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0:00
Hi besties. I'm Vivian Tu, a former Wall Street trader, financial educator, and the CEO of Your Rich BFF. Today, I'm taking questions from the internet. This is personal finance support.
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User Chocolate Rain comments, it's very odd how these companies are almost begging customers to split payments/ buyin for, etc. Something is off. I hear you. buy and for afterpay like the CLA conversation of it all. It all started from a good place. The background is these companies were utilized often to provide credit to underbanked communities. So people who couldn't necessarily get credit in the traditional way. They couldn't necessarily get credit cards or loans
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from banks. People could use these programs to purchase major things. Things like refrigerators, appliances, a new laptop for work, work tools. It started as a way to potentially help people, but obviously capitalism sunk her teeth into it and now all of a sudden companies are saying, "Hey, you can split your burrito into four payments." Four easy payments of $4. Yes, burritos do now cost $16. If you can use them correctly, you're okay. But you miss one payment and you best
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believe your credit score is going to get dinged. You are going to get charged interest. These are no longer safety nets providing funding to underfunded communities. They are predatory. I do not use any of these programs and I would encourage you to avoid them as well. This question comes from chaotic is taken. Pros and cons of joint bank accounts. This is a hot topic of mine, but I think the healthiest strategy most often for couples is to have a yours, mine, and ours strategy. Joint bank
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accounts are great because they make it really easy to split joint expenses. So things like paying for your mortgage or utilities or even date night and vacations. But a joint bank account also opens yourself up to a lot of risk. I actually know a couple that had a joint bank account and one of the partners, you know, developed a pretty bad sports betting addiction and drained that entire bank account, but because he was a joint owner on the account, there was
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nothing that my friend could really do about it. So, if you're opening up a joint bank account with someone, you have to make sure that you really, really trust them. They are financially literate and responsible. And I still encourage even great couples and great relationships to still have their own money because we all need to have access to rainy day funds. And I just think that it's so important, especially for women, to make sure that they have the money to leave a bad situation in case
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things go south. User Patricia Honda is tired. She says, "What the hell is loud budgeting now? Y'all just be making stuff up. I'm tired. It's safe to say that a lot of people are feeling the burn in their wallets. Everything feels a little bit tighter from necessities, but also to just like going out with friends. And loud budgeting is very simply when you are transparent about your own money goals and what is available to you. So, you have four friends getting married next year. They
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all want you to go to their destination bachelorette parties. They are all having destination weddings and destination engagement parties. It is okay for you to actually talk to them and say, "Hey, I have some money goals." And if I'm being totally transparent, going to New York for your engagement party, Cabo for your bachelorette, and then Italy for your wedding is not in my budget. I'm currently saving for XYZ. I have to pay off this much debt, but I want to still support you and be there
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for you as a friend. Talk to me about what is most important for you and what I should really be present at. That type of transparency is entirely what loud budgeting is about. And it's just us being more honest versus going into debt for other people's major moments or to look cool or to do stuff just because. Finius asks, "How do you balance saving for the future versus enjoying life now?" You have to build the infrastructure so you take all the decision-m out of your dayto-day. So
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when you sign up for your first job, they have you give them a checking account of where you want your paycheck deposited. But did you know you can actually say, "Hey, I want 75% of my paycheck routed here. I want 10% here and another 15% here." This helps you really figure out what goes to taking care of future you and what you get to enjoy today. Seeking Wealth says, "People really think skipping out on their daily $5 coffee will help them become a millionaire." I am kind of torn
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on this one. I agree. A $5 coffee every day for a whole entire year works out to be roughly a little less than $2,000. That's certainly not getting you to millionaire status in the course of a year. However, the behavior of dollar dribbling often times can lead you to become less wealthy over the course of your lifetime. So, what does that mean? If every day you buy that $5 coffee with intention and it brings you so much joy and it is the only thing empowering you
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to get to work, go get it. But are you also buying a croissant with that? And then are you also spending $15 on a salad for lunch? And oh, by the way, I didn't really feel like taking public transportation home tonight, so I took a ride share. When you do these little things that add up over time, it can lead to less money in your pocket and less money more importantly in your investments over the course of your lifetime. When you are just spending mindlessly, it's not really adding to
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your life, you will actually end up spending a lot of your money and then looking back and feeling like you have nothing to show for it. So, what I say is if you are going to make little purchases, buy yourself a little treat, do it with intention, do it with meaning. But in situations where you don't need to be spending certain amounts of money, you might be better off allocating that dollar into an investment account for yourself, that money doesn't go away. It just gets to
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take care of future you. June Crypto3 says, " $20,000 in student loans, still paying the price of bad decisions." I'm sorry that you are still paying off your student loans, but for maybe younger people who are considering higher education, what I really encourage you to do is actually go to bls.gov. This is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have an A through Z occupational handbook. So, they have everything from accountant to zookeeper. Through every single one of these jobs, they'll tell
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you how much education you need, any sort of licensing requirements or graduate degrees or anything like that, roughly what this job would make. Also, what different sectors pay for that type of job. And that way you actually have a good gut check of will this degree and major give me the actual career that will fund all of the debt that I might need to be taking to actually get it. Todd Barry says, "Got this great Chrome extension that searches for discount codes when you shop online. It only
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takes an extra minute and it never ever finds a discount. Those Chrome extensions, more often than not, they won't really find you anything. But what I do think is real is going through an affiliate website. So things like a racketin before you are going to buy something they have a relationship with a lot of vendors where they're like hey if you drive us traffic we will give you 10% of each order and then they turn around and say hm we'll give you 5% cash
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back if you route your order through us. Essentially you get to split that commission with them. So before I go shopping anywhere I head to a site like Racketin. I make sure that I see what sort of cash back I'm able to get. And then I use a rewards credit card so I can get cash back again or maybe even travel miles. My money culture asks, "What should I do first? Pay off my debts, save for an emergency fund, save for a house, or invest." Okay, this is the easy peasy way to go through the
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waterfall. First and foremost, you want to have an emergency fund. This makes sense because you don't want to get into more financial trouble if the wheel rolls off of your car or your roof caves in. What I personally like to do is say 3 to 6 months of living expenses in a high yield savings account if you're single or 6 to 12 months of living expenses if you're ahead of household. Then we're going to pay off our high interest rate debt. So that's debt anything above 7% mostly credit cards.
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Once we have that all paid off, then you can start thinking about investments and saving for a house. So you can continue to pay your low interest rate debt while you start setting money aside for more liquid investments. Dry entrepreneur22342 asks, "What systems do you use to stop yourself from dipping into your savings?" I make it really hard for me to access my own savings. You can have part of your paycheck go towards a checking account and then part of your
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paycheck go towards a saving account. So, you can say 90% goes to checking, 10% goes towards savings. Then make it some random password into the bank that holds your high yield savings account. Make it hard for yourself to get in. Make it so that you have to click forgot password and go to your email and get a special code and log in again because when you put enough barriers in between you and spending from your savings account, you don't feel like you have
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the right to dig into it. Okay. A Quora user asked, "How can learning to negotiate effectively increase your overall wealth?" Let me tell you one thing. Rich people love to negotiate everything. I'm talking medical bills. Fun fact, did you know 80% of those have errors in them? They go and they actually negotiate and say, "Hey, I didn't get these treatments done. Can I get a discount here?" And they're getting them. On top of that, things that you get subscriptions for, so your
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Wi-Fi, your cell phone bill, all of that, you can negotiate it. Especially if you have multiple competitors in the area, they want to keep your business and they are willing to offer you a discount or maybe a locked in lower rate for a period of time. You should be negotiating for a raise every single year. And you should be negotiating things that are big expenses for you like rent as well as what you would pay for a car and especially when you go to make big purchases like a home. The
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easiest way to negotiate is to one do your research, know exactly what the market rates for everything are and where you might be able to find those discounts. Two, it's to really prepare and set yourself up for success with all of your information and then make a very clear ask and then stop talking. Most of us try to walk it back or say, "Oh, but if not, it's okay. Don't say any of that stuff. Just wait for them to respond. But more often than not, you'll actually
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find that many providers, many employers will actually meet you halfway. So once you actually get what you want, make sure that you deliver on your end of the bargain and continue being a great employee or being a loyal customer. This question comes from irrational_thoughts one. Are spending tracking apps really worth it? So it depends. Spending tracking apps are a great way to see what you're spending on. You can track it all you want, but if you're spending
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more than you have coming in the door, you're still going to be in a net negative. So, what I really encourage you to actually do is build out a budget that you can live with and not be so tight on every single expense, but have categories. My favorite strategy is the 5030 20 method. 50% of your after tax take-home pay goes to needs. So, things like your basic housing and transportation and groceries. 30% of your after tax take-home pay goes to wants. So that's like getting drinks
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with your friends or going out to eat or going to a concert. And 20% goes to taking care of future you. I'm talking debt payown and investing. On Reddit, user DeepFunny 5242 wrote a post about the huge impact of quitting social media on my finances. I could not agree more. And this is coming from someone whose entire career is on social media. But I feel like social media has convinced so many of us that we do not have a good life. And the problem of that is in our
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parents' generation, our parents would take their binoculars and look at the Joneses across the street and be like, "Oo, the Joneses got a new station wagon." But now, instead of being limited to other people who are in your general income tax bracket, we have unfettered access to everybody on Earth. All of a sudden, I can see what the inside of a private jet looks like. I have no business knowing what that looks like because I don't have private jet money. and all of a sudden it looks like
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everybody's on vacation all the time, all at once. You're the only loser at home doing your job, working, living a normal life. But in fact, that's quite the opposite of true. I really encourage everyone to think about the incentives. If somebody is really hardcore promoting something, is it because they make an affiliate commission when you buy one cult following items? Maybe you don't need those things to be happy. Someone is just trying to sell them to you.
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Decent age707 asks, "How many different pots/ac accounts do you put money into for saving? I have a big pot that is my emergency fund. I have a vacation fund. I had a home down payment fund. I bought the house. We have a family planning fund. In many cases, when you have your money at a high yield savings account, you're actually able to divvy up where your actual cash is earmarked without having to open a bunch of other accounts. And what I like to do is I actually label the names including a
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dollar amount. So say emergency fund $10,000. And that way if I see the dollar value slip below that amount, I can then top that account up because I know it needs a little bit more money. Dependent TAP899 asks, "How much do you trust generic AI like ChatGpt for financial advice?" Point blank, not at all. Not only are these generic AI platforms not registered investment advisors with the SEC, but Chat GPT in particular recently just came out and said that they are no
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longer answering medical, financial, or legal questions. And my guess is it's because they ran out of arbitration budget. Listen, I think AI is truly going to be such a big help in the personal finance space. And that is why I built my own startup called Ask Dolly. You can check it out at askdally.com. We are a registered investment adviser with the SEC. You can get ondemand personal finance knowledge 24/7. And then if you do ask an incredibly niche personal question, we connect you with a
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live human certified financial planner to make sure that you can get the financial advice you deserve, not just some generic AI slop. Sam RC1987 says, "I'm just a guy heavily banking on his Pokemon cards, Pogs, and Beanie Babies to provide his only shot at retirement. What I encourage people to think about when it comes to things like art or collectibles or even wine, your item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Do they have value as assets? Yes. However, you have
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to remember the market for collectibles, for art, for wine sellers, they're not as liquid as things like the stock market or even crypto or even real estate. There are only so many people who actually want collectibles. In some cases, if it's ultra rare and there's a huge community and a cult following behind it, yes, you have assets and they might be worth something, but they're really only worth what someone is willing to pay. And more often than not, in an economic downturn, people are much
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less willing to pay for collectibles, things like Pokémon cards, because they have to pay for things like food, things that are actually necessities. Inspector number 376 asks, "How do you handle unexpected expenses when your budget is already tight?" This is exactly why we need to have an emergency fund. I'll give you a story. When I had just moved to New York, I had a little bit of an incident with a bread knife and chopped off the tip of my index finger. I went
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to the ER. The entire bill ended up being $16,000. Even after insurance, I still owed roughly, I want to say, $1,300. The problem was I didn't have that money. Oh, but wait, my emergency fund did. I had been setting aside money into an emergency fund, and that was able to cover my medical bill. Even if you don't think of your emergency fund as money you have access to today, it can bail you out of a really big sticky situation. So, when your budget is tight, what I encourage you to do is
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simple. Slowly start setting money aside. This can be $10 a month, $20 a month, whatever you have access to. Over time, that emergency fund will grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And when you have an unexpected expense, you will have the dollars to be able to take care of those expenses and better take care of yourself. Ooh, this is a little bit of an old school question, but MDG Roberts one asks, "Is it a good idea to keep a cash stash around the house?" Yes and
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no. No, because any sort of cash that is not earning you interest in a high yield savings account is essentially being eaten away at slowly by inflation and the cost of living going up over time. Yes, because in some cases you will need cash. So when a housekeeper comes or maybe when you go to the neighborhood bodega and just want to buy a couple things, I think cash is efficient and effective and has a time and a place. But keeping too much of it at the house does not benefit you in any way. I
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probably keep $100, $200 in cash at the house at my house at any given time. Having the cash is helpful for my day-to-day life, but it doesn't leave too much out of a bank where I can actually earn more money on my money. A question from the UK personal finance subreddit. Any tips for handling a partner who keeps getting into debts? I think someone who keeps getting into debts, I think the word keeps is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the sentence for me. I don't think debt makes you
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morally a bad person. Many of us have debt. I have debt, but you have to have a plan to pay it down. And the fact that you have a partner who continuously keeps getting themsel into a bad financial position tells me that they do not value a dollar the same way you do. that they are not responsible with their money and ultimately will not be a responsible partner for you. And I know that sounds quite harsh, but I do not want your financial future to be jeopardized by someone who clearly isn't
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as responsible as they need to be to be in a relationship. Question from Champion 533. At what income level should someone start to consider a money manager/financial adviser? At what level does it possibly pay for itself? You do not need a money manager or financial adviser unless you have a really complex financial situation. I'll give you two examples. So, if you are a highpowered attorney in a major city and you make $650,000 a year, you do not have a complex
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financial situation. You make your money in one place. You get a W2 job from your law firm. You are an incredibly high earnner. That number is huge. But because your money is coming in from one place, it's very simple, cut and dry. It's also very easy for you to perhaps invest on your own or utilize a robo advisor because this is going to help you save so much money in fees. Human financial adviserss and money managers more often than not charge 1 to 1.25% in fees every single year of the assets
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they manage for you. And over the course of your lifetime that could be six maybe seven figures. I really don't want to give up that much in fees. However, if you have an incredibly complex financial situation, let's use Drake as an example. This man makes money from album sales. He makes money from streaming. He makes money from touring, from merch. He tours in multiple different countries. So, there's a ton of complication there. He has a very complex financial
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situation. And that is when a financial manager or a money manager or an adviser might make more sense. The next question comes from rude ad 7287. I'm in overdraft and can't get out. I would appreciate any advice. Simply put, it sounds like there is a discrepancy between income and outflow. Unfortunately, that really does mean you need to increase the amount of dollars coming in the door. So, that means either getting a temporary side hustle, getting a higher paying job. It means
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perhaps even working with a family member to help put you in a position where you are able to have the cash to pay certain things down once you have more income coming in the door. It's also about tackling perhaps the existing debt problem you may have or the spending problem that you may have. If this is coming from a position of your overspending, I think that's one conversation. You could consider things like credit counseling. You could consider things like debt consolidation.
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But if it's truly a needs-based problem, so you are in overdraft trying to buy groceries. You are in overdraft trying to pay for basic necessities. This is a very tough situation because I'm not going to sit here and try and pretend like you can budget your way out of poverty. You can't budget your way out of a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. You actually just need to make more money. Regardless of where you live or where you are struggling, there are so many
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local resources that might be able to help you. Whether that is a food pantry, whether that is debt relief in certain neighborhoods in New York City, we have programs that can help eliminate certain types of debt. Maybe there are social programs, social safety networks that can provide you mutual aid. But please look into your local geography and what is available both to you from the community, but also the local government. No. Cardiologist 1407 asks, "How do people get rich by faking being
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rich?" They don't. You've heard of notable examples like Anna Delvi. Those House of Cards always come crashing down. What I always say is that if you focus all of your energy on looking rich, it'll actually make you broke. More often than not, people who purport to have all of this money and live this crazy lavish lifestyle are not doing that well. The richest people on this planet, you would never know. They would walk down the street. And I think it really comes down to being able to spend
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money on things that actually bring you joy versus spending money on things just to impress people. Y Levi asks, "How can I keep my dad from being taken advantage of financially by family members, scammers, etc." I love this question because I am a first generation daughter of immigrants. In many immigrant communities, there is this level of obligation to support family members. But if you don't set healthy boundaries, they are going to take from you until you have nothing left versus you being
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able to lift them up. What I encourage you to do with your dad for family is to not only maybe provide money and support in that way, but also provide support through the form of education, resources, and helping them help themselves. As for scammers, this is a more older generation, younger generation conversation. I actually force my parents to walk me through any sort of major financial decisions they're making because my parents were victim of a fishing scam. We have to
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make sure that we are protecting a generation that didn't necessarily grow up as natively on technology as we did. I think it's really important to have those conversations. Let them know that they're not in trouble, but you want to help. And setting them up for success so that your parents are more technologically savvy. That'll help prevent them from being scammed. Next question is from Ressum. Is buying a home still worth it in 2026? What do you mean by worth it? If I'm being honest,
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right now it is cheaper to rent than buy in the vast majority of major metropolitan cities. However, when you ask yourself, is it worth it? I want you to think about a couple things. One, how long do you plan to stay in that residence? If you are not planning to stay for longer than 5 to seven years at a minimum, you should not be buying because the frictional costs of buying a home, such as mortgage origination fees, paying for an inspection, the costs are
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very high. If you, however, are planning on putting down roots, you want to be there for a while, it may be a good idea. Keep in mind, when you're a renter, if something bad terrible happens to you, your toilet starts leaking at 2 a.m., that is your landlord's problem. When you own the home, that is now your problem. When you are a renter, you don't pay property taxes, but when you own, you pay property taxes. However, when you own, the big pro is that you're building
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equity. But what I always say is buying real estate now doesn't have to look like what it looked like when our parents did it. I know multiple people now who rent their primary residence but actually have investment properties that they then utilize as part-time vacation homes and might rent out the other part of the time. They want to be able to buy a little piece of this earth and have it maybe for their future retirement, but they don't necessarily feel like the
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geography where their primary residence is located is a good investment market. So, I would just say get creative. Buying a home is not the end- all beall. If you buy one, it doesn't make you a winner. Not having one doesn't make you a loser. You got to make sure you do what actually makes sense for your lifestyle. Dick Moss asks, "Turning 40 and realizing that I need to start saving for retirement. Will I be okay?" One in four people has zero dollars saved for retirement. So, I don't want
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you to feel alone and I don't want you to feel embarrassed. Many people do not start saving for retirement until they're later in their life. However, I also have to hit you with the brutal truth, which is you will have to work harder than someone who starts saving for retirement in their 20s. You're going to have to put more dollars away and you are going to have to be a lot more deliberate with the investments you choose. And it is possible that you may not get to retire at 60. You might have
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to wait until you're 65, 70, maybe even 75. The honest truth is money doesn't make people rich. Time does. The earlier you start investing, the longer compound interest has to work. It's essentially like a teeny tiny snowball rolling down a mountain. The longer you have, essentially the bigger distance you have from the top of the mountain to the bottom, the more your money can grow. While you are not completely up a creek without a paddle, I would encourage you
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to not only really prioritize retirement investing, but once you hit age 50, make sure that you are maximizing those catch-up contributions so that you can actually play catch-up for a lot of those dollars that you may not have invested in your 20s and 30s. That's everything for today. I hope you learned something and thanks for tuning in to Personal Finance Support.
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