\n<\/p>\n
Everyone wants to know how to get rich. And here\u2019s the truth: getting rich might be much easier than you think<\/strong>. While most people would assume the wealthy grind their way to success, this isn\u2019t always the case. In fact, rich people are FAR lazier than you think<\/strong>, and we\u2019re not saying that in a bad way. Rich people make money while they sleep<\/strong>, so they don\u2019t HAVE to work harder every day. Want to know how you can do the same? Vivian Tu<\/strong><\/a>, AKA \u201cYour Rich BFF<\/strong>,\u201d will show you how!<\/p>\n Vivian grew up with super-saver immigrant parents <\/strong>who taught her the value of money. When she went off to college, she realized a whole new world of wealth existed\u2014this was only multiplied when she became a Wall Street trader<\/strong>. Vivian saw the fancy suits, the designer bags, and the jewel-studded bracelets and realized that these \u201crich\u201d people were doing something most people didn\u2019t know about.<\/strong> After her friends and coworkers wouldn\u2019t stop asking her for financial advice, she decided to take her knowledge to the masses.<\/p>\n In her new book, \u201cRich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life<\/strong>,\u201d Vivian details what the rich do that you (probably) don\u2019t<\/strong>. These habits of the wealthy<\/strong><\/a> can change your life and upgrade you from the position you\u2019re in now. In today\u2019s episode, we talk about the tools you can use to get rich<\/strong>, why you\u2019re playing real-life Monopoly<\/strong> all wrong, and how rich people think <\/strong>to build wealth<\/a> even when they\u2019re not working.<\/p>\n Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Amanda: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Amanda: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Amanda: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Vivian: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Amanda: Mindy: Speaker 4: Mindy: \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Help us reach new listeners on iTunes<\/a>\u00a0by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds.\u00a0Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n Interested in learning more about today\u2019s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our <\/i>sponsor page<\/a><\/i>!<\/i><\/p>\n Note By BiggerPockets:<\/b> These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.<\/p>\n
Hello, listeners, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast where we interview Vivian Tu from Networth and Chill and talk about her new book, Rich AF. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me today is the Shewolfeofwallstreet, Amanda Wolfe.
Amanda, I\u2019m so glad you could join me today. Thanks for<\/p>\n
Having me. I\u2019m excited to be here.<\/p>\n
I always love talking to you, Amanda.<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Amanda and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you starting.<\/p>\n
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or start your own business, we\u2019ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams.<\/p>\n
Okay, Amanda, I am so excited to talk to Vivian today because she has a great framework for not only becoming rich, but also a great way to think about being rich and growing your wealth and ways to invest so that you can join the rich people club too.<\/p>\n
Yeah. And I loved her book so much and I\u2019m so excited to talk to her because I think that she had a really refreshing, unique spin on money mentality stuff and thinking rich. I\u2019m a total self-development money junkie. I read all the books and I really liked the way that she broke things down. She broke things down in a lot of analogies and storytelling, which I find really helpful for me to retain information. So I\u2019m super excited to talk to her today. I thought her book was awesome.<\/p>\n
Exactly. Yeah, this is a really engaging book and I\u2019m excited to talk to her. But before we bring in Vivian, let\u2019s take a quick break.
And we\u2019re back. Vivian is an ex Wall Street trader and is now the founder and CEO of Your Rich BFF Media and the host of the podcast, Networth and Chill. Vivian produces educational financial content on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube with over 5 million followers across those platforms.
Vivian, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I\u2019m so excited to talk to you today.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for having me. I\u2019m so excited to be here.<\/p>\n
Vivian, for those who don\u2019t follow you yet on social media, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?<\/p>\n
Yeah. I am the daughter of two immigrant Chinese parents. I grew up in the suburbs of DC, went to school in Chicago, and when I graduated, I started my career on Wall Street. That is my big tagline, your favorite Wall Street girly. I started as a trader. I traded equities. And I did that for a while until I realized that that job wasn\u2019t the best fit. I wasn\u2019t making the kind of money that I had seen in the movies and I wanted to do something that was a little bit more creative, but also where I could just get paid more.
I ended up moving into the tech and media space. And there, all of my new friends wanted to hear more about what I was investing in, should they put money into our company 401k, what kind of health insurance to buy. And I ended up creating educational content to put on the internet because they wouldn\u2019t stop harassing me about it. And as it turns out, a lot more people needed that information than I had anticipated. And very much, the first video I put up went viral, like that, and overnight I became your rich BFF.<\/p>\n
Well, I love that. So growing up, what was your relationship with money and how did you start to educate yourself?<\/p>\n
I would say my parents were really good at saving. That\u2019s the story of so many immigrant parents. My mom was a coupon clipper. I would sit there and cut them with her and we would wash Ziploc bags. And in our kitchen there\u2019s a drawer with one big trash bag with a bunch of smaller grocery bags in it, and we save all the bags. We\u2019re bag people. But what that ended up teaching me was to really, really value a dollar and how hard somebody has to work to have that dollar. So I\u2019ve always been really good at budgeting and saving, and I\u2019m certainly not someone who\u2019s been a frivolous spender in the past.
But going to school in Chicago, I went to the University of Chicago, I grew up in what I would consider a upper middle class neighborhood. I would say, in that neighborhood, my family was probably slightly below average in terms of wealth. I got to college and I saw a level of wealth that I had just never seen before. It really, really led me to feel like I had to do certain things to keep up appearances, which frankly, if you don\u2019t got it like that, you\u2019re just never going to be able to keep it up. So I would say I probably made some money mistakes in college, spent some money that I certainly shouldn\u2019t have on things that I didn\u2019t need to impress people that I didn\u2019t even like.
And it wasn\u2019t until I graduated and got my first big girl job full-time, I was working on Wall Street, that my mentor, my very first manager took me under her wing and she was so cool and everything I wanted to be, new Chanel bag, new pair of Gucci stilettos every single day to work, would clickity clack in on the way. And I was like, wow, I want to have that. But she was also the first person who explained investing in a way that I understood. And she was like, \u201cListen, I grew up, my family ran a Chinese restaurant. I didn\u2019t come from money.\u201d She had a very similar background. She went to Stanford on scholarship, did not have money like that, got this kind of job and she had to learn things the hard way. She was like, \u201cI did not contribute to my 401k for the first five years of my career because I couldn\u2019t afford to. I literally was hand to mouth.\u201d And she\u2019s like, \u201cI know that\u2019s not the case for you, so you need to be doing this.\u201d
And so she was really the first person who encouraged me to use investing as a tool to grow my wealth versus just scrimping and saving and cutting out every single purchase that brought me a tiny ounce of joy in my life.<\/p>\n
So it sounds like she was really a pivotal moment in your life as it relates to finance. So you did the couponing and the reusing of the paper bags and probably the containers for your Tupperware type life and then know what we know. So then you\u2019re exposed to all of this great wealth. You\u2019re working on Wall Street. So what made you decide that you wanted to get into the personal finance education space and start your platform, Your Rich BFF and Networth and Chill?<\/p>\n
Yeah. I was working on Wall Street and I was working for my manager who I loved so much, but I ended up getting switched over to work for somebody else. And this new guy was just awful. He treated me badly. I was not given the respect that I deserved. And frankly, he was a chauvinistic pig who would say racist things. Like when I would wear a long cardigan to work, he would ask, \u201cIs that a kimono?\u201d and touch his hands and bow at me. And it was just really, really inappropriate. And I knew that he wasn\u2019t ever going to be my advocate, but more importantly, he was never going to pay me. I was never going to get the money that I had been promised for sitting 14 hours next to an insufferable man to then have to go to a client event after work. All of the things that I was promised I wasn\u2019t getting, and I was like, well, I\u2019m going to get them one way or another, whether or not it\u2019s through this traditional corporate financey route.
So I told my mentor, I was like, \u201cHey, I am not cool with this. I\u2019m about to leave.\u201d And she was like, \u201cNo, no, no, do some interviews.\u201d I ended up interviewing with her best friend who ended up becoming my first manager, and I moved into the tech media space in strategy sales at Buzzfeed. And there, I made a lot of new friends who wanted my advice, who wanted a recommendation on what they should do, should they buy the company stock options, should they select this fund over another in their 401k portal. And because it was so crazy to me that so many people had the same questions, I just started making videos so I could refer back and be like, \u201cHey, guys, if you have this question, just go watch video seven at the lunch table.\u201d I didn\u2019t mean for it to become a whole business and take my job into the entrepreneurship realm like it did.<\/p>\n
So You wrote a book called Rich AF, that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to call it today. Rich, can you tell us about this book and why you chose to write this at this time and who did you write it for?<\/p>\n
Yeah. I felt like there had been a slew of really, really classic OG finance books that had served my parents\u2019 generation really well. But knock, knock, welcome. It\u2019s 2023. It does not look the same anymore. The landscape is not the same wages of stagnated. The price of housing has tripled. The price of an education has 10x. We do not live in the same reality that our parents live in. And on top of that, I think it\u2019s been easy for some people for a while. They\u2019ve been playing on tutorial mode. If you are a old rich white guy, you can get into your little time teleportation machine and go back to any time in the timeline. As a young Asian woman, there are some time periods that I cannot go to. If you are a Black person, there are some real time periods you cannot go back to. If you are a gay person, there are many times that you cannot go back to.
And I think that speaks volumes to the access we\u2019ve all had with financial information for some time as well, because for so long, financial services has only catered to people who are already rich, likely white and likely men, and that\u2019s not fair. I wrote this book to teach personal finance to people who I like to call my audience. I\u2019ve lovingly dubbed them the leftovers. They are the people that the financial services industry has left over. These are women. These are people of color. These are the LGBTQ community. These are people who grew up low income. These are people who may not have gotten that education because they grew up with money trauma. And it\u2019s so important in particular for those communities to learn about this because that is how you build up overall in those demographics because when you put money in those pockets, that money gets reinvested. And so it\u2019s important to not concentrate wealth just with people who already have it.<\/p>\n
Right. And that\u2019s definitely what continues to happen within generations. And I think that we can probably all agree that financial literacy is quite often missing in most households and schools in the US. So can you talk to why financial literacy is so important, why it\u2019s never too late? Because I think that\u2019s another one too, right? Well, it\u2019s too late for me, so I\u2019m just going to set my kids up. Or does it even make sense to start now? Can you talk a little bit about that?<\/p>\n
Yeah, absolutely. It is a damn shame that you are legally obligated to go through 12 years of education, so first through 12th grade. I don\u2019t know kindergarten\u2019s mandatory, but you have to go through school. If you don\u2019t take your kid to school or if you don\u2019t homeschool them or they\u2019re not in some sort of education, you as a parent can get in a lot of trouble. You then expect them to get the education they deserve in those schools. And I\u2019m not putting this on teachers, certainly not because they are bound by what is federally and state mandated. And financial literacy is not a federally mandated subject.
So I\u2019m out here in my biology class learning that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell sick. You know what? I didn\u2019t become a scientist. I\u2019m out here learning that the Pythagorean theorem exists. I\u2019m learning sign, co-sign, drawing triangles. You know what I don\u2019t do? Draw triangles for a living. You know what both a scientist and a mathematician and literally anybody who makes money needs to do? Pay taxes, legally speaking. That would\u2019ve been nice to know how to file a tax return because the first year I did it, I thought I was going to jail. And it would\u2019ve been nice to know how to make a budget because the first year that I moved to New York City, was working on a Wall Street salary, I was living paycheck to paycheck. That\u2019s bad. And I think about all of the people who didn\u2019t make as much money as I was making living in New York City, which is many people. How are they doing it? Because we\u2019re not taught how to do these things in school.
So of course, the people who know the secrets, the rich people who\u2019ve already got this game figured out, they\u2019re going to pass those secrets down one rich person to the next down their generational line and that same family, just because great-great-great-great-great-grandpa owned a railroad, now the entire family\u2019s just set forever. I don\u2019t necessarily think that makes sense. I think there needs to be class mobility in a place like America, but also just across the world because, what is the point of working hard or dreaming of a better future if there is no class mobility? If the ability to work harder to make more, to have a better life does not exist, what\u2019s the point? So I think that\u2019s really, really important.
And then, in terms of people fearing that it\u2019s too late and like, \u201cOh, I\u2019ll never be good at this. I\u2019m going to just set my kid up,\u201d I think wanting to set your kid up for success speaks to you being a great parent. Of course you should want that, but it is never, ever, ever too late for anybody to finally figure out their finances, to get good with their money because you owe it as a service to your children as well as yourself to get yourself in the best financial position possible.
Because you know what happens when you are like, \u201cOh, I\u2019ll start helping to save and invest for my kids, but I\u2019m not going to do anything for myself\u201d? When you become too old to work, that burden will fall on someone else, and likely it\u2019ll fall on your loved ones. And I would hate to be a burden, and I hope people don\u2019t think of it that way. I hope people are like, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve done a good job raising my kid. They love me. They\u2019re going to take care of me.\u201d But you should want to be able to take care of yourself. The hope is then, even if you can take care of yourself, your loved ones love you enough to want to take care of you, but it\u2019s important to want to set yourself up for success as well as your kids.
So I really don\u2019t think it is ever too late to learn about finances, to learn about money. The best day to get started was yesterday, but today is the second-best day. So the sooner you can do it, the better.<\/p>\n
I love that. My daughter is a junior now in high school, and her freshman class was the first class in Colorado that was required to take 0.5 credits of personal financial literacy classes to graduate. But I am very excited not only for this class, but going forward, I\u2019d like to see it be more than just 0.5 credit hours to graduate.
And reading your book, you had a really great analogy about playing Monopoly, and I totally identified with your stance on playing Monopoly because I never read the rules. Somebody taught me how they played Monopoly. \u201cOh, you just go around the board and you collect $200 every time you pass go.\u201d So that\u2019s what I did, and I have never put a house. Can you explain this analogy for audience?<\/p>\n
Yeah, absolutely. The way I like to think about it is that life, very literally, is a board game. And most of us learn how to play the board game of life, in this case, Monopoly, the same way that we learn how to tie our shoelaces or learn how to hold a pencil or what kind of foods we like. We learn from our loved ones, our guardians, our parents, and you\u2019re not reading the rule book of life. You are not looking up every single law that you could potentially break on the police department\u2019s website. You\u2019re just doing what the people around you are doing because you\u2019ve learned, okay, if I can have a nice life, I can do this, dah, dah, dah, dah. But the thing is is that some people are taught every single rule and then taught when to use those rules and when to build a house and then to turn that house into a hotel, and should you buy the railroads, and what happens when you get sent to jail, and when you pass go, what are some secret things you can do to make sure that you\u2019re collecting your $200 but still getting to roll again.
There are so many intricacies when it comes to our personal finances that the vast majority of us don\u2019t know about. And even if we do know about, we don\u2019t know how to effectively use. And that\u2019s the difference between knowing the rules and having a strategy.
So it\u2019s not just about understanding, oh, the max contribution of a Roth IRA for the 2023 tax year is X, Y, Z. Frankly, I\u2019m someone who can hardly remember those figures. Every single time I talk about a certain type of account in my content, I got to Google, what\u2019s the contribution limit again? And that\u2019s okay because it\u2019s not the number that matters. It\u2019s not those figures that matter. It\u2019s about teaching somebody how to fish versus just giving them the fish. You want to be able to be financially literate. And I say that not like knowing every fact about finance in the world, but being able to do the research and get to an answer for every question you have.
So you need to understand what something like a Roth IRA does. You don\u2019t need to remember all the facts and figures of, what\u2019s the income limit? How much money can I put into it? What happens this? You can look all of that information up. You don\u2019t need to memorize it. And every year, likely it\u2019s going to change. So what\u2019s the point? But you have to understand that having one can help you save and invest for your retirement, you acquire some tax benefits, and there are some other cool things that you can spend that money on along the way that you can take that money out for penalty free. And you got to know that. And so I think it\u2019s very much about learning how to strategize your life versus memorizing every single rule.<\/p>\n
I love that. It\u2019s the teaching you to fish, but it\u2019s also knowing what to look up, right?<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s, what is a Roth IRA? Maybe I have to start there. I love that. And then you have another point in the book that I really love that says that rich people think differently. And I love that. Think it\u2019s so true. So can you tell us about how rich people think differently?<\/p>\n
Oh, there\u2019s so many different types of ways that rich people think differently, and I outline a lot of them in my book. So please, please go pre-order, go buy. You can find the book at richaf.me. Yes, I made the URL a manifestation. But what I think is really, really key is a sense of entitlement. I always talk about this. My parents came to this country and they were focused on survival because they were immigrants. But I was born here, baby. I got a blue passport. What are you going to do? Where are you going to send me? I am entitled to be an American and live my best life. And I know that. I trust that.
And I don\u2019t mean be entitled by harassing the poor person working at the the cash register at the Burger King. That\u2019s not what I mean. Don\u2019t be a Karen. But what I am saying is rich people understand the value of what they have. No matter how much money, no matter what, they understand the value. They know what they can ask for. They know that they can negotiate. They know that if they get hit with a late fee, all you got to do is call and ask for it to get taken off, and they\u2019ll probably take it off. And I think having a little bit of an entitlement, understanding that your business is worth something, your patronage is worth something, your review on Yelp is worth something, is really important because those moments will help you get the most out of what you have.
And that\u2019s why rich people aggressively negotiate when they\u2019re buying a home, aggressively negotiate at the car dealership. They will go back and forth and back and forth for three hours and then walk away until the guy from the dealership is literally sprinting to chase after them to give them an extra $2,000 off of the MSRP, whatever. It\u2019s important to remember that. You have value as a person and you need to take advantage of that because businesses know it. And when you realize it, you\u2019re going to be able to really, really maximize what you get out of those businesses.<\/p>\n
I love that. Another point in your book that I found fascinating and a little surprising was you said that rich people are lazy, which on the surface doesn\u2019t make sense because, how can they be rich and lazy?<\/p>\n
Rich people are the laziest. Oh my God, are you joking? Fun fact, I just went on vacation and stayed at this very ritzy resort. And my fiance and I, we are like, \u201cOh, it\u2019s great. We\u2019ll walk the half mile down to the beach,\u201d whatever. Everyone was taking golf carts all around this property. They did not want to walk. So yes, anecdotally, rich people, very lazy. But even more so, what I mean by that is rich people love to talk about working hard, hustle hard, always grinding, money never sleeps. It\u2019s so gross and cliche, those sayings. But in reality, they want you to work hard. They want you to pump their gas hard. They want you to DoorDash their food hard. They don\u2019t want to work hard. They know that their human bodies can only work a certain number of hours a day.
Typically, you see people working nine to fives. Even if a very ambitious \u201crich person\u201d is working a 14-hour day like I did when I started on Wall Street, you can only work so many hours before your body just gives out, before your brain is not functioning the way that it probably would at its best. And they know that. So they recognize that it\u2019s better to have your money make you money than to have your brain or your body make you money. They don\u2019t want to be thinking. They do not want to be lifting things. They do not want to be walking. They want to be chilling. They want to chill by their pool. They want to go play a round of golf. They want to go get a massage, as does everybody, because all of us want the best life that money can buy.
And when you come to the realization that at the beginning of your life, you will work hard for money, but if you can get investing sooner rather than later, your money can work hard for you and you can put your feet up, that\u2019s the key lesson that everybody should realize.<\/p>\n
I love that because it\u2019s not the hardest worker who becomes richest, right? Otherwise, every janitor, every teacher. I think that\u2019s such a good point. I love that. You also say that rich people don\u2019t care about impressing you, which I thought was really interesting and made me sit and think for a minute because a lot of rich people, they\u2019re the first ones to go grab all the name brand everything. So how is this true and what are they spending their money on?<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t care about impressing you because you know they can afford it. I was talking about buying designer goods and what kind of mental math that I\u2019m doing to decide whether or not a piece is worth buying or not. And someone was like, \u201cThis girl\u2019s a hypocrite. She\u2019s wearing an Hermes necklace, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cBabes, I hate to break it to you. This was $18 and you can find it on my Amazon storefront.\u201d It was a literal joke. It wrote itself because you know that I\u2019ve got the net worth to buy the real thing. When I buy something that looks similar, you just assume I got the real thing because you know I can afford it. I don\u2019t care about impressing people with goods anymore.
I\u2019ve noticed that a lot of people are leaning into the quiet luxury trend, which I\u2019m just like, ugh, gross. But I think it\u2019s true in that rich people still like to flaunt their wealth, but they only flaunt it in a way that is like you can clock it if you are rich yourself. It\u2019s not necessarily even about impressing people. It\u2019s about spending money on things that you personally appreciate. And I noticed that about myself. When I first got to New York, I was spending more money on designer and luxury goods, so much more money than I do now on them because now I can really actually afford them and I don\u2019t need them. What\u2019s the point? That holds my stuff just as well as that tote bag I got for free at that one fair that I went to. They were handing them out. It holds stuff, great. For me, it was almost like a armor, showing people that I belong, I have money, I can do those things, but rich people know they belong.<\/p>\n
Yeah, because you had been trying to belong for so long, right? Say that five times fast. You get to college, you\u2019re exposed to all these different things, and now I\u2019ve reached it. I\u2019ve achieved it kind of, right?<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I love that. And you say something else in your book that I think is really interesting that I also totally agree with is that you can\u2019t save your way to rich. You can\u2019t save your way to rich. So apart from not buying things to impress people and buying things really intentionally and on things that matter to you, what do you mean by you can\u2019t save your way to rich? Is it that they\u2019re out there spending everything or can you unpack that a little bit? .<\/p>\n
Yeah. Back in our parents\u2019 day, it was an honor to be a blue collar worker. If you were a trades person, you could work. You could be a plumber, an electrician, whatever. You would be able to do that and your partner likely could stay at home and you would be able to eventually afford a home, your two and a half kids, golden retriever, white picket fence house with the tire swing in the front. You were able to have that. Nowadays though, you can\u2019t just save your way to that dream anymore because the cost of living, the cost of housing, the cost of an education has so grossly outpaced wages.
And it\u2019s important to note that now, even if you are a single person, if you want to get to retirement, if you want to live here happily ever after, you need to be in a two income house. And you\u2019re like, \u201cBro, I\u2019m not picking up a second job. I don\u2019t want to do that. That sounds so horrible.\u201d No, no, no, no, no. Hear me out. You can have one income from your job or your side hustles, whatever, but your second income needs to come from investing because you can only save as much as you earn, but you can always earn more money. And when you are doing two pieces of the pie being one, maximizing your income from labor, so asking for a raise every year, picking up a side hustle, just increasing the amount of cash coming in the door, you are then able to put more of that cash towards investing. And again, it\u2019s basically giving your money to your secret best friend who can work 24\/7, does not need a coffee break, does not need to get medical dental benefits. Your money is 24\/7 that can work for you. Is like having a little employee, and your little employee makes money and you make money. And the more money you make, the more money your little employee can make. And eventually, you have two streams of income being one person.<\/p>\n
Okay, so let\u2019s talk about some of these tools that we can use to become rich, to create additional streams of income, to help us generate this wealth and generate more income to invest in.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I think, number one, first and foremost is I\u2019m very much of the camp that everybody needs to be asking for a raise every single year. And I don\u2019t mean some rinky dink inflation raise, you\u2019re getting two, 3%. That does not count. No, sorry. That just makes sure that you can still afford eggs. You need to ask for 10 to 15% every single year. And people always bulk at that number. I\u2019m not saying you\u2019re getting 15% every year, but you need to be asking for it. And if you end up getting 8, 9, 10, 12%, great, you\u2019ve still beat inflation and you\u2019re making more money now. That\u2019s awesome.
But if you are in any job for two years and you haven\u2019t been promoted, you haven\u2019t been given a raise, it\u2019s probably time to start looking elsewhere because it has been proven through a long tail research study that if you do not get a raise every two years, over the course of your lifetime, you\u2019ll make 50% less. And that is insane to me because that\u2019s half, half. You want to make half as much money? Imagine having what you currently make. Would you be cool accepting that? I would not. I would not be cool with that. And I don\u2019t think a lot of the listeners would be either. So if you don\u2019t want to make half as much as you deserve in your lifetime, you need to make sure you are getting paid more, a meaningful amount, 10 to 15%, every two years. And if you\u2019re not, you need to look elsewhere because every two years, you got to go up or you got to go out.<\/p>\n
Wow.<\/p>\n
Yeah, 50%. I didn\u2019t realize that was half. And think of how many people stay in their jobs for 10, 15, 20 years. And it\u2019s more than just getting out of your comfort zone. It\u2019s your entire livelihood and your entire retirement and so many things.<\/p>\n
And I will say, back in our parents\u2019 generation, people stayed at companies, they were company man, company women, because they had a reason to be. You would stay at a company for 30 plus years because you had a pension.<\/p>\n
Exactly.<\/p>\n
The longer you stayed somewhere, the more money your employer was legally obligated to set aside for you in retirement, not your money, their money. They would then invest that money. And regardless of how those investment returns did, you would be owed a dollar amount already calculated for you in retirement so you could bank on that money. The problem became when 401ks were invented, I want to say in the \u201970s, late \u201970s. I don\u2019t know the exact year off the top of my head, but when they were invented, companies instantaneously started adopting them because they were like, \u201cSuddenly, this is not our problem. It\u2019s your problem. Amazing.\u201d And so they\u2019ve now passed that burden of retirement onto the workers.
And so not only is the 401k worse in every single way, your employer is maybe matching your contribution, but you have to be the one to put your money away for retirement. And what does that mean? That means you have to be paid more. It means you have to have more of a reason to stay somewhere. There\u2019s no incentive keeping you around. So now, people in our generation can\u2019t afford to be loyal, whereas it paid to be loyal back in our parents\u2019 generation. So things have changed, and we have to address that because the way you make strategic decisions in your life is going to differ based on how the rules of the game change.<\/p>\n
I love that. And I think that a lot of that old advice is still being trickled down to people because you meet people and you\u2019re like, \u201cTwo years? No, that\u2019s too soon. Five years? You\u2019re barely learning the role still.\u201d And I think it\u2019s really interesting because it\u2019s the parents and the grandparents, they\u2019ve grown up with pensions, to your point, and they were taken care of in retirement, and that\u2019s not the truth anymore.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I remember my dad impressing upon me, \u201cDon\u2019t job hop. Your resume looks terrible because you quit a job every year, year and a half since you started and you don\u2019t need a three-page resume.\u201d Well, yeah, I do. I don\u2019t actually need a three-page resume. One page is fine. You just highlight the highlights. But yeah, you have to job hop in order to make any money. The new hire budget is much bigger than the retention budget.<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t that crazy too? Because it\u2019ll be so much cheaper to just be like, \u201cHey, we\u2019ll pay this person marginally more and they already know how to do the job,\u201d versus like, \u201cOh no, we lost our star talent again. Why does this keep happening to us?\u201d It\u2019s like, you know why this keeps happening to you. You know exactly why.<\/p>\n
I know why it keeps happening to you.<\/p>\n
Yeah. It\u2019s like literally just pay your employees what they\u2019re asking for. Is that confusing? I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n
Yeah, no, it shouldn\u2019t be confusing, but it is. All right. Vivian, if someone wanted to get started today on their journey to becoming rich AF, what advice would you give to them?<\/p>\n
I think one of the easiest things that you can do in 15 minutes is just signing up for a high yield savings account. So I think a lot of us think of bank accounts as the traditional brick and mortar. There\u2019s a bank on the corner, they\u2019ve got an ATM and maybe they gave you a baseball cap in college. You\u2019re sick. Okay. They\u2019re my bank forever. No, that\u2019s not a good idea. You want to go with a high-yield savings account or a high yield checking and savings account, if you can find access to one, because you literally just get paid more interest to park your money with a bank.
How this works is when you give your money to a bank to put into a checking or savings account, that money doesn\u2019t just sit there. It may sit there in the app, you show the number. Sure. But that money then gets lent out to people, whether that be through mortgages or personal loans or small business loans, what have you. That money gets lent out. And you know for a fact the bank\u2019s making a killing lending that money out. What are you getting? A couple cents every year. Gross. But if you have a high-yield savings account, you can get a lot more in interest.
Is it the amazing solution you can just put your money into a high yield savings account and retire? No, but it is going to help preserve your wealth better than putting it in a regular savings account. And once you have an emergency fund set up in your high-yield savings account, you can really start focusing on high interest rate debt pay down, you can focus on investing. There\u2019s so many other steps, but I would say the very first one is putting your money and keeping it safe somewhere that you\u2019re able to get paid a good interest rate.<\/p>\n
Yeah. When I first learned about high yield savings accounts, I thought it sounded like a scam. I\u2019m like, wait, why are they going to pay me interest and this other big bank isn\u2019t? I don\u2019t get it. And right now, some of them are paying like three, four, 5%, which is insane. So what is your favorite high-yield savings account? Because I\u2019m sure some people are sitting there like, \u201cAll right, that seems like an easy first step. Let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah. My favorite high-yield checking and savings account is through SoFi. The reason why they\u2019re my favorite is because it\u2019s not just high yield savings. They actually do high-yield checking as well. So even money that\u2019s just sitting around for one week waiting to be paid to your landlord or cover your wifi bill or buy your groceries, you can earn interest on. And I just think you should always be earning interest because your money has value, you have value as a customer and you should be entitled to that interest.<\/p>\n
I love that. I didn\u2019t even know they had a checking account. All right, Vivian, thank you so much for your time today. I loved your book Rich AF. And if somebody were looking for you online, where would they find you?<\/p>\n
You can find me all across social media as Your Rich BFF. And if you are interested in checking out the book and ordering your own copy, you can head to richaf.me.<\/p>\n
Awesome. Thank you so much today, Vivian, and we will talk to you soon.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for having me.<\/p>\n
Okay, that was Vivian TU, founder and CEO of Your Rich BF Media and the host of Networth and Chill. And that was a super fun interview. Amanda, what did you think of the show?<\/p>\n
I loved it. Vivian\u2019s funny. She is funny. I feel like her personality just radiated through the microphone.<\/p>\n
Yes, I love her. Take no prisoner\u2019s attitude. Take no guff from anybody. She\u2019s just going to tell you like it is. And you know what? That\u2019s I love most about the book and her podcast and just her social media presence. She\u2019s not fake. She\u2019s just, here\u2019s the reality of the facts of money. Here you go. Here\u2019s information for you and you can take that and apply it to your life. I really, really like her no-nonsense approach.<\/p>\n
Yeah. And I think that her name really encapsulates her way of educating too, right? Your BFF. You feel like you\u2019re FaceTiming with your BFF when you talk to her, when you read her book. It\u2019s so digestible, you feel like you\u2019re talking with a friend. And I think that makes the money lessons and the framework throughout the book that much more digestible.<\/p>\n
Yeah. And she\u2019s not lecturing you. She\u2019s just giving you information. Yep, absolutely love it. So you can find Vivian all over social media at Your Rich BFF, and don\u2019t forget to go pick up a copy of her book that just came out called Rich Af.
All right, that wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. Amanda, if people were looking for you online, where would they find you?<\/p>\n
You can find me shewolfeofwallstreet.com, my website, or any social media platform, Shewolfeofwallstreet, and that\u2019s Wolfe with an E.<\/p>\n
All right, that wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. She is the Shewolfeofwallstreet, Amanda Wolfe. And I am Mindy Jensen saying, take care, teddy bear.<\/p>\n
If you enjoyed today\u2019s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you\u2019re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com\/biggerpocketsmoney.<\/p>\n
BiggerPockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaylin Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.<\/p>\n