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Full Transcript:
Bobbi Rebell:
I know the holidays are a time we're all supposed to get excited about, but sometimes it just feels like I can't celebrate until I get through my never ending to-do list. That includes gifts. It's exhausting. I love the smile on people's faces when I get them something that's going to be meaningful and that they love, but the truth is it's also really hard. I'm really getting tired of giving people the same old, same old. I feel like we're finally emerging from this pandemic and I just want something that will get them to smile.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, my team and I have been working really hard to up the ante over at Grownup Gear with some super fun new stuff. My personal favorite, the baby bibs and the onesies with phrases like, "I can't believe you're the grownup, either." And, new colors and designs of our top selling Generosity line. And for the holidays, if you spend just $50 on any of the items from our Generosity collection, we will gift you a $10 gift certificate that you can spend on something to be generous to, well, yourself. Just use code Holiday, H-O-L-I-D-A-Y. And, thanks again to everyone supporting Grownup Gear. Your business helps support projects like this podcast, which remain free for all of you. Happy holidays, guys.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Money advice is not just money advice. It's live advice and I think we need it now more than ever, to help us make big changing decisions around all the things.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Money Tips for Financial Grownups with me, Certified Financial Planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And, you know what? When it comes to money, being a grownup is hard. But together, we've got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, grownup friends. Hard to believe we are in countdown mode to the year 2022. I hope everyone had a good year this part year. Probably better than 2020, right? Anyway, I want everyone to be set up for success and just a really good year. And, what better way than getting advice for each and every day?
Bobbi Rebell:
One of the things that I've been struggling with this past year has been all the damn screen time. I find myself just wanting to be away from all the glowing screens in my life. So, one thing I got recently was my friend Farnoosh Torabi's new page-a-day calendar. I have it right on my nightstand. It is paper, my friends. It is awesome. I do not have to charge it and it doesn't glow at night, it's just there. The added bonus for all of us is that I was able to get Farnoosh on the podcast, to give us all a proper sneak preview.
Bobbi Rebell:
So for the few of you who do not know who Farnoosh Torabi is, in addition to putting together this lovely little calendar that I'm looking at as I record this, Farnoosh is a longtime financial journalist, content creator, bestselling author. She is also the host of the So Money Podcast, which is literally one of the most successful money podcasts ever, with more than 18 million downloads. She recently licensed the podcast to CNET, where she is now the editor at large. With that, let's get to this interview. Here is Farnoosh Torabi.
Bobbi Rebell:
Farnoosh Torabi, welcome back to the podcast. You're a financial grownup.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Am I, Bobbi? Thank you. That means a lot, coming from you. That's official, I'm a grownup.
Bobbi Rebell:
It is official, in this year, two years I guess, we're losing count, where we're looking at screens so much. It can be so overwhelming. You are saving us all for the new year, because you have the ultimate product that we all need and that is a literal old school page-a-day calendar. It's called So Money: A year of managing your money, your life and your dreams. And, what I love most about this is that it is a physical product, which is something you haven't done before.
Farnoosh Torabi:
No. I've done books. I haven't done a book in forever. I have another one coming out in 2023. Yikes.
Farnoosh Torabi:
But in the meantime, I've got a couple calendars that you can play with. I have this one for 2022, and then I have one for 2023. This is an opportunity to bring what has been a very virtual experience for people, the podcast and then following me on social, in the form of something really tangible. And, that they can gift.
Farnoosh Torabi:
For fans of the show, occasionally they'll write to me and they'll say, "Are you selling a t-shirt or a mug, or something with the words So Money on it? We want to show and express our fandom." I don't have anything in that world. So then, this is it. This calendar is special and it's one of those things where I find that we often need all the inspiration and reinforcement, and this is something that can sit on your desktop, wherever you work, which is probably home now. Or, you can take it with you, gift it. It's handy. And every day, a new piece of wisdom, often derived from the show and the wonderful guests that we've had, or a lot of them are just my own life philosophies.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so we can't go through all 365 days, but I wanted to give some people the highlights of the highlights. So we're going to play, I don't know, we could call it Calendar Roulette, but it's not really that. We're just going to flip through and we're going to have Farnoosh randomly pick a page.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, stop.
Farnoosh Torabi:
So, I just stopped, this is not going to be in order, obviously. June 29th, it's a Wednesday. By the way, this calendar will also let you know what day of the week it is, which I don't know, it's been pretty hard to-
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, it blends. It definitely blends sometimes, in this work-from-home life that we have.
Farnoosh Torabi:
A short while ago, I had on the founder of Girlboss, Sophia Amoruso, who has become a friend. It's just funny how the podcast ... Do you ever become friends with your guests?
Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.
Farnoosh Torabi:
After they come on the show?
Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.
Farnoosh Torabi:
It's not a friend that I ever thought I would have, but when she first came out with the book, which became a New York Times bestseller, I was in awe of her and I tried to get her on the show. She was way too busy for me. And then, I don't know, I just caught her at a good time, she came on the show.
Farnoosh Torabi:
But at this point, she had experienced a lot of public failure, where-
Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. Isn't there a Netflix show? There was definitely some series about her life, which was awesome.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Yeah. It was Charlise Theron produced. Her story is phenomenal. I think she was a college dropout, she was dumpster diving for vintage clothing and all that. And, turned it into an eBay store and earned millions of dollars. And then, turned that into a clothing store called Nasty Gal, and then came up with this Girlboss movement.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Anyhow, Nasty Gal went bankrupt. This was after she was on the cover of Forbes, touted as one of the youngest potential multi-millionaires of our time, self made women. So we talked on the show a lot about that, the ups and the downs, and she was very candid.
Farnoosh Torabi:
So this date, Wednesday the 29th, the title of the wisdom is "Learn From Your Mistakes so That You Don't Repeat Them." It goes on to say that, "Sophia Amoruso is the poster child for a certain type of media backlash. When she started her first business, Nasty Gal, she was a darling of the financial press. Before long, she was routinely being called out for creating less-than-inclusive work environments."
Farnoosh Torabi:
This is true. She got a lot of heat, she almost got canceled.
Bobbi Rebell:
Which, a lot of female founders do get.
Farnoosh Torabi:
They get a disproportionate amount of that, for sure.
Farnoosh Torabi:
"The criticism hurt," she told me on my show. "But it was fair," and she took a lot away from it. "It's an important opportunity for everyone to learn," she said, "when they get negative feedback. It doesn't always feel constructive, but there are ways to make it constructive for yourself."
Farnoosh Torabi:
And, there's a lot to say to that. I think for me, what she's really saying there, at least how it's hitting for me, is that in life, there are going to be challenges and you shouldn't be afraid of the feedback. Look, if we were afraid of feedback, would we be doing what we're doing?
Farnoosh Torabi:
It was hard at first, when I was first starting out working in financial news and giving opinions. And of course, with the internet, it's very easy to give feedback. I was getting a lot of nasty feedback, for things that were not even in my control. People didn't like the way I looked, or the way that I sounded, or the fact that they thought I was not qualified. And my boss told me, he said, "Listen, for every negative comment about you that you receive, there's 100 positive comments that weren't created, that weren't reported because people tend to be more negative than positive."
Farnoosh Torabi:
If you have a bad experience at a restaurant, you're going to write that review on Yelp. Versus a great experience, you might not. You might tell a friend, but you're not going to publicly put it on Yelp.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. Okay, let's do another one.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Okay. Wednesday, September 28th.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Farnoosh Torabi:
"Rethink Retirement. The words we use matter."
Farnoosh Torabi:
In this tip I say, "Rather than saving for 'retirement,' which carries potentially negative connotations ... " And also, whose really retiring? Ron Lieber just wrote in the New York Times about the fact that we're all going to have to work longer, let's just face it. Face the music. Now's a good time to rethink your career, if you aren't happy.
Farnoosh Torabi:
So it says, "Rather than saving for retirement, which carries potentially negative connotations, consider saving for your freedom."
Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know, that's a little scary, too. But okay, go on.
Farnoosh Torabi:
The day in the future when I'll be able to actually call my own shots. This actually, I took this out of the page of NerdWallet's website. But this way, you're not putting away money for a hypothetical life stage you're not sure you'll ever reach. You're saving so that you have flexibility and security when you need it, and that's more enticing.
Farnoosh Torabi:
And if I hard more room, I would probably write that, as you're saving for retirement or whatever you want to call it, to really imagine yourself in that stage of your life. And, actually visualize yourself, what are you doing, what are you wearing, who are you with, where are you hanging out, what does your face look like. They have these studies now, Bobbi-
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh yeah, that app.
Farnoosh Torabi:
These simulations where they age you and then they did a test. People who saw their age progressed selves were more likely to save for retirement.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's do one more.
Farnoosh Torabi:
All right, one more. Why don't we do ... What's your birthday?
Bobbi Rebell:
January 3rd.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Oh my gosh!
Bobbi Rebell:
Coming up.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Well, that takes us right to almost the beginning. Oh, this is good.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Farnoosh Torabi:
"Envision your goals and be specific. The more details an idea you have of what you want to accomplish this year, the better your chances of actually accomplishing it. Rather than aiming to save more, aim to save $5000 in a high yield savings account by year's end. This gives you a target that you can measure your progress against. And as I always say, goals carry price tags."
Farnoosh Torabi:
If you want to make that sentence even longer and say, "I'm going to save $5000 in a high yield savings account for my daughter's whatever, college," or even something closer, like her tennis camp. Gosh, I'm not there yet. I don't know what tennis camp costs. But, her braces, let's be more practical.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Just the point is, back to that visualization tip, the more you can make real what it is that you're after, one, the more excited you can get. And, the more motivated and consistently you'll save because it's actually this thing, this tangible thing in front of you, as opposed to this abstract, saving just for saving. Decide your why, and then go and try to achieve the goal.
Bobbi Rebell:
And, it has to be something that you want.
Bobbi Rebell:
I am excited for the next year, with having this physical calendar on my desk. Because like I said, I'm so excited to have something that's not on a screen, and it can inspire me and give me different things to think about. Even if they're just reminders of things I know I should already be thinking about, reminders are really good and they push you to think about what's important to you. So thank you for this calendar. And by the way, it's super affordable, if you are looking for last minute gifts for the holidays.
Farnoosh Torabi:
We have a discount right now, going on. If you go to workman.com and you use the code So Money, you can get 20% off. And, I have a very special offer for anyone who wants to buy multiple copies. Let's say you want to buy 25 or more for your office friends, for your clients, for your extended family. If you want to do that, get in touch with me, I'll get you even a bigger discount. And, I'll show up virtually, for 15, 20 minutes and chat with your book club, your office mates. I've been doing this, so far. It's been fun to make face time with people. But, I'm offering this only until the end of the year, so you've got to get those purchases in and then we can schedule something in the new year.
Farnoosh Torabi:
But, if you're interested in that bulk purchase and having me show up, and talk my mouth off in front of your group, it's farnoosh@somoneypodcast.com.
Bobbi Rebell:
You made some very big changes in your professional direction in the year 2021. Tell us your latest news and what you're up to for 2022. Oh my gosh, 2022.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. So much has changed, I'm very excited. I've gone back to my roots of journalism and working in the media biz. And I've joined CNET as editor at large, and will be helping them launch and grow their money vertical. That means writing for them, doing a lot of media for them. We started a YouTube channel, so you go check out YouTube.com/CNETMoney. A newsletter, and the podcast, they're licensing the podcast which means they're helping me grow that, and we'll be integrating some more CNET content into the show.
Farnoosh Torabi:
But, it's an opportunity for me to grow. I don't know about you, but the last 20 months, career wise, was a tremendous inflection point, for I think me and millions of Americans. I personally wanted to work with a team again and feel like I could make more of an impact. And of course, the show, as I mentioned at the top, I'm so blessed. The people just keep coming, it's millions of downloads. But, it's been a weird time and I feel like money advice is not just money advice. It's live advice and I think we need it now, more than ever, to help us make big changing decisions around all the things.
Farnoosh Torabi:
CNET's got an incredibly big, engaged audience so it was just a great partnership. And, they're giving me a lot of freedom to grow and try things, things that I would really do on my own. I tried to start a YouTube channel on my own in the pandemic, didn't work. Who knew you couldn't start a YouTube channel, on top of everything else? Raising your kids, teaching them school, going to work, in the same place, 24 hours a day.
Farnoosh Torabi:
I'm also writing a book, that has nothing and everything to do with money. But, it's really a memoir, big idea, memoir-ish kind of book. Which is a little different for me, because I'm very used to technical writing but it's really making me think and write creatively, about the fears that I grew up with. And, why I don't think that was always such a bad thing. I'm still a very frightened woman, who's very skeptical of a lot of things, but I get stuff done. And, I have to think that there's a connection there, that my fears have actually come out to work in my favor. But at the same time, I think there's also just panic and that's not what we want to have.
Farnoosh Torabi:
So the book is really about how to be smart and emotionally intelligent about the fears that you experience, and recognizing what ones are worth paying attention to and what ones we need to kick to the curb. But, this idea that we need to ignore our fears or run away from our fears, I have a different philosophy. I feel like we should really embrace them in some ways, because I think it can help us to get closer to what we define as success and that's different for everybody.
Farnoosh Torabi:
But, looking forward to finishing that. As you know, it's hellish when you're in the midst of ... I always like having written and I like going to book parties, but this process is like pulling teeth a little bit. But, it's good for me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I can't wait to read it. You're such an inspiration. Thank you so much.
Farnoosh Torabi:
Thanks, Bobbi.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, friends, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview as much as I did. Farnoosh really is the best. Such a generous, lovely person, I love having her on. We barely got into all of the incredible nuggets of wisdom in her calendar, but I am really into it.
Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, she is doing another one for 2023, so it's going to keep going on. The great thing is, like I said, paper, no screen. By the way, it's recycled paper so it is eco-friendly, all the good stuff.
Bobbi Rebell:
Do not forget to get that discount code that Farnoosh so generously gave us. It's So Money, when you order it on the Workman Publishing Page. You can also, by the way, get that info on my website, in the show notes. It's just my name, bobbirebell.com. Where like I said, you've got show notes, summarizing every episode. Also, full transcripts all there, just for you.
Bobbi Rebell:
And by the way, big almost end of year thank you to Ashley Wall, our producer who puts that together, all of the show notes, so well. She also puts the quote boards that we use on social media into the show notes, so you can see highlights of the interviews from all of our guests.
Bobbi Rebell:
And by the way, if you're wondering what I'm talking about, I post them also, sometimes on Instagram, but pretty much always on Twitter. I'm going to do more Instagram in the new year, so follow me on Instagram. That is Bobbi Rebell and the number one. And also, on Twitter, that's just my name. It's easier, just Bobbi Rebell. B-O-B-B-I-R-E-B-E-L-L. Even though I definitely get tired of the screen time, I am going to be on social media much more in the new year, with a lot of great stuff. DM me if you follow me on either platform, so that I know to follow you back and I know your part of our Grownup community.
Bobbi Rebell:
In the meantime, get yourself set up for the new year with the So Money page-a-day calendar. You're going to be really happy you did. It's just really calming and I feel like it's a nice thing to wake up to something inspirational in the morning. So big thanks to my friend, Farnoosh Torabi, for helping us all be financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Money Tips for Financial Grownups is a production of BRK Media, LLC. Editing and production by Steve Steward. Guest coordination, content creation, social media support and show notes by Ashley Wall. You can find the podcast show notes, which include links to resources mentioned in the show as well as show transcripts, by going to my website, bobbirebell.com. You can also find an incredible library of hundreds of previous episodes, to help you on your journey as a financial grownup.
Bobbi Rebell:
The podcast and tons of complimentary resources associated with the podcast is brought to you for free, but I need to have your support in return. Here's how you can do that. First, connect with me on social media at BobbiRebell1 on Instagram, and BobbiRebell on both Twitter and on Clubhouse, where you can join my Money Tips for Grownups Club. Second, share this podcast on social media and tag me so I can thank you. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reading each one means the world to me. And you know what, it really motivates others to subscribe. You can also support our merch shop, grownupgear.com, by picking up fun gifts for your grownup friends and treating yourself as well. And most of all, help your friends on their journey to being financial grownups by encouraging them to subscribe to the podcast. Together, we got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you for your time and for the kind words so many of you send my way. See you next time, and thank you for supporting Money Tips for Financial Grownups.
