Best Quotes from Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap with Page Numbers

"If you don’t name your emotions and feel them, they will eat you alive."

"Money is psychological."

"Your thoughts, feelings, and mind-set dictate your daily relationship with money."

"Learning anything takes practice, time, and vulnerability. It’s scary to do something for the first time, knowing you’re going to be bad at it."

"Feeling unsure and uncertain is the foundation of courage."

"Once we can start to unpack our money memories, our inherent biases, and the narratives we’ve been believing, we can begin to release that shame and judgment."

"You are not alone. Perfection does not exist, and conformity is not an admirable goal. You deserve to be seen, supported, and connected while you outgrow your lack of knowledge and learn from your mistakes."

"With financial education and knowledge about why shame is happening, that shame turns to anger at the unjust systems that cause it in the first place. Once we turn shame into anger, we can turn anger into action."

"You’ll recognize it as that familiar 'I’m not enough' or 'I’m too much' feeling—an excruciating sense of unworthiness, the painful twinge of feeling unwanted or being unacceptable."

"Money, and the choices it’s provided, has brought me so much joy. And even more powerfully, it’s given me confidence."

“The reason you’re not rich has nothing to do with the lattes.”

“Spending money, whether on wants or needs, is not a bad thing.”

“The classic question ‘Are you a saver or a spender?’ is meant to make savers feel good and spenders feel ashamed—when, in fact, that question is bullshit.”

“Using money as a powerful tool to build a life we love means spending money.”

“If you reflected thoughtfully on your finances and the things your money makes available to you and said, ‘I value X more than any other alternative,’ then awesome!”

“We want your money to have the greatest return on investment—in both saving and spending.”

“You worked fucking hard for your money. I don’t want your hard-earned cash going to shit that you barely remember buying.”

“When you do your diary, take it seriously. When you take the time to understand who you are financially, you’re set up for success in the future.”

“You don’t have to stop spending money. You just need to stop spending money on shit you don’t care about.”

“You’re picking the things that you really love and then allowing yourself to spend more freely in those categories.”

"The Ostrich Effect is burying your head in the sand and pretending that your problems don’t exist."

"It can’t get better unless you do something about it."

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."

"Learning to see [financial responsibility] as freedom was one of the most powerful, exciting transformations of my entire life."

"It’s impossible to want to make the cake unless you know why you’re baking it in the first place."

"Friend’s birthday? Graduation? ‘Happy divorce! (We never liked him anyway!)’?"

"The key to managing your money is working to control it, rather than having it control you."

"Saving your first $1K is a huge accomplishment and much better than having nothing in savings."

"Budgeting does not mean deprivation. It doesn’t mean hating your life. Instead, it’s actually freeing."

"Automating my savings was the first step I took to having my $100K saved at age twenty-five."

"Your self-worth has nothing to do with your net worth."

"Most people take on debt because they need to, and it’s no one’s place to shame you for it."

"Having debt doesn’t mean you should live with constant sacrifice, punishment, or misery."

"Debt isn’t called debt when it’s held by rich people—it’s called leverage."

"Being debt free is an act of rebellion."

"You can pay off your debt. Not only is becoming debt free a massive personal accomplishment, but also it’s yet another way we fight patriarchal, bullshit systems."

"Avoiding debt at all costs is just not realistic. Nor is it necessarily good for you."

"Paying down your debt is about being proactive and taking your power back."

"Knowledge is power. When we take out a loan without knowing how it works or what it means, the lender has power over our money."

"Credit cards are a tool. You can handle a credit card. Let me repeat that: You. Can. Handle. A. Credit. Card."

We talk about the pay gap a lot (as we should), but what we don’t talk about as much is the investing gap.

The investing gap leads to a wealth gap, costing us not only millions over the course of our lifetimes but also limiting our options and lifestyle choices.

Women over sixty-five are more likely to be living in poverty than men.

Even when women are financially able to invest, there’s still an overall pattern of women avoiding investing.

Every single woman I’ve advised to start investing told me the reason she hadn’t before was fear.

Smart investing is consistent, stable, and sustained over a long period of time.

Investing for the long term—twenty or more years—raises your prospects of seeing a return on your investment to 100 percent.

The key is to ride the wave and trust that time will take care of you.

You literally cannot afford to not invest.

Investing is the thing that makes you rich. You can just get started with a few hundred dollars—every little bit counts.

"Everyone’s dream job and career trajectory are unique, and I can’t necessarily tell you what yours can or should look like."

"You can’t begin to build your savings, pay off debt, or invest unless you’re making money."

"Women made up the majority of COVID-related job losses, and women are penalized professionally and financially if they need to provide care to family members."

"Hustle culture tells you that you are not inherently worthy, that the only measure of your worth is your work."

"We’ve spent so long believing that if we just work harder and break more glass ceilings, our financial and personal lives will all fall into place, but that’s not the reality."

"You deserve to be compensated fairly, regardless of where you work."

"Knowing how to negotiate also helped me set boundaries."

"You should be very wary of underpricing yourself for two reasons: We pay a price that’s commensurate with what we deem to be valuable."

"Your asking for a raise or quitting a job or starting a side hustle is a blip on your life’s radar—what a relief, right?—and might actually be the start of something incredible."

"I don’t want you to work so hard that you burn out or come to equate your income or productivity with your self-worth."

"Financial feminism works only if you take care of yourself first."

"You can’t pour from an empty cup."

"I promise that sacrificing your own needs for someone else’s will cause bitterness and stress."

"True self-care... is the hard shit: the habits that must be repeated consistently over time in order to see change."

"It’s about maintenance."

"…getting good with money is a lifelong practice that requires patience and a deep amount of grace for yourself."

"When we make a commitment to bettering our own financial lives— as both a service to ourselves and to others— we start changing the equation."

"The narrative that 'talking about money is gauche' is a story perpetuated by the patriarchy to keep us underpaid and overworked."

"A financial education is a woman’s best form of protest."

"When we’re financially stable, we then get to use our money as a force for change."