033. 11 Money Myths Holding You Back From Your Highest Financial Potential

Lifestyle

Feb 9

Are the stories you have about money holding you back?

Today, Amber debunks 11 money myths that may be holding you back from full financial empowerment. From misconceptions about investing and debt management, you'll learn the mindset shifts to take ownership of your money and increase your financial literacy.

In today's episode, we cover the following:

Review shout outs! (1:10)

Birdie and bogey (3:15)

What are the money stories you've held onto? (7:43)

Myth #1: It takes money to make money (8:43)

Myth #2: Investing is only for the rich (11:51)

A quick look at inflation (17:10)

Myth #3: Debit is better than credit (22:02)

Myth #4: All debt is bad (24:20)

Myth #5: Paying minimum payments on credit cards is fine (30:32)

Myth #6: "My partner manages our finances, so I don't need to pay attention to it" (35:24)

Myth #7: Buying a home is always better than renting (37:45)

Myth #8: "I don't earn enough to save" (45:15)

Myth #9: All wealthy people are evil (48:12)

Myth #10: "If I had more money, I'd be happier"(49:58)

Myth #11: Millennials have it harder than anyone (52:19)

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:05.290] - Amber F.

Hello, rich girls. I've missed you. It's your host, Amber Frank Useen, and you're listening to the Old Money podcast, the show for women building the trust fund they wish they were born with. I am really excited for today's episode because, as you probably know, I had a week off last week dealing with something that we'll talk about in the bogey section of the show. But I had a week off, and I was really doing some back end admin work and looking at podcast stats.

[00:00:31.670] - Amber F.

First of all, I want to say thank you. I found an incredible piece of information about the old Money podcast. We're in the top 2% of all podcasts worldwide, which is a gnarly stat. I will say you got to take it with a grain of salt, though, because how many podcasts got started one time, one episode, and then never continued? Probably thousands during COVID Right.

[00:00:53.340] - Amber F.

But it's really a testament to the amazing community that we've built here. And that's what led me to look at some of the reviews and ratings on the podcast, which actually inspired today's show. So I want to shout out Miss Mary, who is an intern of mine at Af marketing, such a sweetheart. Love you so much, Mary. And her review said, this show is highly informative and useful.

[00:01:16.130] - Amber F.

It has been guiding me in getting my financial life on track and breaking a lot of myths I believed around money would definitely recommend. So, first of all, Mary, thank you for the comment and thank you for the inspiration, because today's show is going to be breaking down money myths. Now, as you know, I talk a lot about our emotional state around money and kind of that lizard brain, that financial fight or flight that we get into and those scripts that run in the background of our brains as it relates to everything in our life, right? This is like psychology meets finance. It's that blend.

[00:01:50.700] - Amber F.

And the money myths, I mean, we all have them. And so my hope today is to cover eleven of what I believe to be some of the most common money myths and see if we can bust them. Are they true? Are these things that we've been telling ourselves or have been told our whole lives real? Or should we look at them a different way?

[00:02:08.650] - Amber F.

So if you have any other money myths that have come up for you, please send me a DM on Instagram old Money podcast. I want to talk about them. We'll break them down on Instagram stories as well. And before we jump into it, before we get to birdie and Bokie, I also just wanted to say, you guys, this community is insane. It's grown bigger than I ever could have imagined and I just wanted to say thank you so much.

[00:02:28.020] - Amber F.

And in looking at some of the reviews, your words mean everything to me. So I wanted to say thank you to some of the more recent ones. Bethany who just reached out and connected with me on Instagram. Niku, Kylie, Marina, Megan, Nick yes, we do have rich boys listening as well. Natalia, Drea, Nicole, so many people that have been so supportive of the show, and this is one of my most favorite things I've ever done in my life.

[00:02:54.470] - Amber F.

So thank you for being on this journey with me. I appreciate it so, so much. If this podcast has helped you in any way, I would love to keep the community growing. Please post a screenshot of this on your Instagram Stories, tag me, share it with your friends, leave a review, whatever feels good for you. It's a gift to keep the podcast growing and going.

[00:03:12.300] - Amber F.

So thank you so very much. But before we shift gears into today's topic about eleven money myths, let's do a really quick birdie and bogey. So I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but the reason why there was no podcast episode last week is because I lost my voice. I got laryngitis, started as a cold, and then your girl totally overdid it at work. I counted between Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

[00:03:38.730] - Amber F.

I was on calls, in meetings, speaking for 18 hours, and I just totally zapped my voice. So if I sound like I've been smoking a pack a day for the last 25 years or I sound like a frog, I don't really know what I sound like because I still can't really hear right. I just wanted to acknowledge and apologize for maybe not the most premium audio experience. We work really hard to make everything that I put out soothing to your ears. So just bear with me.

[00:04:05.730] - Amber F.

I'm on the healing path. I've got my matcha latte here coating the throat, trying to feel better and healthy. So while that was definitely a bogey of the week, the last two weeks, the birdie has just been January. What an incredible month. First of all, just generally speaking, this month I dove into my girls, like, spending time with amazing women and really prioritizing that this month.

[00:04:31.850] - Amber F.

So first of all, I got to see my best friend and her daughters, which might have been the cause of my cold and then my laryngitis. But that's what you get with toddlers, right? So I got to see them and spend the night with them. I got to hang out with my amazing college roommate Natalia Benson. If you haven't listened to her podcast and are looking for some more financial and spiritual and astrological love.

[00:04:53.470] - Amber F.

Natalia Benson the podcast is it. And it's so fun to sit with somebody. We haven't seen each other except for in passing in 16 years. We sit down for lunch and everything's as it was. And we're right back to when we were 21 years old living together.

[00:05:07.840] - Amber F.

And it's just so interesting that we've both had so much journey and discovery and self development in our twenty s and then gone on two very different paths, but ended up in very similar situations, both as entrepreneurs and both people very passionate about personal finance and empowerment around finance for women specifically. So, so good to see her. I got to see my friend Hayal and Andrea. I had great chats on the phone with Molly and Mal and Katie and everybody that I've been connecting with. So this is just a reminder.

[00:05:37.760] - Amber F.

If you're feeling a little off kilter because of the pressure of the new year, check back in with your girls. They'll ground you. Our relationships are so, so important and supporting each other, showing up for our friends is so important. And so if you feel, and this is a big thing for me, if I feel, I'm not going to tell you, I'm not going to preach at you, but when I feel like I'm lacking some love, you know, where I get it is I have to go give it. That's how things happen for me.

[00:06:03.030] - Amber F.

And always coming from a place of holding space, but no expectations, always checking in with my girls first before I trauma dump on them. And what I mean by that is saying, hey, do you have space for me to talk about? XYz, can you hold space for me? Because maybe they can't. So it's okay to check in first and get that permission.

[00:06:23.460] - Amber F.

It's actually kind of respectful. It's a good thing to do with your partner as well. Anyway. So that's been a big thing. And another thing that I've been doing to also pour into my cup in the month of January is taking the pressure off.

[00:06:33.310] - Amber F.

I don't have any big resolutions or goals or things that I've set. It's basically about consistency. Keep making the sales calls. Keep showing up at the gym, keep eating healthy. Just the consistency.

[00:06:44.100] - Amber F.

And every morning when I walk poppy, I'm out there. I'm usually listening to a meditation or a podcast. But what I've done this year is I've also been scheduling 08:00 a.m. Calls 730 calls, which are typically very early for me, but they're catch up calls. And a lot of my friends or colleagues are on the east coast, so it's not super early for them.

[00:07:02.490] - Amber F.

And as I'm walking, Poppy, I'm multitasking, right? I'm having a great catch up with a friend and also walking and getting some fresh air and movement at the same time. So overall, January has been great of really diving into the people and the relationships in my life. And speaking of that as well, we've hired two new team members at Af marketing. We've also brought on a new operational consultant.

[00:07:21.700] - Amber F.

We are really leveling up as it relates to processes and systems, which we have. I'm really proud of our systems in the business, but it's getting even better. So just overall, lots of great momentum for the month, and I'm so happy my mentee health is in a good place despite being sick for the last two weeks. So happy to be back with you guys here. Let's get into it.

[00:07:41.490] - Amber F.

Let's get into the meat and potatoes of today's episode eleven, money myths that might be holding you back from your best financial life. I came up with eleven. I couldn't stop. I could come up with 21 if you wanted me to. And that's, again, what I would really like to know from you.

[00:07:55.540] - Amber F.

What are some of the money stories that you've carried with you over your life that have impacted or influenced the way that you approach your financial situation? And I think one of the things about uncovering this is that we're not even conscious to a lot of the stories that have been told to us because we just know them to be fact. We don't know them to be myths. Our parents, culture, movies, news, all these places, they embed in us all of these ideas, and some of them tend to take hold in a really meaningful way that can actually limit what we believe to be available for us or give us a different worldview that may or may not be true or may or may not be empowering to the goals that you have for yourself. So let's get started.

[00:08:41.910] - Amber F.

Myth number one. Let me know if you've ever heard this before. It takes money to make money. The context in which this normally gets thrown around is to really highlight the difference between the haves and the have nots and to kind of say that if you don't have money, you won't be able to make money. Right.

[00:09:02.640] - Amber F.

It takes money to make money, meaning you need to be a little bit well off in order to make more money. And if you don't have any, well, you're never going to get ahead. And so highlighting this kind of class difference, I think, is a really interesting way to start. Number one, you have nepo babies and people who come from a lot of wealth or trust fund babies. And the statement is basically like, where you come from is going to determine the quality or the outcome of your life.

[00:09:26.650] - Amber F.

And what I've seen in my few years on this planet is that it has. I mean, obviously, your circumstances, your family, where you come from, the community in which you're raised, it's going to influence you heavily, but it's more often the personal characteristics of the individual than it is the circumstances from where they came. Now, of course, we know the lack of resources or availability of resources are absolutely going to shape the outcome of one's life to a degree. But let's think about this phrase. Is it encouraging or discouraging?

[00:10:02.870] - Amber F.

It takes money to make money. That, to me, feels incredibly discouraging, as if I don't have any money. I'm not going to make any. The other way to think about this as well is in a business setting. Right?

[00:10:15.640] - Amber F.

Of course there are costs to starting a business. You have overhead expenses, there's filing fees you have to just pay to establish a business. Right. But do you need a huge loan to start a successful business? Do you need to always take on investors?

[00:10:31.670] - Amber F.

Do you need to have a ton of money saved to start adding value to other people's lives and charging them for it? Because that's all that business is. The answer to that is no. And the reason I know that to be true is because I've lived it. Everything in my business, in AF marketing has been 100% bootstrapped.

[00:10:48.420] - Amber F.

I have not taken a dime from any person outside of myself. And everything that we've built there has been slow and methodical. And of course, I've reinvested money into the business. I mean, huge amounts every single year, year after year. And yeah, it has taken money to establish this business, to make more money, but it's not about I needed to come in hot with $100,000 small business loan that was going to make me feel crushed.

[00:11:15.740] - Amber F.

The point of the it takes money to make money. Is that, is this an encouraging worldview or is it a discouraging one? We get to decide the scripts that we run in our heads. So if we wanted to replace this with something else, how about I will be able to be resourceful to figure out the way to achieve my dreams. I have resources available to me, I'm always going to get help when I need it.

[00:11:38.910] - Amber F.

Something a little bit more flexible so the universe can show up for you instead of automatically limiting what you believe to be available to you based on what you have right now. Okay, let's go to number two. Investing is only for the rich. Is this a myth or is this true? Obviously, you know, I'm going to say it's not true.

[00:12:01.140] - Amber F.

This is a total myth. Investing is not only for the rich. And I think the right way to say this might be that only people who invest get rich or get wealthy, because it's very unlikely. Very unlikely. Not impossible, but very unlikely that you will gain financial independence if you don't exercise your money in some way, shape or form.

[00:12:24.380] - Amber F.

The reality is inflation is not on your side. Okay, so this is the thing. I think there's a lot of conversation out there, especially on TikTok. And I want to talk about this. I might even do a whole episode about post consumerism.

[00:12:37.870] - Amber F.

No, post capitalism. Everybody's talking about it right now like they're a freaking econ major, but whatever. So we're having all of know we're in the age of Aquarius. Everything's changing right now. We've just gone into the age of Aquarius.

[00:12:50.560] - Amber F.

We need to talk to Natalia about this on the podcast and what that means for us as a culture. But things are starting to break down and we're starting to see the cracks in the veneer of what was promised to us. Right? And so there's this big cohort of people that are feeling really disenfranchised about the opportunities. And we're going to talk more about this in this episode, too.

[00:13:09.500] - Amber F.

But the reality is we have to learn how to play the game. You have to learn and participate in the game before you're allowed to change the rules. There's obviously a credibility aspect at play, but also an experience aspect. I see myself watching these TikTok videos, and it's like a 25 year old girl in her car in Michigan and her nails are done and her lashes are done and her hair is highlighted and she's complaining that she can't pay her bills. And I'm like, why am I letting this girl get me riled up?

[00:13:37.040] - Amber F.

Like, what game is she playing? She's not playing the same game that I'm playing. No shade to that girl. But I can't have her lecturing at me about post capitalism society and how America's failed her. Okay?

[00:13:49.050] - Amber F.

I believe that as adults, we all have different responsibilities. It's the same thing when we get a voter ballot in the mail. It's our responsibility to read about all of the candidates, their positions, and research and make informed decisions if we want to have some semblance of participation in this republic. This is not a democracy. This is a representative democracy, I think is what they call it, which basically means the government is elected by citizens.

[00:14:18.390] - Amber F.

So if we're upset about the people that are in government, it's our responsibility to make changes, right? So we have to participate. And that's where it kind of comes to with investing as well. If we're mad at these companies, what are we going to do to create more companies, create more capital in our lives so that we have a bigger seat at the table? And I understand it feels completely overwhelming to make massive changes.

[00:14:42.200] - Amber F.

I feel that way, too. I really, really do. But getting education, getting involved, playing the game is our responsibility. And if we don't play the game and we continue with the myth, like investing is only for the rich, then we're just handing over our power to other people instead of participating in our own lives. Now, the other reason why I think this myth comes up a lot is because of education.

[00:15:05.330] - Amber F.

And investing is only for the rich because people have more information than we do or they know what to invest in. And the reality is, like, I don't know what to invest in. Warren Buffett. Well, actually, I take that back. Warren Buffett knows what to invest.

[00:15:18.310] - Amber F.

But you know, every Tom, Dick and Harry on CNBC, they're making guesses, too. And the education piece comes when you get it practically applied. You have to start playing the game and getting into the system. That's how you get educated. So it's the same thing.

[00:15:34.730] - Amber F.

Does it take money to make money? Well, you're going to need something to play with in the stock market. Does it need to be $100,000? No, but you could definitely start playing in the game now. You don't have to let these huge barriers of entry scare you off.

[00:15:49.070] - Amber F.

And they're created there for a reason. Guys, there is a cohort of people that doesn't want us to feel financially empowered. They don't want us to get a louder voice. Are we going to just say, okay, we'll sit down and we'll keep complaining from TikTok? Or are we going to get involved in the game?

[00:16:06.710] - Amber F.

The barriers to entry are obviously getting money to invest in the first place. And then what do I do with it? There's an episode that I've recorded. It's called the Hot Girls. Guide to investing I believe it's episode eleven.

[00:16:16.910] - Amber F.

Don't quote me on that. But Hot Girls Guide to investing. You can find it on any of the podcast platforms or on our website, oldmoneypodcast.com. And it kind of talks about easy ways to start getting involved in the market. This is not financial advice.

[00:16:29.830] - Amber F.

Take a shot. However, if you just set up an account on Vanguard fidelity, Charles Schwab and started investing in low cost index funds, because you've done your research and you found some that you feel comfortable with, and you've decided that you're not going to try to be a day trader because that's not a good job and that's not a good way to win money in the market. But you're going to play the long game. You're going to do some proven investment techniques like dollar cost averaging, things like that. Over time you will be an investor, and over time that will help you outpace inflation so that your money continues to grow and has a lot of buying power.

[00:17:06.410] - Amber F.

Let's just do a quick little sidebar as well on inflation because I know that's something that a lot of people have been talking about and it is a major challenge. Right. If you go to the grocery store today and you want to buy $100 worth of groceries, you're going to get less groceries with your $100 than you would have in 2016. Right? Prices have gone up.

[00:17:26.740] - Amber F.

They're through the roof. Why is that happening? We got to look back at COVID a little bit, too. This is where the problems really started. Right?

[00:17:33.970] - Amber F.

COVID shut down a lot of the world and it shut down a lot of the access to raw materials. It also interrupted things like you heard the word supply chain. What does that mean? It means that boats were getting stuck in the Suez. No, that's not related.

[00:17:46.360] - Amber F.

But it was such a fun time anyway. Supply chain just meant like you couldn't get the material that you needed from the factory because it was shut down to make the bedsheets that you need to be able to sell. So things were always delayed in behind. And on top of that, people were getting sick and missing a lot of work. People were not going to work when they are sick, even with a little cough, because it could be COVID.

[00:18:07.840] - Amber F.

Right. So all of these things started to impact the fact that things were going to be more expensive because there was less supply, less ease of getting things. But on top of that, you might have gotten a stimulus check, $600 or $1,500 or something like that. And essentially the Federal Reserve printed a whole bunch of money. So there was a ton of money circulating in the United States.

[00:18:31.680] - Amber F.

Then even more on top of that, we had this run on bitcoin. All of a sudden, there was these bitcoin millionaires that popped off in like, 2021, 2022 tons more money that just got flooded into the economy. Then on top of that, because people weren't able to travel or buy things or spend money, go to restaurants during COVID they were just saving a lot of money. So that's still even more money that just wasn't being circulated around the United States. I'm just using United States as an example here.

[00:18:58.810] - Amber F.

Right. And so what happened is that there was too much money in the economy, and the Federal Reserve had to correct it. So the Federal Reserve controls the money supply in the United States, and they basically have two ways of influencing the economy. They can either change interest rates, which are the percentage points that you get charged to borrow money on things like a car payment, a mortgage, a loan, whatever. It would be your credit card, right?

[00:19:23.350] - Amber F.

And then they can also have the power to change the supply of money in the economy. So during the pandemic, they gave money away, basically, and they increased the money supply by $6 trillion, which was mostly stimulus checks, believe it or not. And so the economy starts to do better. Like, as we go through the pandemic, you remember, we're like, oh, things are going to be okay. But interest rates were still near zero.

[00:19:45.610] - Amber F.

And so in order to adjust the scales, the Fed went a little bit honestly slow on adjusting interest rates up because essentially, it's like two levers. If you raise interest rates, it decreases the supply of money because less people will pay to take out mortgages, for example, money becomes more expensive to borrow. So they're trying to balance the scales, right? So they raised interest rates to, like, 5% in 2022. And that's going to halt a lot of people from being able to buy a new home or get a loan for a car, things like that.

[00:20:16.580] - Amber F.

So this kind of fluctuation is something that you have to weather the storm through, right? You cannot time the market. In fact, a lot of people were taking cues from, I think it was like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk had a lot of press during, I think, Mark Andreessen, too, in March of 2020, when they were dumping all of their stocks. If you would have dumped and sold all of your stocks, right, when COVID hit, because you were so scared about the pandemic, you would have missed the biggest run on stocks in the last like ten years, which happened 2021, 2022, missed out on a ton of growth. So investing can be very scary.

[00:20:53.540] - Amber F.

I get that it is risky. It's not guaranteed results, it's not guaranteed returns. You worked hard for this money, and you want to keep it, right? But if you don't play the game, you're never going to keep up with what's happening in the world around you. And it's better to have skin in the game than to never show up on the field at all.

[00:21:11.350] - Amber F.

Remember that Brene Brown quote where she's like, if you want to criticize what I'm doing, then you need to get into the arena. That's how I really feel about everything that's happening in America right now. And that's one of the reasons why the old money podcast exists, you guys, this is my small contribution to culture of can we get more financially literate, can we get more financially empowered? Can we have a voice that's bigger than just one? And we have an incredible community of rich girls.

[00:21:36.770] - Amber F.

And I'm not trying to politicize this or make this any certain way as it relates to that two party system that we unfortunately have to have. My point is that, is this true or is this a myth? Investing is only for the rich. Not at all. And it's actually our responsibility as adults, no matter your income level or net worth, participate in playing the game so that we have the credibility and the influence to make changes together.

[00:22:02.220] - Amber F.

Okay, myth number three, debit is better than credit. I know so many people who are raised with this mentality that you should never use a credit card. It is bad. Credit cards are scary. You can get into debt, and that's not untrue.

[00:22:17.460] - Amber F.

You absolutely can get into debt. I've been there. A lot of us have been there. But if you're not leveraging credit and you're paying with a debit card, you're basically just paying with cash everywhere. You're missing out on huge opportunities.

[00:22:30.230] - Amber F.

We've talked about this on other episodes before, but when you can calm your financial fight or flight, learn to stay within budget and pay off your credit card every single month because you have the resources to do so. You get to earn rewards like cash back or travel. You're also getting purchase protection a lot of times. So if you buy a cell phone on your credit card, for example, or travel, you often have a bit more support if something goes wrong there. The other thing is, you create a barricade to your cash if you're carrying around a debit card, all the time somebody gets a hold of that and your PIN number, they can go to an ATM and withdraw all the cash that's in your account, and it can be very hard to recoup that and prove that that was fraud.

[00:23:08.270] - Amber F.

So, with that, a credit card creates a bit of a barrier to protecting yourself if you have any type of breach of security on your financial situation. So is this myth true? Is debit better than credit? If you can stay within your budget and you cannot overspend and you have calmed your financial fight or flight? I believe that using a credit card produces a ton of extra benefits.

[00:23:32.790] - Amber F.

Some things you don't even notice. For example, last week, I got a notice at my. What is it called when you come through customs? Your global entry. My global entry expired, so I had to go online, and I had to renew it for another couple of years.

[00:23:44.230] - Amber F.

It was $100, and as soon as I made that charge, Chase refunded me the $100. So that just saved me $100. That's my annual fee right there, basically. So there's a lot of benefits to using credit, but don't use it if you're not ready. That's.

[00:23:58.100] - Amber F.

I think the reality of this myth. Debit is better than credit if you don't have healthy financial habits yet, I think that a debit card is good training wheels. But after you get your training wheels off, your credit card is the way to ride the bike and have a healthy financial life where you're getting a little bit of extra just for showing up and buying the things you normally would. So on that same vein, the next myth is really interesting as well, which is the myth that having debt is horrible. Wow, this one is really heavy and really weighted because speaking of COVID again, and during the pandemic, I wonder if I should not say COVID on the podcast.

[00:24:32.860] - Amber F.

I wonder if that's getting, like, flagged or something. Anyway, during the pandemic, the pandemonium, a lot of people were really hard up. They lost their jobs. They weren't able to go to work, and they were stuck putting things like their groceries in childcare on credit. And so now here we are four years later, and people are still trying to climb their way out of debt that they feel they needed to accrue just to survive.

[00:24:57.550] - Amber F.

Having debt does not make you a bad person. It can be a means to an end for survival. It can also be a means to an end to meet some emotional needs that you have. If you listen to the financial fight or flight episode, talk a lot about the emotionality around purchases and overspending and what can be a driver of those. And if you've ever been in debt, you know that it can feel really heavy.

[00:25:22.060] - Amber F.

For me, it feels like just pressure on my chest. And a lot of people feel shame and judgment. And I feel my job is to help you release the feelings of shame and judgment because it's okay if you've been in debt, you did the best that you could with the information that you had at the time. But now, as you grow, as you listen to this podcast, you're getting better information, you're getting more in tune with yourselves. You're building these muscles in your brain and your heart and your hand.

[00:25:51.540] - Amber F.

When you reach into your wallet to pull out that card, you're building the muscles to calm your fight or flight and to make better decisions for yourself so that you can do better next time. Yes, we can forgive ourselves. And again, if you haven't ever tried eft tapping, that's a very powerful healing modality about how you could walk through healing your fear, your shame about money, about debt, all those things. I really recommend it. Tons of great YouTube videos on it.

[00:26:18.380] - Amber F.

But the reality is debt does not make you a horrible person. And it's also just not horrible. Okay? You get to decide, however, based on the information and skills you have now to step into the future. You who wants you to do better and pay off that debt and not accrue it again and again.

[00:26:35.760] - Amber F.

My job is to let you release this shame. Let's heal it. Let's not have any judgment on it. I think all of us have been there at one point or another, or might be there right now. I'm just here to tell you how good it feels to get out of debt.

[00:26:47.670] - Amber F.

I'm here to paint the picture for you to tell you that. Number one, it's possible. Number two, it feels so fucking good, you cannot even start to imagine what it's like to dream for yourself and start to accrue some security in your own money until after you get out of debt. It's just a mindset shift of owing something to somebody else versus building something for yourself. It's so empowering.

[00:27:10.240] - Amber F.

It feels like I always say this and it's so pertinent because I'm just getting over laryngitis. It feels like how grateful you are after you've been sick that you don't feel sick anymore. You know when you're up late at night chugging Nyquil and you have congestion and you're like, I'm never going to take being healthy for granted again, that feeling obviously dissipates after a couple of weeks, right? But the feeling of being out of debt is, for me, akin to feeling like I've been sick my whole life and then I finally found the cure. The other thing about this, too, I'm not even talking about just credit card debt, right?

[00:27:43.720] - Amber F.

Because there are good and bad types of debt. Having a mortgage is debt. Having student loans is debt. Small business loan, that's debt. And the myth was that debt is not death.

[00:27:55.340] - Amber F.

Sorry, that's a funny freudian slip. Debt is horrible. And is it? I mean, we have to determine what is good debt and bad debt. Because you could have a mortgage in a home you're going to live in for ten years, in the school district where your little girl is going to go to school and you're so happy about your house and it's within your means, that's okay.

[00:28:12.640] - Amber F.

You're building equity. You're building debt, right? But if you have a mortgage that stretches you to very uncomfortable limits and you cannot afford to make those payments, and you do not have an emergency fund, that's still a mortgage. There's a good side and that's probably the bad side, right? Or student loans.

[00:28:28.040] - Amber F.

You take out student loans to go to school, to be a dentist, and you have a career path and you know what you're going to do afterwards, and you have a plan to pay it off within a reasonable amount of time. But if you take six years to graduate from, I don't know, a private university where you're racking up tuition and living expense costs and you end up with a degree in, I'm going to say philosophy because that was one of Justin's majors, so I can slightly make fun of it even though he uses it on me all the time. Philosophy majors, you're not getting a really high paying job after college for the most part. Just generally speaking, there's not a huge demand in the workforce for philosophy majors at tech companies. Okay?

[00:29:05.630] - Amber F.

So when you're going to rack up all of that debt over six years and then be pissed that you have student loans, I can't. I can't support that. That is bad debt and that is bad decision. Making a small business loan, for example, if you try to get a small business loan to make your one shot on TikTok or to become the next Amazon, or you have these amazing handcrafted toilet paper roll covers that you make out of crochet, that's not a great loan to take out because there's not a provable, addressable market where you can add value and prove that you're going to make money back right away. But maybe you're taking out a loan to expand a company where you already have a proven track record of success.

[00:29:42.640] - Amber F.

You have an identifiable market, you're able to create revenue, and you want to scale. That's probably better. Debt, right. So, again, is debt horrible? No, not always.

[00:29:55.600] - Amber F.

But you have to take responsibility for the choices that you make. I have to take responsibility for the choices that I make. Does debt make us feel shameful? Well, if it's not incurred with the proper intentions or we've done it unconsciously, I can totally feel that. But does that make you a bad person?

[00:30:11.830] - Amber F.

No. Having debt is not a personality flaw. It's a financial situation, and it's one that you can heal, and it's one that you can never get to again. So I support you in that. And I'm just here to let you know that if you're feeling the shame around it and you want to talk more about debt, send me a note on Instagram.

[00:30:27.980] - Amber F.

It's one of the most common questions that I get. We'll get into it. Okay, so let's get on to the next myth. Myth number five. A couple of these are going to run through pretty quickly, but I love this one because we're on the topic of debt, which is paying my minimum payments on my credit cards is fine.

[00:30:43.900] - Amber F.

Now, this is one that I'll unequivocally say wrong. No, not okay. This is a myth. Minimum payments are not okay. The reason that minimum payments exist is for credit card companies to bait you into paying them longer, and so you go freaking broke paying off interest on the debt you've accrued.

[00:31:02.890] - Amber F.

If you need to pay off debt faster, you are going to have to make some sacrifices or changes in your life to increase your revenue so that you can pay it off. That might look like getting another job or having a side hustle, walking people's dogs, things like that, and throwing money at the debt to pay it off. You can be really honest with yourself. I don't subscribe to the whole rice and beans theory that Dave Ramsey says. He tells people when they need to pay off debt, they need to only eat rice and beans.

[00:31:32.340] - Amber F.

And it's like this badge of honor in the Dave Ramsay subreddits. People are like, oh, rice and beans. All right, girlies. We need proper nutrition. I need my skin to be healthy.

[00:31:40.820] - Amber F.

Still, please don't just eat rice and beans. Eat a freaking vegetable. But at the same time. Stop with the arowan smoothies. Okay?

[00:31:46.600] - Amber F.

You can't afford a $25 smoothie when you are in $10,000 of credit card debt. So there's a balance here. But the reality is that minimum payments keep you paying off your debt for years, even if you're paying just minimums. Okay, so something to keep in mind here. There's two terms on debt, principal and interest.

[00:32:05.160] - Amber F.

Principal is the money you actually borrowed. So if I went on a sephora hall and I spent $100, let's say the principal balance on my credit card, if that's the only thing I have on it, is $100. But if my interest rate is 27%, which is a pretty common interest rate, 29 20, 817, all in those ranges. If I don't pay off that charge that I made, then I'm going to have to eventually pay 27% interest, which is the fee for borrowing the money that I didn't have. Now I owe $127 to the credit card company.

[00:32:39.570] - Amber F.

So now my Sephora haul, which first cost me $100, is now costing me $127 for the exact same amount of products. Okay, who gets that money? The credit card companies. It doesn't benefit you. It does not benefit you if you do not pay your credit card off in full.

[00:32:54.310] - Amber F.

If you get benefits or rewards or travel points or whatever from your credit card, and you do not pay off your credit card in full every single month. I'm not talking about some months. I'm talking about every single month. The amount in interest that you pay is quickly going to wipe away any benefit that you would ever get from a card. So I know numbers are hard on the radio, as I like to say.

[00:33:13.180] - Amber F.

But let's talk about if you only make a minimum payment on your credit card. I'm on bankrate.com right now, and there's a minimum payment calculator. So let's just do a little bit of math. If you had a $10,000 credit card balance and your interest rate was 18%, different cards calculate interest in different ways. But typically it's interest plus 1% or 2% of the balance that's on your card.

[00:33:35.090] - Amber F.

So it's not even just interest. It's interest plus a penalty, for goodness sakes. And you just made the minimum payment. The minimum payment would be $250 a month. It would take you again, you had $10,000 on your credit card balance.

[00:33:48.400] - Amber F.

It would take you 342 months to be rid of that debt. 342 months. I'm doing the math right now, divided by twelve. That's 28 years. That's 28 and a half years.

[00:33:59.530] - Amber F.

That's insane. And in that time, you had a $10,000 balance of your principal, right? That's the amount of money that you spend at Sephora. Well, you will also pay $14,423 to the credit card company in just interest. And that's if you never add any other debt to the pot.

[00:34:16.740] - Amber F.

What you have to do with credit cards is throw money at the principal and pay down the balance of the card because it's going to shrink the amount of interest that's owed over time. If you are only paying minimum payments right now, you need to stop and readjust. And I know a lot of people have multiple cards or multiple loans, and they're trying to figure out what to do. There's a whole episode about debt. Looking into consolidating loans is picking a method of payoff, whether it's the snowball method, the avalanche method, the blizzard method, as I think I call it.

[00:34:46.350] - Amber F.

Now, you have to make some adjustments to get yourself significant movement on that right away. Again, eat your vegetables. Don't just go rice and beans. But there are some realities about really making changes that are significant in your life, including getting a new job, moving towns, cities, states, getting a roommate even if you're married, getting somebody to live in your house with you and get some extra income so that you have some flexibility. These are uncomfortable situations.

[00:35:15.640] - Amber F.

I get it. But the faster you bite the bullet and get out of it, the faster you can get on track to building wealth for yourself. Okay, myth number 6th. 6th what? No.

[00:35:27.060] - Amber F.

Myth number six. My partner manages the finances, so I don't need to know about money. I'm just going to say, if you need a case study on why this is not true, please direct your attention to real Housewives of Miami, Lisa Hoxtein, real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Erica Jane, and Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa Judice, who actually spent time in prison for being blind to her family's finances. There is no world in which you should not be involved in managing the money of your household or giving all of your trust over to a partner or a financial planner or, I don't know, a business manager, anybody. You are going to care about your money more than anybody else will.

[00:36:08.180] - Amber F.

You need to be an active participant in it. There's a lot of issues, especially after a divorce, for example, which are the issues with Lisa Hoxteen and Erica Jane of financial infidelity. Well, that's really more Tom Girardi than it is Lenny Hoxtein. But Lenny Hoxtein, it's like post divorce. If Lisa didn't have.

[00:36:25.720] - Amber F.

I mean, well, Lisa, according to her on the show, doesn't have money in savings. She doesn't have a nest egg. She's going to rely on Lenny to pay her alimony so she can continue to live in the lifestyle to which she's accustomed. And what is the financial implication? I mean, it's significant, but what is the emotional toll?

[00:36:43.240] - Amber F.

This is two seasons in a row where we just talk about Lenny and Lisa. I'm over it, right? It's still ongoing. And just the emotional toll, I mean, based on her character. I'm sorry, I don't know Lisa Hawkstein.

[00:36:55.100] - Amber F.

I really think she's a sweet girl on the show, but she tends to live for the drama, so she might be okay with this level of chaos, which was probably present in her marriage. Again, as emotional beings, we tend to repeat experiences that are comfortable to us, even if they're bad, because comfortability feels more safe than uncomfortability, because that's not common to us. I don't know if I explained that. Well, we can go into more detail later. Anyway, my point is that whether it's financial infidelity or navigating life post divorce or just taking ownership and making sure that your money is going to places and causes and businesses and people that you support, I think it's so important to be in control of your money, especially in a partnership, in a marriage.

[00:37:39.910] - Amber F.

That's what it's all about. You guys so know this. Myth busted. Myth number seven, this is a spicy one. I think this is a huge hot topic right now, and it's one that's very near and dear to my heart because I sold homes.

[00:37:53.820] - Amber F.

I'm a licensed real estate agent in California. My mother sold homes. My grandmother on my father's side sold homes. And I've been piped with the american dream since I was in the womb, that you go to college, you get a good job, you get married, and buy a house, and I'm here to say that dream is gone. Myth number seven is buying a home is always better than renting.

[00:38:16.500] - Amber F.

And that is not true anymore. That is not true anymore. We are in a totally new environment in 2023, 2024 and beyond. That is different from the environment that our parents and our grandparents were in. I think the environment for our parents and grandparents were more similar.

[00:38:33.910] - Amber F.

And for our generation, it's vastly different. For financial reasons, rising home prices are making homes unaffordable. Supply is limited, which drives up price. Again, econ 101, which, by the way, I've been talking about economics a ton in this podcast, and it was my hardest class in college. It's not until I actually have been in the real world for I don't know how many years, 15 years, that I'm starting to get what I was learning in that class.

[00:38:58.830] - Amber F.

But we also have limited supply, not just because of the number of houses, but because there's big corporations out there buying up homes left and right to rent them back to people, and they're controlling the price. We have a very competitive interest rate environment. So, as I discussed earlier, with interest rates going up from the Fed so that they can control the amount of money that's in the economy, what that means for us is that borrowing money is more expensive. So just to give you a little insight into what that means in practicality, you're like, oh, it was a 3% interest rate and now it's a 6%. That's not a lot of a change.

[00:39:34.940] - Amber F.

Well, the reality is, if you secured a 30 year fixed term mortgage on a $600,000 home in 2021, you would likely be paying around 2.6% interest on that mortgage. Again, the interest is the amount of money that you're charged as a fee for borrowing the money to pay for your house. Okay, same like a credit card. But if you wanted to get the same monthly mortgage payment again, they bought a $600,000 home in 2021, 2.6% interest. Now, with interest rates being 6.2%, your purchasing power for a home is only $392,000.

[00:40:11.040] - Amber F.

So you had 20% more purchasing power three years ago when interest rates were three points lower. It really, really does affect affordability. And you think about it, on a monthly payment cycle, you are not going to be able to afford the same amount of house because the interest is higher, which means that you have to pay out your cash flow every month. So much money just to be able to afford the mortgage. So on a monthly basis.

[00:40:36.030] - Amber F.

And overall, just homes are less affordable than they were. Also, culturally, our population growth is outpacing home building. Also, people are getting married later or not at all. So that's less people coupling up, needing fewer homes because more people are living single in cities and towns and taking up more houses by themselves. There's also the hidden cost of homeownership that not enough people talk about.

[00:41:01.880] - Amber F.

Maintenance fees, property taxes, insurance. In fact, insurance is rising so fast in some places that it's literally doubling some people's mortgages and some people in Florida will buy a house and then the insurance company. Huh? Just kidding. You can't ever move in because I'm not going to insure it because the weather conditions are so extreme.

[00:41:19.390] - Amber F.

And for property taxes can be a hidden cost of homeownership that people don't consider. For example, everybody during COVID was like, screw California. I'm moving out to Texas. The homes are way cheaper. What they don't understand is that property taxes increase so significantly and so quickly in Texas, too.

[00:41:36.140] - Amber F.

And people weren't expecting that variability in their monthly payments, which, again, is not interest, it's not principal. The home price was the home price. Interest rate's interest rate. This is insurance. This is property taxes.

[00:41:47.660] - Amber F.

This is totally different. And then the other thing is the opportunity cost. When you buy a house, if you want to buy a house, it's going to limit your other opportunities to do the same things with that money. For example, if you're not ready to put down roots or you might want to move, you might not want to live where you're going to live with a house in five to ten years. That is an opportunity cost.

[00:42:10.480] - Amber F.

You're trading your opportunity to go other places, move other places, do other things. You also might be trading where you get to live. Like, if I wanted to buy a house, let's say five years ago, I could have done that with a first time home buyer rate and a small down payment. And you know what that would have done for me? It would have put me in the golden handcuffs.

[00:42:29.910] - Amber F.

I wouldn't have been able to leave my job that I was struggling at to go heal and then start my own business because I had a mortgage to pay, or I would have had a mortgage to pay. So you have the opportunity costs of just flexibility in life and taking other risks. And then, of course, the other thing is living where you want to live. I want to live exactly where I'm living right now. And my previous two homes that I lived in were within spitting distance of the Pacific Ocean.

[00:42:55.500] - Amber F.

Buying a house in those areas, not possible for me. I could buy a house 40 miles inland, but I wanted to live on the sand. And so I got that opportunity to do so by renting. Remember, I'm a licensed real estate agent, and in the particular neighborhood in which I live, I actually was the sales manager of a very large condo building. And I know this market, like this micro market, very, very well.

[00:43:20.340] - Amber F.

So, apples to apples, the cost of our apartment that we're in right now, if we were going to buy this unit, our monthly payment for our mortgage would be two to two and a half times more than it costs us to rent it. Plus, on top of that, you got to think about Hoa. You got to think about maintenance. Like, if anything breaks in our apartment, I don't have time to fix it. I'm not going to the Home Depot.

[00:43:43.500] - Amber F.

Okay. I'm calling the maintenance guys. We love them here. So you make choices, right? So I think a lot of people are upset because they've seen their parents buy houses.

[00:43:53.330] - Amber F.

They don't have the wealth that they expected to have. I get it. We're all in a major expectation hangover as a generation, and I want to talk about this in our last myth again, that we get to make the choices to empower ourselves to get what we want. If owning a home is important to you, go buy one. It's probably not going to be in the location that you want.

[00:44:12.990] - Amber F.

It probably won't be the size that you want. But it's the reality of what's happening today. If you want a little bit more flexibility, there's no shame in renting. It can actually be a better financial decision for you over time, especially if you want to buy a house in a specific location. Maybe it's not going to appreciate the way that it might have ten years ago.

[00:44:32.920] - Amber F.

Maybe that location isn't as growth oriented anymore and you could better exercise your money in other investments like multifamily real estate or the stock market or something like that. You get to make and own your choices. There's a lot of energy swirling about the injustice of it all. And I agree, it's unjust. It's unfair.

[00:44:51.280] - Amber F.

It's not what I expected, either. I thought I would have a different life path based on what my parents did and what their parents did. I get it. But are we going to waste that energy on being mad and stomping our feet, or are we going to decide to take ownership of the choices that we make and move forward in confidence and ownership of dealing with the way things are as they are? So going on to number eight, I don't earn enough to save.

[00:45:18.230] - Amber F.

Here's the thing about this myth. It is true. I think this one is true because I don't earn enough to say. The reality is no one does, babe. Nobody earns enough to save because we could all go spend all of the money that we get no matter what our revenue was every single month or what our paycheck was every single month.

[00:45:37.610] - Amber F.

I have confidence in you, sister. You would spend the shit out of that money if you didn't have to save. So when we say, I don't earn enough to save, that's true for everyone, no matter what level you're at. In fact, the reason I know this about myself is because there's a really fun manifestation exercise where you take a certain amount of money, let's say it's $1,000, and each day for 30 days, you start with $1,000, and you write out what you would buy with $1,000. And the rules are, it's supposed to be something that you would want, not something that you necessarily need.

[00:46:07.820] - Amber F.

Like, you can't say, oh, I'm going to pay my rent with this this month. It's like, what creatively would you spend $1,000 on this month? Well, I would spend it on blank a pair of shoes and a purse from such and such. And then the next day, you double the amount. So on day two, you say, okay, now I have $2,000.

[00:46:23.500] - Amber F.

If I was going to play with $2,000, how would I spend it? Then the next day it's $4,000, and then the next day it's $8,000. And it's a manifestation exercise designed to increase your capacity for handling wealth and saying, if I had this money, I would know what to do with it confidently. And not just in things to buy to own, but in experiences and enrichment. Because as you start to climb up this ladder and you're at, like, $14,000, you're like, what am I going to do with $14,000?

[00:46:48.760] - Amber F.

I don't know. I might do a scholarship for a year of classes at SDSU for a young woman, or whatever it might be, it starts to get your brain thinking creatively about money. So when you say, I don't earn enough to save, I totally fill you. I totally hear you. And even if you're making peanuts, you're making $2,500 a month.

[00:47:09.100] - Amber F.

It is in your best interest to save at least, like, 10% of that. So if you make $2,500 a paycheck, put away $25 every single month, go back to episode number five. That's all about, I think it's five systems and saving or something like that. And what I like to do is have that savings happen automatically, set up automatic transfers to your high yield savings account, and start building that fund. And soon enough, that interest, which, again, we've talked about interest in a lot of a negative way, it can also be really positive.

[00:47:38.870] - Amber F.

The interest rate environment right now is high. So high yield savings accounts because it's the same interest rates for savings or for borrowing. They can get you a lot of money for basically free. You get to pay taxes on the interest you earn. Of course.

[00:47:53.030] - Amber F.

Totally unfair. I get it. But you can have money sitting in an account, and it grows for you automatically. That's what you need to get into the mindset of doing. Once you see that starting to happen, it can be really exciting to see something grow.

[00:48:04.440] - Amber F.

It's like starting a sourdough starter. Everybody's doing that right now. Seeing something grow and come to life is really a powerful place to be. So, number nine, this is a really interesting one. I hear this a lot.

[00:48:15.520] - Amber F.

Rich people are all evil. If you believe that, can I ask again? Is this an empowering thought or a disempowering thought? Because if you believe that all rich people are evil, why would you want to become wealthy? If you truly, in your heart of hearts, believe that people who have money are evil, it's going to prevent you from achieving wealth, because you do not want to be perceived or seen or feel evil.

[00:48:43.410] - Amber F.

If you have that in your heart, in your subconscious, in your mind, it is going to get in the way of you building wealth and what needs to happen. There is a mindset shift. It's not that rich people are evil. It's that there are people out there that are not good. And it doesn't matter how much money they have, they will be evil when they're poor, and they will be more evil when they're wealthy.

[00:49:05.270] - Amber F.

I believe that money is an amplifier. I think that money really shows people's true colors. I've seen a lot of people close to me in my life act crazy about money. Absolutely crazy about it. It does amplify people's personality traits.

[00:49:21.230] - Amber F.

I do give you that. And so if you have somebody that is a bad seed, a bad egg, having a lot of money might bring that out in them because they're drunk on power or wealth or whatever. But are rich people evil? No. People out there are not good, and people out there are good.

[00:49:37.320] - Amber F.

There's a ton of people that are incredibly wealthy that have done so by really positive means, that have contributed to their community, that are giving back. And it's about what we decide to look at. So I'm deciding to look at the positives of the people in the world that are doing well with wealth and modeling my path after them. Myth number ten. If I just make more money, I'll be insert adjective here, happier, better, secure, find love, et cetera.

[00:50:08.690] - Amber F.

The reality is that this is a myth. The trope of more money, more problems really is true, because as you get more money, it's not that there are more problems than a negative thing, but it's like there's definitely more expenses. As you lifestyle inflate, you're going to have bigger mortgages, bigger car payments, kids in private school. All these new variables come about too. So when you have little money, it's your opportunity to learn how to manage it, invest it, deal with it, so that you can build that muscle to hold more wealth, have bigger capacity, because you'll be making bigger money decisions.

[00:50:46.050] - Amber F.

But the reality is, money is not the solve, it's not the thing that's going to make everything better in your life. It can become more complicated, 100%. And on top of that, it's not going to make you happier, more better, more secure. It's going to be you that needs to do that first. On the flip side of this, money absolutely gives us more resources.

[00:51:08.130] - Amber F.

Obviously, that's what money is. But to solve problems in our lives or deal with things that come up in ways that we don't have to really struggle through. I was talking to a girlfriend of mine whose mother's going through health issues right now and might need in home care. And it's the calling the state, getting them set up for Medicare, figuring out who's going to take care of mom, who's paying her bills, what's happening? And the reality is, if you have money, all of those problems get solved because you can hire full time care to come to the house, you have somebody to manage the property for you.

[00:51:42.100] - Amber F.

You hire them, you pay them, you have the resources to take care of things. And that's why the pursuit of wealth can really be a positive thing for your family, for your generations before, your generations after. If you make more money, is it going to make you happier, better, more secure? No, it's not. Your life circumstances and your internal temperature is going to dictate that.

[00:52:03.140] - Amber F.

But it absolutely can make you more resourceful. It can help you solve problems with more ease. There's definitely benefits to having money, but it's not going to be the problem solver that you think it is. And the last myth, and this is another spicy one, okay, I think the house buying one and then this one. Number eleven.

[00:52:23.870] - Amber F.

The myth is millennials have it harder than any prior generation. And we got fucked. This is what I'm talking about. And this is what I'm seeing as a conversation on social media, especially TikTok. There's a lot of people, again, this post capitalist society, we're all suffering through the outcomes of the country.

[00:52:46.420] - Amber F.

And yeah, we're suffering through choices that other generations made. Yeah, that's true. We're suffering through politicians that don't have our best interests at heart or out for power. Won't retire. Nancy Pelosi are getting inordinate gains from the stock market due to alleged insider trading.

[00:53:06.340] - Amber F.

Nancy PElosi we are in a really tough spot right now. We just survived a pandemic. We all graduated during a recession. I read this stat the other day that made me sick, and it's true, and I know this to be true. I graduated from college in 2009, and the statistic was that somebody who graduated between 2007 and 2009 took ten years to get to the earning potential of somebody who graduated in either 2004 or 2012 in two years.

[00:53:35.380] - Amber F.

So what that means is if I graduated in 2009, by 2019, I was making the same amount of money as somebody who was employed in 2014 and graduated in 2012. And I know that to be true because I worked in student housing in those years post recession, and the kids that worked for me in San Diego were getting jobs at big four accounting firms for double or triple what I was making managing them while they were in college. It was making me sick. And the reality is I was just on my path, and I was going to be going on that path regardless. And it's okay.

[00:54:08.880] - Amber F.

But the just earning potential loss is real. We've gone through a lot as millennials, but is this a myth or is it true? Millennials have had it harder than anyone else? We've definitely got a different set of situations on our hands here. And that expectation hangover, as Christine Hasler would say, is very real because we were raised very well, a lot of us in middle class families where our parents were able to afford books at the scholastic book fair for us or jelly sandals in the summer.

[00:54:39.470] - Amber F.

And there's a lot of families out there that are just struggling to get by. And so it's a big letdown. I'm not going to take that away from anyone. But what I want to say is that perspective is the biggest chunk of salt that we have to swallow. So Queen Elizabeth just passed away a couple of years ago, real last year.

[00:54:57.950] - Amber F.

I don't remember. I'm not a big, like, Queenie girl, but the point is she was born before World War I. She lived through the spanish pandemic, spanish flu pandemic, World War I, World War II, the Cold War. A lot of our grandparents lived through the Great Depression in the 30s here, they lived through getting drafted and going to Vietnam and then coming home and being spit on. There was runs on gas in the 70s, recessions in the 80s, there was the.com bubble in 2000s.

[00:55:30.730] - Amber F.

There's all these things that happened over the course of time. And I'm not saying that we're more on track to a utopia than we were before. I don't know if we were ever on track. But I think that perspective is a really important pill to swallow when you're feeling disenfranchised, because there are so many challenges that every generation faces. We're just more familiar with the ones that we face because they're so real to us.

[00:55:55.300] - Amber F.

And yes, I agree, it's incredibly disappointing that inflation is where it is and wages are where they are, and the costs of things are so high. I'm a small business owner. I see all of it. We're not rolling in it over here, able to buy a car whenever we want, moving wherever we want, going on vacation whenever we want. My clients are small business owners, and they're investors and many businesses.

[00:56:17.070] - Amber F.

It is tough out there. I get it. And you know what? The tough times never last forever. There's always an upswing.

[00:56:23.380] - Amber F.

And the best thing that you can do for yourself is to gird your loins, as the toast girls would say, during the hard times, and prep for taking opportunities in the good times, when the tide starts to turn and when interest rates drop. Are you ready to pounce on a house because you've been saving for a down payment during this time? Or have you been comfort feeding yourself with Doordash every single night, wasting 50, 60, 70, $80 every single night on food because you had a hard day at work? Living in this society and being a wealthy woman is about embodying the holistic environment of wealth, in your health, in your mindset, in your emotional states, in your relationships, within your internal environment, at home, with your pets, with your family, your relationships, these things, so that you have the fortitude to make it through any hard times, whether they're socially driven, economically driven family, their personal internal states. And it's about embodying the skills and building the muscles so that when the opportunity is ripe, you can take advantage and get ahead.

[00:57:31.120] - Amber F.

I remember when the pandemic first started, and I would talk to my best friend on the phone every day when I was walking around in circles in my town because there was nothing else to do. And I kept saying, this is our Super bowl. This is our Super bowl because we had been going to the same therapist for years. And we had built all of this strength in ourselves to be calm during the fear. There's an influencer, creator, whoever you want to call it.

[00:57:56.730] - Amber F.

Her name is Angie Green. She's very granola. She used to be a model. She now lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband. It's a n g I, green.

[00:58:06.060] - Amber F.

G R e e n e, I think. And her whole philosophy is, do what you can with what you have. Which means if you are only available to get up and go for a walk today, but you're available to go for a walk today, go do it. You need to do what you can with what you have every single day, every opportunity, and then also being prepared in the face of turmoil or chaos or challenges. They just had a freezing event in Texas where the pipes from the city water were frozen and shut off, so they had no water.

[00:58:34.870] - Amber F.

And are you going to go into a chaos spiral or are you going to be prepared and calm? Both from a physical standpoint of having supplies and being prepped. And I'm not advising for like doomsday prepping. I'm just saying they live in a remote area, so they need to be prepped. And then also the emotional fortitude so that you can help your neighbors and you can be the beacon of calm.

[00:58:55.520] - Amber F.

So when we look at myth number eleven, millennials have it harder than anyone else. I think it's very real for us. It is hard out there. I'm not taking that away. I know there's a lot of people out there that are struggling to save.

[00:59:08.240] - Amber F.

They're struggling to pay down debt, they're struggling to get started in their financial goals. But I do want to say that it's possible. We do have the resources around us, the information, and it's about execution. And that's a muscle that takes a lot of time to build. And I mean execution in investing, in saving, in interviewing so you can get a better job, and also in keeping your emotional fortitude strong so that you can withstand any storm.

[00:59:32.720] - Amber F.

And if you're a rich girl and you're listening to this podcast and you've made it to the end of this episode, I know that's you, because this has been a storm of a podcast we just busted. Eleven myths. Well, I think one of them, I think I said was true. Eleven myths in money that might be holding you back from your highest potential. Being aware is the first step in really unpacking this.

[00:59:52.730] - Amber F.

So if you have any money myths that have come up for you or stories you've been told or things you have questions on. Send me a DM oldmoneypodcast or an email oldmoneypodcast@gmail.com you can submit anonymous notes through speakpipe, which is linked in our Instagram bio. And also you can go to the website oldnuttypodcast.com to leave me anonymous note there. I love you guys so much. Thank you for being here with me.

[01:00:15.760] - Amber F.

I'm happy to be back. Let's attack 2024 in the best way possible, taking advantage of every opportunity, busting those myths and reaching our highest potential. I'll talk to you guys on the next episode. Have a great day. Bye bye.

[01:00:30.810] - Amber F.

Feeling rich? I hope so. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Old Money. If you have questions you want answered, email me at oldmoneypodcast@gmail.com or hit us up on social. We are at Oldmoneypodcast and I am at your service.

[01:00:46.220] - Amber F.

If this episode spoke to you, inspired you, helped you, if you took a single note, it would mean the world to me. If you could please just take a minute to rate and review the podcast. And if you're not doing so already, subscribe. And if you have friends who like getting rich, please share this episode with them, even if it's just on your Instagram story. And I'd love you more than Jeff Bezos loves Amazon prime.

[01:01:07.900] - Amber F.

Thank you so much and I will talk to you on the next episode. Remember, I'm not your lawyer, I'm not your tax professional, and I'm not your financial advisor. Sir, the content presented in this podcast is intended to entertain, educate, inspire, and support listeners in their personal and professional development and does not constitute business, financial, or legal advice. In addition to that, this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services.

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The content presented in this podcast is intended to entertain, educate, inspire and support listeners in their personal and professional development and does not constitute business, financial, or legal advice. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services for which individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services related to the episode.

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