The Financial Diet

A website & YouTube channel about money, and everything it touches.

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The Financial Diet
I Got An At-Home COVID Test — Here's How It Worked (& How Much It Cost) While many companies during this time have definitively told employees not to expect to return to their offices until January 2021 at the earliest, my company has been considerably more optimistic. As such, when they declared that we wouldn’t be expected to return to the office until October 1st, 2020 — a change from their […]

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The Financial Diet
How I Made Room In My Budget For Therapy If there’s any life event that has cemented the need and importance of therapy, it’s this pandemic. But as an Asian-American, therapy has always been a taboo topic in my household. In college, I underwent the process of normalizing therapy and learning to embrace mental health resources. Therapy is also expensive. While therapists who accept […]

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The Financial Diet
7 Healthy Lifestyle Tweaks To Give Your Life More Structure This Fall This article is brought to you by Freshly. Whether it’s your first semester on campus, the middle of your college career taken virtually from home, or a time when you’re adding to your education in another way, this semester has already thrown most students some curveballs.  One way to proactively make this semester great, both […]

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8 Rules For Planning A Safe Road Trip During A Pandemic If you’re like me, you love a good road trip! I love the spontaneity and change of scenery. Depending on how far you go, it’s a whole different world. I currently live in Texas, but I’m about to head back to New England to visit my family. I’m taking extra time to check out places […]

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15 Ways I Celebrate Myself That Cost No Money Whatsoever I have (rather, had) a really bad habit. Whenever I felt like I had accomplished something (whether it was meeting a huge goal at work, receiving a major compliment from a boss on a project I’d worked on, or even just getting a paycheck), I’d immediately go online shopping because I deserved it. I just […]

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5 Ways "Joyful Movement" Can Make You Hate Exercising Less I’ve only recently learned about “joyful movement” and I wish I had known about it earlier. We all know that movement is good for our bodies — especially during quarantine — but the culture of owning a high-end gym membership, counting calories or your heartrate with an Apple Watch, and wearing luxury athleisure clothes to […]

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7 Bad Restaurant Habits You Need To Break As a former server, I can’t help but cringe whenever I see a customer being unnecessarily rude to waitstaff. Like, a) why must you be this way, and b) serving is a demanding job that requires so much more skill than just taking people’s orders and dropping them off. Especially now, I can’t even imagine […]

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5 Mental Health Hacks We Learned During Our Workshop With Kati Morton Last week, we invited therapist Kati Morton to the Studio at TFD for an honest and interactive conversation about managing anxiety, finances, and our futures during this totally-new era we’re living in.  The workshop was full of great advice and actionable tips for boosting your mental health. We thought we’d share a few of our […]

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3 Basic Rules For Simple Living When You're An Extremely Type-A Person There’s endless research on the benefits of slowing down and embracing a quiet life. Simplicity leads to less stress, better sleep, improved mood, increased creativity, and more. While “slowing down” is a nice idea, in theory, it can be difficult to achieve in our high-stress, high-pressure world. And additionally, for those of us who naturally […]

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4 Money Truths I Only Learned From Becoming My Mother's Caregiver In My 30s Not long after I became a mom, I found myself having to care for my own mom. I was totally unprepared to step into the role of caregiver when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, I was counting on my mom to help me with my kids. Yet, there I was having to […]

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Why I "Called In Black" At Work & How I Used That Time To Heal My one-bedroom apartment was full of hundreds of virtual participants when the Zoom meeting host asked everyone to take a moment of silence. The moment of silence was for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the other unarmed Black people who have been killed by police. I did not want to lose it […]

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I Went Broke Looking For Self-Help -- Here's What I Do Now When I Want To "Fix" Myself Need a boost of financial confidence? Join TFD’s first virtual workshop, Staying Financially Balanced in a Chaotic Year. TFD Founder Chelsea Fagan will be chatting with journalist Ismat Mangla about how to manage our finances during this totally new era we’re living in. Get your tickets here. A recording of the event will be available […]

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The Financial Diet
5 Expenses I Prioritize Because They're Crucial To My Mental & Physical Health Need a boost of financial confidence? Join TFD’s first virtual workshop, Staying Financially Balanced in a Chaotic Year. TFD Founder Chelsea Fagan will be chatting with journalist Ismat Mangla about how to manage our finances during this totally new era we’re living in. Get your tickets here. A recording of the event will be available […]

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The Precautions To Take When Your Salon, Dentist, Or Other Local Business Reopens The past two weeks I’ve been having an internal battle with myself about whether or not it’s safe to head to a salon given the state of COVID-19 across the country. Sure, I’m not feeling great about my roots showing a stark transition from blonde to brunette, and I’d love to get some highlights to […]

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How To Deal When Your Friends Are Being Far Too Casual About Social Distancing As states ease up on COVID-19 related restrictions, many people are wondering what the rules and best practices are around social distancing at this point. As we enter different phases of the economy reopening, where do we go from here? First, let’s review what social distancing actually means. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease […]

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I’ve Started Online Therapy -- Here Are The Pros & Cons Therapy has been a big part of my life for the past 16 years. My mom worked in the field of psychology for 30 years, and mental health was always a regular part of our family discussions. From a young age, I always understood that some people seek therapy for long-term personal growth, while others […]

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14 Quick Tasks To Give Your Brain A Break From Anxiety Or Stress Sometimes our days are so chaotic, it feels like we don’t even have a second to pause, let alone relax. And even if it’s less to do with bandwidth and more about the inability to feel like a normal person during this time, I totally get it. On days when I don’t even have work […]

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How I'm Managing My Mental Health Without Spending Any Money This is an overwhelming and difficult time for pretty much everyone. Between massive layoffs, cases of the pandemic, and a total disruption of our daily schedule, our mental health can certainly feel the weight of the world around us. But now more than ever is a time to try to do what we can to […]

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5 Things I Had To Give Up In Order To Travel For A Year In October of 2018, I decided to completely get out of debt and save $35,000 to travel the world for a year, which was a huge goal at the time considering I still had about $16,000 in debt (student loans, car note, and various credit cards). While my debt is paid and I’m on track […]

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4 Ways To Avoid Bank & Credit Card Fees While Living Abroad It’s been over a year since my partner and I decided to uproot our comfortable lives in Seattle, WA to pursue opportunities in Taiwan. In the States, I felt like I had my shit together financially, at least relatively speaking. I put some money into savings each month, and I tracked my spending religiously. It […]

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How To Pack Like A Backpacker When You Travel I love to travel, and there’s no secret that “backpacking” can be a convenient and cost-effective method of exploring. Having all your belongings in one small, easily-transportable bag can make you much more agile when exploring new places, and the money you don’t spend on airline baggage fees adds up. I will never be a […]

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4 Common Mistakes That Waste Your Money (And How To Avoid Them) There’s nothing quite like paying for your own silly mistakes. Reading the wrong date in the confirmation of your newly booked plane ticket. The sound of a crackling piece of paper that was shoved under your windshield wiper. Finding a half-off coupon for the restaurant you just went to. If I may grant myself the […]

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An Easy Checklist For Deciding If You Should Cancel Your Plans Because of Coronavirus With the unpredictability of COVID-19 (coronavirus), many travelers are wondering what to do about their upcoming travel plans. Should you cancel your domestic trip? What about your trip abroad? The answer varies depending on the destination, but the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has a map of warnings here, where you can look up your […]

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My First Time Home Waxing Horror Story “Ready?” She asked, holding the edge of the wax at the base of my leg and looking up at me.  My shin was covered in dried, purple goo, stretching from the base of my knee all the way down to the scar on my ankle. With coronavirus closing down shops, salons, and spas, personal hygiene […]

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5 Rules For Keeping Your Relationships Intact During Quarantine This piece originally published on May 15, 2020. Whether it’s talking about money or any other topic that has the potential for awkwardness, communicating with family members and loved ones is always a challenge. But now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, the stress seems to be making it worse for a lot […]

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The Bad Work-From-Home Habits That Have Wrecked My Mental Health Everyone has varying opinions about working from home. Some love the arrangement. Some find it incredibly suitable for their lifestyle (especially parents, caretakers, and people with disabilities that make it more difficult to commute to a specific location every day). Regardless of how we feel, the pandemic crisis has forced a lot of folks to […]

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6 Restaurant-Worthy Ingredients You Can Make From What's Already In Your Pantry I grew up with a mom who is a believer in the idea of “why buy it when you can make it from scratch, in a cheaper and healthier way?”  For the most part, I have adopted this same mentality, as long as it doesn’t eat up my entire day.  I also like making things …

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5 Social Distancing Thoughts I’ve Had, In No Particular Order Times are strange for us all right now, and there are no easy answers. Even the experts can only provide best guesses as to what we might expect, and while we should be doing our best to listen to them, we also must learn to do the most unsatisfying thing of all, which is to …

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How I'm Keeping My Life Together While Stuck In My Tiny Apartment I used to dream about working from home – I pictured zeroing out my inbox, finishing a project at my local cafe, meeting a friend for lunch, and relishing a workout without having to change back into work clothes. But now that everyone is staying indoors due to COVID-19, it’s hard to find any motivation …

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The Items Worth Splurging On To Make Your Home Feel Absolutely Luxurious Have you ever walked into Target and left with a cartful of household items you had no intention of purchasing — and $100 missing from your bank account? Or, perhaps, a better question would be, have you ever walked into Target and not done this?  It’s not always a bad idea to splurge on your …

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The 3-Step Plan That Finally Got My Family To Face Our Money Issues On March 2nd, 2020, I achieved what many first-generation, low-income college graduates consider a marker of adulthood: I paid off my student loans. I live well within my means, I paid my car off two months prior, and I still have eight months of emergency funds stashed away. With my own debts out of the …

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6 Rules I Follow To Navigate Unemployment With Depression Disclaimer: This piece deals heavily with the topic of depression. Please only continue to read if you feel it is healthy for you to do so.  I can’t say I’m the type of person who enjoys being reduced to a statistic. But currently, I’m defined by two of them. I’m the one in four people …

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The Financial Diet
21 Immediate Things To Do When Your Life Feels Out Of Control 2 - YouTube In this episode, Chelsea walks us through 21 completely doable steps to take when you're in the middle of a crisis — from ways to protect your money, to gove...

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The Financial Diet
How To Give Yourself A Salon-Quality Pedicure With What You Have At Home With nail salons temporarily closed, many of us are looking to do our own upkeep. Keep in mind that many nail salons are mom-and-pop shops. These small businesses deemed non-essential are at high risk of shutting down in the midst of the current pandemic. So if you have a favorite spot — and the funds …

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8 Things I’ve Replaced With Cheaper (And Better) Alternatives - YouTube In this episode, one woman lists the inexpensive swaps that are even better alternatives for the things she used to spend lots of money on. For more approach...

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Therapist Kati Morton On Managing Your Anxiety & Your Money - YouTube In this episode of The Financial Confessions, therapist and YouTuber Kati Morton talks all things money and mental health, from common misconceptions of ther...

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The Financial Diet
Chelsea Fagan Answers Questions About Social Distancing, Fear, & The Future Of Your Money - YouTube In this episode, Chelsea answers your questions — in a responsible, socially distanced way — about coping with isolation, handling fear and anxiety, and plan...

Founded by Chelsea Fagan in 2014, TheFinancialDiet is a blog about personal finance and living better. With a wide community of contributors, hundreds of personal stories, and expert testimonies in everything from creating a budget to avoiding $10 office salads.