There isn’t a lot Kat Stickler won’t get real about with her (tens of millions of) followers. Since rising to fame during the pandemic through her hilarious viral videos that poke fun at both herself and everyone else (see: That One Friend Who Knows Nothing About Having Kids), Stickler has been candid and open about having her daughter Mary-Katherine (MK), going through a divorce, and finding new love with Bachelorette alum Jason Tartick. And she’s done it all with remarkable humor.
But one thing that didn’t come naturally for Stickler to talk about? Money.
“We did not talk about money in my household ever,” Stickler tells Glamour. “When I started going through many of life’s firsts as an adult—having a baby, starting a business, buying a home, getting married, and even going through a divorce—I realized how important it is to have a plan, not just for myself but for my family.”
After becoming more open with herself about her finances, she realized she also wanted to be more transparent with her fans too. To that end, she’s appearing as a guest on Northwestern Mutual’s A Better Way to Money podcast, which drops September 19, to talk about how she’s taken control of her financial life and how that’s helping shape her plans for the future. “People feel so uncomfortable talking about money because there’s judgment that comes with it,” she says. “There’s fear of sounding stupid, or sounding like you don’t know what you’re talking about.” (Spoiler: When it comes to her wallet, she definitely knows what she’s talking about.)
Stickler also keeps that dialogue going with Glamour. Below, we discuss what drove her to focus on her personal finances, her advice on buying a home, and why she can’t resist a late-night TikTok Shop rabbit hole.
Glamour: How would you describe your personal relationship to money?
Kat Stickler: We have a great relationship. I love money, I respect it. I feel like I see it in a different way because I know what it’s like not to have it, but I really appreciate every single dollar. I think I have a really healthy relationship with money, actually, that I cultivated myself, and I am really proud of it. [I used to have] lots of fear towards money, fear of what it represented, whether it was conflict in marriage or changing how people acted. But I definitely feel like I have a healthy relationship with money now. We get along great.
When did you start thinking about financial wellness as part of your overall approach to wellness?
Honestly, I started thinking about it after I had my daughter. Before, it was just me. I was like, yeah, we can get this, we can buy this. But when every decision you make all of a sudden affects another soul—someone you love entirely, I always say my heart is existing outside of my body—then there’s a lot more gravity, a lot more meaning. So she was the catalyst.
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