Aspire Insights: How Not Talking About Money Is Stopping You From Making It with Nicole Lapin

In this episode of Aspire, Emma dives deep into one of her favorite topics: money! She sits down with bestselling author and financial expert Nicole Lapin to break down why we so often avoid money talk—and how that silence holds us back. Nicole reveals how she conquered her own debt using the “avalanche” method (tackling high-interest balances first) and how to master simple money lingo—ROI, APY, EBITDA—so you never feel lost in a finance convo again. We also cover how just $200 a month in an S&P 500 index fund at age 35 can balloon into roughly $500K by retirement, and why the “age in bonds” rule—your age in bonds, the rest in stocks—is a solid starting point. Plus: automating “set and forget” investments, keeping crypto under 1% of your net worth, and calculating the real “opportunity cost” of a home down payment (hint: sometimes renting wins). This isn’t just about numbers—it’s about mindset. Nicole shares her story of losing her home in the Los Angeles wildfires and turning scarcity into abundance, proving that talking openly about money is the first step to freedom. Whether you’re drowning in debt or ready to make your first investment, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you take control of your finances—and finally feel good about your money.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Welcome to the Aspire Podcast with me, Emma Grede. So today I want to talk to you guys about something a lot of people don't want to talk about, something that's often considered taboo, and that something is money. Now, I'm not just talking about the dollars and cents, but the psychology of money and why we make certain financial decisions and how you can make your money work for you. Money holds so many of us back, but I strongly believe that it can also set you free if you have the right information and you're asking the right questions. I actually want to help you begin your journey towards financial freedom, which is why today I'm speaking to my guest, Nicole Lapin. She's a bestselling author and the go-to money expert for anyone

• 0:50Emma Grede?

  looking to take control of their finances. You might know her from her books like Rich Bitch, Boss Bitch, Miss Independent, and no, they're not all about me, or maybe her most recent book, The Money School. She's been a financial journalist for major networks like CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. She's one of the youngest ever anchors in business news, and she's on a mission to help people build wealth without the BS or the jargon. Her podcast, Money Rehab, is one of the most popular finance podcasts out there.

• 1:29Emma Grede?

  Welcome to Aspire, Nicole.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:32Emma Grede?

  Thank you so much. I am so happy to have you here today. I cannot tell you.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  I am so happy with your shirt, too.

• 1:38Emma Grede?

  I bought this for you. This was all for you. And honestly, I think it's, this was supposed to be like a little bit of an icebreaker for us. This is my favorite shirt. I call it my money shirt because I wear it on very special days when I'm, you know, expecting big things to happen. I think we should start in the place that, you know, just get it out of the way. Why do people find it so hard to talk about money?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's the last taboo that we have in society. We'll talk about sex, no problem. We'll talk about bikini walks, no problem. Dinner with our girlfriends. I'm like, you just told me about your landing strip and you're not telling me about what's in your bank account. This is crazy. I think maybe mental health and fertility is still taboo, but money is the last taboo we have. And I think that we... Just attribute so much stuff to money that's not necessary. Our value, our worth is tied into money, but really money is just a tool. It's like a hammer that you can build a house with or you can tear it down. So I think the more we start talking about it, the more we join the conversation and the more we make more of it. And if you want to have that conversation, go first.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  I think any hard conversation about, you know, addiction, whatever else you want to talk about, you have to go first and then it gives license to the other person to do the same thing.

• 2:57Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I feel like that might be one of the reasons that I have less of an issue because I'm always talking about it. And it just gives everybody else around me the freedom to speak about it. But I think it's been so long that's like so ingrained in us. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about like the common misconceptions, like almost like the lies that we tell ourselves about money.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  So many, oh my gosh, we have like the greatest hits in our head, right? I'm too old to start. I don't have enough money and I'm not a numbers person. And so let's talk about that.

• 3:30Emma Grede?

  That's a big one for women.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:31Emma Grede?

  I mean, I will say that I'm dyslexic, but for so long I would say I'm not a numbers person. And therefore I need X, Y, and Z all around me. But it was like an excuse to not become better with numbers, which I've had to do.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I started as a poetry major. I, I was, I wanted to sit under the tree and read sonnets all day long. I didn't think I was going to ever talk about money, be in finance, teach other people about it. I'm the least likely person to be doing that. And the reality is you don't need to be a math wizard. You just need to have fifth grade math level to get your financial life together. So if I could do it, anyone could do it. It's really the humanities part that gets in people's way. It's getting our friend to pay us back, talking to her or somebody else about money, all that other stuff that gets in the way. And as for the other excuses, you're never as young as you are today. So as far as I'm concerned today, this is as good a day as any.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  And you don't need a lot of money to start. You need the most time possible.

• 4:32Emma Grede?

  So how did you even start your career in money? If you wanted to be a poet, how did you even get to this?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  And by the way, sneak a tag, some iambic pentameter and other things that just make me happy are in my books. You know, I didn't have the luxury to go out and do what I love. So I had the opportunities present themselves and I jumped at them because I needed a job and I was asked if I knew about business news when I was 18. And I said, yes. And I was like, absolutely. I love business.

• 4:59Emma Grede?

  Make it till you make it.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Till you make it. I'll figure out. I'm like, I'll figure it out harder things in life. And that's, that's exactly what I did. I realized that money is just a language like anything else.

• 5:09Emma Grede?

  I love that you say that. But when you talk about like money being a language, what do you even, what do you mean by that?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It's so much jargon that keeps us out of these conversations, right? There are so many acronyms that we think we can't learn. But the truth is, we learned a lot of acronyms in school.

• 5:24Emma Grede?

  A hundred percent. I feel like I got that so much in my early days in business. I would sit in meetings and, you know, people would think that I'm just taking random notes and I'd actually be writing all of those acronyms down so I could go back and Google them later. But it's hard to, it's hard to be part of a conversation and to have the confidence that you need if you don't know that. So where do people start? Because I feel like so often our relationships with money are formed early in our life, right? They come from our childhood experiences, from where our family, you know, like had their relationships. Do you find that we carry those stories with us throughout our lives and that's where it all begins?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yes, it does. So much financial trauma in a lot of different ways, whether it's in our family. So I, I'll just go first. You know, I saw my house foreclosed on when I was a child. I bailed my mother out of jail using cash under the sink behind the maxi pads. You know, I'll never forget that. I talk about it in one of my books. I have serious, serious, like heavy financial trauma. The first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem, but the only problem you can't fix is when you don't admit you have. And so any of this financial trauma, just like look at it, acknowledge it. And move on.

• 6:36Emma Grede?

  So how do you even begin to start? If you've got that stuff, which I feel like all of us have, memories, you have so much, you know, built into you habits. How do you even begin to unwind and unpack some of that? Like, how do you start to have a healthy relationship where money's concerned?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  What are those habits? And, you know, I think we spend so much time doing

• 7:00Speaker 01

  everything else. I'm like looking up a blender.

• 7:03Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  We spend three hours looking up the best air fryer. We spend, you know, five days looking up the best vacation. We spend so much time doing these things. We think we don't have time. But what about automating our investments? Or setting up a financial system for yourself? Reading a book, listening to a podcast, teaching yourself about index funds? You've figured out harder things in life. And I think it's about baby steps. This is a huge, complicated topic. And so my books are broken down into steps, you know, because I think anything really complicated, broken down into baby steps, feels easier and more manageable.

• 7:39Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  The first time I tried to do my taxes, I thought I was just gonna do them all on Saturday night and I had

• 7:45Emma Grede?

  Sadly not.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I ended up with a bottle of wine and some Hagen Dazs. There was no taxes done. But then I decided, okay, I'm just gonna one day uncrinkle my receipts.

• 7:57Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  That's it. Like, today, I'm just gonna do that. And that's gonna be a success.

• 8:00Emma Grede?

  Tiny little step. Well, I just think that the, the idea of financial instability is so deeply rooted for so many people that they just become patterns. So you, you've got to try to unlearn some of those patterns. I actually think, I mean, I can say a lot of things about my childhood, but the one thing that I learned was real, you know, how to be disciplined around your finances. I think still to this day, I know the price of everything. I sat with my mother and she, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. And so she really had to be meticulous about planning the finances. This amount of money was coming in, this amount was going out. And it would be like every single expense would be listed. And it's still the way that I think about that. But it's a muscle, right? The more you do it, the more you learn, the more you start to think about, okay, outside of

• 8:45Emma Grede?

  The day in, day out, how do I look to the future? And I wonder if you think, is there ever a time when you can just turn it off? Can you say, all right, goodbye to my past, goodbye to all the bad things that I've learned? Now I'm going to go forward. And where do you even start?

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Honestly, no, I mean, I still, no matter what's in my bank account, I still carry it. I would be lying to you. I can't lie, I'm a terrible liar. I always forget my lies anyway, so I just don't do it. I still have this irrational fear of being broke, alone and homeless and dying in the gutter. And by the way, right now, I technically am homeless after losing my house in the fires.

• 9:20Emma Grede?

  I'm so sorry to hear that.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 9:21Emma Grede?

  It's devastating.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  It's, but even now, after all these years, like it just presses on the deepest, darkest insecurities and traumas that I have.

• 9:31Emma Grede?

  Oh, I can't imagine.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, you're scared of being homeless? Here you go. You know, what are you going to do now? And I think it's recognizing those greatest hits. I think it's like the greatest trauma hits that you have. So I think of it as like logs down a river or something. Oh, hey, hey, nice to see you again, trauma about being homeless. Hello, nice to see you about ruminating about, you know, your ex or whatever.

• 9:56Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Whatever your latest greatest hit is, it's about just acknowledging that it's there.

• 10:02Emma Grede?

  I've heard you speak a little bit about this scarcity mentality and how that's like so much a part of you. I, I wonder if you can just tell me more about that because I think it's something that so many people have.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  I actually have a mixed relationship with this because I think that so much of that scarcity drove me. Like I didn't have a fallback plan. I didn't have another option. You know, I hated money. I was like, I want to be a poet. I don't want to talk about money, but I needed to figure it out because I had no other choice. And so some of that drove me, so I wouldn't. You know, wish I didn't have it because I have to, you know, reframe it as a superpower, not as a, as a weakness.

• 10:41Emma Grede?

  And you mean that it drove you, like it drove your ambition and your, like how intense you were about going after things?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:47Emma Grede?

  Yeah, of course.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I, yeah, having, having the abundance and I, I don't think that I would have stuck with finance or the opportunities that I was given, you know? I think it's a luxury to go out and do what you love.

• 11:00Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  And, and go after this passion, like that's cool.

• 11:03Emma Grede?

  So then how do you even decide like to go, you know, you, you decided not to be a poet, even though you write books and I'm sure there's an element of that in there. So when you're thinking about a career and when anyone's thinking about a career, how do you decide about, you know, diving towards what your passions are or like going for the money? Cause I'm pretty sure that that is a very real decision for a lot of people, especially in this time that we're in right now.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, Emma, I think we have the equation wrong. I think that it's not passion that leads to success, it's success that leads to passion. The more successful I became, the more I liked this. That's a truth.

• 11:41Emma Grede?

  I love that you say that. I really love that. I think, cause I think there's a lot of people out there that are trying really hard to find their passions. And I always talk about this idea of being excellent at something, like just being so good that you get so into it and you become so brilliant and then it turns in, as you quite rightly say, to your passion.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:00Emma Grede?

  You should speak about that a little bit more, cause I think there's a lot of people wandering around looking for a passion.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's nothing wrong. I'm very passionate about making money and like feeding my family.

• 12:09Emma Grede?

  So you think it's completely fine to actually go, you know what, I'm just gonna head for this specific career because there's money over there?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Or you're good at something and then it just, you know, continues to make you feel more passionate about it because you're successful at it.

• 12:24Emma Grede?

  That's the truth, and I feel like that's the journey for so many people. So what do you do if, you know, I know so many people that in, you know, their early days, it's like you come out of college or university or perhaps like me, you didn't even go. But you get yourself into trouble because of those bad habits, because of, you know, how you've learned to grow up with or without money and what your, you know, patterns are, and you get into debt. I feel like one of the things that holds people back so much is this, you know, they literally feel like they have nowhere to go because they're in debt. So how do you even think about getting yourself out of debt?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Well, I was there when I first got a credit card because I grew up in an immigrant family. So, you know, first generation Americans use cash a lot. Don't talk about mortgages, don't talk about debt, none of that stuff. And so when I finally got a credit card, I got myself into a lot of credit card debt because I didn't understand how it worked. And then I figured out how to get out of it the hard way. And I actually broke that down into baby steps where I remember that it was seven dollars a day. Because when you look at that big number, you know, it's $10,000. I was like, there's never, there's no way I'm going to get $10,000. But then if you broke it down, okay, here's the plan. I came up with a plan to prioritize to pulverize with my alliteration. And, uh, and I broke it down that way and I, you know, got out of it that way.

• 13:42Emma Grede?

  So how did you go from someone who was once somebody in debt to somebody that's then investing?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  So that force of compound interest, once I figured it out, because, you know, I, I didn't work at a bank, didn't get my MBA. You know, speak like I would speak to you here and, and if we were at dinner and, and try to break through that jargon. But when I was like, oh, this is the same thing that can be used in investing to grow my money while I'm doing nothing. So like my money makes me more money? That is so cool.

• 14:17Emma Grede?

  And how much money are we talking about? Because if you, if you're in debt, like, what did you start with?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  So I'll give you, um, an example. I started with a couple hundred dollars a month. And it truly is that easy, uh, when you're looking at compound interest.

• 14:30Emma Grede?

  And do you advocate for people starting to invest, like, when in their life? Like, do you say you should, you should start at 20 years old? You should start at 35 years old? Like, when is the time to do it?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Today is a great day to do it. And, and I think that we get in our heads about that. We didn't start early enough. You know, I remember reporting on the, I was broke as hell, uh, reporting on the floor of the Chicago Merc, which I thought was a mall.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Okay, this is the stock exchange of Chicago. About Apple launching their first iPod. You know, Google launching Gmail. If I bought Google and Apple back then, like I kick myself all the time. Right? We all have this like, oh, I wish I could have done that. But as early as you can start, the more you can take advantage of that force of compound interest. You can also do it for your kids. Like, I just had a baby and

• 15:23Emma Grede?

  Congratulations.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Thank you. Custodial Roth IRAs are amazing, like $7,000 a year. If you contribute tax-free, triple tax benefit.

• 15:33Emma Grede?

  Unbelievable. And you would set that up for your kid immediately?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Like, yes, out of the womb.

• 15:39Emma Grede?

  Out of the womb, straight away.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  She's crowning.

• 15:41Emma Grede?

  Well, this sounds so interesting. So talk to me about some money habits, like the money habits of the highly successful people. Like, what do most people do that everybody should know about?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Oh, so many things.

• 15:53Emma Grede?

  What should they do?

• 15:54Speaker 01

  So many things. So I have broke friends and I have rich friends. I'm sure you do too.

• 15:59Emma Grede?

  I do.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  My broke friends talk about people, gossip, celebrities, whatever. My, my rich friends talk about process. Who's your wealth manager? What are you doing? How are you setting up your trust? Are you doing a grat? You know, did you get an SBA loan? This is, these are the conversations that we should be having. I've never seen a reality show in my entire life, so I can't keep up with those conversations. But I think that once we start.

• 16:23Emma Grede?

  They're not talking about those things, just so you know. You're not missing anything.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Once we start having those conversations, we can, you know, get better. And the only way to do that is to actually join the conversation. And, you know, look, I think that rich people don't operate in the same way. Bill Gates, if he's buying a house, is not putting down 20% in cash. He's borrowing against a portfolio. Borrowing is really, really powerful.

• 16:50Emma Grede?

  Oh, I want to talk to you about borrowing.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Debt.

• 16:52Emma Grede?

  I'm obsessed with this idea because I was raised to think

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 16:56Emma Grede?

  that borrowing was absolutely off the table. No credit cards, don't spend what you haven't got. Like, that is like a slippery, slippery slope. But as I've got older and actually made some money, I've understood that borrowing is really my friend. And I often think about it. I'm like, why would I be spending my own money on this?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like OPM. Other people's money.

• 17:17Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  That's like what rich people do. You borrow other people's money at a lower interest rate than you can make. So there's a 7% rule. So if you have debt and you're listening to this and you're like, okay, but I have debt. I want to start investing. What do I do first? And that's a common, common issue. So 7% is usually the threshold. So the stock market will yield about 10% over time. Not next Tuesday. Don't freak out. Over long periods of time. And that's inflation adjusted. So if your debt is higher than that, so if you have credit card debt at 20%, pay that off before you start investing. But if you have a low interest rate student debt

• 17:58Speaker 01

  or a business loan or some other really low interest rate below 7%, you can make more by investing. And you could take that spread or the difference between what you're spending on the debt and what you're making in investments.

• 18:13Emma Grede?

  And this is what you advocate for people to do all the time.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's called arbitrage's fancy word for just saying like, how to hack the system. It's this language that I think keeps people out of the financial system. And then they charge you to learn about it. And it's really not that complicated. It's like equity is the same as stocks. That's it.

• 18:35Emma Grede?

  We spend a lot of time thinking about how to get more value out of the things we buy. But one of the biggest payments most people make every month is for housing. And historically, that's been left out of the rewards conversation. That's why Bilt is such an interesting concept. As a Bilt member, you can earn points on your housing payments, whether you rent or own. And those points can be redeemed towards things like flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and even future housing payments. And the membership goes beyond your housing payments. You can link any credit card or debit card to the Bilt app and earn points on eligible purchases at participating restaurants and other businesses in your neighborhood. The app also has a neighborhood concierge that can help you book a fitness class,

• 19:19Emma Grede?

  make a dinner reservation, or schedule a Lyft while automatically applying your member benefits. Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com/emma. That's J O I N B I L T dot com slash emma. Use our link so they know we sent you.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Do you ever wish you could ask nosey questions about people's money?

• 19:42Speaker 03

  I have $729.71 in my bank account. We bought, you know, a $1.3 million house on a $350,000 income.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  On the podcast, What We Spend, we ask those questions. It's a show about money and all the feelings that come with spending it.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  I want to be the kind of person who can just take care of the people in my life.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Listen to What We Spend, an Odyssey original, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:14Emma Grede?

  The large majority of people don't have money to invest, but I'm really interested to understand like some money habits or rules that are just like if you're an everyday person, you have a salary, you don't have a lot, like what are the habits that you should put in place to just have like the best financial health?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I think, thinking of it as health, actually, financial health, because we think about self-care and we think about like a deep tissue massage and I love a deep tissue massage as much as the next girl. But also think about, you know, taking care of automating your investments or your savings. That should be self-care too. And so financial self-care is really important. Financial health is part of your overall health. Having financial stress, anxiety, all of these things can affect your actual health. So viewing it as health and I think just coming up with those baby steps and one thing, you know, one thing a day. So today, you're just going to figure out what your interest rates are, just like find it out, list it by highest to lowest.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  There are two methods for paying off debt, the avalanche method, the snowball method. The avalanche method is way better, is where you pay off your highest interest rate debt first because that gets out of control.

• 21:24Emma Grede?

  That's a tip. And what else would you do? Like how much, how much planning, how much foresight, how much should you look in the future or should you really be thinking about the day to day? Cause I think for so many people, you know, they're thinking about their groceries, they're thinking about their bills, they're thinking about, you know, their kids in school and it's all so immediate and in the moment. So at what point do you start thinking about the long term? What like, when do you think about retirement and, you know, like just old age?

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Studies have shown that we think of our old lady selves as different human beings, but we can, you know?

• 21:59Emma Grede?

  Definitely.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  We don't think we're ever gonna be that fabulous, you know, old Betty White.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Whatever you're imagining in your head. And so, you know, as soon as you get a paycheck, honestly, it's something, it's not thinking about every day. It's setting it and forgetting it. Set it up once, you're good. Setting up an automated system, you know, contributing to any retirement account. So you don't need a 401k. If you work for yourself, you can get an IRA, which is an individual retirement account. There's a whole bunch of delicious varieties of IRAs too, that you can get, you know, using the compound interest force, the beautiful, amazing force, will grow even a small amount of money over time.

• 22:42Emma Grede?

  And where do you think people should get that type of information from? Like where, how do you make those decisions? Because for most people, they're really working with their employer, whatever's in place. Like, how do you even begin to do that research?

• 22:54Speaker 01

  I'm really on a mission now to make sure that people are actually allocating the money that they put in their investment accounts. Because some people think that they're contributing to it. So $7,000 a year into an IRA, you actually have to decide where that's going. You can't just fund it. Otherwise, it's sitting there just like, you know, a checking account. But any of these investments are just a matter of risk and reward. So lower risk, lower reward. Higher risk, higher reward. And if you're just starting out and you're like, I don't know, this market, it's crazy. I need a valium. You know, you can look at lower risk investments, like CDs, bonds. So what's cool about debt is that when you're the one holding the paper or the debt, it's awesome. So you can do that.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  You can be the lender, basically, to banks or governments in the form of CDs or bonds. So treasury bonds are basically, you're lending the US government money. And for the privilege of doing whatever they want with your money, they're going to give you your money back after a certain period of time, plus interest. So they're going to build a road or a bridge or whatever. And then they're going to give you that money back. It's guaranteed. It's principal protected. And you're not going to make as much as you would in the stock market.

• 24:06Emma Grede?

  But it's pretty safe.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  But it's pretty safe.

• 24:07Emma Grede?

  But it's pretty safe.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  And it's something, and you need to make more than, ideally, 3% a year. Because if you're not, then you're going to lose out on your purchasing power because of inflation. So inflation. On average is three percent every year.

• 24:21Emma Grede?

  But you have this feeling that I love that you say set it and forget it. So you are really about like taking what you can, putting it over there and then really walking away and forgetting about it.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Come up with a process once. Yeah, I'm not like playing with my investments every single day, are you?

• 24:36Emma Grede?

  Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  It's coming up with a plan, sticking to the plan. When investments are down and it's it's looking red, your instinct is to get the F out of there. You're like, everybody's selling, I need to get my money, my whatever's left. I gotta take it, I gotta hold it. But the actual, you know, the right thing to do historically, if you look at large data sets, which are my favorite, um, it is to buy more. So when it's low.

• 25:06Emma Grede?

  Double down.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  You have to do the opposite of what your instinct is. And when it's high, you sell, right? Or depending on what whatever the asset is, it's just buy low, sell high. We want to do the opposite.

• 25:17Emma Grede?

  I just wonder how you even start. Let's say, for example, we've got somebody who is a salary based employee and they get a bonus. You know, they get their end of year bonus and it's a $15,000 bonus. What would you advocate for them to do?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  It's coming up with this with this idea that, you know, if you have no debt and it's in like a vacuum, I just got 15K, uh, my instinct is to go buy stuff.

• 25:42Emma Grede?

  Stuff.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  I would advocate stocks over stuff. I can tell you that, um, you know.

• 25:48Emma Grede?

  Really always? Like if you buy like a piece of vintage clothing or a piece of vintage jewelry, that's not an investment?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Certain things have outperformed the market for sure. Birkins have been, um, over time, you know, good investments. But you know, like, I think even from.

• 26:05Emma Grede?

  But they're few and far between these fashion things, right? It's like, really, we're saying it's not a handbag, it's a different kind of financial strategy.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that if you.

• 26:16Emma Grede?

  Financial product.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  I'm not saying like, don't treat yourself, but see what that could do over time, just for funsies. Like, put it in a compound interest calculator and see like, okay, I'm gonna buy this, you know, designer or whatever, what would that do in the market over time? You could buy like five of those things. Funny story, I talk about this in in one of my books. When I was growing up, I was always jealous of the girls. Who wore those big chunky Tiffany bracelets? I was like, oh, my God, I can't.

• 26:44Emma Grede?

  With a little dangle?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, with the dangle. I wanted it so bad.

• 26:47Emma Grede?

  I actually was very jealous of those girls, too. I really was. That's the truth.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I like, I remember I would have like the fake Doc Martens and then that'd be called like Nurse Martin because I wasn't Doc Martin or whatever. This stuff like sticks with you. I don't remember what I did, you know, yesterday, but I remember the girl's name who called me Nurse Martin. So, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have that financial trauma. I, when I finally made enough money, um, I heard from that girl. Like, I got an email from her. Um, I was on TV or whatever and she's like, hey, so congratulations. I'm like, hmm. I, my instinct was to run to Tiffany's. I like jumped in a cab, went uptown and I was like, I'm gonna buy this freaking dangly bracelet once and for all and I'm gonna like feel really good about it.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  And I go and I look at this like sterling silver section and I'm like, and I stopped and I actually ran outside and I got Tiffany's stock instead.

• 27:42Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And with that stock, I could buy bracelets for everybody.

• 27:47Emma Grede?

  Wow, you really did that?

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:49Emma Grede?

  How did you even begin to educate yourself in what to invest in?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  So I think that what I realized is that nobody can beat the market. So many people try. They all want to know quick stock tips, quick get rich, quick ideas, quick, quick, quick. You know, everything. Like, there's like.

• 28:06Emma Grede?

  What about culture?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Dad joke, right? The fastest, easiest way to, you know, double your money is to fold it in half. There's actually no easy way to do it. I want my investments to be boring as hell, like slow, steady, unsexy. That is how you grow well.

• 28:24Emma Grede?

  Give me an example of those. What's slow and steady and growing?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  S and P 500 index fund.

• 28:30Emma Grede?

  Sexy, okay. An index fund.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Give me an index fund.

• 28:34Emma Grede?

  Not like some brand that you love that just went public, right? You're not like my favorite C to C brand and now they've like gone public. That is not it. We're talking about old school, established, like market sell wall.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:47Emma Grede?

  Got it.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Yes, all day. And, you know. Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of our time.

• 28:53Emma Grede?

  We love Warren.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  I love you, Warren. Put that in his will for his own wife to do with his money when he passes.

• 28:58Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  He is the greatest investor. If he is saying like, it is so hard to beat the market, why are we trying to beat it? Just join it.

• 29:05Emma Grede?

  Yeah, well, as Warren would say, nobody wants to get rich slow. And meanwhile, it's the single best thing to do from one of the richest guys in the world.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  We all want like this quick fix. And I realized that there was no quick fix. And there was no easy like elevator to the top.

• 29:22Emma Grede?

  So you've just got to educate yourself. You need to be aware, be out there and know that actually there are better things to do with your money than A, spend it, or B, try to think that jewelry or clothes might be an investment. It really is about choosing these like slow, steady investments that you know over time. Yes, boring, but over time are actually going to perform for you.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Totally, and I think that's, that's the most exciting of them all. And that's what actually gives me security and safety. You know, we think that like the purchase is going to do it. And it never does, you're just masking something else. And don't get me wrong, I think that the sweet spot is somewhere in between. I don't know where, it's different for everybody, but thinking you're going to live forever and thinking you're going to die tomorrow.

• 30:06Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Because we actually tend to be on one of those two extremes.

• 30:09Emma Grede?

  Yeah, totally. Well, and also, I mean, you've just gone through like a huge life trauma, right? So after losing your house in the fires, in the palisades, you must be sitting there with like that, like it's, it's right there in front of you, right? You've lost every material thing you have, but I'm guessing if, if you practice what you preach, you're okay.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:31Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  I had a lot of stocks. I, but I also had a lot of.

• 30:35Emma Grede?

  They don't burn. They don't burn.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  But I also had a lot of stuff and I wish I had more stocks than stuff.

• 30:40Emma Grede?

  You do.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  I really do, still. Uh, you know, and, and everything that you think is going to bring you stability. It's, it's just, it's shaken everything I thought about what that looks like. Because you can, you can lose your house, you can lose your office, you can, you know, if you think a house is going to bring you stability, uh, it's not.

• 31:00Emma Grede?

  No, and you have the thing that matters. You have, and that's not the stocks, just for the avoidance of doubt. But it's like, you have your family, you have like everything that you've worked for in that sense. And so that's just so much more meaningful at this point, no?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:16Emma Grede?

  Yeah, it has to be.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  It has to be.

• 31:19Emma Grede?

  Thank you for that. So switching a gear, I really wanna know with all of your experience, what's the best financial advice you have been given?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely buy low, sell high. And also to to run what the numbers are. I think taking anything as gospel is not great advice. You know, buying a house, not buying a latte. The reason I started into this was hearing a lot of these so-called financial experts yell at me for buying a latte and then yell at me to buy a house. And I'm like, there is no one size fits all for everybody. Like, I wanted to buy a latte and rent. And the financial gods didn't kill me. Like, we're good. There's, if you wanna move around, it's probably not a good idea to buy. We've been told that this idea of homeownership is the path to wealth. It could be, but maybe it's not.

• 32:12Emma Grede?

  Do you think that's changed now? Because that's one of the things that I wanted to ask you about. I mean, my whole life, I've been raised to think that the most important thing that you can do for wealth creation is to put your money into bricks and mortar, buy a house as soon as you can, have a mortgage, rent, like, take rent off the table. Do you think that's completely, like, ill advice at this point?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Depends on who you are. You know, renting is not throwing away money. When you buy, there's so many costs that people don't consider.

• 32:41Emma Grede?

  It's like renting is not throwing away money. Please, tell me why.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  It's because there's an opportunity cost. So a lot of people also become house poor, which I certainly don't advocate. And we can talk about the numbers here, but they don't account for the closing costs, the insurance, the property taxes. Even if you pay off your house after thirty years, or whatever mortgage you get, you're still gonna have property taxes. You're still gonna have insurance that's only gonna go up. And you still have maintenance. So like, the house, you know, the roof falls down. That's you. You're in charge of that. You have to pay for all of these other hidden costs. And you're missing out on this opportunity cost of this down payment. So the opportunity cost is really important. I mean, a lot of rich people rent, especially if they're moving around a lot.

• 33:22Emma Grede?

  So but just, I just wanna make sure I understand that properly. When you talk about opportunity costs, you're talking about what you would have put in as a down payment. What else can you do with that cash?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Can you put it in the market? Can you invest? Can you get 10%? You know, over time, housing is four or 5%. But that's not keeping pace with the overall stock market.

• 33:40Emma Grede?

  Absolutely. As you've just told us.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:42Emma Grede?

  So you could actually take that money that you were thinking of as the down payment to your house and decide that that's what you're going to put in the market and make it work for you, and then you have the compound in interest.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Totally. And you have to just, again, run whatever the numbers are. Don't assume that it's the right investment for you just because you've been told that over and over again. It is, you know, a really accessible investment for a lot of Americans to, to try and put equity into a house. A house is not a good investment. It is a home. It can be a whole bunch of other things. You can decide to buy a house because like that makes you feel good and you want that for your family. That's a different discussion than being a good investment. Being a good investment is owning an asset that appreciates. That could be a house. That could be a stock. That could be a business. Owning an asset that appreciates is a good investment. A house is not necessarily a good investment. Also, it's 10 years.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  If you think you're going to move around before 10 years, it's not a good idea to buy. You have closing costs, you have other stuff. You know, you're not going to get that capital appreciation that you would think. And you're not necessarily perhaps incorporating inflation. You hear these stories, grandma bought a house, you know, for 25 grand. Now it's 250 grand. It's the best investment. What, like, how much were movie tickets when grandma bought the house?

• 34:58Emma Grede?

  Exactly. It's a different day. We don't hear those stories anymore. It's a totally different time. But I was going to say, do you advocate against buying a house then? Would you say that's just not your recommendation now?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  I think it really depends on what your overall plan is.

• 35:13Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Just don't assume that it's the only way to build wealth. It's not.

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• 36:23Speaker 06

  Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher.

• 36:25Speaker 07

  And I'm Scott Galloway.

• 36:26Speaker 06

  And we want to tell you about Pivot, our twice-weekly podcast.

• 36:29Speaker 07

  That's right, Kara. What a thrill. It's a chance for us to break down all the big things happening in tech, business, and politics.

• 36:36Speaker 06

  Yes, and I keep you in check so people can make it through each episode, whether it's digging into constant changes in the world of AI and social media, or trying to keep up with whatever the fuck Elon is doing. We're here to give you our take on all of that.

• 36:47Speaker 07

  Every Tuesday and Friday morning, we drop a new episode about some of the major stories of the moment.

• 36:53Speaker 06

  And Scott is a prediction machine, gazing into his crystal ball to tell you about where it's all heading.

• 36:58Speaker 07

  That's right.

• 36:59Speaker 06

  So if that sounds like a good time for you, especially Mr. "That's right", you can follow us on your favorite podcast app to get new episodes every week.

• 37:15Emma Grede?

  I'm interested to know what your own portfolio actually looks like. Like, what do you do?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  So I love low-cost S and P 500 index funds. So should we just unpack really quickly what the heck that means?

• 37:27Emma Grede?

  Please.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  So let's just start with an index. So when you hear on the news, like, the Dow is up, the Dow is down, that's an index. It's just like a barometer of what the overall market is doing. The Dow is 30 biggest, most powerful stocks. You know, the S and P 500 are 500 stocks. The Nasdaq is another index. It's tech-heavy. So. When you're buying an index fund, you're buying a piece of all of those companies, basically. And so instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, you're buying an investment that will give you some exposure to all of those companies.

• 37:59Emma Grede?

  So it's basically like hedging a little bit? You're hedging your bets?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what's great about these indexes is if they suck, they get kicked out.

• 38:07Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  So you're really like

• 38:09Emma Grede?

  You're somewhat protected.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Quality control is good. But again, it's over time that those are yielding

• 38:15Emma Grede?

  How much time? Are we talking like two years, three years? What's the amount of time?

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Big swaths of time.

• 38:21Emma Grede?

  Do you have like hard and fast rules for how much you should be putting, you know, how much should you save? How much goes into your retirement fund? How much should you invest? Like, how do you think about that?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  So generally for a portfolio, the basic rule of thumb is put your age in bonds. So what the heck is a bond? It's, you know, is a safer investment. It's fixed income. It will give you your initial investment back plus a little extra.

• 38:44Emma Grede?

  So you put your age, however old you are?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  As a percentage.

• 38:47Emma Grede?

  As a percentage.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  So I'm forty one, so I'd put forty one percent in bonds and then I'd put the rest in more risky investments, stocks. So, you know, sixty percent, fifty nine percent in stocks. Or you take a little bit of that, I would say no more than one percent in fun stuff like crypto.

• 39:04Emma Grede?

  I was gonna ask you about crypto. Do you believe in crypto? How do you feel? How do you feel about crypto?

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Crypto, I say no more than one percent of your net worth. And everybody has a net worth. You don't have to be rich.

• 39:17Emma Grede?

  No more than one percent?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Because one percent, you can afford to lose. But you also can't afford to lose out if that one percent becomes a hundred percent.

• 39:26Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  So I personally, if you're going to play in the crypto party,

• 39:33Speaker 01

  I would stick to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a scarce asset, so there's only twenty one million Bitcoins mined ever. And that's gonna happen in the next century. There's about nineteen million mined so far. So the scarcity of, you know, supply and demand. Is potentially relevant there.

• 39:52Emma Grede?

  But you are perfectly fine.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  It's the most risky.

• 39:54Emma Grede?

  But you're perfectly fine with crypto as a means to build wealth. Like in the same way that you're not to the same degree because you make that clear from a percentage point of view of your overall portfolio. But when you're thinking about whether or not to put a little, have a little bit on crypto, you're basically like, yes, just make it small.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  For me, yeah, just, just don't go wild. Again, the mentality behind that is it's a get rich quick idea. Like, okay, I, I found, I found the, you know, the shortcut.

• 40:22Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  There's no, there's again, no shortcut.

• 40:26Emma Grede?

  And I really want you to say that more. There's no shortcut.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  There really isn't.

• 40:29Emma Grede?

  Because I feel like all we hear are the outlier stories, right? It's like, I have a friend and he put this in this.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  TikTok about this AI thing, about the whatever.

• 40:38Emma Grede?

  More often, no, that is actually not happening. And those stories are very few and far between. And when they do happen, it's down to, you know, a lot of other things, but oftentimes like luck.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it worries me that because we don't have the language to talk about it, we, a lot of people get screwed and a lot of people think that they're hearing this great new opportunity, but ultimately get screwed. And so I think when you're thinking about just starting, I reframe a budget as a spending plan. It feels more sustainable. It doesn't feel, again, it's all about this, like this little wording that you can change.

• 41:12Emma Grede?

  Spending plan.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  In the same way as a diet feels like a crash terrible thing.

• 41:17Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  But an eating plan feels like you can eat chocolate or some small indulgences. So you don't end up binging later on. If you start on a, on a crash budget, you know, people will say in the beginning of the year, Nicole, you'd be so proud of me. I cut out the latte. I'm so good. I'm like.

• 41:33Emma Grede?

  Not sustainable.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Right, by, by April, you bought a Gucci purse. So like.

• 41:39Emma Grede?

  Exactly.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  You could have bought a coffee, you could have bought the coffee shop forever. You know, and so it's these like extremes that we get into. Ideally, 70% of your overall spending plan should go to the essentials. So your food, your housing, your transportation and all of that stuff. 15% to the extras. So buy a latte, buy whatever it is that does it for you. And then 15% to your end game. At least 15% to what your investments are.

• 42:04Emma Grede?

  Only 15%?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  No, at least.

• 42:06Emma Grede?

  No, but wait a minute. I want to go back to the middle 15%. Only 15% is your.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Extras.

• 42:12Emma Grede?

  Your extras. Yeah, that's good. What do you mean? So of the essentials, half of that to housing. We end up spending a lot more on housing. Yes, but don't you think, come on, the, the, the, the women that I know are putting more than fifteen percent of what they make into their hair and their upkeep and the clothes and the things and the things. But what you're saying is that stuff, like everything in that bucket ought to be only fifteen percent of what you spend on an annual basis. Yeah. I, you look shocked. I'm, I'm, I'm looking around going, I think that my girls are spending more than that. They're all like holding on to their chairs. You remember?

• 42:53Emma Grede?

  I've heard it all. I've heard it like, oh, but it's a, you know, it's part of transportation. I'll put it in here. Like, oh, you know, it's, it's an essential. My eyelashes, I don't know, like. But think of all the things that people do now. There is no, I think there's very, very, certainly here in LA, fifteen percent will be on the low, low, low end. Yeah. Rich people stay rich by acting like they're poor and poor people stay poor by acting like they're rich. You heard. Yeah, she said it. She said it. Okay. So you got to get hair, lashes, clothing, all of this stuff, tanning. But you can also, you, you can. Fifteen percent. You can move it around. You're just saying like that's. But you're not moving it around. You're not moving it around to like thirty percent a month. Because if, if that's the framework, you need to stay within, because we're talking about

• 43:38Emma Grede?

  building wealth. And I think that everybody wants to build wealth for themselves, right? None of us want to worry about money. It is so miserable to worry about money and stressful and all of the rest of it. So having a framework, having a budget, as much as you would have a plan for your career, a plan for your life. It, I mean, it's an imperative. You, you were in all the businesses, right? Do you just like wing it? Absolutely. I'm the least wingy person. I'm the most planned to. I mean, I told you, I know the price of everything. I haven't been grocery shopping in, I don't know how many years, but I can tell you the price of everything in my fridge. That's just intrinsically who I am. But I know where that comes from. It comes from a place of scarcity. It comes from.

• 44:23Emma Grede?

  Place of not having and absolutely imagining that everything is going to run out in my life. So I'm not saying it's healthy, but that's just the way that I manage it. I work on a budget. I'm furious about like, like just knowing every, everything that's incoming, everything that's outgoing all the time. There is nothing that is spent on my watch that I don't know about. And that's just the way that I like to keep control. But in that same way, I think that I have my own framework. I start with a yearly budget and I think about all the things that I can do. But it's definitely, I think that fifteen percent piece, if you're on a regular wage, I would say like a woman in America is probably spending a lot more than that

• 45:04Emma Grede?

  on what you call their free, you know, their free budget. How did you frighten? You said it was their extras.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, if you, if you cut back on transportation or something else, you can move a little bit here or there. I do think we don't actually know how much it is, and that's the bigger issue. So I think we suffer.

• 45:22Emma Grede?

  The unawareness.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we suffer in general more in imagination than in reality. Let's just sit with that for a moment. We are so scared of finances because we, we just think that if we don't know, it's not going to hurt us. Right? It's like not stepping on the scale and we're fine. Right? It's the same idea. And so I think confronting it and realizing that it might be better than you think. It usually is. You know, we think of these crazy stories like, oh my God, I'm going to get arrested for taxes. And I'm like, you know, people have have stories that like really scare them about what the worst case scenario is. Not to get all philosophical, but Stoicism has been really helpful to me.

• 46:07Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  And imagining that worst case scenario too. So for me, getting through some of that, you know, financial trauma that I had was like, okay, let's, let's address the, the fear of being broke alone and homeless. Like what's gonna happen? Like, say I lose all my streams of income, I have nothing. What, what, what next? Well, I'm gonna go to Sarah's house. I'm just gonna sleep on the couch. Like, it's gonna be okay, whatever that is. And so it's helped me get out of some of that financial trauma anxiety that we all have.

• 46:38Emma Grede?

  I mean, you're an entrepreneur. So how do you think that your awareness around finance helped you start your business?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  You know, there's a lot of female founders who even get to great, amazing exits that are rare and stunning and keep that money in their checking account.

• 46:57Emma Grede?

  You are 100% right. I might have had that very conversation with, I don't know, I can't tell, it's embarrassing to think how many founders and I'm talking prominent, brilliant, as you say, really meaningful exits and their money is sitting in a checking account in perhaps even like a, you know, what do you call it, like a, not an international bank, you know, like in a local kind of, and I, my mind is blown. I'm like, you know that money could have been working for you and that is just not even in their mind's eye. That's just not, it's nowhere to be found.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Take it out of Bob's bank.

• 47:34Emma Grede?

  Yeah. I mean, to me, it's taken out of Bob's bank. To me, I just will never, I'll never understand that. And I think there's so much of it is because A, again, women don't talk about these things as much. So we're not having those bro down conversations, which is like, hey, come and meet my guy over at JP Morgan and da, da, da. Like that, that is not a conversation that happens between women typically.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Let's do it. We're doing it now.

• 47:55Emma Grede?

  We're doing it now. We're doing it now. If you sell your company, your money should not be in your checking account. It's just that simple.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  It's true though. Like I have a great girlfriend, sold her a company for nine figures, managed a P and L, managed employees, all the things, like brilliant. The exit happened, the, the check came and a couple of months later, I'm like, so what's going on? It's in the Bank of America checking account. I am losing it. I am just like, how is there this block? Cause now we're, we're making more money, which is amazing. So wage gap is getting shrinking, the entrepreneur gap shrinking, the investment gap is wider than ever. And so I think it's, again, we're making more money, but it's not about how much we make, it's how much you keep and how much you grow that matters the most at the end of the day.

• 48:43Emma Grede?

  So how do you change that? How, from a societal point of view, I think having conversations like this is really important, but what's the behavior that ultimately needs to change?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  I hope that this moment in the world is a big wake up call too. You know, I think that this is a huge opportunity. We're seeing, you know, potentially a recession. We're definitely in a low market, bear market, um, which just means we're, we're down. But it's actually great buying opportunities. So great fortunes have been made during recessions.

• 49:13Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  And so thinking of this as an opportunity and not being scared, looking at it as, okay, wow, things, high quality investments, not everything is on sale. High quality stuff is on sale. I can get in on this.

• 49:26Emma Grede?

  And even if you're not ready to make that investment, taking it as a learning opportunity, right? Watching what's happening, listening to the stories, talking to people. I feel like sometimes, you know, you listen to a conversation like this and be like, okay, the market's down. Like, what next for me? Well, it's like, just open your eyes to it, like, listen and start to figure out what you might do next time, because I feel like so much of the information is like, that's not for me. That's not, that's not interesting for me. So it's like, it is for you if you actually want to create generational wealth.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:57Emma Grede?

  Just know that.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  It, it is for, money is for you, is money for you?

• 50:00Emma Grede?

  Money is for all of us. We absolutely need money.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Right, but if you can figure out like how to connect the dots to what you're hearing, you know? So the idea that interest rates are going up, like, oh, my God, that's so bad. Is it bad? Nothing's good or bad. It's just relative. So if you're a saver, it's amazing. Cause you're making more money on your money. So you're going to make more at a bank. If you're getting a mortgage, it might not be the most amazing, but they're all, the, the way that the financial system works is, is really cool. Once you can actually see it and not be so, so intimidated to, to join these conversations.

• 50:35Emma Grede?

  It's the intimidation piece that I think is the worst. What do you think are the best financial education tools that are out there?

• 50:41Speaker 01

  I use, you know, books, podcasts, uh.

• 50:45Emma Grede?

  Listen to your podcast as, as an example.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  I have a whole, you know, financial network of people who are, who are looking at finances in different aspects every single day. So whether it's the market, whether it's, you know, advanced investing, like options or, or different, you know, things that I wouldn't suggest for a beginning investor. Um, but looking at it as like a, as an overall meal for somebody who's curious about money is what, you know, I spend most of my time on lately. Again, I'm so surprised. Sometimes I'm really surprised. I'm like, I know this or like I'm making this.

• 51:19Emma Grede?

  Totally.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  And so it's always like, it's still just, you know, a moment of like, wow, I figured this out. But also we've, like I said, figured out harder things in life.

• 51:29Emma Grede?

  Oh, we figured out so many hard things. I think for me, it was really like, you know, the curiosity has always been there, but as somebody who's dyslexic and finds numbers really difficult, I'm definitely guilty of being that person's like, this is not for me. Numbers are not for me. And I started just like, my husband listens to those, you know, CNBC like every morning, you know, what was it like Jim Cramer's on the TV and I'm just like, I would almost blank it out. And then I started to just listen and then you read in the news and then you start connecting stories and it really can be as simple as that.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:02Emma Grede?

  And when you start asking questions, it's really surprising in your own social groups, like who's investing? And that was the biggest thing for me. I'd suddenly realized I had a bunch of people around me who were making investments or, you know, had stocks in this and shares over here and bonds over and I was just blown away. And so I feel like once you are a little bit curious, you'll probably be surprised by who else in your orbit actually has an interest and like leaning into that can just be the most simple thing to do. Cause I don't have a bunch of, you know, apps or things. I look, I look at the like Apple stock apps like every single day, but that's, that's it really. And I just read a lot. The awareness has to be there. You, again, you have to know what you're doing and you can

• 52:45Emma Grede?

  never be ignorant to those fact. There's certainly no one that has power of attorney for me. There's, I sign everything. I read everything. There is, that's just how it goes. And even, you know, too much information, but between my husband and I, right? There is a, uh, there's an element of trust that happens in a marriage, but I, I have my own representation. I have my own way of looking at things and, and I've always done that because I would never want to be in a situation where I'd outsourced what I have earned to anyone else. It's as simple as that.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  That's a bar.

• 53:16Emma Grede?

  Yes, I'm telling you.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  So you had a prenup or you?

• 53:19Emma Grede?

  A pre, I, I had a pre, it's actually a great conversation. I remember it. Like it was yesterday, we went to an Italian restaurant. I was living in London at the time, just before we got married. And it's like, obviously not a romantic subject, but we're in a very romantic restaurant. And we sat down face to face and hashed out our prenup.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  And an abstinence.

• 53:38Emma Grede?

  Yeah, but like it was, you know, like it was any other negotiation. I was like, well, if this happens and this happens, then I would want this. And he was like, well, if this happens on the other side, this is what it will be. And we just like went at it like an actual negotiation. And, and that was before I have what I have now. So.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Well.

• 53:54Emma Grede?

  That's just my mindset, you know, it's like that. I'm, I'm not, I'm not parting with anything I've worked hard for.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 54:00Emma Grede?

  No way.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  I think it's important to take back the conversation too. I think a lot of women think he's making me sign a prenup. This idea of like, he's making me is like, no, what, what about all of the, the wealth that you've created or, or business that you've created? Bring that up. Like, have it ready to go.

• 54:19Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Own that conversation. Cause you're gonna have it anyway.

• 54:22Emma Grede?

  Well, you, you're one hundred percent.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  The government. Why do you want the government to decide or the state to decide?

• 54:27Emma Grede?

  You do not.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  What's gonna happen to you?

• 54:29Emma Grede?

  These are hard conversations. Take control.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  But like, but also talking to your significant other about money doesn't have to be like an interrogation, right? You're talking about your hopes and your dreams. Dreams have price tags, you know, a dream without a plan is just a wish and wishes are amazing, but they don't pay the bills. Like you need to just figure out the life you want and then reverse engineer it to figure out how to get the money and all those contingencies around it.

• 54:52Emma Grede?

  So I have a couple of questions for you that are from my group chat. So first one, and it's because, you know, we're on that topic of partners. Does it ever make sense to have a joint account with a partner?

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:03Emma Grede?

  When?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's a yours, mine and ours.

• 55:06Emma Grede?

  Yes, I love that. I have that kind of setup.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:09Emma Grede?

  Yours, mine, ours.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Emma Grede?

  Especially when you have children.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  I always have yours. Always.

• 55:14Emma Grede?

  Always. Always.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  But the hours can be weighted too.

• 55:20Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  So if somebody makes more money, then they're putting in a percentage. So it feels more equitable.

• 55:26Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Because if one person is making a million dollars and one person is making a hundred thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars is going to mean or feel like a different amount to them.

• 55:35Emma Grede?

  Okay, so a weighted share. That makes, that makes a lot of sense.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Or like the communal stuff.

• 55:40Emma Grede?

  Yes, yeah. Um, under what circumstances should you borrow?

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Where you can make more money with that money. Yeah, money is, I mean, uh, the way the rich people, and I don't even think we, we dug into this, but they'll borrow against their assets and use that debt to pay for a house. You, you then just pay the interest on that loan. So you don't have to liquidate investments. So like a non-rich mindset, I would say, is you have a million dollar portfolio. You want to buy a million dollar house. You take out two hundred thousand dollars, you put a down payment on it. The rich person mentality is look at that million dollar portfolio, take out a two hundred thousand dollar loan against that portfolio, pay a small amount so you never have to sell those investments and those investments continue to grow.

• 56:29Emma Grede?

  And then the last question from the group chat. How can you sustainably build multiple streams of income? I feel like this is such a thing now with everybody having a side hustle. Do you advocate for people having multiple streams of income? I feel like you do.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not in the way that you would think. So the average millionaire has seven streams of income. So even if you don't have a side hustle or, you know, fourteen businesses that you're running or whatever, like a stream of income can be dividends, it can be interest. So if you set up your investments to get dividends, dividends is just fancy word to say, like they give you a little present every once in a while from that investment. That's a stream of income. It doesn't require you to go out and, and do more things.

• 57:09Emma Grede?

  So before we end, I want to ask you some rapid fire questions. The first thing that you do in the morning, what is that?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Uh, check my phone. I should, I should drink lemon water.

• 57:22Emma Grede?

  You shouldn't do anything.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Manifest in journal.

• 57:24Emma Grede?

  You only have to be truthful, that's all I ask. You check your phone and that's honest. Are you checking the markets? Is that what you're doing?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 57:30Emma Grede?

  Surprise. What's the last thing you do before bed?

• 57:33Speaker 01

  I know, sometimes I would gratitude journal and all this stuff. Lately, I'm just not. I'm checking my phone and I'm going to bed.

• 57:39Emma Grede?

  That's truthful. It's honest. I think a lot of people can relate.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Emma Grede?

  And you're doing it as you wake up in the morning and before you go to bed?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 57:46Emma Grede?

  Fair enough. Um, what are you currently aspiring for in your business life?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Hmm, so interesting. I'm aspiring to not move the goalpost for a moment. And I'll double click on that for one second.

• 57:58Emma Grede?

  Please.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  But I think that the reason we've never feel like we can have it all is because we never define what it all is. And we constantly change the goalposts on ourselves mid-game. I don't know much about sports, but like that's, you know, if you keep moving the goalpost, you're never going to get there. And so I think celebrating what those wins are, but first defining what that is, is how we can have it all, so to speak. And so saying like, these were my goals. I got there. We're good. Like, I'm not a failure because now all of a sudden I just saw somebody's yacht on Instagram and I don't have one. It's like, hold on, was that on my list of the things that I wanted? No, it wasn't. So like, be aware of that.

• 58:35Emma Grede?

  It's a fantastic answer. I really, really love that answer. What are you aspiring for in your personal life?

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Learning how to raise a baby. Knowing what to do with a baby. I don't know. I, you know, I had a baby when I was 40.

• 58:54Emma Grede?

  Good for you.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 58:55Emma Grede?

  Great timing.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  So trying to keep her alive and, and happy.

• 59:01Emma Grede?

  I love that. Um, what is the biggest misconception about your profession?

• 59:07Speaker 01

  That it's a guy's thing and that it's like a fancy club that you can't be part of if you didn't grow up in it. And I'm here to tell you, you can be.

• 59:16Emma Grede?

  Yeah. And you really did that today. Is there a book that changed your life?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Hmm. Not in the way that you'd expect. My first company was named Nothing But Gold, which people think is about bling bling and like money. But it's actually a line from Anna Krenina, that I love Russian literature. And it was this idea that, you know, Anna in the book, in her most depressed times, looked at the beach, and I'm going to butcher this, but looked at the beach and saw just small specks of gold in the sand as happy times. Like, there were just so few and far between, but she wanted to look at the beach and see nothing but gold, nothing but joy.

• 59:56Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  And so.

• 59:58Emma Grede?

  That is beautiful.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I know. I should have said some money thing, but it's.

• 1:00:01Emma Grede?

  No, not at all. No, I love to see all these sides of you. It's so lovely. And what's something that you valued when you were starting out that you don't value anymore?

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Stuff.

• 1:00:12Emma Grede?

  Stuff. And what's something that you value now that you didn't back then?

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Altogether?

• 1:00:19Emma Grede?

  Stocks.

• 1:00:22Emma Grede?

  I love that. Stuff and stocks. That will be my big takeaway. Thank you so much, Goff. This was absolutely amazing. Thank you. You gave so much wisdom, so many gems. This was heaven. Thank you.

• 1:00:37Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Corinne, Gillian Fisher, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Saluja, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Justine Dom is our senior producer. Our producer is Kristin Torres. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox. Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi.

• 1:01:22Emma Grede?

  Social media by Olivia Homann. Special thanks go to Brittany Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at Jonesworks and WNE, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meeke, Shaun Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Grede. Grede is spelt G R E D E. That's Aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emagrede.me.