January 6, 2025
Hello and welcome to The Financial Diet's first weekly newsletter of 2025!
We'll be in your inbox every Monday sharing our best tips to keep your money, career, and life in order. Make sure to read through the entire newsletter so you don't miss anything!
Thank you for being a part of this special little corner of our community!
<3 TFD
By Holly Trantham
Last week, I shared a new challenge I’m trying out this month, for the purposes of kickstarting my biggest New Year’s resolution: being a much less phone-dependent person. I think all of us can probably relate, but this started because over the course of the past year, I’ve really taken note of my habit of reaching for my phone anytime something wasn’t occupying my full attention — while watching television, on my commute, in the middle of work tasks. I even started to find myself wanting to reach for it in moments where I knew I wouldn’t, like during a literal Broadway musical (though, admittedly, a rather dull one). I also started noticing tangible consequences that my phone use was at least partially responsible for, like reading a lot fewer books in 2024 than I did in prior years.
I do not like being that person. While there are so many positive aspects of smartphone use I’m not willing to trade (steps tracking! astrology apps! group chats!), I dislike that scrolling has become my default in any moment of minor boredom. But I’ve also tried things like setting up app timers or locking myself out at certain times, which just don’t work for me, and aren’t always feasible for a person whose job is fully online. The thing that has actually helped me is to fill my schedule with things I am genuinely more excited about than staring at my phone.
To recap, I decided to track three different habits that take my attention away from my phone, with a specific target frequency assigned to each one:
- Daily: Yoga practice (even if it’s just 10 minutes)
- 3x a week: Phone-free activity (puzzling, crafting, baking, etc.)
- Once a week: Finish a book (after resetting my StoryGraph reading goal to 50 books in 2025)
I’m tracking these over on my Instagram stories, and so far, it’s going well! I’ve done yoga every day so far this month (including going to three classes in person at my local studio), finished two books (one physical and one audiobook, listened to while doing our annual January apartment cleanout), and spent two evenings working on a puzzle or craft project.
I also decided to compare my phone use to my last “normal” week before I took off for the holidays to get a sense of where it stands. Looking at general phone use is not a good metric for me, because it counts a lot of “useful” activities — using the Peloton app, planning my Google calendar, etc. So I decided to just go by the time I spent on Instagram, my most-visited social media app. The last week before the holidays, I was on it an average of 1 hour and 26 minutes a day. In the first five days of January, that number is down to 1 hour and 10 minutes on average — about an 18% decrease.
Since this challenge is to see how much I can decrease my phone use without necessarily imposing outside limits, I was honestly a little surprised to see this difference — especially because I have spent a lot more time posting, since I’m sharing my updates on stories! Since social media is a big part of my work, I know I probably can’t decrease my use much more than this, so I’m feeling heartened by this small step in the right direction. I’d love to get to a place where I’m not tempted to open the app on the weekends, but we’ll see if that manifests.
I’ll be back later in the month for my next big update and reflections, or you can follow along over on Instagram!
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Ask A Financial Advisor
Every week Kellen Thayer of Advisor.com will be answering a personal finance question from the TFD community. If you have a question you'd like him to answer, email us at hello@thefinancialdiet.com!
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Welcome to our weekly series, Ask A Financial Advisor with Kellen Thayer of Advisor.com! Dozens of members of the TFD community love and trust Advisor to help them on financial journeys. Get $500 off your first year with Advisor by signing up through TFD! Click here to take our short quiz and schedule a FREE consultation call with Advisor today and never make another financial decision alone!
Q: How long do Financial Advisors typically work with clients?
A: Financial planning is a journey, not a one-time event, and as life evolves, so do your financial goals and needs. Financial Advisors often work with clients for many years—sometimes decades—helping them navigate various life stages from their 20s and 30s all the way through retirement.
The length of the relationship largely depends on your needs and preferences. Some clients come to us for help with a specific financial event, like buying a home or starting a family, while others seek ongoing support for broader goals like retirement planning, investing, or tax-efficient strategies. Even after a major goal has been achieved, many clients continue to work with us to ensure they’re on track for future milestones and have ongoing access to professional advice.
Since financial planning is dynamic, you financial advisor will continually reassess your plan to adjust for life’s inevitable changes—whether it’s an unexpected expense, a new job, or shifting retirement goals. Advisors act as partners in your financial journey, offering consistent guidance to keep you on track toward your long-term goals.
Get $500 off your first year with Advisor by signing up through TFD! Click here to take our short quiz and schedule a FREE consultation call with Advisor today and never make another financial decision alone!
Advisor.com provides clients with a top notch advising team for a fixed, flat annual fee. Their team of advisors work for you, not commissions, and help you to achieve your smart financial goals through planning, investing, and more.
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About Kellen Thayer
Kellen has dedicated his career to helping clients achieve their financial goals through comprehensive financial planning and wealth management. He holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining Advisor Wealth Management, Kellen worked as an investment advisor at Goldman Sachs partnering with clients with $25mm plus in investable assets and later advised high-net-worth clients at Raymond James. His expertise spans a wide range of financial strategies, always with a focus on empowering clients from all backgrounds to build and sustain their wealth.
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What I'm Loving
Each week, we’re asking a different TFD team member to share what they’ve watched, read, purchased, and otherwise loved lately. Today we're hearing from Holly!
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In honor of the fresh start of January, my favorite month of the year, I'm sharing my favorite purchases/findings/decisions of 2024 that I am carrying with me into 2025:
1. My Garmin watch, specifically NOT linked to my phone. I love being able to track my V02 max (a metric I've personally decided to try to improve), workouts, and steps, and still feel like I can wear this thing without being "online"/available.
2. Braiding Sweetgrass, my favorite book selection of 2024 from our Society book club. It's a guide and meditation on how to live in ways guided by both indigenous principles and science, and a positive look at how humans are capable of interacting with the earth in non-destructive manners.
3. This high-protein oatmeal was my favorite recurring meal I made in 2024 because it is both super easy and satisfying. I cut out most of the toppings (besides peanut butter) to simplify things and added whatever toppings I had on hand that sounded good — usually fruit and/or chocolate chips, plus chia seeds for even more fiber!
4. Challengers was the most fun I've had at the movies in YEARS. I saw it twice in the theaters and watched it a third time on the plane — I can't think of another movie I've intentionally watched more than once that isn't a Christmas movie or something I was obsessed with as a teenager. If you still haven't seen it, please do yourself a favor and go rent it on your streaming service of choice!
5. Trying new things. In 2024, my favorite new-to-me activities were participating in an 18-mile charity bike ride through the gorgeous eastern Hudson Valley countryside, trying out and genuinely improving at aerial silks (which I am currently on a break from, as I'm about to start yoga teacher training, but I'll be back!), and going on my first-ever women's retreat with people I'd never met before.
These are now some of my favorite memories of the year, and I'm so proud of myself for trying them!
🎥 ICYMI: Our December video essay, Why It Feels Like You'll Never Catch Up, dropped on New Years Eve — give it a watch if you haven't already! And a reminder that $4.99 and up members of the Society at TFD get an ad-free version!
📚We’re SO excited to offer exclusive access to an entirely new bonus chapter for those who have purchased our latest book, Beyond Getting By. With the start of a new year, we know how much you all are reevaluating how you spend your money and time. Beyond Getting By is the perfect companion for retooling your relationship with money, your career, and your life in general, complete with dozens of pages of beautifully designed interactive exercises. In order to get access to “‘Working To Live’ In The Face Of Layoff Culture,” please share your proof of purchase with us by filling out this very short form — once you fill out the form, the bonus chapter will be automatically emailed to you.
🎙️Make sure to check out our very fun end-of-year, 4-part series over on our YouTube channel! ICYMI: Chelsea sat down with our friends from Celebrity Memoir Book Club for a deep dive on both Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Lean In. Watch episode 1 here, episode 2 here, episode 3 here, and the finale, here.
✨Make sure to get your hands on our latest guidebook, The Career Audit: An Interactive Guidebook! This 21-page guidebook was thoughtfully put together to help you reflect on your career path and help you move forward with intention into 2025 and beyond. From interview prep to networking and salary negotiation, we have all angles of your career path covered. Exclusively available for members of The Society Premium. Our January guidebook drops this week!
📢Have you checked out our very special 6-part YouTube capsule series, The Grown Woman's Guide To Life yet? This series, hosted by Chelsea, is all about navigating your 30s with style and grace — financially and otherwise.
- In the series premiere, The 10 Dos and Don'ts of Turning 30, Chelsea breaks down the dos and don'ts of turning 30, covering everything from friendships to career to money.
- In the second episode, 6 Things No One Tells You About Getting Rich, Chelsea breaks down the secrets of wealth building that change your financial life, no matter where you’re starting from.
- The third episode, Watch This If You're Not Sure About Having Kids, Chelsea breaks down her personal reasons for being childfree, and some truths about the choice that rarely get talked about.
- In the fourth episode, The 13 Best Things I Ever Bought, Chelsea breaks down her most life-changing purchases, and why they were so impactful.
- In the fifth episode, How To Stop Being Cheap, Chelsea breaks down the difference between cheapness and frugality and shares all the ways she's overcome being cheap in her 30s.
- And in our series finale, 6 Ways Insecurity Is Wasting Your Money, Chelsea breaks down all the ways being insecure causes you to spend more money, including how this impacted her in her 20s.
The Society at TFD is our members-only community with access available on both YouTube and Patreon. Joining The Society is the best way to directly support TFD! The Society offers the exact same things on both platforms, so choose whichever one you prefer!
We offer 3 tier options:
The Society at TFD Lite: $2.99/month
- Monthly office hours with Chelsea to chat and get your personal questions answered
- Access to our monthly book club hosted by TFD Creative Director, Holly
- Illustrated tech backgrounds every month
- Access to Society Discord
The Society at TFD: $4.99/month — includes everything in the $2.99 tier plus:
- Monthly ad-free extended director's cut videos from Chelsea
- Exclusive members-only events and workshops
- Complete post archive (including exclusive members-only videos of Chelsea ranting on different topics)
The Society Premium: $9.99/month — includes everything from the previous tiers plus:
- Weekly newsletter from Chelsea
- Monthly multi-page workbook/guidebook on a different topic each month
- Members-only capsule podcasts
