93. Unlock Financial Freedom (with David & John Auten-Schneider)

Snarky Opener (0:00)

David Auten

What is a better reason to talk to your partner about money than the fact that you're gonna have some rocking sex?

John Schneider

Credit Score is my safe word.

Rob Loveless

Um, and so kind of shifting from that a little bit, what are some? Sorry, I couldn't think of a good like transition going...

David Auten

...from kinky sex, okay.

Rob Loveless

Well, I mean, maybe it could be tied in here. I don't know. Um, maybe there's some safe words hidden in this.

Episode Introduction (0:48)

Rob Loveless

Hello, my LGBTQuties, and welcome back to another episode of A Jaded Gay.

I'm Rob Loveless and, today, I'm a non-jaded gay because me and some friends got together today, we had a little brunch, went shopping, and bought a ton of plants.

And I love plant shopping because it's relatively inexpensive. It's just nice to have some, you know, happy, thriving greenery around the house.

Makes me feel like I'm nurturing something, and I don't know it's just a hobby that doesn't cost a lot of money that makes me happy. So, there we go.

LGBTQ+ Finances (1:18)

Rob Loveless

But moving on to another type of green.

*Guess who got the money, honey?*

Today we are talking about money, specifically, personal finances as an LGBTQ+ person.

You know, we've touched upon finances and economic disparities in a number of episodes, and most heavily covered it in our episode about the LGBTQ+ wage gap.

And there are a number of factors that impact us as gay men economically.

But going way back to the first episode where we talked about The Velvet Rage, Dr. Alan Downs talked about how the rejection we face from growing up gay may result in us creating a facade of a beautiful life, whether we try to be perfectionists or have the most successful career.

But another lens of that is some of us may spend money we don't have to create the appearance of living a fabulous life and keeping up with the Joneses.

So, I am super excited to have some very special guests on today to talk through this and provide some personal finance tips for LGBTQ+ people. But first, let's pull our tarot card.

Tarot (2:21)

Rob Loveless

So today we drew the Knight of Wands, which I believe we drew not that long ago. So, as you probably remember, Wands, it's tied to the element of fire, which is all about passion, creativity, and sexuality.

It's masculine energy, so it's very action-oriented. And in the Minor Arcana, knights are representative of returning from a journey with an elemental gift or message for us.

So, it's number 12 in the suit of Wands, which, if we add that together, one plus two equals three. Yay, math. And in numerology, three is tied to creativity, collaboration, and community.

So, when we draw this card, it's telling us that we're filled with passion and energy and that now is the time to take action on our ideas or projects. We have this clear vision in mind.

We know what we want to create, so we really need to have the confidence in ourselves to know that we can make those things happen. But it's important that we're not impulsive.

We don't want to just act without thinking things through.

So, to make sure that we're being smart in the action we're taking, we want to focus on those little tasks, the baby steps that get us from point A to point B and will ultimately move us forward to our goal.

Guest Introduction (3:21)

Rob Loveless

So, with all that in mind, let's get into the episode. They are the creators of the Debt Lasso method, which they used to pay off $51,000 of credit card debt in three years.

They've been featured in Business Insider, Time, and The Motley Fool, among others, and now they're paying it forward to the LGBTQ+ community by helping them live fabulously without being fabulously broke.

Please welcome David Auten and John Schneider of Queer Money. Hi, David. Hi John. How are you today?

John Schneider

Hi there. Good, thanks for having us.

David Auten

Yeah, thank you.

Rob Loveless

Of course, thanks for coming on the podcast. I know we were talking about this a little bit earlier, but for me, I got into podcasts back in 2019 and Queer Money was one of the first LGBTQ+ podcasts I followed.

So, this is very much a full-circle moment. I was fangirling a little bit when I got the email. So, if I am tongue-tied or stumble over words, it's not just because I talk fast normally.

It's because, like I said, fangirling over here.

John Schneider

Thank you. You're so kind. We appreciate it.

David Auten

We're definitely not celebrities to get get all verklempt over, that's for sure.

John Schneider

No, but likewise, congratulations for being on episode 93 I believe, so right on. That's, uh, like we're talking about earlier, not a lot of LGBT podcasts last this long, so keep up the amazing work.

Rob Loveless

Thank you. And I mean definitely celebrities to me, and you had said you're in your ninth season. So as far as uh, LGBTQ+ podcasts go, I think you're definitely, I don't know, what do kids call today?

The GOAT, like the greatest of all time or something.

John Schneider

So, I keep, I've done a little bit of research, and I'm feeling pretty confident in saying that we're probably one of the oldest LGBT podcasts out there, if not the oldest.

There were podcasts obviously, that started before us, but many of those aren't, haven't continued. So, I have to dig deeper to find out, make sure how accurate that is. But I like to think that we're up there.

David Auten

Yeah.

Rob Loveless

Well, I'm excited to get into all things LGBTQ+ finances and the Queer Money Podcast. But to kick everything off, can you both tell us a little bit about yourself, how you identify, all that fun stuff?

John Schneider

Sure.

David Auten

Sure, yeah. I'm David, just so you guys can get my voice, and for those of you who are listening, know who's talking. Just a little bit of background for me, I identify as a cis gay male.

I am, I grew up in Colorado and have lived all over the world, fortunately, I guess, to some degree, because of the career that my dad had.

And I grew up in a house in a very, very religious household, very strict religious household, so I didn't, although I knew I was gay, I didn't come out or talk about my sexuality until my parents found my stash of porn, and then it was all out in the open, and I went back into the closet for a while after that, but it took me a little bit of time.

I ran off to South Dakota to find myself, and eventually came out to my, my family, and because of that reason, I don't have any association with my immediate family. So now I have a wonderful, logical family.

John Schneider

Yeah, your logical, and your biological family. I'm John. I very similar story. I came from a quite religious household.

Um not as conservative as David's family. I didn't come out, I knew I was gay at a very young age, but I didn't come out until I brought David home as a friend...

David Auten

As a friend.

John Schneider

...and what else about me? I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, and for the most part, have lived all over the country, and a little bit all over the world, just in Spain for several months.

That's kind of about it. My whole life and my whole career has been in financial services, to some degree or another. That's the same for you, right?

David Auten

Yeah, my kind of adult career. I didn't start working full time until I came out, because before I was part-time in service of the church and part-time working.

But yeah, I did start my first full-time job was in financial services, all the way from 1996 all the way up until 2018 when I left corporate America.

Rob Loveless

I like to ask all my guests, are you jaded or non-jaded gays today, and why? And you can answer individually or collectively, whichever you'd prefer.

John Schneider

We're each allowed to have our own opinions.

David Auten

I'm told that I'm allowed to have my own opinion, but I don't know if that's always true.

John Schneider

For the most part, I'm not a jaded gay. Had you asked me last night which was the impetus for me having that martini, I was a little jaded. But for the most part, I'm not a jaded gay.

David Auten

I would agree. I think that there are certain topics that we all become a little jaded and bitchy on if it's okay to say that, but I think in general, easygoing and try to not get too caught up in the drama or frustration and anger that so many people can get caught up in.

Rob Loveless

Definitely, it's, I think it's a day-to-day journey, depending on the day I record, it's either jaded or non-jaded, you know?

David Auten

Right.

John Schneider

Yeah, totally. Yeah, but I think by and large, he and I are pretty positive people. Usually expect a brighter outcome in most circumstances.

Rob Loveless

Well, we definitely need more of that in the LGBTQ+ community, so I appreciate your positivity.

John Schneider

Right on.

Rob Loveless

So, kind of kicking off the episode today, can you tell us about your story as a couple and your experiences with personal finance and debt?

John Schneider

Absolutely, that's our whole story.

David Auten

Well, why don't you start off with the gay disco dance floors?

John Schneider

Okay, yeah. So, we just came back from a speaking gig, and so we have this whole like setup for for telling our stories in the intro of that gig.

And I like to say that picture it: early 2000s a gay disco dance floor in downtown Denver, Colorado, and from yonder, our eyes meet.

And it wasn't that dramatical, but we quickly start, quickly became inseparable, and we became that couple that people will go bleh gag themselves because we couldn't get enough of each other.

And the scene in Denver at the time was was really good. I had just moved to Denver myself relatively recently, and everything that kind of makes Denver amazing today really started to bubble up in the late 90s, early 2000s.

Just a great restaurant and food scene. A lot of clubs and bars to go to, straight and gay, but there was a pretty big gay scene at the time. I think at one point, there were like 12 different gay bars and clubs...

David Auten

Maybe some.

John Schneider

...from piano lounges to disco techs and whatnot. It was just really cool scene to be in. And David and I kind of rode that high and just ate up the good life.

We were going dancing every weekend, sometimes Friday night, Saturday night, and returning again for Sunday tea dances.

We were going out for dinner regularly and buying high-end bottles of wine because we thought we were fancy wine drinkers.

And there was one point we were spending $400 a week dining out and $400 a week on groceries for two people.

We eat, we don't spend near that much money now, but for whatever reason, we weigh a lot more than we did then.

And we were going to, like, happy hour all the time, which always went from like five to ten, because they're never, like, an hour. And we, of course, all that stuff we needed, like fancy clothing, right?

So, we had to have $300 diesel jeans and the $500 shoes and the $200 Ed Hardy t-shirts and hats, which that'll date us a little bit.

And so, we just kind of ate all that stuff up, and we're just sort of really living, really living the good life. And what we thought was fabulous, until we kind of had our come to Jesus moment.

David Auten

We had, John and I had been together for about a year and a half, and we went up to Winter Park Colorado, a ski resort in the mountains of Colorado. It's a world-class ski resort, great little town.

And when we went up there to visit a friend of John's who lived up there with his girlfriend, and while we were up there, this was our kind of moment of saying, this is a perfect place.

We love this place, although we had been there before, we fell in love with it as a place where we could see ourselves spending more time.

And on our way out of town, we decided to to stop and look at real estate. And we asked the realist, the real estate agent to show us land.

Our plan was that we were going to buy some land and build a modern vacation home.

And so, we hop back in the car, and we're heading down the mountain towards Denver, and for whatever reason, one of us looked to the other and said, what can we afford?

And literally, that was the first time in our relationship of being together for a year and a half that either of us actually talked to the other person about where our financial state was.

And as we're going down the mountain, it went from buying land and building a vacation home to buying something that was already there, to renting long term to literally pulling up in front of our place, grabbing our bags, opening up the door and walking down a flight of stairs into a basement apartment.

And that's when we realized that we were physically and financially living in a hole, and we confessed to to each other that between the two of us, we had $51,000 in credit card debt.

And we like to say that today, that this is our Oh shits creek moment, that we literally that here we were living this lifestyle of fabulousness.

But when we, when you looked at actually looked at our finances on paper, we were fabulously broke.

Everything that we were doing was going on credit cards, and that's that was kind of our rock bottom moment of when we said to each other, why the heck is our life, our lives, going in this direction?

Why are we spending so much money? Why are we doing all of this? But we don't feel like we're happy at all.

And that that began our journey into understanding and kind of peeling away the layers of why. Why did we live this way, and what did we really want our lives to look like?

John Schneider

I'll add that at this time, we had about 15 years of combined service in financial services.

So, we were helping everyday people with their finances every single day, about saving for retirement, how to invest, have a good credit score, how to build an emergency savings account, avoid high-interest rate debt.

And here we weren't applying that to our own lives, despite having all that theoretical knowledge and actually having access to some financial information that not everybody necessarily has access to.

And I share that particular part because I think, you know, there's a sort of misconception that people in financial services sort of just know better, and they can do better, and they just have it easier because they have this information and resources.

But we were pathetically applying those principles to our own lives.

And during a span of my career in financial services, I did compliance for a financial services firm, and I would review advisors we were considering onboarding into the firm and approving them or denying them based on a couple of criteria, and about 40% of them had bankruptcies, liens, horrible credit scores.

So, I share that just so your listeners can kind of understand that if they're not doing well financially, it's not like somebody else, other people are doing that much better than them. The pros aren't that much better.

Rob Loveless

But it still could be, you know, alarming to see those numbers that, oh, I owe this amount or I have this bill coming in.

So, you know, with that being said, how did you both manage to pay off that $51,000 in debt and start living fabulously without being fabulously broke?

David Auten

Well, you know, I think what was really interesting is, is, fortunately, John and I had that, that conversation, right?

We're flying down the highway 65, 75 miles an hour talking about our finances, and one of us couldn't turn to the other and say, F you, I'm out of here. I can't stand this conversation, right? We literally had to.

And I don't, folks, I don't recommend that you do this. But we do want people to have these kinds of conversations. Talk to your partner or partners about your financial situation, come clean.

We like to say, come out about your money, because so many of us are hiding our true financial state because the world we live in today, it's, it's almost, we're almost conditioned, especially as gay men, that if you don't have this or look like that or travel to these destinations, you're not a good gay, you're not worthy of being a friend or a partner.

And the reality is, is that there are so many of us that are not that archetype of fabulously wealthy gays. There's so many of us that are not, but we're pretending to be, and it's hurting us financially.

So, for the, fortunately, one of the big things that John and I did was we actually took the time to have some conversations.

We started to talk about our financial situation and who we are and what we wanted and why we were in the state we were in.

And one of the first things I did was I took a look at every single penny that we had spent over the previous year, and it just blew our minds as to where our money was going.

And I think that's the case with most people, is we just don't, most of us don't, don't actually know where our money goes.

And so, when we don't know where our money goes, we oftentimes feel like our lives are less than optimal or great.

And when John and I, when I looked at where our money was being spent, we were like, wow, we are living the high life.

We're spending like John said, $400 a week at whole paycheck, and $400 a week dining out. We're living like we are making millions of dollars when we weren't.

And so, the first step is understand, was understanding where our money was going.

And then the big question was, well, if we're not happy and we're spending all this money, what should we be spending our money on to make us happy?

And that really took us in a different direction of what did we want our lives to look like? You know, for most straight people, the there is this kind of set path, right?

You you get out of high school, you go to college, you meet somebody, you get married, you buy a house, you have kids, you live your life, you plan for your kids' education, you can retire, blah blah.

You kind of have this set life. For us as queer folks, we don't necessarily have that. And so, we're making all sorts of choices on in our lives, and most of that is about, how do I feel good in the moment?

Especially for those of us who grew up in in times and places where it wasn't okay to be gay, a lot of us feel compelled to spend money to make ourselves feel good in the moment, and so we just had to say to ourselves, how do we feel good in the moment and feel-good long term with the way we're spending our money?

And it just caused us to really shift where our money was going, and that opened up the opportunity for us to then have a gap between how much money we were making and how much money we were spending so we could pay the credit card debt off.

Unique Financial Factors for LGBTQ+ People (18:29)

Rob Loveless

And you mentioned there that there's kind of different trajectories for straight people versus gay people in terms of straight people have kind of this pre-defined path of finances, so to speak, where for gay people, we don't really have anything measured out like that.

But historically, gay men have also faced financial adversity, whether it be job discrimination or the inordinate healthcare costs during the AIDS pandemic.

So how have these struggles impacted generational wealth for gay men?

John Schneider

It's had a profound effect for gay men specifically, but I would argue for the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.

David and I often say that one of the challenges that gay men specifically have is in that pursuit of being the best little boy in the world, we've got to have all of those sort of outward displays of one's means of wealth, the cars, the vacations, the designer clothing, and all that.

And that's in part, a hangover from the HIV/AIDS crisis because there was sort of this ethos that was adopted during that time of live for today because tomorrow, I will die.

And that was a very likely scenario in the 80s and 90s. Well, obviously we've come a long way with the HIV/AIDS crisis, and I don't want to minimize the challenges that we still have today.

But it's not necessarily the death sentences that it was once upon time, and we're still sort of living that Carpe Diem philosophy in our lives because they kind of set a bar of what an ideal life looks like for a gay man. So, we're also sort of in pursuit of that still. I mean, you watch.

TV, and there's like, one archetype of what a gay man looks and acts like and how they live their lives. You know, it's Will & Grace.

It's Neil Patrick Harris, you know, it's just like these, these fabulous men, and we're all trying to sort of live up to that ideal.

And we clearly don't all have that the same kind of income. I mean, a great example is when David and I, during our party days, were spending this kind of money trying to pursue this life of fabulousness.

We were hanging out with doctors and lawyers who had obviously great incomes. And then on the other end of the income spectrum, we were hanging out with retail clerks and baristas and whatnot.

And there were a whole bunch of us, sort of in between. We all had this the same Diesel clothing. We all had the same fancy shoes. We all went on the same trips. Had the same happy hours.

We're all doing the same stuff. By all outward appearances, we all had the same lifestyle, but clearly, some of us could afford that way more than others of us, and we think a lot of that has to do with the hangover from the HIV/AIDS crisis, also coupled with the fact that many of us are sort of trying to make up for childhoods where we were treated inferior or weren't treated well.

And the best way is to prove the bullies in school wrong, or your family, if they, if they, if they kicked you out, that they're wrong about you, is, look how amazing I am. If I'm this amazing, I must be loveable, right?

We're sort of in pursuit of that, that love, and unfortunately, many of us don't sort of get a slap in the face until it's it's too late in life.

We'd get a lot of our most reoccurring emails from gay men in their mid-50s to 60s who say they haven't saved a penny for retirement and they want to retire yesterday. So, what options do they have?

And it's just, we just think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that many of us are trying to live a good life today.

It's called, it's a psychological term called hyperbolic discounting, where we sacrifice tomorrow in pursuit of today. And eventually tomorrow is going to come around, and you want to prepare for that.

But most LGBT people don't do that, and most straight couples don't do that. It's not like they have a, that they're, that they're rocking it with their money, right?

And we know a lot of straight couples who by the time they reach their 40s and 50s, they're like this path of happiness that I was designed for me decades before I even was born is actually not what I wanted to live, but society did let me live otherwise.

Rob Loveless

Like you said, with the AIDS pandemic now we're in a point where it is more so a chronic illness than a terminal one.

We've come a long way where, you know, gay men and LGBTQ+ people can live a long and healthy life.

So, with that in mind, going from the 80s to today, what's the financial state of the LGBTQ+ community, and what are some unique challenges we face?

David Auten

Yeah, so John and I were, we've been fortunate enough, in part because we were the first, first people in the personal finance space to actually start talking about the nuances and the differences between being part of the LGBT community and our finances, kind of that intersection.

John and I have been fortunate to partner with a number of organizations. And in 2022 and 2023 we partnered with the Motley Fool, which is a very large financial education platform.

They also do, they manage folks' assets and things like that, but they do a lot of education around investing and money, and we partnered with them.

And it for two years in a row, we surveyed roughly around 2,000 LGBT folks with a heavier weighting towards trans and non-binary folks, because oftentimes they get left out of this, these kind of data sets.

So, we specifically looked at the, at the our community, and said, what are what's going on with the state of our finances?

And it's really interesting that there's some really positive data that's coming out of that, or information that's coming out of that, but there's, at the same time, there's a lot of data that kind of aligns with the feelings that people have in the community about our financial state.

Both years, we saw roughly around 55% of folks who responded to the survey said that they stress about their money on a daily or weekly basis, and we know that that data about the general population says that roughly about 70% of the general population stresses about their finances. It doesn't qualify as to how often, but if you include all of the data about our community, it's more aligned with the general population, more, actually, more of us stress about our money than the general population.

And I think it speaks to this idea of that's the stressors or the demands on our money in as LGBT people, where we either choose to live or have to live because of safety.

The way in which we kind of feel like we're compelled to spend our money. All of these things add to our financial stress.

And so, in general, the community is either stressed about their money or not looking to use or not using the tools that are available to us to actually improve our financial situation.

I think that many of us in the community are almost like the the deer in the headlights scenario when it comes to our finances. We we we catch that glimmer of light and we just freeze. Right? What do I do?

I don't know what to do. Nobody is helping me. So, we just freeze and we don't do anything.

And that's, I think in part why, like John said, we have so many in our community who wait much, much longer to actually start engaging in their finances.

And for that reason, many of us are in a in a really difficult spot when we finally do start to engage with our finances. But there are some glimmers of hope.

One of the things that we did see in the study is that 38% of individuals who identified as trans are earning $100,000 a year or more, which is more than the general population.

General population, 31% of the general population has a salary of $100,000 or more. So, there are some glimmers of hope.

We know that there are people in the community who are doing some of the things that they need to do to try to help themselves financially.

Rob Loveless

That's awesome. It's always good to hear about those glimmers of hope, because a lot of times when we talk about, you know, LGBTQ+ specific issues, or, you know, financial health issues, it could be really depressing.

And to bring it down a little bit last year, I did do an episode on the LGBTQ+ wage gap, and in that episode, they talked about, it was 2022 data from the HRC, but they were talking about the pay disparity between gay and straight workers.

And in looking at that, some specific findings were that:

• LGBTQ+ white workers earn 97 cents for every dollar earned by straight workers
• LGBTQ+ Black workers earn 80 cents for every dollar earned
• Non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid, and Two-Spirit workers earn 70 cents for every dollar earned
• Trans men earn 70 cents for every dollar earned
• And trans women earn 60 cents for every dollar earned

So again, really glad to hear about that glimmer of hope. But when it comes to, you know, things like the LGBTQ+ wage disparity, what effect does this have on on queer finances?

John Schneider

Yeah, so we are seeing some glimmers of hope.

And regarding the transgender results from our two studies, we dug into the data a little bit more deeply, and it it seems that who, the what's overweighting that is white, male to female transgender folks who seem to be transitioning later in life.

So, they've kind of already got an established career, or they've already saved or invested a bunch of money.

And now, for you know what, I don't know whatever reason they decided to transition later in life. And so that's probably skewing that data a little bit relative to the typical narrative.

And we are, there was a Hardware study that came out a couple of years ago that now shows that gay men who are coupled are now earning more as a household than straight couples.

So, there are glimmers of hope that we might be starting to close the wage gap, but the fact that we still have a huge problem with regard guarding the wage gap LGBTQ+ people as well as women.

You know, typically, if you're not a straight white male, you're struggling with income and just just gives you that fewer resources to be able to prepare to build financial security, because inflation isn't, isn't waiting for us to catch up with our salaries. Right?

Inflation is continued to spiral out of control, but there's persistent talk about recession, right? And who's typically going to be one of the first people let go when there's a recession?

It's always people who aren't necessarily earning as much as as as their straight white counterparts are typically let, let go.

So, there's a big problem that still needs to be addressed because you can only do so much with a little bit of money. Time in the market is your bit is your greatest friend in terms of building wealth.

We still have to have some some excess money to be able to invest in the market while you're covering all of your basic living expenses because you're still, without having enough income, you're still sort of living in that lower rings of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

You don't have the privilege or the opportunity to sort of grow your life beyond just covering your basic needs.

Physical & Emotional Effects of Finances (29:33)

Rob Loveless

And you talked about earlier how, I'm sorry I'm forgetting the number, but a large chunk of LGBTQ+ people are worrying daily about finances.

So, on top of, you know, worry and anxiety, how can our finances physically affect our health?

David Auten

Yeah, you know, it is a it is a good point to ask yourself. John and I like to remind folks that simply doing sitting down and looking at your finances, taking the time to understand where your money is going or how much money you truly are earning, right?

Because a lot of us say, okay, I earn $70,000 a year, but after taxes, after everything is taken out of that, you're actually bringing home, let's just say $40,000. Well, that's a huge difference, right?

And many of us spend like we're earning $70,000 when we're actually bringing in 40. But I think it's an, it's an important step to look at your finances. That is self-care. That is an important factor in self-care.

Data shows that individuals who commit suicide are eight times more likely to have credit card debt, right?

So, it just adds to the financial, I mean, financial stress adds to the other stressors that we have in our lives.

And this is actually a stressor that some of us have a prime opportunity to remove from our lives by simply just understanding it, understanding what a money does for us, what it can do for us, and making our lives better, where we can use our money to help us thrive.

And so, the first step for many people is to actually take a look at where, where, what their money is really doing for them, both on a physical in a physical way, but also in a mental health way.

John Schneider

Yeah, and the financial stress just exact exacerbates the other stress that can cause hypertension, can increase body weight, increase risk of stroke, just simply not good for your physical and mental well-being, and it oftentimes leads to many of us increased chances of drug and alcohol addiction, which just compounds everything else.

So, it's a it's a very simple thing to do to really address your your well-being is by talking about your finances, looking at your finances, even if you're just being honest with yourself about your situation, or ideally talking with a partner, partners, or spouse.

Queer Money (32:06)

Rob Loveless

Lots of information there, you know, with understanding the unique factors that affect our community.

When you both had had the conversation about your combined credit card debt and realized that, you know, you need to get back on track there, what was the moment for you both where you realized, hey, this let's, let's create this Queer Money community to help others out there?

John Schneider

Yeah, so that's a fun story. So, towards the end of paying off our debt, we thought we had a unique perspective compared to other content out there, because we were from the financial services industry.

But yeah, we had this struggle that we went through personally, so we thought putting that together into a book would be a great way to help people in a sort of a unique way that's not really out there.

We were naive enough to think that when you publish a book, Oprah invites you onto TV and then like, it's just riches and glory and fame and you're helping all sorts of people right worldwide.

And we learned the hard way that that's not what happened. And we dabbled in blogging after that didn't materialize the way we wanted it to. This is relatively blogging was just kind of taking off.

It was like 2013, 2014 when we started doing that. We went to our first personal finance conference; there's a whole community of money nerds that get together every year.

That was in 2015 in Charlotte, and at that time, there were about 900 people that attended. And we realized at that moment that there were all these different personal finance influencers.

We didn't, they didn't call us that at the time, but I hate being called that today, but it's…

David Auten

Educators.

John Schneider

Educators, yeah. There were about 900 or so, and they were all each talking to various demographics. Right? There were Christian bloggers and mommy bloggers, military families, you name it.

The Black women were just phenomenal. They have there are force to be reckoned with in the community. And we're like, oh, wow, this is so cool.

Like everybody's speaking to these different demographics. And then, as far as we knew, at that time, and people had suggested the same to us, was that we were the only out gay couple there.

Nobody else was known to be LGBT. And...

David Auten

You couldn't help spot us though. We were walking around the conference, whether it's because of our codependency or not, we walk around the conference holding hands because...

John Schneider

And people said to us, and our marketing manager had said to us at the time as well, you guys should do create content for the LGBT community.

So, we didn't know exactly what that looked like, but we went home after that conference, and about six months or so later, we did our first iteration of Queer Money, which is on a defunct platform called Blab, which no longer exists, and it was kind of a hot mess.

And we had thought about just, you know, whatever, it didn't pan out the way we thought it was, would. It was a 13-week series where we can talk about different nuances of being LGBT and the intersection with money, and we're about ready to wrap that up.

And somebody from Huff Post reached out and said, hey, we like what you're doing. We'd like to do a feature of your content on our, feature your content on our website every week as you're publishing the content.

And we're like, well, shit, I guess we got to figure out a way to keep this going. So, we did that, and that didn't really produce the results that we had needed to keep it going, and we were about ready to shut it down again.

And then a sponsor had reached or a company had reached out and said, hey, we'd like to sponsor your show, and we landed a 13-week contract for that.

So, we're like, okay, now we got to figure out how to really make this happen. So, by our third iteration, we kept it going. And now eight, nine years later, we're still doing it.

David Auten

And I think you know what was, what was interesting is so much of personal finance content is so transactional related.

John and I like to say personal finance, it has an 80/20, split. 80, 80% of what we do with our money is very transactional. Right? Swiping a card is the same whether you're gay or straight.

You writing a check, for people who still do that is, you know that's the same if you're gay or straight. Getting a loan is the same transactionally, whether you're gay or straight, but there's the 20% of personal finance that's the personal portion of it, right?

Our personal story with money is 100% wrapped up in our gender, our gender expression, the color of our skin, the household that we grew up in, our religion, geographically, where we live or grew up.

All of that informs our money story, and all of that, that 20%, all of that has basically affects that other 80% as to how we transact with money, right?

If you grew up in a house where money was scarce, you may be the kind of person who has a scarcity mindset with your money, so you hold on to your money and you don't pay your bills because you're like, I need this safety, I need this safety net. I have to have this money, so you don't pay your bills.

Whereas somebody who grew up in a household where their family transacted with money and talked about money, and there was that kind of conversation, or they saw their parents regularly sitting down and paying their bills, then you might be in a household where you understand and don't have a scarcity mindset.

And so, the that intersection of who we are and our money transactions was something that John and I saw missing in the personal finance space, and we said, we have to start talking about this because there are LGBT people out there who are literally following Dave Ramsey, who hates queer people.

He literally told a gay guest who was on his show that he couldn't talk about being gay because he wanted to do the debt screen because he had followed Dave.

So, there are people in our community who are out there following these anti-LGBT personal finance people. And John and I said, we gotta, we got to try to help stop that.

We need these people to understand that their money is important, just as important as to who they are, as to how they are, what they do with their money.

Homophobia in Personal Finances (38:10)

Rob Loveless

It's funny, you mentioned that because I, you know, a lot of people know Dave Ramsey is homophobic, but I didn't know just how bad he was until, actually, I had listened to some of the recent episodes.

What was it? The one, you're talking about the, what's the organization he tells people to donate to?

John Schneider

Kingdom Advisors. Yeah.

Rob Loveless

That's it.

John Schneider

It's an anti-LGBT financial advisory accreditation that people get. And those advisors, for your listeners, that's episode 386, I think of our show...

David Auten

Yeah.

John Schneider

Of our podcast. Those advisors are encouraging their clients, who have been encouraged by Dave Ramsey to join them, to put their giving portion of their portfolio into these anti-LGBTQ+ tax-advantaged donor-advised funds that are funneling billions and billions of dollars a year into anti-LGBT causes, funding the anti-LGBT legislation that we're seeing across the country.

And that's kind of, that's how all of a sudden, we've got all these anti-LGBT laws, and our community is like, where did all this come from?

They've been funneling this money, investing this money, and now have the interest being thrown off from these investments to be able to fund this hate against the LGBTQ community, and we don't have anything even close to that.

Personal Finance Mistakes LGBTQ+ People Make (39:16)

Rob Loveless

Well, in addition to following Dave Ramsey's advice, what are some common mistakes you see LGBTQ+ people making when it comes to finances?

John Schneider

I hate the word mistake because we don't talk about this. We're not taught this in school. Most families don't talk about it. We were most of us were raised, you know, it's rude to talk about money.

And so, we're all getting into adulthood, and we're just supposed to have somehow or another acquired all the information to be able to do our money, manage our money well.

And I feel like using the word mistake kind of sort of makes people feel like they're they're doing something wrong. They just don't, I think just most people don't know better.

But if, if we were to highlight a mistake, I would argue that the biggest thing that our community is not doing is not talking about money.

We are much more inclined to talk about sex, any kinds of sex, our fetishes, whatever, the thing you know, way more than we're willing to talk about anything about our financial lives.

And that does a huge disservice to the community because we believe that the first step for anybody to get to pursue financial well-being is to simply start having the conversation around money, whether that's a conversation that you're going to have, an openly and honestly conversation with yourself or with the other important people in your life.

How are we doing financially? What are our life goals? Where are we headed? What debt do we have? What's our credit score? Though, we need to have those conversations there.

I think a great resource for the LGBTQ+ community is, are Black women. They have coalesced, and they talk about where to get decent coupons. Who can help me with my credit score?

Where can I get this discount or that discount? Who can I invest with that's not going to treat me, talk down to me because I'm either Black or because I'm a woman?

They had these conversations and that that the personal finance space for Black women is just blowing up. Those women are doing amazing.

So, we think that that all that starts with the conversation, and the talisman for the community should be Black women.

David Auten

I'll add, I think that a I'll just use the word, the term. I don't mind. I think one of the mistakes that John and I made was not being honest with ourselves.

You know, we we as a community, we talk about living authentically, being your true self, and yet we put so many layers over ourselves to hide who we truly are, and more often than not, those layers are funded with the money that we don't have right?

When John and I were in our heyday, we went to all the gala events. We went to HRC dinners, we attended the silent auctions and all this kind of stuff, but we spent way more money and time on the way that we looked than we ever gave to the organization. Why?

Because we felt like we needed to impress everybody in the room, right? And and so I think that for for most of us, the first step is just truly be authentic to who you are, right? Who really are you?

Be comfortable with who you are. If you are a social worker that makes $45,000 a year, be authentic to that.

You you provide a valuable service in the world today, but a social worker who makes $45,000 a year is not the kind of person that's going to be driving around in a $600,000 Bentley, right?

We just know that, that's not. So, don't even try to get close to that, right? Be authentic to who you are, because then you won't be bringing in that financial stress.

And so, I would venture, I said it earlier, come out about your money, but come out about who you are and the space that you can live in with your financial situation.

Being Rich vs. Being Wealthy (43:15)

Rob Loveless

And you used the example before, of, you know, somebody who is a social worker, you know, wanting to buy a Bentley, which just realistically, that's not going to happen.

And to me, the idea of driving a Bentley sounds like something you do when you're quote-unquote rich, but I think that there's a difference between being rich and being wealthy.

So, can you kind of explain the difference between the two?

David Auten

The way I like to look at it is that rich is something that can be faked. You can fake being rich. You cannot fake being wealthy. Rich is oftentimes focused on what someone has and how they show up. Right?

When we think of somebody who's rich, like you just said, it's somebody who has a Bentley, it's somebody who does a trip to Mykonos. It's the person who's who's got a home in Palm Springs and a home in the city, right?

Or a place, and oftentimes it shows up in the way that we people see us. Wealth, on the other hand, is your money's ability to take care of you.

Your money is, your money's the where you have put your money. It has they allow, it allows you to live a full life. Not the baller weekends in Vegas and having hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'll be honest, I would rather have a portfolio of assets that allow me to live off of $50,000 a year, because my my investments completely take care of me and be able to dedicate my time and energy wherever I want, then having a job where I'm making $250,000 a year, but I spend every single penny that I have, and I'm constantly stressed about, am I going to lose my job?

And if I lose my job, I'm going to lose my house and lose my car, and I'm going to have to confess to everybody that all of this was just a facade, right?

That's what that to me, is the difference between being rich and being wealthy.

John Schneider

Yeah, this term that's bubbled up over the last couple of years, called whisper wealthy. And if you look at truly wealthy people, you very often they don't have all the name-brand clothing on.

You can really, we used to live in Vegas, and you could really see people who were rich, they weren't wealthy, because they would have all of the like, they were just walking billboards with all the stuff.

And most people who are truly wealthy don't wear all that stuff because they don't need to. Their jacket might be $5,000 but it's not doesn't have somebody's name on it, right?

And when we were we were living our heyday in our party days, we were buying all the name brand stuff so people could tell...

David Auten

He was. I wasn't, he was.

John Schneider

He was wearing Gap jeans. I still thought it was hot.

But our different, so what we're encouraging the community to do is pursue what are called the four financial freedoms:

• Relationship freedom
• Time freedom
• Location freedom
• And financial freedom

And having all of those subsidized by your investments, and because incomes are never going to get up to where they need to be so that everybody can live comfortably, we need to start pursuing new avenues of creating that wealth, with a combination of investing in the stock market, investing in real estate, investing in our own small business with the foundation of solid credit score and emergency savings account and not not a whole lot of high interest rate credit card debt. And that's what we call our wealth builders pyramid.

How Personal Finance Can Improve Your Relationship (46:33)

Rob Loveless

Definitely. And David, to your point, you were talking about how you feel better knowing you have these assets in place to take care of you in the long haul, you know, in case, should something pop up and there's a mini financial emergency or something.

And I think it really goes back to your point too of, you know, taking care of your finances is a form of self-care.

And I can imagine, you know, when you talked about having that conversation about your collective credit card debt, that, you know, it's scary, but it's a big milestone to have in a relationship to talk finances.

So, I can imagine being open and communicating authentically in a relationship about finances is probably a relationship builder as well.

David Auten

Definitely. Yeah, it's a I don't know if you're alluding to this. We've talked about this before, but this whole idea of couples that talk to each other about their finances have better sex.

What is a better reason to talk to your partner about money than the fact that you're gonna have some rocking sex, right? We all want that kind of.

We all long for, and many of us, I would say, especially when we're single, lust for that kind of relationship, right?

That relationship of when we're with somebody that we can't get enough of them, and our sex is is stellar. Well, what causes that?

Why is there a link between people who talk about their finances together having better sex? And really, what it comes down to is, when you're able to talk open and honestly about your finances, you're getting vulnerable.

You're asking this person to trust you, and you to trust them. And that's what brings people together in a relationship. It's our trust, and the more we trust the person we're with, the more likely that we are going to feel intimate when we're with them.

We want to be together and express each other, express our love for each other in a variety of ways, whether that is holding each other's hands when we're walking down the street or getting into some really kinky sex because we trust that person and have safe words.

John Schneider

Credit score is my safe word.

Rob Loveless

Um, and so kind of shifting from that a little bit. What are some, sorry, I couldn't think of a good like transition.

David Auten

It's funny, going from kinky sex to. Okay.

Rob Loveless

Well, I mean maybe it could be tied in here. I don't know. Maybe there's some safe words hidden in this.

Personal Finance Resources for LGBTQ+ People (49:02)

Rob Loveless

But what are some financial products you love most that not only help LGBTQ+ people with their financial needs but also support the community as an ally?

David Auten

So, I'll say, because you're, since you're asking about specific tools, I'm gonna name drop some brands that we we do like.

Capital One's credit scoring tool is called Credit Wise, and I love this tool for two reasons. One, it's, it's a your typical credit scoring tool, right?

So, you, you're going to get your credit score from this tool, but at the same time, they show you all sorts of ways in which you can improve your credit score.

The other thing is, is that they don't bombard you with 10 emails a day trying to get you to sign up for a new credit card.

Some other brands, one that has K in its name, literally, I would get, like, 10 to 12 emails a day saying, here, used you should get this credit card. Here you should get that credit card. Well, what does that do?

It just tempts me to get a new credit card that I might end up using to rack up a bunch of more credit and hurt myself financially.

So that's one of the reasons why I love that, that tool, and since credit score is an issue for a lot of of younger and non-experienced folks when it comes to your finances, there's that tool as well as Experian's Boost tool.

This is a really good thing for young individuals and people who do not own a home because it allows you to use things like your Netflix subscription, it you're paying your rent, all those kinds of things can be added to your credit history, credit history or payment history, not credit history.

Payment history, you can be added to your payment history that helps boost or increase your credit score.

And a lot of, a lot of folks don't understand the savings that they will get by having a better credit score when they go to apply for a loan for a car or a home.

John Schneider

Yeah, you can save tens of thousands of dollars of your lifetime with a good credit score. And Boost typically increases people's credit score from five up to 50 points.

So, it can be pretty significant, depending upon whether or not you can tie your accounts to it.

David Auten

I'll also throw out we love tools like Betterment, Wealthfront, Ellevest, these are all tools that they have a very simple way to start investing in the stock market, especially through an IRA or an individual retirement account.

Roughly about 38% of the LGBT community is using a retirement account, and it's more than two-thirds of the non-LGBTQ population that uses some form of a retirement account, right?

We as a community are not planning and saving for retirement, which means we're there's going to be a lot of us who are going to be like Rose Nylund on the Golden Girls, saying, Do I am I going to end up being a bag lady?

And I don't want, we don't want people in the community to have that kind of fear in their lives. And so, these simple investing tools, they allow you to start investing with like, $5 a paycheck, right?

You can just have five, start off really slow, really small, watch your money grow. And they do all the investing for you in these portfolios, so you don't have to worry about, am I picking the right investment?

Am I making smart investment decisions? They ask you a couple of questions, and then they select a portfolio for you. Please start investing in your future.

That was, John and I waited until we were in our mid-30s to start saving for our retirement, and for that reason, we had to take even more money out of our paychecks to try to catch up.

Please don't let that happen to you.

Rob Loveless

And I think that's a good point too because I think for a lot of people, it could be intimidating the idea of saving money, because to think, oh, I am trying to save $1,000 for this, or whatever, it looks like such a big number, but really, it's about taking those little steps and making those small adjustments every day.

Putting away a couple dollars a week or something, to build up to that, to just kind of get you on the path to start building, and then once you get some money into savings, it kind of is a snowball effect where, hopefully, it's growing over time with interest.

But becoming, you know, wealthy doesn't happen overnight.

John Schneider

No, it doesn't. And unfortunately, a lot of people, not just LGBT people, feel like they have to wait till they have a couple hundred of thousands of dollars to invest.

And you simply, most of us, can't wait that long, and you just don't need to.

Like David said, you have all these apps where you can start doing it with $5 and then that compounding effect is going to Einstein, called compounding interest is the eighth one of the world, right?

That'll, that'll, that'll benefit you very quickly once you start investing.

Rob Loveless

You know, financial conversations can obviously be very overwhelming with tons of conflicting advice.

So, in your opinion, what is the best starting place for someone within the LGBTQ+ community who's looking to be smarter with their money and start building up some savings?

John Schneider

Well, the Queer Money podcast.

David Auten

You know, listen to the Queer Money podcast.

John Schneider

I'll be so self-serving. That and, you know, I, you know, to David's point earlier, doing business with Dave Ramsey is hurting the community.

So, try be a little bit more judicious about who you do follow. And fortunately, since 2015 there has been more and more LGBT people who have joined the personal finance space, all sorts of people.

Daniella Flores of I Like to Dabble. Vee Frugal Fox has a new podcast out called...

David Auten

For Fox Sake.

John Schneider

For Fox sake, there's a whole number of hosts of people who are coming from from a lesbian perspective, non-binary perspective, transgender perspective.

Find those LGBTQ personal finance influencers that you connect with and start following them.

Just even if it's just listening to one episode of their show a week, or reading their blog one blog post a week, so that we can start not only improve ourselves financially as a community, but we can start lifting up personal finance influencers in the community, and so we can stop giving money to Dave Ramsey that's just going to fuel the hate that we talked about earlier.

How to Talk Finances with Your Partner (55:19)

Rob Loveless

How do you navigate financial discussions and decisions within LGBTQ+ relationships? And how do you keep emotions in check? Because obviously, finances can be an extremely emotional and sensitive topic.

John Schneider

Yeah, 100% so because nobody ever wants to talk about it, one of the first things we encourage people to do is to blame us for it.

So have dinner with your partner or spouse and be like, hey, these two guys were on the Jaded Gay podcast, and they said, we need to talk about money. We never do that.

You know, use us as an excuse, right? And then our first suggestion after that, or so, I guess, our second suggestion is focus on the hot and the happy things, the big things. What is it you want to achieve?

What are your life goals? Where do you want to make sure you travel before you die? Where do you want to where would your ideal retirement be? What kind of a home would you have?

What's the weather like there? What are you going to do during retirement? What education goals do you have for yourself or for your children? Like, what is an ideal life look like for you?

And then start to after you've sort of done all the daydreaming and you've narrowed down what the most important things are for you that you actually really want to pursue, then start to have a discussion. Okay, well, how are we going to get there?

What is that going to take? It's going to cost, you know, whatever, $500,000 to buy our dream home. It's going to cost $22,000 or $5,000 to do this ideal vacation or whatever it is we want to do.

Once you've itemized all that, then say, okay, what do we have to do to do to get there, and what's inhibiting us from doing that?

So, you might realize that, okay, well, we're not gonna have to buy that $500,000 house if we continue to have all this credit card debt, or if we don't improve our credit score.

And we think that if you focus on the things that are aspirational and that would make you happy and sort of narrowed down to okay, what are the things you have to chip away at? What do we have to fix?

Then it's a little bit of a happier conversation.

And I will argue that for most people, having that discussion can take a while to figure out what it is you truly want because most of us are heavily influenced by what everybody else thinks we should want, or what we think we're supposed to want.

So have the discussion to figure out what it is that you truly want can take a couple years.

David Auten

So right now, we're all wondering, where this $22,000 vacation is that you just mentioned.

John Schneider

I think I meant to say 2000.

David Auten

You know when, when John and I were living our, what we call our fabulously unconscious, financially unconscious life.

One of the things that was that we would do is we would put our vacations on our credit card right. We wanted the we wanted to get the credit card rewards right.

So, we put these, we put these vacations on on our credit cards. And more often than not, we had the next trip planned, booked, and taken even before we had that first vacation paid off.

Right every time we came back from a vacation, we had this credit card hangover, and so the first or second statement or credit card balance that we looked at after coming back from vacation made us go, Fuck, I need another vacation because I'm so, I'm so stressed about where I am financially.

And so, I think that that's that's one of the important things, is in this, in these conversations, is kind of asking yourself, what do I want my life to look like?

Why do I want it to want it to look like, like that, right? There's, we'll say this, that almost everything that you can spend money on is a good money choice.

I'll say almost, but you can decide whatever is good or bad for you, but almost anything you can spend money on can be a good financial choice if doing that allows you to say, I'm having fun now, and that fun will last. I'm not on this dopamine treadmill of buy, feel bad, buy, feel bad, buy, feel bad.

You know, we don't use our money, our money, and our purchases to mask our feelings. We're actually using our money and our purchases to make ourselves feel like our lives are thriving.

You know, getting a pair of red-bottomed shoes if that's what you want because you're gonna walk down the catwalk in your red-bottomed shoes.

Do that if that's what you want, but please make sure that when you do that, you're actually thinking about your whole financial picture rather than just the red bottom shoes.

Rob Loveless

Definitely, and I think I saw it somewhere online, but I think it's important to make sure that we're putting our money towards things that make us happy at the end of the day and not for anybody else.

Because the thing I saw online was something like, we're spending money we don't have to buy things we don't want to impress people we don't like.

David Auten

Yeah, that's that was us going to all the gala events. Literally, John and I have stopped.

John Schneider

We liked the people we went with. To all those people who are listening.

David Auten

Yeah, we kind of have stopped doing those kinds of of gala events, in part because we now love it when we get to put our money to into the organizations at the ground level, like when we live, we live here in Toledo, Ohio.

We put, we give money to Equality Toledo, and we get to see what that money is doing locally, here in the community, rather than it drifting off to some ivory tower in Washington, DC, where we don't know where that money is really being spent.

John Schneider

The fundraising class.

Unique Financial Challenges for LGBTQ+ People (1:00:36)

Rob Loveless

So, I hate to bring up Dave Ramsey's name again. I think this is like the third time we're talking about it, and he says his name.

Yeah, well, gonna say legend has, if you say his name three times, he shows up like Beetlejuice.

But you know, in addition to him, obviously, there are, you know, sometimes anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes behind corporations, including financial institutions, that can definitely serve as roadblocks to LGBTQ+ people.

So, have you as a same-sex couple ever faced any unique financial challenges from such companies?

John Schneider

I don't know that I've personally or that we've personally experienced anything overtly.

There were some microaggressions that I experienced in the workplace, and David did as well, but nothing's sort of overt, at least not that I'm aware of.

David Auten

Yeah, John and I like to refer this is specifically for in the workplace. We like to refer to something called cascading homophobia. We have allies in the workplace. They want to help us, right?

And so, they will go out and be our advocates, but sometimes they bump into somebody who is either at their level or above them, and they need to make a decision as to whether or not they put us on a project, or they give us a promotion or highlight the work that we're doing right that can help us.

They bump into somebody who is overtly homophobic. John and I saw this at, we used to work at Charles Schwab, and this happened to us on a number of occasions.

People we had asked to do something who said they were advocates would bump into a decision-maker who didn't want us to see the LGBT organization at Schwab thrive. What did they do?

They, instead of making the decision in our favor, declined to make a decision at all. And so that happens to us and the thing is, this is one of those.

It's kind of almost like a silent killer in the work, in the workplace, where it literally kills our opportunity for advancement.

And I think that's something that many of us don't really see, understand that we're what that's really what's happening.

We think that there's discrimination in the workplace, but we don't know that it's happening, because more often than not, it's that cascading homophobia.

That is one, one way in which it's happening. When we did our study with the Motley Fool, we did find that 44% 48.

John Schneider

55% in 2023.

David Auten

 55% of people in 2023 said that they had experienced discrimination by someone in the financial services industry. And it's closer to 70% if you're trans or non, non-binary.

And so, there is discrimination happening. Please don't let that those instances. Please don't let those instances be your excuse to say, I'm not going to try to improve my finances.

Look for the organizations, the people that are there that look like you, that want to help you. There are ways to find those out there.

If you're looking for a financial advisor, go through Pride Planners, that's an organization of LGBT financial advisors.

As John mentioned, get out there and find the personal finance experts on social media that are who they look like you and that that are have your best interests at heart.

There are plenty of places today to find that, rather than just ignoring it.

John Schneider

Just have to look a little bit. I'll add a twist to that, to that your question there that you might not have expected.

I think the most overt discrimination that David and I have felt from corporations has actually come from LGBTQ+ people who work at these corporations, and every June, we're asked to do all sorts of stuff, speaking gigs, write articles, do social media campaigns, whatnot, because it's June, and that's when they want to spend their money.

But they don't want to pay us, so multi-billion dollars. Someday we're going to write an op-ed about it.

I haven't gotten quite there to just start naming names, but papers of record, gigantic consulting firms who earn trillions of dollars a year want us to take our time, education, resources and give it for free to their company for the good of the community, not understanding that we're a minority-owned and operated micro business with very tight margins, so we don't have the luxury to really do that.

And that to wrap it around the term of we'll do it for the good of the community is just its own kind of homophobia.

Building Generational Wealth for the LGBTQ+ Community (1:05:17)

Rob Loveless

It sounds like, despite those you know, anti LGBTQ+ sentiments out there, you know, institutions, whatever, what have you.

There are definitely people out there. I mean, obviously both of you, the Queer Money community and all that, who are out there dedicated to serving LGBTQ+ people.

So how can we work together to build generational wealth for queer families?

John Schneider

This is a great question, and it's something we absolutely need to do because right now there's not really any system system for us to do that.

Generational wealth for for most families, is I die and I inherit my money to my children. But even, you know, the Williams Institute says that only about 20% of us are going to have children that we're going to be able to inherit money to.

So, we need to start taking a more proactive effort, and I think having some sort of a mentorship where younger LGBTQ folks are engaging better with older LGBTQ folks, and to such degree that when we pass away, we can transfer money to the younger people, even if they're not part of our bloodline.

Because very often right now, when LGBT people pass away, unfortunately, our money gets dispersed to very often, to people who don't even like us, who didn't support us, you didn't support our lifestyle, right?

And so, all we're doing is just funneling, funneling more money back to people who are going to use it against our community anyway.

So, I think we need to have more of a constructive mentorship within the community, knowing that at the end of the day, there's a good chance there is going to be a transfer of wealth, and we can't be ashamed about having that discussion, as slimy as it might feel to some people, it's a way to protect and build the community.

Queer Money Success Story (1:06:53)

Rob Loveless

Can you share a personal finance success story from someone within the Queer Money community that really inspired you?

John Schneider

Yeah, we have a lot.

David Auten

Well, you know, I have an example. This was we used to have a Facebook group called Queer Money. We've since shut it down.

But there was a young young man in that group who basically relayed in his post his story of being on the streets and being homeless as a young gay Black man, and he started off with just being concerned about where was his financial life going, and understanding if he wanted to have a better life, he needed to ask better questions and and make better choices.

And then when he was posting it in the group, he was talking about how he and his partner were finally getting their own place together. They were getting a one-bedroom apartment.

And here was this kid who who went from living on the streets as a young gay man being kicked out of the house, all the way to the point where now he and his partner, they had good credit scores.

They got an apartment together. They were getting their financial lives to get in order, and were starting to think about having a bigger and better life.

And they did that all because he said he did all of that happen because he started to pay attention to his money.

And when he started to pay attention to his money, he connected with our podcast and the community and started to understand that whole idea of, I can make my life better.

You know, we have this, we hear this whole slogan, especially from the Trevor Project, it get, it gets better. Well, it doesn't just get better, because it just happens by accident.

It gets better when we start to see that there's a better path, and when we see that there's a better path, we start to follow down.

Follow down that better path, we get on the yellow brick road, so to speak, of having a happy financial life, and we kind of follow that direction.

And so that was a great example of somebody who literally went from being homeless to being in a much better financial situation because he started to care about his finances.

Empowerment Through Financial Freedom (1:09:14)

Rob Loveless

That's awesome. You know, talking about that, obviously, there's a lot of empowerment that comes from that story.

So how does achieving financial freedom contribute to the overall empowerment of the LGBTQ+ community?

John Schneider

Yeah, so David and I like to say that while we might talk about improving your credit score on the podcast, or seven ways to have a cheap and fun, frugal and fun date, ultimately, the the whole mission of the podcast is to take the LGBTQ+ community from financial insecurity to financial abundance, because we think that in order to build a stronger LGBTQ+ community, we need stronger LGBTQ+ individuals, and that also includes financially stronger LGBT LGBTQ+ individuals and allies, because the more we resources that we have, including money, the more money we can put into the people, causes, and organizations that are supporting for and defending our rights.

So, it's a it's a sort of form of protest, we like to say. Your financial empowerment, your financial abundance, is a form of protest. That's sort of the underlying purpose of the entire podcast.

So, when we all have that, our cup overflowing, then we can have that much more to give to the community, to protect the community, but we're not also simultaneously stealing from ourselves.

Very often I think LGBTQ+ people are inclined to give to the organizations and causes that are protecting us, but we don't have the resources to really be able to give.

So, when we're giving, we're kind of hurting ourselves in a way. And it's not necessarily a net gain for the community.

It sort of stays the same, but if we have our cup overflowing, then we can give and not be sacrificing ourselves.

Rob Loveless

And can you tell us more about the Queer Money community and where listeners can go if they want to learn more?

David Auten

Yeah, definitely. So, we are Queer Money Podcast, or Queer Money on all of the socials. We have our website is queermoneypodcast.com and then our podcast is available on all the various platforms.

John and I are in the process right now of working on a new community for our for the Queer Money folks.

We'll be announcing that later in the year, but the first step, I think, is is to, if you want to engage, start by listening to the podcast and then sign up for our newsletter, because every week, we can share information about how you can live a better life financially.

One of the things we're doing right now on the podcast as well as on YouTube, is we're we're going through every single state and saying, what are the most affordable, LGBTQ-friendly cities in each state.

Where we choose to live is one of the biggest factors impacting our financial security, right? A lot of us feel like we must flee and go to places like San Francisco, LA, New York, Miami, Chicago.

Well, these are really, really, really expensive cities, and when we choose to move to those cities, if we don't have a lot of income, then a lot of us are going to struggle financially, and then we're going to get involved in that financial stress, which may cause us to spiral further down the financial spectrum.

So, one of the reasons why we're doing the the Affordable LGBTQ Friendly Cities is to highlight that there are a lot of other places in the country that are affordable and LGBTQ-friendly.

So, if you want to engage and want something that's a little bit more entertaining, check out our YouTube channel or that series on the podcast.

Rob Loveless

I was, I was actually laughing to myself because I was listening to the, the most gay-friendly cities in each state.

And when we got to the Pennsylvania one, I was laughing because it was Pittsburgh, and I actually moved from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on the same salary, so not the most financially strategic move. But...

John Schneider

But Philadelphia came in number three?

David Auten

I think it was, I think it was in the top four. I can't remember. You know, it was interesting for, you know, Pennsylvania is a is very interesting state, because on the east side, you have cities like Pittsburgh and Erie and, you know, kind of gone down the Rust Belt path.

And on the west, sorry, other way around west side, it's, it's Pittsburgh and Erie kind of, you know, they've gone down that, that path of being part of the Rust Belt and declining, whereas on the east side, you have Philadelphia, which has done much better because it's connected to places like DC and New York and the higher salaries there.

So, but it's still one of the more affordable. I think it ended up in the top 10 of the most affordable places in America that also got a 100 on the HRC's Municipal Equality Index Score.

Rob Loveless

And Philly, I mean, it is more expensive than Pittsburgh, but definitely compared to like DC or New York. It's not as terrible, but...

John Schneider

Way better.

Rob Loveless

It is interesting for myself, because, you know, with finances staying relatively the same, my mortgage here is like, double what I was paying in Pittsburgh, but I'm still able to manage it, which, like, I'm kind of proud of because, like, all right, well, like, look at the steps I took this year to cut, like, cost that I didn't know I could cut.

Because I, like, in my mind, I didn't think I was spending a lot of extra money, but I'm like, all right, you know, I'm paying more, but look at what I was able to do to kind of achieve that.

So little pat on the back moment for me, but still at the end of the day, it would be nice if the the mortgage payment went down.

David Auten

You know, that's, that's kind of what personal finance is all about, right? Making the choices on where we do, where we use our money to get what we want in life, right?

Your your choice was, I want to live in a city that I I'm having I enjoy more where, what kind of choices do I want to make to be able to do that?

And so that may mean, okay, I go to one or two less brunches, or I go out one or two less times, or I spend a little bit less on on the close budget, or whatever because I want to live in this particular city.

It's 100% okay to make those kind of decisions. And that's really that, that's that is actually the best way to think about our money, is, how can I make these decisions to make my lives, my life feel more fabulous?

That's what it's all about is, is, how do we have fun and enjoy our lives? That's why we're here, is to enjoy life, and that's we just have to make those kind of choices when it comes to our money as well.

Rob Loveless

Definitely. And not sponsored, but I will say to all the listeners out there, never doubt the power of Aldi. Everyone had told me about it. I'm like, whatever I have my grocery store out here.

I'm set in my ways. But when I moved to Philly, I'm like, all right, I'll try Aldi. And I mean, like, every week, cutting down my grocery bill in like half, essentially. So that was an easy save area for me.

John Schneider

Yeah, Aldi's is great. We're there every other week ourselves.

David Auten

Yeah.

Rob Loveless

Well, I know, you know, every year I feel people make resolutions of trying to save more money as one of the top ones. And obviously, we're a ways into 2024, now.

But for anybody who's, you know, wanting to save money, or maybe they they had that intention at the start of the year, but they feel that they're not making as much progress.

What words of wisdom or encouragement or like action would you tell them to, like take right now today, besides following Queer Money, after listening to this, what would be the number one action they should do to get going for the year to save money?

John Schneider

You know, I think it would be to read The Four Agreements and to figure out what it is you truly want in your life. Not what's being projected on you, not what your mom and dad want you to do.

Figure out what it is you truly want and then design a lifestyle, just like you did with moving to Philadelphia.

Design your lifestyle so you can have what it is that you truly want because that's the way you're going to be able to live the bigger life that matters most to you and that provides you the most happiness. So read that book.

David Auten

I'll, um, I'm gonna quote Lauren Boland, who was on our podcast, inertia is a hell of a drug. It gets just get started right?

If it's if all it is is $5 a paycheck that you have going into a savings account that you're designating that money for something specific.

Do it because, yeah, it only it seems insignificant, but if you're doing $5 every paycheck, and you're paid twice a month at the end of the year, $120.

Doesn't seem like a ton of money, but wouldn't you love to have an extra $120, right? Then as soon as you can, start to bump that up.

Just the there is a certain dopamine rush that you get from watching your financial situation improve.

For us going from being in a negative financial situation when we had $51,000 in credit card debt, our net worth was less than zero. We owed more money than all the stuff that we had, right?

And that was because most of the stuff that we had wasn't really worth anything. It was stuff that we bought that you could never turn around and sell for anything.

But as we started to see our financial situation improve, and we were paying off our credit card debt, and then we started putting money into our 401(k)s, and saving for our emergent putting money in emergency savings account, there is a dopamine rush that happens that you start to get excited about the fact that my life is improving.

And if, even if it's $5 a week, $10 a week, whatever that it that is, you're going to get, you're going to start that inertia. You're going to start that forward progress.

And it's just like a train, it slowly picks up speed, your financial picture will slowly pick up speed as well, to the point where hopefully it starts to move all on its own.

John Schneider

Yeah, I'll add to what David's saying, there's no part of the economy designed for success quite like the stock market.

And there's an exhaustive study done a couple years ago that surveyed 10 million, I'm sorry, 10,000 millionaires, and asked them how they crossed that milestone.

And it wasn't a six-figure salary, it wasn't inheriting a bunch of money, it wasn't winning the lottery. 80% of them said it was consistently contributing to their company-sponsored retirement plan, which for most people is their 401(k) is the easiest path for most of us to get invested in the stock market, and it's the greatest wealth builder in America today.

So even if it's just 1% of your income going in there, or that $5 a paycheck, it'll pick up momentum and consistency will get you there.

Episode Closing (1:19:14)

Rob Loveless

And tying it back to the tarot, hopefully, you're feeling passionate, energized, and charged up, ready to go, taking the first steps to start investing in yourself and have the confidence to know that you have the skills and resources needed at your fingertips to set yourself up for a more healthy financial future.

And again, it can seem overwhelming sometimes, thinking of, oh, I need to save up $1,000 or I need this amount for house or savings for retirement.

It can seem like a lot, but really, we need to focus on those small tasks, the small day-to-day baby steps we can take to start setting up for long-term success. It's going to start small.

Wealth does not happen overnight, but by taking small steps today, you can see how much you can grow and earn and save in the long term so that you have those financial assets in place to take care of you even when times are tough.

Connect with Queer Money (1:19:57)

Rob Loveless

Well, thank you both for coming on today, David and John.

This was such an important conversation I'm glad we had. I feel a lot of the times when we talk about LGBTQ+ health, it's physical and emotional health, which is obviously very important, but a lot of times we forget about the financial health and the impact that that can have on us.

So greatly appreciate it. Before we wrap up, butt plug time. I know you mentioned, I know you mentioned before where users, listeners can find you, but again, can you just tell us where to connect with you, get involved with the Queer Money community, and how they can start saving for a better future?

John Schneider

Sure thing, our website is queermoneypodcast.com.

You can find Queer Money on almost any podcast players. We have Queer Money on YouTube, and then we're either Queer Money Podcast or Queer Money Pod on, depending upon how many letters you're allowed to use on the various socials, on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

David Auten

We're not on Twitter anymore.

John Schneider

We're not on Twitter anymore.

David Auten

That's right, we switch to Threads.

John Schneider

There's still our, you can watch, look at our old content on there. We just found out today that pro wrestler John Cena is following us on TikTok, or, I'm sorry on Twitter, so that's...

Rob Loveless

Oh, exciting.

John Schneider

Feather in our cap.

Rob Loveless

You heard it here first. John Cena endorses the Queer Money Podcast. So go follow. But in all seriousness, everyone listening, you know, go follow Queer Money.

It is super informative, very entertaining, and very informative. At the same time. I always enjoy listening to it. It's how I start my weekday mornings.

I put it on when I'm at the gym, and just kind of absorb the financial advice.

And again, it's like David said, it's really an investment in yourself, a form of self-care, and in a way, we could, you know, also give back to the community by building a better community of wealth for everyone out there.

John Schneider

100%. Thank you for having us.

David Auten

Yes, thank you.

Rob Loveless

Of course. Thanks David and John, so much for coming on today. I greatly appreciate it.

Connect with A Jaded Gay (1:21:43)

Rob Loveless

And you all know the drill. You can send me any questions or feedback about the episode, rob@ajadedgay.com.

You can follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, SoundCloud, and YouTube @ajadedgaypod. You can follow me personally, Rob Loveless, on Instagram @rob_loveless.

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You could do a one-time donation at Buy Me a Coffee @ajadedgaypod, which is greatly appreciated.

And remember: every day is all we have, so you got to make your own happiness.

Mmm-bye.