6 Financial Products I Love...And 5 That I Hate

Hello everyone, and welcome to this throwback episode of The Financial Diet.

Throwback in the sense

that this is a format we don't always do these days,

but used to be kind of our bread and butter.

Um, but something I think is still really important,

which is talking about good financial tools.

So, I'm going to be telling you about six money tools

that I love and use every day,

and five that I hate

because I am nothing in this life

if not a hater,

and nothing makes me hate more uh than terrible misleading financial products,

which is something unfortunately that this world is full of.

Seemingly more so now than when I started TFD back in 2015.

Now, I should give some context here

and say that I started this channel about 10 years ago,

and at that time was in a very different place in my life.

I was still getting out of debt.

I was really struggling to save even a tiny bit of money every month.

Um, I hadn't even started a proper retirement account,

and I just generally had an extremely anxious

and in some ways avoidant relationship with money.

And something that has become clear to me over the years

as someone who today does not experience financial stress,

I understand that part of

that lack of financial stress is just

that I have more money.

Like, period, end of story,

the fact that like our business has survived and thrived over these 10 years,

that I live in a dual income, no kid household,

and that I just generally have a good amount of financial flexibility

as compared to my costs.

Like, yes, that is an important part of it.

But something I've also learned over the years is

that you can have a lot of money

and still have a lot of financial stress.

I'm sure you guys see articles like these all the time in The Wall

Street Journal,

The New York Times,

basically talking about like some family on the Upper West Side who earns upwards

of half a million dollars a year

and is basically living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm not going to say I have no empathy for these situations

because I'm sure sometimes there's like some nuanced stuff happening in there

that I can't really understand

or relate to.

And I also know

that once you get into a place of bad financial habits,

it's extremely difficult to get out of them.

That being said, I will say that especially in our current economic moment,

I have a lot less financial empathy for people who are blowing through half

a million dollars plus a year

and not even knowing where it's going.

But it's also a good reminder

that although having enough money is clearly the most important component of financial health,

it is not the only component.

And having the right tools and understanding how your brain works is extremely important.

On the flip side, especially as you get more money,

especially as you get out of survival mode, there are increasingly really scammy,

really predatory financial tools out there.

And even when you're in the struggle phase,

like few things are easier to market bad products to than people who are

very desperate.

I'm thinking of things like payday loans,

which I myself used to rely on regularly.

I also used things like check cashing services constantly

when I was at my most broke,

which are objectively tools

that waste your money

or charge you exorbitant amounts of it to even just access your own paycheck,

but I didn't really have any other options.

So, today I want to talk about the tools

that I genuinely endorse

and love both from a practical money management perspective,

and also from uh I cannot stand this, please get away from it perspective.

I also lastly want to be transparent here

and say that for two of the things I'm going to talk about,

Monarch, the budgeting app that I use every day, and a financial advisor,

which I have been using for several years,

these are two products where if you use our link,

we do get paid for that.

Those commissions, by the way,

are also how we engage in profit sharing with our whole team.

Everyone on the team profit shares every single month based on how those referrals

do.

So, although these are products I have genuinely been using well before we even

started working with them.

In fact, in the case of Monarch,

I approached them to see

if we could work together

because I'd been using it for

so long.

They are products where we do get paid if you use our link,

so we kindly ask you

if you're curious about them to for a free call

or trial to use our link.

Um, and also do know that it goes towards supporting our, in my opinion,

more equitable business model where everyone is profit sharing based on the success of

the business.

But let's get into it

and start with the first financial tool

that I love.

And this is actually a two-for-one

because I'm going to highlight the things

that helped me rebuild my credit score,

and that is secured credit cards and being an authorized user.

So, as I mentioned,

I used to be in a lot of credit card debt.

My debt went to collections.

I had a completely torched credit score,

and that was actually what put me on the journey of starting The Financial

Diet and just kind of holding myself accountable to changing my relationship with money,

which I'm proud to say today, 10 years later, is a completely different relationship.

But when I was at my lowest from a credit score perspective, um,

and I had just moved back to the US,

so I couldn't even do really basic things like open my own phone plan,

two things really helped me start to rebuild my credit score

and even just like practice the good habits of debt,

uh one of which is more accessible to everyone,

the other one you will obviously need someone who can help you here,

but if you have someone, it's a great option.

So, a secured credit card is basically a credit card where you put collateral

down essentially.

You put an amount down in cash

that the bank holds

that typically corresponds to the full amount of your credit limit,

meaning that if for whatever reason you don't pay, you default, um,

they don't have to go to collections,

they just keep the money that you gave them to secure that credit card.

But the cards are treated the same way with the credit reporting bureaus,

so you're able to slowly build credit

when you don't yet have the ability to get an actual credit card.

That was the first thing I did.

I got a $500 secured credit card,

and I like literally still have

that card and still pay the fee every year on it just to keep

it going because,

as we know on this channel, I hope,

having um the length of your credit history, including your oldest cards,

is also a really important part of your overall credit score.

I also want to note here to not confuse a secured credit card with

a prepaid card.

Those are two different types of cards that can sometimes be confusingly labeled.

Make sure if you are someone who's looking to build credit via a secured

credit card that it's not a prepaid card,

which often does not report to credit bureaus.

Secondly, as an authorized user,

one of the things

that you can do to help rebuild your credit

if you are just not in a place to get your own card is

to be added as an authorized user on someone else's card account.

This way you will benefit from their credit building.

You may or may not even use the card yourself,

but if you are on that account,

it will get reported to your credit report.

My husband was able to secure a credit card

when he first moved to the country

because I guess someone with absolutely no history whatsoever in the country was a

more appealing person to lend to uh than someone who had very clearly at

the time established that she could not be trusted with even one single dollar.

Um, and the fact

that I was added

as an authorized user to his account was extremely helpful.

Again, this is a privilege.

You may not have someone immediately in your life who's willing to do this,

but I do think that it is worth asking because again,

you don't even necessarily need to be able to spend on

that card in order to benefit from uh being on their account.

So, even if it's like, I don't know,

let's say an aunt or something who has good credit,

she doesn't even have to trust your ass, right?

Like, she can just put you on her account

and then never give you the card

and like monitor you like a hawk.

Crazier things have happened when you're trying to rebuild credit.

But I will say all of

that to say in a world of sometimes scammy products directed toward people who

don't have good credit,

including things like extremely predatory loans and mortgages and cards,

those are two things that really genuinely helped me and that I highly,

highly recommend.

And technically used to this day in the case of my secured credit card.

Now, on the flip side,

my first product that I hate is Klarna {slash} all buy now,

pay later apps.

I will say this about Klarna, which I don't know if you've noticed lately,

but essentially anytime you're checking out anywhere for anything online,

it just offers you the opportunity to rather than pay for the item up

front,

um, to pay for it spaced out over however many months or years.

This is obviously very intentional, right?

It's the creditification of every single thing that we interact with.

And if something like a secured credit card is very helpful to rebuilding your

credit at a time

when you don't have access to it,

this is sort of the opposite, right?

Because in most cases, Klarna payments don't actually go toward building your credit,

except in the case of certain long-term financing,

but that is not the majority of financing happening on Klarna.

However, if you go over 30 days past due,

it will negatively impact your credit report.

So, you essentially get the worst of both worlds,

and the fact that they market themselves

as like you don't need a credit check in order to access this.

Like, it's better to take a step back and ask yourself why that is.

Because as we know in the financial world,

there is no such thing as a free lunch.

So, if someone is offering any and everyone the ability to finance everything,

there's probably a catch, and there is.

And the reason why essentially every single online vendor is putting Klarna

as an option at checkout is

because Klarna on average increases the total purchase amount by 23%.

Like, you spend 23% more on average when you use it,

which totally makes sense, right?

Because the actual number that you have to pay at checkout seems drastically smaller.

So, even just psychologically, it feels easier to spend more money.

And you also end up paying a similar amount more per item than you

would have if you just bought it at checkout.

Something like Klarna, Afterpay, all these buy now, pay later apps,

they are just the worst of all worlds,

and they're targeting like the the most vulnerable shoppers,

which is to say like TikTok brainworm Gen Z girlies who are doing like

a Shein haul while still in the app

and like I hate this.

I hate this company.

I hate this whole concept.

It's the worst.

The second thing I love, as I promised, is Monarch, the budgeting app.

Now, I will just say this,

I was a Mint power user for basically

as long as I had The Financial Diet.

It is mentioned throughout the first Financial Diet book.

Some of our very first videos on the channel were about how I loved

Mint because it was the first personal finance app

that I ever really used

and stuck with,

and this was at a time

when I like couldn't even bear to look at my bank accounts

because I knew that nothing good was waiting for me there,

and so I just avoided looking at my finances completely.

Um, for those who don't know, Mint shut down last year,

and so toward the end of like 2024,

I was looking for what I would replace Mint with,

and I ended up finding Monarch,

which is actually started by um some former people at Mint,

and I just started using it and really loving it.

And then I reached out to the Monarch team and I was like,

we should work together and we have ever since.

Um so as I said,

if you use our link for a free trial of Monarch,

you get an exclusive discount with us and you also support our business.

But I have been using Monarch regardless of our partnership well before it.

Um it's just super easy to use.

It's really intuitive.

It's great for splitting costs uh with like a roommate or a partner.

It's great for budgeting and seeing your expenses.

And yeah, I just check it all the time.

I literally was checking it like 10 minutes ago.

So, I love Monarch.

That's all I can say.

And I will say as a last note on this, whatever you do,

I don't care if you use a different app than Monarch.

I don't care if you use I mean,

I wouldn't recommend a pencil and paper.

That's like crazy.

It's 2026.

But whatever you use is fine,

but just understand that the most fundamental aspect of getting good with money is

just getting comfortable looking at it

and understanding it.

I basically know at all times how my finances stand

because I use an app like this

and there's really never any guesswork about where my money's going

or how my expenses are changing.

I can also just like really easily reallocate things.

I have, you know, I can manage all of my different accounts.

I have my investment accounts in there as well.

So, just having like a very good day-to-day knowledge of your financial health,

even if it's really bad, in fact, especially if it's really bad,

is so important because I speak from first-hand experience

when I say that the only thing guaranteed to make a financial situation worse

is avoiding it.

Now, back to the second financial tool that I absolutely hate.

It is store credit cards.

Now, people will gaslight you all the time about the potential benefits of store

credit cards.

And I will say this, the one instance in which I say, "Okay, fine.

Go use a store credit card." is like

if you're buying an appliance one time

or like some major purchase where you can get a big discount up front

for signing up for the card

and you can get 0% uh financing for a certain period of time.

If you do that

and then pay it all off before any interest kicks in,

yes, that can be a good use of a store credit card,

but only if you were already going to make

that purchase regardless and only

if you are very clear on what it will cost to maintain

that credit card cuz it's also not good to just open

and close a bunch of credit cards.

Um as we know, that's not good for your overall credit report.

So, provided you're getting a discount, provided you're not going to pay any interest,

and provided this was a purchase you were already going to make, I mean,

this is like a very boomer parent example,

but like buying appliances on like a Sears credit card for 0% APR for

the first year,

like, okay, I can see the benefits of that.

However, basically everything else is a scam for a variety of reasons, right?

Uh because usually they don't offer a ton of benefits.

I mean, yes, they do offer ones that are specific to the store,

but their business model works at the end of the day by getting you

to spend a lot more at

that store.

Like, if you look at the numbers of store credit cards,

like stores aren't stupid, right?

They know that by offering things like discounts

and exclusive sales and other stuff like

that,

they are able to get their, let's be honest,

already sort of like most irresponsible irresponsible is a judgey word.

Uh their most vulnerable, I'll use vulnerable again,

customers uh to spend way more money than they should

or more money than they were already spending.

And usually if anything,

we should be very judicious about spending less at most stores.

Um for example, I am a Sephora user.

I go to Sephora like once a quarter.

I buy the same things.

I am every time like truly shocked Pikachu face at checkout of like how

is this this expensive?

It's so crazy.

Digression.

I'm an extreme dry skin queen.

I have rosacea, I have acne, but I have supremely dry skin,

especially in the winter in New York City cuz we have these like Victorian

radiators that just like suck every every drop of water out of your body.

And like there's one lotion,

one moisturizer that like works better than any other to like keep me very

hydrated.

And it's the Tatcha Dewy Skin Cream.

That is $100 for not even a big thing of it.

And trust me when I tell you that I've tried many other lotions.

None work even remotely as well as that one does for me.

For me.

But all of that is to say,

like I'm taking out a small mortgage at Sephora every like two to three

months,

every three and four months, let's say.

And every single time they're like, "Diva, you want to get that credit card?

You can get a discount."

And to that I say, "No."

Because I know that if I have that credit card,

that I'm going to feel

that I need to spend more in order to justify it.

And it's just going to encourage me to be less judicious about the limited

purchases I'm making there.

I personally hate a store credit card.

That's my enemy.

That's my take.

Number three on the financial tools that I love is my beloved Investopedia.

Now, I may seem like I know it all when it comes to money,

but trust me that I do not and that very frequently,

especially when we're researching like our video essays or our, you know,

more sort of deep dive content,

I am right there on Investopedia looking up terms,

making sure I'm getting everything accurate,

making sure that we're conveying the right information

because at the end of the day,

like I'm not a trader.

I'm not a, you know, I'm not a CFP, I'm not a CPA.

Like I don't have any financial certifications.

Um I'm pretty good with money, my own money especially,

but I am certainly not an expert in the field.

And Investopedia to me has just been a resource

that over the years um I can just always look anytime I have a

question.

One of the things I think cannot be stressed enough

as it pertains to building wealth

and getting out of survival mode is

that a lot of us who did not grow up with money um

or were never comfortable with it,

we really internalize this idea that money,

especially sort of like finance

and economics and investing

and all of these things are like very complicated

or even like really mathematical concepts.

And for the most part, they're not.

They're not hard to understand.

And in fact, there are

so many predatory industries built on top of this assumption

that only a certain kind of person can understand financial concepts.

That is very much not true.

So, I would like highly,

highly encourage you if you are someone who wants to learn more about money

to check out Investopedia

because I just think

that they're a wonderful resource

and help me feel more confident

and educated when I'm doing things like,

for example, talking with our financial advisor.

Would Investopedia sponsor us?

I mean, we give them so much free shine, but I mean, listen,

if they're if they come a-calling and the wallet's open,

so is my calendar.

Now, on the flip side,

if there is one kind of app that I hate,

and there are several that fall into this category, it is stock picking apps.

I have always said this on TFD, it cannot be stressed enough.

Almost 65% of individual stocks underperform the market.

What that means is that through sheer likelihood, through sheer probability,

you picking individual stocks, like, "Oh, I think like, I don't know,

Apple or Nike or whatever the hell is going to do really well this

year."

That is one of the most sure-fire ways overall to do worse than just

the overall market if you were investing in like a broad index fund.

It is also important to understand that even experts,

even people who are paid to pick stocks,

they don't on average outperform the market.

Because if they had access to some uh let's say privileged information

that would give them a better idea than the average consumer

as to what's going to happen with a particular stock,

that is famously called insider trading.

That is famously illegal.

That will send you to prison, sent Martha Stewart to prison,

and that's my girl.

We were touring William Sonoma at the same time last year.

That's my colleague, if anything.

I love Martha Stewart.

I loved that documentary.

But she did famously go to prison for insider trading.

So, all of that is to say,

if even the professionals are not able to beat the market consistently

and even Martha Stewart

and all of her fame

and fortune is not evading prison time for having gotten privileged information,

you sitting at home on your couch thinking

that day trading or whatever is going to be a a better alternative to

just like working and getting a paycheck

as far as enriching yourself,

like you are drastically mistaken.

Stock picking apps are generally one of those things

and there's another one like this on the list

that we'll talk about

that really is more geared toward men.

We've talked on the channel before about the epidemic of things like sports betting.

To me, the individual stock picking really preys on a very similar mindset,

which is that you can sort of use your wits to outsmart the general

public.

And I cannot stress this enough.

Your wits or having like a very large influence over minor financial decisions,

especially when it comes to investing, like that actually works against you.

What has been proven time

and time again to be the best investment strategy is just to be consistent

with your contributions.

If you haven't started investing, but are thinking about it,

don't know where to get started, we do work with Betterment.

We don't get an extra kickback for saying that in this video.

We get paid the same regardless.

Uh but we do love and and use Betterment here on the team.

It's a very good, easy investing app.

Um but use whichever one feels comfortable for you.

But it is just steady contributions,

leaving your money in the market for a very long time,

and investing in broad, diversified funds uh that generally follow the market.

Like that's it.

And actually, all of the instincts that usually work in our favor when we're,

you know, I don't know,

trying to be good at a job

or build a business

or fix something in our home

or or generally anything else in life,

which is to say the more effort

and intention and time

that we put into it,

the better results there are, it is actually truly the opposite.

And in fact, doing too much with investing is almost guaranteed to leave you

much worse off than

if you'd done nothing.

And individual stock picking to me is the greatest example of that.

I understand why the psychology of stock picking is very appealing to people.

I understand the gamification of it, but I truly hate not only these apps,

but all of the grifters who um make money selling classes teaching other people

how to pick stocks

when,

let's be very clear

that those people are not making money from picking good stocks.

They're making money from selling rubs their classes.

This is a really man centric thing,

but honestly some of the girl bosses are getting into this space too

and they can all choke

as well.

The number four product I love is Google Sheets.

Now talk about a company that needs to open their wallet to us.

Um Google, I am like the ultimate Google Drive power user.

I love Google Drive.

I have gotten really good about using it over the past few years

and just like really optimizing how I use a lot of these tools,

but um we still to this day at TFD use Google Sheets to do

our budget projections,

our cash flow planning.

Um we also use things like QuickBooks, we use Gusto.

We We like We use a lot of like genuine tools for business,

but we when it comes to like just actually planning out our expenses and,

you know, sort of visualizing the overall financial health of the business,

we use Google Sheets.

I'll actually link you in the description to um a template

that we use to do our budget

and cash flow planning.

But this is also, by the way, just as usable for an individual.

Even though I use Monarch to do my like day-to-day money management,

I still, like me and my husband, even on a personal level,

will use uh a spreadsheet to actually plan out our year.

I do personally think

that there is still a lot of value in manually doing a budget

because it is so much easier to really consider each number

and to make sure

that you're not taking any assumptions for granted

and that you're being conservative

and that you're really understanding each number

that you're inputting.

Day-to-day money management?

Hell no, that's an app.

Like for me that's an app.

Like I'm not dealing with all of that.

I can't be bothered to like manually upload numbers.

I don't like to manually do basically anything on a day-to-day basis.

But on a planning basis, I really love using Google Sheets.

You could also use Excel.

Use whatever is comfortable for you.

Um but I'm a big big fan of the spreadsheet concept at least once

per like year or quarter um to make sure

that you are really sort of like manually getting into your numbers

and understanding them so

that the rest of the time you can be a little bit more on

autopilot.

Next up on my financial products I hate is Kalshi.

Now what is Kalshi?

So essentially it is a platform

that has taken the sports betting model

and applied it to basically every aspect of life including things like uh war.

So basically you can just sit at home

and uh speculate on who you think is going to win,

I don't know, the Hungarian election which Hey, Hungarians, you really did that.

Um Uh you can sit at home

and speculate on anything

and in some cases,

in the best cases, make a couple bucks off of it.

In the worst cases, which are also the majority of cases, uh lose.

I hate Kalshi for so many reasons.

This is very similar to individual stock picking in the sense

that it is more marketed toward men

and I do think

that this is like at scale a more male problem.

Although the girlies are getting into it here and there.

Kalshi to me though represents an extra layer of evil in the sense

that it is already bad enough to gamble um

as a way of potentially making money.

And I say that as someone who loves to gamble.

Like I I love to go to Las Vegas.

I love to go to Atlantic City.

Ultimate Texas Hold'em is my game.

I can I I I only allow myself to go once

or twice a year

because once I get on

that table,

I'm not getting off it until I have no money left.

So I don't even bring my cards down to the down to the betting

floor because I know

that if I have access to my credit card,

actually one time recently I was I was in AC with some friends

and I cleared my own reserves out

and I was out of money

and then my uh equally degenerate friend was like,

"Girl, let me stake you.

Get you back on that table."

And I was like, "Hell yeah."

I did not tell my husband she gave me an extra 150 bucks.

And I am very proud to say that I won her money back.

I more than doubled her money.

I more than doubled her money

and so she actually came out on top of

that.

Now, this is the mind of a gambler.

I gaslight myself into not remembering the $500 I had already lost before that.

So in my mind we were in the black on that trip.

Um leaving aside all of the money that I I had already lost.

Um but I say that to say like I love gambling.

I understand Trust me, I understand the psychology of it.

What is so crazy to me is these apps

that reframe gambling like literally something

that has roughly the same odds

as just like going to a table in Vegas

as like any kind of like financial strategy

or honorable way to direct your energy in order to bring in a source

of income.

Like apps like these genuinely have men mostly out there feeling like they're,

I don't know, Warren Buffett like really speculating on the markets

and making this money.

In addition to the fact that on average that's not what's happening.

In addition to the fact

that much like individual stock picking this is a scam.

I just want to say

that like Kalshi's like venture into like let's bet on like interethnic warfare that's

happening in another part of the world.

Like that to me is

so sinister and like I'm rarely a doomer about a lot of things,

but when I see people who are like betting on, you know,

extremely contentious political or military outcomes

and then those betting odds are influencing the real life actions of people involved

in these elections or these conflicts

or whatever.

Like I'm like this is like this is big Children of Men vibes.

Like this is like we are at the end of the world just like

fighting over,

you know, a trash can that's on like it's it's it's very unsettling.

So Kalshi to me is evil.

A lot of things are evil right now,

but Kalshi to me represents one of the greatest evils

that we currently have going on.

On the flip side, um I'm going to be quick on this one,

uh but a money tool that I absolutely love is my financial advisor.

Um a lot of people might wonder like if you are, you know,

pretty financially literate and you know all the good tips and everything,

why would you use a financial advisor?

I will say that like for

as have my head on straight

as I think I am about money.

Like my husband is like genuinely like very very into the like the numbers

of money and understanding macroeconomics

and things like that.

So he's like not at all the kind of person

that you would think would necessarily want a financial advisor,

but he loves that man.

Like he's constantly going back and forth with him.

Um I think a financial advisor is good for two things.

It is definitely not for everyone first and foremost because the cost is prohibitive.

At TFD we work with advisor.com,

um which is a flat fee financial service,

which is generally more accessible to the lower end, quote unquote,

of the market for financial advisory.

Actually like a huge portion of their clients now are TFD community members um

because it's just like very well adapted for,

you know, like the majority of our audience,

which is like millennial women who are getting pretty good with money, but,

you know, still aren't completely, you know, they're not like financially independent, for example.

But advisors aren't for everyone because A, there is a cost associated.

Like that's just like point blank.

It's not going to be affordable to everyone.

It's definitely once you're more in like a slightly more established part of your

earning years.

But also it is for people who really like the human touch

and they want that extra person in the room to help them make decisions

and to help um understand their goals

and how to get there.

I really think of a good financial advisor

as being akin to like a therapist um in the sense

that like no matter what they say,

a financial advisor can't provide you any information

that you can't access on your own.

That is absolutely true

and I say that

as someone who uses a financial advisor.

That being said, um one of the things that's most important I think like

for example when we were recently making our major purchase of our home in

France,

that was like every step of

that process we went through with our financial advisor about like how we were

going to optimize our brokerage accounts,

um how we were going to access the cash,

like where we wanted like comparing terms of mortgage interest rates.

Like all of that different stuff.

Like without having a good financial advisor, could we still have done it?

Absolutely.

Would we have been a lot more anxious about it?

For sure.

Because it just really provides you with a very very good sounding board

and can sometimes feel like an adult in the room especially

when market news is really really scary,

which it has been this year like much more

so than almost any other year I can remember.

So I say that to say a financial advisor is expensive.

It is definitely not for everyone,

but I really love it

and I highly recommend it to you

if you are someone who has money to spend,

is interested in genuinely upping their sort of wealth building and financial goals game,

um and also just really likes having a human being with whom they can

talk about these decisions.

That's the other thing.

If you're interviewing a financial advisor, it should be like interviewing a therapist.

Like you need to find someone that you really vibe with,

that you really like their presence,

and that you feel like they get you and they get your goals.

That's all.

Um the last product I hate is Ramsey Solutions.

We haven't talked about this in a while,

but I just think that it's like very worth saying.

Like we did a deep dive podcast several years back on our show To

Good to Be True about like some of the genuinely monstrous HR things

that were happening at the Ramsey empire.

I mean like the level of like misogyny toward employees,

uh like scandals among executives, male executives being inappropriate,

people getting fired because of inappropriate relationships in the workplace.

Like there's obviously the whole like evangelical component to it.

Just like a very sinister place to work.

And listen, like we are in Let's just say a very specific political era

where that kind of behavior not only happening

but going unpunished doesn't necessarily surprise me.

However, from a purely financial perspective,

the fact that Ramsey Solutions continues to be

as popular as it is just makes me sad honestly

because a lot of what it reaches out to is people who are like

in a very bad financial position.

Like if you watch his show on YouTube,

it's a lot of call-ins about like I'm severely in debt,

like I'm not making enough money, I'm going to lose my house,

like these really dire situations.

And his response to them is often like he might not say it in

a completely unempathetic way,

but it boils down to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

And he will, for example,

say that like nobody should see the inside of a restaurant unless they're working

at it until they have zero dollars worth of debt,

which is just to me such a crazy thing to say

and crazy way to live.

And and by the way, like the Ramsey empire has only grown.

Like they're literally going on a cruise.

I don't know if you guys saw this,

but Dave Dave Ramsey's hosting a cruise.

Um which like talk about terror on the high seas.

>> >> So crazy to imagine going on a Ramsey cruise.

Like I'll be honest

that like cruises in general really freak me out

because they feel like very bacterial to me.

Like ever since people got Ever since people got stranded on the COVID cruise,

I'm like it's like a petri dish.

It's so gross.

But that's like I don't know,

maybe that's like a just like a health thing.

I I'm sure some cruises are fine.

I don't know.

I'm just whatever.

But to go on a Dave Ramsey cruise to me is like I don't

know if it is an MLM,

but that that I've never seen anything

that was more spiritually MLM than going on a Dave Ramsey cruise.

Um but I say all

that to say like the like actual tools

and products that he offers like mostly boil down to like zero-based budgeting,

which I don't have a problem with.

Like I use the pay-yourself-first method where I allocate all of my like savings

and investments automatically from my check,

and then whatever is left over I feel like I can just kind of

do what I want with.

Zero-based budgeting is like the step above

that where every single dollar of your budget is allocated each month

and then goes back to zero at the start of next month.

To me that feels like very labor-intensive unless you're like really,

really super managing your money um

and need to be

or like have very aggressive goals

or want to be really cautious with it.

Um but I don't have a problem with that.

It is the shame.

It is the weird tie-up in like religion

and misogyny and like patriarchal nonsense.

It is the sort of like scam coursification of it, the cruise of it.

Like it just feels it's so Joel Osteen,

it's so like and I love America

as we famously talked about in our last video essay like I am not

here for America slander,

but when I see that type of stuff coming out of America,

I'm like like this is like the worst we have to offer.

It's like Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff where it just convinces people

that if they are in a bad position financially,

it is because there is something morally defective about them.

And to me building like a whole financial empire on top of

that complete with budgeting tools,

like why should your budgeting tool also bring you like Calvinist shame?

Do you know what I mean?

Like I I just don't think

that you need all of

that weird scaffolding on top of it in order to just get right with

money.

And if it is something that has worked for you,

I do not judge that at all.

Like I people have to come to their solutions in whatever ways work for

them.

I just hope that we can move away from

that a little bit

as we get better with money

and as we get out of the survival mode

because even on a practical level to live in a mindset where you can't

enjoy even one meal at a restaurant with your family until you're completely out

of debt,

like that's psycho to me.

That's psycho to me especially in a country where we are constantly being like

either tricked into being in debt,

forced into being in debt, or like injuring ourselves into being in debt.

Like debt is an is an unfortunate reality of most American life.

So to essentially like torment yourself until you're out of it just feels like

playing on hard mode

when we don't need to be.

And also like if you have a chance to listen to our podcast,

like it was so crazy what was going on at that workplace,

and I'm sure still is.

But I guess we're in the post-cancel culture era where nothing matters anymore,

so that's the good news.

Okay, lastly and this is on a positive note,

but if we're talking about financial media that I really like,

every single morning for almost 10 years now,

I listen to the FT News Briefing.

It's quick, it's great economic news.

I find it to be also really,

really helpful for political news

because if the FT is going to do one thing,

it's give you the information straight

and they don't give a about anything

that except what's happening to like global capital markets.

So I personally find it extremely informative to listen to

and like relatively neutral in a world where media feels increasingly like you don't

necessarily know what the what the angle is.

I will also say for like especially

when certain um geopolitical events like very heavily intersect with uh markets

and economics,

like for example everything that's been happening in Iran um especially

as it pertains to the Strait of Hormuz,

like listening to something like the FT News Briefing is incredibly helpful to just

like understanding what a lot of these terms mean,

understanding what like the petrodollar is, you know,

what the implications of the price of a barrel of oil going up considerably

is.

Like and I will certainly not say I'm an expert on things like that,

but I find again especially in a time where news can feel very overwhelming,

very destabilizing, you often don't even know like what to listen to versus to

tune out.

On days especially when I don't feel like I can read any news

because I'm just feeling overwhelmed by it,

I start by listening to

that and I feel like I can go about the rest of my day

feeling a little bit more informed

and a little bit more kind of knowing what I'm talking about.

Also the hosts all have really soothing voices.

All of that is to say the right financial tools will set you up

for a healthy,

happy, low-anxiety financial life.

Again, that's not possible without having enough money,

but even if you have enough money,

you can still have a really bad time with money

if you are not managing it properly.

And uh the bad ones will uh potentially make you broke

or keep you trapped in a cycle of predatory lending

or personal shame for the rest of your life.

So uh yeah, that's my take

and I uh hope

that this video has been helpful to you.

If not, what can I tell you?

I did my best.

I'll see you around the channel, guys.

Bye.