Mrs. Money Mustache
2/27/15 - We discuss the best moment of the Oscars, 50 Shades of Gray, what’s in a name? And the best apps and books for managing your money.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Thief - Crazy
Carnage - I Like Tuh ft. ILoveMakonnen
Hannah Rad edit of Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend
TRANSCRIPT: MRS. MONEY MUSTACHE
Ann: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Aminatou: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Ann: I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: And I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: On this week's agenda, the best moment from the Oscars; 50 Shades of Grey, a one-sided report from one of us who has seen it to one of us who hasn't; what's in a name and married names and should you change your name; money management and one million money apps.
[Theme Song]
(0:52)
Ann: Personal updates. Personal updates.
Aminatou: Right? Whew, yeah. Total personal updates. How's it going Ann? Tell me what's going on with you.
Ann: I had a housewarming party this weekend and . . .
Aminatou: Exciting.
Ann: It was fun and I feel like I unlocked some special 30-something hostessing level because I had this large bottle of spiced rum from Costco that he been in my house for, I don't know, months and months and months on . . .
Aminatou: I think you mean SWAG level unlocked.
Ann: Right, right. Sorry.
Aminatou: That's what the kids are saying.
Ann: SWAG level unlocked because I was like how do I get my snobby friends to drink Costco spiced rum which is the lowest on anyone's list for anything ever? It has not been re-branded like whiskey. Spiced rum is still firmly in the like only on the beach during vacation. And so I texted my friend Ken who is a cocktail nerd and was like "Challenge: find a cocktail that I can drink ahead that will make my friends drink rum." And I made this punch and I had to juice five million lemons by hand.
(2:05)
Aminatou: What kinds of animals are you friends with that don't drink rum?
Ann: I mean I don't know how to explain it. It's not like the cool alcohol. [Laughs]
Aminatou: What? Hashtag #tikicocktail. What are you talking about?
Ann: Listen, I am not . . .
Aminatou: It's not like you're trying to make people drink vodka?
Ann: I mean right? I would never. I'm drawing a line.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Exactly.
Ann: But I feel like for a party in February that is not on a beach spiced rum is a tough sell.
Aminatou: Strongly disagree. Okay.
Ann: When is the last time you had a party and you were like the main spirit I'm serving is spiced rum?
Aminatou: Um, you know, I don't have parties anymore. [Laughter] But I will say this: I've been drinking a lot of rum and I generally like rum because I like tiki cocktails.
Ann: There you go. Maybe it's because I have a family history of diabetes but the tiki cocktail is too much for me.
Aminatou: [Laughs] It's so offensive to tell a black person about your family history of diabetes.
Ann: I can't change the medical history. Those are the facts. Maybe we're the only white family in US history with a diabetic gene but it's . . .
Aminatou: Definitely the only. Definitely the only.
Ann: Definitely. Anyway . . .
Aminatou: For everybody who's going to hate this it's obviously a joke.
Ann: Oh man, do we have to start prefacing? Okay, we're actually kidding about this. Actually you know what? This is sort of exactly like that Justine Sacco AIDS tweet where she was like "It was obviously a joke that I'm not getting AIDS because I'm a white person." It's obviously a joke that no white people have diabetes. We're in dangerous territory here.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Ugh, listen. Well first of all we are nothing like Justine Sacco. None of our dads are billionaires and none of us will land on our feet after we get fired from this podcast.
Ann: True, true. Also I can produce the family medical records.
Aminatou: People have been really vicious -- people have been really vicious at me on social media lately so I just feel like, you know, I'm like boundaries, caveats. [Laughs]
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: You can use my story.
(4:05)
Ann: Right, we can't deploy casual sort of racial humor between the two of us and expect it to just go over okay.
Aminatou: We can't. You put me in danger, that's the problem.
Ann: All right, fair enough. Anyway, end of story, all rum was consumed and I broke the garbage disposal due to how many lemon rinds I pushed down it.
Aminatou: Whoa.
Ann: It's totally fine. This is like, you know, mostadultproblems.com. There's a reset button under the garbage disposal, it was all fine once I was sober, the end. No one lost a hand trying to unclog it. We're all good.
Aminatou: That's my number one recurring dream is losing my hand in the garbage disposal.
Ann: I think about it all the time.
Aminatou: Like literally all the time I think about it. Even when I live -- like right now in my house I don't have a garbage disposal. I still have the fear.
Ann: I mean it's real. So anyway shout-out to my friend Ken for this rum punch recipe which I should pass along to you because if you like rum you will definitely love this cocktail and that was my weekend. What about you?
Aminatou: I'm really glad you had a housewarming party. I saw some pictures of it and it looked great, so [0:05:11].
Ann: On the Internet. Looked great on the Internet.
Aminatou: Looked great on the F-books. I had a great weekend. I went to Big Sur and I'm so blissed out. Just not having phone reception or Internet, it's the best and worst part of that stretch of Highway 1 is how you don't have any cell phone reception. So on one hand it's like great, nobody can reach me. But on the other hand you're like fuck, I forgot to download my Spotify playlist. [Laughs]
Ann: I have a theory that it's only relaxing if you don't call it digital detox. Like if you're like "I just went to Big Sur and I happened to not have reception" it's relaxing, but if you're going on a digital detox it's . . .
(5:50)
Aminatou: No, I became so good at directions just going like okay, this place is south, a.k.a. on the way to Los Angeles. In, hmm, 17 curves I think we'll be there. [Laughs] Because we didn't have a map or directions to anything. I'm like oh, it's past that place that looked like a meth lab. But yeah, no, Big Sur is super great. It's just so full of character. I got to hang out with some great old people who have great, great, great stories to tell. And I've been going a lot. So I think this is my third trip in the last like six weeks or eight weeks?
Ann: Making the most of California.
Aminatou: I am so California right now, I can't even handle it, down to not being able to process the fact that my friends on the east coast are going through winter. Every time I scroll through an Instagram that's snow I'm like why is it snowing? It's February. [Laughs]
Ann: Yeah. In California winter is just an event on the Internet. It's not even a real phenomenon.
Aminatou: [Laughs] You know, to be fair it was a little cold in Big Sur.
Ann: Like you had to wear a sweater at night?
Aminatou: Oh no, I had to wear many sweaters. It was cold. It was also beautiful. Went to a rocking Oscar party. I think maybe the Oscars is the only -- is my favorite thing about California.
Ann: Oh, watching it earlier in the night you mean?
Aminatou: Yeah. I was like 9:00 and this shit is over? I'm so excited.
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: So obviously only half-watched it. I actually don't know all of the stuff that happened because I was surrounded by hilarious, great people and the most beautiful dog in the world and we also had a fantastic dinner. But I think in general it looked like people had fun.
Ann: The only way to watch the Oscars is to half-watch the Oscars. I honestly believe that anyone who sits there wrapped at the television for four hours is some kind of a sociopath or maybe a Hollywood publicist. I don't really . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs] Can I tell you my favorite moment though?
Ann: Please.
Aminatou: Was, well, two things. One, Lady Gaga singing Sound of Music was great.
Ann: How did you feel about her steampunk trumpet tattoo? I thought that was going to be . . .
Aminatou: Okay, her tattoos are terrible. But you know what? That was a different time in everybody's life. The trumpet was actually the least-worst one. The peace sign? Oh my god.
Ann: I know.
(8:15)
Aminatou: Tattoo shaming is bad though. Good for you Lady Gaga. You look great. And she's engaged to my favorite human in my favorite TV show called Chicago Fire. I'm the only person in America who watches Chicago Fire.
Ann: I've never even heard of this. Honestly never even heard of the show.
Aminatou: [Laughs] No, Ann, Chicago Fire will never enter into your media diet. I don't -- outside of this conversation I don't foresee you ever finding out about it.
Ann: Fair enough.
Aminatou: It's great. And no, so I loved her performance obviously. But then so right afterwards Julie Andrews comes out and she's like doing nominations for I don't know what, but hearing her say Grand Budapesht Hotel is the best shade ever. It's like -- I'm like I'm going to start calling it Easht [0:09:04] also and just generally being a more cultured person.
Ann: I love it. I happen to know this woman here who's like 88 years old and was for decades Julie Andrews' personal assistant and she has a whole room of her house that is covered in photos of her with Julie Andrews at various stages of Julie Andrews' life and she has always had that Lego man snap-on bob forever. Like it is basically -- like I'm convinced it's a wig because it looks the same in every decade, in every photo. And these are candids. This is not red carpet.
Aminatou: She's, no, Julie Andrews is great. She just set everybody straight. She's like Grand Budapesht Hotel. [Laughter] So yeah, that's kind of it. I don't know, what do you want to do today? I think maybe we can answer a couple of questions. I can tell you about watching the 50 Shades of Grey movie because I know you're never going to watch it.
(10:00)
Ann: I mean while we're still talking about Oscars, movies, whatever, I feel like we should just get this out of the way because we sort of half-assed where both of us will watch it and we'll talk about this on a later podcast. But obviously I've failed to complete my homework and I would prefer that you just tell me everything I need to know about 50 Shades of Grey.
Aminatou: Okay. So I'm going to full disclosure here: I obviously did not read the 50 Shades of Grey book. Also wait, pause. I found out that it's not one book, Ann; it's three books. Who knew first of all?
Ann: What?
Aminatou: That there's three books worth of this garbage.
Ann: So this is basically like Twilight?
Aminatou: So when somebody told me -- I know, except for I don't know who the core audience of this is. I do remember the summer it came out and there was a day at the beach when I was reading The New Yorker and I looked around and everybody else was reading 50 Shades including ladies on their Kindles and I thought it was amazing and I was like I'm doing the beach completely wrong. I've never read the books but I think this is why I probably enjoyed -- like I enjoyed the movie better than anybody who read the books.
Ann: I mean isn't that always the way? It doesn't have so much to live up to.
Aminatou: I guess so, right? But I'm very familiar with the Wikipedia plot.
Ann: Great.
Aminatou: Anything I don't read I plot out on Wikipedia. What's up Divergent? What's up Twilight? Like caught up on those plots.
Ann: Important.
Aminatou: Where do I even start? So characters. The girl's name is Anastasia, LOLOL, and the dude's name is Christian. So Anastasia and Christian, just so you know, Christian Grey.
Ann: So it takes place in a private school in the 1990s?
(11:48)
Aminatou: [Laughs] Ann, this movie is 100% nuts/LOL. Like every . . . just everything about it is crazy. I was really expecting, I don't know, I was expecting to watch it and just be like oh man, this is . . . you know, BDSM culture is crazy. What's going on? But here's the deal: this movie is less about BDSM than it is about stalking. This guy is 100% a stalker when he is not engaging in his fetish. So he doesn't violate any of her boundaries which is fine but when they're having like -- supposed to be having couple time he goes a little crazy. This girl Anastasia also is the most skittish human in America. I don't -- so many questions. At one point he buys her a new MacBook and a car because he's like ostentatious show of money but she uses this really shitty flip phone so I don't understand that.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: He's always wearing ripped '90s jeans and he doesn't look really cool.
Ann: Like where the ass and the thighs are white but the rest of them are dark?
Aminatou: Yeah. It's not okay. Also with her the main question is why is she entering into this sub/dom relationship if she's so scared of everything? But on the flip side she's very impressed with air travel. There's a lot of really good travel scenes. [Laughs]
Ann: Wait, how old is she in this movie?
Aminatou: She's like fresh out of college.
Ann: Okay.
Aminatou: So she's supposed to be I guess 22, thereabouts?
Ann: Let's be real, not everybody had your international upbringing and when I was that age I think I'd been on a plane like four times total in all of my life and I would've probably been similarly impressed.
Aminatou: Ann, I obviously tweeted to you that she reminds me a lot of you because, you know, you're both impressed by big city life and big city peen. [Laughs] Because there's some scenes where she's wearing a top knot and she looks exactly like you, like top knot white t-shirt. I'm like oh my god I know this girl.
(13:55)
Ann: You know, top knot white t-shirt is a look that served me well and I have to now decide whether to abandon it now that it's gone 50 Shades mainstream. This is a tough call.
Aminatou: [Laughs] So here's the thing: there's also no sex in this movie until 40 minutes in.
Ann: What?
Aminatou: That's a thing to remember, you have to suffer through all of this. The most offensive thing about the movie is just the brands. There's so much consumerism. I mean I know that this is the way that Hollywood is doing movies now but this was a lot. It was just like a lot.
Ann: So are his ripped '90s jeans Z Cavaricci?
Aminatou: Yeah, totally. So beyond very light bondage and you can tell that she's kind of a little bit into the spanking she's totally creeped out by him. And then she realizes that he's never going to be this sweet, romantic, regular boyfriend that she wants so she runs away. And also like fail, he's not very successful at dominating her. So all in all fail for everyone. [Laughs]
Ann: Wow, it turns out when someone is not consenting to be dominated they are not . . . you know, it doesn't really work that well. They do stuff like run away.
Aminatou: I know. But I was talking to a friend of mine who is really into this her lifestyle, she's into BDSM relationships, and she was telling me that what Anastasia is doing, it's called topping from the bottom. [Laughs]
Ann: Oh, like being a bossy bottom or something?
Aminatou: Yes, so she's outlining the ways she would consent. She'd consent to be topped by him which basically it keeps the submissive in control the entire scene.
Ann: Which is interesting.
Aminatou: I don't buy it because the acting is so terrible but I buy that generally as a form of relationship.
Ann: Right. I was going to say that that might be the first account I've ever heard from someone who would consider themselves part of the BDSM community who is not like oh my god, 50 Shades is getting it all wrong.
(15:50)
Aminatou: No, totally. She was telling me that she actually enjoyed the movie but she would never defend it in public which I think is great. [Laughs] She thinks that the movie does -- I'm pulling up a note from her. Let's see. She feels that the movie does a really good job of explaining his sexual desires and how his desire to inflict pain isn't about hurting her. This wasn't in the movie but I think it's in the book where he says something like "I'm not in it for the black and blue, I just want the pink."
Ann: Aww.
Aminatou: It's like kind of sweet. You know, the thing that was really hard for me to reconcile is obviously I am pro-BDSM in anybody's relationship but this movie is so much more about how he's a really controlling partner in the non-sexual parts of their relationship.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: And that was just like really hard. That was really hard to watch. But yeah, apparently in the books she frequently calls him a stalker and she refers to his behavior as controlling and bossy but they don't do that in the movie; you just infer it. And every time they do it in the movie it's played for laughs.
Ann: Oh.
Aminatou: It's like man, stalking is such a problem in this country and this is part of it. So, you know, here's the deal: I'm not going to judge any kind of BDSM relationship based on this movie because I don't take my romance clues from Love Actually so I'm not going to take romance clues from 50 Shades. That's fine.
Ann: What's the sign in Love Actually? To me you are perfect?
Aminatou: To me you are perfect. [Laughs] You know that's great. Basically if you want to watch a really good movie about this kind of sexual relationship I would recommend Secretary which is very sexy and great.
Ann: Which was actually filmed in the '90s, right?
Aminatou: I know, right? I think so.
Ann: Or early 2000s.
Aminatou: 50 Shades is -- yeah, 50 Shades is ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. And the thing that is so funny is I came out of the theater glowing, beaming so happily. All of the groups of friends that were in there were so upset.
(18:00)
Ann: Because it was not a fun group movie?
Aminatou: No, genuinely disappointed. Like you just hear -- all the conversations I overheard were "This is not like the book." [Laughter] "This wasn't as sexy or steamy as I thought it would be." And I was like well, listen, I could've told you that when this movie was rated R and not NC-17. Like you were not going to see anything super sexy. Yeah, it's a pretty long movie and I think there's less than 20 minutes of sexy time.
Ann: I'm just thinking about this idea too of the book setting a really high standard and maybe that's why this doesn't come close to a Magic Mike for crowd-pleasing appeal because there's no way to have any preconceived notion of what it's supposed to be. Like I saw Magic Mike in a group of women and there were no think pieces about it. It was so much more than I ever expected it to be. Although now I'm wondering . . .
Aminatou: I love this, the high standard of 50 Shades of Grey the book.
Ann: I mean, yes, the super high standard. There's actually something to be disappointed by. But now I'm sort of like I wonder if there's a novelization of Magic Mike that I could read. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I mean there were a lot of Magic Mike think pieces, like definitely.
Ann: Yeah, but like later. I feel like they kind of came after the fact. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm misremembering because it was . . .
Aminatou: Well that's because Magic Mike wasn't a book.
Ann: Right, exactly. That's what I'm saying.
Aminatou: Yeah. Here's what I will say: if this movie is ever at any point on demand while you're at a fancy hotel by all means order a cheese plate, get some wine, and LOL your head off.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Do not pay money to see this movie. I also watched that same week the J. Lo teacher . . .
Ann: Oh my god, Boy Next Door?
Aminatou: Boy Next Door, and that was just as hilarious. That movie is relentless. It's so ridiculous.
Ann: You know J. Lo put up the money for that movie herself? The studio was like "Eh, J. Lo, you can't carry a movie anymore."
(19:55)
Aminatou: Yeah, you know why? Because J. Lo has infinity dollars.
Ann: I mean obviously. All those fragrances.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yeah, all her fragrances. Also she looks so good at the Oscars. Dear god. And she was sitting next to Meryl Streep? I'm like I wonder what . . .
Ann: Who did her boob contouring? Because the shading on those boobs was like Kardashian level.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, her boobs were almost as good as Oprah's and Oprah always has the best boobs anywhere she goes.
Ann: Luminous.
Aminatou: Luminous. I'll send you a GIF of Oprah's boobs just like heaving. Incredible.
Ann: Please. Please.
[Music and Ads]
(22:05)
Ann: Maybe we should take some questions.
Aminatou: I know, let's take many questions. Oh, I have one.
Ann: Great.
Aminatou: "Hi Aminatou and Ann, I was wondering if you two could weigh in on the 21st century struggles of a woman deciding whether to change your name on marriage." Okay. "Part of me is chafing," yes, me too, "at the thought but I also see the appeal of having one family surname if I decide to have kids in a couple of decades. I just spent all afternoon trying to figure out if my married name is available as an email address so the tech issues are on my mind too. Thanks for being role-models to us baby 24-year-old feminists."
Ann: Aww.
Aminatou: Ugh, love baby feminists but I have many things to say about this.
Ann: I mean you go first. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Ann, throwing me under the bus.
Ann: All right, you want me to go first?
Aminatou: So here's the deal: I think that everybody should be able to do whatever they want with their last names. This is America. That said deciding to change your name is a very political thing whether you think that it is or not. Personally I'm going to tackle the tech issue first. I have great SEO under this name so I'm obviously keeping this name forever.
Ann: Right. We're both all-in on our current names. There's no . . .
Aminatou: Right. Anybody who marries me is going to have to be Mr. Aminatou Sow.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Let's be real here.
Ann: Pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Aminatou: I know. He's probably not born yet, but you know.
Ann: [Laughs]
(23:45)
Aminatou: So this is the thing. Here is the thing that I do not understand at all, and maybe a married can explain this to me: when people get married and they change their names -- I support them if they decide to -- I don't understand why they also have to change their email address. Do you think people won't remember your last name? Don't you remember when everybody was like starfish87@yahoo.com? Like I don't understand why first dot last is -- like that's a really weird email convention that carries into marriage. Like I've never understood that for the life of me, why you would change your email address to reflect your new name.
Ann: It's true. It's definitely a thing that in my fairly conservative -- the social world of my conservative upbringing there were a couple of women who were like my parents' age who it was like they had a professional name and then they were actually Mrs. so-and-so when they were at the bake sale or whatever. And somebody wrote a Times op-ed about this about how she had chosen these two different names and how it eventually made her feel kind of crazy and that she wished she had just stuck with one or the other. But I don't think anything . . . like no choice solves all problems you're talking about. Like all adult things you have to decide what set of downsides you want to deal with, and it's not just like changing your email address because obviously that's totally optional. But do you want people primarily thinking of you as so-and-so's spouse and . . . or do you want to throw away whatever SEO you've built up?
Aminatou: I know, right? I'm like by all means if you're trying to run away from the law feel free to change your name.
Ann: Oh please.
Aminatou: Or if you're lazy. I've just pulled up a thing that our homie Jill Filipovic wrote about this a couple of years ago because I remember the lead so crystal clear in my head and I'm going to read it to you.
Ann: Please.
(25:45)
Aminatou: She's like "Excuse me while I play the cranky feminist for a minute but I'm disheartened every time I sign into Facebook and see a list of female names I don't recognize. You got married, congratulations, but why in 2013," LOLOL, "does getting married mean giving up the most basic marker of your identity? And if family unity is so important why don't men ever change their names? This is the other thing that I don't understand, like people -- and maybe somebody with children can explain this to me. People go 'I want to have the same last name as my kids.' I'm like do you think that people will think that you stole your children because you don't have the same last name as them? Why does it matter?"
Ann: I dot think that that little passage you read exposes this contradiction because it simultaneously says your name is this very, very core thing about you which for some people it is. Like for you and me clearly it is. For some people it's not. For some people it's like this is my asshole stepdad's name that I randomly ended up with and I don't care or like, you know, I don't have a connection to my name for professional reasons. I actively look forward to the day when I have the opportunity to change it. And then the question about kids, your kids are going to know no matter what. That's also true. But I feel like that's almost an argument for the lack of importance of a name and not an argument for why you should hold on to the one you were born with.
Aminatou: I have a lot of friends who when they have gotten married they both changed their names. Either they've hyphenated both names or they made some sort of hybrid name and that's what their children will have also which I think is a good -- you know, that's a good feminist workaround. You know, but I don't know, I kind of also want to be sensitive too to people who have really difficult identities with their names, right?
Ann: Right, exactly.
Aminatou: If you don't come from a family background where you're proud of the name you have or you don't have that relationship with the people who gave you that name I get that. And your name is your identity whether you like your name or not. It's really tied into that. But it is maddening that in all of these scenarios women are the ones who predominantly change their names.
(28:00)
Ann: Yeah. I mean I think it's important to think about if let's say you normally like your name and you feel attached to whatever, its sort of family history or personal connotations, and you're still asking these questions about how do I have family unity it's probably worth asking oh, why am I the one to give up this name for example.
Aminatou: No, totally. Also let me give you -- changing your name with the bank or credit card company, good luck doing that. That stuff takes forever. It's such a pain in your butt. And again just a thing that women are expected to do.
Ann: Although US government middle fingers all around makes all of that cheaper and easier if you do it at the moment you get married as opposed to doing it when you say change your gender presentation or when you decide . . .
Aminatou: No, totally agreed. Yeah, no. It's like the government should make it easier for everybody changing their names. It reminds me of that Friends episode where Phoebe realizes you can change your name to anything and she wants to be Princess Consuela Bananahammock. [Laughter] At the DMV. Top five Friends episodes. So good. So, you know, back to this listener. Obviously I am sorry this is giving you grief. Whatever you decide to do I strongly encourage you to keep your same email address. You can just change your name in the sender name thing because also really nobody remembers anybody's email. It's like phone numbers now. You just have auto-complete for that.
Ann: It's true. I don't know, and I also think that the reason why people talk about this stuff a lot is because it's this seemingly not that important thing. I mean obviously it's important. But that is a window into other often invisible relationship power dynamics and I think that in some ways this conversation about whose name -- what do we name our hypothetical children in a million decades is a nice little trial conversation for the future hey, you make more money than I do but I still don't want to be the one to quit my job because child care is really expensive for example. That can feel a lot harder to challenge. So I feel like it's like practice -- practice run feminist convo in relationships.
(30:20)
Aminatou: Yeah, woof. So hard. So, so hard. Sticking to your guns.
Ann: I mean I guess it's one of those things too where I have no idea what -- I mean I do. I do. I was much more militant at 24 than I am now so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to change my name even then. But now it's like again thank you SEO. It's like it wouldn't even be close to on the table. Like it's not even in the same room as the table that I would ever change my name. [Laughter] It's like in another state from the table.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, right? I'm just a big fan of consolidating all of your online presences under one umbrella.
Ann: Although real talk though there was this woman in my hometown who is about my grandma's age, her name was Rosie Butt, and she married into the Butt family. And when I was a kid that was our baby feminist moment where I was like Rosie Butt actively changed her name to Rosie Butt. It was like Rosie Miller and she had to go to the courthouse and sign paperwork to say to the world "I would like you to refer to me as Rosie Butt."
Aminatou: [Laughs] They wouldn't have let that fly in France. They would've told her that's going to cause her problems. You know, all of this talk of names though, I think that when I go through my citizenship stuff -- because here's the other time that they make it really easy to change your name, when you're doing it for immigration purposes. They're always trying to push American names on you. They're like "Are you sure you don't want to be Kimberly or Tiffany?" And then you realize why so many immigrants have kind of the same name sometimes. I'm like hmm.
Ann: Yep.
(31:55)
Aminatou: Shady. But I don't have a middle name because I don't come from a culture with middle names and I was like maybe I'm going to have a middle name.
Ann: Do you have any contenders?
Aminatou: I mean I feel like we've talked about this before. I just want something expensive-sounding like Dior or Chanel. [Laughs]
Ann: I mean both would sound incredible with your name.
Aminatou: Or Cartier. [Laughs]
Ann: And we're back to branded baby names.
Aminatou: Branded baby names. No, it's true, when I was in college my friend Eddie and I would throw this joint birthday party that was always country club themed and my middle name for that was Bernadette and I secretly still love it.
Ann: I also love that name.
Aminatou: I know, it's good. It's like a great old lady name. It's so perfect.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: So yeah, shout-out to this 24-year-old baby feminist. Make good choices. Stay true to your digital self. You're going to be okay girl.
Ann: And also don't make choices for future children you don't have. Like make choices based on a relationship you have today.
Aminatou: Wait, Ann, are you kidding me? Everything I buy is for the future children I don't have. What are you talking about?
Ann: I can't hear this. I can't hear this right now.
Aminatou: Just kidding. I'm just kidding. Estoy kidding.
Ann: I know you're joking. I can't even handle the joke. [Laughter]
Aminatou: Please, my kids are going to love all this Eileen Fisher I bought. It's going to be great.
Ann: I mean yes. All right.
Aminatou: Oh my god. Do we want to take another question?
Ann: I feel like we -- this is kind of a general question we got that is like . . . I feel like it's a good Q1 question while we're still in the early get organized part of the year which is if you can give any practical life advice about money management and any tools you use I would appreciate.
Aminatou: Oh my god, nightmare. [Laughs]
(33:45)
Ann: I mean I feel like you have all kinds of apps and shit that you use for this.
Aminatou: I know, but it's because I'm so bad at money. I basically have to trick myself into money. So here is my problem: I think that I . . . I grew up in a house where we kind of didn't talk about money and also my mom was like a wonderful human who even though we grew up with not a lot of money never made us feel like that was a problem. But I think that now talking to your kids about money also creates money problems down the road. For a long time my whole life was oh, when I get a paycheck I have to use all of it before the next paycheck comes. [Laughter] Like always playing the game of oh, how close to zero can I get until I get paid in two Fridays again? I have recently learned that this is not the right way to live your life. It came as a shock to me. And also at my first job out of college a woman gave me the Suze Orman Women and Money book and Suze Orman has a lot of problems, a.k.a. she's a crazy person. [Laughs]
Ann: But?
Aminatou: And she's also kind of evil but I actually really recommend that book to anybody who cares about personal finance. Also my fear of #aloneforever lifestyle means I'm obsessed with personal finance. And I don't know, so I have a lot of tricks. I used to use Mint but I don't anymore because it really stresses me out. Again this is where I'm exposing how bad at money I was: I was also one of those people that was terrified about checking my bank account. I just would know by the size of the pit in my stomach how much money I had.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: This is not a good thing to live your life. Again things I'm finding out. So I don't use Mint for different reasons, mostly because they own your data and I don't like that at all. But I know a lot of people that do and like it. I basically do most of my shopping online. I don't remember the last time I exchanged cash with somebody for a service. It's kind of crazy. So I use this app called One Receipt that actually I found out about from Sheila Heddy, LOL. Let the freelancers in your life tell you how to do money. It's great. And what One Receipt does is that it basically mines your email for all of the receipts that you have and it tells you how much money you're spending and how that's changing time-over-time but also then you have this great archive of where all of your receipts are for when you need to do taxes and stuff like that.
(36:25)
What else? I read this blog called The Billfold religiously because it's all about how to do money and they actually have some really great interviews about how different kinds of people do money and I dabble with those every once in a while. My whole thing is for saving I make up a savings account for everything I need to save towards, like I have a savings fund that's just for weddings and a savings fund for the shoes I want to buy next week. I have a savings fund for the trip I'm going on this summer. Like I have to trick myself into doing money otherwise I can't.
Ann: That's not a trick; that's just a budget.
Aminatou: No, that's a trick. A budget is like one spreadsheet. My spreadsheet has spreadsheets.
Ann: I mean that's just an advanced budget. [Laughs] I think you're actually really good at this.
Aminatou: I mean it's -- because, you know, I have champagne tastes on however that thing goes. Champagne tastes on . . .
Ann: I don't remember. I was at a coffee shop today and I overheard some marketing guy pitching two owners of a clothing store on why he should run their Instagram feed and he used that exact line. It's like champagne . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: It's like "So you guys are selling champagne taste on a whatever budget" and I can't remember.
Aminatou: Yeah, I don't know, on a Cheetos budget or something.
Ann: On a Heinz tomato ketchup budget or something.
Aminatou: Like on very, very unclear what that thing is. Hold on. I feel like I need to pull up my phone because there are apps I use.
(37:58)
Ann: I mean you have more apps than anyone I know on your phone.
Aminatou: That's actually not true but I have a lot of apps. I use most of them.
Ann: [Laughs] You don't know how many apps the people I know have. That was a relative comment.
Aminatou: This is true. I was looking at a friend's phone the other day and she had like four apps and I was like what are you doing with your life? Okay, I take it all back. Here are all the money apps I use under my bag of money, bag of money, bag of money emoji folder. [Laughs] There's my bank. There's Split-wise for keeping track of things you use with friends. Highly recommend Split-wise. Also Venmo because who doesn't love Lucas from Venmo? [Laughs]
Ann: OMG.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, and One Receipt. Whoa, I cut back a lot of these apps. Yeah, this is good. These are all my tricks.
Ann: Right. I feel like I didn't get good at money until I became a freelancer and any time you're like oh, money doesn't just replenish itself in my account every two weeks you might be like okay, I cut it pretty close in-between paychecks but if you have a salaried job . . .
Aminatou: A.k.a. my lifestyle.
Ann: Yeah. Well if you have a salaried job and the same amount is showing up on the same date it's totally different than if, you know, you are making your money spread across 25 different clients and businesses and you have to keep track of what's out and what's coming in. I feel like that was the first time in my life I really started to pay attention to my money, which is not to say that I'm good at it now but it is significantly more dangerous to not pay attention to money if you're a freelancer. It's kind of not an option.
Aminatou: You know I really want to distinguish between money that is like spending money and money that is money for retirement because those things tend to be different. So while I am reckless with my everyday money and I'm down to a dollar before my next paycheck comes retirement when you have an office job is at least a thing that they make semi-easy for you to do but nobody demystifies how to save for retirement, right? Nobody's really explaining it to you.
(40:05)
Ann: Also when I had an office job I never -- I mean mostly I worked for non-profits or really small businesses but I never had an employer who contributed to my retirement. Not once.
Aminatou: Ugh, that's so evil. That's crazy. So the first thing that I will say before I even get into retirement is that everybody should read this book by Helaine Olen called Pound Foolish that's all about the cult of personal finance and how it's all garbage because you don't need Suze Orman to give you advice; you need the government to make it better for you to save. That's my one big caveat on that because I feel like we talk a lot about personal finance gurus and she just really dismantles that whole thing. Chapter seven in that book is my favorite. It's like one of my favorite things I've read my entire life where she's just like basically you need to only give your money to people who have a fiduciary duty not to fuck you over. [Laughs] So that's the way to do it.
That said I will plug one personal finance guru that I love. This is actually my Internet boyfriend that I'm sharing with all of you. His name is -- and the name of his blog is Mr. Money Mustache. [Laughs] Mr. Money Mustache helped me get my money right in 2013/2014. It's very exciting. So this dude Pete and his family live in Colorado and he basically believes in engineered saving and being very, very, very, very frugal. He has a wife and a child so three of them.
Ann: Oh my god, his tagline is early retirement through badassery?
Aminatou: No, totally. He retired like, I don't know, at 30 and they've paid their house off.
Ann: Sorry, I'm just . . .
Aminatou: I think last year they spent like 25,000 dollars between the three of them. So obviously it sounds very crazy austere. I like nice things. [Laughs] But his advice is very pointed and it's very good and it's really, personally for me, it's been super, super helpful. It's like the honey badger approach to your money. It's perfect.
Ann: Oh my god. Now I have to read this blog that has a wood paneling theme.
Aminatou: Ann, I have the biggest crush on Mr. Money Mustache and not just because he's good with money.
Ann: Is it the top hat?
(42:24)
Aminatou: Ugh, it's everything. He has that beautiful mustache, you know? But he has a wife. I'm just waiting it out. I'm waiting it out.
Ann: What do you always say? Wives are fences, not doors?
Aminatou: Okay, first of all it's girlfriends. [Laughs] Girlfriends are fences, not walls, and I cannot believe you made me say that out loud to the Internet. That's another personal inside joke. We don't believe in breaking up anybody's relationship.
Ann: Never. We would never.
Aminatou: You know, Ann, though, I totally have a thing for nerds that are good with money. Remember my Peter Orszag blog?
Ann: I do. That's an Internet deep cut.
Aminatou: I know, Orszagasm. I'd put that man in the knot sexually . . .
Ann: That's true.
Aminatou: So yeah, he's good with dollars too. We're Facebook friends. His vacations are great.
Ann: I have no doubt. He probably saves for them.
Aminatou: [Laughs] He probably does. He probably has 17 savings accounts like me. So yeah, it's like money is really tough and I find that it is really hard to find good information about money. It's also totally tied into this culture of shame and secrecy. Like I was really lucky enough to graduate college with zero debt because I was an international student so I couldn't have student loans, you know? So I was really poor in college but then I came out of college and was like oh, I don't have this massive student debt that most people my age have. And it's been really interesting over the last like ten years just keeping up with friends with that stuff and seeing how it is -- there's so much secrecy around it and there's so much shame around it and I just wish people would talk about money more.
The other book that I'm reading right now is by Ron Lieber who writes for the New York Times. He has this column -- he has a money column in the New York Times but he wrote this book called The Opposite of Spoiled that is incredible. It's basically how to talk to your kids about money and the values around money and I really wish this book existed when I was growing up because clearly I needed it a lot and have a lot of catching up to do. But yeah, another thing that I recommend reading.
(44:32)
Ann: And I . . .
Aminatou: It's like hey, here's the money you need to spend to be good at money. [Laughs] Buy these two books.
C: These three books. These two books.
Aminatou: I sound -- I sound like one of those late night commercials, "Do you have hidden money somewhere?"
Ann: Group accountability. I feel like I finally got it together in the last year to save for retirement because even as a freelancer obviously nobody is prompting you to set aside money. And I did it because another friend of mine who is self-employed was like I'm going to read this 101 basic guide to how to save for retirement on your own when you can't afford a financial planner and what is the easiest, safest way to do that? And do you want to be a reading buddy and check in on the phone every couple of weeks? And that was kind of a revelation where I never would've made time. I would download a PDF and leave it on my desktop for months and months but if I know I have to get on the phone with her and talk about it then . . . and it has actually led me to save money.
Aminatou: No, that's so good. Yeah, no, I have two lady friends I do this with. They're my money inspiration and they're so good at it. So it's good to keep up with them. I feel like I was going to say something else. Oh, if you can afford to go to a financial planner which most people can actually -- it was not expensive at all -- I would also really recommend that because my entire life I'm just like the most expensive thing I own is my computer. I don't need -- I'm never going to own a home. I can't have a financial planner. I went to talk to one. Clearly he laughed me out of his office but I got a lot of really good advice. [Laughs] And yeah, no, the financial planner was talking reckless. He was like "Here's where you need to be at to afford a house" and then I snort-laugh so hard. I was like goodbye house. No way. That's not going to happen.
(46:28)
But, you know, they fill your head with ideas and hope but also give you the real talk that you need to hear. I got some real talk from my financial planner because I found a 401(K) I didn't know I had from a job I had for a very short period of time. Everything else I was really aware of but this one 401(K) was so tiny, no joke, and I was like oh I could just cash that in and buy this pair of shoes I really want. [Laughs] And he was like this is not what you do. Also he nixed my idea of cashing in my stock for throwing my 30th birthday party. This is the real talk I need. This is the real talk I need for when I buy my retirement home.
Ann: You should invite Mr. Money Mustache.
Aminatou: Mr. Money Mustache is married so I will not be making any kind of overtures towards him.
Ann: Did she keep her name or is she Mrs. Money Mustache?
Aminatou: She is Mrs. Money -- okay, everything I said to the previous listener I do not stand by if I get married to Mr. Money Mustache. I want to be Mrs. Money Mustache. [Laughs] Everybody has a price Ann. This is my price.
Ann: It's pretty low, let's be real.
Aminatou: Amina Money Mustache, are you kidding me? That is a great name.
Ann: I bet that isn't taken in Gmail.
Aminatou: [Laughs] That'd be amazing.
[Music]
(48:05)
Aminatou: So all of this is to say money is really hard. Do a lot of reading on the Internet. Don't believe anything Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey tell you, or believe it with a tiny grain of salt. Just plan really hard but also know that the forces of evil are conspiring against you saving for retirement ever.
Ann: Right. Like all those graphs about inequality, you can't overcome that with smart saving.
Aminatou: No, totally. This is why I love Helaine Olen so much because she goes on this whole rant about like don't drink that latte, you're saving five dollars a day or whatever, that thing that Oprah made really popular.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: It's really the one beef I had with Oprah -- I can't believe I'm going to say this about Queen Oprah on the air -- it's the one beef I have with Oprah because, you know, how many coffees do you have to not drink to pay your rent? You know, it's not like that one coffee is the problem or that one manicure is the problem. But yeah.
Ann: When I get to retirement age and have no money I'll be like "But I saved one latte a week."
Aminatou: I know, right? I feel like there's also . . . what is that blog called? I don't read it but I feel a lot of people like it. Daily Worth?
Ann: Oh, I don't know it.
Aminatou: That like -- yeah, I've heard some great things about that. I'm going to look it up now. Yes, Daily Worth: Financial and Career Advice for Babes. That's not their actual tagline; that's my tagline for them. I hear really good things and I'm signing up for the newsletter right now.
Ann: Great.
Aminatou: Okay. Good luck with your money boo-boo.
Ann: Good luck managing all those money apps you're about to download.
Aminatou: I know. Or you could just do my retirement strategy, work every day until I'm 82 and then die the next day. That's what I'm planning to do.
Ann: There's no retirement for freelance journalists. I'll just be dictating things into whatever it is we're supposedly writing on or reading journalism on when I'm 80 until I pass out.
Aminatou: Amazing. Do you want to tell people where to find us?
Ann: Oh, we are so everywhere on the Internet, on callyourgirlfriend.com, on Twitter at @callyrgf. You can also email us at is it callyrgf@gmail.com?
Aminatou: Yes Ann. [Laughs]
Ann: I mean everywhere. And then also on iTunes of course which here's a friendly reminder to leave us a good rating because that'll be really nice even though your emails are probably better.
Aminatou: I know.
Ann: That's it.
Aminatou: Okay boo. I love you. I'll see you on the Internet.
Ann: See you on the Internet.