Dopamine spending & the new money minefield

VIVIAN TU: If you don’t think you’re going to be able to afford a home or you don’t think you’re going to be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estée Lauder lipstick index of, “Oh, well, I can’t afford a new TV, so I’m going to go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.” Or, “I’m going to dollar dribble for a little coffee. I’m going to do this.” You’re spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy, just to get a dopamine hit. When you are in a position of uncertainty, it is more important than ever to have a plan because if you just leave it up to hope, it’s not going to get you there.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Vivian Tu, CEO of Your Rich BFF, the personal finance media brand. Vivian provides advice to millions of followers across multiple platforms, as well as via her bestselling book, Rich AF. Now she’s got a new book out, Well Endowed, and so it seemed the perfect time to check in on the state of financial risks and opportunities, how Gen Z is navigating 2026’s uncertainties, and the implications of what she calls lifestyle inflation. We dig into tech stock valuations, online prediction markets, and the lessons we can learn from Rihanna. Vivian is practical, instructive, and fun, so let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Vivian Tu, the financial educator known as Your Rich BFF, advisor to millions, author of the bestselling book, Rich AF, and author of the new book, Well Endowed. Vivian, thanks for joining us.

TU: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to chat.

Copy LinkVivian Tu’s strategy behind Your Rich BFF

SAFIAN: I have so much been looking forward to this. Earlier in my career, I also found myself focused on personal finance, which wasn’t particularly my plan, as I know it wasn’t initially for you, but I ended up as the editor of Money Magazine—

TU: Oh, amazing.

SAFIAN: –which was the biggest personal finance outlet at the time. And I remember feeling this burden, this pressure of offering personal advice to millions of people, which, as you know, you can’t really do, or maybe you can today with social channels. I don’t know. But back then it was largely a print monthly magazine, and trying to give personal advice, it’s hard.

TU: Very, very hard. I think I have the luxury of being able to put out content daily. I feel like social media has very much democratized access to this type of information. But yeah, especially once your audience starts to get a little larger, you have to realize that they’re not all the same demographic anymore. Some of them want budgeting tips. Some of them want investing information. Some of them are actually looking for how to build an estate plan. What you do is try to give a little something to everybody, but at the end of the day, not every single post is going to be something for every single person, and I think that’s okay.

SAFIAN: Have you had any folks who have responded to your advice and then complained to you about it?

TU: I’m always giving best practices, and there will be people who are on absolute edge cases that then complain that what I’m saying is incorrect. The other day I gave a quick finger to the wind strategy to determine how much of your portfolio should be in equities and how much should be in bonds. And the strategy is you take your age, you minus 10, and then you round to the closest five divisible numbers. So for me, I was like, I’m 31 and 21 rounds down to 20. And so 20% of my portfolio would be in bonds and the rest would be in equities. And someone said, “Well, I’m 47 and I’ve been in 100% equities for the last 10 years, and I’ve been making so much more money, and I would’ve not made so much money if I was in bonds.”

And I’m like, “True,” but ostensibly, you’re also retiring in 13 years. Everybody’s going to come and find and pick a hole, and it’s like, “Oh yeah, this girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” It’s like, “Yeah, I would know what I’m talking about if you started investing in your 20s, but if you’re playing catch up a little bit later, sure, yeah, you might have to be in a little bit of a riskier portfolio knowing full well that you may not retire until you’re 75.”

SAFIAN: People’s understanding of that word “risk”,” is so variable, like, “Yeah, I’m fine taking a risk as long as I’m not going to lose any money.”

TU: Right.

SAFIAN: That’s mostly what people say, right?

TU: Mm-hmm.

Copy LinkWhat inspired Vivian Tu to write Well Endowed

SAFIAN: So the subhead of your new book, Well Endowed, it reads, “The secrets to strategic planning, building a foundation for you and your family, and creating lasting generational wealth.” Your first book, Rich AF, came out in 2023. What prompted you to write the new one?

TU: Rich AF was very much a love letter to my early 20s or the beginning of anybody’s financial journey when they’re really focused on how do I make more money at my job? How do I budget smarter? How do I save? How do I invest efficiently? How do I handle some of the trickier things like paying down debt? Great. Once you have a baseline financial foundation there, Well Endowed is where you want to go — because Well Endowed discusses all of the level two items. It’s like buying a home, considering buying a car, getting insurance for all different facets of your life. And then also I ended up getting married in between the first book and this book, and man, was that a really fun-filled, extremely expensive party with a lot of paperwork involved. So I think I have to talk about marriage and divorce. That’s something that was on my mind as my husband and I were drafting our prenup.

I talk about how to manage money between family and friends, because once you start to get a little bit more financially savvy, Uncle Tony comes knocking on the door being like, “I have a small business idea.” And then the future, things that I’ve personally started thinking about, which are starting a family, how would I set those kiddos up for financial success? How do I plan my dream retirement without really having to sacrifice so much today? 

And last but not least, I mentioned this earlier, but estate planning, like trusts, wills, power of attorney, a healthcare directive, the knock on wood things that you never want to have happen. But ultimately, all of us die, whether that’s at 110 and you’ve lived a really long life, or unfortunately there are some really untimely ends which leave whole families in a tizzy. I wanted this book to be a way for people to feel like they were spending their money and actually getting what they wanted out of life.

SAFIAN: Well, and the more resources that you have and the bigger your family circle becomes, the more complicated all of this stuff becomes, right?

TU: Always. Always.

Copy LinkThe origins of Your Rich BFF

SAFIAN: It just builds and builds. I’m curious how you think about the tone that you use in talking to your audience, your customer, and who they are. I used to get into these debates with colleagues when I was at Money who wanted to dumb down everything. And I would say, “Just because these folks aren’t sophisticated about finance doesn’t mean they aren’t sophisticated people.” And I’m curious how you think about who it is you’re talking to.

TU: Your Rich BFF actually started for my girlfriends. I went to the University of Chicago. It’s an incredibly competitive elite university. My best friend is a surgeon now. I have friends who are lawyers, who are consultants, who are engineers. But I remember trying to explain to them why it was important for them to put money into their 401(k). And people, like my girlfriend who can literally give a face transplant to a burn victim, I saw her eyes start to just glaze over. And I’m like, “Okay, you are a smart person, but maybe you’re just not smart with your money yet.” How do I explain this in a way that the average person can understand and feel smart that doesn’t question their intelligence? It’s not to shame people. It’s not to embarrass them for something that they don’t know because we don’t teach this in school, but it’s almost— 

SAFIAN: Well, that’s the thing, we don’t teach it, right? I remember trying to explain to my kids like, “This is how a credit card works. This is a checking account.” I mean, the most basic things, you just don’t learn at school.

TU: You don’t learn it in school, so that’s my expectation, is that people don’t know.

Copy LinkLessons from Rihanna

SAFIAN: One of the principles behind my time at Money was that in some ways everyone’s trying to take advantage of you in the financial world, Wall Street brokers and insurance agents, car dealers, travel agents, credit card companies, that if you didn’t arm yourself, you’d be used. Is that still part of the message?

TU: Yeah. I think we should just take an example of one of the most popular singers of our generation, Rihanna. You ever wonder why she wrote that song, “Bitch Better Have My Money?” It was actually about an accountant who had stolen from her, millions and millions of dollars. And you think someone like Rihanna is almost too big to fail. She has all of these experts around her guiding her. And so if you are not careful with the money team that you build, the experts that you put around yourself, it’s very easy to get swindled even when you’re Rihanna. It’s very easy to, maybe not in the case of actually having someone steal from you, but have a financial advisor recommend products that are not necessarily the best for you, but rather the best for their commission.

If I’m going in to get my car maintenance done and I don’t know anything about cars and this person starts talking about, “Oh, well, you need this changed and that changed,” and da, da, da, da, da, and I panic and I’m like, “Sure, we should definitely do all of these things,” probably just routine maintenance that I’m getting upcharged for. So maybe I need to find a new servicer who’s not going to take advantage of me, or two, I need to get smart enough so that I can’t be taken advantage of.

SAFIAN: Are there particular companies or areas that you’re most wary about? I know you write in the book about how advertising online and the messages we get come to us, but are there particular things that you focus on?

TU: Yeah, I think it’s all of it. Financial advisors are charging 100 to 125 basis points, which is 1% to 1.25% of your entire portfolio for as long as you’re with them. That can be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars over the course of your lifetime. For the average person, I feel like financial advisors more often than not don’t make sense because they’re too expensive. You’d be better off using a robo-advisor. I think in many cases, life insurance salesmen are so, so into selling you life insurance, especially of the whole variety or the more complex variety versus term because they get paid large commissions on them. And I think it takes a lot more research than many people are willing to put in. And I hope that by writing something like this, it helps prevent people from getting taken advantage of.

Copy LinkThe buy now, pay later trap

SAFIAN: Are you a fan of the buy now, pay later? Is it good, or is it a tool to get us to overspend and get into debt?

TU: Buy now, pay later actually was not a terrible idea, not an evil idea at its inception. Buy now, pay later offered credit to, more often than not, underserved communities that could not get credit through a more traditional means. It allowed them to split up major purchases. I’m talking appliances, a new laptop for work, things that somebody might need that they could not afford all in one go. That was the initial concept. And I think the initial concept was healthy. However, capitalism gets its claws into you, and all of a sudden you’re trying to buy now, pay later, pay in four installments for a ,what, Chipotle burrito? You have already consumed the burrito, and now you’re going to pay this over four months? Are you nuts? If you cannot afford a burrito today, you should not be purchasing a burrito from Chipotle, having it delivered by a courier to your doorstep. Get off of your butt, go to the grocery store, buy the ingredients you need to feed yourself.

But I think buy now, pay later started as a good idea and has completely warped and morphed in its utilization, to the point where it has become an incredibly unhealthy drain on our society. I think it is damaging people’s credit now, especially now that it’s being reported to the credit bureaus, and when people miss payments, they’re paying interest rates just as high as credit cards.

Copy LinkYour Rich BFF on the state of gambling

SAFIAN: What about online betting, sports betting or prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket?

TU: Bob, just punch me in the throat at this point. I feel like the old man yelling off of the side of the mountain into the abyss, please stop saying, “Trading on world events.” You are not trading on world events, you are betting. There is no underlying value to you placing a “trade,” quote unquote, on who will become the new LSU football coach. Literally, what is the underlying asset you own? Nothing. You are gambling. This is the equivalent of going to a casino. And I am so sorry, but studies have literally shown that when people are in more economically trying, more desperate moments, they actually lose all sense of risk assessment. And instead of being like, “Oh, I should save my money,” they say, “I’m going to put my entire paycheck on who is going to win the national championship. And if I’m right, I’m going to hit it big. And if I’m wrong, well, I’m already down bad, so who cares?”

SAFIAN: It’s the lottery, right?

TU: It’s terrible.

SAFIAN: It’s like putting money into the lottery. But I think some people, they look at investing in stocks the same way. It doesn’t feel any different to them than, whatever, buying a meme stock.

TU: Then you don’t understand investing. You don’t understand investing because if you actually looked at the Monte Carlo simulation that has been run on all different types of portfolios over the last, I believe the study was actually 50 years, you would find that there was a 99% chance of you making money if you had a buy and hold strategy.

SAFIAN: And just for everyone who’s listening, a Monte Carlo simulation is a computer generating thousands and thousands of different scenarios and giving the odds of what happens as a result of them. Yeah.

TU: I promise you, if there was a Monte Carlo simulation on any of the things that you could bet on on Polymarket or Kalshi, you would not have those kinds of numbers of 99% odds of being able to make money. Being a buy and hold investor is literally the easiest and laziest way to grow your wealth, and people won’t do it. And they call that gambling, but you’re willing to bet on how likely someone’s going to say the word “nuclear weapon” during a press conference? That’s insane to me.

Copy LinkShould you buy tech stocks right now?

SAFIAN: I get questions from friends and family these days because the stock market has been at record levels, about, “Should I be buying stocks right now? Should I invest right now?” Do you think people should be wary about buying, whatever, tech stocks at record highs? Or is it just like, “Listen, you can’t time the market. If you have money to invest, just invest.”

TU: Bob, the market valuation has been frothy. We have been overvalued for the past five years, and at every point they have said, I feel like Michael Burry’s called 23 of the last two downturns.  And I think it’s just silly because, yes, I am going to sit here and guarantee you at some point the market is going to crash. Are you willing to miss out on annual returns of very literally, I’m not even making these numbers up, these are the past couple years, 16%, 25%, 30%? Are you? I’m not. I’m going to keep investing. And when the market turns down and when we see some sort of correction, I’m going to buy even more then. I’m going to keep buying and buying, because guess what? I told you earlier I’m 31. I’m probably retiring closer to 60, 65. I’ve got a long way to go, and I’m probably going to see a number of downturns. I’m going to see a number of corrections over the course of my lifetime.

SAFIAN: Which for you is probably good. I think about someone my age, I’m going to be a net seller of stocks over time, so I want prices to go up. But for younger folks who are going to be net buyers over time, they want the market to go down, right? Prices going down is cheaper.

TU: A crash would be the greatest thing for the 20-year-olds. A crash would be incredible for 20-year-olds. We never, ever, ever run from a sale except for the stock market. If Sephora has a sale where they’re like, “Everything’s 75% off,” I tell you, the baddies on the internet are running to Sephora. They are getting their lip liner. They are getting their makeup. They are getting their skincare. They’re so stoked. When the stock market goes on sale, all of a sudden you don’t want it? Weird.

SAFIAN: Yeah.

TU: Weird.

SAFIAN: Vivian just puts it out there, the weird, the practical, the infuriating. So just how realistic are Gen Z complaints about their challenges? And does uncertainty make us all less rational in our financial decision-making? We’ll talk about that more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, we heard financial educator Vivian Tu talk about her role as Your Rich BFF, and what’s behind her new book, entitled Well Endowed. Now we talk about Gen Z’s challenges, how the job market is shifting, and how to know what advice you can trust online. Plus, a rapid fire round on home buying versus renting, car ownership versus the Uber life, the biggest financial mistakes smart people make, and more. Let’s jump back in.

Copy LinkAre Gen Z’s complaints about the economy valid?

We often hear that Gen Z doesn’t feel great about its economic prospects right now, but unemployment is low, the economy is humming along, and I hear from some folks like, “Oh, younger people’s expectations are too high.” And then of course, other folks say like, “Older people just don’t get it.”

TU: “Everything is great. The economy is at an all-time high.” It’s not. It’s at an all-time high for some people, and everything is great for some people. And I think this is the trouble with using the mean as our barometer of how healthy the economy is. When you hear things like, “Oh, well, GDP increased by X, Y, Z, and unemployment is low,” we have actually seen that the top 10% of Americans are accounting for half of all spending. Half. What does that tell you? It tells you that people who have money are living big. It is the greatest time ever to be a rich person. 

But the thing is, the average person is actually doing worse. When you actually take an average, a mean figure of all of these uber rich people who’ve gotten uber richer, versus people who’ve gotten slowly and progressively less well-to-do where our middle class is very literally shrinking, you get a washed up figure that looks larger, when in fact, people are worse off.

Ever since COVID, there has been a dramatic K-shaped divergence in how “the economy,” quote-unquote, has done. For white collar employees who make six figures and more, who have the discretionary income to invest, yeah, y’all got rich and it has been a great time. It has been very fun. But for the folks who were already middle class, maybe working class, things have only gotten worse. The cost of living is completely unmanageable. Rent has gone up. Wages have continued to stagnate. There’s nothing for them to look forward to. I completely understand why Gen Z is so deeply disenfranchised, why so many young men are turning to online betting. I completely get it. Because if you feel like there is no hope for you to have the American Dream, what’s the point?

Copy LinkWhy Vivian’s “Up or Out” strategy for career navigation has changed

SAFIAN: When you’ve talked about jobs, you’ve talked about the idea of being up or out every couple of years, like trying to get a raise or finding a better paying employer, does that look any different when the job market is tighter?

TU: Sure does. Sure does. Immediately post-COVID, I truly believed in the up or out method. You needed to be getting a raise or promotion every two years or you needed to go up. If you couldn’t get up, you got to get out. You got to go find somewhere else that’s going to pay you and going to give you that raise, going to give you that promotion, going to give you that upward mobility. However, now we have actually, and this was not just because I felt like the vibe shift, but it was actually shown on data, we have now seen the amount that job jumpers and job stayers make converge. So it is no longer more lucrative to job jump. It is no longer more lucrative to try to find a promotion elsewhere.

Right now, in a tough job market, people are literally sending out thousands of applications to get two interviews. If you can find a way to grow internally, if you can still be in the top 10% of performers, you’re still going to get raises, and you still will probably get promoted. It’s just not as easy as it was during the Great Resignation. We have to understand that the actual environment shifts, and we have to adjust ourselves to make sure that we are in the most advantageous position possible.

Copy LinkThe dangers of quick financial fixes

SAFIAN: At this time of year, the start of the year, there can be this impetus, this pressure to reset budgets and habits and goals. Can people go wrong in moments like this? What tends to backfire?

TU: Too large of a shift can backfire. I always like, “Okay, this is the year I get physically fit, I eat right,” and then after four days of rabbit food and working out every single day, I’m like, “Me thinks not. I’m going to order a taco and then sit on the couch for eight hours.” I don’t think that you can yo-yo diet your way into wealth. It is truly like making a healthy lifestyle choice. Unfortunately, you have to do it forever. 

So with money, it’s not about January 1st you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I am going to start saving. I’m never going to spend money again. Everything’s going to be amazing.” It’s not that. It’s making little choices over the course of the year, and it might take you the full year. It’s every single Friday evening when you get home from work, do one thing that helps you financially.

Maybe that’s opening up a high-yield savings account, so all of a sudden the money sitting around waiting for your rainy day can actually earn you a little bit of extra interest. Maybe it’s building out a plan to pay off your debt. Maybe it’s organized by highest to lowest interest rate so you’re doing it most mathematically efficiently. Maybe it’s, “Okay, I am going to go change where my direct deposit is deposited, so it’s not all going into my checking account, 10% is automatically going into a savings account. That’ll make it easier for me.” Because the hardest thing to do with money, and frankly, anything else in your life, is willpower your way through it. I don’t have enough willpower for that.

SAFIAN: Today there’s so much uncertainty, prices, jobs, politics. Do you see that shaping how people behave with their money? Are they less rational in financial decision-making?

TU: It’s like, well, if you don’t think you’re going to be able to afford a home or you don’t think you’re going to be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estée Lauder lipstick index of, “Oh, well, I can’t afford a new TV, so I’m going to go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.” Or, “I’m in a dollar dribble for a little coffee, I’m going to do this.” You’re spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy, just to get a dopamine hit. When you are in a position of uncertainty, it is more important than ever to have a plan, because if you just leave it up to hope, it’s not going to get you there.

Copy LinkWhere AI can help and hurt our financials

SAFIAN: I’ve got to get into the AI discussion.

TU: Yeah.

SAFIAN: Lots of folks are using AI tools these days for financial decisions, budgeting, investing, even taxes. But a lot of surveys say that for a lot of these folks, it’s led them to some bad decisions sometimes. Where do you think AI can genuinely help with money? Where should we be more wary?

TU: Well, I want to be very clear that none of the AI LLMs, like the ChatGPTs of the world, none of them are financially licensed. Not to be so self-serving, but that is in part why I built out my venture called Ask Dolly. Askdolly.com, check it out. We are actually an SEC-registered RIA, and if you ask Ask Dolly too complex of a question that is not knowledge-based, but rather personal-based, we transfer you to one of our CFPs.

SAFIAN: I just want to say RIA is “registered investment advisor.” CFP is “certified financial planner,” right?

TU: Oh, sorry, guys. Yeah. 

We saw that AI is the next iteration of financial exploration, and it really does help people on their financial journeys. They get to ask the embarrassing questions that they’re too ashamed to ask. But I don’t think that AI can operate independently of a little bit of human touch, and frankly, someone who is licensed to provide you financial advice, because it is so personal, and there are so many factors to take into account.

SAFIAN: There are a lot of people online, creators like yourself who offer financial advice. Not all of them are licensed.

TU: Reputable.

SAFIAN: Or registered. Right. Well, and how do you know if something you come across on a social platform or online, that it’s reputable, that it’s worthwhile? We get this with health advice, we get with money advice.

TU: What I say is, even with my content, if you see something and you’re like, “I wonder if this is true,” you need to be doing your own research. Watch my video and then go online and check, “Can I find three reputable sources that back up what she’s saying?” You’ll always be able to because I actually research my topics. But go look at articles from The Wall Street Journal, from the Financial Times, from Barron’s, from law firms or banks. Compare them. We have unfettered access now, so there is no excuse for falling for a trap. You actually have to do your own research.

SAFIAN: And you have to understand how the people who you’re engaging with, how they make their money, right?

TU: Exactly. Exactly.

Copy LinkUnderstanding how creators and influencers profit

SAFIAN: Are there things you’ve learned as a creator yourself that you think people don’t really understand about how creators make money?

TU: Yeah, 100%. You wonder why all of those lifestyle influencers were pushing Stanley Cups and all of the little charms that then go on the Stanley Cup and then all of the – they make an affiliate commission on the backend. She doesn’t love her Stanley Cup, she wants you to buy one so she gets money. 

I always am very, very honest. When I do brand partnerships, I’m like, “These keep my content free. This is why you don’t have to pay a subscription fee for this. This is why I can do all of this editorial work unpaid: Because I make money.” But at the end of the day, whether or not you get the high-yield savings account I recommend, you should just get one anyway.

SAFIAN: Are you saying that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck don’t love Dunkin’ Donuts? Is that what you’re saying?

TU: I’m saying that I have tasted Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s good, but it’s not the only coffee out there.

SAFIAN: I’d love to ask you a few rapid fire questions if I can, get your advice on things.

TU: Let’s do it.

Copy LinkLightning round for Your Rich BFF’s Vivian Tu

SAFIAN: All right. So what’s the biggest money mistake that smart people make?

TU: I think it’s just lifestyle inflation, especially for people who start to make more money. You make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, you make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, and at the end of the year you’re like, “How come I don’t have any additional money saved?” All of us fall victim to the comparison trap where we compare our lives with everybody we see on social media, and suddenly you think that if you don’t have X, Y, and Z, you have a bad life. You don’t need to be spending on stuff just to impress other people.

SAFIAN: All right. Next question. If I could focus on just one thing financially this year, what should it be?

TU: Trying to increase your income, because my mentor told me this one line, and it’s stuck in my brain forever, she said, “You can only save as much as you earn, but you can always earn more money.” We talk so much like, “Cut out the avocado toast, don’t buy the latte, don’t get the little treat.” Imagine how many little joys in your life you would have to cut out to save $5,000. Now imagine how easy it is to ask for a $5,000 raise. Frankly, people get much larger raises than that. It is so much easier for you to make more money than to try and cut every little thing out.

SAFIAN: All right, our next question. How much time should I spend on optimizing my credit card rewards?

TU: Not too much, because one, credit card points are devaluing by the day. They make a new rule every three months, and they get worse. Sure, maybe you lose a couple extra points here and there? Yeah. But the time you save and the less mind space you’re giving to it is probably worth it.

Copy LinkShould you rent or buy a house in 2026?

SAFIAN: Home ownership. Rent or buy in 2026? How do we decide?

TU: This is an insane question because real estate is so geographically focused. I cannot sit here and be like, “You should rent or buy.” I don’t know where you live. And in some cases, the answer is different based on where you live. What I do know is that it is currently cheaper to rent than buy in 70% of all major metros. And frankly, we should all be looking at our own lifestyles and asking ourselves a couple questions. 

One, do we plan on being here for longer than five to seven years at a minimum? If not, you’re not buying. Are you in a position in your career to potentially have the opportunity to make massive leaps and bounds for a little bit of flexibility? So is there a chance you might be transferred to the Tokyo office? You being able to be flexible might be the reason why you get that position versus somebody else, and having that flex might help you. So renters win.

But there is something to be said about building equity. Ask yourself this question. Do you want to build that equity in your primary residence, or would it be smarter to maybe just buy an investment property somewhere that is a little cheaper and then continuing to rent your primary residence? If you are planning on building out a family and you really want to paint the walls and you want to have the nursery and you want to do all of these things, maybe renting is not the right move. Maybe you want to buy. 

Again, we go back to that five to seven years at a minimum, because the fixed costs of buying a home are very expensive. You have mortgage origination fees and you’ve got to pay some broker fees. You’ve got to pay fee-fi-fo-fum. If you’re going to pay all that, you’ve got to be staying there for at least a little bit.

Copy LinkShould you lease or buy a car? Or rely on rideshare?

SAFIAN: All right. Car ownership, lease or buy or Uber only?

TU: It’s up to you. I actually don’t own a car. My husband and I actually tinkered around with the idea of getting one. But I think from ease of not having to pay for parking, not having to pay for gas, not having to pay for insurance, I am not commuting so much that I would actually need that. I split my time in Miami and New York. In New York, there is ample public transportation. In Miami, I largely work from home, and if I do need to go somewhere, I can call a rideshare. 

But I just think that you have to factor in all of the costs, not just the cost of buying the car or leasing the car. It’s the insurance, it’s the gas, it’s the maintenance. I want a car every time I need to go buy groceries. I’m like, “Wow, it would be so nice to have a trunk.” But I think about all of the money that I’m saving, “I’ll just order Instacart.”

I think you have to think about how much you’re driving. So for folks who need to commute for work, that’s a really big question. But also, if you are trying to buy something, you need to be willing to drive that thing into the ground. If you are leasing and you want to have something new every other year, great, but just know that you might be paying more for that. So it’s up to you. Personal finance is personal. I really do believe that.

SAFIAN: What does it mean to be rich? Is it a number?

TU: It’s not a number. I think having true wealth is having the ability to make decisions where finance isn’t a consideration factor. The greatest asset that rich people have is not having to think about money. So when you are in the position to be like, “I can wait because I don’t need this gig,” or “I want to wait for a different job. Even if it doesn’t pay as well, I want something that I really believe in,” when you have that time freedom, when you have that choice freedom, I think that’s truly being rich.

SAFIAN: Should I live for today or save for tomorrow?

TU: Why not do both, Bob? I think you can still have a little bit of fun today, but also make sure that you’re taking care of tomorrow you, because I know so many people are, “Well, an asteroid’s going to hit the Earth, and it’s not going to matter anyway.” Sure. Okay. But what if it doesn’t? What if the asteroid does not hit us and then you’re 60, 65, and you don’t have a dollar saved? Which by the way, one in four Americans has $0 saved for retirement. If you have nothing, you’re going to really regret it. You’re going to be older. Maybe all your friends are retired. And now you’re going to be working until you die, and that sucks.

Copy LinkOne piece of finance advice from Your Rich BFF

SAFIAN: Looking ahead to 2026, do you have one piece of personal finance advice you’d give to almost anyone, something to wrap this up?

TU: Be very, very choosy with who you decide to spend the rest of your life with, because your partner is the biggest financial decision you will ever make. Life is so hard already, you cannot afford to have a hater at home. It has been shown in studies that people with conscientious partners, on average every single year, make 4% more. This is someone who understands you when you’re busy at work, understands that you may not be as attentive to the dishes. This is someone who encourages you to take those big swings. This is that person who backs you, who’s your number one cheerleader. And you didn’t hear me say, “This person has no debt. You didn’t hear me say this person is very, very wealthy and comes from an oligarch family.” What you heard me say is you want a partner who understands you, who values a dollar the same way you do.

I have a husband that when we met, he made so much more money than me. He never made me feel less than for making less than he did. And now I am the breadwinner in our family, and you have never seen someone more proud. He is my number one fan. He has been my number one supporter. And I think that I spend the entire day fighting the rest of the world, I get to come home and I have someone to fall into and just someone who I know is going to be there for me. And I think we should all have that.

SAFIAN: Well, Vivian, congratulations, because not everyone can find that.

TU: Yeah. I found him in the basement of a dive bar, so you can find love in a hopeless place.

SAFIAN: You never know. You never know.

TU: You never know.

SAFIAN: Well, Vivian, this was great. Thanks so much for doing it.

TU: Thank you so much for having me.

SAFIAN: Got to say, I have a lot of heart for Vivian, and not just because I was also running a personal finance media platform when I was her age. I love that she boils down the complexity that hinders so many financial decisions into their essence. And I love that she’s willing to be vulnerable from her own car ownership decisions to her relationship with her husband. My time working in personal finance was so useful, in part because it trained me to prioritize what’s really most important, what’s worth spending on or investing on, and what’s a distraction? Whether we’re talking about our personal finances or our businesses, building the right habits, asking the right questions, and zeroing in on what matters most, that really is the road to value creation, whether you count that in dollars or share value or in human relationships. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.