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The Financial Diet
I Bought A House In The South Of France. Here's What I'm Doing With It.
I Bought A House In The South Of France. Here's What I'm Doing With It.
The Financial Diet
·
34:15 · May 24, 2026
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I say it all the time, but I really want to repeat it.
0:02
The Financial Diet, which is now a company
0:03
that like employs seven women
0:05
and tons of other contractors
0:07
and has built this beautiful life,
0:09
and we have this four-day work week,
0:10
and we have this six weeks PTO, and all these other things.
0:12
I'm so proud and happy for what we've been able to do,
0:15
but none of that would have happened
0:16
if John and Hank Green didn't give us a $5,000 little check grant to
0:21
start the company when no one
0:23
when it wasn't a company.
0:24
And you know, my co-founder Lauren and I,
0:25
who's going to come visit the house this summer,
0:27
like we talk about that all the time.
0:28
But I'm so aware
0:30
that all of this good fortune is
0:32
because someone who had the means invested in us.
0:35
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this very special video here on The Financial Diet,
0:40
where we are going to talk about this,
0:43
the French country home that my husband and I purchased this year,
0:46
which is for those who do not know my lore, probably seems extremely random.
0:51
For those who do, perhaps seems a little less so,
0:53
but is nevertheless an extremely major financial decision both in terms of the actual
0:58
purchasing of it and in terms of what we plan to do with this
1:01
house.
1:02
And as someone who believes in financial transparency above all,
1:06
I really like to kind of break down all of my own financial milestones,
1:11
and I also like to demystify things.
1:13
A lot of times we see people doing stuff
1:14
that looks really cool on social media,
1:16
and the question is how do they afford that?
1:18
Now, I'll be honest, in a lot of cases,
1:21
people are just not disclosing for a huge variety of reasons.
1:25
I'm looking at you, nepo babies.
1:27
New York City is certainly full of them.
1:29
But also because a lot of people don't like talking about the nitty-gritty of
1:32
money or even logistics,
1:33
and I know that for a lot of people,
1:36
eventually doing something like owning a home in another country
1:39
or even in this country is something
1:41
that they would really like to have
1:42
and know more about how it actually gets done.
1:44
So, I want to both for practical reasons,
1:48
but also for all of the nosy in the comment section,
1:51
of which I am absolutely one.
1:52
I love being nosy about money.
1:54
I really wanted to break this down on the channel.
1:56
But I also wanted to break it down
1:58
because the home is not really just a home for us.
2:01
It's kind of my big life project going forward with my husband
2:04
that will exist very much in parallel with the work
2:07
that we do here at the financial diet,
2:08
but is where I really want to be moving
2:11
and putting my money for a variety of reasons
2:14
that will will talk about.
2:15
But before I get into all of the numbers,
2:18
what we're doing with the house, all of that,
2:19
I just want to really highlight that for those who don't know the channel,
2:22
I started it about 10 years ago
2:24
because I was in a truly catastrophically bad relationship with money.
2:28
I grew up in a lot of financial instability.
2:30
I don't have a college degree.
2:32
Um I used to have tons of credit card debt, ruined credit.
2:35
I'd been uh arrested
2:37
because when apparently when you don't pay uh your moving violations for a long
2:41
enough period of time,
2:42
they suspend your license, and if you keep driving on it,
2:44
they will in fact arrest you.
2:46
I was in a really really bad financial place
2:48
and had to do a lot of things
2:50
that I really did not want to do at
2:52
that time and uh had an extremely avoidant relationship to money
2:57
and just really felt
2:58
as if I would never have a financial future,
3:00
that I would never be in a financially secure enough place to I mean,
3:04
rent my own apartment, let alone to one day own two properties.
3:08
So, I really do want to highlight
3:10
that um this entire channel
3:13
and this business that we have here at TFD has kind of unintentionally been
3:17
a little bit of a long-term documentary on changing your relationship with money,
3:22
but I also wanted to be about what we do once we have
3:25
that money.
3:26
If you are privileged enough to have built wealth,
3:29
what do you do with it?
3:30
What's important to you?
3:31
What do you want uh to leave in the world.
3:33
And especially for those of us who don't plan to have children,
3:36
not only is that a lot of money freed up on the day-to-day.
3:38
I mean, I look at the child care costs
3:40
that my friends pay here in the city,
3:42
and I'm truly gobsmacked.
3:43
It is often literally more than my mortgage here in the city.
3:46
Not only does it free that up, it also frees up your future.
3:48
Like I don't have children
3:49
that I'm I'm to like pass an estate down to.
3:52
And obviously we could get into the estate tax and all of that.
3:54
Suffice to say, once you are freed up from the day-to-day struggle of not
3:58
having enough,
3:59
the question then becomes, well,
4:00
what do you do with the money that you have?
4:02
And so, for all of those reasons,
4:04
it's very important for me to discuss these things.
4:07
Um it's also important for me to highlight,
4:09
as those of you who watch the channel know,
4:10
we work with a very small number of partners
4:12
that we use to help support this company.
4:15
All products that we use uh and really vouch for personally,
4:19
um and without which it would not have been possible for me to to
4:23
make these huge financial moves,
4:24
let alone to run the company in the in the way that we do.
4:27
So, if you are interested in getting a good budgeting app,
4:31
that is probably the first thing
4:32
that completely transformed my relationship to money
4:34
and got me out of my avoidance cycle.
4:36
I highly recommend Monarch.
4:38
I've used it before we started working together.
4:40
Uh I check it every day multiple times a day.
4:43
It is really good for just the day-to-day management of money,
4:45
but it's also good for things like tracking your net worth,
4:47
really allocating your savings and your goals, and all of that.
4:50
It's also very good
4:51
if you live with other people
4:52
or you have a partner
4:53
and you want to split finances.
4:55
Um it's just to me a perfect budgeting app.
4:57
I was always on the hunt for a replacement for Mint once
5:00
that went away cuz I was a big Mint user.
5:02
Monarch was started by people who used to work at Mint.
5:04
Cannot say enough good things.
5:05
It is also they don't sell your There are no ads.
5:07
They don't sell your data to third parties.
5:08
Like, it's also a very ethical app in my view, and uh yeah,
5:12
if you use our link,
5:13
you get uh a huge discount on your first year,
5:16
and you get to do a free trial with them.
5:18
So, use that.
5:19
And also, a huge part of the wealth
5:21
that we built that allowed us to make this purchase was made through investing
5:24
in the stock market.
5:26
I don't know if you've read,
5:26
but there's been a couple good years in a row here
5:28
that we greatly benefited from.
5:29
If you have been thinking about getting invested,
5:32
want to do it in an easy kind of low-lift way,
5:34
are a little overwhelmed by the concept, I highly recommend Betterment.
5:37
A lot of us here at TFD use it.
5:39
Um it's a great investing app that you can just set up really quickly,
5:43
literally in minutes, and just start getting invested in a really broad, diversified,
5:47
safe way.
5:47
None of that like crazy individual stock picking.
5:51
Um because yeah, investing in the market, especially long-term,
5:54
is going to be one of the absolute keys to building wealth.
5:56
Now, obviously, my husband
5:57
and I are quite invested in real estate
6:00
as well between our apartment here in New York City
6:02
and now this home in France,
6:03
but all of that is to say those two things were absolutely key to
6:06
me uh getting here on my financial journey
6:08
and being able to do something like this.
6:10
To get to first and foremost the nitty-gritty of this house,
6:13
how much it cost, why we own it, all of that.
6:16
Uh for context, I did already share about this on my personal Instagram about
6:19
a month and a half ago,
6:20
so I a lot of you are probably already aware
6:22
if you follow me there.
6:24
I also wrote a full newsletter breaking down all of the finances of this,
6:27
which goes into a lot more detail than this video will,
6:30
so that's also linked below.
6:31
It's free.
6:32
Um you can go give
6:32
that a read if you want more kind of nitty-gritty.
6:34
But, to give some context, so why France is kind of a first question.
6:39
For those who don't know,
6:41
I started speaking French quite young um
6:43
and when I uh got out of community college
6:47
and was looking for the university I was going to go to,
6:49
I actually got accepted into many really good ones here in the US,
6:53
but didn't get much in the way of financial aid.
6:55
So, my decision was to move to France
6:57
so I could study there for basically the cost of community college um
7:01
because I could do it in French
7:02
and get a degree there.
7:03
I moved over there.
7:04
I was an au pair.
7:05
I was also a tutor
7:06
and I was going to school all at once
7:08
and that is where I met my now husband.
7:11
So, I have been with my husband for 15 years um
7:15
and we have lived in the US
7:17
and New York City primarily for the past 13 years.
7:21
So, we spent the first 2 years of our relationship over there
7:23
and then moved here.
7:23
Well, almost 13 years.
7:24
It'll be 13 years at the end of this year,
7:26
so let's say first 2 and 1/2 years we were over there.
7:28
Either way, so I have been with my husband again for 15 years,
7:32
been married for almost 8 years.
7:34
Uh so, I am a French citizen.
7:36
I think I've mentioned that before in other videos,
7:37
but I became a French citizen this year as well.
7:40
But, even prior to being a French citizen,
7:42
we have spent really significant portions of every year in France.
7:46
Uh obviously, all his whole family is there.
7:50
A huge amount of our friends are there.
7:51
We just have a lot of personal ties to France.
7:54
And one of the many,
7:54
many reasons why we knew it was not the right decision for us to
7:58
have children was because we wanted
8:00
that freedom to be able to spend large periods of time in France.
8:03
Um we've also gotten now into the habit of like last year I made
8:06
several videos about this over on my Tik Tok,
8:08
but we rented a large house for a month
8:11
so that all of our friends could come visit
8:13
and stay with us without having to worry about accommodations.
8:16
Basically, having that part of our life in France uh usually at least three
8:23
to let's say five months each year in France became a really important part
8:27
of our life and how we were able to sort of give back a
8:30
little bit to our friends
8:31
and family by offering them these beautiful places to stay.
8:34
And also really removing the burden from our family over there um in terms
8:39
of going to see them
8:40
and spending significant time with them.
8:42
So, that has really been a defining part of my life
8:44
and part of our budget.
8:46
Up until this year,
8:47
we were spending somewhere between like 20
8:49
and 30,000 dollars a year um on the France of it all.
8:53
So, although we are now spending more because of this home that we own,
8:58
it is not a jump from zero to what we are now paying.
9:02
It was a jump from 20 to 30,000 dollars a year between rentals
9:06
and traveling around within the country
9:07
and getting back and forth
9:08
and all of that um
9:09
and other incidentals,
9:10
renting cars, um you know, shuttling people around,
9:13
like all of the things that we would have to do while in France.
9:16
So, that was already a significant part of our discretionary budget.
9:19
We also for context, like don't travel that much elsewhere.
9:22
I don't know if any people watching this are from one country married to
9:26
a person from another country,
9:27
but when that is your case,
9:29
often your travel really just amounts to going back
9:32
and forth between the two countries
9:33
that you're both from.
9:34
And that's really our case.
9:36
So, we also comparatively don't have a very high sort of like vacation
9:39
or other travel budget.
9:41
That is really where our discretionary money has gone for the past several years.
9:46
I also want to give the context that our company,
9:49
so the channel you're watching is called The Financial Diet.
9:51
The Financial Diet is actually a company.
9:52
We do more than just YouTube.
9:53
We are entirely women owned and operated, seven employees,
9:57
plus we have um our our our founders and partners.
10:00
And we are lucky enough we did for a
10:02
while have an office
10:04
that we went to about 2 days a week post-pandemic,
10:06
but um we decided last year
10:09
that we were just going to go fully remote
10:11
because it worked better for everyone.
10:12
We even have some employees who don't
10:14
or didn't live in the New York City area,
10:16
so it was just a little bit more convenient for everyone.
10:19
And also it's just a really big big expense that we didn't need.
10:21
So, now we rent our studio space for filming things like our podcast
10:25
when we need to,
10:25
but otherwise we all kind of work from wherever we we want to.
10:29
We also are on a 4-day work week for 6 years now,
10:32
and we have 6 weeks PTO.
10:33
So, flexibility geographically and otherwise has always been a very important part of our
10:39
work culture.
10:40
We do a lot of content here about it on TFD
10:42
as you can see from this video we recently did about the return to
10:45
the return to office propaganda,
10:47
which I personally am extremely angry about.
10:50
And it's not just me, right?
10:50
Like I benefit hugely from it
10:52
because I live a a big part of each year in another country,
10:55
but also like for example,
10:56
we have multiple mothers including mothers of multiple children on the team.
11:00
And for them having flexibility over where
11:02
and when they work is of huge value not just in terms of their
11:07
daily schedules,
11:07
but also in terms of having to pay less for child care.
11:10
Um that's also something worth saying is
11:12
that part of the reason
11:13
that we have historically been able to dedicate this much of our budget toward
11:17
the time that we spend in France uh is
11:20
because we don't have any costs associated with child care.
11:23
But all of that is to say us being this sort of remote-first company
11:27
that operates in this way,
11:29
it hugely benefits me,
11:30
but it's also very beneficial for I mean really everyone on the team,
11:34
especially the the moms on our team.
11:36
And also shout out to I don't know if she'll watch this,
11:38
but one of our key team members is currently on her second maternity leave
11:42
with us.
11:42
So, hi Rachel, if you're watching this.
11:45
I hope your everything's going well
11:47
and can't wait to see you
11:48
when you get back.
11:48
So, we had known for a few years now
11:52
that owning a home in France would be a goal for us
11:56
because we were spending
11:58
so much money on on it already,
12:00
living in and out of rentals.
12:01
I have enormous beef with Airbnb like most of us do, hotels,
12:05
crashing with family, which is its own can of worms.
12:08
Maybe it saves you money, but at what cost?
12:11
So, we knew that this was something that we really wanted to do.
12:14
However, we are still primary residents of New York City.
12:18
We are fiscal residents of the United States.
12:20
My husband is a green card holder, so he is, you know,
12:23
on his track to citizenship, but not yet a citizen.
12:26
So, being in New York at least 6 months
12:29
and a day essentially per year is still of huge importance to us.
12:33
So, we knew that if we were going to have a home,
12:36
we wanted it to really serve a greater purpose than just being a place
12:40
for us to live
12:41
when we're there for the summer.
12:42
Now, both because I would be cancelled into the next dimension
12:47
if I suddenly became a landlord,
12:49
which I truly have no interest in doing.
12:51
I'm not running an Airbnb.
12:52
I will not ever do anything like that.
12:54
But also because I have literally no desire to do that.
12:57
I'm against it for a lot of personal and ethical reasons,
13:00
but I also do not have any desire to be a landlord.
13:02
I also do not have any desire to make money in that way.
13:05
That is not how I'm trying to make money is by charging people rent
13:08
to stay in the homes
13:09
that I live.
13:09
We knew that we wanted it to be a certain kind of house,
13:12
to be a larger home that could also serve kind of hospitality purposes,
13:16
both because we often have people who come stay with us.
13:19
We have a lot of friends and family.
13:20
I mean, just in a single month last year we hosted 26 people, including,
13:25
you know, families, including all different kind of configurations.
13:28
So, we knew we wanted that kind of big family country house,
13:31
but we also knew
13:32
that we wanted it to serve um a very specific purpose,
13:35
uh which we will get into shortly what the actual home is going to
13:40
serve for.
13:41
Um but first, for my nosey girls out there like myself,
13:44
girls after my own heart,
13:45
uh just to give you a quick rundown on the finances.
13:47
So, for context, we already own uh an apartment here in New York City
13:51
where I'm currently filming.
13:52
I did a whole video breaking down the finances of that,
13:55
but we were very,
13:56
very lucky to get our home at really a a a just an unprecedented
14:03
time in New York City real estate history where you were both having really,
14:08
really depressed home values.
14:10
We, for context, purchased our home in New York City for about $750,000,
14:14
which was drastically lower than it had been pre-COVID.
14:17
Almost every other housing market in the country really exploded during COVID
14:21
and went way up.
14:21
Ours actually went way down here in New York City, especially in Manhattan,
14:25
so we were able to really benefit from those lower costs.
14:28
And we were also able to benefit from COVID-era interest rates.
14:32
Our interest rate is 2.8%,
14:34
so we were really we got
14:36
that sort of double whammy
14:37
that kept our housing cost extremely low.
14:40
My mortgage here in New York City, which I pay every month myself,
14:44
is $2,195, which, for context,
14:47
if we were to rent this apartment as renters,
14:49
it would probably be in like the $4,000 to $4,300 range.
14:53
So, we massively lucked out.
14:54
We also brought a large down payment.
14:56
I'm not going to derail this video with all the finances of our New
14:58
York City apartment.
14:59
You can watch that at the link that I provided here.
15:01
Let suffice to say, we had very low housing costs comparatively,
15:05
so we were able to kind of take on these larger costs for our
15:10
our second property.
15:11
So, for context, our home in France, which is in the south of France,
15:14
it's in the Provence region, which is if you've ever if you've ever been,
15:18
you know, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
15:20
And I'm actually just going to read off of my notes
15:23
so that I don't get anything wrong here,
15:25
but we uh purchased the home for 862,000 euros,
15:29
uh which is significantly lower than asking cuz, you know, we love a deal.
15:33
And we brought a 262,000 euro down payment from our savings in France.
15:37
Um that roughly translates to just shy of a million dollars for the actual
15:41
home cost and then just around $300,000 for the down payment.
15:46
Our interest rate on the French home is just around 3%
15:48
and so our monthly total all-in cost is around $4,700 a month.
15:53
So, all-in, our total home costs between New York
15:57
and France are around $7,000 monthly,
16:00
which is a huge amount for some.
16:02
It is also drastically less than many people pay in New York City just
16:05
for their one mortgage
16:06
or for their rent.
16:07
So, it's relative, but it is absolutely extremely privileged and I'm outing myself here.
16:12
I'm a member of the bourgeoisie.
16:14
Um what can I say?
16:16
When the guillotines come out, I think I'll be in that line.
16:18
I It is what it is, but that's roughly the numbers we're talking about.
16:21
In terms of what I pay, so as I mentioned,
16:23
I pay for um 100% of our mortgage here in New York City.
16:27
I also currently outearn my husband.
16:30
Um he is not currently working full-time
16:32
and I currently earn a $108,000 salary from TFD plus uh somewhere around 100,000,
16:40
100 to let's say 150,000 dollars a year uh from my books
16:43
and from other freelance projects.
16:45
So, my take-home is close to the $250,000 mark
16:49
when everything's all tallied up,
16:51
but he uh has significant savings from his career.
16:54
He has been uh at a company he works in tech
16:57
and he's been through an IPO
16:58
and uh he's also worked in companies
17:00
that have sold.
17:01
Uh so, he has substantial savings.
17:04
So, he is able to offer more for the down payments
17:07
and then I take on the monthly payments
17:09
and that's just kind of how it's worked between us.
17:11
I am not currently paying all 12 months of our mortgage in France.
17:15
I'm currently at about nine months that I can afford to pay for,
17:18
but my goal is to get to a place where I can cover 100%
17:21
of it.
17:22
But so yeah, these about $7,000 a month of our costs are going into
17:26
homes now,
17:27
which again, it's all relative, but it is quite a lot of money.
17:30
Now, the real question then becomes, so if we live in this house now,
17:33
generally we're saying May to September is when we're in the home,
17:37
that roughly corresponds with the time
17:38
that we were already spending in France uh
17:40
as renters,
17:41
what do we do with our home uh in New York when we're gone,
17:46
and what do we do with the home in France when we're gone?
17:48
So, our home in New York,
17:50
what we have historically done is we just give it to friends
17:53
and family who are coming through New York.
17:55
Um for example, in for June and July, one of uh my dear friends,
17:59
her daughter is coming to New York um to do an internship,
18:03
and so she's going to live here um
18:05
so she doesn't have to pay for housing costs.
18:07
Uh we also have a lot of friends who come
18:09
and visit family who are in the New York City area,
18:12
and we leave them our home.
18:13
But so basically, we just leave it to people.
18:15
We have a friend who's moving
18:16
and needs a place to live between their old lease ending
18:19
and their new lease starting.
18:20
They're going to take it over for a few weeks.
18:22
Um but generally, we just leave it
18:24
as a place for people who need a place in New York City to
18:27
use.
18:27
That's kind of historically how it's been done.
18:29
We may change that in the future
18:30
and do something a little bit more formal with it,
18:32
like we are doing with the home in France, but we'll kind of see.
18:35
As to the house in France,
18:36
why we knew that we wanted to look for a very specific type of
18:39
property that checked a lot of boxes.
18:40
I'm not going to get too in-depth about all of the boxes it checked
18:43
because I don't want to accidentally dox myself.
18:46
But we knew we really wanted it to function
18:48
as a working um artist's residency,
18:51
as an artist studio.
18:52
So, one of the features
18:53
that this home has is a fully functioning artist workshop
18:56
that used to be owned by a local sculptor,
18:58
and is really kind of well set up for people to work on artistic
19:02
projects of really all scales.
19:03
Because what this home in France will serve
19:05
as for for the September to May season
19:07
when we're not there um is a grant-based artist residency for women.
19:12
Now, that's going to be a very flexible term, right?
19:14
So, that can mean someone who's working on a novel,
19:17
it can be a sculptor, it can be a painter.
19:20
We're going to keep a very sort of open mind about the artistic projects
19:24
that these women can be working on,
19:26
but we really just want to create a space where women can come,
19:29
enjoy the home, enjoy the studio, work on their projects,
19:32
and not have to worry about money.
19:33
So, in addition to being able to live there for free,
19:36
they will also be receiving a monthly stipend.
19:39
Initially, I will be covering all of these costs once we have sort of
19:43
created a proof of concept for uh the residency,
19:46
which will be registered as a nonprofit here in New York City,
19:49
and therefore governed with, you know,
19:51
a board and all of the other things
19:52
that nonprofits are required to have to be compliant,
19:55
and of course all of the finances of
19:57
that will be publicly available
19:58
as a result.
19:59
Once we've had a proof of concept,
20:00
I likely will fundraise to some extent uh to help uh essentially support more
20:05
women.
20:06
We're going to start with one woman at a time,
20:08
probably for a 6-week period.
20:10
We haven't finalized yet,
20:11
but one woman at a time coming to work on her project,
20:13
but it's a large home.
20:15
So, the goal is to have seasons where we have, let's say,
20:17
four women at a time who are not only working on their projects,
20:20
but also living together and all receiving their stipends as well.
20:23
Also, as a means for funding this,
20:25
we will be having a few paid retreats in the summer season
20:30
when I am there.
20:31
People will be staying off-site,
20:32
but a lot of the actual sort of retreat content will happen in the
20:36
home.
20:37
Workshops, classes, uh things like that will also be doing, you know,
20:41
art tours and wine tastings and, you know, food trips and all of that.
20:45
Um but I do plan to host retreats in the summer season
20:48
that will be paid for small groups of uh people,
20:51
probably 12 to 15 people at a time,
20:54
um that will help to support the overall initiatives of the home.
20:58
But for the majority of the year, it will be a nonprofit artists residency,
21:02
which is very important for me for a few reasons.
21:05
One, probably first and foremost, so I don't talk about this a ton,
21:08
but my father is uh an artist.
21:10
He's a career illustrator.
21:12
And I'm going to get emotional, but we're just going to say it anyway.
21:17
Um I know we've talked a lot about AI on the channel over the
21:21
past few months,
21:22
and it's a very hot topic,
21:23
and I have extremely complex feelings about it
21:25
that I'm not going to get into uh off you know,
21:30
I'm not going to derail this conversation with it.
21:31
You can watch my hour-long digression about this here if you're interested.
21:35
The way that AI in particular is coming for art is um just really,
21:40
really, really sad to me.
21:42
Even like my my cousin is an artist.
21:44
She illustrated my whole hosting book, and like I'm seeing my father,
21:48
who's an artist toward the latter part of his career, and seeing my cousin,
21:52
who is an artist toward the early part of her career,
21:55
seeing how both of them how AI is just making their lives harder every
21:59
single day,
22:00
and how much we are devaluing human creation,
22:03
and how much we are divesting from
22:05
that as as a
22:07
as a species is um just incredibly demoralizing,
22:11
incredibly demoralizing.
22:12
Like I feel so lucky to have been able to grow up in an
22:15
artistic environment,
22:17
um and to be an artist myself,
22:19
and AI is coming just as much for the written word.
22:21
The The CEO of Barnes & Noble the other day was literally talking about
22:25
how he's going to stock AI books on his shelf,
22:27
and I was like, "Cool.
22:28
Wasn't planning to have a good day today, but now I for sure won't."
22:31
So, being able to create a space for people to work on art for
22:34
art's sake,
22:35
and to not have to worry about money, is just really important to me.
22:38
I know that it is not a solution that will scale forever,
22:41
but I do think
22:42
that it is a little thing
22:44
that I can do
22:45
that you know,
22:45
it's just a little piece of the solution.
22:48
And we The culture of being a patron of the arts, I think,
22:51
used to be a much more present throughout um culture and throughout society,
22:57
and something that we really looked toward people who were privileged enough to to
23:00
have built wealth to really reinvest
23:03
that in all different things
23:05
and of course other philanthropic efforts are also very important to me
23:08
and we've talked about
23:09
that a lot on this channel with regards to charitable giving
23:12
and and volunteering and things like
23:13
that.
23:13
All of that is still important,
23:14
but I also really believe in the profound value of being a patron of
23:18
the arts.
23:19
So having that residency,
23:20
I think is in a small way a little middle finger toward the way
23:24
that we are devaluing art.
23:25
And again, this will be for all artistic creation.
23:28
It is not just limited to painters or sculptors or what have you,
23:31
but I do I want to make sure
23:32
that there's some emphasis on the visual arts also
23:35
because the area where this workshop is located is in a very in a
23:41
town with an extremely rich artistic history.
23:43
Van Gogh lived there and painted some of his master works there.
23:47
And you know, it is harder
23:48
and harder for young artists to find space to work,
23:53
space to show their art.
23:54
You know, one of the things I really look forward to doing in the
23:56
summer is hosting,
23:57
you know, shows for artists
24:00
and having them come bring their work
24:01
and and hosting free events for them
24:03
and you know,
24:04
doing everything I can to help support the culture of artistic creation with with
24:09
no cost associated and
24:12
and really provide that space for for the town
24:15
as well as for you know,
24:17
all of the people that you know,
24:18
follow me and even some
24:19
that don't and we'll just find about find out about this elsewhere.
24:23
So doing this is yes,
24:25
it is an investment in the home
24:27
that we will live in for part of the year
24:29
and have our friends
24:30
and family visit with us for part of the year.
24:33
Sure, and it's you know,
24:34
money that is now being invested in in real estate
24:37
that otherwise was just being spent on rentals every year.
24:40
As I said, it was a very substantial amount of money
24:41
that we were already spending.
24:43
But it is also an investment in really what I want the second half
24:47
of my life to look like especially coming like oh,
24:50
I'm going to get so emotional,
24:51
but if you come from not a lot financially and uh never really thought,
24:58
I mean especially like not having a college degree
25:00
and all of these things like I never ever dreamed
25:03
that having these things would be possible for me.
25:06
Like I feel that I've gotten
25:07
so lucky with everything in my life
25:11
but especially with this company
25:14
and like I say it all the time
25:15
but I really want to repeat it.
25:17
The Financial Diet which is now a company
25:18
that like employs seven women
25:21
and tons of other contractors
25:23
and has built this beautiful life
25:24
and we have this four-day work week
25:26
and all these other things
25:27
that I'm so and you know our benefits
25:27
and everything else like I'm
25:28
so proud and happy for what we've been able to do
25:29
but none of that would have happened
25:30
if John and Hank Green didn't give us a $5,000 little check grant to
25:31
start the company when no one
25:32
when it wasn't a company
25:32
and you know my co-founder Lauren
25:33
and I who's going to come visit the house this summer like we talk
25:34
about that all the time.
25:35
This company makes like seven figures a year
25:38
and it all exists
25:39
and it's all possible
25:40
because of you know people who had been lucky
25:43
and successful investing in us
25:46
and you know I think about for the second half of my life like
26:01
of course I'm extremely passionate about what we do here especially
26:04
because this channel has become
26:05
so much more political over the years
26:07
and so much more you know mission driven in terms of not just the
26:10
way finances are but how we want our economy to be.
26:14
I have so much privilege being a dual citizen of France
26:17
and the US you know even just for something
26:19
as simple as like
26:20
if I needed like
26:21
if I didn't have insurance I could go back there
26:23
and get treated medically for free
26:24
and I want so badly for us to be working within a better system
26:29
here in the US
26:30
and we can obviously afford it.
26:32
It's just a question of how we allocate it
26:34
and so I am very proud of the work
26:37
that we do here
26:37
and and the way
26:38
that we operate as a company
26:39
and I am so honored
26:41
and humbled to work with the women
26:42
that I work with every day.
26:43
Like I I know
26:44
that it gets called
26:45
when people are like we're a family here
26:46
but like many of the women at our company like we've worked together for
26:50
a decade plus.
26:51
Um you know one of our as I mentioned,
26:53
one of our employees is on her second maternity leave with us
26:56
and she lives right by me,
26:57
so I just got to meet her her her new daughter
26:59
and I just like,
27:00
I'm so grateful for all of that,
27:02
but I'm so aware
27:03
that all of this good fortune is
27:05
because someone who had the means invested in us.
27:09
In a small way, sure,
27:10
but also in a way
27:11
that completely changed how we thought about what was possible.
27:14
And so I think that, you know, in in doing this,
27:17
in creating this residency,
27:18
like I want to do give
27:21
that to so many other women throughout the years
27:23
and have them say,
27:24
you know, maybe I can do this full-time.
27:27
Or even if they don't,
27:28
like to just have six
27:30
or eight weeks or whatever to to just focus on their work on their
27:33
creative work and then really enjoy it
27:35
and just do art for art's sake.
27:37
You know, the other side of the coin is it's not just
27:40
that AI is coming for everything
27:41
and making it so much harder to make a living
27:44
as an artist,
27:44
it's also the fact that we live, especially on social media,
27:48
in an environment that absolutely crushes creative potential
27:52
because it makes everything into metrics
27:56
and a performance and views
27:59
and clicks and all of these things
28:00
and monetization and you start to obsess over,
28:04
you know, how something is received to the point
28:07
that you forget about the joy of creating it.
28:09
I say all of this to say like I do hope one day
28:11
that like,
28:13
you know, after ATFD is retired or passed on to someone else,
28:17
which is my ideal scenario,
28:19
someone young who's also figuring it out financially
28:23
and in a different place in their life.
28:24
I really just want to to create this space
28:27
and and spend more
28:29
and more of my time working on it
28:30
and investing in it from a non-profit perspective
28:33
so that more and more of those little seeds can be planted.
28:37
So, financially, as I said,
28:40
it is certainly a luxury
28:42
and something that we are heavily investing in compared to our overall finances,
28:48
It is definitely, I think, a financial advisor.
28:50
I mean, when we talked to our financial advisor about it, I was like,
28:53
"Mama, you sure?
28:53
Like, this is you guys are going to be happily invested in real estate
28:57
compared to everything else."
28:59
But, I I don't know.
29:00
I believe in the We got very lucky with our home in New York
29:05
getting such a great price on it
29:07
and such a great interest rate.
29:08
And we have made the choice that we don't want children of our own,
29:13
which frees up a lot financially, but also logistically,
29:17
and means that we can do something like this.
29:19
And I really, really just want to focus on what a life
29:23
that is about passing on the gift of creativity
29:29
and the and the space to do it
29:30
as much as possible.
29:32
Um I really want to focus on that,
29:34
and especially in our nepo baby era,
29:38
where it feels like the only people who ever have the freedom to try
29:41
anything or to make a mistake
29:43
or to have fun are people who come from great wealth.
29:46
It's a complete side note, but I saw a video on Tik Tok,
29:49
or no, on Instagram Reels,
29:50
cuz I'm like on a break from Tik Tok right now,
29:52
the other day about the What was it called?
29:55
Like, the wealthy gaze.
29:56
This was a French video, so I don't remember exactly what they called it,
29:58
but basically, they're like, "So much of our media, like especially film and television,
30:04
is automatically through an upper middle class or above perspective,
30:08
because no one who comes from less is ever telling stories.
30:11
And so often, the only stories you get about people who aren't upper middle
30:14
class or above are tragedies
30:16
or are struggle stories.
30:18
And it's like, people from all socioeconomic brackets have all kinds of experiences
30:22
and lives and stories to tell.
30:23
They also fall in love
30:24
and have fun and cry
30:26
and go to work
30:27
and do all these other things,
30:27
but we never, ever hear their stories
30:29
because they don't have the space to tell them.
30:32
So, also creating that space is really, really important to me.
30:37
And you know, I I know
30:40
if anyone's making it to the end of this video to be perfectly honest.
30:43
Maybe they'll just yell at me in the comments for, you know,
30:46
being a a rich to which I say, "Guilty as charged."
30:50
But, I do think that, you know, in the personal finance space in particular,
30:54
there's so much focus on making money, growing your net worth, retiring early,
30:59
all of this stuff.
31:00
But, I I think for me the existential question becomes,
31:04
if you have the money, if you have the flexibility,
31:07
if you have the time, what do you do with that wealth?
31:11
Where does it go?
31:12
Again, every good thing that's really ever happened in my life has been a
31:16
result of someone taking a chance on me,
31:20
or giving me a little startup cash,
31:22
or being willing to help me in some way.
31:24
And so, this will be a little space for that to happen,
31:26
and also for us to live for part of the year.
31:30
So, look out for on this channel,
31:32
I'll be talking about the residency as it builds.
31:35
Um I'm going through the process now of getting like all the nonprofit stuff
31:38
set up,
31:39
which is in and of itself a freaking masterclass.
31:41
Like, good lord, this is like involved.
31:43
Luckily, one of my best friends, this is what she does.
31:46
She's a nonprofit consultant who helps them, you know,
31:49
set up and be compliant and run and operate and all of that.
31:52
So, she's helping me, which is a huge burden lifted,
31:55
cuz it's so hard to even know where to start.
31:57
Um but, so I'll be documenting a lot of that on my newsletter,
32:00
and also here on the channel.
32:02
Um I will also, of course,
32:03
be sharing once applications are open for the first residencies.
32:06
As I said, we're going to start with one resident at a time,
32:08
but then we'll grow to to host multiple at a time.
32:11
I will also be sharing about the events
32:13
and retreats that we're doing here through the house,
32:16
and, you know, how how all of that will work,
32:18
uh cuz those will be really fun as well.
32:20
And yeah, overall, it is a very special time in my life.
32:25
I, as we've discussed many times, including in these this video,
32:29
I don't plan to have my own children,
32:31
and that means that I kind of have a blank slate in terms of
32:37
where a lot of my life
32:38
and time goes with my husband
32:40
and this feels in some ways just
32:42
as big of a life decision
32:44
as having kids and please don't come for me.
32:46
I know it's not as hard.
32:47
I know I don't have to get up in the middle of the >>
32:49
>> I don't have to get up in the middle of the night
32:51
and breastfeed the house.
32:52
Like I get it.
32:53
It's not as serious,
32:54
but it does feel like a major line in the sand
32:57
and one that I'm just
32:58
so excited and I will be sharing with you.
33:00
We will also continue to be doing all of the stuff
33:03
that we do on this channel.
33:05
My interviews with the women over 50, so many of them just getting good.
33:08
I've been crying like every single day in the studio
33:10
because these are such amazing stories from these women
33:12
and I love them.
33:13
They've like become my friends.
33:14
That podcast has changed my life.
33:16
Like I didn't even care I don't I don't care
33:18
if anyone watches it at this point.
33:19
Like it has been healing for me in ways
33:22
that I can't even explain to you on this video
33:24
and we will be having all of our beloved guest voices come on the
33:27
channel.
33:27
We will be doing more economic coverage,
33:29
more policy coverage leading up to the midterms.
33:31
We're going to get really locked the in to flip everything.
33:35
Everything with blue wave, blue wave.
33:37
Like we're going to be doing
33:38
so much of that on the channel
33:40
and I'll be documenting this whole process.
33:42
Sometimes you'll see me filming here.
33:44
Sometimes you'll see me filming from France
33:46
as I have historically been doing all the time on this channel,
33:49
but now it'll be in one place instead of a bunch of different rented
33:51
Airbnb's that I'm so excited to never have to go to again.
33:53
And yeah, I hope you will stick around for the journey.
33:56
Thank you so much to John
33:57
and Hank Green for
33:58
that initial $5,000 seed money without
34:00
which none of this would have been possible
34:02
and yeah,
34:04
I love you guys.
34:05
I feel really lucky.
34:07
I feel really excited and um yeah, have a good summer.
34:12
I know I will.
34:14
I'll see you on the channel.
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