How to Save Your First $100K (Best Of)

0:00Tori Dunlap:Hi, financial feminists. I hope you're having a lovely holiday so far and spending it with loved ones and you're eating lots of great food and just enjoying the holidays. This week and next, we are bringing you our most popular episodes of 2025. And today we're rewinding it all the way back to January of this past year. But this is relevant for every single new year. This is one of our most downloaded episodes, and it is so helpful for you getting your first 100K in 2026. Step-by-step guidance around how to save, invest, earn your first 100K into this year. So let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.

0:39Tori Dunlap:This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. When my partner was launching his business last year, I was like, great, you need a Squarespace website. That was the first thing we did was sign up for Squarespace. and we signed up on Friday using my code. And by Monday, he had a brand new website and was already making money. Yes, really. He used their cutting edge design tools to design a perfectly navigable website. That's a word. And the ability to offer services right within Squarespace. So he was not using a third-party platform. And with the analytics tools in the backend, we could see exactly where people were coming from and where they might be getting stopped.

1:13Tori Dunlap:Head on over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch your brand new website, use offer code FFpod to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. So good, so good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack Stores now and up to 60 % off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame, and Free People. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you wreck.

2:05Tori Dunlap:Hello, financial feminists. It's 2025. I'm both excited and nervous. And I think that's how a lot of us feel. I am both ready and raring to go. And also, well, we'll fucking see. We're going to fucking see what this year holds. So I'm just excited to see you. As we've talked about many a time since November, community and women-focused spaces are so important and getting financially educated and taking our financial education seriously so that we have options and choices and power is incredibly important more than ever right now. And so you're in the right place. You're in the right place to do that.

2:52Tori Dunlap:If you're an oldie but a goodie, welcome back. And if you're new, my name is Tori. I am the founder of Her First 100K, which is a money and career platform for women. I believe I was put on this earth to fight for your financial rights. My work has been featured on Good Morning America, The New York Times, BBC. I've spoken at the UN. I've spoken at Microsoft and Shopify and Forbes 30 Under 30. And we've helped 5 million women save money, pay off debt, start investing, start businesses, and feel financially confident. I have a New York Times bestselling book, also by the same name, Financial Feminist.

3:25Tori Dunlap:And this podcast you're listening to right now is the number one money podcast for women in the world. So wherever you're listening, welcome. Happy 2025 with the biggest asterisks of meh. And I'm just really excited to see you. This episode is going to be some actionable steps that you can use to get your first 100K in 2025. If you are new to this show, you might not know that her first 100K, which is the company I founded and that produces this podcast, was a combination of me trying to progress towards my own 100K goal while also helping other women achieve theirs. So my first 100K was me attempting to save$100 ,000 at the age of 25.

4:09Tori Dunlap:I am 30 now. I'll bury the lead for you. I did it. I successfully achieved that goal. I saved my first 100K at 25. And we have an entire other episode that talks in specifics about how I did that. But a lot of what we're going to talk about today is the ways that I saved my first 100K, but also the ways that we have helped literally tens of thousands of other women also get their first 100K too. When I named the company Her First 100K, we did a couple of towards Women Plus. The second thing is that it's first. It's not your first million. It's not your first billion. It's your first 100K, right?

4:55Tori Dunlap:It is the first big, huge milestone when it comes to building long-term wealth. And I also didn't name the company her first 100K saved or her first 100K earned because your first 100K is whatever you want it to be. Your first 100K debt paid off. your first$100 ,000 of your net worth, your first$100 ,000 saved, your first$100 ,000 invested, your first$100 ,000 salary. So whatever your$100 ,000 goal is, that's where we're going to start. That's my first piece of actionable advice for you is decide what that first$100 ,000 is going to be for you. Is that$100 ,000 a debt paid off? Is that$100 ,000 net worth?

5:37Tori Dunlap:That one is probably the next most achievable or probably the most achievable. Maybe it's 100K saved. Maybe it's 100K earned. Maybe you're trying to negotiate your salary and earn more money this year. So first of all, decide what that first 100K goal is going to be. And we know we have a year to do it, right? This episode is titled Your First 100K in 2025. So her first 100K, the company was titled that way to give you some flexibility and to remind you that while well, your first 100K is a really fucking big goal. It is also the best tool that you have, the first huge milestone marker in terms of building long-term wealth.

6:16Tori Dunlap:And I want it to be adaptable to your life. Personal finance is personal. So let's talk about how we can actually achieve whatever 100K goal you have this year. The first thing to understand is that with that 100K, you're also really thinking about what you want your life to look like. We've spoken many times on this show that personal finance is not really about math. It's not really about numbers. It's not how good you are at math, right? It is about what you want out of life and your psychology and how you use money as a tool in order to build the life that you want. So I need you to do an audit of your life and your kind of bigger life goals that maybe don't have anything to do with money on the surface.

7:02Tori Dunlap:Do you want to be able to purchase a home eventually? Maybe not even this year, but in the next couple years. Maybe you want to retire early. Maybe you don't want to work until you're 65 plus. Maybe you want to move to a new city. Maybe you want to start a business. These are the kinds of big life events where money can be used as a tool in order to achieve them. So your big goals help determine which$100K is most advantageous for you. So when we're thinking about setting that$100K goal, again, net worth, debt paid off, saved, earned, we want to think about what other life goals, big life goals am I thinking about?

7:44Tori Dunlap:And how can I use that$100K goal in order to fuel my life goals? For me, my first$100K, the$100K I saved at$25, that was the permission slip I needed to quit corporate and go all in on my business full time. And the reason I think one of the biggest reasons my 100k happened, my 100k goal was achieved was because I gave it emotional weight. It wasn't just seeing $100 ,000 in my bank account, although that was fucking dope. It was more about how I could make sure that I was saving that$100 ,000 for a particular reason. I could like taste how good it felt to be a full-time entrepreneur. I could taste how good it felt to not have to work for somebody I didn't respect.

8:31Tori Dunlap:And that was the thing that motivated me. So when you're determining what that 100K goal is going to be, right, and hopefully you already have some idea, you can ground it and really decide and focus on that 100K based on the other things you're trying to do in your life, based on your other big life goals and the other things you're trying to achieve.

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10:44Tori Dunlap:our first step towards any sort of financial goal including your first 100k is saving an emergency fund an emergency fund should be at least three months of living expenses in a high yield savings account now even if you have debt even if you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt we are saving the emergency fund first why well first of all i don't want you going into debt trying to pay for an emergency because one inevitably happens, right? You get laid off, your dog gets sick, you have a home repair. All of these things inevitably happen, and they also seem to happen when you don't have that emergency fund set up.

11:26Tori Dunlap:So we're going to set the emergency fund first to be able to cover ourselves for emergencies, and so we don't have to go into either more debt or debt at all to try to pay for it. Two, we really prioritize mental health at her first 100K. We really prioritize making sure that you are mentally well and that your mental health is good. And let me tell you, there's something so nice about laying your head on the pillow at night and knowing that you're financially covered should something happen. You're not as stressed about money. You're not as anxious because you are okay. You know that you can get through whatever emergency comes your way.

12:01Tori Dunlap:And finally, the really important one for everyone listening. You need a fuck-off fund. You need enough money to leave a situation that feels unsafe, that feels toxic, that doesn't feel healthy anymore. Whether that is a relationship or a job or a shitty apartment, you need enough money to get out of bad situations. As we know, money equals options. It equals choices and flexibility. And anytime, but especially right now, I need you to have enough money to make choices that benefit you, that make choices that allow you to live a healthy, safe, comfortable life. So we save that emergency fund first to prioritize our own safety, our own security, and to make sure that we're not going into debt to try to pay for that emergency.

12:54Tori Dunlap:Now, three months is the goal here. Three months of living expenses in that high yield savings account. And if you don't have a high yield savings account, that is the first thing that you can do to really immediately better fit your money that take no additional effort. I signed up for my high yield savings account and it's the one I recommend to you. It took me less than 10 minutes and I was immediately making more money because a high yield savings account is just like an everyday savings account, except it's earning you more in interest. So there's a link down below to the one we recommend.

13:25Tori Dunlap:You can also go to herfirst100k.com slash tools to find the one that we like. So three months is a great place to start building that emergency fund. But if we can also get it up to six, if you already have that three-month emergency fund, you've been listening to me for a while, maybe you have saved that three months of living expenses, building to six is not a bad idea, especially with Trump and the whole unknown of it all for these next couple years. So three months of living expenses is your starter goal here. Our second step after that emergency fund, we want to avoid debt, especially credit card debt at all costs.

14:05Tori Dunlap:But debt is also a way that we leverage our lives, is a way that we up-level our lives, right? And I am not the personal finance expert, Dave Ramsey, who's going to tell you that debt is bad, that all debt is bad, and that you are a shitty person if you took on debt. And shame, shame, shame. Absolutely not. We don't do shame here at Her First 100K. We don't do shame on the Financial Feminist Podcast, ever. We want to avoid credit card debt, though, if we can, just because it is really costly. It's really expensive, and it's really hard to get out of. But if you do have credit card debt, that's okay.

14:37Tori Dunlap:We now want to focus on paying that credit card debt off. Credit card debt is anywhere from 15 % to 30 % interest. That is really expensive. It also compounds daily, which means that the interest gets worse every single day. So we prioritize that emergency fund first. And then once that emergency fund is done, we work to pay off our credit card debt. We have an entire episode about how to pay off credit card debt in more detail. It is the Financial Foundation episode number four. We're paying off that credit card debt next because it's most expensive. Please, please, please prioritize paying off your debt and also staying out of debt if you can while you're paying that off.

15:22Tori Dunlap:It's very hard to dig yourself out of a hole if you have sand that keeps falling into. The reason both of these steps are so powerful, the paying off debt but also saving that emergency fund, is because in our goal, our$100K goal, getting to that$100K goal, if you are in expensive debt, a portion of your money every single month is going to paying that debt off. And it's not going to saving money, right? Or it's not going to paying off other kinds of debt, or it's not going to your high yield savings account to earn you more money. And it's also getting worse because every day you're in debt, your interest rate makes your debt higher.

16:04Tori Dunlap:And the next day, your interest rate makes your debt even higher because it's counting from the interest yesterday too, right? It's a very slippery slope. So if we can pay off our credit card debt, we can get to our$100K goal much faster. And if we have that emergency fund, we've given ourselves a leg up to prevent any sort of slippage later, right? Going into mores at trying to pay for an emergency and getting further away from our$100K goal. But also, if you've chosen a goal like net worth or savings, well, cool. Your emergency fund counts towards that. It counts towards that 100K goal. So this is the power of those first two steps of making sure you're financially secure with your emergency fund, making sure that you have less to stress about when it comes to money with that emergency fund, and then paying off your credit card debt allows you to level up your life because you get a huge chunk of your money back.

16:59Tori Dunlap:When it comes to paying off debt, I always recommend prioritizing the debt with the highest interest rate. So paying that debt off first. So if you have two credit cards with debt on them, and one is 25 % interest and one is 18 % interest, work to pay off the one with 25 % interest because it's costing you the most. I see a lot of people try to split their energy between those two. They split their energy between the 25 % credit card and the 18 % credit card. And what happens is you're trying to do too many things at once, right? It's a Ron Swanson thing. I need you to whole ass one thing rather than half-assing two things.

17:35Tori Dunlap:So those are our first two steps, the emergency fund and then paying off our credit cards. Now, this is where a lot of people, after those two steps, start having some questions. So one of my favorite hacks to getting to your first 100K quicker, it's easy to look at that$100 ,000 goal and think, holy fuck, that's a huge mountain. How am I going to climb nothing, right? And to think to yourself, well, I have to take dollar bills and count them out to get to$100 ,000. That is the money I actually have to save myself. That's going to take me a really long time. This is my favorite thing about a lot of resources that are at our disposal that so many people don't take advantage of.

18:20Tori Dunlap:There are accounts that allow your money to make money. There are so many places where you can let your money work as hard, if not harder, than you do to be able to earn you more money by you doing literally nothing at all. You're not like getting a second job. You're not like taking on a side hustle. You are allowing the money you already have to work harder for you to get you to that 100K goal faster. This is the reason that I was able to save it as quickly as I did. As someone who graduated college technically at 21, but then got my first job at 22, and then had my first 100K at 25. So little over three years.

19:07Tori Dunlap:This is why I was able to get there so quickly, is because I used the resources at my disposal to not only save the money I was earning myself, but to allow my money to work harder for me. So there are accounts that allow compound interest to do some of the heavy lifting for you, right? I was talking about compound interest when it comes to debt before and about how damaging it is because your interest earns interest earns interest, and that is money you now owe. But imagine if that same principle was applied in a way that benefits you, where your interest earns interest, earns interest, earns interest, right?

19:44Tori Dunlap:That is the power of bank accounts, especially high yield savings accounts. It's the power of investing accounts. These are the types of accounts that we want to be putting our money into in order to better our money, just period, but also to get to our$100 ,000 goal or to get to any financial goal we have. So this is why when we talk about emergency funds, this is why I harp on it so much. if you've been following me for a while, I'm sorry. Yes, take a shot every time I say high yield savings account and you're passed out drunk on the floor. I know. But high yield savings accounts are offering you 10, 20, 30 times your national interest rate at your everyday bank.

20:27Tori Dunlap:So I'm going to call out banks by name. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, your local bank that you had a bank account when your dad or your mom opened the one when you were 14 and you haven't moved your money. These are the bank accounts that are earning you. I'm not exaggerating. Pennies in interest. Pennies. So if you are still banking with these banks, especially as like where your emergency fund is, you are losing money. So we're going to take the money for our emergency fund. We're going to take the money for our other savings goals and put it in what's called a high yield savings account instead.

21:06Tori Dunlap:We see high yield savings accounts with 3%, 4 % interest as opposed to like 0.3 % or less, which is the national average. So we're using the power of high-yield savings accounts to help us get to our 100K goal faster. This is what I did. You use the power of your investing accounts like a 401K, which is a employer-sponsored retirement program, your IRA, which is an individual retirement account. These are both investing accounts. Using the power of those investing accounts to invest, to put money in the stock market where you can earn 7 % to 10 % interest on average year over year, that's the other reason how I was able to get to my 100K so quickly.

21:51Tori Dunlap:I wasn't just putting money into a checking account. I wasn't putting$100 ,000 under a mattress. I was putting it in these types of accounts that allowed me to grow my money and allowed me to make money on my money in a way that didn't allow me or didn't force me to do any more work. So one of my biggest tips for you, beyond what to do in what order, beyond setting goals, is use the tools at your disposal to make your life easier.

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23:01Tori Dunlap:Built points have also been ranked by top publications as the industry's most valuable point currency. Your housing payment is already your biggest expense. Make it your most rewarding. Find the car that fits your lifestyle and apply today at joinbuilt.com slash sfpod. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash F-F-Pod. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply. Subject to approval and eligibility, built cards are issued by Column N.A., member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. We do quarterly leadership retreats at Her First 100K where we lock in for full days of strategy.

23:38Tori Dunlap:And listen, if you've ever been in an eight-hour meeting about the future of your business, you already know you're not remembering everything. Like, you think you are? You're not. And the frustrating part is the best, most important decisions, they happen in those rooms. I used to walk out feeling good and then two days later be like, wait, what did we actually decide? So I stopped relying on my brain alone. Now I use the Plod Note Pin S. It clips on and with one press captures everything, of course, with everyone's consent. And afterward, I don't have to piece things together. I get a clean breakdown of what actually mattered, what we decided and what happens next.

24:12Tori Dunlap:And if I need to find something later, I don't have to scroll through anything. I just ask a question and it pulls the exact answer in seconds. Or I can send the full summary to my team so we're all working from the same page. No more 10 p.m. Slack messages like, wait, are we aligned on this? Because now we actually are. And honestly, it's the difference between sitting in on a conversation and actually being present in it. It's got 98 % transcription accuracy and works in person, over the phone, and on Zoom. Go to plaud.ai and use code FFPOD for 10 % off. That's P-L-A-U-D dot A-I slash FFPOD.

24:51Tori Dunlap:I think we often believe that we get like a gold star for making personal finance harder than it has to be. Like I do this shit all the time. Well, I don't anymore because I realized this was so harmful. I thought I should just remember things. I don't, I don't, Kristen, have you ever experienced this where I'm just like, oh, I should remember to do that thing tomorrow and I'm not going to write it down. And then I wouldn't remember. And then I would feel like shit anyway. Like it was like a weird pride thing of like, oh, I should remember to do this. So I'm not going to write it down. It's the same thing with money where like you think, oh, I will just white knuckle my way through personal finance and I'm going to make this harder than it has to be.

25:30Tori Dunlap:So then I feel like I've earned it. No, use the resources at your disposal. Use the resources at your disposal. Use these accounts. Listen to this podcast. We have another dozen episodes about investing and about saving. We'll link them down below. Use the tools at your disposal to make your life easier, to get yourself to your goals quicker. My final tip for you, automate everything you possibly can. This is one of the crucial steps I took to saving my own$100K and the step that I see so many people in our community take that transforms everything about their money. When we're talking about saving that emergency fund, when we're talking about investing, set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account.