Brad, Chad, and Thad: Self-worth in the Dating World with Anna Kai
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Who do you think pays on the first day? The man, money is a lot of things, but is not everything. I personally do not believe in print ups.

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What's average friends? Welcome to another episode of network and chill on your host, vito A K, A, your rich bf f, and your favorite wall street girly. And today we're going to talk about my absolute favorite topic, dating.

Now I may be happily married, but let me tell you, the road to finding prince charming was rough, to say the least. I had to kiss a lot of frogs, and I definitely didn't always have the confidence or the high standards that I have. Now, like many people, in particular women, I was conditioned to accept the bare minimum.

Thankfully, while I was working on mall story, I had an incredible mentor who really explain to me why it's so essential to know my worth and not only date a high value person, but to be a high value person, like, trust me, the guy protects you at three I M and won't be seen with you in the daylight, probably isn't going to treat you correctly. You deserve way more than that. And sometimes dating can make you feel like you don't deserve that.

With tender grinder hinge bumble, there are literally a thousand ways to date nowaday, but people are feeling more discouraged than ever when IT comes to finding a partner. Seventy nine percent of Jenny says they feel burnt out from dating apps, despite IT being one of the most common ways people meet potential partners. And people feel stuck when IT comes to dating.

And while my mentor was like a big sister guiding me both in my career and personal life, not everyone has that person so readily available, but they can certainly find one on the internet. Today's guess kind of serves as the air nets, big sister and dating coach. She's a content creator and the queen of giving pep talks. Everyone, please welcome a hi.

It's so exciting to be here and talk about all things dating and money .

yeah and honestly, IT is so nice to meet you. I are well because I feel like were .

saw sisters every time. I I cannot believe it's taken me this long to actually meet you and realize. But this is amazing also.

Guys, she's like eight feet tall. I did not. She's stood out. I was like, oh my god.

she's got such. I know everyone thinks i'm like small asian woman, but i'm like five, seven who tall in your family, dad. Like I know, I don't know, but like tall like he's tall than me.

Like certainly so I was like there's a toll gene that which is rare afraid because most of time i'm like average.

Hi yeah so for sure. Yes, but like you mentioned, we've been internet friends for so long um but i'm really excited to talk to in percent. But since we're really only just starting to get to know each other, kind of like the first state I wanted know what's the worst state .

you've ever been on. So the worst state i've ever been on was actually kind of hilarious. I was sober and vegan for about ten months in my twenty years.

You don't want to have any fun. Yeah.

no, I did IT because of a guy. Obviously, I wish I could say yes. So I dated a guy for six weeks who was sobering vegan, and he ruined my life.

I don't even know if we have enough time to go into that, but I came out of that six week long situation ship and I decided I was gonna so bern vegan because he was that I was try to find myself and depressed. So I figured not drinking and not eating me was going to help what is actually really did. And I taught me a lot about what I can kind of withhold from.

And I was like, okay, I can be disciplined. But during that time, I was also heavily dating. So that is a very awkward thing to tell people on a first state.

And so what? Because I don't think it's fair when you have that many dietary restrictions to spring that on somebody the first in new york city, especially and especially what I about eight years ago. So um I think every bar now has a market, yes, but eight years that was not a thing.

Yeah so I would tell the guy, you know, we would get to the point on the dating up where he would be like, okay, what are you doing on friday? Let's meet up in real life and I would say, sure would love to. Just so you know, I am sober and vegan.

I don't care if you drink or if you eat me. I just wanted to let you know you are not caught up card. That issue totally understand and IT never was, except for one man who told me that IT wasn't an issue.

But then I remember exactly the day I was IT was right before thanksgiving we went to cosme, which is yeah fancy maxi, fancy mexican. fine. Interesting choice for somebody who's vegan.

But there were plenty of options for me to pick from. And I got there. And it's kind of a party scene for those of you have been.

It's kind of loud in there and it's very dark and it's just a scene. And he then proceeds to spend the entire night trying to convent me to drink. He was like, no, you don't really like you.

You don't really like not drink to you. Like, no, I I was serious. I was in a joke.

Yeah, I don't drink right now. I don't know if I will drink in the future. Right now that is not a thing in my life. And he was a OK call. So and then I think if I had been me now, I would have just left. But I had the mentality back then that even if I wasn't having a good time, I had to make the date good for the other.

Yes, even if you don't like them.

you want them to like you exactly. Because it's a strong desire to be approved by who really does not matter in my life. And so and this was crazy to I was in a real dark place or something at this point because I can I never used to go back to guys apartments after the first day because that's .

where we're different.

I mean, that we're all alive. I actually had like a pretty not great experience doing that. And I was like, yes, I was really great, really awkward. So I made IT a point on to do that.

But this guy was honestly such a fucking do is that I was like, let me just see what and I he described himself as a third culture kid, which if you guys don't know with that, I had no idea. It's basically like his parents were diplomats. So he was born in like saudi arabia, but went to in american school, but then went to college.

And like like harvard or something, I don't know. So he had doodles of money. And I could deal, by the way, was talking.

I was just got to curious to see his apartment IT IT was gorgeous. Like, this is so worth to seeing. This apartment that I will never step foot again in york city is, like, was struggling twenty six years old.

So he spent the entire time at his apartment, not even trying to hook up with me, trying to convince me to smoke weed, which I never really did. Yeah, i've never. So IT was honestly.

And then I laugh, and I will say, he he did call me in uber, so he paid for my uber, which was very nice, but then he didn't walk me downstairs, so the whole day was just kind of hilarious and just awful. And I don't know why I let you go so long. I just kept letting IT continue and yeah, he never asked me out again, but I just felt like the whole date was a chAllenge for him to try and get the sobering vegan .

girl to not be soberly gan so like deeply misinformed of him but like I am wondering did, was that like the moment that you knew you deserved Better, that you were like going forward, i'm going to be proud and strong and like up for myself.

That was not the moment actually. The moment was the man who turned me so bern vegan, dark OK OK that and I always think now when people D M me there, like I was only with this guy for x of time this time at a time, and I feel like it's ruined me more than even my long term relationships when they ended. And I think back this one relationship that was very pivotal in my life, IT was six weeks.

I should should not. IT started january first. And IT ended on valentine's day because he ghosted me on, I say, so I think about that, and I think about the reason why that relationship was so pivotal.

IT was because I was at a very weird place in my life. I met this man who promised me the world, you okay? I was struggling.

Actress, I was trying to study for my real estate license because I needed a Better way to make money other than all these random jobs I was doing. And I had really very little. And so this guy comes into my life. He's like eight, nine years older than me. he.

Just kind to mean in the beginning and he really listens and um what I didn't realize was that was love bombing because from the first day we met, he would text me all day every day morning until the night every ten and I don't even know how this man had a job. He actually ended up getting let go fired whatever from his job in a public way which again, i've said this before my videos, I don't think that's carma because I don't think the world revolves around me but like that sucks for you, right? Yeah, I love you.

Like, so this guy just, I could not believe what had happened to me when IT all was setting down, because he basically spent six weeks convincing me that we were meant to be together forever. And I just thought age meant that he was more mature, doesn't mean that at all. And then on valentine's day, he just stopped.

Imagine somebody texting you like a hundred text message just a day every day for six weeks in an on valentine's day silence, silence. And like a one than fifty five on valentine's day, he was like, oh, sorry, it's been such a busy day and I immediately picked up the fun. I like, what the fuck? You know, I was like, you do this and you leave me on first.

What are you trying to say here? And he was like, well, actually not ready to be in a committed relationship. I'm happy to continue dating you, but i'm not going to commit to you.

And I was like, what have we ve been doing for the last again? And why even bring me here, right? But I was never about me.

I was about what I could do for him because he had just gotten out of a very long term relationship. He had never been on the dating apps. And I think he wanted to prove to himself that he was desirable and valuable, right? And I did that for him.

And then once hiz y go was said he was like, great, now i'm going to go find Better and whatever. So I left that feeling very react, but also just realizing that I could either be depressed and while in my apartment forever, or I could just go out and become the best fucking in real state agent I could possibly become. And IT was the best thing that happened to me because I ended up getting my real state license.

I um did really well that first year my career and I was the first year that I had disposable income in new york city. And I loved my job and I loved the people I worked with. And I was all because of him because I just was like, this is not IT for me. That was that was the moment where I really realized that, as a woman, you need to have a career in order to have true freedom.

Wait, I have a question about, yes, you talked about real estate acting like, what is your background? Because, like, I feel like neither of approved asian jobs.

Literally, what is my background? I was basically a lib arts major in college. Um I wanted to be a performer creative ever since I was ten years old.

I'm sure you are my parents were modified but they accepted that. And I will say um as far as first are immigrant chinese parents go, they were very, very liberal in that policy. They never forced me at first while I suck at math and science. So going into banking anything related to numbers was not a good thing OK. No, I was like that was just going to happen.

Um and so they supported me in the sense that my dad always said, you know, he came here and he's a chemist and he was like, I did what I didn't anna do so I could force you to do what you didn't want to do, you know so my background is I went to N Y U. I went to garden, which was a school of individual study, which you make your own major, you make your own major. And I just tell people to live its major because that's the closest thing that you could sort of get.

So I don't know what I studied honest I think studied ethics, which is not employable. My thesis was unlike kindness and how ethics are very IT was so bizarre I don't know nothing employable right? I so and then I came out and immediately tried to become an actress.

And I worked to turn of wear jobs. I was trying to sell wedding videos for a while. D, yes, I was like a wedding.

I was at a company that produce wedding video, so I was doing sales for them for a while. I was a personal system to a woman on the apple way side. I worked at a building violation services company.

Is yeah, my background is just as confusing as that sounds. So but the whole goal, ever since I was a kid, was to work in something creative. And obviously, I did not think I was going to be on social media, but you acting didn't really work out then and I kind of LED to this. So yeah, it's it's been a wild ride.

How did you go from acting to real estate than social media?

So I just I needed a job that was flexible. Yeah, and I needed one that was flexible but also paid well in real estate, fit the bill there so I could make my own hours and um I always loved real state kind of just looking and I thought york city real estate was really interesting and there is nothing like this real state market here and so that offered me the flexibility to go an addition and then go to set when I needed to, when I booked a role.

Um and then basically what happened in the mic was um acting in real stator two very non pandemic friendly job. So I ended up believing my real state job. I was already with my husband the time who was not my husband um but we had been together long enough to know that this was that he works in connecting.

And so um he was doing the reverse community. We lived near grand central. He was taking the train, so he was like, let's move out to connect.

Cate, yeah. And we did that. And so all of a sudden, I am no longer real estate agent. I am not acting because auditions have sort of ground to a hot and especially for somebody like me who never really took off like that, there was no opportunity there for me anymore.

Quick said, yeah, can I ask if you're comfortable here? How much money were you making as an actress and how much money were you making as a real estate ation?

So, alison actress, my best year, which was one year, by the way. Yeah, I made thirty thousand dollars. Okay, which is not nothing.

Yeah, right? But I was enough to pay for my health insurance because I got union house insurance, which was actually amazing, because paying for your own health insurance is so expensive, and you have the most terrible health insurance when you don't have a lot of money. And yeah, don't have a company. In my best year, real stata was making one hundred and twenty thousand dollars year.

Oh, nice. yeah. okay. So that was really what was keeping you a flow while you were .

chasing the stream. exactly. And I got to one hundred twenty pretty quickly. yeah. So that was a very, I think within the first two months, three months during the .

pixies that I so IT.

I was, you know and I is something that I was. I also found myself in a very I think fit is really important in terms of company culture. I saw myself that a really great company that just understood that I had this acting dream but um was very good about giving the opportunities and I did my best for them and they were amazing.

They were a great part of my twins. But I always knew that IT was a job that was not a career for me. Like there are people who are so passionate about real estate, right? And they just they build up these huge teams at these broke ages.

And that was just over me. I was like, this is too transactional for me. I always wanted something that I could create. Yeah, okay. So mid pandemic .

and no acting jobs. You're not selling real estate.

I was thirty. I turned thirty in them all the pandemic in twenty twenty. And I was out in connective.

And we were lucky, in a sense, that my husband makes enough where we could live. Monopoly on connecting. And yeah, I didn't have to worry about a job. But I was like, is this the rest of my life?

I just kind of like staring and bear out my thirties thinking, I mean, I guess I could just pop out a kid and be a stayed home mom. And that would make sense to people would, like, be loved. No one would any questions.

And I was just so depressed. I just, I just thought there is no, i'm an only child. My parents fought tooth and nail to get here, to survive here everything. Yeah, the migration am like, is this what they came here for? So there are only daughter could marry a guy and not work and never do anything.

And you know, my dad is always like, if that had been the case and you were happy, we would have been happy we didn't need you to have this illustrious career. But I wanted IT. I think i've never been super maternal.

We want kids, but in the kind of very abstract. And so I just said, what can I do out here? I'm going to start a blog.

So I started a blog, a word press, when everybody else was getting on tiktok. I was like, i'm going to start a word breath and then start instagram. And I did that pretty unsuccessful.

Ly, for two years, two years. I was on instagram for two years before anything happened. Like blogging to my sweet twenty five hundred flowers.

You like. So you do social media for two years and IT doesn't work, makes you feel like, oh, I just have to keep going.

Something's gna happen. Honestly, it's sometimes Better to not have any other choice. I mean, my other choice was I could go get my real estate licence and connect kate and try doing that.

And I just said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to make something happen here. And so it's almost easier when you have nothing to lose, because I really didn't have anything to lose.

So I changed my niche a couple times. I started off trying to do home decor, and I was like, I can't freaking redecorate this corner of my house everywhere that I did fashion for a while. And I ended up.

What had happened was, again, I think, my best moments. And the best, instead of happened to me, i've come from my most depressing moments. I actually got an audition and a call back for a recurring role in a pretty big network TV show um two weeks before a wedding in september of twenty twenty two.

And I got a call back and I was so excited and I would have been a pretty I don't know if I would have been a game changer, but I would been a substantial role. I would have been back in the game, right? Didn't get IT and I was horrifically depressed. You like ten days before our wedding .

and you like down in the dumps and you're supposed to be getting married?

I do. And so it's like, you know what? What am I going to do? So I go on tiktok. I book a call with a tiktok coach. Sure, a tiktok that exists much as I cost IT was literally two hundred dollars for, I think, a half hour call.

And I said, let me just try and see if and this coach comes in, looks at your content and what you've been doing right and wrong, and what i'd been doing, where there was fashion transition, real, know where you jump in all found a different outfit. And like I was in the two hundred view, hello, all for a long time. And this tiktok coach shut out to Tyler, who really changed my life because he was like, I feel like you have the personality to talk to camera.

Like, why are you doing these reals that you could just tell a story and I was like, I don't have any stories. She's like, what are you? Just try talking to camera and so I was like, okay, I seen somebody else do their makeup while they were talk telling a story and so I just decided to do my makeup and tell story about dating and kind of realizing how I women should be the grand prize um and I took off how many used to that video get oh my god, I think IT hit like half a million views in the first day or something like that.

I was crazy because I get I forgot about IT. I was just try to make myself feel Better because I I just feel when i'm not feeling well, movement helps. Like for me, sitting and reflecting and being still does not help.

I just wallow even more. I just going to need to go do something. So I was like, oh yeah, let me try this possible to work, but at least that gets me out of my head and sad that I didn't get this role.

And then when I got back to my phone, I was like, this is a, this is my niche. And I just never walked back. I was like, fuck fish. sorry. I was like, this is dating and relationships, and impowering is manish, and IT has been the most incredible two years of my life.

I love to hear them since dating is your nish. I have a hard question. Who do you think pays on the first day?

The man.

I I need these cleaner now.

Okay, so and this is, again, I say everything because with a caviar that this is, these are my personal values. I always wanted to be a provider for my family. My dream is buy a house for my parents one day, right? And I tell dave, my husband, the time if I make enough money, one data, retire you I would love that you wouldn't have to work.

I mean, you'd be really horrible around the house so we'd have to find a purpose for you but you could learn um but I also wanted a guy who had that provider mentality yeah so much about because I grew up with my dad, the man of the house I will provide for my family. And he took honor in that great pride in that. I think these days feminism has done a lot of great things, but I think men who don't take pride in being a provider have used feminism as an excuse to slack or doing that.

And look, not every woman wants that, which is fine. Like those men who don't want to be providers and of getting married, and they sometimes they are happy, i'm sure, and the women are happy. But that was important to me because I had that in my father when he had nothing right. I remember um we had very little growing up and he took he took me skin once because that's what all the rich kids hit, right? He was like, I want you to have this experience.

He saved up to take me skin and he took some of my friends with me and their mom came and I was like a family fair and was like, um all these asian kids on the mountain skin together for the first time and um these kids their father was kind of of the picture and skins really expensive yeah so he paid for those kids to ski too, even though he had no business. We we were yeah really like we lived in an apartment until I was twelve year. Result we rented.

And so um he just took great pride in that when you grow up, I grow about sophya venia. yeah. So um he took a lot of pride in being able to provide I take a lot of pride in being able to provide for myself and now my family and I just can't handle a man that does not feel like that and paying on the first state to me. It's like if he cares that he's not the guy so I got to a point in my twins and Chris has probably heard me say this a million times now.

producer for every living.

I just didn't even flinch. I don't do the fake reach. I don't do anything that I just stare when you don't fake reach because it's an authentic and I think my whole life has been moving towards what is authentic and true to me.

And if you don't like that, then we shall be on the state. And nobody ever cared. Literally no guy ever cared. Because also, by the way, by the time we got to the first state, there was a vetting process on lying, you know, knew that this guy wasn't gonna are nobody ever cared? And if they did, didn't say anything to me.

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So that's how I feel. That is not how a lot of my golf ds feel. A lot of my girlfriends feel like they don't want to oh, the guy, anything, fifty, fifty, everything like that all points are valid. That's just why i'm .

coming from yeah can I ask and I don't even know if he has A P O V, but like how have things in your relationship change? Because at one point, dave, your husband was your problem like really providing a lot for you. You weren't making any money right mid pandey and now my assumption is you're making killer money.

And I say this from like a similar position. I make more money now than the average w tube job, significantly more. And my assumption is you make more than .

your husband now maybe wrong getting there. He's also seven years old than me. Yeah and he's been working a long time and he basically does nothing but work.

Does he feel any type away that like your money has just kind of thrilled I mean.

like there is no sense of, you know, I hear a girl saying, oh my god, like my boyfriends threatened by the factor I make more money than him i'm getting close to making more money than him and he's none of that. He's like, great. Go for gold.

You it's vacation house faster, exactly. And it's afforded to the opportunity to do a lot of cool things. And I have to think we're in such a different position, and we were two years ago. So he is all in support of IT, and we are really a partnership. And I think the reason our marriage works because i'm really weird.

I I don't know, I just and the more I married and the more i've been with him, I just realized, like i'm so weird and there is a reason that and I just think it's like everybody, he's really weird and specific ways. I don't live according to convention. I feel very ambivalent about children at this stage.

I'm thirty four, you know, I really all I want to do is just work and kind of build my career. And i'm super close to my parents and i'm a home body and I don't like to travel. And all these things that sort of people are supposed to maybe like like people yeah love to travel and they love to like my husband's weird in the same way I am. And so I .

found that we are a part.

You literally matched my friend so much. We both share a huge disdain for air travel will do IT I do so much. I used to be deadly afraid of flying two years ago, and i've now been subjected to plain rights, international plain rights, so much that I no longer, i'm scared of IT. I just find IT a little unsettling. Yeah.

you know so know Normal stuff people like spending their money on, you guys don't. What do you guys .

like spending your money on? We go out to dinner and we like spending our money on food. And we actually really like real estate um as like to enjoy but also as an investment. So we do actually have a vacation home. Now thanks to my job, i'm coming come to keep card that's i'm in and you don't have to ask me twice. I know it's it's amazing and we have a rental property we buy and so that's what my job has afforded as the opportunity to do not just have a primary home, but you know it's an investment but it's also instead of going on vacation, we go to our cape house yeah and I think a lot of people would find that boring in the sense that I know so many golf ds of my like, I never want to go to one place, the same, the same place, over and over again. But I find great comfort in just knowing that all my shits at that house that I basically just have to pack up and go .

pack up the dog and go OK. Spicy question, yeah, do you and dave have a pro?

We don't. And I ve been waiting for this question because I know your views on IT and IT is such a controversial topic, because i've broached the subject a few times on social media stories that people have varying opinions. But here is my opinion.

yeah. And you're probably going to think this is horrible financial advice, and maybe IT is. But I think, you know, money, to me, money is a lot of things, but is not everything. And I personally do not believe in print ups unless the I just chop guys this.

I don't believe in print naps unless there is an extreme division of wealth like if there is like a family assets to be generational wealth and everything because and I know i've heard the argument, oh, pinups protect people from a lot of different things and everything. And if you don't get a pranab, you know, the stake is european. I get all of that.

But for me, I just wanted, it's a feeling, and I think I just wanted to feel like this was IT like getting married, was getting a tattoo in my forehead and there was no way I was going to get divorce from this person. And I know this statistics um but I just wouldn't have married a person who I felt I should get a pay up with and who felt they needed to ask me for a print up. We're also talking about like David, I even though he was more successful in his career than I was when we first met and you know was working for a lot longer and had more money, we weren't Operating off of like two different of playing field, you know.

So IT wasn't like, I totally believe in pronounced for you people with generation wealth. And there is family stuff there, like you should get a print out because that's really located. We were not really blessed .

where our families are poor.

but they're not poor. But you know there is not like a massive just fun there. One of us that maybe there is like siblings going to fight over or what you know. So um that's kind of my feeling.

And I also think that for those of you listening who are like my got she's more on or hey, that's how I 表。 It's like you also have to make a decision and be willing to live with the consequences of your decision. So my decision was not to get our decision was not to get a print up.

But if in twenty years, in ten years, we get divorced and I rarely get fucked over, i'm accepting that. I went to accept that. And I think that's the thing is like there needs to be a space because I know I think it's very fiscally and financially sound to get a print up.

There is a space for people who just kind of our maybe romantics like me in a way, and i'm very practical in a lot of ways, but that wish something I felt very strongly about. I did not want to print up um and they've really didn't think about IT either. And most of our friends, pretty much all of them don't have print ups because it's just sort of like, you know what we'll just figure that out and a couple of them are getting divorced and yeah and it's fine, you know, IT sucks, but you just deal with life as the comes.

I think you can only prepare for so much. And I wasn't willing to add all even think about the possibility of preparing for divorce. That's why put up we have we .

can agree to disagree, but I really do appreciate you sharing now because I think that's like a really vulnerable question to answer yes.

And like you know what, my opinion is not the popular take right now too. I think it's much no popularize. No, I know which is which is good, by the way, because I think, look, and nobody knows whether they marry the ice hole who's gone to take them for everything there was.

But sometimes you just have to trust your god is a thing that you can put down on paper. And you know what? We'll figure IT out .

yeah in sixty years when you're like a old and grey and you've never ever needed one like it'll be perfect. You you'll look back on this moment you'll be like told you .

so yeah you know and yeah but if not, I can live with the consequences. And I think that's the important thing.

I think .

whatever you do, make sure you're willing to accept the reality if IT.

Yes, I think that's really, really good in terms of advice. I want another piece. Yes, what is the best piece of dating advice you've ever gotten? And then I also want to know, what's the best piece of money advice you've gone?

The best piece of dating advice I ever got was from my parents. They said, find the man who does the right thing, which sounds like very simple and ambiguous. But what they meant was, don't marry the man who's the fun guy, who's the core guy, saying, do find the man who does the right thing when the right thing is not the easy thing to do.

So and I look at dave in the way he works, in his work ethic, and how he gets up every morning, and do you know, he runs and all this, and I am just like that. So difficult. Yes, that's not the easy thing to do.

yeah. And honestly, being with me is not always walk in the park. I am. I say that too. I am quite a trip sometimes and he always does the right thing.

And that's why we have this marriage because you there is sort of the shared idea of, like, life isn't always going to be easy, but like our marriage doesn't have to be difficult. Life is hard. I don't think our marriage is hard because we both just want the best for each other world partnership.

So but that's because I found the guy who did the right thing. If you find a guy who, when he hits the fan, wants to go party with his boys and you know, SHE, don't you? That's the easy thing to do.

And a lot of situations, and I think that's why a lot of relationships fail, is because people marry who's fine. They don't marry who is going to do with the right thing. So the best piece of financial advice I ever got was from my mom, invest in the S M P early on.

Any tiny, any tiny bit of money I had um in mind is when I started making money, I set aside a certain persano ge and I put IT into the S M P. And that's done quite well. And it's by the way, like it's investing for dummy, is I am not a good investor.

I don't want to pick talks. I don't really want to spend the time to think about IT. So the S M P five hundred, there we go.

You know you say i'm not in like i'm an investing dummy. The fact that you're doing that you're not an investing tumming. You are in fact in investing genius because your returns are likely beating some of the top hedged ones.

Yeah because. They're trying to Cherry pick. They are trying to do like the perfect investment, right? I'm telling you with someone who worked on the street, we ve got calls we after a week that funds were blowing up because they made the wrong call yeah people with billions of dollars of tech don't get IT, right?

So no, and I I my parents do not really believe in financial advisors, which is a .

very chinese. I everybody is like.

you know, everybody is that they don't believe doctors, they don't believe financial matters. They don't believe like everybody is, is about to get them. So my parents, obviously, my mom taught herself how to invest because when they finally started having enough money to invest, just like we got to figure this out, yes, other people are retired.

The rate we're going, we're never going to retire. But I have looked at my investment's verses, David, in the s and people, he also has a pretty diverse portfolio because he does pick his own stocks and he has a few other individual funds like small cap and all that stuff. And my asm, he's done Better than him.

Now look, there is still a long ly way to go. So that's not to say that um his investments could have do Better than mine in the future. But it's been like, I don't know my honey, it's spent ten years of you being in this fun like maybe you should just cash out and go to the S. M.

P. Like me. Yeah, I know. Make IT easy. Yeah, make IT easy. Um speaking of easy, this is not an easy conversation. But when did you guys first talk about money and how do you guys split expenses?

We don't really slit expenses. It's all one big funeral pie. I think the first thing that came up for us was I think I just asked as like much you make this is A A year into our relations.

you I have note that fat in between the brain and the lit yeah.

I was like, whatever I mean, we've been long enough and like, we should figure and he didn't know how much I made. Like, we should have this conversation was like a random friday. I was actually on cape code.

I remember we did not have our own house. We were there visiting his parents and we went out to, do know the two of us. And I just remember saying, how much do you make? And it's actually a lot more than I thought, because he literally lived like a pop for nine.

He was in the same rent stabilized department in new york city for nine, genius. But also the place needed a little. okay. So let me just explain the apartment to you. When he's shut the door, some h dry wall plaster would fall onto his couch every time.

So before so he would need to vacuum up that on his couch before sitting down the toilet, for some reason, would only flesh if you held the handle down for ten seconds. He was rough, but he saved a lot of money. yeah.

And I just always assumed that because, like new york woman, you kind of figure out, okay, if he's paying for this apartment is probably how much he's making and I was like, you know, this guy problem, he doesn't make that much, but is okay. He's trying I could see the effort and I knew he did well enough, right? And then he told me I was like, are you what the fuck are you doing in there?

Know best and special.

but is like unhappy and he's just so and you so key and so that was the first um conversation that he asked me how much I made and he was like, oh yeah, you make around what I thought .

you made so your radar was off .

with his radar was say, you know I spent money the way that probably with somebody who's making one hundred twenty thousand dollars at twenty seven with yes spent and he honestly like he could probably go back to that apartment right now and and be happy and just save and rest in whatever. So that was the first conversation and it's honestly never really been a huge conversation because for some, we're using we're just kind of on the same wavelength th, we don't have a combined account per say, but we just have access to everyone's funds. Like for some reason because i'm an independent contractor and he used A W to employee, but we're married.

we're legally married. Sweet.

sweet health insurance.

I know right how you think I have healthy my sand.

It's like, oh my gosh, it's so much Better than anything we could pay for and just yeah it's insane. So um we just he pays for a portion of my taxes technically because we pay estimated taxes where the w two goes. You pay taxes since you go along.

So he's paying like now pretty sizable estimated taxes for me. And there is never any kind of weirdness around. I paid for this.

I paid for that. I was always just sort of this tasted understanding that this is all one fungible pot of funds for us. So I don't recommend that is not a exactly sound financial advice. Like I think the goal would be decided people is like find somebody who you just are on the same page with rather than find somebody who you like and you love. But you're just so different financially that you're just never going .

to see I I yeah what I like to say is find somebody who values the dollar the .

same way you do exactly and we very much do.

okay. So I want to pik IT really quick and chat a little bit about the other types of content that you make often times talking about friendships yeah um why do you feel like so many of us settle in both in relationships but also in friendship like I am definitely someone who hold on to like bad friendships for a lot longer than I should.

I think it's this really big desire by women especially I actually don't think men do nearly I hang, nobody feels Better or they just move on, think women do because again, we've been taught that our value lies and who wants us and who likes us. So even if we don't necessarily like somebody, we want them to like us. And I kind of figure this out early on.

I remember i've had one pivotal friend break up in my life where I was so proud of my software, are doing IT, because IT was a girl that was like part of our friend group in high school. And we were all in new york together. And I never really like her. And I knew I never really liked me.

but I was a little why you like her.

you know, I always saw in women do this, but we have a shared friend. And he was always trying to be the best friend. And I think felt that I was maybe a threat to her best friends with first, where it's like we can all be best friends.

No, you don't have to have one best friend. IT was very juvenile, I think, but I was his possessiveness over this shared friend of ours. And I don't think SHE ever.

I think that was all, I don't know what I was, you know, SHE. Just everything I said to her usually ended in some sort of comparison, our competition. And yeah, it's not like I was doing that well, by the way.

But yes, there I moved in with an x of mine and I told her that over a dinner on one night, and SHE spent the rest of the night talking about why SHE wasn't moving in with her boyfriend or three years like she's trying to justify IT to me and like i'm not asking you why you and you know chat are not moving in together. I'm just relying this information. But you cannot be friends with somebody who takes every bit of good news that you have as a threat to their existence.

And that's really why I never really like, because I was like, I don't think you actually want good things for me. IT was a friendship of convenience, and I didn't want to be just like, and I really didn't want to lose that mutual. And we had, because my relationship with her was great.

And I finally got to a point, was like, I hate this girl so lucky much that if not, being friends with her means that the rest of them don't want to be friends with me. I have to accept that, and i'm willing to accept that. I guess what? I'm still friends with the mutual friends.

I think he is still friends with them. IT worked out. I sent her a text, I blocked her.

and I moved on with my life. Yeah.

so don't be afraid of being just liked. It's honestly, being just liked has been the best thing for me, is so freak.

But where do I get this energy? Where do I become as .

confident as you die day, die one day? And that there is no time to be spending time with chats or bitches who are only friends with you because you're comparing themselves to you. It's like I didn't wake up confident. I'm scared of absolutely everything in my life. I know really abhorr this idea that, you know you have to always be confident.

I think that um courage is so much more important than confidence because courage stems from feeling fear and doing IT anyways, where is like you know this idea that this sort of idea that you know, you have to be confident all the time. This is not true. I'm not confident all the time, but I also know i'm going to die when day I don't know when that day is and I just want to make sure with whatever time I have left, i'm spending IT with the people I love doing the things I want to do and just not dealing with bullshit as much as possible.

Yeah.

that's so more bit.

And no, but it's good. It's no false provo.

You just do IT scared. Yeah.

just do IT scared if you could go back in time and give twenty one year old and a piece of advice.

what would IT be? So I could ask this a lot. And I said, no advice. He just has to live life just has to make mistakes. To make the mistake. I would not be here if I didn't do all that stupid child in my twenty is. And I have some friends who honestly, I don't think, have made many mistakes in life and they live amazing, happy lives.

And I just look at them like, have the fuck did you go through twenty years and like, not crack some of the stuff you did? I did really absurd things and sometimes dangerous things. And like, I live to tell the tale and now i'm actually sober again, not to begin that, right? Not a .

big .

dinner dinner. But now I I gave a drinking or later.

Are you an asian who.

Go when I did, I was a tank. I could drink a lot, and that was the problem. No.

i'm like two bears and black out like.

it's it's sad. Good you.

You're cheap day. Yeah, I really, I always say that and my boo, he always like, are you joking? You ordered the caviar. You are absolutely not achieve day.

You want the lobster .

of I never drink IT dinners yeah.

although I will say the mock tells these days i've gone so so it's not a saving money.

People eventually only drink now, probably four times a year, and it's always to celebrate. And there's only one thing that I drink, what is IT ticula straight?

what? Yeah, you are terrifying. I know that is, yeah, I like.

save up all of my liquor. Tolerance, like all of those.

like two beers I could have. I say that all the bit.

Do you take a shot? Oh, you just add how many? I don't know. Maybe like seven to ten.

Holy shit. Oh my god. Yeah OK. But like, I save IT for every soul. So when you made forms grow, you were taken forty shots.

right? thirty? I did, in fact, get quite drunk at the .

at at the party. Yes, you know, if drunk at any party, is that one yeah but that I like that, you know, and i'm trying to figure out with the baLances in my life. But so far i've really love being sober and um you know it's for those of you who you don't think you can do IT and be a single one day, you very much can you know I mean, a guy and I dated him for a while while I was sober and he was fine with IT know .

OK but you mentioned earlier that you have a lot of friends who feel like haven't made mistakes and there are tiny so I wanna wrap this up with what is the biggest money .

mistake you have ever made oh um I know no one else has asked you this question. No, I no one has asked me this question. What is something is this is sort of a money question, but sort of also a relationship question.

When I lived with my ex, he made significantly more money than me. I was paying him, right, because he already lived in the apartment prior to me moving in, and because he, I was very Young. G, because he paid for a lot of the dates and a lot of the experiences we had. I felt the need to pay him back in weird ways, so I would just buy him shit that I really should not have been buying like I would buy him like a really fancy presso machine and like just I would spend the money to try and pay him back because ultimately be, I don't feel like I ever felt like I deserved all the things that he was freely spending money on me for. You know, it's like he wanted to go to the carbon every other month for vacation, which I had no desire to do because, as you know, I don't love to fly or travel.

And at the time, I was also trying to be an actress, so as I OK, but what if I get an audition like when we're in fucking in turks and cao, like and he was like, well, you just have to live life and i'm like, but I am trying to live my life. And he doesn't involve flying down there. So he would fly us down there and pay for the trip.

And I would feel guilty that he pay for the trip, even though I didn't want to go. So I would try to pay him back and we raised and I spent a lot of money doing that when I should have honestly just broken up with him. So don't spend money on a guilt is maybe that kind of they take away from that period of my life.

And I think that is a great note to end on because no one should make you feel guilty about pretty much just anything unless you feel guilty for actually something that you've done one hundred percent yeah .

well and i've one a lot of things that I feel guilty about, but not on this point.

but that is for another podcast um anyway and I thank you so much for being here you are such a jam we're getting dinner after this. We're hanging out are becoming immediate best friends um but please let everybody know .

where we can find you ah you can find me on instrument tiktok at maybe both is my handle. Thank so much. Thank you.

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