The Secrets Twins Share & Subtle Money Mistakes to Avoid-SYSK Choice

Are women really attracted to men who can make them laugh? And if so, why does humor matter so much in attraction? This episode begins with what research and relationship experts say about laughter, mating, and why being funny can be a powerful social signal. https://amzn.to/496hAtL We’ve always been fascinated by twins. They seem mysterious, almost magical — as if they share a special connection the rest of us don’t. But do twins really experience the world differently, or are we projecting myths onto them? Helena de Bres joins me to unpack the truths, misconceptions, and lived reality of being a twin. She’s a professor of philosophy at Wellesley College and author of How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins (https://amzn.to/3HCmH8E). Most financial advice sounds the same: save more, spend less, invest wisely. But some of the most effective money guidance runs counter to what we usually hear. Vivian Tu shares a fresh, practical perspective on money, habits, and mindset — including mistakes people make without realizing it. Vivian made her first million by age 27, is CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF Media, and author of Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life (https://amzn.to/42oltaH). And finally, one of life’s small but frequent frustrations: you grab a pen, there’s ink inside — and it won’t write. Most of the time, the pen isn’t dead; it’s just stuck. We wrap up with a few simple, surprisingly effective tricks to get a ballpoint pen working again. https://www.penheaven.com/blog/revive-a-dead-ballpoint-pen PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS QUINCE: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince! Go to ⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit ⁠https://Hims.com/SOMETHING⁠ for your free online visit! SHOPIFY: Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠ DELL: Dell Tech Days are here. Enjoy huge deals on PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. Visit ⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠ PLANET VISIONARIES: We love the Planet Visionaries podcast, so listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, are women really attracted to a man because he can make her laugh? Then what's it like to be a twin? And why are twins so fascinating?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  You know, I think twins aren't just seen as unusual. They're seen as odd, a bit freakish, right? So, you know, people with green eyes are a minority, but you don't have people going on and on about people with green eyes or making horror films about them. I don't think so anyway.

• 2:13Mike Carruthers?

  Also, how to get a ballpoint pen to write when the ink won't come out? And some really great money advice you probably haven't heard before.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  A cardinal sin is dollar dribbling, where you spend money you don't have on things you don't need to impress people you don't like. Just little things that don't necessarily make you happy or actually spark joy for you, that you end up wasting that money on.

• 2:38Mike Carruthers?

  All this today, on Something You Should Know.

• 2:43Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:27Mike Carruthers?

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• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Hello there. Welcome to Something You Should Know. I have long heard, and you probably have as well, that in general, women are attracted to men who can make them laugh. And here's some interesting proof of that. In a survey of women in 33 different cultures around the world, women universally agreed that they are attracted to a man who can make them laugh. Why? Well, there seem to be two reasons, according to researchers Alan and Barbara Pease, who wrote a book called Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love. Men who can tell a joke and have a sense of humor are accorded higher status by other men.

• 5:04Mike Carruthers?

  And men who are admired by other men have historically been attractive to women. When you laugh, you release endorphins, which build up your immune system. So women seem to understand on a basic evolutionary level that being with a man who makes them laugh is good for their health. And that is something you should know.

• 5:29Mike Carruthers?

  Even if you're not one, there is something interesting, even a bit mysterious, about twins. If you talk to twins, many of them will tell you that they're often asked if they can read each other's minds, or if they can communicate telepathically, or have they ever tried to fool people that they're the other one. People have a lot of questions about twins. And here to offer some answers and reveal some of the myths, misconceptions, and truths about twins is Helena de Bress. She is herself a twin, a professor of philosophy at Wellesley College, and author of a book called How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins. Hi, Helena. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Hi Mike, thanks for having me.

• 6:16Mike Carruthers?

  So I would imagine that a big part of the reason you're so interested in twins is because you are one, right?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really two things. As you mentioned, I am a twin, I'm an identical twin, and it's a huge part of my life, a very central aspect of who I am. But also, I'm a philosophy professor, and I think there are these really interesting ethical and metaphysical questions that twins raise. So I think it's the philosopher part of me too that finds them so interesting.

• 6:46Mike Carruthers?

  So first of all, this may be a ridiculously simple question, but what is a twin? And can we assume that as we speak today, that when you talk about twins, pretty much everything applies to triplets and quadruplets and et cetera?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Those are great questions, right? So a twin is just someone who gestates, right? Who grows up, develops in the womb alongside one other human. So there's two main types. There's the identical kind, who develop as a result of an egg splitting, a single egg, fertilized egg splitting, partway through, that then forms into two individual human beings. And then there's the non-identical, or sometimes they're called fraternal twins. In that case, it's just two eggs that happen to be fertilized alongside each other. So that's twins. Multiples, obviously, the similar kind of situation, but multiplied. I do, I think that a lot of what I say about twins will apply to triplets and quads and

• 7:50Speaker 01

  quints too. But I like, in my book, I tried to restrict myself to my own experience and not go too far beyond it. So yeah, I'd be interested in what the triplets and quads and quints had to say about it.

• 8:04Mike Carruthers?

  I think there's a real fascination that people have with twins, and as I said earlier, this idea that, you know, do you know what the other one is thinking? And can you communicate telepathically? And is there some sort of special mystical, magical connection between twins that no one else has? Can you talk about the science of any of that?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Right, it's true. When you're a twin, especially an identical twin who looks a lot like your twin, you get asked these same questions over and over growing up. We get very used to them. My dad said that when we were babies, he wanted to have a little sign on the, you know, the perambulator, the stroller that had answers to those classic questions. So there's this, yeah, constant questioning of who we are and what our relationship is like. Some of those questions, I think, are based on misunderstandings of twinhood. So often, you know, I don't think that this idea that twins share a telepathic connection is borne out by science. I think that often twins do have a very, very intimate understanding in each other's minds,

• 9:07Speaker 01

  partly because they're similar and partly because they've grown up alongside each other for such a long time. But that's different from actually being able to read what's going on inside someone else's mind. But I think there's another interesting way in which you could say that twins share a mind. They often use each other's minds, so they collaborate very closely together. And they can kind of use each other almost as an extension of their own thinking. So I guess I would say, yeah, I'm open to this idea that twins can share a mind, but not in that kind of telepathic, kind of mystical way.

• 9:38Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I think it probably stems from the idea that if you are from the same egg, like you're almost the same person. I mean, biologically, you are so, so, nothing, no other person could be as similar to you as your twin, right?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Right. I think this question about whether or not twins somehow count as the same person is really interesting. It's a kind of trippy idea to think about. People often do suggest that twins somehow more merge than non-twins or singletons. So they'll, you know, refer to them as their twins rather than using their individual names. They'll give twins the same present for their birthday or Christmas rather than individual ones. And there are all these stories in literature and film, just everyday life, of twins somehow seeming like they're a hybrid, that they share a self, their self is split between them. And I used to hate that idea. I think twins are often resistant to that idea. You know, it can seem belittling or kind of, I don't know, just, just wrong.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  It doesn't track the experience. But I, I've been thinking more recently, there might be something to it if you understand the idea in the right way. And I just talked about how twins can kind of use each other's minds because they're such good collaborators. They know each other so well. They can also act as a kind of shared agent. Um, so they're very, very good at pursuing projects together and kind of acting as one, not just thinking as one. And then they can come to identify really closely with each other so that, um, you know, what happens to one can really, really deeply affect the other person. But I'm susceptible to this. I, there's this moment I had a couple of years ago when I was sitting with my twin in a library. Um, and I suddenly said to her, we were both very busy. I suddenly said, I'm going to the restroom. Do you want me

• 11:25Speaker 01

  to go for you too? So I had this moment, you know, I really felt like I could somehow, you know, use the restroom on behalf of my twins. So there's some kind of deep sense in which I feel that I'm connected to her in a more intimate way.

• 11:38Mike Carruthers?

  But more than any two other siblings who are perhaps close in age and very, very close?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think once you start thinking about, um, about the case of twins, which is a very vivid instance of these, uh, forms of shared thinking, shared agency, shared identity. Actually, you can see that it extends to non-twins too. So I think part of what's fascinating about twins is they illuminate these phenomena that aren't just about twins, but actually about the human experience of, of relating closely to, to others. You know, parents and infants often feel that they're extensions of each other, um, or at least the parents do, um, or very close romantic couples. So I don't think twins are unique, um, in this way, but I do think they're a super clear instance and that's part of what makes them interesting.

• 12:28Mike Carruthers?

  Well, what happens, if you can talk about this, um, I, I don't know how much you can, but I'm sure there has been a lot of research that have looked at twins who grew up together and twins who didn't, and what that tells us about the connection between twins.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's actually another great sort of philosophically interesting topic. So I don't know, many people might have heard of the famous Minnesota study of twins reared apart. So there was a study of a bunch of twins who'd been separated just after birth, who were reunited later in life. And it was really striking just how similar these identical twins were despite having spent decades apart. So there was one very interesting example. Two twins, they're both called Jim. They both married someone called Linda. They then divorced her and married someone called Betty. They both named their son James Allen. They named their dog the same thing.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  But also, you know, their personality and intelligence and health tests all came out identical. They were both exactly 180 pounds. They had the same hobbies, had the same jobs, they vacationed in the same place. And, you know, really little quirks, like I think it was maybe those ones who only walked into the ocean backwards, or it might have been another pair. So really, really similar despite having no interaction with each other until the age of 39 in that case. And what's actually really interesting about that study, I think, is that they found that twins who were raised apart were more similar to each other than twins who were raised together. What? So that's really interesting. The thought was that when you're raised together, you're kind of forced to differentiate yourself.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  So I might come to identify as I did as the introvert and my sister as the extrovert as a way of trying to help people to get a sense of who we each were. But if you're being raised apart, you don't have to do that kind of work.

• 14:32Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I would imagine it's a very different experience. Well, I don't know if very different, but different if you're an identical twin and you really do look alike versus a fraternal twin where you and your sibling don't have that much in common physically that people would go, oh, you're twins.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't have to deal with so much singleton fascination if you're a non-identical twin. We have this kind of, in a way, it's like a hierarchy within the twin community, where the identicals are the stars at the top of the pyramid and the non-identicals get sidelined a bit. I want to push back on that kind of hierarchy. I think that the focus on identical twins is partly a result of people who aren't twins being really interested in the more superficial aspects of twinhood, you know, the, what people look like, all kind of quirky little coincidences in the way that they act. Whereas for a twin, you know, from the inside, what really matters about twinhood is the relationship that you

• 15:35Speaker 01

  have. You have a very close relationship with someone who you've grown up with from the beginning. So that, that applies to non-identical twins too. But it's certainly true that the non-identicals don't have to deal with as much attention, which is sometimes unwanted.

• 15:50Mike Carruthers?

  We're discussing the fascinating and mysterious world of twins with Helena de Bress. She's author of a book called How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 16:30Speaker 05

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• 16:59Mike Carruthers?

  So Helena, I want to go back to that study you were talking about, where these two twins who grew up apart, married a woman by the same name, named their dog the same, all those similarities. You brought that up because it's common, or you brought that up because that's very unusual?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Well, it's not that common for twins to be separated at birth and studied later. So there's not that many cases of people being studied in that way. But the general phenomenon that twins can be very, very similar, not just in appearance, but also personality and profession. That's definitely a thing. It's very common. And yeah, I think part of why we're so fascinated with that is that it brings up with these questions for many people about, basically about free will, right? So you think, okay, these two guys, Jim, they've got exactly the same biological inheritance. They're genetically identical. It must be their genes that's explaining why they're so similar, since they didn't have any kind of shared environment when they were developing.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  So if our genes are determining this much about us, you know, where we're going on vacation and the kind of love notes that we write to our spouses, then, you know, do we really have very much freedom of action at all? So people often go down that road in response to these cases.

• 18:19Mike Carruthers?

  When you say, well, it must be your genes that determines where you go on vacation. Well, that's hard to... There's no gene that determines where you go on vacation. Couldn't it be something else? Is it either coincidence or genes or nothing?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  It's a good question. Yeah, one thing to say in response to the Jim twins and the other twins in that study is that a lot of these similarities actually look like, and they look more like they're derived from culture than from twinhood per se. Like, a lot of people in the 1950s or 60s, I can't quite remember the time, but, you know, were going to that particular beach in Florida, or they were naming, you know, their son James, or, you know, they were dudes who liked working out in their man caves, you know, on the weekends. So some of these things don't, you know, don't really look that unusual. And it wouldn't be very surprising to see people in that same demographic featuring them. So there's some reasons to push back on the weirdness.

• 19:19Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, but those two Jims had so many things.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  That's the thing. When it goes down to... It was some, I'm thinking about some of the other weirder, you know, coincidences. Some of these twins who'd never met each other, they both had this habit of sneezing when they got into an elevator as a prank. They suddenly do a giant sneeze. So that's odd.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Not everyone in America is sneezing every time they go into an elevator for fun. So some of it is trippy.

• 19:49Mike Carruthers?

  It seems that twins like the fact that they're twins, but there must be twins who

• 19:56Mike Carruthers?

  don't like it. I mean, so for example, I'm left-handed. I really wish I wasn't. I don't sit at home and cry about it. I am what I am. But are there twins who think, you know, all things being equal, I wish I hadn't, this hadn't happened?

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And it's a good question to ask because there is an idealized or romantic vision of twinhood in our culture, which, you know, makes it seem as if, well, twins will always get on. It's kind of this perfect, non-conflicted, very close, collaborative, trusting relationship. And some twinships are like that. Mine is, I've been very lucky with my sister. We've almost never fought. In fact, I think we fought maybe twice about very small things. I mean, we're 45. But there are some twins who really don't get on, some that are completely estranged from each other, don't even speak to each other. So it's really important not to generalize from, you know, the twins you know, or the

• 20:53Speaker 01

  twins that you might see portrayed in popular culture. There is this tendency to, in a way, kind of polarize twin relationships. So there's that romantic, overly rosy vision I've just been talking about, but also this pathological vision. So there's also a strain in film and literature and myth of twins being portrayed as really very kind of unwell, pathological, violent, out to kill each other. You know, one of them would bury the other one alive, or they'll become very, very jealous and competitive in relation to a romantic partner. So we've got this kind of romantic vision, a pathological vision. I think most

• 21:33Speaker 01

  twinships are actually somewhere in the middle there. They're not perfect, just like any relationship, but they're not quite as kind of gothically troubled as the other picture assumes.

• 21:46Mike Carruthers?

  Well, funny you say that, because when I first heard you were going to be a guest, and we were going to talk about twins, the first thing that popped in my head were the twins from The Shining.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the iconic images of of twinhood. So horror movies are filled with with twins. Sometimes they'll be sort of conjoined twins. So one of them is parasitic on the other. So there's a kind of body horror aspect.

• 22:15Mike Carruthers?

  Oh, God.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Other times it'll be a a codependency situation where the twins are actually so invested in each other. They kind of turn on themselves and block everyone else out and kind of decay. So Edgar Allan Poe's story, The Fall of the House of Usher, is an example of that one. So it's very interesting. You can ask yourself, why do we have that pathological picture? What is it about twins that makes them seem sort of creepy and unwell to people?

• 22:43Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've always thought the reason that people are fascinated by twins isn't that, isn't what you just said. It's just that, you know, those of us who have siblings, we don't have siblings like you have siblings. You're different, you're rare. And it's peculiar to see the same person in two people that even though it's not the same person, you see the similarity is so striking in identical twins that it it just captures your imagination. Like, it's so different than me, but it's yet it's kind of close. That's, I mean, I've always felt that was the fascination.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're certainly right that part of it is simply the rarity of twins, especially identical twins. There's not very many of us around. So anything that's unusual or striking is going to be fascinating. And as you say, it's very easy for a singleton to start thinking about their own case. You know, what if I had a twin? Or if I had a twin, what would they be like? What about me is sort of distinctive and not distinctive? So partly it's rarity, but it's not, you know, I think twins aren't just seen as unusual. They're seen as odd, at least they're represented as being in some way a bit freakish, right? So it's it's not like, you know, people with green eyes are a minority. But you don't have people going on and on about people with green eyes

• 24:06Speaker 01

  or making horror films about them in particular. I don't think so anyway. So it's not just numbers. I think it's also a sense, there's something deviant about about twinhood.

• 24:18Mike Carruthers?

  I've never heard of that word singleton. That's that's what twins call people that don't have twins.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yes, we've got it. We've got a label for you. Some people don't like it because it sounds a little too close to simpleton.

• 24:31Mike Carruthers?

  It's exactly what I thought. Yes.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  It's not meant to. It's not meant to be derogatory. Non twins, you just, yeah, you say that a few times and you get sick of using it. So yes, singletons is what we go for.

• 24:43Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, it depends on how you say it. If you say, oh, that's singleton. It sounds very, very much like, what a simpleton, what a, it's all in how you say it. There's something, maybe it's been in the movies or something where, you know, twins switch places, like they swap husbands or wives, or they, or boyfriend or girlfriend, that they switch places and that somehow that's very exciting.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, if there is that, people are very fascinated with that possibility, not just a sort of sexual switching of places, but switching places in general, like young twins always get asked whether they would take tests for each other, or they would, I don't know, yeah, stand in for each other in a, like a sport competition or something. So people, I think that part, at least some of it derives from people's worry that twins are sort of tricksters, you know, that these slippery characters, there's something, can't quite get a grip on them. You're never fully sure who's in front of you. So there's, there's a worry about the slipperiness of twin identity. And maybe it triggers a deeper worry about

• 25:55Speaker 01

  whether any of us can really stably identify anyone. You might worry about whether your own identity is kind of slippery. What if there's someone else out there who, who looks like you? So there's these websites online where you can upload a photo of yourself and you can find your, quote, twins in the world. It's estimated that each of us has about seven people on the planet who looks, who look very, very similar to us.

• 26:20Mike Carruthers?

  So when you were growing up as a twin, you and your sister, did you like dressing the same or doing your hair the same? Or were you more like, I so don't want this?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  We, yeah, that's a good question. I think it was a mixture. Often, we just liked the same thing. So we'd end up dressing similarly because we wanted to wear the same stuff. I don't think that we had a strong tendency to want to look similar for the sake of looking similar. And you do get a little bit tired as a twin of people trying to pressure you to be more identical than you are. So I think maybe we were resisting that. But occasionally, every twin likes to ham up their twinhood. It's kind of a source of social charisma and charm. You can use your twinship for your own purposes. So sometimes, you know, we would agree to do things that involved us coming across as very twenty. You know, we were flower girls at our cousin's

• 27:18Speaker 01

  wedding. We had matching apricot and little princess dresses and we loved it. So, yeah, occasionally we did, but it was not a big feature of our childhood for sure.

• 27:28Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I appreciate you letting us peek behind the curtain of twinness and answer the questions that I think people would like to ask twins but would feel embarrassed doing so. I've been speaking with Helena de Bress. She's author of a book called How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Helena. Appreciate your time.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Thanks very much for having me, Mike. It's been a pleasure to talk with you.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero Powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors, great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 28:56Mike Carruthers?

  You've probably heard and maybe believe the complaint or criticism that so much of what is taught in school you will never need to know or use again, and some things you do need to know are not taught in school, particularly personal finance. And yet, as every adult knows, personal finance is a subject that comes up every day in one way or another. Here to talk about this and offer some great ideas on how money works in the real world and how to handle it is Vivian Tu. She is what you might call a wealth guru who has worked on Wall Street, made her first million dollars by the age of 27. She is the CEO and founder

• 29:38Mike Carruthers?

  of Your Rich BFF Media, and you will find her on TikTok and all over social media. She's author of a new bestselling book called Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. Hi Vivian, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 29:57Mike Carruthers?

  So I think most people learn as they go when it comes to handling money and consequently make a lot of mistakes along the way, miss a lot of opportunities, particularly when they're young because they just haven't been taught.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  I think it's really frustrating to me that personal finance is not a federally mandated subject in schools because frankly, we could all afford to be a little bit better with our money. And especially now, things aren't as easy as they were back in my parents or my grandparents' generation. We're just playing in a completely different ballgame, and it seems like nobody knows the rules.

• 30:37Mike Carruthers?

  But when the rules change, and they clearly seem like they have, it seems like you just have to learn to play by the new rules.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  We hear every single day from so-called gurus that we are the reasons why we're broke, that we are bad with our money, we're shopaholics. You know, we've even seen the meme-level villains of personal finance of like avocado toast is why millennials can't afford homes, or shame on you for buying a $5 coffee every day. But it's like... Are those really the major issues we need to be tackling? Or are those the things that we're treating as scapegoats? If you feel like there is nothing you can do in your power to get you to where you want to be financially, it is really easy to throw in the towel and say, you know, YOLO, let's have a good time now, here for a good time, not for a long time, and not worry about the future.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  But I think my whole shtick is giving people hope that there is a future, that today you can take care of future you while also having a good time in the present.

• 31:43Mike Carruthers?

  By doing what exactly? And specifically, let's get into some like real nuts and bolts here. What do people need to do?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, I have a method and everybody laughs because they say, if I want to be rich, Viv, like, what do I do? I'm like, you should strip. And they all go wide eyed and I'm like, it stands for something, hold on. So S stands for savings. It's really important to have yourself an emergency fund. I would typically recommend three to six months of living expenses, a little bit more if you're ahead of household or have some, you know, larger fixed expenses like a mortgage. But three to six months is a good jump off point. Because if you don't have that emergency fund, if you break your arm or the tire falls off of your car, you're going to go into even more financial duress.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Once you have that emergency fund, it's important to tackle your debt. And T in strip stands for total debt. Because I want people to rank their debt from highest to lowest interest rate and make the minimum payment across everything. But then put any additional funds towards the highest interest rate debt. Because that is your scariest and growiest debt. So you really, really want to tackle that stuff first. R in strip stands for retirement. Because it's important to think about future you. There's going to come a day where you are not going to have The physical capability or the mental capability to do what you do now. And you want to be set up by then.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  So take advantage of tax advantaged investment accounts like your 401k at work or your 403B, as well as individual retirement options like a Roth IRA or an IRA. This is super important and pivots us into I of strip, which is invest. You can't just put cash in these accounts. This is a big mistake a lot of people make. They fund these accounts with money and they're like, all right.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  I'm done. It's like, no, you just put cash into a bucket. You now need to take that cash and buy stuff. So then choosing investments that are diversified and well balanced. So things like target date retirement funds or index funds that track the broader market. These are all just great ways to make sure that your portfolio can weather the storm. And if that feels really overwhelming, just get a robo advisor. You take a quick quiz about your money goals, how old you are, how much money you make, what your goals for retirement or spending in the future look like, and they'll pick investments for you. So it's just a really easy way to not get paralysis by analysis. And then last but not least is P.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  It's so important to plan because you don't get to ride off into the sunset and have a happily ever after. If you don't even know what that looks like. For some people, that's retiring at 30 and living in an airstream. And for other people, it's a little bit more traditional. It's retiring at 60 and having, you know, a vacation home and being able to help your kids pay for college or, uh, you know, take care of your parents in their old age. And whatever happily ever after looks like for you, you want to know what that is and then be able to back into what that will cost as a dollar amount.

• 34:59Mike Carruthers?

  One of the things I think stops people from doing what you just described is that I can do that tomorrow. Let's just put that off because right now we need the money for something else.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's this feeling of always having more time, which I think is great because it is true. The best day to start investing was yesterday and the second best day is today. It's never too late to start. There have been studies that show that investing the same amount in your twenties versus the same amount in your thirties. If you start in your twenties and then don't do anything after that. You actually end up with twice as much money because the real big thing that people don't get about investing is it's not about money, it's about time. And the more time you have, the more your money has the ability to tap into compound interest, essentially

• 35:52Speaker 02

  the ability to grow upon itself. And when you start later, you're going to have to contribute more of your own dollars to get you to that number that you want to be at for retirement. But the earlier you start, the less you actually have to put in.

• 36:06Mike Carruthers?

  You know, particularly when you're young, but really, I think at any point in life, when you hear the thing, you hear the term, you have to save for retirement. I don't, I don't really know what that means. What does that mean to save for retirement?

• 36:21Speaker 02

  So I think save for retirement actually is a pretty big misnomer because you can't save your way to retirement anymore unless you're really making some huge, huge amounts of money every single year. Saving isn't going to get you there anymore. The math just doesn't work. You're going to need to invest because that's the only way that your money is going to be able to grow with you and keep up with inflation. So what that really means is getting your money to a point where the interest or the gains or the, you know, just the growth on your money is able to cover your annual expenses every

• 37:03Speaker 02

  year. So what I like to call the FU number. And what you do is you close your eyes and you think about your perfect year. Does that include vacations? Sure does. Does that include your rent or your mortgage? Yep. What about food for groceries and dining out? Of course. You want to help your kids? Add that in. A pet? Add that in. Basically, anything that you would need to live your perfect life for a year. And then you take whatever that would cost for one year, and you divide that number by 0.04.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  And dividing by a decimal actually gives you a larger number. And this larger number is your FU number. And when you have that number, that larger number, able to be invested, you can essentially kick over your desk and tell your boss FU because you don't need to work anymore.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  That 0.04 represents 4%. And 4% is an incredibly conservative investment return. Right now, at like a risk-free FDIC insured high-yield savings account, you can probably get closer to 5%. So, risk-free, you're getting 5%. So 4% is super conservative. But doing this calculation lets you figure out a number where your investments pay for your lifestyle, so your labor doesn't have to.

• 38:29Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've always thought that, you know, there's really two sides to this. If being financially independent is important to you, that you not only have to spend less, but you have to spend some time working on making more money.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  There's so much emphasis placed on the scrimping and the saving. Don't buy the coffee. Don't buy the avocado toast. But there's two sides of the equation to get more money, right? To be able to invest more money, you need to get more money. And to get more money, one side is scrimping and saving, and the other half is asking for more. And so I think it's so critically important that everybody asks for a 10% to 15% raise every single year at work. Am I saying you're going to get that every year? No, probably not. But it's important to ask, because if you don't ask, you don't get. And if you are not getting a raise or a promotion every two years at work,

• 39:29Speaker 02

  there has been a study done that shows, over the course of your lifetime, You will make half as much. I don't know about you, but I can't afford to make half as much. So I say, ask for more from your job because it is not unheard of at all to get a $5,000 to $10,000 raise. But do you have any idea how much it sucks to cut out $5,000 to $10,000 of discretionary expenses? That means you don't get to have a Netflix subscription. That means you don't get to go out to dinner with your friends. That means you don't get to go have a drink at the bar and you don't get to do all of the things that bring you joy, that make life worth living now.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  So it's just really important that people recognize there's two sides of the equation and asking for more sometimes is a lot easier than just cutting out.

• 40:22Mike Carruthers?

  One of the things that I think turns people off about this whole thing, like when you listen to conversations like this, it seems like you're spending so much time planning and investing and scrimping and saving and doing all these things that like you just, you kind of suck the life out of your life because you're so focused on this.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I actually challenge people who feel that way to reframe their mindset and think about being smart with your finances as creating opportunities for yourself. One of the greatest things that budgeting allowed me to do was by a black Saffiano leather Prada bag. And I think when people hear that myself as a finance creator or a personal finance expert, talking about how much I loved buying a designer bag, a $3,000 designer bag.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  People are like, wait, that's not responsible. What do you mean you bought that? That's not a good use of your money. You should have invested it. It's like, yeah, I could have invested it, but I strategically set up a budget that allowed me to set a little bit of money aside, week after week, month after month, so that I could have this little splurge. So I could have this moment of spontaneity and walking into the Prada store and feeling confident, knowing that buying this bag was not going to be the difference between whether or not I could make rent or buy groceries. It afforded me a luxury. It afforded me fun and.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Allowed me to keep living my life in a way that wasn't going to stress me out. There's nothing better than feeling like you were able to get something for yourself without impacting your day to day because you just, you got it like that.

• 42:09Mike Carruthers?

  What do you see when you talk to people and look at their finances? Or what do you see people doing that is counterproductive?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  One of my personal like views is like a cardinal sin is dollar dribbling. So it's essentially where you spend money you don't have on things you don't need to impress people you don't like. And it happens so fast. A new, a new phone upgrading because all of your friends are upgrading. It's paying a little extra so that you can, you know, get early access to some sort of sale. It, it, just little things that don't necessarily make you happy or actually spark joy for you that you end up wasting that money on. But also not negotiating enough.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  You know, I think everybody thinks that the price on the sticker is the price. And that's just not true. And that's not true when it comes to your medical bills. You can literally call back and be like, hey, I'd love to pay this in full, but I would need a waiver or discount to do so. And a lot of the time, your medical practice will give that to you. Especially if you don't have insurance, you need to be negotiating. There are times where you go and buy a car. Let me tell you, you should be negotiating your butt off for that. But there's an even better example that people don't think of is like their cellphone bill. You can call every single year and ask for a special deal or your wifi or your cable or any of those streaming platforms you pay for.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  You can get discounts and deals on that every single year. And I think the best example of this was, you know, of negotiation is. I walked into a department store and I wanted to get a pair of these black sandals. They were really beautiful and I wear a size eight shoe. And the shoe that was on display was a size eight and I tried it on and I was like, I love this. Give me the left one or give me the right one, whichever one I didn't have. And I tried them on and the, the one that was brought out from the back store room was perfect, but the one on display had a scuff on it. And I asked the sales associate, I was like, hey, this shoe has a scuff on it. Any chance you can get me a fresh pair of eights from the back?

• 44:29Speaker 02

  And they said, let me go check. They come back and they're like, hey, bad news. This is the last pair of eights in this sandal. And so I said, I'm happy to buy the shoe with a scuff on it. Can I have a discount? And they gave me 15% off the shoe. You never expect to be able to negotiate at a place like a department store, but you can negotiate every single aspect of your life and people don't do it enough.

• 44:52Mike Carruthers?

  What's another big financial pitfall that people fall into, maybe without even realizing they're doing it?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  One big conversation that people probably don't want to hear is about lifestyle creep or lifestyle inflation, which is just a fancy way of saying, when you start making a little bit more money, you start spending a little bit more money. And this definitely happened to me and I think it happens to a lot of us where you get your first job out of college. It's bare bones. You're living in a studio with another person, very literally, that was my life. And then I ended up getting my second job, started making more money. I moved into a nicer apartment. It was a two bed. I paid more in rent and I was going out to eat more instead of cooking at home and I started buying myself some cute new outfits. And suddenly at the end of the month, I would look at my bank statements and I'd be like,

• 45:46Speaker 02

  I'm no better off than when I had my first entry level job. And that's because sometimes when we start seeing more money go into our bank accounts, we feel like we have the ability to spend more. So my recommendation here is when you do start making more, you can actually go into your workplace portal. These days, very few of us still get paid by physical paper check. A lot of us get paid by direct deposit. And what you can do is Split that up. So from jump, instead of 100% of my paycheck going into my checking account, I will put 80% into my checking account and 20% automatically goes into savings

• 46:29Speaker 02

  or automatically goes towards an account that I have set aside for investing, what have you. And it essentially allows me to tap into the concept of like out of sight, out of mind. When I only see so much money in my checking account, I know I can only spend so much. But all the while, today me is taking care of future me.

• 46:51Mike Carruthers?

  Anybody who's tried that knows how powerful that is. You can't spend what you don't have. And if what you don't have is going somewhere to build up your financial worth, it's, it's perfect.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Exactly. And I would say, there are so many cool hacks and tricks and loopholes and tips these days to help you make more of your money. So if you are a responsible credit user and you pay your credit card bill on time, every month in full, consider getting a credit card that really aligns to your lifestyle. So I am a yuppie who lives in a major city. All of my money goes towards travel and dining out. There's a credit card that really serves that purpose and allows me to get a ton of rewards and a ton of points and, you know, perks when I go to the airport. And that's how I paid for my last vacation. My last vacation caused, cost me a couple hundred bucks in transaction

• 47:49Speaker 02

  fees and that's it. I flew lay flat, first class. I stayed at a five star hotel and all of it was free because I paid for it in points. And that's money that stays in my pocket that gets to get used for other things. If you're someone who spends all of your money on groceries or gas to put in your car, there are credit cards for that, that again, allow you to get points for travel or cash back or just keeping more dollars in your pocket. And, you know, when you're shopping online or even in store, there are now tons of affiliate or rebate sites or apps that you can utilize to get cash back on your groceries that you buy in person or any sort of online shopping

• 48:29Speaker 02

  you're doing. There are just ways now to keep an additional 5, 10, 20%. And we should be taking full advantage of all of these things. You should be getting something for everything you buy these days.

• 48:42Mike Carruthers?

  One of the things I get from listening to you talk that I really like is that you approach this as fun, you know, as kind of a game almost, that it's fun to do, to save on things and to invest in things, whereas I think it's a mindset so many people have that they just dread it. But I like your way better. Vivian Tu has been my guest. She is the CEO and founder of Rich BFF Media LLC. You will find her on TikTok and other social media spots. And the name of her book is Rich AF, The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Vivian.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Perfect. Thank you so much.

• 49:30Mike Carruthers?

  One of life's little frustrations that seems to happen to me a lot is you pick up a pen to write and the ink doesn't come out, you know, to sign a receipt at a restaurant or to take a message, and there's no ink. And the pen only has one job, which is deliver the ink. If you have a pen and the ink is not coming out, before you throw it away, which of course is the easiest solution, there are a few things you can try to get the ink rolling again. First, just try scribbling like crazy on a piece of paper, because often the ball in a ballpoint pen gets jammed and scribbling will loosen it up. Try drawing

• 50:13Mike Carruthers?

  circles on a glass surface, like the nearest window. That can help get the ball rolling. Heat the tip of the pen in a candle flame or in boiling water for a few seconds. Spray a little window cleaner on your fingers and then rub it on the ball. This will act as a lubricant to free the ball if it is in fact jammed. But if the pen is truly out of ink, eh, there's not much you can do. And that is something you should know. Our quest continues to find new listeners. It won't end until everyone listens to this podcast. And you can help by telling a friend or two or three about this podcast, which you must like because

• 50:55Mike Carruthers?

  you're here at the end of the episode. So please, yeah, tell some people and help us grow our audience. It would be greatly appreciated and it's a great way to support the podcast. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 51:11Speaker 04

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• 51:38Speaker 06

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