If getting ahead only seems to be getting harder, and you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck, finance educator Vivian Tu has a message for you: harder does not have to mean hopeless.
Tu, the CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF and the personal finance app Ask Dolly, sat down with Mel Robbins on The Mel Robbins Podcast (premiered September 28, 2026) for a blunt, compassionate conversation about what to do when you are over feeling broke, behind, or overwhelmed by money. Watch the full episode here:
Money Is About Power, Not Lamborghinis
Tu opens with a reframe. Most people picture wealth as a lime green Lamborghini or a designer bag, she says, but that is not what money is for:
“We should want money because when you have money, you have the power, you have the freedom, you get to be the captain of your own ship. Something that so many people are feeling these days is this lack of agency, that so many things are changing around them, but they don’t actually get a say in their life.”
Her core promise for the episode: “no matter where you are in your financial journey, there are very few mistakes you can’t come back from. It’s never too early to start, but it’s also never too late.”
“You Are Not Crazy”
Before any tactics, Tu validates what listeners are feeling. The math, she says, is genuinely brutal:
“If we actually look at the stats, we’ve seen that over the past century, the housing market, exponential increase. The cost to get higher education, exponential increase. The cost of living, exponential increase. You know what hasn’t exponentially increased? Wages. So you’re being asked to do more with less.”
She goes further, arguing that the system itself is tilted: “The way our economy is currently designed really benefits people who have money and penalizes and treats not having money like it’s a crime.” Those macroeconomic forces are not things you can flip like a light switch, she says, but “if you actually can make changes in your own life, you can always end better than you started.”
She Has Been There
Tu is not speaking from a pedestal. She describes herself as “the person who would overspend,” recalling her early twenties in vivid detail:
“I’m the person who had to wait at a bar until 12:01 when my direct deposit hit to be able to afford my bar tab. The scariest words to me at 21 were, ‘Your card declined.'”
The only daughter of two Chinese immigrant parents, she grew up frugally, did everything “the way I was supposed to,” landed the Wall Street job her parents were proud of, and still made a lot of money mistakes. “For me to be able to sit here now and talk to you about all of these things, I’m so proud,” she tells Robbins. “It’s being able to show that I have battle scars and I came out bigger and better and braver.”
What the Episode Covers
The conversation moves through the full arc of a financial reset, with chapters on:
- Why “just spend less” is bad advice, and the system that works better
- The painless way to pay off debt
- How to ask for the raise you deserve
- What to do when you feel hopelessly behind on retirement
- The home-buying question most people never ask
- Why living with your parents can be a power move
- The beginner investing mistake no one warns you about
- The money conversation couples should have much earlier, including the biggest financial decision you will ever make
- Rewriting the money narrative for women
Tu also gets tactical on topics most finance shows skip, including how to fight a medical bill and win, how much you actually need in savings, and how to talk to your parents about their retirement.
The Takeaway
As Tu puts it: “You’re not the problem, but you do get to be the solution.” Money, in her framing, is a tool, and the point of having more of it is power, freedom, and the ability to feel in control again, or maybe for the first time.
Watch the full episode above. This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Consider speaking with a qualified professional before making major financial decisions.
