Finance
“Your Rich BFF”: Vivian Tu is demystifying personal finance to help young people build wealth
BOSTON – “You don’t have to live off beans and rice. You’re allowed to have life’s little luxuries as long as you’re still making a plan for the future,” Vivian Tu explains. “We focus so much on cutting out every little thing that brings us joy. But why aren’t we just asking for 10 to 15% raises every year or finding a side-hustle we really enjoy to maximize our income?”
If that sounds like something you think you could never do, Vivian hopes you will listen to her advice and reconsider. The former Wall Street trader and tech sales strategist shares financial information in a way that people who have never felt comfortable talking about money can hear it. She hopes that what they learn helps them live better, fuller financial lives.
Her strength-as a content creator, podcast host and now, a best-selling author-is helping people devise a financial plan based on no-nonsense strategies and information. Information that, seemingly forever, was shared among people born into wealth, which Vivian was not. “I grew up in the family of Chinese immigrants,” she explains at Boston’s Abe & Louie’s restaurant a few hours before the first stop on her book tour. “We never talked about growing our money or investing or doing that type of stuff. That was for other people-people who lived in gated communities and drove BMWs and that wasn’t my family.”
She says it wasn’t until she was in her later years of high school that her parents really started to “find their footing” and feel confident that they could retire someday. Her relationship with money was based on spending as little as possible, budgeting and saving. It wasn’t until years later, as a student at the University of Chicago, when her friends were applying for finance jobs, that she did too. “I said, ‘If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me,” she said. “I wound up getting a job on Wall Street and it taught me so much about money, just not in the way I thought it would.”
She began her career as an Equity Trader at J.P. Morgan. While most of her colleagues were men, Vivian’s first manager on Wall Street was a woman who became her mentor. She took Vivian under her wing and asked her the questions that became the basis for a financial strategy that’s served Vivian very well. “Am I investing in my 401k? which health insurance plan did I pick? I didn’t know what any of these words meant,” she laughs.
Vivian was a quick study and a successful trader. But when a bad manager made her working life insufferable-complaining about her fingernails click-clacking on her keyboard, her “girly” clothing and a long cardigan that prompted him to bow and ask, “Is that a kimono?”-she quit.
But her financial knowledge was about to pay off in a whole new way. Vivian became a sales strategist at a tech and digital media company. When colleagues found out that she had worked on Wall Street, there was no end to their questions on how best to manage money, whether to take advantage of company stock options and how to choose insurance. She found herself answering the same question over and over.
Her decision to answer the questions in a YouTube video was a function of efficiency-a way to save herself from repeating the same advice. It was lightning in a bottle. Or, more accurately, online. One hundred thousand people watched her first video the week she released it. While most first-time content creators might have been thrilled, Vivian insists she was horrified. “How was I going to keep up with that demand? I had a full-time job. I wasn’t good at making content. I look back at some of those oldest videos and… it wasn’t polished,” she said.
What followers saw was a smart, earnest young woman who wasn’t born into privilege giving solid, understandable (and entertaining) financial advice. Questions and comments flooded in, fueling future videos. “Every video for months was just me answering questions,” she said.
Three years later, Vivian (also known as “Your Rich BFF”) is a full-time content creator with more than six million followers over eight platforms. She hosts the podcast “Net Worth and Chill” and appears on national TV shows and magazine covers.
Her address, financial status and relationship to money has changed. But her goal is unwavering-to provide people with a financial education they didn’t get in school so that they can raise their own standard of living. The key, she says, is to follow the rules that wealthy people have always used. “Money has never been equal. It’s never been fair,” Vivian said. “But there are ways to work the system so that we can all still get ahead and help our communities get ahead as well.”
Her new best-selling book “RICH AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life” (offers step-by-step advice for saving, budgeting, paying down debt and investing. Followers had been asking Vivian where they could find all of her information in one place. Many financial books, she says, are too “male, pale and stale” for the audience she aims to help.
“I felt like there were tons of other books that were doing it for the last generation, but very few that addressed some of the inequalities that we currently face. Did you know that Black families are still being red-lined out of certain housing areas? LGBTQ couples are oftentimes discriminated against when they go in for mortgages and certainly in the workplace,” Vivian said. “There’s still good ol’ fashioned sexism. There is the gender pay gap.”
Based on the turnout at her first reading in Somerville, she may need bigger venues. It’s clear that her fellow millennials and Gen-Z followers are eager to learn how they can, even with debt, become financially independent. She says the key is investing. “You can’t get rich through saving,” she explains. “You have to invest. Investing is the only way you can keep up with inflation-how the cost of living is rising.”
Vivian insists that you don’t need a “ton of money” or a financial adviser. “You can literally go to an online broker and sign up with as little as one dollar and buy fractional shares of an ETF that tracks the broader stock market. And with a dollar you can be invested in the entire stock market… It’s essentially like being able to buy a huge bag of Halloween candy instead of buying a bag of chocolates and a bag of gummies and a bag of… whatever sweets. You get a whole pot-a ton of different stuff-for a dollar.”
Another piece of advice-don’t beat yourself up for past financial decisions. It won’t serve you now and might even prevent you from taking steps to build wealth. Many of us have experienced “money shaming” from someone in our lives who scolded us for buying, for example, a daily latte. On this score, and others, Your Rich BFF has your back. “Can I tell you? I did the math. If you get a $5 latte every single day for an entire year, it works out to roughly 1800, $1900,” Vivian said. “You know anywhere in the country you can buy a home for a down payment of $1800 or $1900? There are not a lot of places. The latte is not why you can’t afford to buy a home. The latte is not preventing you from being successful. Though, that latte may be the difference between whether or not you can buy that new laptop at the end of the year. It might be the difference between whether or not you can take that really nice vacation.”
In the end, she says, if that coffee brings you so much joy that it helps you get out of bed in the morning, it’s worth it. But if the coffee is just ‘meh’? “That money could be better spent somewhere else where it’s really, really going to serve you. And maybe even better-invested for your future,” she said.
Finally, she says, she and other rich people have an obligation to help others-particularly in their communities. “People like us do deserve to have money,” she says about anyone who has ever been discriminated against or disrespected in a financial transaction or at work. “And we can do it! And once you have somebody who has done it in that community, for them to go back and really lift everybody else up with them? That’s the whole point.”
HOLYOKE — The City Council has advanced plans to create a finance and administration department, voting to send proposed changes to a subcommittee for further review.
The move follows guidance from the state Division of Local Services aimed at strengthening the city’s internal cash controls, defining clear lines of accountability, and making sure staff have the appropriate education and skill level for their financial roles.
On Tuesday, Councilor Meg Magrath-Smith, who filed the order, said the council needed to change some wording about qualifications based on advice from the human resources department before sending it to the ordinance committee for review.
The committee will discuss and vote on the matter before it can head back to the full City Council for a vote. It meets next Tuesday. The next council meeting is scheduled for Jan. 20.
On Monday, Mayor Joshua Garcia said in his inaugural address that he plans to continue advancing his Municipal Finance Modernization Act.
Last spring, Garcia introduced two budget plans: one showing the current $180 million cost of running the city, and another projecting savings if Holyoke adopted the finance act.
Key proposed changes include realigning departments to meet modern needs, renaming positions and reassigning duties, fixing problems found in decades of audits, and using technology to improve workflow and service.
Garcia said the plan aims to also make government more efficient and accountable by boosting oversight of the mayor and finance departments, requiring audits of all city functions, enforcing penalties for policy violations, and adding fraud protections with stronger reporting.
Other steps included changing the city treasurer from an elected to an appointed position, a measure approved in a special election last January.
Additionally, the city would adopt a financial management policies manual, create a consolidated Finance Department and hire a chief administrative and financial officer to handle forecasting, capital planning and informed decision-making.
Garcia said that the state has suggested creating the CAFO position for almost 20 years and called on the City Council to pass the reform before the end of this fiscal year, so that it can be in place by July 1.
In a previous interview, City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti said nine votes were needed to adopt the financial reform.
She also said past problems stemmed from a lack of proper systems and checks, an issue the city has dealt with since the 1970s.
The mayor would choose this officer, and the City Council will approve the appointment, she said.
In October, the City Council narrowly rejected the finance act in an 8-5 vote.
Supporters ― Michael Sullivan, Israel Rivera, Jenny Rivera, Murphy-Romboletti, Anderson Burgos, former Councilor Kocayne Givner, Patti Devine and Magrath-Smith ― said the city needs modernization and greater transparency.
Opponents ― Howard Greaney Jr., Linda Vacon, former Councilors David Bartley, Kevin Jourdain and Carmen Ocasio — said a qualified treasurer should be appointed first.
Vacon said then the treasurer’s office was “a mess,” and that the city should “fix” one department before “mixing it with another.”
The City Council also clashed over fixes, as the state stopped sending millions in monthly aid because the city hadn’t finished basic financial paperwork for three years.
The main problem came from delays in financial reports from the treasurer’s office.
Holyoke had a history of late filings. For six of the past eight years, the city delayed its required annual financial report, and five times in the past, the state withheld aid.
Council disputes over job descriptions, salaries and reforms also stalled progress.
In November, millions in state aid began flowing back to Holyoke after the city made some progress in closing out its books.
The state had withheld nearly $29 million for four months but even with aid restored, Holyoke still faces big financial problems, the Division of Local Services said.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of New Year, New You, a weeklong look at your financial health headed into 2026.
You get your W-2 in January and realize you either owe thousands in taxes or get a massive refund. Both mean your withholding was wrong all year.
Most service members set their tax withholding once during in-processing and never look at it again. Life changes. You get married, have kids, buy a house or pick up a second job. Your tax situation changes, but your withholding stays the same.
Adjusting your withholding takes five minutes and can save you from owing the IRS or giving the government an interest-free loan all year.
Use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator First
Before changing anything, run your numbers through the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator at www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator. The calculator asks about your filing status, income, current withholding, deductions and credits. It tells you whether you need to adjust.
The calculator considers multiple jobs, spouse income and other factors that affect your tax bill. Running it takes about 10 minutes and prevents you from withholding too much or too little.
Read More: The Cost of Skipping Sick Call: How Active-Duty Service Members Can Protect Future VA Claims
Changing Withholding in myPay (Most Services)
Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Marine Corps members use myPay at mypay.dfas.mil. Log in and click Federal Withholding. Click the yellow pencil icon to edit.
The page lets you enter information about multiple jobs, change dependents, add additional income, make deductions or withhold extra tax. You can see when the changes take effect on the blue bar at the top of the page.
Changes typically show up on your next pay statement. If you make changes early in the month, they might appear on your mid-month paycheck. If you make them later, expect them on the end-of-month check.
State tax withholding works differently. DFAS can only withhold for states with signed agreements. Changes require submitting DD Form 2866 through myPay or by mail. Not all states allow DFAS to withhold state tax.
Changing Withholding in Direct Access (Coast Guard)
Coast Guard members use Direct Access at hcm.direct-access.uscg.mil. The system processes changes the same way as myPay. Log in, navigate to tax withholding and update your information.
Coast Guard members can also submit written requests using IRS Form W-4. Mail completed forms to the Pay and Personnel Center in Topeka, Kansas, or submit them through your Personnel and Administration office.
Read More: Here’s Why January Is the Best Time to File Your VA Disability Claim
When to Adjust Withholding
Check your withholding when major life events happen. Marriage or divorce changes your filing status. Having kids adds dependents. Buying a house affects deductions. A spouse starting or stopping work changes household income.
Military-specific events matter, too. Deploying to a combat zone makes some pay tax-free. PCS moves change state tax situations. Separation from service means losing military income but potentially gaining civilian income.
Check at the start of each year, even if your circumstances seemingly stayed the same. Tax laws change. Brackets adjust for inflation. Your situation might be different even if it seems the same.
The Balance
Withholding too little means owing taxes in April plus potential penalties. Withholding too much means getting a refund but losing access to that money all year.
Some people like big refunds and treat it like forced savings. Others would rather have the money in each paycheck to pay bills, invest or set aside in normal savings.
Neither approach is wrong. What matters is that your withholding matches your tax situation and your preference for how you receive your money.
Run the estimator. Adjust your withholding. Check it annually. This simple process prevents tax surprises.
Previously In This series:
Part 1: 2026 Guide to Pay and Allowances for Military Service Members, Veterans and Retirees
Part 2: Understanding All the Deductions on Your 2026 Military Leave and Earnings Statements
Part 3: Should You Let the Military Set Aside Allotments from Your Pay?
Part 4: This Is the Best Thing to Do With Your 2026 Military Pay Raise
Stay on Top of Your Veteran Benefits
Military benefits are always changing. Keep up with everything from pay to health care by subscribing to Military.com, and get access to up-to-date pay charts and more with all latest benefits delivered straight to your inbox.
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