We're on camera, Mona.

Get it together. Hey, guys.

It's Chelsea, from The Financial Diet, and Mona is dying to be on the camera too. What? What's going on?

What's going on? Tell me! Anyway.

Today we are both hyped up and in a great mood, because I am back, doing my favorite thing in the world, which is complaining about things. So today, I wanted to ask you guys to do a little complaining slash confessing on your end, and I thought it would be fun for me to just react, give my thoughts, maybe give my advice in certain contexts, and just hear what you guys have to say. I'm a salty gal, as we all know, and I hope I'm cultivating a salty audience.

So let's get some of that salt. I'm a deer baby. I'm ready for that salt lick.

First one we have is an unpopular opinion we got from one of our followers on Instagram. She says-- I assume woman, just based on the demographic breakdown of our audience, but who knows. Unpopular opinion, "DM because I'm a coward.

People who grew up rich are way stingier about splitting restaurant bills, et cetera, than the rest of us. I have a pair of friends who used to invite people over for a barbecue. Everyone would bring beers or a side to share, and then the next day those friends would Venmo charge us for their groceries after they invited us.

Insane. Whenever I hosted people, the woman in question would often ask if she could Venmo me for the food, and I always made a point of saying, 'Of course not! You're my guests.

That would be absurd.' I don't think she ever picked up on the message." OK, so, first and foremost-- That's the tackiest thing I've ever heard. That is so tacky, let me tell you. I'm going to obscure some details here, but I have a story.

And honestly, I don't even think, necessarily, if I had time to ask her before recording this video, that I would need to obscure, because I feel like she owns that experience. So, one of my cardinal rules in this life is that, when you are in moments like that, haggling with friends over a couple of dollars, nickel and diming friends, charging friends, is just the worst possible energy. And I feel like when you're hosting, when you invite people out, making them feel welcome, making sure you can afford whatever it is that you're doing, but not making them feel like they're on the hook financially, is such a great thing.

Treating people every now and again, and creating kind of a feedback loop in your friend groups of, sometimes I treat you, sometimes you treat me. Or when we bring stuff, it's all to share, and we're not nickel and diming each other. And you know, yes, obviously, there are times when you go out to dinner with a big group, and everyone's trying to split the bill evenly, even though you got basically nothing and other people ordered multiple courses.

Yes, there can be times when it's appropriate to maybe pipe up, and advocate for yourself a little bit. But when you're talking about friends who see each other regularly, who are regularly going to each other's houses, they're meeting up out there. A spirit of generosity, both giving and receiving, to me, is the way to go in life.

I do feel like you-- we really, as one of my favorite speakers on the subject of spiritual wellness likes to say, we are always in the process of creating our own realities. And I do feel that, if you create a reality of generosity and abundance, that is the reality you will live in. So, all of that is to say, I recently had a friend-- who shall not be named-- who, after I had done some stuff for her, helped her out with some stuff, and also have, many times, treated her to things, she was taking me out to a thank you dinner.

And, prior to going to the dinner, she was saying something along the lines of, because it was a fairly expensive place. And I was just like, I don't wanna-- I made the offer, because I don't like to always, necessarily, assume, especially on a more expensive place, that the whole thing is going to be covered by someone. So I was like, I know this is a bit of an expensive place.

So if I want to-- you know, I'm happy to cover X, Y, and Z. And I was expecting, honestly, for her to be like, absolutely not. You were so helpful.

And when you think about the dollar value of the help, versus the dinner, it totally is not even close, but regardless. And she was like, yeah, I mean, we'll definitely pay for some, but we don't want to end up with a huge bill. And it was just out of character.

I was like, "What is happening?" And I felt, at the time, I was like, well, that sucked. Like, that was not the vibe I was hoping to get. And I actually responded, and I was like, you know what, I would rather just pay for myself entirely.

That way we can all just be chill. I can order whatever I want, and not have to worry that I'm overstaying my welcome. And then, the day we were going out, she brought a thank you gift, with a card that was like, and I am absolutely paying for the whole meal, and I will not hear otherwise.

And she was like, I'm so sorry. She was like, I got a little bit in my feelings, because we've been spending a lot of money on something else. And I thought I was nickel and diming it for a second, that that was the better way to go, and I totally regret it.

I was being so cheap. And I never like to be like that. And I was like, you were being cheap, and I so appreciate this moment of recognition between the two of us.

And, honestly, we both had a great laugh about it had a fantastic meal, I treated her to a drink afterwards. So it was like, we kept the cycle going, a little bit. But all of that long winded story is to say that, that feeling between friends is the most important.

A feeling of, we are truly here to share with one another, and your experience is of-- the experience of being with you is of such high value to me that I'm not going to put a super high dollar amount on it. That being said, I totally agree with this person. And, by the way, it is a petty woman, after my own heart, who makes it a very belabored point to be like, of course you should not pay.

You are my guest, in my home, and guests don't pay when they're in other people's homes. Because that is the exact petty type of thing I would do. I would actually say, I'd go a step further into, say, no, absolutely not.

Like, I know that you often Venmo charge us for food that you served us at your home, but I just wouldn't do that. So I would go a step further, and just be a total bitch about it. But I respect that.

I love that. And I also agree that rich people are systematically the worst offenders with this. I often find it is the people who have $10 in their bank account who will spend $8 buying you a drink, or a coffee, or whatever.

And it is the people who are raised with money who will not treat people to things, who will Venmo charge people for everything, who will be terrible fucking tippers. Here's the thing. A great litmus test for how you're doing in life is, how good of a tipper are all the people around you?

Are your friends good tippers? Are they conscientious about that sort of thing? That's a big indicator.

Really do that gut check with yourself. And yes, sometimes people who were raised wealthy can overcome all of that, and they don't have that sense of entitlement about money, but they gotta be pretty fucking great people to get over it. So, if I were this person, I would just ditch that friend.

Sounds like she might have been good on her if she did. Unpopular opinion. "Looks-- i.e. beauty and weight-- matter more in being 'successful' than people think. Hard work is required for any task, but to even get the work or a foot in the door, society is just not ready to have that honest conversation yet." This I have so many feelings about, Jay Midwinter.

Because I feel like we have-- we, as a society, have gotten very thoughtful about having a lot of privileged conversations, and a lot of oppression conversations. I still think we have a long way to go when talking about class dynamics. And I do think a lot of our analysis along other axes, when it comes to privilege, or lack of privilege, really miss the class element and a financial economic analysis.

But, even on that front, I mean, we're definitely part of that conversation. I think we're getting a little bit more lucid about financial advantages and privilege. But I feel like we're really not, as this person says, even remotely ready to have a very "attractive privileged" conversation in a way that is honest.

And I genuinely don't know why that is, as much. I think part of it is because it's the most taboo, because there's really-- there's such strong judgments associated, and shame associated, with not being perceived as attractive, or not attractive enough. And it's so-- and it is subjective, right?

Things like gender, and race, and social class, I mean, there can be some gray areas there. But generally it's not a subjective thing. Like, it's something you are or you are not.

Attractiveness is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder. So you're also rendering a value judgment with it, and more importantly, what is worse than being like, I have pretty privilege. Like, no one wants to be leading that conversation.

No one wants to be, like, checking their "hot privilege." So, I do think that's a much harder conversation to have. But, as this person says, I think it's probably the most relevant conversation for a lot of social dynamics that we tend to put on many other things. Like, there are so many sociological studies out there that show that, for example-- I don't have the number off the top of my head.

But a very small amount of men are over, like, 6 foot 2, but a huge amount of executives, male executives, are over 6 foot 2. Like, the average attractiveness of executives, of people who rise to the top of industries-- and that's all different industries-- a physical attractiveness is just an enormous factor in people's success. Listen, I live in New York, in Morningside Heights.

I don't know, 7 and 1/2, depending on what kind of a look I got going. Soho, four. Hard four in Soho.

So, I'm in a very strange kind of environment, here in New York City. LA? I'm under the-- I'm like a negative two in LA.

Also, I talk too much for LA, for LA. But I go to like, Dubuque, I'm-- god. I'm a 10 and 1/2 in Dubuque.

I'm the flyest bitch in all of Iowa, let me tell you. Listen, I feel like the way you can tell is like, do you get a lot more engagement on Twitter or Instagram? I'm usually going off on Twitter, which is because that's where people with shit to say get validated, a little bit.

And on Instagram, I am not-- I'm not the level of attractive, where I can just be posting pictures of myself, every day, as many people do, and getting crazy amounts of engagement and building a following off of that. But in a lot of ways, I think that's good. I think, for most people, it's good to fall somewhere in the bell curve, because I think being too attractive can also have its downsides.

But all of that is to say, I'm very aware of the fact that hard work is a factor. Other privileges I have are a factor. But attractiveness is a massive factor.

And I think more even than just being super hot-- because I don't think people need to be like smoke shows to succeed-- and in fact, again, I think that can sometimes be a detractor. But people who are very physically unattractive, who are conventionally unattractive, who have serious impediments in that regard? That is a massive social and economic handicap, that we do not address, whatsoever.

And I do think that there is something to be said for, we overstate the extent to which hard work matters. We overstate to the extent to which being best at a given thing matters. Because, unfortunately, and I think the only sort of remote language we have to talk about this is, we talk a lot about confidence.

Feeling confident in yourself, good in your own skin. It is very, very difficult for people to do that, if they're not perceived as conventionally attractive, because the world around them is constantly saying, you shouldn't be confident in your own skin. So confidence, I think, in some ways can be like a PC proxy for attractive.

And yes, there are other things that make you confident, but just human biology, and human evolution, dictates that attractiveness is a huge part of that. I don't think we're ready to have that conversation. I'm not going to start that conversation.

I think anyone who does start that conversation is setting themselves up to be just eaten alive on the internet, but it is a conversation that we need to have. Because that shit is real, and we don't talk about it enough. "The discourse is annoying, but some of my peers do indeed need to chill with the coffee and cocktail purchases. $100 plus dollars a month on them and just paying the minimum on your credit cards? No." Yeah, I mean, that's probably true.

If someone could afford to be making better choices, and are frittering away a bunch of their money on coffee and cocktails, that does suck. But one thing I think we all need to just get a grip on when it comes to the finance discourse, and the money discourse, is worrying about what other people are doing with their money, especially people on a lower income level, is truly a fucking road to nowhere. And also, it's really none of our business.

Give people tools to make better choices, explain why certain choices are good or bad, but then, I mean, lead them to water. You're not going to dunk their head in it. And shaming people over what they spend their money on never works.

Shame is a terrible motivator. Unless we're talking about rich people, who love to make viral TikToks about how they go on their date night in a private jet, and just fucking throw the fact that they're destroying our economy and our ecology in everyone's faces. That, we should talk about.

Like, let's police rich people's financial choices. Let's police their purchases. I'm not worried about someone buying a happy hour cocktail.

Unpopular opinion. "Conscious consumerism is a lie. Boycotting a 'bad' brand and giving your money to a 'good' one might feel good, but it makes almost no difference when those brands answer to their investors instead of their customers. Buying stuff is never activism." And then someone responding says, "I 100% agree.

Like, really, is Old Navy gonna stop buying from factories that use child labor because I buy from Everlane instead? No. Though I do think we can make more conscious choices about things like buying secondhand versus buying new." I think this is a really good point.

And I think-- and we've talked about this on TFT, but I think more broadly framing things like political, social, economic, and ecological changes, in the context of personal choices-- I think, three problems. A, it really just doesn't scale, like these people are saying. Just, like, the economic incentives don't line up.

There's just not enough of a mass movement against it. And also, it's just very, very difficult to fight against a global supply chain, and economic incentives, that are completely slanted against making the better choices for these companies. So I do think it's like-- the amount of difference that it makes is so negligible.

But number two is that only a certain number of people can even afford to make those choices, right? Part of the reason why we can't get a mass boycott going against a lot of these different stores, or producers, is because most people cannot afford to be super discerning and only buy products from places that have incredibly high standards, and materials, and ecological practices. That is an incredibly privileged, luxury choice.

And luxury consumers making those choices, sure yes, on an individual level, it's better to do that. But that's really just more about your own, individual, lifestyle choices, and frankly, feeling better about yourself than it really is about making any kind of substantial change in how these systems operate. But number three, and I think the most important problem here, is that making the narrative about what we, individually, buy, and not focusing our attention on the companies themselves-- on the regulators, who make a lot of the processes under which these companies operate-- and organizing along those lines, organizing along political lines, organizing along real protest lines, I think that's the mistake.

I think putting the focus on what an individual choose to buy, or where, really takes the heat off of those who are actually responsible for this. The changes are either going to be regulatory, and they're going to be political, and they're going to be at the very top of how these systems operate, or they're really not going to change. Everyone should make the best decisions that they can make, within the context of their own lives, but thinking that those individual consumer choices are a replacement for real systemic change is a mistake, and plays right into the hands of people who benefit from all of these terrible systems.

Ooh, zesty. Unpopular opinion. "Minimalism is the best way towards financial stability. Side note-- I'm a minimalist and I credit being a minimalist with saving me from thousands of in credit card debt." That is not correct, to quote that [INAUDIBLE] fucking [?

Vine. ?] Listen, every time I've had the minimalism conversation with people, talk about moving goalposts. I've heard, like, 50 different definitions of what minimalism is. I don't really care what anyone does to get good with money, but I think the framing of any one thing is the way to get good with money is-- you're already off to a bad start.

But minimalism, like "conscious consumerism," or "clean eating," or any of these other things, it is a personal lifestyle choice. People under a certain income bracket cannot have-- they don't have the choice to be minimalist. They're minimalist by default, except that we don't code poor people's choices as minimalism.

We just code them as being poor. When I was growing up, and we didn't have money, we got new shit like once a year. That's pretty fucking minimalist.

But you don't consider it that way when it's just people not being able to afford to get new things more often. If you want to call it minimalism, call it minimalism. It doesn't matter what you call it.

It also doesn't matter if you aren't minimalist, and buy more things than you need in a specific category. It's OK. You all love talking about my throw pillows, and I love my throw pillows.

They're not very minimalist. I have more out of frame, believe me. And that's not minimalist, but it fits within, not only a budget, but it also fits within an intentional, mindful, relationship to how I spend money, and the lifestyle choices that I make.

I actually was doing a podcast yesterday that may be out already by the time this released, I don't know. But either way, I did a podcast where we had this very conversation. And one of the things that I said was that, I do feel that we need to replace the concept of minimalism with something like intentionality.

Because it doesn't matter what it looks like, it just matters that you are making these choices intentionally. You know why you're making them, you're getting a lot of value out of making them, and there's not that mindlessness. There's not that feeling like your money is controlling you.

But that can look like anything. Unpopular opinion. "Glossier is Target quality beauty products for three times the price and not worth it at all." As we know. As we know.

A girl after my own damn heart. It's "glossy-ay." [LAUGHS] Oh, it's "glossy-ay"? "Glossy-ay." Yeah, no. I can go on this for days, but let's just say I'm going to wrap this up real quick by just saying, "Target-quality beauty products" is 100% accurate, and I also just feel like, any time there's a huge marketing hype behind a specific brand-- it could be any brand, about anything-- be super discerning about that brand.

Because chances are, you are paying a super-high premium for probably not great quality products, because so much of their budget is going into their super-aggressive, and super high-quality, marketing that is bombarding you from every direction. You can say that about like 10 brands, Glossier being one of them. Also, as I said before, for people who already look good regardless, I don't need to see you make your brows a little bit more bushy.

You would look good no matter what. Unpopular opinion. "I don't get the hype of expensive 'vegan' leather-- a.k.a. plastic designer goods like jackets and bags. I get the intent, and there are probably less popular brands that actually care about ethics, sustainability, and quality, but for most well-known brands, it is just all marketing to make dollars." This is an interesting one.

I'm not versed enough on the nuances of leather production versus vegan leather production to really speak on this. I've read a few articles about it and, to that point, unless the company is really going super-hard into making vegan leather of a great, sustainable, eco-friendly quality, a lot of times you're literally just talking about plastic, which is not necessarily better-made. I've also heard a lot of debates about, is the leather that is used to make leather products from cows that have been slaughtered for food?

In which case, it would make sense. These hides are chilling no matter what we do, might as well make products out of them. I've heard other people say that they're not the same.

Maybe we need to get some discourse going down in the comments, because this is really not my wheelhouse. But I will say, as a general rule when it comes to this kind of thing, be super discerning as a consumer about whether or not something is being used as a marketing tool, or as a way to have a certain perception as a brand, versus, is this actually delivering on the promise? Whether it's sustainability, being cruelty-free, having great human practices.

Because let's also keep in mind that there are plenty of brands that maybe are not participating in animal cruelty, but have terrible working standards for the human beings that work for their company. So I do feel, like with this push for companies-- would this push of companies realizing that they can get some marketing juice going from appearing to be a very conscious brand? You're going to have a lot of them that are really sliding under the radar, without having great practices.

And when you look into the ecological impacts of leather, of real leather, versus not super well-made plastic, fake leather, I don't necessarily know that we're seeing a huge net benefit for the planet. But I think it's always just important to really do your research, and not be glassy-eyed over the marketing of any particular eco-friendly product. Just buy vintage or second hand leather.

I'm sorry-- That animal's dead. The animal's dead. You're not killing him again.

You're honoring him by getting some use out of him. I'm sorry, but I do feel like we need to have a slightly better relationship to this, which is, isn't the point that we waste less? Isn't the point that there's less suffering?

Isn't the point that we get more out of less? I am not hitting the wasp's nest of veganism with a baseball bat today, but I will just say, on the particular subject of leather versus vegan leather, I don't see how vintage leather is necessarily worse than a bag made out of like polyurethane. But anyway, so.

Unpopular opinion. "I think inheritance should go to the grandchildren instead of the children." Zesty. "Grandchildren could often use the money much more and it seems the money just goes from sitting in one old person's bank account for 30 years to sitting in another old person's bank account for 30 years." I mean, that's true, right? I mean, she ain't wrong. OK, I'll say, yes, and, to this.

We're going improv here. Yes, and the inheritance slash estate tax should be way, way, way higher than it is. I'm not opposed to grandma getting hit by a bus, and her grandchildren getting a few extra dollars in their bank account, sure.

But I also think one of the big-- I also think one of the biggest problems in our society is that so much wealth is inherited, and passed down from generation to generation. And, I'm sorry, but I just don't think it's very healthy for a society to function that way. Yes, you can have a little bit of money, but you should not be getting a serious inheritance from any dead person, because we live in a society.

Money is meant to be redistributed through the society, and I don't know. I have a real problem with inheritance in that regard, and how-- I think most Americans would feel more this way if they understood the extent to which the majority of wealth in this country is inherited, and to what extent the predictor of someone's financial health is whatever their parents and grandparents were like in terms of money. Inheritance, and passing money down from generation to generation, basically decides the class stratification of this country.

And I think that in and of itself is wrong, because listen. I used to work at a yacht club, as we all know. The amount of snot-nosed kids I saw, and teenagers at that place, every fucking weekend, there was like a bar mitzvah that Daddy Yankee was playing at.

Or there was like a wedding, with 500 guests, and anything-- everything was top shelf liquor, and all the bridesmaids were like Vivienne Westwood and shit. Those people weren't good. Their children-- those people were not more deserving of wealth than anyone else.

Those children, who have never known a hard day's work in their life, were not more deserving of that money than someone who works a minimum-wage job, or the frickin' domestic and service workers who make their life possible on a day to day basis. When you see inherited wealth like that, super generational wealth like that, up close, you're just like, "Blah!" You are ready to bring on the fucking revolution. Let me tell you that much.

This is completely money-unrelated, but it's kind of funny and spicy for no reason, so I'm just going to include it. Jackie says, "Unpopular opinion, but almost every movie is better than the book, except in a handful of cases." I agree with that. Wow.

We have probably the most book-loving person on the TFT team here behind the camera, who says she agrees. Tell us more. I mean, I guess I don't really agree with that.

But I agree with that, in the case of a few, very specific movies that I can think of, that I enjoyed so much better than the book. For instance, Atonement. I think I mostly agree that, I don't think one is necessarily better, but I think people get really up their own asses about being a reader, and some people really don't absorb information well, reading, and we value that as a society, like, saying they're smarter and stuff.

My mom is a very smart person, but she just has never enjoyed reading, and I don't think that that makes her less smart. I agree with that. I'm in the middle of the spectrum, I'm not a voracious reader, as they love to say-- they love that word-- but I mean, I read a good amount, I think, probably, statistically.

Also like a lot more work goes into making a movie. No offense to writers. [LAUGHS] That's true. I think there are a rare-- There's a rare, like, handful of books where you really, like-- something truly gets lost on the screen.

Also a bad film adaptation, you can't do anything about that. For example, Dune is notoriously difficult to make into a good movie. I think there are books like, that have-- or like The Phantom Tollbooth is my favorite movie-- or my favorite book, rather, from . childhood.

The film adaptation that they made in the '60s is completely unwatchable, but also, I think there's just so much about that book that is just the magic of reading, and the magic of wordplay, and all these things that-- all these things that you just can't-- you just, you lose something in the silver screen. But I think that's probably true. I just think people who are really up in their-- up in their business about, like, I read books!

It's like, OK, grow up. Last one is, unpopular money opinion. "It is only a budget. Life is bigger than a budget sometimes and while you need to be responsible, that doesn't always mean staying on budget." I agree with that.

Yeah. I mean, once you're on a budget for long enough, the idea is, I always compare living on a good budget to getting good eating habits. If you're trying to change your eating habits because you're not eating great, for the first couple of months, probably, it's going to be very much like you have to plan out your food, and you have to pay attention, and you have to read labels, and you have to get used to what it feels like to eat well.

And it's like a real effort, and that's why people like to use simplification systems to do it. And I think a budget is similar. You need to get really used to the feeling of spending within your means, and you have to get used to the feeling of prioritizing certain things over others.

And I think that that's really important. But I also think that, once you get into the groove of it, and you just make those good habits innate, you're auto-paying bills, and you're automating your savings, and you're looking at your accounts very frequently, and you're analyzing your purchases on a regular basis. The actual budget, in terms of, I spend this much on this, and this much on this, becomes less and less important, because you get kind of like an innate understanding of how your money flows in your life, and the bigger goal just becomes about making sure that you're hitting your savings and investment goals, and you can become a lot more flexible with what you do with the rest.

And I think that should be the goal, that money-- you think about money a lot, for a short amount of time, so that, in general, you don't have to think about it much going forward. I think that's the best way to go about it. But those are just my-- popular? maybe?

Opinions. But it was nice hearing some of your unpopular ones. And as always, guys, thank you for tuning in, and do not forget to hit the subscribe button, and the join button, and to come back every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for new and awesome videos Goodbye.