Financial Feminist - 137. Can Astrology Make You Better with Money? With Chani Nicholas

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

If you’re reading the title of this episode wondering how astrology can be relevant to personal finance and career development — get ready for a fascinating exploration into the cosmic influences that shape each of our individual paths. In this insightful conversation, Chani Nicholas, New York Times best-selling author and world-renowned astrologer, shares insights into how astrology can be a valuable tool for self-discovery, understanding one's strengths and challenges, and making informed decisions in various aspects of life. Read transcripts, learn more about our guests and sponsors, and get more resources at https://financialfeministpodcast.com.  Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What I want to do is if you're interested in the blueprint of potential that I know is in your astrological chart, then I want to help you access that quickly and efficiently and with eloquence and nuance. And then I think that if you have that kind of information, you can then more readily move into the world and be of service to it, which is ultimately my agenda. My agenda is to help people connect to their agency and their own specific skill set so that they can be part of the social change that they most want to see in the world. Hi team. Welcome back. Hello. Welcome back to Financial Feminist. I am so excited to see you. Thanks as always for being here. Before we get into the episode, a couple of housekeeping things. Like, subscribe, review the show, send it to your friends. It truly helps us continue to do this amazing content. And if you have a question about personal finance, you can drop it in the

voicemail box below and maybe we'll use it in an upcoming episode. All right, today's guest, this was a fun one. Chani Nicholas is a Los Angeles-based, New York Times bestselling astrologer and author of You Were Born for This, Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance. She has been a counseling astrologer for more than 20 years, guiding her community of over a million monthly readers to discover and live out their life's purpose through understanding their birth chart. Chani is the president of Chani Nicholas Incorporated. She writes all the content that her readers experience across her website and newsletter, writes or edits all of the content on the Chani app, oversees the creative direction and visual identity of the company, still personally manages her social media presence and community engagement, and co-directs the company with her

wife and business partner, Sonia Posse. She's been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, on the CBS Morning News, and has a web series called Star Power on Netflix. Y'all have been asking for this one for a while. Astrology and finances, astrology and self-development. We get into why astrology has been a powerful tool for better understanding ourselves and the world around us, how to look at our charts in an analytical way to understand our relationship to our finances. And Shani demystifies some of the biggest misconceptions and misunderstandings around astrology, including things like Mercury and Gatorade and Saturn returns. And yes, it's Mercury in retrograde, but I like making the Gatorade joke. We also get into her incredible

business, which has some of the most progressive structures when it comes to benefits and pay. And we're just really excited to have her on the show. She also reads me for filth. She reads my chart and really tells me everything about my life and how it's going to change. Whether you're a casual dabbler or totally obsessed with astrology, or maybe you're a total skeptic, you're going to love this episode. Let's go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. not forever but for a good amount of time yeah do. Do you like LA or New York more? I feel like this tells me a lot about a person. My mother's side of the family are like diehard Jewish New Yorkers. Got it. So it's in my blood. So you're like, I can't pick. No, it's not. You can't compare them. You can't. I don't know. They're very,

No, it's not. You can't compare them. You can't. I don't know. They're very, very, very different cities. Yeah. Yeah. I am a diehard New Yorker in my bones, but I've not had the I haven't lived there for longer than a year at a time. So, yeah. But, you know, I've gone there my whole life every every year. I live up in Seattle and so I'm in LA a lot, but I love New York. It's like, the goal is to be bi-coastal at some point in my life and like true bi-coastal. We're just so excited to have you. So excited to be here. Do you remember that moment when astrology really resonated with you when you thought, oh, this is what this is and how it can help me? And then when did that transition into helping other people well i think astrology just by nature is something that if if it speaks to you and you pick it up it just naturally starts to help other people anybody who's around you that's interested in it will all of a sudden be like so curious about what you can tell them about themselves so it's that's an automatic kind of i don't know if transaction is a good word to use but it's an automatic interaction that happens. And the first time I really understood what an

astrology reading was, I was 12 years old and I received one with my father and his new third wife and her two kids. And it was a gift from her mother, who was a Reiki master and had tons of psychics and astrologer friends. And so she got us a family reading as a gift and I think as a way for us to find one another as a new family. And the astrologer gave us readings and I was like, wow, how does she know how we're all so different? And it was so clarifying for me and it was so helpful because we were five different people and we were trying to come together as a unit. And so I was obsessed and also I felt like I really understood what she was talking about. She had written a book, my dad bought it for me, and that was my introduction to astrology. It's so interesting to think of how you can use astrology, not just to understand yourself,

but to understand not only others, but everybody's dynamic together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was really helpful. That family in particular had a lot of, well, had two very prominent fixed, they had a lot of fixed signs. That was a family of a lot of fixed signs there was that was a family of a lot of fixed signs so they're very confident prominent kind of types and um i don't have a lot like that and so it was that was like good language for me to understand and to understand why i wasn't like that like i don't i didn't lead with like tons of confidence in the same way as they did. And so it's a language, I think, especially as when you're a teenager or preteen, where it can be like, oh, I'm not wrong or bad, I'm just different, or they're not wrong or bad, they're just different. And we all function in really different ways. When you say fixed signs, and then you said confidence, what does that mean

to my non-astrology background? What does that mean so fixed signs are Taurus Leo Scorpio and Aquarius and they are the signs that come right after cardinal signs and cardinal signs are the equinoxes and the solstices so they spur change and they create something new they initiate something new so cardinal sign people are really active and they start a lot of things and there's always something going on and then the fixed signs come in and they start a lot of things and there's always something going on and then the fixed signs come in and they're like cute cute but i gotta stabilize this and secure it and like spring has to become actual spring you can't just start something and then start the next thing so there's a lot of confidence and kind of stability in a sense

with fixed signs that and they pull focus to them because they are steady. They're at the hub. And then mutable signs come after them. And mutable signs let go of the fixedness. And they make space for the new change that's going to come, the next cardinal sign to come. But they're in between. So they're incredibly flexible, literally mutable. And they're called double-bodied so they're both and they they

stand in the in between so it's those are gemini virgo sag and pisces and so if you look at their glyphs they're two of something gemini is the twins virgo is the virgin and the dove usually and uh sag is of course the centaur the half half human half animal and pisces is the two fish and everything's going in two different ways because they're not one thing or the other they're both and and in between and everything everywhere all at once how does that work if well i mean we all have what you know certain suns or certain sun signs and the moon signs and always i'm like what does this mean for me but like what how does that look if you have a various these various different types of signs in your chart and you're more balanced and then you have to look at like then there's different ways of organizing importance

of things so for me because I'm a traditional astrologer, I'll look at if you were born in the day or the night and look to see if your sun or your moon is more prominent. I'll also take a lot of pointers from your rising sign and from where the planet is that rules your rising sign and what sign that's in. So all of these, you know, and a lot of people have a lot of different stuff and that's not weird or normal or anything. It just is what it is. The sky changes all the time. So, but if you have like two, you know, cardinal in your sun, moon rising or two fixed or two mutable, then that probably will lead you more towards that kind of functionality. That's really, really fascinating. That more towards that kind of functionality.

That's really, really fascinating. That's just one kind of basic level. No, like truly, I'm like, it's like breaking my brain a little bit. In a good way. I think in our everyday lives as women, one of the things that has kept cropping up now that astrology seems to be even more in the like pop culture or like mainstream lexicon is that there's jokes then of, oh, you know, run away if she asks your birth sign on a date. Like there seems to be this undervaluation of astrology because it's seen as a feminine interest. What do you think this stems from or how do you think this came about? Well, I am queer. So I think you're talking about straight cis men yes 100 okay i don't i don't know a lot about them

but if that's what they're up to then i think that that's just a function of patriarchy it sounds like 100 so anything anything that's valued by women and femmes is devalued by patriarchy just as like a essential 101 rule that's all we do on this show channing is talk about is talk about the patriarchy and how fucked up it is yeah yeah patriarchy i'm down for you have to like fill me in on what men do on dates i guess i don't know that sounds awful story for another time yeah uh yeah yeah um yeah you know i mean i listen i say this the time. I don't care if people like astrology. I don't think everyone should. I just I think it's like a phenomenal tool. And if you think that it doesn't have any value, then move along. But like the value that I get from it and that I get, I know a lot of people get from it is immense so if it works for you great if it doesn't keep it moving find the thing that works and always the patriarchy is going to be like oh you silly little child what do you know of things and you'll be like oh yes right because capitalism

is is so cohesively well thought out and makes so much sense. Sure, sure. What systems do you value and how do they function? This is a system I value and I know how it functions and I know how it works, but some of the things you all talk about don't actually make any literal sense. But cool, cool. What are the myths around astrology that you find most infuriating? I don't know. I really don't pay attention. I love that answer. I think probably that, I mean, it's like, who cares? I don't know.

I don't know what the myths are. That we're all cheats and liars and we're just making stuff up and it's all confirmation bias, which a lot of it can be. I mean, a lot of people use astrology in a lot of different ways that I wouldn't necessarily agree with. So I'm not saying that like people don't engage with astrology in ways that are, have little to do with what I know of astrology. So, you know, it's been taken over by capitalism. So God knows what's out there and how people view it because of how it's presented, because corporations can adopt it and try to you know benefit off of it or what have you so it's it's not really that big of a deal to me your unbothered bless and block attitude is um something i strive for and i think all of our

listeners should also strive for i'm just like i love that answer you're like i don't know i don't know. I don't fucking care. So move along. Well, it's also not like causing harm in a way that makes me want to engage with it directly. It's like, okay, fine. There's other things for us to fight. I will die on certain hills. And this one is just like, do what you want. Well, and if it's, yeah, if it's not hurting you and it's not hurting somebody else and it helps you show up as a better person and helps you show up in your relationships better, like that's not harmful. That can only help if you. Well, I don't feel like someone else judging astrology is harmful either, I guess is what I'm saying.

You know, so I don't really care. Yeah. So go ahead. Do your judging. It's not like impeding my human rights for you to do that. So it's fine. Yeah. My ability to continue doing

your work i i i'm good you've said that your mission with your work is to tie an understanding of astrology today with the social consciousness how are we interrelated and what we owe each other right can you share more about that i don't know if i've said those exact words, but what I think, I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but what I want to do is if you're interested in the blueprint of potential that I know is in your astrological chart, then I want to help you access that quickly and efficiently and with eloquence and nuance. And then I think that if you have that kind of information, you can then more readily move into the world and be of service to it, which is ultimately my agenda. My agenda is to help people connect to their agency and their own specific skill set so that they can be part of the social change that they most want to see in the world.

That's very similar to I think a lot of the work that we do is like, how can you show up as an individual in a way that's going to better the world around you as well? And I appreciate that view of thinking because speaking of patriarchy, I feel like that's the exact opposite of everything the patriarchy wants us to do. It's very individualistic and focused on, yeah, how do I make as much money and then how do I hoard all of that money so that it's just for me as possible? Yeah. And astrology, if it resonates with you, is literal proof of the fact that you're connected to something. There's a sky that's speaking to you. There's a universe that's in conversation with you that wants to help you out. I don't know, you know, I hope we live in a benevolent universe.

I feel like we do. But I think that when you listen to astrology and you listen to your own, you know, birth chart and you dissect it and really study it, you know, birth chart and you dissect it and really study it, it does create a sense of awe and wonder because there is this thing that says you were made like this on purpose and you have a purpose here. And these are some really good ways to engage with it and to think about when you're moving out into the world and doing your work. Can you talk to me about the getting started pack for like, what are your big three or like your houses? If somebody is looking where to start, can we establish some like chart basics? Yeah, you can start by downloading the Chani app and reading your description for your sun, your moon, and your rising, and then the planet that rules your rising sign. That is a really important thing.

So your sun is about where and how you shine. Your moon is about how you live out your life's purpose because the moon is the body and our emotional life and wellbeing. And the rising sign is the most personal part of your chart because it depends on your specific location and specific time of birth. That at that time, at that location over the eastern horizon was a literal zodiac sign that was rising up because the sky looks like it's moving all the time. And so that is a very, very, very sensitive point because it changes so quickly. And so that is the most personal part of your chart. And it is the marker of your life.

This is the moment you were born and it sets up the whole sky. From that part, we get to see, okay, well, this is what else was happening in the sky at that time. And this is what the sky looked like. This is what the planets look like. This was their quality. This is what it means for that person's life so those are the places to start and to you can you could spend years going in deep with just those three slash four things and get so much out of them because most of the time the rest of your chart will speak i want to know how the chart speaks through those

kind of four portals right yeah the sun correct me if i'm wrong is the one we all think of as like the sign we are yes yeah and that's new that's within since the printing press because what astrologers did where they were like okay well nobody knows their ascendant if that's harder to understand because you have to get out your you know you have to like do a bunch of math but everyone knows roughly the day that they were born and we can gauge roughly what you know unless you're born at the beginning or the end of a sign change then we know what sun sign you are so it was a way to get everyone literally on the same page and into the same horoscope and that was the gateway drug to the rest of your astrological chart once we had like newspapers and things in syndication. Right. I think that was one of the things that

started to unlock the power of astrology for me is for many, many years, I just thought, I'm a Cancer. Okay. And there were some times, you know, where I would do the classic, like, read my horoscope in the paper, and I would be like, okay, maybe this is relevant to me. Maybe it isn't. And it felt a bit like, okay, I don't think this is for me. And then I started to understand that it's way more than just that. And there were other parts of me that would show up or other parts of either my personality or the way I grew up or just, you know, how I felt about things that I was like, oh, this makes a lot more sense now rather than just like, you're a cancer, that's your default state. And so that was one of the things that was really helpful for me was understanding that astrology and your horoscope

is far beyond just your sun sign. Yeah, I mean, the horoscope you read in the paper isn't your chart. Right, right. At all. It's not your your chart it's how the planets are moving through space in relationship to the sign that your sun was in it's a very general way of looking at things but it's literally not your astrological chart yeah it's taking one tiny little thing from it and then talking about what's happening in the current moment. But having your chart read is a totally different experience and thing. Well, it was much more enlightening to me about how I actually felt like I showed up in the world because I definitely have some cancer traits, but there's other things in there too that are so involved.

Yeah. I mean, cancer is really focused on security, you know, and security is a financial issue because we live in capitalism. So there's that, you know, direct correlation that I could make knowing very little about you. Well, and you segued perfectly into one of our questions, which is when we are looking at our chart, what can we look for to learn more about our money stories or places where there's some friction with how we manage money or how we look at our finances? Yeah, it's a great question. There are a couple of different ways in. One of the first things I would start with is your second house, which is the house of money and assets and livelihood. And if you may or may not have planets there, if you have planets there, great. Again, you can pull up the Chani app and just skim down the list of your planets and see, do I have any planets in my second house?

And then read about them. But the other thing is, you know, most of us will or won't have planets in a certain house. There's 12 houses and there's only 10 plus planetary bodies. So it's impossible for us to have a planet somewhere in every single part of our chart. But what you can also do, if you don't have anything in your second house, you can look to see the sign of the second house and see the planet that rules that sign and then see where that is. And the way we wrote the Chani app is uber specific. So that say, if you're a cancer rising, it automatically means that through the way I look at charts, that the sun Leo is in your second house, but the sun rules

that. So it doesn't matter where your son is. You would just go read about the description of your son and it would tell you about your money along with other things. If you're Aries rising, you'd look at your Venus. If you're Taurus rising, you'd look at your Mercury. If you're Gemini rising, you'd look at your Moon. If you're Cancer rising, you'd look at your Sun. If you're Leo rising, you'd look at your Mercury. If you're Virgo rising, you'd look at your Venus. If you're Libra rising, you would look at your Mars. If you're Scorpio rising, you would look at your Jupiter. If you're Sag rising, you would look at your Saturn. If you're Capricorn rising, you would also look at your Saturn. And if you were Aquarius rising, you would look at your Jupiter. If you're Pisces rising, you would look at your Mars. Read that description in the Chani app and it'll tell

you something about your money. I just felt like you ran a marathon there. Yeah, I did. There's also the sixth house that I would look at because that is about work and the kind of like toil and chores of our life, but it also can talk about how we, what we have to work with and how we work with it. And then there's your 10th house of career and public life and what you're known for and your vocation. So it may or may not have to do with money for everybody, but it's also can be an important piece to understand. And then some astrologers would say, look at your Venus. I'm not always so sure about that, about connecting Venus with money, but some astrologers would. I don't know. There's a lot of different ways to look at it.

You could also look at your Saturn placement because Saturn had a lot to do with agriculture. So it had a lot to do with what we were reaping in a way. Then it depends on how you make money and the domain of life that that might connect to. Like a lot of therapists will have really important placements in the seventh house of relationships because it's one-on-one work. Real estate agents would have really important things either in the fourth house or in regards to the ruler of the fourth house. important things either in the fourth house or in regards to the ruler of the fourth house. But if you read the description of each of your planet in the Chani app, you'll hear us talk about money and how you make it with the planets that are connected to that.

I feel like there's also, again, understanding that, you know, your horoscope, your chart is not just your sun. The amount of people who, you know, comment on my social media posts, you must be a Capricorn because, you know, you're good at money. You give financial energy, right? And I am not a Capricorn, at least not in my three, in my three rising, almost said setting, rising setting. But I think it's just really interesting of like, we do have these stereotypes about like, who's good with money and who isn't. Can you speak more to that? Yeah, it's just our entry point. Yeah. You know, it's like, that's the entry point language in which we talk about it. But to me, I'm like, okay, it's one level, but I want to know if you're really good with money, if money is your thing, then I want to know what's in your

second house. What's the ruler of your second house? Where is it? Where's your moon? The moon also talks about tangible physical things and safety and security and all of that. I want to know where that is. If people are reading you as Capricorn, I want to know where your Saturn is. Do you have Saturn in Capricorn? Maybe you have a really powerful Saturn, or maybe you have it in Libra or Aquarius, and then you come off as a Saturnian type of figure. Maybe you have Saturn near one of the pivotal points in the chart, which is the ascendant, descendant, midheaven, IC. And so there's like so many factors to see like what jumps out about somebody, what's prominent in their persona and what are they known for in the world. And again, I would look at the 10th house and the midheaven to see how people read you,

how people understand you, what people receive from you is going to be facilitated through that part of your chart. Right. When I've also realized for me personally, the public version of me is still me, but it's definitely a different side of me. I am definitely the person who feels very deeply, has a lot of emotions, can swing back and forth. But you get more of my Leo energy when I'm a public person. Like you get more of that energy as I'm showing up online. And so I think that that's just really interesting. Speaking to my own experience, people who assume like, oh, you're good with money, so you must be a Capricorn. Or,

oh, you're a good public speaker, you must be a Leo. It's just interesting. The stereotypes of that. I also have a course called Your Money. Yeah, tell me more. I have an online course called Your Money, which talks all about everything that I just mentioned, that if you wanted to go in deeper with it and look at your chart, because it's a really important thing. You know, it's for me, once I kind of unlocked that for myself, I was like, oh, that's why I function like this. That's why no matter what I think I should do or what I, you know, other parts of me are like, well, what if I just did this? It's like, I always orient towards this one thing. And then it's so obvious in my chart. And once I saw that and

really understood it, I could just accept it about myself and just move on. Because one part of us will want to hide and the other part will want to show up. And one part of us will want to be really analytical. And the other part of us is a dreamer. And it's good to know what parts function in what areas of our life and how to, again, I called my book The Astrology of Radical Self-Acceptance because you may or may not like things about yourself. You may or may not know how to love certain parts of yourself. But I think we can all be like, OK, that's just who i am like i can know how to accept myself

and then if i can do that and be like okay if this is true then what do i do from here and again i think what it's done for me and a lot of the people i've worked with is move us into our agency so that we feel like i can move right i want to help people get people unstuck i was stuck for so long And astrology really helped me to move. Is it because you just had more information about yourself or you had like the tools now to be able to make the decisions that felt right for you? to get older. Technology needed to intersect with my talent in a way that there wasn't that technology when I was 20. So it just, there was no online as I'm really old. So it was like, as technology came, as social media came, as my, I started to do more of what I was passionate about, it intersected and started to move. Yeah. One of the things that I am thinking about in my own

life and that I have literally on my calendar is my Saturn return. Can you talk to me? intersected and started to move yeah one of the things that i am thinking about in my own life and that i have literally on my calendar is my saturn return can you talk to me about saturn returns because i am terrified i don't know why people are terrified of their saturn return i've just heard bad things yeah i've heard that it's going to be uncomfortable and I will embrace the discomfort, but I'm a little intimidated. Is your Saturn in Pisces? Oh gosh, I could look. Look it up. I know it's coming up. I think it's early 2024. Yeah, then your Saturn's in Pisces. So I would say you're already in it. Great. Well, this is the thing. Everybody goes to their Saturn return at the end of their 20s and the very beginning of their 30s. It's like right when you turn 30, Saturn has a orbit of 28.5 years. So

around the age of that, we have our Saturn return. And you can think of it lasting for two different periods of time. One is that you can think of the time period when Saturn is in the sign that it was in when you were born. So that's a two and a half year period. And it will be like particularly specific and poignant around the time where Saturn is exactly where it was when you were born. And that might happen once or it could happen three times because Saturn, like all the planets retrograde. So they might, it might go over and then go back over and then go forward one more time. My Saturn is in Pisces to just clarify. Yeah, no, I know it is. Cause if you're having it in 2024, it has to be. Yeah. So,

so honestly you're in it. This is it. Great. Are you afraid right now? I don't know. I feel like there is a period of transition in my life because that's what I've heard it is, is like a period of significant transition. Is that correct? And that you are not going to be a cute little 20-something for more than the next like five minutes. And once you get into your 30s, it's a different deal. You don't have the excuse of super youth anymore. You're still really young at 30, but you're not like super, super young. So you have a different, you start to create, there's a different orientation that starts to happen within you because you know that time has passed. Like, and you're in your 20s, you're still close to your teenage years.

You're still close to college. You're still close to whatever you were doing at the turn of 1920. And then you get to the end of the 20s and you're like, oh, that went by really fast. So fucking fast that and then you start to clock it you're like oh i knew everybody else got old i just didn't think i was going to get older and then it's just the very beginning of understanding your mortality uh-huh in a different way but it's really really really important and really good for you because you have to grow up and so sat Saturn comes along and is like,

all right, let's do this. And it gives you boundaries, limits, can feel like it backs you into a corner. But the reason why the universe or your life would back you into the corner is because you have to learn how to fly. You have to learn a different way of moving through space. a different way of moving through space. And the things that keep you small and young, hopefully, if you're lucky, and I really mean that, will not work for you anymore. You do not want to stay the same. You want to let this thing move you into your power. And the power you have at 30 is that you have come through the absolute chaos of your 20s. And chaos might be fun and exciting and all the things. It might be disastrous and terrifying. But the 20s are chaotic. They just are. And you're learning and you're just

trying to figure out how to adult and do all the things. And then you get into your 30s and you're like, okay. I felt like it was a relief. I have a very specific kind of Saturn setup, though. So it's good for me to age and it's good for me to move through those corners. But it's a relief. It's also, I think, the beginning of an unlocking from patriarchy in a different way. It's supposed to be a time where you're like,

how have I depended on people? Maybe they're depending on parents or other family members or friends. You start to look at your codependency in a different way. You start to think about, how am I going to define myself for myself? And knowing that your decisions bear a much deeper consequence the older you get, because you have less and less time. At 20, one year is one twentieth of your life. At 30, one year is one thirtieth of your life. They fly by, right? It's different. And that is supposed to deepen you. Age is supposed to deepen you. And so it's the very beginning of that understanding of aging and how to take yourself seriously. And then it depends on where it's happening in your chart,

what house it's happening in. So that depends on your rising sign. I could tell you in a second. You just read me for filth like absolute filth i appreciate that um yeah only in the past honestly couple months i mean i've always known obviously that i'm going to die and that we're all going to die but i'm starting to have the like my body's getting sorer and like i am aging at the point where i'm like oh okay this is really terrifying like I have never been terrified of aging before and not like physically like I because it didn't happen to you that's fine right once it happens it's not so easy to be brave about it's more like am I not going to be able to do the things I want to do am I not going to be able to yeah um my Saturn is in my 10th house

are you a Gemini rising? Yes. Yeah. So it's all about your career. I'm a Cancer Leo Gemini. Those are my three. Yeah. So it's all about your career and who you are in the world and your public roles. And it's about doing something significantly difficult in that area of your life.

And that is how you will gain your own self-respect. And that is ultimately what's so important. When you have Saturn that prominent, see, this is what I was saying. I had a feeling. That's why people read you as a Capricorn. You have Saturn in what we call an angular house, and it is the highest point of your chart. So your Saturn is what people feel from you when you go out into the world. Saturn is discipline, order, structure, understanding systems, how to have boundaries, how to work in the oftentimes material realm. Now it's in Pisces, so it has a spiritual bent. It has a kind of compassionate bent. It wants to be really fluid fluid it's kind of like a jellyfish a

little bit but it's still saturn you have an angular saturn so people read you as a capricorn because they're feeling that daddy energy of saturn from you do you just call me a daddy on my own podcast in which case yes thank you i did honestly iconic thank you you're like a femme daddy but it's still dead i appreciate that i will take that as the compliment it is we joke we're getting soft daddy we're getting merch that says money mommy because that's been the joke is that i am the hfk money mommy yes exactly exactly yeah it's like uh it's like soft dom energy that's very interesting and helpful okay and that's what people get from you and that's what people get from you and that's what

people want from you and so then you have to navigate that and be like i'm not your authority you're your authority this you have your own power don't come to me for it right don't come to me to set your own boundaries set your own goddamn boundaries but you you give people a boundary and people actually are fucking dying for boundaries it's really helpful i feel like i need to be taking notes we are we we love someone who sets a boundary. No, all of this is very relevant. I've also been doing a lot of like, am I happy with the current career that I have? Like, I love the work that we do. And I'm also like, all right, we've been doing this for a while. What needs to change? And that feels very

uncomfortable, even though I'm usually very down for change. So yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I would do something that's going to take some time. It's going to take a lot of effort. It's going to require your maturity and your discipline. I would do something that's incredibly disciplined and that you'll end up offering the world, especially by like 2025. I can do that. See, for you, your moon rules your second house, but your sun is also there. So if you have Gemini rising and sun and cancer, you shine by making money. You shine by highlighting the assets and resources that you have, which is you. You are part of that asset and resource, and you do it in a really caring way,

and you do it in a way that people feel mommied by or nurtured by and your your son is making a trine to saturn and so the structure and the discipline of saturn flows to you you flow with structure you like the discipline it works for you it's fluid so it's not like harsh and overly brittle it's actually quite movable yeah and again it is nurturing and spiritual in some kind of way, but that is what you are supposed to do to shine. And then not only that, but your moon rules the second house of money and assets, and it's in your third house of communicating. So what the fuck do you talk about all day? Money. And healing, right? There's got to be healing in that and taking care of yourself. And

what is it to nurture and nourish a different way to be healing in that and taking care of yourself and what is it to nurture and nourish a different way to be engaged with our resources that's your whole chart thank you although i want to know where your mercury is because your mercury rules your ascendant and then it's probably in it's in gemini or cancer or leo it's in Gemini. Yeah. So then you have a super powered Gemini, which means you're an excellent speaker. And so when people read you as Leo, it's like, no, no, that's not the Leo part. It's actually your Mercury.

Your Mercury is in the first house, which makes it really potent. And it's in its own sign, which makes it extra agile and curious. And it's a really good reporter. It's a great gatherer of facts and data and a spreader of the message. One of your things in your life purpose is to communicate with others, is to exchange information. Mercury is also the merchant. It's also the encounter. It's also the literal counter. So it has a lot to do with buying selling and making sure that the

math is mathing and that's also going to be an exceptional quality that you have i don't even know what to say thank you it's all boy welcome just reading me for filth um i literally have yeah do something disciplined next year And I already know what it's going to be. Well, now. Yeah. Oh, good. Of course you do. Oh, God.

Because you're a planner. You don't do anything without a plan. Definitely not. Thank you for that. I know that, of of course you have resources but i imagine somebody listening is like i also want to be read for filth like what can we start doing in our own lives to actually use astrology to help us navigate the world i, download the Chani app and listen to your reading every week and do your journal prompts and see if the rituals work for you and read about your chart.

And we made a whole universe, you know, like it's a whole world that we've created in there. Read about the transits that you're going through. If you're in your Saturn return, it'll tell you in the transit section of the app. And then there's a whole host of guided meditations and affirmations to help you along your healing path that, again, I hope will ground you in a way so that you feel your own power and agency to take action in your life to realize your potential in the world. Yeah, tell me more about transits. Is Saturn return, you said it was a transit? What does that mean? That's a transit. So there's the, the, when you were born, we took a snapshot of the sky and everything in it. And then that is a static image of you. That is a static map of your life. And then we look at what's happening in the sky now, and we superimpose

one on top of the other. And when Saturn gets back to the place that it was when you were born, we call that a Saturn return. But there's a million things going on. There's where Pluto is, and there's where all the planets are, and they may or may not be interacting with your chart. So in the Chani app, we have a section that's called transits, and that's specific things for you right now. And it tells you the timeframe. It tells you what to think about, gives you some ideas to work with. Is Mercury in retrograde a transit? Yeah. Mercury retrograde is a transit because it's a trans. So you think transitional, it's, it's, it's just for a certain period of time.

That's the one I feel like we all hear about at this point of like, oh, Mercury is in Gatorade. Yes. It's a gateway drug into astrology. Yes. that's the one i feel like we all hear about at this point of like oh mercury is in gatorade yes it's a gateway drug into astrology yes yes because it goes retrograde three to four times a year because it's a really fast moving planet so it's always in or out of retrograde you know yeah seems like yeah i wanted to get your thoughts on this saying that you've maybe heard that millionaires don't have astrologers, but billionaires do. And obviously we're pretty critical of billionaires on this show,

but I'm so interested in the idea of some of these like big names or people using astrology in their everyday lives. I would love your take on that. I think part of it is like you're, you know, I think the well-intentioned version or read of that sentence is like to up level your life in a really transformative way this can be a tool to do that but i think it's also like i don't need to be a billionaire i don't want to be a billionaire like it almost

does astrology in that way a disservice to if we're looking at the this through an anti-capitalist lens i don't know i would just love your take on it i mean i think it speaks to the ways in which astrology can help us be really specific and help us to win at whatever we want to win at so you could take out millionaire and billionaire and put in any kind of frame of reference what the saying is doing is it's saying there's this level and then there's that level and if you want to be living into that level then you might consider using astrology because other people that are trying to function at that level or whatever but that's it's i mean it's very hierarchical

but i do think you know like i listen i've talked to a lot of different people in a lot of different industries and i can tell you that yes a lot of different people in a lot of different industries. And I can tell you that yes, a lot of very successful people, and I don't just mean that financially, in a lot of different sectors of society, think about their astrology and think about the timing of things and do plan things according to what would be good. So I know it personally. And again, it goes way beyond money. Yeah. Are there any important astrological dates coming up that we should pay attention to, especially in regards to our money? That's really personal, I think. But sure january has some really beautiful astrology in terms of the like after i would say after january 10th and into the rest of january there's some really beautiful astrology to work with that is very focused on success and again that can be in any way, shape, or form that you want to think about it. There's also some really brilliant signs in the early spring, and that I think will have a major impact on how we do business. So you can listen to your year ahead reading in the Chani app and the first quarter reading, there's some beautiful moments of

just like success astrology that everyone can work with. And I go into great detail about how you can personally work with that. So yeah, there's this conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus that's happening in the spring. And the last time it happened, we got the archetype of Rosie the Riveter, you know, the like rolling up one's sleeves because that's when women were entering the workforce in a way that they hadn't in terms of industrialized capitalism in a long time. So I do think there will be something quite revolutionary that will happen on an economic kind of workforce level in the in the early spring federal paid family leave that's what i let's go let's hope for that well let's let's move towards that how do what do we do to

to move the needle towards that of course yeah so you have mentioned your app. Can you tell us more about it and what distinguishes it from other astrology platforms? I don't know much about other astrology platforms because I've got too much work to do on mine. But what mine does is it gives you detailed chart information, every single planet, exactly what it means, where it it is what other parts of your life it talks about everything in the app is written by human beings nothing has been written by ai nothing ever will be we have astrologers people that have studied astrology for you know like if you put us all together it's like you know hundreds of years of astrological, not hundreds, but over a hundred years of astrological experience. We've dedicated our lives to this craft. Also people that are exceptional writers. And so there is this detailed approach to how we articulate what's happening in

the sky, what happened in the sky when you were born. And so you'll get a detailed version of your birth chart. You'll get up-to-date transits, like what's happening in the sky, how it's impacting you. You get guided meditations, affirmations, weekly journal prompts that's specific to your chart, weekly guided meditation, weekly ritual to work with the astrology. And then there's the weekly readings that you get from me where I talk about what the astrology is, how it's landing in your chart, what to do with it. And there's also yearly astrology readings. So you can think of the year in four quarters, four chunks. And then you get daily horoscopes, you can get daily affirmation,

you get a daily guided meditation. That's amazing. I will be downloading it right after because I use a different app and I don't love it. So yeah, I'm really excited. And literally, Kristen has been typing in our document with our notes. She's like, I'm on the app looking up my own stuff right now. I'm on the Chani app looking up everything and what she's saying and how it reflects in my life.

So I love it. But the other thing to know about our app is that it was made by survivors of gender-based violence. The people that work on our team, there is a floor of 80K. So the entry point is 80K. We have paid protected gender-based violence leave. We have unlimited menstrual leave. So anybody with uterus that needs time off when it's uncomfortable gets it. We have a vacation stipend. So we have unlimited vacation and we give you money to take a vacation to go enjoy yourself and get rest. We close the office for a total of eight weeks a year. So eight weeks a year,

you get off and nobody else is going to be working. So no one's going to be emailing you either. We have 401k. We have a lot of different types of benefits that unfortunately are what mainstream society considers radical, but we think should just be the essentials. And then we have a savings matching situation. We want people to save money and to think about their economic wellbeing. And we also give away 5% of our revenue, not our profits, but our revenue in cash grants to survivors of gender-based violence so that 100% of that money goes directly into the hands of folks that need it through my wife's organization, which is called Free From, which works at the intersection of gender-based violence and financial and economic security. Because one of the number one reasons why women and children are homeless is economic abuse, gender-based violence.

One in three women will experience gender-based violence. One in two trans folks will experience gender-based violence. And there is a high, high likelihood that if you experience gender-based violence, it's also economic abuse, which means you have all. 99%. Yeah. Yep. So we believe deeply, and our company ethos is centered in an economic solidarity with folks that are systematically harmed. And we also believe that gender-based violence is a community issue and not a private or interpersonal issue. And that it is up to businesses and banks and governments and everybody to interrupt it. And one of the best ways we know how to do that is to make sure people have money to be safe.

That's incredible. Thank you for your work. Thank you for all of this information today. Where can people find you and support what you're doing? Chani.com is the easiest way. C-H-A-N-I.com, Chani app, C-H-A-N-I, and the app stores, whichever one you frequent. And then I'm Chani Nicholas on all the socials and the Chani app on socials separate from me. Yeah, amazing. I'm downloading right after we're done and I'm going to dive in and I'm really excited.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for your work. Thank you for having me. Thank you to Chani for joining us. You can check her out in the show notes as well as her Chani app. I downloaded it right after we got off and it's been really, really helpful for me

even as somebody who is a little bit skeptical of astrology. Thanks for being here as always, Financial Feminist. I hope you have a great rest of your week and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, associate producer Tamisha Grant, research by Arielle Johnson, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Medcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel, Amanda LeFue, Elizabeth McCumber, Masha Bakhmakieva, Taylor Cho, Kaylin Sprinkle, Sasha Bonar, Claire Coronin, Daryl Ann Ingman, and Janelle Reisner.

Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting this show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.