV, so I'm gonna go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.
Or
I'm gonna dollar dribble.
For a little coffee, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna like you're spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy.
Just to like get a dopamine hit.
When you are in a position of uncertainty.
It is more important than ever to have a plan.
Because if you just leave it up to
Like hope.
It's not gonna get you there.

That's Vivian Chu, CEO of Your Rich BFF, the personal finance media brand.
Vivian provides advice to millions of followers across multiple platforms, as well as via her best selling book, Rich AF.
Now she's got a new book out, well endowed, and so it seemed the perfect time to check in on the state of financial risks and opportunities, how Gen Z is navigating 2026's uncertainties, and the implications of what she calls lifestyle inflation.
We dig into tech stock valuations, online prediction markets, and the lessons we can learn from Rihanna. Vivian is practical, instructive, and fun, so let's get to it.
I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.
I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Vivian Too, the financial educator known as your Rich BFF, advisor to millions, author of the best selling book, Rich AF, and author of the new book, Well Endowed. Vivian, thanks for uh thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat.
I have so much been looking forward to this. Earlier in my career, I also found myself focused on personal finance, which wasn't particularly my plan. I as I know it wasn't initially for you, but I ended up as the editor of Mone Magazine, which was the you know the biggest personal finance outlet at the time.
And I remember feeling this sort of this burden, this pressure of of offering personal
Advice.
to millions of people. Which you know, as you know, you can't really do, or or or maybe you can today with social channels. I don't know. But back then it was it was largely like a print monthly magazine and trying to give personal advice it it it it's
It's hard.
Very, very hard. I mean, I think I have the luxury of being able to put out content daily. Um, I feel like social media has very much democratized access to this type of information. Um, but yeah, especially
Once your audience starts to get a little larger, you have to realize that like they're not all the same demographic anymore. Some of them want budgeting tips, some of them want investing information, some of them are actually looking for how to build an estate plan. What you do is try to give a little something to everybody, but you know, at the end of the day,
Not every single post is gonna be something for every single person, and I think that's okay.
Have you had any folks who sort of have responded to your advice and then
Like complain to you about it?
Best practices
And
А there will be people who are on absolute edge cases.
That
Then complain that
the what I'm saying is incorrect. So the other day I gave a quick um
Finger to the wind strategy to determine how much of your portfolio should be in equities and how much should be in bonds.
And the strategy is you take your age.
U minus ten.
And then you round to the closest five divisible number. So for me, I was like, I'm 31 and 21 rounds down to 20. Um, and so 20% of my portfolio would be in bonds, and the rest would be in equities. And someone said, Well I'm 47 and
I've been in a hundred percent equities for the last 10 years and I've been making so much more money. And I would have not made so much money if I was in bonds. And I'm like, True.
But ostensibly, you're also retiring in thirteen years.
Everybody's gonna come and find and pick a hole and it's like, Oh, yeah, this girl doesn't know what she's talking about. It's like, Yeah, I would know what I'm talking about if you started investing in your twenties. But if you're playing catch up a little bit later, sure, yeah, you might have to be in a little bit of a riskier portfolio, knowing full well that you may not retire until you're seventy five.
I mean people's understanding of of that word risk is so variable. Like, yeah, I'm fine taking a risk as long as I'm not gonna lose any money, right? Like that's mostly what people say, right? So the the subhead of of your new book, Well Endowed, it reads, The Secrets to Strategic Planning
Building a foundation for you and your family and creating lasting generational wealth. Your your first book, Rich AF, came out in
twenty twenty three. W what prompted you to write the new one?
Rich AF was very much a love letter to my early twenties or the beginning of anybody's financial journey when they're really focused on how do I make more money at my job, how do I budget smarter, how do I save, how do I invest efficiently, how do I handle some of the the trickier things like paying down debt.
Great. Once you have a baseline financial foundation there.
Well endowed is where you want to go. Um, because well endowed discusses all of the
level two items like buying a home.
Considering buying a car, getting insurance for all different facets of your life, and then also.
I ended up getting married in between
The first book in this book and
Man, was that a really fun filled extremely expensive party with a lot of paperwork involved. Uh so I think.
I have to talk about marriage and divorce. That's something that was on my mind as my husband and I were drafting our prenup. I talk about how to manage money between family and friends because once you start to get a little bit more financially savvy, everybody, you know, Uncle Tony comes knocking on the door, being like I have a small business idea. Um, and then the future. So things that like
I've personally started thinking about, which are starting a family, how would I set those kiddos up for financial success? How do I plan my dream retirement without really having to sacrifice so much today? And last but not least, I mentioned this earlier, but estate planning, like trusts, wills, power of attorney, a healthcare directive. Like
The knock on wood things that you never want to have happen.
But
Ultimately, all of us die. Um, whether that's at a hundred and ten and you've lived a really long life, or unfortunately, there are some really untimely ends which leave uh whole families in a tizzy.
I wanted this book to be a way for people to feel like they were spending their money and actually getting what they wanted out of life.
Well, I and you know, the more resources that you have and the the bigger your family circle becomes, the more complicated
All of this stuff becomes, right?
It just it just builds and builds.
I'm curious how you think about sort of the tone that you use in talking to your your audience, your customer, and who they are. Like I used to get into these debates with colleagues when I was at Money who wanted to sort of dumb down everything. And and I would say just because these folks aren't sophisticated about finance.
doesn't mean they aren't sophisticated people. And I'm curious how you think about who it is you're talking to.
Yorich BFF actually started for my girlfriends. Um I went to the University of Chicago. It's an incredibly competitive elite university.
My best friend is a surgeon now. Um, I have friends who are lawyers, who are consultants, who are engineers, but I remember
trying to explain to them why it was important for them to put money into their 401k.
And people
Like my girlfriend who can literally
Give a face transplant to a burn victim.
Mm.
I saw her eyes start to like just glaze over.
And I'm like, okay.
You are a smart person, but you maybe you're just not smart with your money yet.
How do I explain this in a way that the average person can understand and feel smart?
That doesn't
question their intelligence. It's not to shame people. It's not to embarrass them for something that they don't know because we don't teach this in school. But it's the thing we don't we don't teach it, right? I remember having my trying to explain to my kids like this is how a credit card works. Yeah. Like this is what a checking account. I mean the most basic things you just don't learn at school.
You don't learn it in school, so that's my expectation is that people don't know. I mean one of the
One of the principles behind my time at Money was that
In some ways like everyone's trying to take advantage of you in financial world, you know, Wall Street brokers and insurance agents, car dealers, travel agents, credit card companies, like it that if you didn't arm yourself
You know, you'd be used. Is that still part of the message?
Yeah.
I think w we should just take a example of, you know, one of the most
Popular.
Singers of our generation, Rihanna.
You ever wonder why she wrote that song, Bitch Better Have My Money?
It was actually about an accountant.
Who had
stolen from her millions and millions of dollars. And you think someone like Rihanna like is too like almost too big to fail, right? Like she has all of these experts around her guiding her. And so
If you are not careful with the money team that you build.
The experts that you put around yourself, it's very easy to get swindled, even when you're Rihanna. It's very easy to.
Maybe not in the case of actually having someone steal from you, but like have a financial advisor recommend products that
Are not necessarily the best for you, but rather the best for their commission. If I'm going in to get my car maintenance done and I don't know anything about cars, um, and this person starts talking about, Oh, well, you need this change and that changed, and da da da and I panic.
And I'm like, sure, we should definitely do all of these things.
Probably just ro routine maintenance that I'm getting upcharged for.
So maybe I need to find a new servicer who's not gonna take advantage of me or two.
I need to get smart enough.
So that I can't be taken advantage of.
Are there particular companies that you're or areas that you're most wary about? I know you write in the book about sort of how advertising online and the messages we get come to us, but are are there particular things that you focus on?
Yeah, I think it's all of it, right? Like
Financial advisors are charging a hundred to a hundred and twenty five basis points, which is one to one point two five percent of
Your entire portfolio.
For as long as you're with them.
That can be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars over the course of your lifetime. For the average person, I feel like financial advisors more often than not don't make sense because they're too expensive. You'd be better off using a RoboAdvisor. I think in many cases.
Life insurance salesmen are so, so into selling you life insurance, especially of the whole variety or the more
like complex variety versus term because they get paid large commissions on them. And I think it takes a lot more research than many people are willing to put in. And I hope that by writing something like this
Um it helps prevent people.
from getting taken advantage of.
Are you a fan of like the buy now, pay later? Like is it good or is it a is it a tool to get us to to overspend and get into debt?
Buy now pay later.
Actually
Was
Not a terrible idea, not an evil idea at its inception, okay?
Buy now pay later.
Offered credit.
Two
More often than not.
Under served communities that could not get credit through a more traditional means.
It allowed them to split up major purchases. So I'm talking
Аплінц
A new laptop for work.
Things that somebody might need that they could not afford all in one go. That was the initial concept.
And
I think the initial concept
Was
Healthy, however.
Capitalism gets its, you know, its claws into you. And all of a sudden, you're trying to buy now, pay later, pay in four installments for a what? Chipotle burrito? Like
You have already consumed burrito and now you're gonna pay this over four months? Are you nuts? Like
If you cannot afford a burrito today.
You should not be purchasing a burrito from Chipotle, having it delivered by a courier to your doorstep. Get off off of your butt, go to the grocery store, buy the ingredients you need to feed yourself. But like
I think buy now pay later started as a good idea.
And has completely warped and morphed.
And it's
utilization to the point where it has become an incredibly unhealthy drain on our society. I think it is damaging people's credit now, especially now that it's being reported to the credit bureaus and when people miss payments, they're paying interest rates just as high as credit cards.
What about online betting?
Sports betting or prediction markets like Calci and Polymarket.
Bob
Just punch me in the throat at this point. Like I feel like the old man yelling off of the side of the mountain into the abyss.
Please stop saying trading on world events. You are not trading on world events. You are betting. There is no underlying value to you placing a
trade, quote unquote, on who will become the new LSU football coach. Like literally, what is the underlying asset you own?
Nothing.
You are gambling. This is the equivalent of going to a casino, and I am so sorry, but
Studies have literally shown that when people are in
more economically trying, more
Desperate
Moments.
They actually lose all sense of like
Risk assessment.
And instead of being like, Oh, I should save my money, they say, I'm gonna put my entire paycheck on who is going to win the national championship. And if I'm right, I'm gonna hit it big. And if I'm wrong, well, I'm already
Down bad, so who cares? It's the lottery, right? It's like it's like putting money into the lottery. But I think I think some people like they look at investing in stocks the same way. Like it doesn't feel any different to them.
Then you know, whatever. Then you don't understand investing. You don't understand investing because if you actually look at the Monte Carlo simulation that has been run on
All different types of portfolios over the last, I believe the study was actually 50 years.
You would find
That
There was a Ny N percent chance.
Of you making money.
If you had a buy and hold strategy.
And just so everyone knows who's listening, a a Monte Carlo simulation is like a computer generating, you know, thousands and thousands of different
Scenarios and and and g giving the odds of what happens as a result of them.
Yeah I promise you, if there was a Monte Carlo simulation on any of the things that you could bet on on polymarket or culture.
You would not have those kinds of numbers of ninety nine percent odds of being able to make money. Like
Being a buy and hold investor is literally the easiest and laziest way.
To grow your wealth.
And people won't do it, and they call that gambling, but you're willing to bet on, you know, how likely someone's gonna say the word.
nuclear weapon during a press conference like that's insane to me.
Mm.
I get questions from friends and family these days.
because the stock market is at has been at record levels about like is n should I be buying stocks right now? Should I invest right now? Sho do you think people should be wary about buying we know whatever, tech stocks at record high?
Or is it just like, listen, you can't time the market.
Just if you have money to invest, just invest.
Bob, the market valuation has been frothy.
We have been overvalued for like the past five years.
Yes.

You know, I feel like Michael Burry's called 23 of the last two downturns. And I think it's just silly because.
Yes.
I am going to sit here and garantie you.
At some point the market is going to crash.
Are you willing to miss out?
On
Annual returns of
Very literally, I'm not even making these numbers up. These are the past couple of years. Sixteen percent, twenty five percent.
Thirty percent
Yeah.
Are you?
I'm not. I'm gonna keep investing. And when the market turns down and when we see a some sort of correction, I'm gonna buy even more than.
I'm gonna keep buying and buying because guess what I told you earlier, I'm thirty one.
I'm probably retiring closer to 6065. I got a long way to go. And I'm probably gonna see a number of downturns. I'm gonna see a number of corrections over the course of my lifetime. Which for you is probably good. Like I think about you know, someone my age, I'm gonna be a net seller of stocks over time, right? So so I want prices to go up, but for younger folks who are gonna be net
Buyers over time.
They want the market to go down, right? A crash would be incredible for twenty year olds. We never, ever, ever
Run from a sale except for the stock market.
If Sephora has a sale where they're like everything's 75% off, I tell you, the the baddies on internet are running to the Sephora. They are getting their lip liner, they are getting their makeup, they are getting their skin care. They're so stoked.
When the stock market goes on sale, all of a sudden you don't want it? Weird.
Weird.
Vivian just puts it out there, the weird, the practical, the infuriating.
So, just how realistic are Gen Z complaints about their challenges? And does uncertainty make us all less rational in our financial decision making? We'll talk about that more after the break.
Stay with us.
Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topic are just as compelling and timely.
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Before the break, we heard financial educator Vivian 2 talk about her role as your rich BFF and what's behind her new book entitled Well Endowed. Now we talk about Gen Z challenges, how the job market is shifting, and how to know what advice you can trust online.
Plus a rapid fire round on home buying versus renting, car ownership versus the Uber life, the biggest financial mistakes smart people make, and more.
Let's jump back in.
We often hear that
Gen Z doesn't feel great about its economic prospects right now, but
Unemployment is low.
The economy is humming along, and I hear from some folks like oh younger people's expectations are too high.
And then of course other folks say like uh older people just don't get it.
Everything is great. The economy is at an all time high.
It's not.
It's at an all time high.
For some people.
And everything is great for some people. And I think this is the trouble with using.
The meaning.
Mm.
as our barometer of how healthy the economy is. When you hear things like
Oh well GDP increased by XYZ and like unemployment is low. Like
We have actually seen
But
The top
Ten percent.
Americans?
are accounting for half of all spending.
Ha.
What does that tell you? It tells you the people who have money are living big. It is the greatest time ever.
to be a rich person. Right. But the thing is is like the average person
Is actually doing worse when you actually take an average, a mean figure of
All these
Uber rich people who've gotten uber richer versus people who've gotten slowly and progressively less well to do, where our middle class is very literally shrinking.
You get a washed up figure that looks larger when in fact people are worse off.
Еверсенцковір газ би а драматик.
K shaped divergence.
In how
the economy, quote unquote, has done.
For
White collar employees who make six figures and more, who have the discretionary income to invest. Yeah, y'all got rich. And it was it has been a great time.
It has been very fun.
But for the folks who
Уреді мідл клас, мибіворки клас.
Things have only gotten worse.
The cost of living is completely unmanageable.
Рент хан угю стагне.
There's nothing for them to look forward to. I completely understand why Gen Z is so deeply disenfranchised, why so many young men are turning to online online betting. Um, I I completely get it, because if you feel like there is no hope for you to have the American dream.
What's the point?
When you've talked about jobs, you've talked about the idea of being up or out every couple of years, like trying to get a raise or finding a better
Paying employer. Does that
Does that look any different when the when the job market is tighter or is this like a flo
Sure does.
Immediately post Covid.
I truly believed in the upper out method.
You need to be getting a razor promotion every two years, or you need to go up.
If you couldn't get up, you gotta get out. You gotta go find somewhere else that's gonna pay you and gonna give you that raise, gonna give you that promotion, going to give you that upward mobility.
However now
We have actually and this was not just because I felt like the vibe shift, but it was actually shown on data.
We have now seen
The amount that job jumpers and job stayers
Make?
Converge.
So
It is no longer more lucrative to job jump. It is no longer more lucrative to
Try to find a promotion elsewhere.
Right now in a tough job market.
People are literally sending out thousands of applications to get
Two interviews.
Like
If you can find a way to grow internally, if you can still be in the top ten percent of performers, you're still gonna get raises and you still will probably get promoted. It's just not as easy as it was during the great resignation.
We have to understand that that like
the actual environment.
Shiss.
And we have to adjust ourselves.
To make sure that we are in the most advantageous position possible.
At this time of year, this start of the year, there can be this sort of this impetus, this pressure to to reset budgets and habits and goals.
C can people go wrong in moments like this? What tends to backfire?
Too large of a shift.
can backfire. Um
So I always I'm like, okay, this is the year. I get physically fit. I eat right. And then after four days of rabbit food and working out every single day, I'm like, me thinks not. I'm gonna order a taco and then sit on the couch for eight hours.
I don't think that you can yo-yo diet your way into wealth.
It is truly like making a healthy lifestyle choice. Unfortunately, you have to do it kind of forever. Um
So with money, it's not about
January first, you're like


Start saving, I'm never gonna spend money again. Everything's gonna be amazing. Like it's not that.
It's making little choices.
over the course of the year and it might take you the full year. It's
Every single
Friday evening when you get home from work, do one thing that helps you financially.
Maybe that's opening up a high yield savings account, so all of a sudden
the money around waiting for your rainy day.
can actually earn you a little bit of extra interest.
Maybe it's building out a plan to pay off your debt. Maybe it's organized by highest to lowest interest rate. So you're doing it most mathematically efficiently.
Maybe it's
Okay.
I am going to go change where my direct deposit
Is deposited. So it's not all going into my checking account. 10% is automatically going into a savings account. That'll make it easier for me because the hardest thing to do with money, and frankly, anything else in your life.
is willpower your way through it. Yeah. I don't have enough willpower for that.
Today there's so much uncertainty, uh you know, prices, jobs, politics.
Do you see that shaping how people
behave with their money? Like are they less rational in financial decision making?
It's like
Well, if you don't think you're gonna be able to
afford a home, or you don't think you're going to be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estee Louder lipstick index.
Of
Oh well I can't afford a new T V, so I'm gonna go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.
Or
I'm in a dollar dribble.
for a little coffee. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna like you're spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy, just to like get a dopamine hit.
When you are in a position of uncertainty
It is more important than ever to have a plan.
Because if you just leave it up to
Like hope.
It's not gonna get you there.
Um
I I gotta get into the uh the AI discussion. Lots of lots of folks are using AI tools these days for financial decisions.
Budgeting, investing, even taxes. But a lot of surveys say that for a lot of these folks, it's led them to some bad decisions sometimes.
Where do you think AI can genuinely help with money? Where should we be more wary?
Well, I want to be very clear that none
Of
The AI
LLMs like the you know the chat GBTs of the world like
None of them.
Are financially licensed.
Not to like, you know, be so self serving, but like
That is
In part why I built out
My venture.
Called Ask Dolly. Um
Ask Dolly dot com, check it out. We are actually
An SEC registered RIA, and if you ask
Ask Dolly.
Too complex of a question.
That is not knowledge based, but rather personal based.
We transfer you to one of our CFPs.
I just wanna say R I as registered investment advisor.
CFP is certified financial planners, right?
Yeah, I just like we saw that AI is the next
iteration of financial
Like
exploration and it really does help people on their financial journeys. They get to ask the embarrassing questions that they're too ashamed to ask. But I don't think that AI can operate independently
Of a little bit of human touch, and frankly, someone who is licensed.
To provide you financial advice because it is so personal and there are so many factors to take into account.
I mean, there are a lot of people online
Creators like yourself who offer
financial advice. Not all of them
Are license or registered. Or or right. Well and how do you know if something you come across
on on a social platform or online that it's that it's reputable, that it's worthwhile. I mean y we get this with health advice, we get it with money advice.

Even with my content.
If you sump
And you're like, I wonder if this is true.
You need to be doing your own research.
Watch my video.
А не го онлайн і чек.
Can I find three reputable sources that back up what she's saying?
You'll always be able to because
I actually research my topics, but like
Go look at
Articles from the Wall Street Journal, from the Financial Times, from Barron's, from law firms, or banks, or all like compare them.
We have unfettered access now, so there is no excuse.
For falling for a
A trap.
Like you actually have to do your own research.
And you have to understand how
how the people who you're engaging with how they make their money. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, are there things you've learned as a creator yourself that you think people
don't really understand about how creators make money?
Yeah, a hundred percent. Like
You wonder why all of those lifestyle influencers were pushing Stanley Cups and all of the little charms that then go on the Stanley Cup and then all of the like
They make an affiliate commission on the back end.
She doesn't love her Stanley Cup. She wants to buy one, so she gets money.
I always am very very honest.
When I do brand partnerships, I'm like, these keep my content free. This is why you don't have to pay a subscription fee for this. This is why I can do all of this editorial work.
Unpaid.
Is because I make money.
But at the end of the day.
Whether or not you get
the the high yelled savings account I recommend.
You should just get one anyway.
Are you saying that that that Matt Damon and and Ben Affleck don't love Dunkin' Donuts? Is that is that what you're saying? I'm saying that I have I have tasted Dunkin' Donuts coffee. It's good, but it's not the only coffee out there.
So um I'd love to ask you a few rapid fire questions if if I can get your advice on things. All right. So uh
What's the biggest money mistake that smart people make?
Mm.
I think it's just lifestyle inflation, especially for people who start to make more money. You make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, you make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, and then at the end of the year you're like
How come I don't have any additional money?
All of us fall victim to the comparison trap where we compare our lives with everybody we see on social media, and suddenly you think that if you don't have X, Y, and Z, you have a bad life.
You don't need to be spending on stuff just to impress other people.
All right. Uh next question. If I could focus on just one thing financially this year, what should it be?
Trying to
Інкріс інка.
Because
My mentor told me this.
One line and it's
Stuck in my brain forever. She said.
You can only save as much as you earn.
But you can always earn more money.
We talk so much like
Cut out the avocado toast, don't buy the latte, don't get the little treat.
Imagine how many
little joys in your life you would have to cut out.
To save five thousand dollars.
Now imagine how easy it is to ask for a five thousand dollar raise.
Frankly, people get much larger raises than that.
It is so much easier for you to make money.
Than to try and cut every little thing out.
All right. Next question. How much time should I spend on optimizing my credit card rewards?
Not too much.
Because one
Credit card points are devaluing by the day. They make a new rule every three months and they get worse.
Sure, maybe will you lose a couple extra points here and there? Yeah.
But the time you save and the less mind like mind space you're giving to it is probably worth it.
Home ownership, rent or buy in twenty twenty six. How how do we decide?
This is an insane question because real estate is so geographically focused. Um, I cannot sit here and be like you should rent or buy. I don't know where you live. Um, and in some cases the answer is different based on where you live.
What I do know is that it is currently cheaper to rent than buy in seventy percent of all major metros. Um and
Frankly.
We should all
be looking at our own lifestyles and asking ourselves a couple questions.
One do we plan on being here for longer than five to seven years at a minimum?
If not, you're not buying.
Are you
In a position in your career.
To potentially have the opportunity to make massive leaps and bounds.
For a little bit of flexibility. So
Is there a chance you might be transferred to the Tokyo office? You being able to be flexible.
Might be the reason why you get that position versus somebody else.
And having that flex might help you. So
Renters.
When you're going to be able to do
But
There is something to be said about building equity.
Ask yourself this question. Do you want to build that equity in your primary residence? Or would it be smarter to maybe just buy an investment property?
somewhere that is a little cheaper and then continuing to rent your primary residence.
If you are planning on building out a family and you really want to paint the walls and you wanna have the nursery and you wanna do all of these things, maybe renting is not the right move. Maybe you wanna buy. Again, we go back to that five to seven years at a minimum because the fixed costs.
of buying a home are very expensive.
You have mortgage origination fees and you gotta pay some broker fees, you gotta pay Fee Fi Fo Fum.
If you're gonna pay all that, you gotta be staying there for at least a little bit.
All right. Um
Car ownership. Yeah. Lease or buy or Uber only.
It's up to you. I actually don't own a car. My husband and I actually tinkered around with the idea of getting one, but I think
From ease of not having to pay for parking, not having to pay for gas, not having to pay for insurance.
I am not
commuting so much that I would actually need that. I split my time Miami and New York. In New York, there is ample public transportation. In Miami, I largely work from home. And if I do need to go somewhere, I can call a ride chair. Um
But I just think that like you have to factor in all of the costs.
Not just the cost of buying the car or leasing the car.
It's the insurance, it's the gas, it's the maintenance. It's I want a car every time I need to go buy groceries. I'm like
Wow, would be so nice to have a trunk, but
I think about you know
all the money that I'm saving, I'll just order Instacart. Like
I think you have to think about how much you're driving.
So for folks who need to commute for work, that's a really big
Question, but also if you are trying to buy something, you need to be willing to drive that thing into the ground.
If you are leasing and you want to have something new every other year, great, but like just know that like you might be
paying more for that. So
It's it's all uh it's up to you.
Personal finance is personal. I really do believe that.
So um
What does it mean to be rich?
Is it is it a number?
It's not a number. I think having true wealth is having
the ability to make decisions where finance isn't a consideration factor.
The greatest asset that rich people have is like not having to think about money.
So
When you are in the position to be like I can
wait because I don't need this gig or I I I wanna, you know, take wait for a different job, even if it doesn't pay as well. I want something that I really believe in. When you have that time freedom, when you have that choice freedom, I think that's truly being rich.
Mm.
Should I live for today or save for tomorrow?
Why not do both, Bob? I think you can still have a little bit of fun today, but also make sure that you're taking care of tomorrow, you because
You know, I know so many people are like, Well, an asteroid's gonna hit the earth and it's not gonna matter anyway. Sure, okay, but what if it doesn't? What if the asteroid does not hit us and then you're sixty, sixty five, and you don't have a dollar saved.
Which by the way, one in four Americans has zero dollar safe for retirement.
If you have nothing.
You're gonna really regret it. You're gonna be older.
Maybe all your friends are retired.
And now you're gonna be working until you die.
And that sucks.

Twenty twenty six. Do you have one piece of
personal finance advice you'd give to almost
Anyone.
Something to have.
Wrap this up.
Be very, very choosy.
with who you decide to spend the rest of your life with because your partner is the biggest financial decision you will ever make.
Life is so hard already.
You cannot afford to have a hater at home.
It has been shown in studies that people with conscientious partners
On average, every single year make four percent more.
This is someone who
understands you when you're busy at work, understands that you may not be as attentive to the dishes. This is someone who encourages you to take those big swings. This is that person who backs you, who's your number one cheerleader
And
I didn't you didn't hear me say this person has no debt. You didn't hear me say this person is very, very wealthy and comes from, you know, an
Oligarch family.
What you heard me say is you want a partner.
Who understands you
Who values a dollar the same way you do.
I have a husband that when we met
He made so much more money than me. He never made me feel less than for making less than he did.
And now I am the breadwinner in our family.
And
You have never seen someone more proud.
He is my number one fan.
He has been my number one supporter.
And I think that
I spend the entire day fighting the rest of the world.
I get to come home.
And I've I've someone
to fall into and just someone who I know is gonna be there for me. And I think we should all have that.
Well, Vivian, congratulations,'cause not everyone can find that. So uh Yeah, you know. I found him in the basement of a dive bar, so you can find love in a hopeless place.
You never know.
You never know.
Well, Vivian, this was great. Thanks. Thanks so much for doing it.
Thank you so much for having me.
Gotta say, I have a lot of heart for Vivian and not just because I was also running a personal finance media platform when I was her age.
I love that she boils down the complexity that hinders so many financial decisions into their essence, and I love that she's willing to be vulnerable from her own car ownership decisions to her relationship with her husband.
My time working in personal finance was so useful in part because it trained me to prioritize what's really most important, what's worth spending on or investing on, and what's a distraction. Whether we're talking about our personal finances or our businesses,
Building the right habits, asking the right questions, and zeroing in on what matters most.
That really is the road to value creation.
Whether you count that in dollars, or share value, or in human relationships.
I'm Bob Safian.
Thanks for listening.
Rapid response is a wait what original.
I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina.
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