Former Disney Star Christy Carlson Romano and Brendan Rooney on Losing All the Disney Money, Healing Financial Trauma and Working With Your Spouse
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I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Money rehab.

There's that old expression, stars are just like us. But when it comes to child stars, that expression can feel like total BS. Take Disney Channel stars, for example. Can you imagine making millions of dollars before you were even old enough to rent a car? That was the reality for Christy Carlson Romano, who you might remember as Ren from Even Stevens or as the voice of Kim from Kim Possible.

as different as that existence may have been from your own childhood. In the first part of our conversation, you actually might feel like Christy Carlson Romano is just like us. I chat with her and her husband Brendan Rooney about their company and how they juggle being romantic partners and business partners.

And after listening to their totally relatable advice, you might forget that you were talking to America's sweetheart. In the second part of our conversation, though, we get to be a fly on the wall for when stars are not just like us. Christy talks about her financial journey from skyrocketing into superstardom so young and how she made and lost millions. We talk about how spending can turn into a form of self-harm and her advice to anyone looking to build a healthier relationship with money. Here's Christy and Brendan.

Christy and Brendan, welcome to Money Rehab. Oh my goodness, how cool. Thanks for having us. The coolest. It's so good to have you. Brendan, you're the CEO of Podco. Christy, you're the partner and, of course, host of the show Iconic. Tell us a little bit about sleeping together and working together. How do you do it?

Separate bedrooms. How don't you? No, no, no, no. She's kidding. I am kidding. Oh, we've been together forever. We've been together 13 years and we didn't start working together until we started doing social media content. And originally it wasn't, you know, sponsored, paid, anything like that. And Brendan got a master's degree from AFI in screenwriting. And so he would come up with these really funny ideas and he's just got a knack for storytelling, visual storytelling.

And so it ended up like right after having kids becoming sort of like this world of like mommy influencer stuff, which to be honest, you know, as we'll get into being a child performer, that wasn't really going to be our lane. And so we were like, well, what else do we want to do in terms of creating community and maybe monetizing it? And then we just took that. We're like, well, what's the next evolution of this? What's more sustainable? So we thought, and we're like, what?

don't we do a podcast? And we did her podcast. Like, well, if we can do this, we could probably start a network and let's be different. Let's be social and video forward. So we really actually, the first time we really worked together was probably like halfway through our

We've been married together for 13 years, married for 10. And it turns out like when I'm doing something and she's not involved, it's always worse. That's very sweet. No, it's truly worse. And I think a lot of people will say like, oh no, you get your marriage and your business and they're together. For me, it just, one makes the other stronger, right? It's a privilege, I think, really to be able to do it together. You share in the pain, you share in the joy. Does it make you better romantic?

I love that question. That's actually a really good question. Yeah. I'd say yes. Yeah, we're very intimately, emotionally intertwined. And I think people who have been married for a long time lose sight of each other's emotions or intimate thoughts, right? Like, and then they become different people. They grow apart. You can't really grow apart from your partner if like everything is working pretty cohesively. Exhaustively communicative. Mm-hmm.

And you said this is your family business. Like how much of the family is going to get involved? Do your daughters want in? Do you want your daughters in? You said you weren't going to do the mommy blogger, mom fluencer thing because of child star stuff and you didn't want them involved. So like, where do you toe that line? Well, you know, it is actually a really interesting point.

point you make. We had been presented with a lot of really amazing opportunities, and I'm sure we could have gone down a whole different route. Nickelodeon at one point, even like years ago, this is years ago, they had asked me to be one of their major

their main stable of mom influencers. And they would, you know, send you boxes of recipes with Gak and, you know, Rugrats merch and stuff. And I was like, this doesn't feel, first of all, it's not Disney, but, but I was like, I don't know if I need to be a part of this little world in this very direct to

to consumer way when it affects my children. So like one of the last things that we did was with American Girl. And I was really excited because my girls were actually fans of the product. And but that was one of the last videos because I started to check in with Brendan and I was like, are we going to continue to go down this

this route and if so we owe it to them to put money away oh yeah we do that but i think regarding podco specifically time will tell is what i'd say for one it will depend on what their interests are i'd say this like our goal is to have something stashed away for them but to also

have them go and earn on their own. Because I think value is derived from accomplishment, right? So if you're constantly getting a leg up, when you do get there, you just kind of adapt to that situation. The contentment wanes and you start to

get depressed. I think you've always said the obstacle is the way. Right. Right. You know, a lot of what I've talked about on my podcast, which was called Vulnerable before I rebranded to Iconic, Vulnerable was, you know, I was in direct conversation with child performers and it just became sort of this, I felt like I was on rote memory with how much I was

explaining my past and how I want to change. But ultimately, I feel even worse for people who are considered like nepo babies because they didn't do anything to anybody. They just were born and they're getting this harsh treatment. So it sounds like you guys want to balance between, well, the American girl gig that you had for them and then whatever they're going to find on their own and like

show them, teach them the value of work. And because we're money rehab, we always want to follow the money trail. You said to put money away. What does that mean? Like blocking and tackling? Did you give them a salary? Did you open a 529? Did you open a custodial Roth IRA? Tell us everything. This kind of the way we're both now talking about maybe potential real estate problems

play where they could have a home that we rent out that would pay. We could put that money away from them. We live in Austin and it's a really weird place to live for real estate. It's had this massive boom when we came here in 2020. And then now the rental market is so hot that

It's just sort of this like wild west or wild south. It's weird here right now. Yeah, because a lot of people are selling and leaving as well. I don't know if it's the heat or what it is. But real estate is a really-- to me, it feels really risky. And when I was growing up, we didn't put money away. I lost a lot of money. And I talk about it on my YouTube channel.

And I learned a lot of lessons there. Brendan was in the military and he opened lines of credit because he thought he was going to die. And like he had to live with that and student loans, you know? So everybody's in our family has come from out, you know, the obstacle was the way for us.

That's a Ryan Holiday book. I want to make sure I give shout out to Ryan Holiday. Yes, I am a big fan. If anyone has not watched the 10 minute YouTube video, How I Lost All My Money, immediately, please just stop this podcast and do that. So sucked into it. It was awesome, Christy. But I do want to double click actually on Brendan's story. So what was your relationship with money growing up?

I mean, interestingly enough, my folks had the right idea of what to do with me and even for themselves. So my, I guess I gotta give it back, a little bit of backstory. Was born to a single mother. She was 17 when she had me.

met my stepfather, and then they got married when I was seven. And I watched him kind of start really low middle class and work his way up to, I'd say solid middle class, starting with a small town home, then another town home. I mean, we started in apartments and then worked that way to eventually get a track home in Orange County, which they just sold for $1.5

eight, five, somewhere around there. And they bought it for around four or 30, right? But that was 20 some odd or maybe 30 years ago at this point. I always tell my girls, because we'll buy them things randomly. We'll go to Target and do things. Like, do you understand when I was a kid, we got gifts twice a year, birthday, Christmas. That was it. Like everything else was like, you want something? Go out and wash the neighbor's car, go out and mow a lawn, right? Best

in my opinion, thing that could happen to me. Now, unfortunately, I wasn't really great with money, got into the military and they have like, you know, these predators who are charging incredibly high interest rates, getting into these credit cards. They come to the base. I don't know if that still happens anymore. That's horrible. Yeah, this was like 2001, 2002. Yeah, they do it in college too. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, it's like, you have a real kind of, well,

Screw it. Who knows what's going to happen? I joined in '01. There was only Afghanistan and Iraq kicked off out of nowhere and we're just like, "We don't know what's going to happen. We're young. Who cares?" Yeah, and you're not getting paid a lot. You have no financial advice. It was bad with my money there and then got in some debt.

and had to go into debt to go to Columbia. But my thought was, well, I got to, I mean, if I got into this school, I definitely should go, you know, post-military. And then luckily the chapter 33 GI Bill happened kind of a third of the way through my studies. And I took a year off and came back. I went and lived abroad. I came back and now, you know, they were paying for almost the entirety of the education, right? And the same thing for the master's degree through the vocational rehabilitation program. So,

So things started to correct there and then got better once we really kind of figured out that social media was this great place to be. I see you had a very different childhood. I know it can't be summarized here, but if you could just try to summarize how money was going in and out of your bank account when you were in your teens and early twenties. Yeah. So I

I'm a typical statistic of a child actor who mismanaged their money. And I tried really hard as I was coming of age, which let's call it, I was a little delayed in the maturation process there because my mom had taken care of all of my money and I would sign the checks.

and I would pay out my mom as an employee and she would also be doing all my bills. And then, you know, this business manager who'd worked for us for, I want to say like three or four years when I was at the height of my earning with Disney. It's interesting because I kind of told my mom, look, I don't like the way things are going down. I don't know what's in my account. I'm 21. I need to know how much I have in the bank.

And so I was so immature when it came to financial fluency that I started to get angry and resentful.

You know, I asked her to step down as the, I guess she was like the president of my corporation that I had for my filings and everything. And so I had her step down, which caused a personal rift between us for about a year. And we're perfectly fine now. But that was a very awkward time for me at 21. And it actually was my whole family that I didn't speak to for about a year after that. And so...

It's hard, you know, when you're learning about your money and starting from scratch while also dealing with the emotional abuse of that money. You know, so like I didn't get into therapy to talk about the financial abuse that I had kind of maybe had. And I then started weaponizing my money and shopping wrong and doing things wrong. And so...

I wasn't exactly, I don't, I wouldn't even call it failing upwards. I was just failing myself without any help as well. So I think this is probably why, when you were talking about like why we work so well is because our baggage is it's cut from the same crazy cloth and it may be different sizes, but it's the same pattern. Yeah.

What I'd say too is like, I think a lot of people, they only see the time that the child performer gets that first gig. But before they got their first gig, more times than not, there were years and years of auditions and working on the craft and like not having a child that really, as we know it,

to get to that first thing they landed or the thing they're known for. And so you put in all this work, you think, okay, I've worked this hard to get here. Now, here I am. Let's go. Like when you go work your way up in a company, you think, well, I've got the skill set. Now transfer over to here. I worked at Amazon, whatever. I'll transfer over to Meta, right? And it does not work like that. You very well may never get another gig again. But when you're young, your young brain is telling you, well, this is the new standard. So I can...

accommodate that standard. I think that pertains to like that time and with social media, what I've noticed about the younger

actors that have come through. You know, Disney doesn't really exist the way that it did in even Nickelodeon. Like it's not like the studio star system that it was during like the Y2K golden era. It's now become that anybody who's launched on one of their shows is able to sort of become, they have the autonomy in their social media presence.

Unless their contracts have changed, which I'm sure they're somehow protected. They're able to build a following on social now. Like if social existed when Christy was doing her thing, she'd have like 35, 40 million followers right now.

Right? But like, it's maybe, maybe less, whatever, 10, 50, whatever it is, half of whatever Lolita has. Yeah, there you go. They're able to say, okay, if they're smart, especially, and if they're not doing this, listen to this and do this. Take, take, take the notoriety you're getting from traditional media and

And they're often doing this. They're putting all that effort into social and they're looking at that thing as just an external factor to grow the social, which gives them the reach and the followership to be able to have, you know, an audience and potentially perpetuity. Yeah. Like that's making shows and being on shows now, especially ones that get big is, is wonderful.

way better than having had done it back then, even though the residuals may be less and the pay structure maybe isn't as good as it could have been. Like you now have this huge thing to make yourself marketable for a long time. Well, and let's put it this way. So the money that I lost or was making when I was working with Disney, like when I talked about at the height, it dwarfs in comparison to what I've been able to make with Brendan for my own socials.

not for other podcasts. I'm just talking about from what we've been able to pull in since starting. It's just like, sometimes for so long, I was like, well, why would I go 12 hours a day on set to be away from my kids when they're in the other room and I'm going to have to fly out for, you know, weeks on end. So it's just like, I, you, you get a lot more choosy with what you do. Yeah. You had some flexibility. And you didn't know how much money you were making until you were 21. Yeah, pretty much.

Was it hidden from you or did you get an allowance? So I got a salary, but in relation to what was being saved, I may have been, I was talked to in a way that was a little bit infantilizing.

And so I think that everyone was a little shocked and scared at how to talk to me about it. And I don't know why. I think that's what I kind of have to not think too much about because that's where I think the financial abuse comes in, where it's like, why would you want somebody to be in the dark about their monies? Well, because they also had their own financial traumas, likely. Because that's for sure. Yeah.

We all don't want this stuff in school, right? And I think weaponizing spending is something that's really common. I've seen this before in people who make a lot of money. They spend it to self-destruct or like financial cutting.

to sort of self-harm by using money. I mean, you can use money in the same way as you can use emotions to empower or to bring down, right? So how did you get from that place, Christy, to a healthier relationship with money? Goodness. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back.

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So how did you get from that place, Christy, to a healthier relationship with money?

Goodness. Like I said, when we met, I was going to Barnard slash Columbia University. And I was, I went back at 20, was it 26 the first time? I had left from 21 to 26. And between those years was when I, you know, acquired my money and then spent a lot of it and then fell back into just wanting some sort of a safety net, which was the arms of the university because they were able to grant, well, the college was able to grant me access

access to a tuition. I had had my Coogan fund, which was literally all my money put away for Columbia, but I had lived off of all of that safety net.

And when I came to them in open arms, they were like, we'll give you a grant and you can finish your degree. And I will forever be in debt to them and donate to them and love them. But it was really a critical turning point for me because I had to be so humbled where I was their celebrity actress that they would tout at their tours. For when you were first there. For when I was 18. And now I was coming back at 26 feeling like,

I was very, very humbled. So I lived in a studio apartment. And again, I'm 26. I've lived a million lives. I meet this guy and he blew my mind when it came to what I could be and just like have more confidence in myself and show up for my life. And so my life changed drastically after we started dating. So yeah, I mean, look, we were scrappy. When we got married, we were engaged.

Two years because we were saving money for our wedding. We had a destination wedding in Banff.

And you DIY the whole thing, DIY the whole thing, DIY it. And I fell in love with crafting and realized that I could be really scrappy. I was, I was raised by scrappy Italian American middle-class family. And it started to come back to me like how, you know, we lived on the road for not a lot of money, my mom and I, and even when I was doing even Stevens, we didn't spend, well, we spent money, but just not on our lifestyle. So, um,

I started realizing that, you know, the materialism didn't need to happen with the brand names and that my life could be comfortable without feeling like I had to compare myself to like the Hilary Duff's or the Ravens or the Shia, like the people that I'd grown up with who are now like ultra, ultra rich and famous. So that was my that was my reality up until, you know, we kind of became a unit, you know,

Well, it sounds like you guys have had quite a journey of financial discovery and learning and growing over the years. Just to clarify, though, Christy, in that video, how you lost all your money, all your Disney money, you talked about having student debt. It sounds like you both had student debt, right? Yeah. Do you still do? Yeah, we still do. And you're- Yeah. Do you own the student debt you have? A few hundred thousand. Yeah. Oh, wow. Thank you, Ivy League. Yeah, Ivy League. Mine's not as much as yours, is it?

No, I mean collectively. Okay. And my master's degree. So, you know, I went to the American Film Institute, which is expensive. But I think the Vogue Rehab program, if there's any veterans or veteran spouses listening, it's a really fantastic social. It was a loophole at the time. And I think a friend of yours had found a way to enter into the program. What's neat about that is that your taxes are,

That you pay, go back to it. So it's kind of cool the way they do it. They flag for that. Yeah, the vocational rehabilitation program. But anyway, we still have- Does having all that debt make you nervous, anxious, stressed? You know, it is what it is. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. But-

We plan over time to get rid of it, you know, just keep chipping away and get rid of it. We've suffered a lot, I think, in terms of judging ourselves monetarily. I think we've been so blessed to have found a lane to create a really good lifestyle for our family. And what we're doing is we're just living earnestly, paying that down. And, you know, every decision made, be smarter, be smarter. What can you learn if you've had problems?

If you have a failure and you don't, if you don't look at it as a lesson, then you will fail again and you will fail again. You have to like take the knowledge you get from failing and fail upward. My thoughts on school, on college have changed tremendously, which is,

essentially they are businesses i mean they're great places to learn but you mentioned something earlier that i think is very valuable which is like why are we not teaching financial fluency at a at

at an, you know, whatever, middle school level. That's why I wake up every day, Brendan. That's what I'm trying to do. I mean, we're doing right. But it's crazy that it's not in it's not it's not a part of the public school system. We have a conveyor belt. And we don't learn it in our homes either. I grew up in an immigrant family. I had my own financial drill mess, too. Like we didn't talk about it. There's no like magicals. Everybody sit around the kitchen table and let's read the Wall Street Journal. That's like maybe only on Disney shows. Yeah.

We're going to read the Wall Street Journal, look at markets, not understand them and suddenly get smart about money. I think that level of education, like listening to a podcast like yours regularly is probably way more beneficial to a 2024 on, you know, content life.

lifestyle than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at an elite university. You'll get things from that experience, don't get me wrong, that can last a lifetime, namely a Rolodex and some other stuff, but it's really not what it used to be. It sounds like maybe you regret going to college? Yeah.

I had a really, really valuable friendships come out of that. Namely me. It was awesome. I wouldn't have met my wife. That was the most important, but it was also at a time in my life where I needed community and healing, you know, like coming out of the military, I got from Columbia, uh,

something I had never really felt before, which is like, hey, just so you know, you're smart. And just so you know, you're capable. Like these aren't things that I heard or saw affirmed in my life often. So there's not regret there. But what I would say is if I had

this part of me developed that's developed now, then I would never have gone to college. I wouldn't, you know, if I, if, if I were more balanced, like then, like I am now, no, I would have just, I would have been like, let me find all the great content, consume it, learn, read, learn more independently. And then you'd Matt Damon it. You'd Matt Damon it. Yeah. How about the hours in late fees or something? Exactly. So,

So against this backdrop of these formative experiences with money, it sounds like you guys have learned to stop shaming yourself, which is super cool because you have like a shitty thing and then all the shame and guilt and all that stuff on top of it just like adds on, which is unnecessary, but hard, a hard habit to break because we all can get into a shame cycle and spiral. Did you guys have a hard time talking to each other about your finances? Yeah.

- Not really. - In the beginning? - Okay, in the beginning, yeah. - In the beginning, yeah. In the beginning it was tougher. Now it's like, hey, we've got a hurdle to clear. It's not gonna be a fun conversation, but it's a necessary one. - Yeah, I think it was because we had kids and when we had kids, everything changed. - Everything changed. - And I didn't want-- - What did you guys do? Tackle it together, like have a mega account, have separate accounts, yours, mine, ours?

No, we have, we share in all our accounts. Yeah, we've all shared. There's never been any discrepancies. Like we always confer with each other when it comes to spending. We've never committed like, what do they call it? Like when you're financially cheating on your spouse, like we've never done it. Yeah, we've never, I can't relate to that at all. Me either. No, not at all. Yeah. Like hiding money or being a secret dad. Oh yeah, that's. No. We, yeah, we share and we get, you know, if there are pain points, you just get through them.

And again, those things aren't fun, but I always say people got through a lot harder shit 20,000 years ago. Like we're not running from tigers here. Like we can figure this out. This is the modern day tiger. I think, you know, debt is, is, and, you know, financial instability probably is the closest thing to the modern day tiger chasing you in the jungle that exists. Right. But, um,

Yeah, but we still have that same fight-flight reaction. Oh, yeah. It feels like a tiger. Feels like a tiger, absolutely. So the way to get through that is, back in the day, is the tribe would communicate. If you're alone in the jungle, you're going to die, like back then. But now it's, hey, share, share in the knowledge, communicate through it. We're going to navigate through this jungle, get to the other side, and then we're going to go kill the boar. And if we can...

you know, think about that in the ways that we produce these shows or launch new shows or maybe pivot and, you know, have a whole new format within a show. Like that's, that's the stuff I realized that I've always been rewarded for doing. Is there a nostalgic show? Is there a nostalgic show that you'd want to cover? Honestly, they haven't right now. I know it. Yeah. What is it? Go ahead. He, we just stopped finishing. We finished watching loss. He,

He's really wanting to do a lost rewatch. And this is one of the things I mean, like, it's like we launched Pretty Little Liars, but we launched Pretty Little Liars True Crime. So we have a real life death investigator who comes on, relates what happened in the episode to actual crimes that have played out in real life and disrupted a bit. Like what other new format can we do? How do we hybridize podcasts with something else and more? Yeah, I think you just have to stay hungry and sharp.

That's our takeaway from our scrappy upbringings. We're resilient. We keep fighting. We never give up. In Brendan's case, as a Marine veteran, he adapts and overcomes. But I'm right there with him, meeting him at every turn. So that's kind of our way.

And you talk about that scrappy, difficult upbringing. I mean, Chrissy, you talk a lot also about early adulthood being a really difficult time in your life. If you could go back, I mean, we talked about whether or not you regret fancy Ivy League, very expensive education. Would you choose not to be on screen that young? Oh, good. Yeah, I would absolutely do it again. I would ask more questions.

I just didn't ask enough questions. I kind of sat back and I just didn't lean in when, you know, when things got scary. You know, I kind of just...

kind of froze for confronting for years yeah and it's something that i've worked i'm working on obviously in therapy and stuff and i think that sometimes the way that we're dealing with money it reverberates in all the things that we do so that's why i love your podcast because you're really demystifying the relationship to that and how it affects you know in your life well the half-life shrinks if you confront something sooner that's

That's the other thing, right? In those uncomfortable conversations with money, we were like, "Oh, no, no, just push it away." And what happens? The problem grows. It's like the same thing when there's an issue in a friendship or on set or anything in life. We say at Money Rehab, the only problem you can't fix is the one you don't admit you have, which we often hide a lot of money issues and suffer more in imagination than in reality. What would you ask, Christia, if you could go back?

How much money am I making? That would be the question I would ask. That's a good place to start. How much money am I making annually? And can we do this in a way that doesn't scare me?

Can we demystify this for my 19-year-old, 20-year-old, 21-year-old brain? That's really hard. I understand that it was probably really hard for them to do that, but there had to have been a way. With everyone making salaries off of money that I was making, it was in their best interest to empower me. I just want to provide a bit of context to what you were saying, because I think it's very easy, and I've seen comments like this before, where someone would be like, how could you just not know how much money you're making? How could you just spend this much money? How could you, right?

And I think people just, they look at their lives or their childhoods and they say, okay, well, I would know, I would know. But when you're from the age of six, you know, to 18, just be like, show up here, do this, go right here, boom, hit your marks. You're on Broadway, eight, nine years old, whatever, on tour all year, just commuting every single day for hours and hours and hours, never, ever socializing normally.

Learning how to ride a bike on set, being around adults all the time in an adult environment, not knowing what's happening. It's very common to not know or to not ask questions about your money. Right. It's very, very common. So I just wanted to put that. And see, that's that's great. Have you guys use those experiences to inform how you talk to your daughters about money? Like, did you tell them how much money?

You were making for the brand deal that you guys worked on together. No, I think she was, she was five at the time. So I don't think we put some money in the Vanguard. Yeah. We put it away for her, but, but, but now she's seven. Our oldest is seven. Our youngest is five. She's getting tooth fairy. Yeah. So for tooth, for tooth fairy money, you know, there'll be something under there and you know, there's, you got three options, right? You can save it. You can spend it. You can buy,

Use it in a charitable way, right? So which one do you choose? Well, they're always going to spend it. Like when they're younger, it's like, okay, great. But at least these options are being explained better. By the way, save, spend, share, if you wanted the alliteration. That's like what parents often use. Yeah, the shapes. There you go. If you have like little piggy banks or something like that, typically when you have kids, you sort of have them split it up to start thinking charitably, but also save, but also, you know, enjoy a little bit too.

just right. You can also have her negotiate with the tooth fairy or negotiate for allowance. Oh, she negotiates. She negotiates well. I love that. We'll go to target and she's like, oh, I want this thing. I was like, well, the tooth fairy left you $5. This thing is 10. So daddy's covering the other half. That's what we're, that's the deal. She's just now getting to an age where she can start to understand it. Right. It's starting to make sense to her.

It's always interesting to ask kids like how much stuff costs, like how much does a house cost or a car or something like that? It's just, it's just so funny. It's also like, they have no idea. Yeah. They constantly are like, they remind us how old we are every day. You're 40, right? You're 41. Yes.

Well, we end our episodes, guys, by asking our guests for one tip listeners can take straight to the bank. You guys have shared a lot about your money journeys. Thank you for being so open and honest and vulnerable. Can you share one piece of money advice that's benefited you that our listeners should know today? Learn from others, right? Wisdom, they say, is learning from your mistakes.

True wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. So ask questions as much as possible to people that you, especially people that you respect, right? Because you are in a financial position you want to be in.

Like that, that will absolutely help you. I said take calculated risks. Yeah, that's mine, I think. Don't just rush in. No, just be very calculated. Ask a lot of questions. That's the follow up to what I would have done differently in my youth. So it kind of makes sense. No dumb questions. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Levoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.

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