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She started out making and selling plushies at school and now she’s a Gen Z money expert with 300K+ followers and a debut book in the works. Pre-order Lillian’s book now! https://www.amazon.com/New-Money-Rules-Personal-Finance/dp/B0DW678THW
Kelli Luu (00:00)
Lillian Zhang is a personal money expert who’s built an online presence with over 300,000 followers across her platforms, sharing her own advice on finances and career growth. She has become a go-to girl for young men and women looking to level up and build success independently.
Today, she’s sharing her knowledge with us at Gold Sea. I’m Kelli Luu and welcome Lillian.
Lillian Zhang (00:21)
Hi everyone, thank you Kelli so much for having me on here. I’m super excited to be here and to chat with you.
Kelli Luu (00:27)
⁓ thank you so much. So I really want to get into it to start. For people who have never come across your page before, how would you explain to somebody what it is you do?
Lillian Zhang (00:37)
Yeah, honestly, it is a little bit of everything. Most of my content is focused on financial literacy and financial tips, but I also talk about my experience as a corporate girly working in tech and also living in Bay Area. So I would summarize it as professional development and financial literacy.
Kelli Luu (00:55)
you’re in the Bay Area right now. Have you been there your whole life?
Lillian Zhang (00:59)
Yeah, so my family, I was born in Illinois, but we moved here when I was six years old and I’ve been here ever since.
Kelli Luu (01:05)
Nice, awesome. And what do you do in corporate?
Lillian Zhang (01:08)
I’m a product marketing manager, so we help market tech products. That’s like the big summary. Well, yeah.
Kelli Luu (01:15)
Yeah.
Okay, also, so your content on Instagram revolves around leveling up with your career finances. What kind of sparked this ambition in you and do you feel like your heritage has anything to do with this mindset?
Lillian Zhang (01:31)
Yeah, so I started creating content on TikTok mostly around like resume tips and career internship related stuff in college.
This was mostly because it was a very professional academic environment that I went to school in. And so since this was something that I felt like I had some advantage to or knowledge about, I made TikToks and content around it. I received like numerous requests for coffee chats at the time and realized that they were sort of repeating the same information. So creating content about this topic was sort of a way to scale the knowledge and information.
that was much more efficient than repeating myself one on one. And in terms of your question on what sparked my ambition, I grew up in Silicon Valley where everyone around me was very high achieving, academically oriented. So I feel like from childhood, I’ve just been really disciplined about these things. It’s just kind of been how I think about these sorts of topics.
Kelli Luu (02:30)
And do your parents like what you do? I’m sure they’re very proud.
Lillian Zhang (02:36)
Yeah, they were definitely super proud. I think in the beginning they were kind of skeptical about like the whole content creation thing, but they’ve definitely come around to it.
Kelli Luu (02:43)
Mm-hmm.
Do you ever feature them in any of your content or have you ever thought about it?
Lillian Zhang (02:50)
Yeah, so I do feature my parents occasionally, usually like if we go on trips or do fun things together, I feature like, hey, like this is how my parents shaped my upbringing or us doing like fun things together. So they do make an occasional appearance.
Kelli Luu (03:05)
that’s nice. Since we’re talking about your parents and everything, how was growing up for you? Did you grow up with siblings?
Lillian Zhang (03:12)
Yeah, I’m an only child, I’ve always, my parents always like, all their attention to me, which I was super grateful for, but I also sometimes wished I had a sibling.
Kelli Luu (03:14)
Okay.
were your parents ever pushing financial literacy onto you as a child?
Lillian Zhang (03:27)
Actually, not really. I actually learned most of my knowledge through school, YouTube videos, books, and my parents actually never really discussed money in our household except when it was like a stressful topic. So those things I didn’t learn from my parents actually.
Kelli Luu (03:41)
Yeah.
may I ask where you went to school?
Lillian Zhang (03:47)
I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad.
Kelli Luu (03:49)
awesome. from what age did you feel like you always thought about money differently than other people around you?
Lillian Zhang (03:58)
For sure. I think the first inkling that I actually had about money and like spending it was when I was in middle school and that was mainly because I started a side hustle of selling like handmade plushies. Like I would sew them with like fabric and like make these like 3D creations. Yeah and so…
Kelli Luu (04:14)
Okay.
That’s so
cool!
Lillian Zhang (04:19)
It was super fun. I would sell them at my school’s craft fairs. I would sell them on YouTube. That’s how I first got into content creation. But I feel like ever since I was 11 or 12, when I first started getting some spending money from this little side hustle, I’ve just been more conscious of the fact of what it takes to make a dollar and what spending a dollar means. And ever since I was young, my parents never really gave me an allowance beyond like
basic living expenses, so I’ve always had that experience of like managing my own money since a young age. And so when I got to college, I became a lot more interested in like investing and like more of the personal finance side as I began to make a higher income.
Kelli Luu (05:02)
Okay, so when you were in college, were you living away from home?
Lillian Zhang (05:06)
Technically, yes, because my school was like half an hour away from home. So yes, I lived in an apartment, but like it wasn’t that far away from where I grew up.
Kelli Luu (05:10)
Okay.
can you give our college students that are listening some advice on budgeting while trying to get through school?
Lillian Zhang (05:20)
I think this really depends on your personal situation because some people have to deal with student loans or budgeting on a very limited like runway. I think most college students have that, you situation. For me, I did a lot of like internships and part-time work throughout the school year to help like supplement some of my living costs and living fees. But I was privileged enough to have my parents help with like the basic rent costs for most
Kelli Luu (05:31)
Mm-hmm.
Lillian Zhang (05:48)
of college and I paid for like trips and things I wanted to buy with my own money. So in terms of budgeting I will say like in college
don’t expect to live like a really extravagant lifestyle or anything. You just have to be mindful. You know, this is like a temporary time where you might have to make some sacrifices and sort of figure out where your career is going. And then as you move up, then there’s more room for more like fun spendings. And so that’s like my general opinion on this.
Kelli Luu (06:19)
Okay, thank you for that. could you tell us what your most lucrative form of income right now? Because I’m sure you have multiple. And for your viewers, where would you tell them to start if they wanted to do the same thing that you were doing?
Lillian Zhang (06:33)
So this is hard to sort of explain in a podcast because I feel like when people talk about their income streams, it’s really easy just to say like, I made X amount of dollars doing this. But what people don’t see is like the journey of how it all came to be. And I would say right now, even though my most lucrative stream is content creation.
This wouldn’t have been possible unless I got my education and first got to my full time job, which was at the time like what I was studying for. And because my content is rooted in like professional development, like working in tech, financial literacy, like if I hadn’t gotten this job first, it wouldn’t have led to the content creation, if that makes sense, even though like that’s the thing that is currently making the most. So it’s kind of hard to like.
Kelli Luu (07:15)
I see.
Mm-hmm.
Lillian Zhang (07:21)
say like, this is a thing I recommend right now and you should do that because I personally believe that you should work on like building your foundations first and then branching out to these more like side income streams. But they all kind of like stem from this one thing.
Kelli Luu (07:36)
I see, okay. So do you work one-on-one with clients?
Lillian Zhang (07:42)
I do like some coaching calls with people who want to have more time with me, but my main like, I guess clientele is other companies or brands who are placing ads in the content.
Kelli Luu (07:52)
Got it.
Lillian Zhang (07:54)
process works.
Kelli Luu (07:56)
Okay, cool. So at what point, I think you kind of said like you in middle school, you’re kind of on YouTube and stuff, but when did you want to start sharing your knowledge on the internet?
Lillian Zhang (08:06)
Yeah, this was mostly during the end of my college years where I started sharing more like careers slash internship job search tips. And that pretty much like evolved as I grew into like financial literacy and more broader topics as well. So it’s definitely started when I was like in my early 20s.
Kelli Luu (08:22)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, Is there any specific content on your page that does super, super well?
Lillian Zhang (08:31)
So the content that does the most well on my page are usually content around like financial tips specifically for the age group in their 20s. And I find that really interesting because I’ve posted lots of different types of content, but people come back to me more and more for the financial content as evidenced by like the metrics and the engagement. So that’s sort of my main thing right now.
Kelli Luu (08:42)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, awesome.
alright, so I know you said that you’re still doing your corporate job and then you’re also doing the content creation. That’s correct. OK, so I want to know how are you balancing the two? A lot of people quit their full time job in order to do content creation. They go a long time just doing content creation full time
Lillian Zhang (09:05)
Yes,
Kelli Luu (09:16)
Do you have any kind of advice towards that for somebody that wants to do it?
Lillian Zhang (09:20)
Yeah, in terms of balancing everything, it is pretty difficult because your most precious resource is your time. And I’d say if a job takes up nine to five of your work week, that’s like 40 to 50 hours per week, including commute time and other prep time. So you’re only really left with early mornings, evenings, plus weekends, which I try to take advantage of.
I’m definitely not a morning person, so that pretty much defaults it to the evenings and the weekends. And so I think it’s just a sacrifice that you choose to make, honestly. And I also feel because you’re doing like multiple things, at least in my case, sometimes content has to go on the back burner if you are prioritizing other things that you have to do.
Kelli Luu (09:50)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Lillian Zhang (10:09)
And
for me, it’s just being okay with not having everything at 100%. And I think depending on how seriously you’re taking like your business or your side hustle, if that’s okay with you or not.
Even though I’ve never quit my nine-to-five to pursue this full-time in terms of like some things I would think about if you are at that stage I would definitely make sure that it is sustainable for you and that you’re seeing like consistent revenue over the months or years you’ve been doing this Because it can be very irregular with how you are paid versus a full-time job where you’re paid every two weeks
Kelli Luu (10:50)
Right.
Lillian Zhang (10:51)
And I think especially in America, people don’t realize how expensive other benefits are like health insurance, like your 401k match. Like all those things are sort of invisible benefits to your job that you don’t realize that you get and the value of that’s actually quite a bit if you add it up over the year. So those are some of the considerations I’ll definitely think about when it comes to pursuing your own business.
Kelli Luu (11:17)
Yeah, definitely. don’t think a lot of people don’t talk about the insurance part, the 401k, like you said, at least I know for a fact, when I was in college, they didn’t teach anything about 401k or anything like that. having somebody like you on social media is really nice for those kinds of things.
I want to know if there’s like a common trap that you see people fall for a lot. Maybe, I don’t know, with school financial aid, like people fall for pyramid schemes, obviously. Is there something that you see that people, a lot of people fall for that has to do with financial literacy?
Lillian Zhang (11:52)
For sure, one of the trendiest topics right now is buy now pay later. I recently read a news article that around 60 % of Gen Z use buy now pay later at some point, which I find very concerning.
Kelli Luu (12:02)
Wow, sick.
So why is that concerning? How is that a trap?
Lillian Zhang (12:08)
Yes, so it is a trap because basically how it works, for example, if you go online and you want to buy like a dress, for example, there’s like an option on the checkout page where you can use Klarna or Afterpay and you can divide the purchase into four separate payments and they claim that there is no interest. So what happens is that you can get this item immediately but not have to pay out the money until later on and
This is definitely a trap because it tricks you into thinking that you can afford more than what you can actually afford to pay for. And a lot of people fall into the trap of not being able to or thinking that they can get away with not paying the payments because it is marketed as low or no interest when in reality there is a lot of fine print and fees that can be incurred.
if you don’t pay off those payments. And especially if you don’t consider what this BNPL concept is, it can really make people like spend a lot of money and.
push them into a cycle of over-consumerism for things that you don’t necessarily need or can afford in that one purchase. So I personally avoid BNPL like the plague and would advise you to as well if you’re listening to this.
Kelli Luu (13:22)
Oh, interesting. Wow. Okay. it is super popular. It’s trendy everywhere. on TikTok, I feel like it’s, it’s available. I didn’t know 60 % of Gen Z uses that. That’s, that’s crazy. Yeah. So if you don’t pay it off, cause I know another common thing about it is that
Lillian Zhang (13:32)
It’s insane, it’s actually insane.
Kelli Luu (13:39)
they, it doesn’t like affect your credit score, but does it if you don’t pay it off?
Lillian Zhang (13:47)
It is marketed like that and I feel like for most people your credit score won’t be negatively affected. But I feel like it’s more about the habit because if you get into the habit of purchasing things on credit, what is stopping you from doing that on a credit card or some other big loan that you have that has an interest rate and that you can’t pay off? It’s more of like a mindset thing.
Kelli Luu (13:54)
huh.
Mm.
Yeah, okay, okay, well, I understand that you have like a solution for everyone who’s seeking like financial advice like this. I hear you’re coming out with a new book.
Lillian Zhang (14:17)
Yeah, it’s actually been super fun. It’s a project that has been in the works for over a year now. this is my very first book and it’s out with Sourcebooks, which is distributed by Penguin Random House. So it is something I’m very excited about and
Kelli Luu (14:24)
Love it.
What can we look forward
to in this book?
Lillian Zhang (14:34)
Yeah, so essentially there are a lot of finance books that are written by a lot of older people and people who are maybe not in touch with Gen Z as much as like current Gen Zers. So as a Gen Z who has seen like the issues firsthand that lot of people my age and who are younger than me are facing, this book is geared towards Gen Zers and beginners who want to learn more about personal finance and how they can manage their money.
best in today’s digitized and modern finance world.
it’s coming out in November of this year, but pre-orders are now open and available. So it’s available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and anywhere that you can get your books.
Kelli Luu (15:18)
We definitely have to get our hands on that book. As somebody in Gen Z too, my mom, she’s super frugal growing up. So I was like listening to like Dave Ramsey when I was like 12 years old and hearing all of these financial things my mom was always telling me about.
Lillian Zhang (15:26)
Uh-huh.
Kelli Luu (15:33)
a lot of other people around me like don’t understand the financial literacy thing they the buy now pay later was a great example so many people use that just like casually too you know I could just after and now you can add the after pay to your wallet on Apple Pay now and you could use yes you can add it to your Apple Pay wallet and use it in stores
Lillian Zhang (15:40)
No.
is that really a thing? wow.
wow, that is super dangerous.
Kelli Luu (15:55)
Yeah,
definitely I’m glad that you touched on that. Yeah. ⁓
Lillian Zhang (15:59)
Yeah, I would add a note to what you said. I
do relate a lot to like the whole very male space in finance. I think there’s not a lot of voices who are younger leaning on the female side as well. So I also think that someone something that a lot of people are missing when it comes to financial education, like they’re seeing people who maybe don’t look like them, they can’t relate to and.
Kelli Luu (16:12)
Of course.
Lillian Zhang (16:22)
The goal of what I’m trying to do with my platform and the upcoming book is to provide a more relatable standpoint from someone who’s been through the same challenges that they’ve been through.
Kelli Luu (16:31)
I love that. Awesome. Okay. I want to know if your relationship has, I want to know if your relationship with money has changed since you started making more of it.
Lillian Zhang (16:41)
For sure. I’d say I was first starting out. I also grew up in a household where it was very much a scarcity mindset of there is limited amounts of it. you have to save all your money. You cannot be wasting your money by spending it. So that was definitely my mindset ⁓ as a child and also in my early adulthood.
But now that I’ve been in the working world for several years now, I’ve been able to understand that there are more than one or two ways to make money and that as long as you’re providing some sort of value that it will come back to you in the value of money. So it’s definitely helped me become more abundant with the possibilities that are out there and that as long as you are providing value to the world that it will come back to you in the form of money and that money.
at the end of day is just an exchange of value and a tool to live your life.
Kelli Luu (17:34)
Great mindset. so is there a platform that you think that is underrated for building a business right now?
Lillian Zhang (17:39)
Yeah, I’d say I started out mostly on TikTok and Instagram with short form and that’s worked out pretty well for me. But in terms of up and coming platforms that I feel like are more underrated, definitely Substack and LinkedIn actually. I don’t know if you’ve seen…
Kelli Luu (17:53)
What’s Substack? Because I’ve
been hearing a lot about it and Can you explain what it is?
Lillian Zhang (17:58)
Yeah, so Substack is basically like a newsletter slash blog platform in one. essentially what it does, you can write articles. It’s kind of like Medium, but it’s more like social interactive. if you have an email list of some sorts, you can add them to Substack. And whenever you publish a Substack post, it basically emails all of your email subscribers.
What’s unique about subsack I feel like is that it’s also like a hybrid social media platform So when you post an article it not only goes out on email to your subscribers But it also gets posted publicly for anyone to discover you through web search or through subsack directly so I feel like that is a really good way to
Kelli Luu (18:37)
Wow.
Lillian Zhang (18:40)
sort of provide more insight on what you are thinking about in a longer format compared to like Instagram or TikTok where you only really share a limited amount of your thoughts, especially if you talk about more like topics and want to expand more on something that you are writing about.
Kelli Luu (19:01)
wow, interesting. it’s like basically like you’re sharing your articles on social media
Lillian Zhang (19:05)
pretty much. And then you can always cross post and promote your articles on Substack. And so it’s like a cycle where people from social media can come to your Substack for those who want to learn or see more in depth of your thoughts.
Kelli Luu (19:17)
Cool, interesting. I thought it was just like a new kind of like Instagram photo sharing platform. since you mentioned LinkedIn, how important do you think it is for someone in college to start building their LinkedIn?
Lillian Zhang (19:27)
So I’d say for LinkedIn, it wasn’t as prevalent a few years ago, but I feel like now it’s becoming more of like a content and social platform increasingly. When I was in college and even now, all I mostly did was keep my LinkedIn profile active and I made sure to have all my like schooling, my like work experience on my LinkedIn and put some like other skills that would complement the profile.
What I also do is whenever I have like a win about like my career or an update, I would share that as a post. And that’s a good way to keep people in your network, like updated on what you’re doing. It helps to keep you top of mind for other people because a lot of folks on LinkedIn are most likely in a corporate setting or have some sort of like professional.
edge to them. So if they see that you’re doing something and they have a project or a job that they’re hiring for, they’re probably on LinkedIn looking for that type of person. And so the people who are giving you opportunities are likely to be on the platform. And so if you post about yourself and what you are doing, your perspectives, it is likely that someone in a position of power can see the value you are bringing.
Kelli Luu (20:39)
Okay, cool. So you would recommend most Gen Zers who are looking to get into the corporate field to get their LinkedIn.
Lillian Zhang (20:49)
it’s like a resume now. A public resume.
Kelli Luu (20:51)
Yeah, I think I’ve seen LinkedIn on the come up for sure. people are utilizing it a lot more as almost like a social media, like you said, people like posting all their accomplishments on it. And I honestly love it. It’s like almost, ⁓ it’s almost like I checked LinkedIn first before I check Instagram now. Yeah.
Lillian Zhang (21:10)
social media, even though it’s probably, like, not really, but, like, treats my mind. Yes.
Kelli Luu (21:14)
Exactly.
I don’t know, it’s like a little more reading that you have to do so you feel like you’re doing a little bit more than just scrolling. Alright, so I know I have just a couple more questions, but you’ve built a presence online by sharing your own advice. So do you ever feel like a certain pressure when it comes to the content that you’re posting?
Lillian Zhang (21:22)
⁓ yeah, for sure, for sure.
I honestly don’t really feel like there is pressure when it comes to the types of content I’m making when it comes to advice and my opinions because I personally don’t speak on something unless I’m confident on that topic and something that I can only personally explain. And I’d say that when I do speak on something, I stand by what I say and don’t go back on what I’m saying.
Kelli Luu (21:56)
Okay, awesome. Gotta be like that for sure. Especially as a content creator, So as somebody who works a corporate job, does content creation, has all of these things going on for herself, what does a normal day kind of look like for you?
Lillian Zhang (22:11)
Yeah, in terms of my daily routine on weekdays at least, I try to wake up at seven-ish and do like some workout or exercise because I feel like it really helps clear the mind and makes my body feel good. Then I work pretty much a standard nine to five. I feel like with tech, that’s really nice because you’re not really working extra hours beyond like what’s expected of you. So the work-life balance for that is really nice.
Kelli Luu (22:15)
Mm-hmm.
Lillian Zhang (22:36)
In terms of after work, usually on some days I might have like a dinner activity or something that I’m doing outside of work, but if not, I usually spend the time planning or writing my content, which includes like editing videos, my sub stack. For the last year, I was mostly like writing the book, so that took up a lot of my free time.
Kelli Luu (22:59)
I’m sure,
yeah.
Lillian Zhang (23:00)
and having to keep up with the book writing as well as my quote regular content on my social platforms. That was quite an adventure, honestly. But yeah, I mostly just work at my job, work on my own stuff, sleep, eat, hang out with friends. That’s pretty much my life.
Kelli Luu (23:10)
Yeah. ⁓
Nice, she’s very well-rounded. seem like you have like a glow to you that’s like really like you don’t look stressed. Yeah, of course. Is there anything you wish more women in their 20s and 30s knew? what is one financial tip you think everyone in our age group should know?
Lillian Zhang (23:28)
I appreciate it.
Yes, I believe that financial education, especially for women and young girls, is extremely important.
And the reason why I believe that is because oftentimes, because we live in a very patriarchal society, we default like a lot of the financial knowledge and the management of our money to the men in our lives, like fathers, partners, husbands. And I think it’s super important for women to understand how to manage your money, learn the basics of financial literacy as early as you can, because money really does give you a lot of power when you are walking away from a
situation when you want to a toxic job and that’s just not something that is super emphasized in our community and that’s definitely something that I want to empower more girls and young women to learn about.
Kelli Luu (24:26)
Awesome. Love that. Yeah, definitely. think learning at a young age is ideal So and I love seeing Asian women represent in this area. So it’s great. It’s amazing. What is
Lillian Zhang (24:34)
for sure.
Kelli Luu (24:41)
the end goal for you? do you feel like you’ve made the amount of money that you wanted to? What steps are you taking to like make more? what do you see yourself doing in five years? tell us what you have in mind for your future.
Lillian Zhang (24:55)
Yeah, I’d say since I’m still really young, I’m definitely still on the upward trajectory. I’m 25.
Kelli Luu (25:00)
Sorry, how old are you? Okay,
Lillian Zhang (25:04)
I also feel like with the constant hedonic treadmill where you get to a point and you feel like there’s always more to achieve. feel like even though I know that’s something that I need to be grateful for and have in the moment, which I am super grateful for, I think that’s always something in the back of my mind where I could be doing more. And because I still have a lot of years ahead of me, I definitely am in that mindset. So.
I’m still doing that, but the goal definitely is to empower and impact and impact as many people as possible. And no matter what that means or through what sorts of measure, that’s my end goal for sure.
Kelli Luu (25:38)
Yeah.
Awesome. We love that. All right. My last question to you is how can we keep the lookout for your upcoming book? I know you said pre-order is ready, I know you said, is it going to be in stores? Can we just get it online?
Lillian Zhang (25:54)
You can follow me on Instagram and my newsletter on Slipstack to be notified when those pre-order bonuses will be ready and they’re only available to those who pre-order.
Kelli Luu (26:04)
Awesome. All right. Thank you, Lillian, for sharing your voice with Gold Sea. We really appreciate your time.
Lillian Zhang (26:10)
Thank you so much, Kelli and thank you everyone who’s listening.
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