Lazy Girl Wealth: Make Money While You Sleep (Bonus)

0:00If you've ever dreamt about making money while taking a nap, amazing. You're about to unlock the laziest form of passive income. Hi, I'm Tori. I am a multimillionaire. I'm a money expert. I've helped over 5 million women be better with money. And on today's episode of Financial Feminist, we are diving in to maybe a brand new series, if this is something that you like, called The Lazy Girl's Guide to Building Wealth. Today, we are talking about the easiest thing you can do to start earning passive income and make real money without any additional skills, without taking on any more hours and without any stress.

0:31And if you're already like, this team's too good to be true. I'm going to debunk that as well. If you want more videos like this, you can feel free to subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, amazing. We'll see you there. And if you're listening on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple, we would love for you to stick around. We have so many amazing episodes that can help you be better with money this year.

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1:26Tiffany Aliche:We've loved Squarespace and they were their first investment we ever made in our business. And if you need a website, you need Squarespace. Head on over to squarespace.com slash FFPod for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use FFPod to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. We do quarterly leadership retreats at Her First 100K where we lock in for full days of strategy. 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. You think you are, you're not. And the frustrating part is the best, most important decisions, they happen in those rooms.

2:00Tiffany Aliche: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. 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.

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3:06So we're all busy. We are all overwhelmed. We all want our money to work as hard as we do, But the reality is that most ways of making money are labor, going out and taking on more hours, getting a new job, finding that side hustle. But today's episode is not about doing more. It's actually about doing less. We're talking today about making your existing money work harder for you. So let's talk about the problem that no one else is discussing, which is that your checking account is quietly killing you. For those of you who don't know, your checking account is probably where you get your payments from work, where your payroll gets processed, right?

3:48Where you get your money and then maybe where your bills are getting taken out of. The thing about checking accounts is they're meant to be an account with a lot of transactions, okay? The money's coming in, the money's going out, right? Maybe you're getting paid twice a month or you're adding your tips there and then you have your credit card statement getting taken out of there and maybe your health care or maybe your rent or your mortgage payment. There is many transactions happening in a month, sometimes maybe even like a dozen or more transactions. So the idea with the checking account is it's just supposed to be there to move money in or out.

4:25So therefore, your checking account makes you almost nothing in interest. Interest is what banks are paying for you to keep your money there. That is their way of doing business, of getting customers, of making sure that they're acquiring people to be part of that bank, right? But the thing with checking accounts is that because it is this transactional in and out kind of account, you are making very, very little money, almost zero when you keep your money there. Let me give you a concrete example. If you have$5 ,000 in a checking account, on average, you are making$1 to$2 a year. I'm going to say that again.

5:08$5 ,000 in a checking account is going to make you maybe$1 to$2 a year in interest. That is so little money. It's it's basically not worth doing, right? It's like, it is not meant for savings. It is not meant for building wealth. It is, again, just there to be about transactions. However,$5 ,000 in what's called a high-yield savings account could earn hundreds depending on rates. Maybe even if you have more money in there, thousands of dollars a year. So let's talk about what high yield savings accounts are. If you have been following me for a while on another platform, if you've been subscribed here on YouTube or your podcast platform for a while, you know that at this point I have HISA tattooed on my forehead.

6:00So a high yield savings account, a HISA, is just like an everyday savings account. So it is just like that savings account that you went in with your dad and opened when you were 17. It's just like your savings account at your bank down the street, except it's earning you way more interest. And it is a savings account. It's not a checking account. The national average savings account is higher than that checking account. It's about 0.3 % interest, which again is better than that$1 to$2 a year, but is still very, very little money. As of this recording, on average, a high-yield savings account interest is 3 % to 4 % interest.

6:40So we've gone from 0.3 % to 3 % to 4 % on average. That's a massive jump for you doing no work. A high-yield savings account is not an investment account. It is not in the stock market. It is not something where you can lose your money. It is not invested in stocks. It is not risky because, again, you are not subjecting yourself to the whims of the stock market. And it is also FDIC insured up to$250 ,000. So if you have$249 ,999, your money is safe, guaranteed. Okay? So this is not a risky way to earn money. If you were the person who clicked on this video and you thought it was going to be all of the rest of the bros being like, oh yeah, we can day trade and this is the way you get passive income and like make a bunch of money.

7:40It isn't that because that's a scam. And also because that is inherently extremely risky. This is the easiest thing you can do to immediately make more money that involves no additional work, no additional risk for the money that you're already putting in a savings account. And high yield savings account is also not a place though for your daily spending. Okay. That is your checking account. Your checking account serves that purpose. And the money that's in your checking account should just be your monthly expenses. So it should be one month of expenses and no more money. Look me in the eye, okay?

8:20I know so many women out there, our 5 million women, so many of them come to me and they're like, but I get nervous about money and so I have six months of my living expenses and a checking account. No, it needs to be in a high-yield savings account because it needs to earn more money. And the only difference difference between a checking account and a high yield savings account. There's no difference in security. There's no difference in the risk. The only difference is that you're earning shit in your checking account. You could be earning so much more money in a HISA. If I've already convinced you that a high yield savings account is great, you don't need more information, cool.

8:52We have done all the research for you. We have our partner recommendation at herfirst100k.com slash ffpod. Our recommendation also has a 4.9 out of 5 star rating at NerdWallet. So other people love this account too. It has no fees, no minimums. You can take your money out at any time. Again, that's at herfirst100k.com slash ffpod. So we were talking about lazy girl wealth, okay? The great thing about a Heisa is that once you set it up, it just runs itself. So my favorite hack to get the most out of a high yield savings account is to set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account.

9:30So maybe it's every time you get paid. You get paid twice a month. Every time you get paid, you're going to say, okay, I want $100 or$200 or whatever that amount of money is. It can just be$20 right now. I'm going to set up that automatic transfer to happen that goes from my checking account to my savings account. I want to reinforce that this actually works. Okay. We have so many people who have written into me, who have DM'd us, who have emailed us, absolutely shocked that they earned$20 a month or$50 a month or something other than$1 to$2 a year for literally doing nothing. And I know what you're thinking.

10:07Okay,$20 a month doesn't sound like much. If you found a$20 bill on the ground every single month, would you be excited about that? You'd have$120 extra for doing nothing, for literally doing nothing. There's no labor. There's no side hustle. There's no nothing here. You're just switching bank accounts. That's it. Once you can see that interest hit, your brain also changes. This is not just about the money. It's not just about making more an interest. It's about the idea that I have a financial win under my belt now. Like, I am making progress. I am doing something that concretely betters my money that I can see because the interest hits every month.

10:46Fun fact, it's not a yearly thing. You get free money every single month that you have contributed to that high-yield savings account. So you start thinking, oh, I can do this. I can progress in my debt payoff goals. I can progress in saving more money. It is that quick hit of dopamine that your brain needs to get your brain on board for your financial goals, right? It is starting to rewire and get that immediate quick win so that you can keep progressing towards those bigger financial goals. Here's what to keep in your high yield savings account. An emergency fund, that is where your emergency fund should live.

11:25No exceptions. We all need an emergency fund. Every single person watching this video, every single person listening to this episode, you need a high-yield savings account because you need an emergency fund. So your emergency fund lives in a HISA and any short-term savings, okay? So maybe you're saving for a vacation next year. Maybe you're getting married. Maybe you're trying to buy a new car. Maybe you're moving. Maybe you're even trying to buy a house in a few years. Your money should go in a HISA. Here's what to not keep in a HISA. Your rent money. Absolutely not. Your money for your groceries next week.

11:59Anything that is a monthly expense needs to keep living in that checking account because, again, it's a transaction. This money's coming in. This money's coming out. Your retirement account savings should also not be in a high-yield savings account. That needs to be in an investment account. That needs to be in something like a 401k or a Roth IRA. right. Another common myth I hear is that people are so nervous to set up a high yield savings account because they get it in their head that this is complicated. Okay? It is not complicated at all. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to pick a reputable high yield savings account.

12:33You could spend two plus hours researching high yield savings accounts, but I've already done the research for you. You can go to herfirst100k.com slash FFpod and we have the one we recommend linked there. Again, herfirst100k.com slash FFpod. This actual like opening of the account should take you like less than 10 minutes. You're just going to answer a few questions. You're going to get it open. Everything's going to be good. The second thing you're going to do, and this is really important. You can't just open the account. Open the account doesn't get you anything, right? There's no money in there yet.

13:02So number two is you're going to link your checking account. Whatever checking account you're using right now where your paycheck gets deposited, you're going to link that checking account, okay, so that you make sure that you can transfer money into this high yield savings account. That's also probably going to take you three to five minutes. And finally, the third thing you're going to do is you're going to automate transfers. Okay, we were talking about automation, the power of being able to just save money on autopilot without you having to think about it. You're going to set up that auto transfer.

13:32Maybe that's every time you get paid. Maybe that's once a month. But you're going to set up that auto transfer of a minimum of$10. Okay. Minimum$10. If you could save more than that, amazing. Okay. The reason we're doing that is because one, again, it's happening on autopilot. This is the lazy girl's guide to building wealth. Okay. We're not making this harder than it has to be. This is how we save money is we make it as easy as possible. And the second thing is that you don't actually earn any of the free money unless you transfer money into that account. Okay. And the easiest way to do that is automating.

14:06So the lazy girl wealth math. Let's take you through a couple simple, very powerful scenarios. Sunday, you're taking a nap. You're making money. At work, you're making money at maybe a job you like. It might be a job you hate. You're also making money in your high yield savings account. On vacation, you are sipping a pina colada on the beach. You're making money. You're making money doing nothing, right? You are making money doing nothing because the systems you've put together are building the wealth for you. This is the point we want to get to, right? Where we are not only working hard for our money, but our money is working hard for us.

14:52This is the easiest, most accessible form of passive income that most women will ever get, Okay? This is the easiest thing you can do to immediately make more money. I want to go through a couple more fears or myths here. Will this hurt my credit? No. No, they're not going to check your credit. Everything's going to be fine. This is just like a normal savings account. Okay? What if rates drop? This is a question we get all the time because rates are variable. They are determined by the Federal Reserve. So rates go up, they go down. This still, even if rates are down, will earn way more than a checking account and still significantly more than an everyday savings account.

15:32So even if the rates decrease, a high yield savings account is still more than worth it if your high yield savings account is over a half a percent. And we have no reason to believe that it is going to be anywhere as low as that for a very long time. Like we're talking, again, multiple percentage points in interest. Is my money safe? We talked about this already, but yes, your money in a high yield savings account is insured just like at any other bank up to$250 ,000. It is FDIC insured. And finally, do I have to switch banks? No, you can keep your checking account wherever you're banking right now, and you're going to set up this separate high yield savings account.

16:13The one we recommend is a separate bank account. And that's on purpose because it's actually going to be less tempting for you to transfer your money back to your checking account so you can keep spending. We are purposefully adding a little bit of friction so that we can actually start building the wealth, that we can actually achieve our goals rather than just being like, oh, yeah, I really want that thing that maybe I didn't actually think through and it's kind of mindless fucking spending. And I'm just going to transfer my money back into my checking account. This helps prevent that behavior.

16:42To wrap this all up, this is an incredibly powerful wealth building step that anybody watching can do. Literally, there is no exceptions. Anybody can sign up for a high yield savings account. Everybody watching should have one. And it is the easiest thing you can do to make your money work harder for you in 2026. We have seen people afford to go on vacation using their high yield savings account interest. We've seen people pay for Christmas gifts using their high yield savings account interest. We've seen people just be able to accelerate their financial goals to be able to hit that emergency fund goal faster or buy their house faster.

17:17And the point isn't perfection here, right? The point is making a choice that supports future you. So you can open up a high yield savings account in less time than it took to watch this episode. Go to herfirst100k.com slash ffpod to get started. And if you're watching or listening on Spotify or YouTube, feel free to drop your questions down below in the comments and we will be happy to answer them. Thank you as always for being here, Financial Feminists. We would appreciate you subscribing. Thank you for supporting feminist-based financial education and media, and we'll talk to you very soon.

17:48Tiffany Aliche:Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, produced by HerFirst100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst100k.com slash FFPOD. Thank you.