Want to earn more money?

Want to stop being taken advantage of?

Want life to stop nickel and diming you?

Then you're a ripe candidate to be a self advocate.

That's right.

The best defense for your personal and financial life is sometimes you.

But how you listen to Queer Money episode 318 because today we're talking with Darcy of the award winning website.

We want Guac and her push for financial self advocacy.

Now let's get on with the show.

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So the other day I was scrolling through Twitter and as one does, it's not often.

It's not often, but from time to time I click on a link and I follow that link out to something, whether it's an article or another website or something like that.

And the other day I was doing this and I landed on an article and I started reading this article and I read the article and although the article was not LGBT themed, I saw the LGBT community written all over this article.

And so because of that, we wanted to invite Darcy, who writes at the blog, we want Guac onto the show to talk about this idea of financial self advocacy.

Well, and actually we'll talk about self advocacy and what that is in general.

But the whole idea of self advocacy is something that we allude to a lot in the show, but we don't really ever address it head on.

We don't ever.

We haven't had an episode specifically about self advocacy and how important that is or the role that it plays in your finances.

So we wanted to invite Darcy onto the show.

So thank you for joining us, Darcy.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so glad I'm here with you guys.

Definitely fun.

It was a very interesting article.

Like I said, the theme of the article and I don't think you even ever mentioned the LGBT community in the article from what I can tell.

But you have all of these different angles that you talk from in the article about self advocacy and it really got me excited to think about how much this has an impact on folks within the LGBT community and other historically marginalized communities.

And so I think it's really important.

Maybe we should start off with.

Let's just talk about what is self advocacy.

Yeah, definitely.

So quite a few folks know what advocacy is itself because so many of our different advancements, especially when it comes to the queer community, happen because of advocacy.

When it comes to self advocacy, that generally means that you're not only advocating for yourself, but I would also just focus completely on being a one band band, essentially about your own well being, whether that be financial or otherwise.

I think that the community and I think that society in general, especially after what has happened over the last couple of years, has hot.

We've heard a lot about self care, but self advocacy and self care are a little different, aren't they?

Taking care of yourself is important for your physical and mental well being, but advocating for yourself goes a little bit beyond just yourself.

Right.

It kind of does push into the people who are.

You're interacting with.

Right?

Yeah, that's definitely right.

Like, you might see self advocacy as a.

As a type of way to take your self care to the next level and ensuring that it's not only your own personal health that you're focused on, but also with other aspects of your life that you're ensuring that this is improving, if not outright fixing different challenges that you run into.

Yeah.

Now, I can see that this might make some people uncomfortable a little bit because you sort of have to stand up and speak for yourself in a way that I think, especially when we're talking about money, people aren't necessarily inclined to do that.

Right.

So we're all kind of like, oh, I should just be grateful for whatever salary I can get or the fact that I can just get a job.

And we're a little bit, I think, a little bit more fearful of stepping up and saying, I appreciate getting the job, thank you.

But you also need to pay me commensurate to my skills, the value that I bring, all of that.

And so I deserve XYZ salary.

And I think a lot of people might be like, ah, I can't do that.

I think one of the reasons why I kind of thought this was so appropriate for folks in the LGBT community is oftentimes sometimes we've come from places and mindsets of I don't want people to know about me, or I don't feel comfortable sharing much about myself.

And so.

And maybe we've been bullied and picked on.

And so because of that, we have a tendency to maybe just accept things the way they are or maybe cower a little bit because we're, we're not, we maybe don't haven't built up the skills of confidence.

Right.

So maybe you could share with us an example that's non financially related as to what let's talk about.

Where are some examples of self advocacy?

Yeah, definitely.

And like you said, when it comes to self advocacy, it's not something that comes very naturally or very easy to people who are LGBT or otherwise in this society.

Especially when it comes to things like negotiating or really just standing up and saying like, hey, this isn't right, we should change that.

That's not something that's very natural to our culture.

As much as we might scream about freedom and going up against the man, it's very hard to do that in practice, especially if it's just yourself going for it.

When it comes to self advocacy, you can find a lot of really great examples from another marginalized community and those with disabilities.

The term self advocacy actually originates from the disability movement to get, to have them collect more rights, to really, really progress in society.

So you might see self advocacy a lot at your local government level.

Someone with a wheelchair who's exercising self advocacy might come to a town hall over installing ramps at the local train station or shopping center or music venue.

Just because there might be laws about accessibility, or in our case about discrimination against gender identity or sexual orientation, it doesn't mean that every place is going to be embracing that.

Self advocacy in that sense will really help you move forward.

Even if everything else says that oh yeah, this should already be done, or why do you need to make such a big deal about this?

It's so important to, and absolutely crucial to your well being to ensure that you keep progressing and keep moving forward and keep pushing for some corrections over a wrong that you see.

Right.

I guess you drive home the point there that it's important for progress.

Right.

If people aren't self advocating, it's highly unlikely that we are going to see any progress.

Because more often than not, if people don't know that something is, is damaging or hurting someone else, then they're not going to advocate for them.

And then there are those who are pushing in the other direction, intentionally trying to discriminate against.

So if you, if we don't stand up and say something or do something for ourselves, we can basically go backwards or cause more discrimination to occur, right?

Yeah.

When it comes to really pushing for self advocacy, too oftentimes other people that you don't Even know are seeing you, will see you, and they'll be inspired going, hey, they're like me, let me join them.

Or they'll use that as inspiration to perform their own self advocacy.

So it's not only empowering for yourself, but also for the people around you who are looking that you, you're not even aware of, but you have to.

Admit is kind of scary.

Yes.

It is kind of scary.

Well, I mean, I'm going to say this, you know, from just from my personal perspective, you know, growing up as a kid who was bullied and, and even once I kind of got my foothold in the corporate culture, I don't think I ever, looking back on it, I don't think I've really ever did a whole lot of advocating for myself.

I think I did things for the community, I worked in helping with the local AIDS walks and things like that, did stuff for the community.

But I don't know if I really thought much about my own particular situations where I could advocate for myself.

So maybe you could share some examples of where you think we should be advocating for ourselves.

Yes, completely.

So I'll focus here on advocating yourself from a financial standpoint just because this is the Queer Money podcast.

Thank you.

And so I'm happy to stick with subject matter there.

So when there's some kind of issue in your life, it's so easy, I feel like, to be a nurturer and to, and to help out others at the expense of helping out yourself.

But it's so essential to realize that self advocacy not only will help yourself, but you shouldn't feel bad about that because doing that for yourself means that you'll have more of the bandwidth and more energy to tackle these other issues for other people.

All of that fully helps out.

And for me personally, self advocating when it comes to my finances has done absolute wonders for my mental health and my mental energy.

A couple of examples that I've brought up in the past include work wise, career wise, just negotiating for the raises that I know I deserve, or at the very least a market rate.

Even if you have some low self esteem and you think, oh, I don't, I don't know if I'm doing a good enough job for this or I don't know if I deserve this.

It's very interesting how these inner voices will always kind of knock you down, showing you that, trying to convince you that you're worth less than you actually are.

If you really need an objective perspective to look at that, I always say, hey, well, like do some Research and see what other people with your similar skills are earning in the workforce.

Places like glassdoor or salary.com have some really great insights into showing what your market rate is for your city.

And things like that really helped me get the confidence that I wanted to advocate for getting that higher salary that I wanted.

A couple of examples include at my last job, so prior to my current role, I had a title of marketing manager and I was making about $65,000 a year in salary.

I looked online and I was like, wait a minute, people with my job title are actually making tens of thousands of dollars more than this?

And so that gave me not only the push to ask my boss for a raise, but also some justification of, hey, there's a precedent for this.

Other people are making this much as a minimum and I'm being underpaid here.

Let's, let's talk and see how I can further get a raise from here.

And I did end up getting a raise from that, but the raise I got at my current job was even greater.

So in my current role, once I went through the interview process, my now boss offered me a salary of $80,000 a year, which was very exciting.

But I went back and I went, hey, so I actually want to have something that's more in line with something in the mid-80s range and was able to bump that starting salary up to $86,000, which equates to about a 7 or 8% raise just from negotiating and just from embracing self advocacy with that.

Right.

Wow, that's amazing.

Let me ask you, how hard was that for you to muster the energy or the courage to, to push back a little bit?

It was nerve wracking.

I'm not going to say like, oh yeah, it was easy.

I'm a pro at this.

It was flawless.

No, I grew up super shy, so actually preparing to bring this up was hard for me.

And once I actually was chatting on the phone with my current boss again about asking for a higher starting salary, I had to physically keep telling myself like, okay, this is what you're going to say and then you're going to shut up.

You're not going to say stuff like, oh, yeah, well, like, but something lower would be okay.

You know, that's not in the budget.

No, I had to like physically bite my tongue and just, you know, let him like, let him pick up the ball in his court and move forward there.

Yeah, don't fill the quiet space.

The quiet space makes everybody uncomfortable.

Including the person you're negotiating with.

Exactly.

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You know, you bring up a good point.

I think it's very easy for us to have those inner conversations about lack of self worth or the lack of confidence.

I don't deserve this.

And, you know, we look at the statistics around what individuals, women and individuals in marginalized communities feel like they have to have 60 to 70, 80% of the qualifications before they'll even go for a job, versus 30, 40% for most straight white men.

You know, just this kind of, this kind of difference here.

So those inner conversations may be kind of dragging us down and we may need to, as you said, take a step back and even script it out and say, how could this conversation go?

What kind of conversation do I want to have?

But pay isn't the only place where we should be advocating for ourselves, right?

Yeah, definitely not.

That's just one area that, where you can self advocate for.

There are so many other ways, especially when it comes to finance, too.

So, for example, if you're thinking, okay, well, maybe I don't want to start off with knocking down my boss's door and saying, pay me more, how else can I self advocate when it comes to finance?

Well, are there different subscriptions or different recurring monthly costs that you're currently paying that are possibly negotiable?

You can reach out and see if that's taking place.

Other ones that are more occasional than that might include, oh, was there some vendor or some, some store that charged you more than, than you actually should be charged?

I ran into something like this pretty recently at the, at the doctor's office.

They had charged me extra for an appointment that shouldn't have been charged.

So in that case, for me, self advocating meant reaching out to the doctor's office and saying, hey, this was an incorrect charge.

How can I work with you guys to, to get that taken off?

And in this case, the charge was a couple hundred dollars that I luckily now do not have to pay because I chose self advocacy and chose to really point it out and keep bringing it up to them until they finally, finally were like, okay, I will work with you to get this fixed.

Yeah, squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

You did bring up a good point in the article though, that sometimes when it comes to self advocacy, we can go from lacking confidence and shy and worried about doing this to the flip side of being a Karen.

Right.

To almost being we're going to march in with all of our guns blazing.

Right.

And we're going to just blow people away with everything that we think we need and deserve.

Right.

How do we find this balance?

How do you.

How do you tactfully say what it is that you think you deserve?

Or to tactfully say that, okay, I didn't deserve this charge, this should, shouldn't be on here, or it should be a lot less.

You have any suggestions there?

Yeah, definitely.

So an essential skill when it comes to self advocacy is definitely reading the room and understanding what strategy or what approach you should take to be best effective at to earn the goals that you want out of the interactions that you have with this.

So in this case with the doctor's office, I mean, I could have just barged in and said like, I need to speak with the manager right now.

But in this case of it being an incorrect charge, there's always the possibility of maybe the financial office accidentally coded something that they shouldn't have, in which case it's an easy mistake.

So once I bring it up to somebody who will listen to me, then that can be rectified right away.

I would say if you're ever considering stomping in with guns blazing, it's only after you've exhausted every other alternative to it.

Which in the article is why I was saying that's my frustration with Karen's.

They treat the guns blazing as the default instead of the last possible resort.

Well, and sometimes there's a woman in our credit card payoff course and she is a master negotiator and she has shared with the group several times how she's negotiated her credit card interest rates to be lower, how she's been able to get refunds.

And she goes in very personably and friendly.

Whoever she's talking with on the phone or whoever she's meeting with face to face, she says hello.

She calls them by name at least three times in the conversation.

She asks them how their day is, if there's something topical like a sporting event or whatever, something recently just happened, asking them about that and identifying with them that, hey, they're also a person too.

They just happen to be working for this company or this organization and everybody wants to get to an amicable decision.

So kind of go in a little bit friendly first.

Don't come in like a Karen Immediately because just make everything hostile and you want to get people on your side to support you.

Right.

And the best way to do that is to be friendly and nice, right?

Yes.

That's a huge pro tip.

Especially in customer service roles.

It's unfortunate that there's not as many people that should be as personable as they should be and treating these customer service folks with just decency and respect.

So when you do come in with decency and respect, I found several times whenever I call in and I do what this woman in your course does, these folks will bend over backwards to.

Help me out quickly, like, wow, a nice person.

John and I both have been on the phones in customer service and both of us have been wait staff and worked in restaurants and bars and things like that.

And you know, it's kind of like you can kind of tell when some customers have never been in those shoes.

Right.

Because of the, the attitude they have.

But you did bring up a very good point.

Especially when you, when you look at something and you think a mistake has been made, treat it like a mistake.

We all make mistakes.

Treat it like a mistake.

You know, it's just like when somebody cuts you off in traffic, you have the choice.

You assume that they accidentally didn't see that was an accident, they didn't see you there, that it wasn't intentional.

Or you can choose to treat it like it was an intentional and turn it into a road rage situation.

Right.

And you don't want the road rage situation.

Well, there can be a customer service road rage kind of situation too.

Right.

They can just turn nasty against you and not want to help out.

So it is, I think it's giving people the benefit of the doubt is something as a skill or a mentality that a lot of us have lost in the world today.

Especially post Covid heard a rumor about annuities.

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You mentioned something in the discussion before the actual interview that I thought was quite brilliant and I don't think a lot of people think about it as a way to self advocate.

But you mentioned about building a knockdown out LinkedIn profile.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

I think that's pretty sleuthful and not something I would have thought of.

Yes, I definitely can.

So I credit a huge part of my getting the high paying job that I currently have to being able to self market.

And what is marketing your own skill set if not another form of self advocacy?

So for that Then a lot of it is about, again, just getting, just figuring out how you can get over your thoughts of low self esteem or, oh, I don't know if I can really sell myself in this way to show that.

No, you have these skills.

These are skills that are in demand by employers.

You've done impressive, amazing things in your roles.

So share that with people and use that as a way to reach the jobs that you really want to have.

And it's a great, it's kind of a, it's a more passive way to advocate for yourself.

It's a little bit less, I think, scary than walking up to somebody and saying, I expect xyz.

It's more like, you know, just, just make a knocked out LinkedIn profile.

You can do that at night while you're drinking wine and nobody needs to see you doing it and then you just hit publish.

But maybe the, a part of the backstory of being able to do that though, is to maybe know what you've done, right?

Remembering what you've done, that the times you have wowed people, the, the times that you've done a job, the times that you got the kudos from your boss or your director or somebody higher in the company, all of those kinds of things.

If we don't share those kinds of things, then they don't know that we are able to do those kinds of things.

Right.

So we kind of almost need to have a reservoir of things to pull from or remember or keep track of those.

Right?

Right.

Exactly.

It's so easy to lie awake at night, like cringing about some kind of work mistake you did like five ago or even like last week.

But, but overall, you wouldn't keep these jobs if you weren't good at them.

So even if, even if you're overwhelmed with trying to think of, oh, gosh, like, what do I say?

How do I go about this?

It's also really helpful to just decide, okay, well, what kind?

So instead of freaking out about my current or past roles, let's look at the future.

What will be the best case scenario for my career?

What kind of job title do I want?

What kind of company do I want to work for?

Once you kind of shift it that way, then you'll be able to think about, okay, well, now I know what, what title I want and what industry I want.

What are they looking for?

How can I best align myself to what they're looking for?

And one of the biggest pieces of advice I have there is to look at different job ads for those titles that you Want and seeing, you know, what's the verbiage that they use?

What are the words and phrases that they use in that?

And then which of those words and phrases can you take and then put on your resume and LinkedIn profile?

Doing that is how I figured out to use all of the different industry jargon when it comes to marketing, where I can talk your ear off now about KPIs and my marketing tech.

Stack all you want.

And so doing that research and putting in the work for that, it's a more, as you said, a more passive way to approach self advocacy.

But it's still a very effective strategy to do that 100%.

It gives you that foundation of to be able to kind of say to the employer, look, this is what I've already been able to do, right?

And they get to see them.

You may wow them in advance with your online resume, so to speak, with your LinkedIn profile that you don't have to go so far when it comes to advocating for yourself.

Right.

You may automatically get bumped up in that salary range to a place where you are maybe comfortable with, or it doesn't have to be a whole lot more that you have to ask for.

But always ask for at least 10% more than what they offer.

Never settle until they say no.

But as we've kind of alluded to before, and I kind of would like your opinion on this, do you think this is harder for folks in the queer community or underserved communities?

100%, yes.

So, as I said before, the term self advocacy comes from another underserved community in the disability rights movement, but it's fully applicable to the queer community as well.

So I am myself queer of a sexual woman, and sometimes knowing that aspect of myself can lead to discrimination in the workplace or discrimination otherwise.

It makes me hesitate in certain situations and makes me a little worried that, oh, I don't know if I can be my full, authentic self in this.

But beyond that as well, folks in the LGBT community and other underserved communities, they're often fighting lonely battles, as I'm sure you guys know and that you've heard from other folks.

It's very isolating to be in communities like this.

So while the concept of advocating for the self, it's empowering, it's a way to reach empowerment, it's crucial to do so.

But after going through possibly your entire life being dismissed or your concerns being minimized, it's not easy to shift from that reality to going to something that seems so counterintuitive to that Yeah, I.

Think so many of us, I think sometimes it almost feels safe to be in the closet.

And the quieter and I am about who I am and what I can do, it just feels like it's easier because you don't have to have that uncomfortable moment of standing up for yourself or being your authentic self and letting.

Letting people.

Having the risk of people not liking you for who you are or not approving you or not giving you the job for that reason.

But in the long run, you're just hurting yourself.

And so you got to find the.

Find the courage for yourself, as you say, to advocate and stand up and be yourself and ask for what you deserve.

Because if, if you don't, no one's just going to give it to you.

Unfortunately.

Yeah.

I think it also kind of highlights the need for us to share our stories with each other.

Right.

Those of us in the community need to share examples of where we have been able to advocate for ourselves.

Where we felt scared or we were worried or it had inhibitions and we said, I'm going to push through this.

I'm going to have a little bit of courage and I'm going to ask for what I think is right and what I deserve.

And if other people can see us doing it or we see other people doing it, that courage can spread throughout the community.

Yes, that courage and that hope to see it on the other side is also something that's very crucial to self advocacy.

Because it's hard work, it can be frustrating, it can be very drawn out, like a lot of advocacy work, unfortunately is.

So if you're already dealing with daily microaggressions and frustrations that are related to that, expending your limited energy on something else slow moving can be very discouraging.

So hearing about other folks and whether it's their struggles, both their struggles and their successes are so inspiring and so helpful to your own efforts at self advocacy.

Totally.

Do you think that lack of self advocacy by large swaths of community communities are part of the reason for the gender wage gap, the gender identification, sexual orientation wage gaps?

I think the lack of self advocacy contributes to the problem, but citing it as a reason for wage gaps places the responsibility away from those who are actually responsible for it.

It's really on the employers that see somebody in a vulnerable position and realize that, hey, I can use this to my advantage.

It's an unfortunate reality of the world that we live in.

And that's what keeps making self advocacy absolutely essential, so that you can push back and say, no, I will not be manipulated with this.

It's hard to push back, but it's necessary and one of the few tools that we have as a community to improve things for ourselves and for those that come after us.

Right?

Absolutely.

You bring up a good point here, especially with the financial self advocacy.

John and I often say that the whole reason why we do this, why we encourage LGBT folks to think about financial security and financial independence, is because of the value it will bring to our community.

It's not just financial.

Right?

Especially with what we see going on in the country right now, all of these anti trans, anti LGBT bills that are being put out there.

It's not just politicians that have to do this fight.

There are people who are contributing to causes to try to help make this, to try to bring about equality.

And that costs money.

It costs money to do those kinds of things.

And our community has to be in a place where we are contributing and driving the financial side of that as well.

And for so long.

So we haven't been able to do that because of lack of income, the income disparity.

But as we improve our financial situation, we can contribute to that.

It's not just about.

It is in part about making our own lives better with the things that we can have, the freedoms that we can have, but it's also about making the lives of our community better and the lives of the people who come after us better as well.

Yes, fully.

So what would you give our listeners as maybe one piece of advice or one action step?

What can I do today to start advocating for myself?

Research would be my number one piece of advice.

There are what, over 4 billion people on this planet with access to the Internet, same as you do.

Odds are very good, if not excellent, that you're not the first person to be up against the problem that you're most concerned about right now.

Other people have been in your shoes before.

They found a way to come on top.

It's time to sit down with Google and see and find those people to take a page out of their book and use it so that you too can come on top.

Even if you can't find someone with your exact same problem, you can still borrow from their actions and apply to them what you can.

I actually talk about this as well in another article that I like to call the Power of Some.

You might not be able to do everything that this successful person did, but can you do some of it?

Like when it comes to finances, you might not be able to negotiate a million dollar salary, but can you negotiate for more than what you're currently getting.

Right.

I love that.

I think if you're able to find those people who have some of your story, there's such an easy way to connect with people now maybe even if you have the opportunity, reach out to them and see if they have any advice or suggestions.

Say our story isn't exactly the same, but what would you suggest that I do to solve my situation?

We'll definitely link to your article self advocacy and finance.

Take care of yourself and your money which is@wewantgwok.com but are there other resources that you have for listeners or viewers to help them with their self advocacy, whether from your own platform or anything that has helped you?

Yeah.

So in the personal finance space specifically, I really like one site that's run by the pioneers.

They really embrace the power of some and self advocacy when it comes to financial independence.

They understand not everyone can become financially independent at a young age that you might hear of in these really sensational news stories.

But they focus on helping people slow down, embrace where they are and figure out how to make a better work life balance now in their lives.

Yeah, I love that there was the whole brove movement in the building your own business, becoming an entrepreneur.

You just got power through and you got to work and hustle and hustle and hustle and that got old and tiring.

But I'm glad to see that there are people in the personal finance space who are saying, you know what, you don't need to have a million dollars by the time you're 25.

You don't need to have, you don't need to retire at 25.

Just slow down, figure out what it is you want and you can get there.

Just take a chill.

Yeah.

And I think that it helps to not then play the comparison game.

Right.

When you say, you know what, I'm going to slow down and I'm going to go at my.

I'm going to go at the speed that I want to go at, whether that is 100 miles an hour or a crawl.

I'm going to go at the speed that I want.

It helps you to then get off the comparison game of saying, well, that person did it by the time they were 32.

Good for them.

Celebrate the fact that they did.

It's awesome that you did it.

But you know what?

I'm going to get there when I'm 45 or 55, whatever.

Right.

There should be a website called get rich Slowly.

I think there is.

Darcy.

This is, this has been great.

We really really appreciate this and I know that especially when it comes to.

I think there are probably going to be some lurkers who want to check out your LinkedIn profile.

Yeah, exactly.

We'll definitely want to link to that.

But what else can folks do when it comes to connecting with you, either directly or virtually?

How can our listeners get more of you?

Yeah, so I'm on Twitter and Instagram.

If you look up wewantgwok, you can also reach out to me either by my site@wewantgwok.com or via email at darcywantsgwachmail.com.

You have an award winning website.

You've won, I think, several Plutus awards.

It's amazing and I've never had the opportunity to ask you, but where did the We Want Guac part come up?

And how did you merge that with finance?

Or are they completely unrelated things that you love?

Yes, definitely.

So the We Want Guac name itself came about because as a person in my 20s, I really love getting extra guac on my burritos at Chipotle, even though they're a little more expensive.

But things that are related to guac or that are related to avocado toast seem to be the new cutout lattes of the financial arguments.

Now I've heard a lot about cut out the avocado toast from your budget and then maybe you can afford a house.

No, that's not quite the way to help out young folks there.

So We Want Guac was the name that I chose to help people on the path to wealth, specifically in their 20s, to really declare that we're going for wealth and we're going to do a while enjoying the process along the way with guac or otherwise.

I love it.

I feel like tacos are in our near future.

Yeah, I was just gonna say I think it was Mexican.

For dinner tonight, the first week of April, John and I went and celebrated getting our end of the quarter paycheck, so to speak, from one of our partners.

And we got tacos and we got guac and chips.

And I tagged Darcy in the comment in the picture on Twitter because we were enjoying the guac.

So enjoy the guac, enjoy the life.

Advocate for yourself.

So thank you very much, Darcy, for joining us today.

Yeah, thank you guys.

Make sure to check out more ways that Capital One can help you achieve financial wellbeing@Capital One.com.

that's Capital One.com.

Thank you, Darcy, for a great interview and bringing this topic to our attention to our listeners.

Thank you.

And here's your money takeaway from this episode.

Take Darcy's advice and start researching all the ways that you can be your own best advocate, whether it's for a wage increase, an incorrect charge, or finding ways that you can help others in the community as a rising tide lifts all boats.

Then join us next week when we're joined by the Motley fool to talk about the Motley Fool Debt Free Guys LGBTQ Money Study.

We're super excited about this.

Find out the current financial state of the LGBTQ community and what we can do next to improve our financial lives.

Thank you and have a great week.