I thought I hit rock bottom when I was
19 I had been married to my high school
sweetheart for just six months and I was
attending Community College classes
online and I didn’t have a job yet but I
have just gotten an offer from a store
at the mall where I’d be making $7.25 an
hour from the outside everything looked
totally fine until I logged onto our
bank account to plan our next grocery
trip and there was nothing there
nothing there were plenty of
transactions but none of them that I
recognized and all I knew for sure was
that there wasn’t enough money in there
to get us to my first paycheck or his
next one I didn’t know at the time what
financial infidelity was but I knew that
I was embarrassed when we eloped at the
courthouse I didn’t think that for
better or for worse looked anything like
this short term solution we packed up
some stuff to sell he picked some video
games and I picked a bunch of CDs off
the shelf when we took a whole box to
the CD warehouse where we came out with
about 36 bucks to last us through the
end of the month I thought that would be
the worst of it but he would just see
how upset I was and change when you were
young your parents probably told you it
wasn’t polite to talk about money and
that if you were feeling stressed out
about your finances that was a reason to
feel shame but I’m here to tell you it’s
time to stop feeling ashamed I’m here to
tell you it’s time to start talking
about money more let me tell you why
fast-forward I’m 21 I’m commuting to a
big state school and I’m loving it and
my husband and I are in the car one day
and one of those commercials comes on
you know the ones where they’re looking
for young healthy smart women to donate
their eggs to infertile couples in
exchange for thousands of dollars and he
looks at me and he says you know if we
had $8,000 we could pay off the credit
card with that a credit card that he
took out in both our names the credit
card that he maxed out a long time ago
and I’m just smiling and nodding sure
cuz that’s when it hit me
that’s what I was willing to do go to
appointments and inject myself with
hormones and miss class after the
procedure and that’s if I was qualified
which it turned out I wasn’t when she
put me back to square one I couldn’t go
back to my parents and tell them that my
marriage after my after we eloped had
gone down this far like that was low on
my list of to Do’s right admitting
problems you know we didn’t talk about
money I couldn’t tell them but I was
starting to recognize this financial
infidelity which I later learned was
financial abuse where victims are
constantly manipulated their money
controlled their ambitions pressed under
the weight of what looks like love
financial abuse is present in ninety
nine percent of domestic violence cases
and if you’re thinking why not just
leave well there’s pay stubs you need to
prove you can pay your rent there’s
security deposits leaving takes money
and it takes a lot of it but I knew I
had to start asking for help
eventually I figured out how to leave
him and stay in school and graduate on
time my parents helped me pay for a
lawyer and my divorce papers arrived
right after my diploma arrived in the
mail so that was a pretty good summer
and then it was time to start getting by
on my own I got a job and then another
job on top of that and then I was
selling thrifty clothes on eBay on top
of that and all the while all the
personal finance advice I was reading
seemed to hinge on the singular decision
graduated college thousands of dollars
in the hole during one of the darkest
times in our economic history and you
are trying to tell me that my choice to
spend four dollars and thirty-nine cents
on coffee it’s gonna make or break my
financial future it just didn’t add up
now I know I wasn’t the only one looking
for answers right now only 1/3 of
Americans has an emergency fund that’s
zero dollars in case you chip a tooth or
get a flat tire or drop your phone in
the bay because you were trying to take
the median net worth for Millennials is
a paltry $11,000
one half of my generation says they’re
living paycheck to paycheck and women
only 10% of you are confident that
you’ll have enough money to retire and
it’s not like you slept through this
class in high school
I know because only seventeen states
require that class in high school about
personal finance so I stumbled through
my 20s just terrified of what skeletons
my romantic partners had in their
closets when it came to money I
definitely did not want to join your
parents family plan to save money on my
cell phone thank you why would we ever
get a joint bank account you have your
money and I have my money and isn’t that
just so trusting and sexy yeah you can
imagine how those relationships have
turned out but now that I’m in my 30s I
see the importance of getting intimate
with your own money and that’s something
that’s worth doing long before you even
think about merging your finances with
someone else’s when’s the last time you
took a good look at your money not just
adding up transactions yes I bought this
yes I ate that but when’s the last time
you thought about the whole impact of
those transactions on your life when’s
the last time you looked around the
table at bottomless mimosa brunch and
said to your friends so how are those
retirement savings going no never right
okay guess what now is that time you
might have heard of this movement called
financial independence it’s this
movement to retire early to break free
from a nine-to-five lifestyle and to be
able to save up enough money when you’re
young that you just invest your way to a
long leisurely life and it sounds
amazing but that’s just one version of
financial independence my version it’s
about protecting your heart and your
wallet at the same time and it’s not
something that you can do a lot
you need to enlist people in your life
that you feel comfortable telling your
financial weaknesses so they can help
steer you toward the best financial
decisions more often than not you need
people who are gonna cheer you on even
for the smallest of wins you need to
choose your priorities and your goals
with care so that you can be confident
that you can always take care of
yourself because there’s no guarantee
that anyone else will anymore just one
generation ago your career looked like
working at the same place for 30 years
and then retiring with a gold watch in a
pension but now in today’s world there’s
no guarantee that your spouse is going
to be able to support you that your
parents will be there that you’ll have
kids and then those kids will make
enough money to take care of you when
your old jobs come and go lovers betray
you I was really nervous about this
current phase of my career as a personal
finance writer because I was so afraid
that all I would do is rehash that tall
tale about resisting the pull of the $4
and $0.39 latte it’s a little bit about
that but it’s really about so much more
than that it’s about giving people the
tools and the encouragement to keep
going to keep earning and keep saving
and keep persevering that’s the most
important part is persevering when’s the
last time you took a good look at your
money when’s the last time you looked at
the number on your bank balance and felt
not just okay but confident it’s time
for a new reality it’s time to focus on
saving and earning and persevering not
for anyone elses goals but your own so
this is the part where I hand out some
encouragement I challenge you to start
thinking about who you can talk to you
about money who can you trust to talk to
you about money I’ll tell you who I
talked to you I talked to my best friend
from college I talked to my business
partner I talked to my amazing
colleagues who are right there when I
need them
like literally they are right there
ro4 thanks guys
and if you aren’t sure how to start
talking about money I can tell you
exactly how and that is this complain
about your student loans you can walk up
to any random person on the street and
be like student loans on my right and
they’ll be like right everyone has
student loans and everyone hates them
and it’s this great way to start
tiptoeing into deeper conversations
about financial goals so I challenge you
to find one person you can trust
to talk to you about money good or bad
for better or for worse a best friend a
colleague a partner a pastor someone
from your book club someone from your
basketball league this process takes
time and it takes trust and trust does
not always come easy but you owe it to
yourself to take ownership even of your
finances and you owe it to yourself to
start today because if today you can
start thinking about how to take care of
your heart and your wallet at the same
time you could be confident in knowing
that you’re making the best financial
decisions for yourself and that
confidence is not just something that
helps you today it helps you tomorrow
and the next day and the next time you
have that craving for that really
expensive cup of coffee and that
confidence that is going to take you
through so many years to come thank you [Applause]
19 I had been married to my high school
sweetheart for just six months and I was
attending Community College classes
online and I didn’t have a job yet but I
have just gotten an offer from a store
at the mall where I’d be making $7.25 an
hour from the outside everything looked
totally fine until I logged onto our
bank account to plan our next grocery
trip and there was nothing there
nothing there were plenty of
transactions but none of them that I
recognized and all I knew for sure was
that there wasn’t enough money in there
to get us to my first paycheck or his
next one I didn’t know at the time what
financial infidelity was but I knew that
I was embarrassed when we eloped at the
courthouse I didn’t think that for
better or for worse looked anything like
this short term solution we packed up
some stuff to sell he picked some video
games and I picked a bunch of CDs off
the shelf when we took a whole box to
the CD warehouse where we came out with
about 36 bucks to last us through the
end of the month I thought that would be
the worst of it but he would just see
how upset I was and change when you were
young your parents probably told you it
wasn’t polite to talk about money and
that if you were feeling stressed out
about your finances that was a reason to
feel shame but I’m here to tell you it’s
time to stop feeling ashamed I’m here to
tell you it’s time to start talking
about money more let me tell you why
fast-forward I’m 21 I’m commuting to a
big state school and I’m loving it and
my husband and I are in the car one day
and one of those commercials comes on
you know the ones where they’re looking
for young healthy smart women to donate
their eggs to infertile couples in
exchange for thousands of dollars and he
looks at me and he says you know if we
had $8,000 we could pay off the credit
card with that a credit card that he
took out in both our names the credit
card that he maxed out a long time ago
and I’m just smiling and nodding sure
cuz that’s when it hit me
that’s what I was willing to do go to
appointments and inject myself with
hormones and miss class after the
procedure and that’s if I was qualified
which it turned out I wasn’t when she
put me back to square one I couldn’t go
back to my parents and tell them that my
marriage after my after we eloped had
gone down this far like that was low on
my list of to Do’s right admitting
problems you know we didn’t talk about
money I couldn’t tell them but I was
starting to recognize this financial
infidelity which I later learned was
financial abuse where victims are
constantly manipulated their money
controlled their ambitions pressed under
the weight of what looks like love
financial abuse is present in ninety
nine percent of domestic violence cases
and if you’re thinking why not just
leave well there’s pay stubs you need to
prove you can pay your rent there’s
security deposits leaving takes money
and it takes a lot of it but I knew I
had to start asking for help
eventually I figured out how to leave
him and stay in school and graduate on
time my parents helped me pay for a
lawyer and my divorce papers arrived
right after my diploma arrived in the
mail so that was a pretty good summer
and then it was time to start getting by
on my own I got a job and then another
job on top of that and then I was
selling thrifty clothes on eBay on top
of that and all the while all the
personal finance advice I was reading
seemed to hinge on the singular decision
graduated college thousands of dollars
in the hole during one of the darkest
times in our economic history and you
are trying to tell me that my choice to
spend four dollars and thirty-nine cents
on coffee it’s gonna make or break my
financial future it just didn’t add up
now I know I wasn’t the only one looking
for answers right now only 1/3 of
Americans has an emergency fund that’s
zero dollars in case you chip a tooth or
get a flat tire or drop your phone in
the bay because you were trying to take
the median net worth for Millennials is
a paltry $11,000
one half of my generation says they’re
living paycheck to paycheck and women
only 10% of you are confident that
you’ll have enough money to retire and
it’s not like you slept through this
class in high school
I know because only seventeen states
require that class in high school about
personal finance so I stumbled through
my 20s just terrified of what skeletons
my romantic partners had in their
closets when it came to money I
definitely did not want to join your
parents family plan to save money on my
cell phone thank you why would we ever
get a joint bank account you have your
money and I have my money and isn’t that
just so trusting and sexy yeah you can
imagine how those relationships have
turned out but now that I’m in my 30s I
see the importance of getting intimate
with your own money and that’s something
that’s worth doing long before you even
think about merging your finances with
someone else’s when’s the last time you
took a good look at your money not just
adding up transactions yes I bought this
yes I ate that but when’s the last time
you thought about the whole impact of
those transactions on your life when’s
the last time you looked around the
table at bottomless mimosa brunch and
said to your friends so how are those
retirement savings going no never right
okay guess what now is that time you
might have heard of this movement called
financial independence it’s this
movement to retire early to break free
from a nine-to-five lifestyle and to be
able to save up enough money when you’re
young that you just invest your way to a
long leisurely life and it sounds
amazing but that’s just one version of
financial independence my version it’s
about protecting your heart and your
wallet at the same time and it’s not
something that you can do a lot
you need to enlist people in your life
that you feel comfortable telling your
financial weaknesses so they can help
steer you toward the best financial
decisions more often than not you need
people who are gonna cheer you on even
for the smallest of wins you need to
choose your priorities and your goals
with care so that you can be confident
that you can always take care of
yourself because there’s no guarantee
that anyone else will anymore just one
generation ago your career looked like
working at the same place for 30 years
and then retiring with a gold watch in a
pension but now in today’s world there’s
no guarantee that your spouse is going
to be able to support you that your
parents will be there that you’ll have
kids and then those kids will make
enough money to take care of you when
your old jobs come and go lovers betray
you I was really nervous about this
current phase of my career as a personal
finance writer because I was so afraid
that all I would do is rehash that tall
tale about resisting the pull of the $4
and $0.39 latte it’s a little bit about
that but it’s really about so much more
than that it’s about giving people the
tools and the encouragement to keep
going to keep earning and keep saving
and keep persevering that’s the most
important part is persevering when’s the
last time you took a good look at your
money when’s the last time you looked at
the number on your bank balance and felt
not just okay but confident it’s time
for a new reality it’s time to focus on
saving and earning and persevering not
for anyone elses goals but your own so
this is the part where I hand out some
encouragement I challenge you to start
thinking about who you can talk to you
about money who can you trust to talk to
you about money I’ll tell you who I
talked to you I talked to my best friend
from college I talked to my business
partner I talked to my amazing
colleagues who are right there when I
need them
like literally they are right there
ro4 thanks guys
and if you aren’t sure how to start
talking about money I can tell you
exactly how and that is this complain
about your student loans you can walk up
to any random person on the street and
be like student loans on my right and
they’ll be like right everyone has
student loans and everyone hates them
and it’s this great way to start
tiptoeing into deeper conversations
about financial goals so I challenge you
to find one person you can trust
to talk to you about money good or bad
for better or for worse a best friend a
colleague a partner a pastor someone
from your book club someone from your
basketball league this process takes
time and it takes trust and trust does
not always come easy but you owe it to
yourself to take ownership even of your
finances and you owe it to yourself to
start today because if today you can
start thinking about how to take care of
your heart and your wallet at the same
time you could be confident in knowing
that you’re making the best financial
decisions for yourself and that
confidence is not just something that
helps you today it helps you tomorrow
and the next day and the next time you
have that craving for that really
expensive cup of coffee and that
confidence that is going to take you
through so many years to come thank you [Applause]
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