Episode four sixty four, Money Lies Women Believe with carl Lowenthile.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast.
My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are sharing an interview that we did with Carla Lowenthile, who is the creator of unf Your Mind, Your Brain, your brain. Yes, unf your brain. That is not the full way to say it, but there's an asterisk if
you read it. And I was so excited for this interview because Kara studies history and the history of why we believe what we believe, not because it's normal, but because it has been carefully crafted, which when I'm saying it out loud, kind of sounds conspiracy theory is but it's not this intentional, devious plan it's just the way culture has assimilated so that there are things that we as women believe about money that are untrue because we've
felt that way or been conditioned that way over four hundred years.
And there could be some more malicious, devious planning by those most in power, but we are primarily looking with Kara at the ways in which this has then impacted us, both implicitly and explicitly. Some of the lies that and you'll hear me as we go through, like realizing where I even find myself. I think it brought a lot to the surface for me as well. But then what
to do from there? As always, we don't want to just leave you with problems without ever looking at the solutions, so you can also expect that as well.
But first, this episode is brought to you by December twenty ninth. We're already looking ahead to after Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to be looking in your houses, at your Christmas tree, looking at your lights. I'm here for it. But let's plan for a couple weeks ahead. On December twenty ninth, Jill and I will be hosting a free live meal planning class that is only free for people who pre order our new book By What You Love Without Going Broke. So for all
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as incorporating the meal prep component to it. So if you want us to help you come up with a one year, a twenty twenty five meal plan for the year, head to buy What youlovebook dot com, pre order the book and then submit the form on buy What you loovebook dot com and you will get access to that free class.
Oh, it's going to be a perfect thing just before the new year.
You're going to be so glad and thankful to yourself. Your future self will be so grateful that you not only have a book coming in the mail that's going to help you with your spending decisions and your money, but you're also going to have this class just ahead of the new year to get you ready for everything you're going to eat, and that's going to save you money.
We love that.
Whoo Bye welovebook dot com.
So Carl Lowentheile. She is a New York Times bestselling author of Take Back Your Brain. She is an Ivy League Women's rights lawyer turn master feminist coach, and the founder of the New School of feminist thought, and she has a completely well rounded look that is based on fact and not opinion on the way that we look at money and really just things in general as women. She's not so many When I hear the word feminists, sometimes I can think abrasive, and that is not Kara
at all. It is You're just going to love everything she says, and it's going to make you think about, Yes, there are differences that are in my life because of my gender, but that that empowers me to take that knowledge and make the changes that are right for me, not the changes that maybe somebody else thinks I should. So it's a fantastic stick interview.
Yeah, just greater understanding of ourselves and the environment in which we operate in which you know, that's kind of the whole goal of this old podcast, the book we just wrote, is to just help us understand ourselves better and then make more informed decisions as a result.
So let's get into it.
Kara, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. I am so excited for this conversation. We're so excited to have you on.
I'm so excited to be here and to have learned that you can get a hot pink cover for your microphone, which I'm doing immediately after this call.
We don't often utilize video, so people don't know this is mostly for us, but we do. We've got a me on hot microphone, a frugal friend's screen behind us, hot pink win screen, and we are ready for this conversation. I'm so very excited to talk with you, learn from you, introduce you to our audience.
So to kick us off, you know the real softball here.
Can you share from you your own research, your years of kind of understanding this kind of topic.
What are some of the differences that you.
See between men and women when it comes to both having and wanting money?
Yeah, I think that's that's like twelve questions. That's kind of there you go, then bubble up.
Yeah, here for it.
Where it begins with what? Well, I guess let me ask you. I'm going to ask you the question I can still we can start with socialization, we could start with history. Which one would you like to start with? Oh?
History?
Yeah, history, Let's start with history again.
At the beginning, at the beginning of time, there was no currency, and then Adam Smith came along and invented capitalism. So Obviously this can vary depending on where you live, but we are broadcasting from America. Probably most of your listeners are people who live in the US or maybe in Western Europe, and so the legal regime in you know, Europe England than the US in the last four to
six hundred years hasn't been around quite long. We were legal and economic regimes in which most of the time, for most of that history, women did not have full financial rights, right, so things could vary country to country a little bit, and there are two kind of big picture types of kind of types of legal systems that
were used. But regardless, in a lot of places, if you were a woman for most of our kind of modern and pre modern history in the last couple of thousands of years, you couldn't own your own property, right. You could not have a job except potentially with the permission of your husband or your father. You could not
make a legal contract by yourself. You were not a legal entity, especially if you were married, and almost everybody was married, so in some places there were kind of carve outs, like maybe if you were a widow you could then like own your inheritance if you didn't have male sons who owned it instead. Right, maybe you could inherit from your father if you had no brothers. But these were like the exception, right, most people had a lot of siblings, most almost you know, marriage was fairly
compulsory for most people. So most women just didn't have full legal and economic rights. You couldn't. You know, you didn't have the right to your own money, you didn't have a legal right to it. You didn't have the right to make contracts. You didn't have the right to start a business. You know, have the right to start
a job. So in that system, the way women interact with money is your father or your brother or your husband or whoever, like, if you have any money, gives it to you, right, And so what you are responsible for is just managing that little bit of money. Right.
So this is a sort of like you know, a thrifty housewife, like you are responsible for the purse of the house, which obviously could be almost nothing if you are a medieval peasant and you don't really have any money, or it could be quite a lot if you're a member of the aristocracy and you are given a large allowance by your husband to manage an estate. But either way, you're not earning, keeping the money. You're not in charge
of the money, right. This is obviously you know, if you have historians listening to this, this is a seventy thousand foot view. But it's important because what we see now in the way that men and women are socialized around money still has echoes of all of that conditioning.
Right if you there are media studies done that I talk about in my book Take Back Your Brain that demonstrate that, you know, media financial literacy, media aimed at women is all about budgeting, being thrifty, right, very similar to dieting, like restrict and don't be such a you know, spend thrift frivolous lady, and don't buy so many shiny things. Don't buy your avocado toast and your lattes like that
stuff's gendered. Are we talking to men when we say don't spend money on lates and avocado toast?
Like? Not?
Mostly? Right, We're really talking about women, So we still get this emphasis on like being good with money for a woman is being thrifty, being responsible, saving, budgeting, and then financial literacy media aimed at men is about out building wealth, investing, making money, you know, taking appropriate risk. And so I think we see like that history is not far behind us, right, We're still getting socialized in it.
And I think people are shocked to hear this sometimes, Like until nineteen seventy four, which is my mother was alive and well, you could not as a woman get a credit card in every state in the country without a man co signing it and guaranteeing it. And until nineteen eighty three, I think for business loans.
Eighty eight, eighty eight, eighteen eighty eight, it was even sooner. I was sex one year before we were born.
Yeah, I was seven years old. So like I am the breadwinner in my family, I own a business. I'm
an entrepreneur. I retired my husband. The idea that like he who has never even looked at a spreadsheet, probably he was a lawyer, would have to like come to the bank with me to approve that I could have a loan for my multimillion dollar business is completely bananas, right, like bananas, But that's so recent, right, And so I see that a lot in my work as a coach, that women are Women's thoughts about money are usually like,
I don't understand it, it's too complicated. I'm irresponsible with money. I hear that all the time, and what I ask what that means? It just means, Oh, if I were responsible, I'd be saving more, I wouldn't be spending. That's not how men are taught to think about money, right, and that's not their big concern. Usually it's like that I'm irresponsible with it. It's like I should make more of it. Maybe it's not. Patriarch is not good for anybody like this.
Gender split isn't great for men either, but I think particularly for women. And you know that's why I love the title of your book. It's like, yes, the frugal friends, but you're talking about how to buy what you love without going broke, Like it's not just being frugal like in and of itself to prove your virtuous enough is not You're not going to get a gold star from the universe that you've finally been an Epsteinius enough woman.
It's a sell them what they want, give them what they need.
Situation over here with his all of our podcast title and our book.
Yeah, it's it is so like crazy when when you're saying all this stuff, it's like, yes, we see it, and then we kind of see some people shifting, right, where women are trying to be like in the the socially male dominated make more money invest And then there's also like mindset things that come up with that that these women are like what do you see like when what are the difficulties when women try to like shift that narrative?
Well, I think women in general are not socialized to take risks, right. So women are socialized into something that I call over responsibility, which means we are socialized to consider ourselves responsible for anything and everyone around us, and to think that we need to control everything and everyone around us and always be getting good outcomes or we've
done something wrong. So this makes women often quite risk averse because if you take a risk, then you might not be able to control the outcome and get the correct outcome and be perfect at it, and so it seems safer to not even try. So it's like, you know, unwillingness to invest, because it feels safe for quote unquote to just put the money in a savings account because at least then there's no risk that you'll lose it. But of course you are passing up a huge risk
of building it right, of it growing. And men are not socialized the same way around risk. Now, we also know that there's studies showing right that women actually make better investment managers than men. At One of the rationales is that they are better risk judges of risk, which I think shows that like women can if they are if they can shift their mindset enough to allow for some risk, it's like you're gonna get the best of
both worlds. But the best investment managers aren't the people who are like, I'm taking no risks, I'm just putting the money in a savings account, which is like how I think women are socialized. And it ties into also the socialization that women still get around and numbers, right,
being more like men. Boys are better at math, men are better at math, and so, and because women are socialized to be such kind of perfectionists and to always think that like they're not smart enough, they don't understand things anything that's at all challenging, which like, yeah, math sometimes is, so are a lot of things like learning about the investments in the stock market. It's a whole
area of knowledge. It can be intimidating at first, but women are much more likely to internalize that, and so they have that feeling that we anyone might feel of like, oh, this is complicated and I got to learn a bunch of stuff, and they internalize that as like, oh, there's something wrong with me. I'mdumb. I don't understand this. It's too hard. It makes me feel anxious and bad about myself, so I'm just gonna ignore it.
This is really helpful.
I think the distinction that you made between managing versus earning and kind of the history behind that, because we do still see and I think this in some ways has been a bit of a shocker to people as we've talked about personal finance that women and do primarily
manage the finances of the household. But you're kind of connecting the dots there on why that is and potentially even why we might have a bit more of a scarcity mindset when it comes to money because we're just managing this amount and maybe not necessarily focusing on where can we earn. That's not to say that, I mean a lot of the women who listen to our podcasts are earners for their families, but yet kind of helps to understand why maybe this connection to know how much
can I get for how little? And how can I, you know, stretch this dollar, and how can I be as traditionally frugal as possible, maybe even borderline cheap. So I think that connection is really helpful and I think potentially could blend into something I know you've talked about a bit, just like the lies that women might be believing around money.
What are you seeing that?
Yeah, so I want to talk about the lies, but I think what you're saying is is important, Like women have always historically managed the household budget, right, But the question is, like, what about the rest of the money decisions, Like who's making the decisions about the investments, who's making the decisions about how much you spend on a house, Who's making the decisions about you know, the big picture expenses,
the car, the school tuition, whatever. Right are you having an equal say in conversation about those things or are you assuming, you know, my husband probably has our retirement taken care of, like and that's not you know, even feminists can can be in this headspace because of that socialization we get and because we're so socialized to always know the right answer and always do things perfectly. And I see like even among entrepreneurs, but especially obviously among
people who have more salary jobs. Women are socialized to like do a good job and you'll be rewarded and someone will give you the money, and then like you manage it right, And like that's the mindset shift we have to switch, which is like you're responsible for creating whatever amount of wealth or money you want to have, whether you're in a sellary position or you're an entrepreneur, or you're managing a household budget, you're a stay at home mom, Like whatever it is you have to have,
you know, create an empowerment around that so that you aren't kind of emotionally in the state of like, oh, somebody else decides what I get and then I just get to manage it, which is kind of how women are socialized. Be grateful for what you have, don't want more, right, So that's one of the three money lies. Actually, is that wanting money or wanting to build wealth or caring about money is morally wrong and means something bad about you.
And this is not just gender. This is really actually more of a like religious puritan kind of influence on
our culture. But I think since women are socialized to kind of generally believe that they are always doing something wrong and always suspect and always probably being bad it just like I think it hits us harder, you know, And we see a lot more criticism of women who are financially ambitious than we do of men who are financially ambitious, by the studies showing that having children, right, will decrease a woman's earning and increase a man's earnings
because now he's seen as like a provider and he'll get a raise without even trying. So that is so one of the money lies is that it means something bad about you. And I always just liked to this is where I also like to go to history because I just like to be like, let's think about where this came from. Like in Western culture, it was a bunch of lavishly, ridiculously wealthy Christian cardinals and popes living in palaces telling all the peasants that wanting money meant
that they were bad, that that was sinful. Like meanwhile, they are like wearing velvet, living in marble with you know, a sumptuous lifestyle. So but this is just in the water, like it's all around us, and we just assume that it's true and we don't look at where does it come from? Right? Who told you that that was bad
and how do they benefit from it? Right? If society, if the rich men in society are telling everybody else, women, other marchialized people, people of color that like wanting money is bad and sinful, but they seem to want and have a lot of money. Like something's not adding up.
Here, right, Right? These two don't go together, right.
Like who benefits from this? So that's a lie. Well, that's one lie. One of the lies we kind of spoke of it about is the idea that money is men's business, that men are are somehow more capable or more knowledgeable or more informed about it. And I mean, it may be true that men are receiving more useful instruction from their family or colleagues about it, but that's an accident of socialization, it's not inherent. And any you know, woman with a brain can read a book and learn about
it too. So it's that that that sort of idea, right, And we link money in masculinity, right, Why would we think it's emasculating for a woman to earn more than her than her husband Because we've somehow connected these two things, that it would be that somehow virility and money go together a masculinity of money. So it's like very deeply integrated.
Right.
You may not think that you think money's for men, But do you feel comfortable out earning your husband? Do you feel comfortable right being the primary bedwinner? Retiring your husband? Do people say to you like, oh, is he is he comfortable with that? Is it weird for him? Why are we asking that? Right? Nobody ever asks a woman who's staying home with the kids, is it weird for
you that your husband makes more money than you? But people ask men that ask me how I know it is the primary breadwinnership.
Oh dang.
And my husband's like anytime somebody at a hotel, her, a restaurant talks to him, he's like, she's the bank. I'm just here to like carry her bags. Like he is not at all bothered, but people think he will be, and like that tells us something. Right, So that's two. And then the third one is the deck is stacked and so you may as well not even try so in it it's sort of like the first two or more I think believed by women who aren't aware of this,
like conditioning. But then the third one I actually see more come up in women who have awareness of the conditioning, which is sort of like, oh wow, I see how messed up all this is, and so I'm not going to be able to get ahead or succeed. It is
an old boys network. People don't believe that women can be their financial advisor and manage their money or you know, I'm not gonna be able to find a you know, men are socialized this way, so I'm not gonna be able to find a partner who will be comfortable with this or whatever. Right, And this is really a through
line in all my work, not just about money. That one of the most insidious ways that socialization makes us passive is by making us believe that kind of everyone everywhere has these sexist beliefs, so there's sort of no point, right. It's like, if your boss is sexually harassing you, there's like no point in trying to get another job, because not only are you probably bad and stupid at an imposter and can't get one, but all the bosses will
be like this. If you're in a relationship and someone is you know, with somebody who's very in a toxic masculine mindset and is treating you badly, well, what can you expect from straight men. They're all socialized this way. They're all terrible. There's no point, you know, find the best, settle for the best you can get. So you actually see this come up a lot, and I think that that's the in some ways, the biggest lie, because that's
not true. Like there are bosses who won't promote you if you're a working mom, and there are bosses who will, and you have to work on your belief that there's better spaces out there for you. There are partners who are going to be emasculated if you make more money.
There are partners who won't, but you have to believe that in order to believe that you can and that relationship and find someone like my husband who's thrilled to be retired and travel around with you, like if that's what you want, right, So, I think that is like one of the sneakiest I will say that I didn't put this in the book, but I think it's really relevant for this conversation, especially f you of more heighth earning women and women who are focused on building wealth.
There's you know, when we split things up in this binary gendered way, it's bad for everybody. And one of the ways that I think it is detrimental that even like feminist or high performing women don't really think about is they don't question their own socialization that if they're straight women, specifically, that a man needs to be ambitious and high earning and like match them in order to
be a legitimate partner. So I coach a lot of high powered women who have trouble quote unquote in dating because they they're traveling the world and being the CEO or speaking at the conferences whatever. And then they're like, well, I mean, my partner has to make at least as much money as I do. Why why does he need to make at least much money as you do? Is it to afford your lifestyle? Oh no, I can afford my lifestyle. I can support him in a whole family. Okay,
why does he need to do that? Well? You know, so like that I want someone I can really respect, Like, okay, that's patriarchy right there. Like why does a man have to make a certain amount of money for you to respect him, see him as an equal, see him as worthy enough. I think other people will see him as valuable enough as your partner. So there's like internalized sexism that you know, high earning, high achieving, financially literate, financially
savvy women have to do too. It's not if that's really what you want, fine, there's nothing wrong with that, But I just want you to like question that for yourself, Like I specifically did not want someone like that. I have a very demanding job, I work a lot, I've got we have step kids, Like I need my husband to be able to be the primary caregiver for his kids, and I want him to be able to have a more flexible schedule because I work a lot and I
have to travel. And that's not nothing. That's the right way. But I do think there's a lot of internalized sexism that high power women don't see in themselves around their financial choices. And any you know, financial expert will tell you that who you marry or partner with is one of the biggest financial decisions for everything in your life. So yeah, like looking at your own thought process matters.
I don't think it's the same. But something that we have always said on the show is marry rich or marry capable.
One or the other. I wonder if both are good, both are fine.
Make sure it benefits you in some way, but don't marry somebody who is neither.
Someone who you are not interested in or exactly.
Yeah, I can appreciate all that you're describing with these lies, and honestly, I'm getting a little bit sweaty because I am noticing some of these things and myself and Cara, I am a licensed clinical social worker. I am supposed to know a ton about socialization and how that happens, and I think you are kind of unveiling even more.
And I think we talk about money mindset all the time, and I think what you're describing here with exploring the ways in which we've been socialized as women and men as it relates to money, is another layer of our money mindset. I think I alongside my husband, we both earn money for our household, and yet I will still and sometimes it's in ingest, but obviously it's still there.
I will say, how like Eric bought this and he bought that, even though we make about an equal amount in many years, I have made more, and I still will give him the credit for having like bought these different things. Again, some of it is I'm being funny about it, but obviously it's there for me and I will still, I guess, behave and think in some of the ways that you are describing because of where we've come from in history that I'm not even fully aware of.
And I think this kind of then leads to one of the questions. And You've touched on this, but I'm curious if there's more that you would have to say about it in regards to when we find ourselves operating out of these socialized ideas that aren't even true for us individually, like believing that men are the ones who earn and we're the ones who manage, even when we
are both earning and managing. Like some of the lies you're talking about, I see them in myself, even though they're not actually true for me on an individual level actually my experiences. Any ideas on how we can kind of bring some congruence there and how that might help our finances.
Yeah, so I love congruence totally A licensed social work or a therapist word, and I think this is totally com I mean, I have a we just finished doing a beta round of a program for therapists. Because this kind of socialization, deep socializations have is just not covered in a lot of places. So it's like completely normal. I just want to say, like just being a being a therapist, being a social worker, being a coach doesn't mean that you, you know, have uncovered all this stuff.
And I'm always uncovering still. Like becoming a stepmom. I thought I had done all this work and I didn't originally want children. I thought i'd really divested from that, and then I'm like, well, all these all thoughts about like parenting are coming up that are totally from my socialization. So I focus a lot on kind of cognitive mindset works. So my advice illness is always about coming up with thoughts you can believe now that you're going to practice
to rewire your thought patterns. That's something I get into a lot in my book take Back Your Brain. I have a podcast called on f your Brain. We can't say the whole word here, but you can all fill that in. There is an asterisk in the title when you type it in, and so I talk a lot there about how to do this. But I think the thing that's really different about my approach from maybe other money coaches people may have heard from, Well, number one, I'm not just a money coach, but is that I
don't believe in like manifestation and affirmation. So I am not going to say, like what you do is you look in the mirror every morning you say I am a gazillionairess it really, I just like that's like telling people what you do if you want to run a marathon, is you just walk out your door and run twenty six miles and believe you can do it. Like, that's not what happens. You have to train your body for a marathon, and you have to train your brain to
think differently. Your brain is part of your body.
Thank you.
Yes, So we're when you're starting, it might be thoughts that are like, it's possible that I am sometimes irresponsible with money and sometimes responsible with money, Like really, even though I don't personally even believe there's such a thing as irresponsible with money, that's a made up word, and analysis you get to decide what that means. When we're when we're talking about like building a new belief, we just got to start really small, So it might look
like that. It might look like it's possible that I can learn about the stock market, or you know, I used to think that I couldn't understand criminal procedure law, and now I do, so I can probably understand the stock market also, like whatever. It's very individualized to the person. But the way we create that congruence is just shifting
the way that we think. But I think that the reason that I love the historical and anthropological perspective that I think is missing from other kind of coaching frameworks is that it just helps you understand where these thoughts came from. You know, I think a lot of when I came into the coaching world, the message was sort of like, it doesn't matter where where the thoughts came from,
you just need to change them. And that's true. But the human mind just has its own weird biases, and one of them, I I think, is that in the absence of another credible explanation, it will just tend to believe that something is true. So like it's like, I must be having this thought because it's true. Nobody can give me another explanation, so it must be true. That's why I'm thinking it. But when you can look at it and be like, oh, I was specifically taught that
explicitly implicitly by the whole culture around me. Oh, now you just get that little bit of distance that you know as a therapist. Is like the first step to any shift, right, is like not being so identified with your thought as true. So all the kind of usual cognitive techiques you might use, like looking for evidence is contrary to what you believe, looking for examples in your life of shifts or skills that you can apply to this, Like, it's just cognitive work to like change it little bit
by little bit. Yeah, I have.
I have found that in looking for that replacement belief, like to change how I feel about anything. Really, Like it does take time to train myself to look for it. Like that's the biggest thing. Like I'm sitting in this negative thought about how much money I make and then ignoring the fact that oh, somebody just said that they would pay me to like write this right and like coming the same day. So clearly there are other things on other days that are coming that I'm just not
paying attention to. So yeah, like it is such a like a training.
So your brain is a selection bias, right, so your brain or confirmation bias. Really, so your brain will only bring to your attention what matches what it already believes. Right, This is why like your partner can get their haircut and you don't notice for three weeks because your brain is like filling in the gaps until you happen to, like all of a sudden get it. Yeah, the same thing, like your brain will look for what and yeah, you're right,
has not to do with the money. If I coach somebody who thinks like I'm too old to find a partner, right, they will constantly see all the people finding partners when they're young, and see all the people who are older and single, and they will like not even register the news paper article about so and so finding love and
eighty right, your brain just filters it out. So that's why looking for I mean, I am often given people giving people coaching homework that's like, Okay, go home and make a list of all the times that you made a decision with money that did work out because people because people come in and they're like, I'm so irresponsible with money. Here's my list of evidence of how I've made bad financial choices. And yes, we're going to work
on changing that thought. But also let's at least get a real picture, like what are all the good financial choices you made quote unquote good? So yeah, absolutely, it's like that slow to retraining of your brains gathering of additional evidence, Like you're literally I mean just think about how hard it was to like learn to read. You're like literally teaching your brain how to think a new way. It takes a minute.
Yeah.
What so when women come to you and they have this like third lie, like, I feel like that's more where I lean where I feel like the chips are truly like stacked against us as women, Like where's the what are like some tips or advice that you give the you know, people lying on the other side.
Yeah. So I think there's two important pieces of it. One is exactly what we just talked about in terms of evidence gathering, Like, Okay, is it impossible for female entrepreneurs to succeed? Like go home and google. Right, there are obviously women entrepreneurs who succeed, and you can find stories of people who succeeded. Yes, some of them had trust funds and some of them had ten dollars in
their bank account. That's true regardless of gender. Right. So part of it is like what I find is that it's looking for evidence is important even if it's true that it's a minority, because what I find, what I have found anecdotally. I don't have a name for this phenomenon. Maybe there is. One is that people, well people who are really resilient and want to go out and do something don't have to believe that it's easy or that it's you know, guaranteed, even they just have to believe
that it's not impossible. Like where people get stuck is one it's like, well, it's hopeless or it's impossible, so I can't do anything. I think that humans like the most poisonous thought to humans is sort of I can't do anything about this, like I'm you know, I'm powerless. That's what creates that like freeze and overwhelmed response. When the story is like, oh this can be done. It might be hard, but I'm up for the challenge. That's a very different kind of reaction. So part of it
is that. The other important piece, though, is the kind of traditional mindset piece of like why do you want this thing anyway? Right? If you're telling yourself, well, I need to make this amount of money to feel good about myself, then yes, it's going to feel like very overwhelming and your brain is going to fixate on how it might not be possible. It's like you've made the stakes way too high, and so we have to understand why we're trying to get to a goal and why
it matters and what meaning we're making of it. But if you've cleaned all that up, then I think just the evidence that it is possible is all you really need to train your brain on. But you have to do that first step as long as you're trying to get You know, if you associate money with emotional safety, with acceptance, with self pride, with proving yourself to your parents, with whatever, that's going to stymy you more times than
that not everybody. Some people are able to run on revenge and shame, but those.
People don't constant dosing who that works for.
But I always say to people in coaching, it's like, well, you came to coaching, so obviously that doesn't work for you. I'm going to need some other kind of fuel for you.
Yeah, I mean, and those things what you just listened off, I was like, that sounds like a whole lifetime of navigating like those things, because they are just so defeated.
And we live in a capitalist society in which there are ways in which your physical safety is financially related, so that part is true, and that still doesn't determine your feelings like there are people with what usually there are people with way less of their bank account than you who feel fine about what's there, and your thought is I'm about to right because of your expectations, your assumptions, your you know, attachment to a specific standard of living
or whatever. Right, it'll often tury not when I coach people that, I'm like, okay, if you did lose your job, like, let's literally go all the way through, then what And often most of the time the answer is like, well, yeah, of course I could go stay on my mother's couch and look for a new job and build it that right. So it's the sort of you have to like play it all the way out because I think one of these people get stuck with money stuff and stay in
this panic state. Is that they're catastrophizing but not far enough. They don't like go all the way, yeah, like what would actually happen, Like how have I dealt with hard things before? So they don't really, so they just stop at the catastrophe and then they don't look at the aftermath.
Yeah, take it all the way and then and then what.
Yeah, catastrophized Strategically, we got to go all the way then what And most of the time, if you had the wherewithal to get out a coach and call all that stuff, you also have the wherewithal to figure out what you do after that. Obviously, like some people don't have those resources. We need social policy for that reason. But many, most of us, especially people if you're listening to a podcast on a coaching call, you do have some support in your life. So what would look?
Oh beautiful? Do you know what else? Is the opposite of catastrophizing? Completely full of power? Something that I love to engage in every week.
Same the bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
Every week we yell at our guests and our listeners and we ask them to share with us their bill of the week, and we would love to hear yours.
Absolutely So I just bought a house. And this is like I was about to say my husband and I bought a house, but that's not true. I bought a house.
Yeah, make sure the language is accurate.
I bought a house and an upstate And I noticed, like even now, even though I'm the person who makes some money, even though I run a multisone figure business, like all these things, I still in my brain am like, is it grown up gonna say that this is a good idea or not? Like how do I write?
Like?
Is this? Is it responsible? Is this a good idea? Is this a right amount for a house? Like? Right, I'm still like in my mind sort of have I still have that like is somebody gonna check my work? Or I'm just gonna be a lot? Which is like
I'm forty three years old. You're like I could have an adult child by now, But but I think that women have more of that socialization because we're so socialized to like always be looking to an authority for approval, right, And so being in this situation, I'll ask my husband
sometimes he's like, it's your money. I don't know. I like the house, but like you got to decide, and so I like that was a very fun and big bill to pay, but also an opportunity for me to be like, oh, this is so interesting and this is what I think is useful for everybody. When your brain is like, I don't know, maybe this was irresponsible, right,
Like how would you know? Like what could the what are the conditions in which I think my brain would say one hundred percent, I absolutely feel good, this is a responsible, excellent choice, no other approval necessary, Like, there are none, there are no circumstances in which my brain is going to spit that out on the first try. So I can't let that stop me. I just have to do what I can think of to decide if
it seems reasonable. And then, most importantly, which is what I teach all women about risk, Like I have to decide ahead of time what I'm going to say to myself if there's a problem them down the line. What if we do end up wanting to sell the house and we lose a little money on it, Like, then what am I going to say to myself? Right? I got to decide ahead of time that's not going to be See women shouldn't have money or whatever it is that I am.
I'm going to think, Yeah, there's space to make mistakes, right, so, and I, yeah, that's something as perfectionists we don't want to do. And we think that other people, namely men, get it right the first time. But I think they just don't talk about the mistakes like they just see.
Them in that same way like yeah, I mean when people ask me what's my biggest failure, I actually should be like, wait what, because I don't think of them as failures in that same way. But I have a whole podcast about like choosing the amount of mistakes you're willing to make, and so because we I think we all think that the amount is zero, ideally we will
make zero mistakes. And I had this conversation actually with my husband, who, despite being socialized as a man, hasn't done ten years of thought work and it is like more risk averse because he was sort of like, well, I don't know, like shouldn't we look at like one hundred houses first, or like how do we know? You know?
And I was like, I'm actually just willing to make eighty percent mistakes to get the kind of life and experiences in creativity and growth that I will get from the twenty that end up working out, Like I'm willing to make more mistakes than I make good decisions because I'll still at least be I'll have gotten all of the growth from that twenty as opposed to people who are like, I'm only going to make two decisions in my life and they both need to be one hundred
percent right. Yeah, it's like, what is your acceptable error rate? What is your acceptable mistake rate with your risk rate?
I love so good that permission. That is so helpful.
You know, we talk about defining are enough on the one hand, but I think also being able to define yeah, permissible errors on the other and even on a much smaller scale. I think we've talked about in the past feeling like I have felt myself, I need every single purchase to be as wise and the best possible efficient deal I could find, Or who am I to have frugal friends? Podcasts like they all need to be just like killer spending decisions, and in.
Reality it can't. It cannot be like that. And I think giving myself the permission to let go of that idea that sometimes I might be spendy, sometimes I might have bought something that I should have returned or I shouldn't have even gotten in the first place.
But this is how I'm learning. And sometimes it's just okay to buy the thing that you needed in the moment, and it's okay the better deal came up a few a few weeks later. But the other it's a much smaller scale.
It'll keep you, but it's no. I think that's crucial because if you think about it this way, if what if your thought is, if you get too attached to having to always have been right about your financial decisions, then you actually are not able to grow or make new decisions right. So if I decide, like like when we moved into we live in a rental, and when we moved in, I spend a bunch of money like decorating it make you nice. I care a lot about
like what my living place looks like. I work from home. I really am like not a gurorophobic, but I am a homebody, like I just want to look so and I spend money on that where a lot of other people would not have because it's a rental and we didn't know how long we'd be there and now we're going to move. And I have zero regret about that.
But I also would not want to be someone would not want to live my life in subtry where I was like, Well, even though it would make a lot more sense for us to move because I can save on taxes if we move, because we can take that money and put it into an investment, because I can build more wealth with this move, I'm not going to do that because that would make like the expenses I spent on the rental a waste. Right, I have to justify that decision. So I have to stick with this
decision and to justify that sunk costs. I think that's an eerr A lot of people make if they don't want to admit that, like, oh, maybe I quote unquote wasted money. Maybe I bought a dress. I mean you can do it with a simple purchase. Maybe I bought a dress and I don't actually in two years, my style is different and I don't actually like it, and
I would like to just get rid of it. But I won't let myself change my style or like evolve, because then that makes this a waste, such a gay And when you actually pennies wise pound foolish.
Yeah, when you actually are defining your style and not just being at the whim of influence, when you're buying that stuff. You can feel more confident about the purchase and the giving up of it because you know you're not wasting you didn't. There's not like ten dresses because you were influenced by an Instagram influencer.
Like act on every impulse, right, it's just.
But you can make these decisions that you might internalize as like a mistake or a sunk cost, but it's really an informed, intentional decision. So there's just like a futle spector grow right.
If you're not going to ever, you can't grow if your number one priority is making sure that you never think differently about it is decision you made in the past.
This has been a jam packed Bill of the week. Krank you so much. No no apology is needed here.
I love you all listening. Have a bill you want to share, If it's about how you're working through some of your mindsets or socialization around money and the ways in which you're responding to thinking that you need some authority figure to come in and tell you if you're making right decisions or if you too are finding the permission to just buy what you love and it's okay if you make mistakes or your name is Bill frualfriendspodcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill.
We can't wait for it. And now it's time for fighting around shoes.
Yes, we do all our own sound effects.
That's amazing. I know that was going to happen. Yeah, I like it. Okay, I love so criticle. You don't have to pay up.
Money.
Yeah, okay, So this is our vulnerability around and we will all share, but Carl will have you go first. What's one money belief you've personally had to unlearn as a woman, and how did that shift the impact or shift impact your financial decisions.
Yeah. I have a whole podcast that was about this. I grew up. Oh my god, there's so many. Okay, I need to do two really fast because they're both ones I've talked about. So it's really just here's how these I experienced these. So Number one, I thought money was bad and people wanted money was bad. I grew up in a family with a one parent was an entrepreneur, one parent was a social justice lawyer, so like, very different situations, and I definitely thought like, yeah, people care
about money are bad. Money is bad. That means something bad about you. And then I decided to start a business. It's very hard to run a business when you have that thought. People try, I coached them, it's very difficult. So I really had to change that whole mindset in order to create a business. And of course the irony is that I was working as a nonprofit lawyer and academic,
and I think I was doing important work. But I have now helped literally millions of people who listened to my and read my book and come through my programs because I was willing to change that thought and have a business and pursue a profit in addition to my mission. So that was a huge one. And the second one was like, I've definitely had many variations of the like I'm not good with money thought, I can't understand spreadsheets. You know, I had no business background, I didn't have
an MBA. I went to law school. I was a reproductive rights attorney. So I had to undo a lot of that like socialization of like it still only this year have I truly embraced spreadsheets and like really am willing to be sent a spreadsheet and look at it and be like I can understand this. This year I've gotten really deep into like my the business finances in
a different way. So I'm like still on doing that work and seeing myself as like an authority and able to make those good decisions and make investment decisions in my business. Like I think that's ongoing work.
Wow, lovely, Yes, all right, Jill investing.
I have totally internalized that investing is not for me. Leave it with the finance bros. They know what they're talking about, and I am continuing to unwork this. I have now begun to invest, but and have understood more and more than most of these finance bros. Actually have no idea what they're talking about.
A Chad who went to Boden does not know more about investing than you can figure out.
Yes, and that's been so helpful.
So there's like been extra little gifts and treasures for me along the way when I can understand and then I can know that you are talking out the side of your face. But everyone's like fallen for it, and I just get to smile.
I love that for you. For me, it was actually this unlearning of I have to be the breadwinner in order to be worthy. For a while, I was the breadwinner, and then when we got the book deal, I stopped freelance writing, and so I didn't have that like main source of my income because I really felt passionate about this book and like putting everything into it and putting the marketing in and also I like I had a baby too last year, so like that was part of it.
But I for the last for last year and this year have made less than my husband, and it has been hard for me. Like he doesn't care, he doesn't care if I make more than him, less than him. He's detached, he's attached from that, right, it's me and I feel like I am less worthy because I make less money, Like my worth is tied to my income. And so I've really had to work through the past two years just saying like, yes, we have always had enough.
We have never missed a bill. Right, it's we are okay with me, you know, doing less work, making less money, and also being able to like drop off my kids and pick them up every day and doing this kind of traditional housewife thing that I didn't see myself ever doing.
You are not a traditional house I know that your mouth.
I see this in entrepreneurs too. It's like you're actually making an investment in a longer term wealth building project, which is writing your book. Presumably we all hope that's what our books will do on some level. Yeah, I've just been through this, whether they do or don't like, but that's one of those risks, right I with mine, I was like, this is like I'm building a factory, Like I'm spending all this time and money creating this
thing and not doing as much in my business. But when we're so socialized to be like, no, the money this year is what determines my worth, like we actually that's another like penny wise pound foolish thing where we hold ourselves back from way we could be even aside from all the non financial reasons, just even financially, right, if we're too tied to the like what's happening today, what's happening this week, what's happening this year, what's happening
right now? That's what matters, then we hold ourselves back from investing in like longer term projects that take longer to pay off.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's where I'm at. Oh, Caara, this has been so life giving.
Yeah, personally, it's one of them our main I'm going to guide for this.
Yeah, So thank you so much for sharing all well, not even all of your wisdom, a smidgeon of it. If people do want more from you, where can they get that?
Yeah, well, first of all, you guys are going to come on my podcast. We're going to talk about dieting and budgeting. So I'm very excited about that. Come subscribe to f your Brains, you get that conversation, and then you can find me at School of New School Ofnewfeminist Thought. Dot com is our website. My podcast is on your Brain or just search my name. There's no one else named Carlo and I will come up nice and your book and my book go. Yes, right, I have a book,
Your Times Best Brain. That is the cheapest, fastest way anywhere books are sold.
Lovely, Thanks so much, Kara, Thanks for having me.
I truly love and feel seen when I can hear somebody talking about these things that we are thinking and feeling and where their roots come from. That I didn't just make all this stuff up in my head. But this is because of the culture that we live in. And that's not an excuse, but it is an opportunity to learn and build based on the knowledge that we now have.
Yeah, it gives voice and context to our experiences which I think can always help us and moving forward. I think to know where we curve cly are and where we're going. It's important to know where we've come from. Again, not to put all of our experiences hang it on the coat rack of oh because of everything that happened in the past, but it does shed light on where we find ourselves now and can help give us the tools that we need to be able to respond in
ways that make sense for us. That is person in environment to a tea and my social Workhart loves it. You know what I also love is when you all listen to our podcast and give us reviews like this one from m in Florida, who says say no to impulse buys five stars. Loved this podcast. You girls were spot on about combating impulse buying with hobbies. I used to be a shopaholic, but hobbies have now taken over
the shop till you drop urge. Currently feeling that shopping void calligraphy, embroidery, adult coloring, puzzles, scrabble, baking, juicing, journaling, weightlifting, hoop blah, all done with bare minimal supplies and self taught thanks to ig YouTube and TikTok, so looking forward to your upcoming buck Oh my lord, M, you're also going to love our next episode. It's all about impulse shopping.
But this is fantastic and I love the caveat you made, all done with bare minimal supplies and self taught because this is we love trying new things, right. You've got to try a lot of things to figure out what works for you. The mistake people make is they'll go out and buy all the supplies before they know if it works for them. You start like M with self taught, all the bare minimals things, and then whichever one's really stick with you, those are the ones you invest in. So great job, em.
You list it off quite a lot of.
I want to get into in the new year. Oh fine, yeah, I'm excited about it. Well, thank you all so much for listening. And if this is inspiring you to leave a review just for the show altogether, or if there's a specific episode that resonated with you, that's another great way to be able to leave a review. It'll help new listeners know where they should start, which episode is a real banger, and that helps them and it helps us.
Thanks so much. Say next time.
Grugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
So this is challenging me to change my language about who pays for things. That's so interesting.
I didn't realize, like that was a joke that you made, like that you say he paid for it because he makes money.
Yeah, I guess.
So I think that's like, oh man, this is really interesting to kind of get into the weeds of my psyche. I feel like I've even kind of made comments, maybe even less jokeye to Eric, like I don't know, like thanks for buying that, or thanks for like this or that. And while I appreciate what he brings to the table, I do think in some ways it might kind of take away from how I also contribute financially. And so, yeah, I still want mutual respect. I feel like we totally
have that in our relationship. But I think it's causing me to think through, well, in what ways can I
kind of challenge some of these things. I might be giving it an unequal measure, maybe even like an uncollaborative measure, And in what ways in my own was pressuring him ooh by saying that that like ooh, he is the one responsible for the different things it's almost like negating that I work, but also then potentially putting more pressure on him that these things do need to be provided for by him.
Yeah, that's an interesting thought, Like she said, like these ideas hurt both of us.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Travis and I have had a lot of conversations about my feelings of like being not good enough because I had to take a pay cut or I chose to take a pay cut.
Yeah, that's a tough one.
Yeah, And he's always been like so supportive, but it's really just a mind bend for me. I think trying like having like moved out of my childhood home at sixteen and being well it just turned seventeen and having to like be on my own and providing for myself since then. I think that is where a lot of that has come from. And for the first time in my life, I can I don't have to contribute, So that makes me feel like what am I doing? And I know what I'm doing. I'm right, I you know,
I'm creating something. I think we'll have a longer lasting effect than I will. But it's hard, yeah, because I believe those money lies.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is a whole other vulnerability.
Ye, vulnerability.
Yeah, I feel that too. That's we could talk for probably so much longer. But I'm gonna I'm gonna not do that. Save my voice.
I am going I am going to just be thankful that it's just another validation to release those maybe socialized thoughts.
Well understand where they came from first. I think that's that's one of the things too, when people say, like, you know, change your mindset, change the way you think, I think it's really hard to do that until we really understand where is this thinking pattern coming from. To help I think knowledge can help us to then reframe and shift when we're really able to get to the root of here's why it's inaccurate.
Yeah, oh okay, Yeah,