Self-Made Millionaire Tori Dunlap Embraces Mission to Make Women Rich

Tori Dunlap, the author of Financial Feminist, talks about why women should stop feeling guilty about their spending and why they should keep their finances separate from their partner’s.

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Loud Budgeting

Why We Spend and How to Not Feel Guilty About It

Should You Rent or Buy a Home?

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Financial Education as Protest

Making More Women Rich

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Ivanna Hampton: Women are often caught in a whirlwind of conflicting messages about money. They’re told to spend on this but not that. They’re reminded to save for emergencies and invest for their future. But how can they create the financial life they envision for themselves? Tori Dunlap, the founder of Her First $100K, believes employers, communities, and families must play a role. She says it’s her mission to make women rich and that the world would look better if they were. Here’s our conversation.

Welcome to Investing Insights, Tori.

Tori Dunlap: Thank you so much for having me.

Hampton: So, you've built your financial reputation with an impressive feat, saving 100K by 25 years old. That takes grit. Can you share a couple of other decisions that you made since then that's had a big impact on your life?

Dunlap: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's hard to believe that my 100K at 25 story, which was the beginning of "Her First $100K," was almost five years ago. I'm 29, I'm almost 30 now. So, yeah, a lot's happened since then. When I saved that first $100,000 at 25 years old, I was still working a corporate job. Her First $100K was just a side hustle. It was 2019. It was a pre-pandemic. So, a lot has changed both globally and also personally in my life.

I mean, one of the biggest decisions I made after that $100,000 goal was set was taking my business full time and investing in myself full time. It was one of the reasons I was able or motivated to save that $100,000 was so I could become a full-time entrepreneur and be able to impact women's lives every day. And I think making that decision was both obviously incredible for the scale of our business, but also for me personally. I went from $100K at 25 to being a multimillionaire by 27. And that growth was so rapid because of the investment in the business and because of how fast the business scaled. So, taking entrepreneurship full time was a huge decision for me and one that I'm really proud that I made. I also became financially independent at 27, meaning that I never have to work another day in my life if I don't want to. But I love my work and I love impacting women every day. So that was a huge thing for me was reaching that FI, financial independence number in my late 20s. And now for me, a lot of my financial decisions are based on the protection of the business and the protection of our employees, as well as kind of thinking about how can we use our influence and my own personal finance in different ways.

So, I became an angel investor last year, and that was a really exciting thing to be able to do to give money and to support women entrepreneurs and women-focused businesses. And so, I'm thinking more strategically about how can I protect the longevity and the legacy of our business, as well as our employees by protecting reserves for our business, by being strategic in terms of managing our business finances, but also, how do I use now our influence and my financial standing to be able to impact other people.

Hampton: And you're very engaged on social media, talking with your followers. And one of the trends on social right now is loud budgeting. Some people are telling friends and family that they're saving for something important and can't afford to go. What do you think about this financial honesty?

Dunlap: Oh, I absolutely love it. I think it's so, so long overdue. And it's just basically this form of like boundary setting for your money, but also being very transparent with your money. One of the questions we get in our social audience, which is now about 4 million people is, how do I tell people no? My friends are inviting me out for dinner and that's a restaurant that's too expensive for me, but I feel guilty. How can I say no without hurting their feelings? Or one that we see a lot because it's a lot of women in our community is – I've been asked to be a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding, but it's going to cost me thousands of dollars and I don't want to seem like a bad friend, but also, I can't afford this. So, how do I say no? And I think loud budgeting is a great way of finding that answer that feels both empathetic and understanding that doesn't break a relationship but is a way of being able to set your own boundaries. Because if you don't, you're going to be resentful. It's going to lead to resentment. It's going to lead to some bad financial decision making on your part. And so, I love this trend of loud budgeting of normalizing conversations about money.

We know from statistics that you're more likely to talk about any other uncomfortable topic – sex, death, politics, religion – before you will talk about money. And I think the narrative that money is taboo or talking about money is gauche needs to go by the wayside. We know that when we talk about money, we form a more equitable world. We know that our relationships with money start to change. We don't feel as much shame and fear and anxiety. We instead feel more peace and more empowerment around money. And so, I love this trend around loud budgeting.

Hampton: And your comments about being a bridesmaid are true.

Dunlap: It's so expensive. Oh, my goodness, it's so expensive.

Hampton: I read a CNBC article where you declare you don't scrumpt on three things – travel, dining and plants. Why is it important to identify where we should spend and not feel guilty about it?

Dunlap: Yeah, I love this question. In my book Financial Feminist, I have an entire chapter about spending. And one of the interesting things that has happened in personal finance education is especially for women, we are told that our spending is frivolous. We are told that the frivolous spending is the reason we're not rich. Think of the latte, the manicure, the designer purse. And we're told as women that spending is the reason that we can't buy a house, we can't save money, we can't invest. On the flip side, though, while women are told to scrimp and to save and deprive, men are told to expand their incomes. Men are told actually the way you become rich is by investing or by buying real estate or by negotiating your salary. So, we're told as women that the reason we're not rich is, again, our frivolous spending. But frivolous spending is only things that are stereotypically feminine. It's not NFL season tickets. It's not golf clubs. It's not video games. It's the manicures and lattes. And one thing that I need everybody out there to know, but especially women, is that's not the reason you're not rich. And 99% of diets don't work. The more you tell me I can't have fried chicken, the more I want fried chicken. And that is not a willpower thing. That's literal psychology. And it's the same thing with spending.

So, I don't need you to stop spending money, but I do need you to stop spending money on things you don't care about. So, what I have people do is identify what I call their three value categories, which are the ones you just named. The three areas in your life where you get the most joy. So, for me, that's travel, food out, and you can't really see it from this view, but plants, I have probably 25 plants just in my office alone. And I love that. That's where the majority of my discretionary money goes. So, if you can identify those three areas in your life that you can basically unapologetically spend on, then you can manage that with your future financial goals. But this idea that again, the reason you're not rich is because of a latte, that's not true. We know that's not true. And we also know that any sort of all or nothing approach is not sustainable in the long run.

Hampton: And there's this debate over renting versus owning a home. You're team renter. What other financial rules do you think need a second look?

Dunlap: Yeah. I will say that for me, I'm team renter. Personal finance is personal. It's going to depend on the person. And it's also something that we always have to acknowledge and view is that personal finance is about 80% circumstances, 20% personal choices. And as much as I think a lot of people want to own homes, they're not accessible anymore. I live in Seattle where the average starter home price is nearly $900,000. That's crazy. So that's one of those rules for me that just makes sense. And we actually have now the data to back it up is that in most major U.S. cities, renting is actually the smarter financial option.

I say with most things that personal finance is personal. I don't have like a hard percentage savings rate, but there's a couple for me that are hard and fast. One is that you need an emergency fund first. Before you pay off any kind of debt, before you progress towards your other financial goals, you need to have at least three months of living expenses saved in a high yield savings account for emergencies. The reason we do that, couple of things.

One, I don't want you going into more debt trying to pay for an emergency because one will inevitably happen. The second thing is that especially for members of marginalized groups, you need some money to be able to get out of bad situations. We actually know an unfortunate statistic, is 99% of abusive relationships have some sort of financial abuse, which tells me that for the majority of people in abusive relationships, they are being financially abused where they cannot leave that situation because they cannot afford to do so. And it can be as dramatic as that and as serious as that, but it can also just be I don't want to live in this apartment anymore because I don't feel super safe, or this job is no longer serving me, it's kind of a toxic work environment, I need to get out. And the third thing is that you just are going to go to bed with some sort of understanding that like, no, I'm good. If something happens – we really believe in mental health at Her First $100K and it just helps soothe you knowing you have that emergency fund. So that's one of my hard and fast rules.

The second is that you should never completely combine your finances with a partner ever. Even if this partnership hopefully is long lasting and very loving and very fruitful, you always need some of your own extra money. One, again, more serious is you need to be able to get out should you not want to be in that relationship anymore. We get, unfortunately, literally thousands of emails from women who say, I can no longer leave my relationship because I can't afford to do so. And I want you in a relationship because you want to be there, not because you have to be there.

And the second thing is like, there's so much freedom and flexibility and we actually see that relationships become healthier if there's a little bit of money that each person owns on their own. So, I recommend something like a joint bank account for joint expenses and then having some of that separate money. So those are two for me hard and fast personal finance rules is you should never completely combine your finances with a partner, and you always need that emergency fund first.

Hampton: So, a thought of yours, mine and ours.

Dunlap: Exactly. You got it.

Hampton: So, the theme for this year's International Women's Day is Inspire Inclusion. The campaign calls for building women's economic empowerment. How can employers, communities and governments help?

Dunlap: I love this question. I could spend, again, three hours talking to you about it. Like I said before, personal finance is not a hundred percent an individual game or an individual responsibility. 80% of our personal finance equation have a much bigger impact on our money and how we progress in our lives. That is including, but not limited to, a trillion-dollar student debt crisis, stagnating minimum wages, rising housing costs, lack of paid family leave in the country, lack of universal healthcare, universal daycare, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia. There are a million reasons that have nothing to do with individual people why you might be struggling financially. And so, there's so much that needs to be done at the societal and at the government level to be able to allow an equitable playing field. And I think that we can do – as individuals, what we can do is support the kind of policies and the kind of legislators that we want to see more of. And there needs to be a conversation, not just about your personal responsibility with your own finances, but also all of the systemic barriers that might be keeping you from building wealth.

In terms of what organizations and companies can do, post your job salaries in the job descriptions. That is one super easy thing that when you're hiring, post a range, maybe this is $70,000 to $80,000, it's $100,000 to $120,000, but this is such an important thing that you can do that is so easy. Hopefully you have a budget. If you don't have a budget for this role, I don't know why you're hiring for it. You don't know what this role is then. But that's the easiest thing you can do to start being transparent. The other thing you can do is in job interviews, stop asking questions like what is your desired salary range? We also know that if you post the range in the job description, someone who is applying seems to at least feel like that range is a good starting point for negotiation. That question is only to get people underpaid and overworked. Asking what is your desired salary range as opposed to you offering a number first is just a really damaging thing that is continually perpetuated that, again, keeps people underpaid and overworked and often people of color, women, other members of minority groups.

The other thing, in addition to the questions that are asked, you know, what is your desired salary, those questions are actually illegal in 20 states, but it is, what is your current salary? Stop asking that question too. And I will also highlight that it is actually illegal to fire someone for discussing their pay. If you can make pay a conversation that is actually open and transparent. And for a lot of companies, that may seem pretty radical, but talking about money has to start in these relationships and at work because you can't do anything else when it comes to personal finance, whether that's investing or saving or paying off debt if you are not making an income yourself. So, we have to start normalizing conversations about pay, even at your own companies.

Hampton: Now you've declared that financial education is the woman's best form of protest. Talk about what that means. And also, what changes have you seen when women protest in this way?

Dunlap: Yeah. Nothing bad happens when women have more money. And in a system that has constantly disenfranchised women, it is a form of protest to be financially whole and financially independent and financially educated. I have seen firsthand in my own life, when I have money, I have choices. I have options. I have the ability to leave a toxic situation I don't want to be in anymore. I have the opportunity to live in a safe place and drive a car that I know is going to get me from point A to point B and to take a restful vacation and to be able to donate to causes I believe in, and that's the feeling I want for every single woman. And we get messages now literally every five minutes from a woman somewhere telling me I saved my first $1,000 because of you or I paid off my student loans or I started investing for the first time. And always what they say next is something like, and I feel so much more confident in every aspect of my life now.

So, what does that tell me? It tells me that in order to build a more equitable system for all, it actually starts with financial education. Money is power and you are powerful. Right. If money is power, I need you to have as much money as possible for you to not only take care of yourself, but to be able to take care of your communities, to be able to support the kind of organizations, businesses, policies that you want to see more of. And I want you showing up in every aspect of your life the most confident, restful, powerful individual possible. And so, when I say money is our best form of protest, I truly mean that you being financially stable is such a radical act of protest in a system that constantly demands your depletion, your exhaustion, but also your complacency and control. And so, I think that that is so important to our overall picture of equality is getting women and marginalized groups more educated around personal finance.

Hampton: I've heard in videos, you say, I love making women rich. What would the world look like if more women were rich?

Dunlap: Oh my gosh, everything would be different. It would be so cool. Again, I don't think anything happens when women have more money. I say this more in my book and I did so much research about this is we condition women to be altruistic as young as like age two. Think about the toys we give – and I'm going to use the gender binary here for easy explanation – but think about stereotypically the toys we give boys when they're growing up. We give them Legos, we give them trucks, we give them things to build. And we tell them that their value to society is in their own ingenuity, is in their own critical thinking, is in their own self innovation.

What do we give girls? We give them dolls, we give them easy-bake ovens, we give them bridal veils, right? We give a literal child another child to take care of. So, we tell women very early on that their value to society is in how they care give, how much of they give themselves to other people. And one of the things I love most about being a woman is that sense of altruism that is baked into us at a very young age, but it's also the thing that often keeps us financially behind because we put everybody before ourselves. And also, when we do start having the audacity to maybe put ourselves first or to maybe prioritize us, we are told, well, you should just be grateful for your opportunities. Why are you asking for more money? Or we're told, you need to basically sit down and not make a big fuss and just keep doing what you're doing.

And so, when it comes to women having more money, not only are you better able to take care of yourselves and again, put yourself in situations you want to be in and give yourself those opportunities and choices, but we also start to exist in a world where the people who are managing the majority of the wealth are the people who have altruism baked in, who are constantly thinking about how can I not only use this money to take care of myself, but to take care of my family, and again, my community and the larger world around me. I think that that would just – we're starting to see it, right? We're starting to get pictures of it. And we actually know that we're on the precipice of the largest wealth transfer in history and most of it's going towards women. And so, I'm just so excited for women to start having more money. I've even seen such a huge change from when I started this work. I started Her First $100K in 2016. It really got traction in 2019 when I took it full time. We're at 2024 now. And even in that roughly eight years, we've seen so much positive change towards women starting to understand why personal finance education is so crucial and hopefully, we have policies to better support that as well. So, I'm just really excited for what's to come.

Hampton: And you mentioned the messages that kids are sent very young. What can a parent, grandparent or a family friend say or do to help a girl grow up to be fearless about talking about money, negotiating her salary and investing to build wealth?

Dunlap: Again, I love this question. I think one of the best things you can do that my parents did for me was having open conversations about money. I was privileged enough to have a financial education from my parents. And I realized through talking with friends about money in college, that that was not the norm. That was a privilege. And so, if you can start having conversations about money, you can start as early as four or five years old and then make those conversations more advanced as they grow up but start to talk about money.

The other great thing my parents did is they weren't just talking, they were showing. They wouldn't say one thing and then do another. They were really focused on teaching me verbally and through conversations about personal finance, but also, they were not only talking the talk, but walking the walk. They weren't saying don't overspend on credit cards, but then maxing them out every other month. They were being really strategic in how they managed their money. So that's one thing is having conversations about money with your children, but also making sure that you're backing that talk up, that your actions are in alignment with what you're saying.

The other thing that I need to highlight, have the same conversations with your daughters that you're having with your sons. We know that from so much data that, especially in teenage years, there's conversations about wealth building that start to happen or investing with boys or with sons. The daughters get the conversation around how to manage a household. Now that's important. I think boys also need conversation about how to manage a household, but girls really, really need a conversation about wealth building. They need a conversation about how to make money and how to invest money and how to think more strategically about money. And also, money is not about math. This is a thing we hear all of the time in our community at Her First $100K is women go, well, I'm bad at math, so I must be bad at money. We actually know from so many other conversations that that is a narrative that is taught to girls very young is that girls are bad at math and that they shouldn't bother, which is a whole other conversation. But it's not really about math. It's about managing your emotions. It's about your psychology. It's about what's going on in your brain and body before you make some sort of spending or investing decision. And women are really good at managing their own emotions. So, let's talk about money as it is, not just about a spreadsheet, but actually, how do you manage money, how do you grow your wealth, how do you think more strategically about it and have the same conversations that you're having with your boys, with your girls.

Hampton: Well, thank you, Tori, for this great conversation today.

Dunlap: Thank you so much for having me. You asked great questions. Thank you.

Hampton: That it’s for this week. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy hearing market trends and analyst insights on our podcast, feel free to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. It will help others find us. Thanks to senior video producer, Jake VanKersen, lead technical producer, Scott Halver, associate multimedia editor Jessica Bebel, and video producer, Daryl Lannert. I’m Ivanna Hampton, a lead multimedia editor at Morningstar. Take care.