- When I'm lugging all my makeup across the country
or I'm having to spend an extra 30 minutes to get
ready for something and my friend Andrew's just
sitting on the couch
- Right. - Just twiddling his thumbs,
while I'm having to put on eyeliner in my water line,
which means you're poking in your eye.
And yeah, I don't have to do it,
but it makes my eye look that much better.
- Yeah.
- It's exhausting, Gaby.
- To be fair, my girlfriend doesn't do it.
- Your girlfriend doesn't do?
- No makeup, nothing.
- Well, she's also gay.
- Yeah, well, so am I!
(rock music)
- Gaby Dunn is our guest right now.
Gaby Dunn is a author, comedian, do you still do stand-up?
- No, I mean, I did storytelling on our book tour.
- Okay, so yeah. - But yeah.
- But just a funny, cool chick.
Gaby Dunn, her book "Bad With Money: the imperfect art of
getting your financial shit together"
is available online now.
You have a book, you wrote a book.
- This is like a nonfiction that is based on
the podcast "Bad With Money" that is about,
I don't know the genre financial memoir is a thing now,
but it's like a financial memoir.
But also like a help, helpful book.
- Okay, what.
You have a podcast called "Bad With Money"?
- Yes.
- In which you talk to comedians and funny, cool people
about - Well,
- Being bad with money.
Tell me about the podcast.
- For season one, so I didn't know anything about money.
I would cry about it all the time, I was like.
- I find I'm avoiding the issue.
I don't even want to talk to you about money.
That's why you're here to talk about it.
- No, I know.
- That's how much people don't wanna talk about money.
- Yes.
I think I've had some people be like,
"I love you so much,
"I can't listen because it gives me anxiety."
- Yeah.
- So I get it.
- Yes.
- But I started not knowing anything and I would cry.
That was like, my big thing that I would cry about.
And I just was always in the hole somehow
and like, always had debt
and never talked to anyone about it.
And never, like it was like my secret shame.
And then, I had the opportunity to do a podcast
and they were like,
"Well, do you wanna do something about LBGTQ issues?
"Do you wanna do something about sex positivity?"
And I was like,
"Actually, the thing that I cry about everyday is money.
"Maybe we should just expose that."
- So the first,
- Run towards it.
- I know.
- Yeah.
- So the first season, which is super healthy.
- I think so.
- The first season.
- The thing you're most scared to talk about,
why don't they start a show about it.
- Yes.
- I mean, that's nuts.
Well, good for you.
Okay, so the first season.
- Was me mostly talking to comedians and other artists
and just sort of being like, "How do you make money?
"Like, how do you do this, like what's going on?"
- Yeah.
- "What's your situation?"
And I, you know, moving to LA from New York,
I didn't realize, oh everyone,
some people have their parents' money,
or some people have side jobs that I don't know about
or whatever.
So I would compare myself so much to other people
without knowing that they,
their situations were so different from mine.
- Yeah, yep.
- So I would, like, you know, we would have the same income.
But I take care of some family members
and I had student loans and whatever.
And then I would compare myself to people who would,
who didn't have any student loans
or were getting money from their parents.
- Yes.
- And I was like, "But we have the same income!
"So how am I struggling?"
And then I was like,
"Oh, other people have totally different situations."
- And was that the first step in kind of,
is that the first step in - Transparency.
- But that's so hard, 'cause no one talks about money.
- I know.
- I grew up in a house where it was like,
"Nikki, you don't tell your friends how much your dad makes.
"You're not even."
I wasn't even allowed to know how much money my dad made.
- Right.
- And it wasn't like a ton of money or it wasn't even.
Or when it wasn't a ton of money,
I wasn't allowed to know either way.
Why?
- But in the book I talk about I got such whiplash,
because my parents would go through phases where they would
have some money and then they would have nothing.
- Yes, me too!
- And so, there would be days where they'd be like,
"Oh, yeah, you could definitely go with your friends
"to this whatever.
"You could go to the dance with your friends
"and get a new dress."
And then like, two days later, they'd be like,
"No, you can't."
- I learned the word destitute really early on.
- Yeah.
- My dad would always say, "We're destitute."
And I was like, "I don't know what that."
And I had to look it up and I'm like, "Oh no, we're poor."
Like, I felt the same back and forth of
do we have all the money or none?
- None of the money.
And then I would get stressed out, which is parentalizing,
where I would be be 12 and my parents would spend money
and I'd go, "Should we be doing this?"
- Yes!
Oh my god, I remember the day.
I remember the day I, we were driving.
We were moving from Cincinnati to St. Louis, I was six.
And I remember being in the car
and seeing the St. Louise Arch
and just having a realization,
I don't know what conversation
was happening between my parents,
but I remember being like, "We're poor."
- [Gaby] Yes.
- Like, we're poor
and I am the only one that's gonna make it
so that my sister doesn't spend my parents money.
- [Gaby] Yes!
- 'Cause they're not gonna tell her.
So I started,
- Yes!
- Being like, "Lauren, you can't get."
I would like,
- Exactly the same.
- take her inside at 7/11 and be like,
"You can only get one candy, Lauren."
- Exactly the same.
- 'Cause I was protecting her from my parents having
to tell her.
- Yes.
- And just protecting my parents from not being broke
and fighting about it - Yes.
- And being scared.
- Almost exactly the same.
I have a little sister too.
- [Nikki] Yes.
- And she, I interview her in the book and she's like,
"I had no concept.
"I thought we were fine.
She was like, "If I ask Mom and Dad for something
"and they said yes, I would go great, we have the money."
So I started being like, telling her same.
I started telling her, "You can't ask, you have to stop."
- Yes!
- And then she got a lot of stuff that I didn't get because
- Same.
- I was like, "Well, if she's."
In my mind, because my older brother also was like,
having trouble finding a job at the time,
so they were helping him.
And so I became like, okay,
I should be successful on my own
because they're already helping two of their kids.
So I need to be the one that they don't help.
- Yes.
- Which is so stressful to put on a teenager.
- Yep.
I would always be the one to take cuts.
- Yes!
- Because I wanted,
I didn't want them to know that I knew either.
- [Gaby] Yes!
- Like, I was trying to protect them from being embarrassed.
- I would go, "It's fine, I don't need it."
- Exactly, I don't need it.
- Ugh!
- And then, but I really wanted it.
- Yes.
- And I wanted all the things that my friends were getting.
And you're right, the transparency.
I didn't understand, how does my friend afford
Abercrombie & Fitch when her dad has a similar job to my.
Like, I just didn't understand it.
The transparency thing is so huge in comedy
because I think that, especially for women,
we get paid less than men a lot of times.
And, as comedians,
we're all so private about what we're making,
and I'm like, "No, it shouldn't be private.
"We should all talk about it
"because we should all be getting paid the same and more."
- Yeah.
- And I think that when you do find out what someone makes,
you realize, "Oh, I need to be asking for more.
"I deserve more."
- I had an interesting experience where I was,
me and this girl were both speaking at a conference.
She dm'ed me to be like, "Hey, what are they paying you?"
And I was like, "Oh, that's a great question."
So I told her and she was like,
"Okay, wow, they're paying me half of that."
So I said, "Oh, go to then right now, drop my name."
- [Nikki] Yep.
- "Say 'Gaby told me she's getting this and I want this'."
- Yeah.
- And then they did, they upped her fee.
- That's great.
- And I was like, absolutely, for sure.
Like, everyone should be doing that.
- But people get so uncomfortable when, you know,
when they're asked about how much money they make,
both when they're not making enough
and when they're making too much.
When you're making a lot of money, I wanna know every cent.
That's why I always loved being friends with Amy Schumer
because I realized, 'cause she was transparent about it.
She wasn't bragging, she was just like,
"Can you believe the amount of money
"I'm about to get for this thing?"
And she would tell me, and so now I know I have these,
I know what I should be making at different levels,
- Yes.
- Because I saw her rise right where I kind of am,
and so I know what to expect.
And I was appreciative of her telling me that.
I never took it as brag, even though some people could have.
But I felt like it was, it made me excited.
- It let you know your self-worth.
Like, it let you know what you should ask for.
- Yes, it really did.
But I still struggle.
I'm at a point now where I feel rich.
I feel like I don't want for anything and I'm great.
But there are days when I'm like,
I stress about money.
I'll still find ways to stress about money.
I think it's something I go to much like my weight,
or my hair, or my skin.
Where you're just stressing about something else,
and you need to find a place to put it.
And so you put it in your money.
- There's a huge difference between broke and poor.
And I think I'm still pretty broke.
- Yeah.
- Like, I think I have problems with overspending
or I immediately.
My sister had a thing where she was like,
"I went to the dentist and my tooth."
Her tooth fell out.
And she's unemployed.
And so it was gonna cost her,
like a thousand dollars to get a new tooth.
And I was like,
"Well, you can't be walking around without a tooth."
So I was like, she was upset and I was like,
"I'll cover it."
- Yeah.
- Just stuff like that where I still do it.
And I have a friend who's an actress who was like,
"You gotta stop that right now."
'Cause now she knows that she can just ask you for money.
But I'm not gonna let her walk around without a tooth.
- I feel the same way.
I only wanna make more money because I wanna pay
for people to get teeth.
- Yeah, exactly!
- That can't afford teeth.
I really do.
I hate the idea of these expenses
that come up in people's lives.
Like, I've lent.
Last year I got, my money guy called me,
and every year I dread the call
of what my spending was the year.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I don't look at my budgeting,
I don't look at what I spent on what,
and I kind of just know that he sees it
and is gonna judge me.
And he's like,
"The biggest things you spend money on are lending people,
"giving away money."
- Yep.
- And I'm glad, I was glad to hear that,
'cause I never lent money and regret.
I haven't lent money yet and regretting it.
I've chosen good people to do it for.
But, it does feel like.
I get something more out of it sometimes
than I think the person does.
- Well, what sucks too is that there's so many medical
Go-Fund-Mes, and you just get them all the time.
- Yeah, that's another thing.
- And then.
- Go-Fund-Mes, I throw so much money at those.
- I do too.
And then they're not,
they're considered personal gifts,
they're not considered donations,
so you can't write them off on your taxes.
- What?
Really?
- Yes, it's horrible.
- That's ridiculous.
- Yes.
So you can't write them off on your.
There was an article I just read
that was this girl go some money for her cancer treatments
and then her taxes ended up being $19000 on it.
- Oh my god.
- Right, right.
- So she needs a Go-Fund-Me for her taxes.
- For her taxes!
I mean, it's not set up.
Our country's not set up well.
I don't know if anyone knows that.
- The like, real like it.
(rock music)