Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Tori Dunlap, How to Fix Your Money Mindset and Unlock Financial Freedom | Finance | YAPClassic
Fri, 03 Jan 2025
After graduating from college in 2016, 22-year-old Tori Dunlap started an entry-level job in corporate marketing. But she set herself a goal: figure out a way to make $100,000 by the age of 25. She reached that goal three years later and quit her job. In doing so, she realized how money and personal finance are tools you can use to shape your life into something that you love. In this episode, Tori will offer some wealth-building tips and share how to set financial goals and invest mindfully to create a strong financial future. In this episode, Hala and Tori will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:35) Money as a Form of Protest (03:59) How Tori Made $100K by 25 (06:41) Growing a Side Hustle Into Millions (08:29) The Weaponization of Altruism (12:58) The Freedom of a $100K Safety Net (14:52) Why Financial Education Is Broken (19:07) The Psychology of Money (23:50) Why Women Are Shamed for Spending (27:21) Reframing Your Money Mindset (34:56) Spending Without Guilt or Shame (40:06) How Much to Save for Retirement (45:53) Side Hustles That Aren’t Sexy but Work (49:34) Investing for Financial Independence (53:35) Automate Your Way to Wealth Tori Dunlap is an internationally recognized money and career expert, seven-figure entrepreneur, bestselling author, and top podcast host. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women,” and TIME said, “Tori Dunlap is on top of the personal finance world.” She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Financial Feminist. Her First $100K is a feminist-first platform, using money as its medium and committed to fighting the patriarchy by making women rich. Resources Mentioned: Tori’s Podcast, Financial Feminist: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-podcast Tori’s Book, Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love: https://amzn.to/4fmAe2v Sponsored By: OpenPhone - Get 20% off 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/PROFITING Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://www.youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at https://www.airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://www.rocketmoney.com/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new All Show Keywords: Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset. Finance Finance, Financial, Personal Finance, Wealth, Stock Market, Scalability, Investment, Financial Freedom, Risk Management, Financial Planning, Business Coaching, Finance podcast, Investing, Saving,
Chapter 1: How did Tori Dunlap achieve financial independence by 25?
She tells us how we can all get better at navigating the emotional and psychological sides of money. She also shared some awesome wealth building tips, including why you need to open up your own high yield savings account right now. So I think it's about time for you to reconsider your relationship with money and what it means to your life. It's time for Tori Dunlap.
So Tori, you're a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and recognized as a top financial expert, especially for women and millennials. And after doing some research on your background, I discovered that you've always been really good with your money. So curious to understand what were your influences growing up around money and how did that shape your mindset and attitude towards the topic?
I grew up with parents who educated me about money and I thought that was the case for everybody. I thought, okay, everybody knows not to overspend on credit cards. Everybody knows how to save. Everybody knows how to manage money responsibly. And as I got older, graduated high school, went into college and started having more conversations with people, I realized, of course, that wasn't the case.
And especially not the case for most people that I was talking to in my generation and specifically women. So I was the friend all of my friends were coming to for advice and guidance around money. It shocks a lot of people to hear and may shock your audience to hear. I did not study finance. I technically didn't even study business. I studied marketing and theater in college.
But Donald Trump got elected. So I graduated college in May of 2016, was trying to figure out the kind of person and the woman I wanted to be in this world. And five months later, the election happens and I'm coming into adulthood and really into womanhood. in a very different country than I think a lot of us expected. So I'm trying to figure out how do I want to show up? What do I care about?
What do I want my life to look like? And when you're the friend all of your friends were coming to for advice, and when you're also starting to see that your own financial background is the reason you're able to have flexibility, you're able to quit the job that feels toxic and find a better option for you, you're able to travel, you're able to donate to causes you believe in,
you start to realize, oh, maybe money is my form of protest in this world. Maybe money is the tool and the resource I need to not only build the life that I love, but also to start shaping a world that I want to see.
And so I really became just so on fire about personal finance, but specifically, again, using money as a tool to shape your life into something that you love and to start shaping communities around you. So my work...
started as a side hustle, her first 100K, this now global multi-million dollar business with employees and a podcast and a book, was the thing I was doing on the side of my nine to five in marketing. And as I was growing my own confidence as a leader and as someone who was learning how to connect with people and educate them step by step about how to build wealth,
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Chapter 2: What are the emotional aspects of money management?
Chapter 3: Why is financial education often inadequate for women?
Yeah. So it was a blog in late 2016. That kind of era, like mid 2010s was like the Tumblr blog era, if you can think back that far, right?
Yeah, I had a blog too.
Yeah. So that was what I thought was like, okay, I want to share my life as a 20 something woman, like how to navigate career, how to travel and how to do all these things. And I started to realize probably about a year or two in that I was like, oh, all of my topics have something to do with money.
Yeah, I would talk about traveling to Costa Rica, but I talk about negotiating our car rental or I talk about finding a cheap flight. Obviously, with a career, right, I'm working to make money and to hopefully have this sense of purpose or passion.
And again, I was becoming more political, becoming more educated about systemic oppression and the various aspects of personal finance that I was not seeing covered. Right. You think about Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, these like very well-known personal finance experts. And very rarely do they talk about how racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia have anything to do with money.
And I talk about this in my book, Financial Feminist, but 80% of the personal finance equation is the systemic factors that you have no control of. Only 20% of the personal finance equation is how to get a budget together and making sure you're optimized in your Roth IRA. So I wanted to have conversations that were more nuanced.
And during that time, I think a lot of the financial experts were starting to have those conversations post-2016 with Black Lives Matter in 2020, the resurgence of that movement. So I think it was really important for me to have those conversations be something that was not just You can't buy a house because you buy lattes. And it's like, no, what is the real reason?
So yeah, all of that started as a blog as I was trying to figure out my own voice too.
I love that. And we're going to talk about how to fight the patriarchy through finances in a bit. Let's put a pin on that. And I just want to understand your story a little bit better. Sure. So you had this goal of saving $100,000. And once you hit that goal, you decided to quit your full-time job and go all in on, you know, first 100K brand and everything that you've built so far.
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Chapter 4: How can you reframe your money mindset?
I also had parents who were financially minded and who were able to contribute to my college. I like to acknowledge that right off the bat because it's not something that everybody has the privilege of doing. I was also saving a huge percentage of my income. My take-home pay, 27% at the peak, was going towards savings.
And then everything I made in my side hustle, I was able to contribute to the $100K goal as well. I was focused on value-based spending. I was still traveling internationally. I was still going out to eat. That's the other question. People are like, oh, you ate oatmeal and ramen. And I'm like, no, actually... I still did all of the things in a, you know, huge U.S.
city that I wanted to do as somebody in their 20s. But yeah, that 100K, and this is the thing that's so important, is a lot of people, and I find especially women, they're not necessarily motivated by the numbers. For me, there was something about seeing 100K in the bank account that was like that, you know, that burst of serotonin.
But it's very difficult sometimes to get somebody to care about money when they think it's just numbers. We know that money is psychological. We know that money is emotional.
And so when I thought about that $100K and when shit started getting hard where I couldn't save or there was a period of time that I spent unemployed, so I was not only not saving money, I was spending the money I had already saved. I was trying to figure out, okay, I set this arbitrary goal for myself. What's the point? The 100K meant that I got to quit my job.
That was the promise I had made to myself, is I attached the number to a goal and to a feeling. I literally imagined, like, what would my life look like if I didn't have to make somebody I didn't respect rich? What would my life look like if I didn't have to ask to take PTO and get it denied?
What would my life look like if I didn't have to commute into a job that I didn't feel aligned with my passions or aligned with the mission and values of my life? What did that feel like? And it felt amazing. And so that 100K goal, yes, part of it was seeing the 100K, being able to see the headline, which I'm grateful that there are many, you know, how this 25-year-old saved 100K.
But really, it was about how does my life change? So if you're out there and you're trying to get yourself motivated, how do I become debt-free, right? Or how do I invest enough for retirement? Or how do I make ends meet so that I don't feel panicked all of the time? Associate that with a feeling, right? What does it feel like to not have somebody
demanding that you send them money every month for your student loans? What does it feel like to know, oh yeah, I can buy this thing without guilt or shame because I've budgeted for it. What does it feel like to know that you're going to be set for retirement? That 65-year-old you is taken care of. What does that feel like? That for me was really the driving force of how does my life change?
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Chapter 5: What are the common misconceptions about money?
Chapter 6: How does societal conditioning affect women's spending?
That was the promise I had made to myself, is I attached the number to a goal and to a feeling. I literally imagined, like, what would my life look like if I didn't have to make somebody I didn't respect rich? What would my life look like if I didn't have to ask to take PTO and get it denied?
What would my life look like if I didn't have to commute into a job that I didn't feel aligned with my passions or aligned with the mission and values of my life? What did that feel like? And it felt amazing. And so that 100K goal, yes, part of it was seeing the 100K, being able to see the headline, which I'm grateful that there are many, you know, how this 25-year-old saved 100K.
But really, it was about how does my life change? So if you're out there and you're trying to get yourself motivated, how do I become debt-free, right? Or how do I invest enough for retirement? Or how do I make ends meet so that I don't feel panicked all of the time? Associate that with a feeling, right? What does it feel like to not have somebody
demanding that you send them money every month for your student loans? What does it feel like to know, oh yeah, I can buy this thing without guilt or shame because I've budgeted for it. What does it feel like to know that you're going to be set for retirement? That 65-year-old you is taken care of. What does that feel like? That for me was really the driving force of how does my life change?
And what does it feel like to use money as a tool to get me there?
I love that. I think that's really good advice. And I remember I saved my first hundred K at 28, I want to say, and the amount of freedom I felt and just agency over my own life. I didn't need a man. I didn't need my parents.
I didn't need all of a sudden I felt like, well, if I don't like this job, I could leave because I have a hundred grand and that's at least going to keep me afloat for four to six months and whatever. So it really did unlock a lot of limiting mindsets for myself. So I would encourage everybody to have some sort of a financial goal like that.
Well, and that's the feeling I want for every single person listening. That is the feeling I want, is I am in situations I want to be in rather than situations I'm forced to be in. Or I don't have to tolerate bullshit from a partner, from a company. I can do what I want because I have the financial means to do so. That is so incredibly liberating. And it reflects in every aspect of your life.
I show up differently in my relationships because I know that I'm not dependent on somebody financially. I show up different in my career. I show up different in my business. I show up different to myself in how I talk to myself.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of Tori's first money memory?
Chapter 8: How does personal finance relate to systemic issues?
I didn't need all of a sudden I felt like, well, if I don't like this job, I could leave because I have a hundred grand and that's at least going to keep me afloat for four to six months and whatever. So it really did unlock a lot of limiting mindsets for myself. So I would encourage everybody to have some sort of a financial goal like that.
Well, and that's the feeling I want for every single person listening. That is the feeling I want, is I am in situations I want to be in rather than situations I'm forced to be in. Or I don't have to tolerate bullshit from a partner, from a company. I can do what I want because I have the financial means to do so. That is so incredibly liberating. And it reflects in every aspect of your life.
I show up differently in my relationships because I know that I'm not dependent on somebody financially. I show up different in my career. I show up different in my business. I show up different to myself in how I talk to myself.
And I think, again, that's the feeling I want for every single person listening is when you start becoming financially confident, when you start having that financial foundation, not just your financial life, but all of the rest of your life changes, the rest of your life changes.
Yeah, and that kind of confidence is actually very attractive, right? Because it's like you're not coming out in an insecure way to anyone and people gravitate to that kind of confidence. So speaking of confidence, you have a theater background and I've had traditional financial experts on the show like Susie Orman, like you mentioned, Peter Malouk and lots of great financial experts.
But what's the advantage of learning from somebody outside of our traditional background?
So many advantages. Thank you for asking this question. I spoke at Morningstar at one of their big splashy conferences probably about a month ago, and I was keynoting. And it was really interesting to see people's responses because I did say on stage, you know, I studied theater. And I was joking, the girls that get it, get it, and the girls that don't, don't.
Like, it was very interesting to see what kind of people were like, oh, you're a theater major. How are you qualified? And I'm like, all of these other qualifications. Okay, a couple of things. One, I think there's something actually so refreshing about hearing this complicated, inaccessible topic explained by somebody who's not in it.
I know that there's a certain level of jargon in any industry, but specifically personal finance. And this is no fault of any financial professional, but when you've been in it for a while, that's just the language you use. And I was on a panel at the beginning of her first 100K. It was probably 2019. I was still working as a marketer, and this was my side hustle.
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