Home » Never Date a Broke Dude: The Financial Freedom Playbook : Excerpt

Never Date a Broke Dude: The Financial Freedom Playbook : Excerpt

May 7, 2025 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

We are delighted to feature and excerpt from Never Date a Broke Dude: The Financial Freedom Playbook by Pattie Ehsaei!

Never Date a Broke Dude: The Financial Freedom Playbook

The definitive playbook for navigating love and money to secure your financial freedom forever—from licensed attorney, finance expert, and TikTok powerhouse Pattie Ehsaei.

Never Date a Broke Dude opens with the definition of a broke dude: someone, regardless of gender or wealth, who is unable or unwilling to match their partner in ambition, commitment, work ethic, or drive.

In her real-world, big-sister tone, Pattie Ehsaei spills the tea on everything—from the secrets of trapped trophy wives and her dating missteps to ayahuasca-induced revelations and even murder-suicide, while transforming each jaw-dropping story into simple, actionable life advice. This four-part playbook moves from The Basics through Money, Work, and Power (or, Self-Worth), offering

a five account system to pay off debt, fix credit, and start investing with just $100;
career advice on how to dress well (and fund your wardrobe), work with confidence, choose the right retirement account, and negotiate raises; and
rules to navigate finances across relationships—like who pays the bill, how to avoid financial abuse, what can and can’t be in a pre-nup, options for children’s savings accounts, and more.

Above all, choosing a partner is the biggest financial decision we ever make, and it’s time we stop running in blind. Never Date a Broke Dude is a juicy, seamless, game-changing read—a manual designed for reality: it’s How to Date Men When You Hate Men, but make sure your money stays yours.

“The first rule of financial freedom is understanding that the only person you should count on is your own damn self. If there is one thing I want you to unlearn, it is the notion that some dude is coming to save you.

In traditional fairy tales, “Prince Charming” is a handsome and noble fellow who comes to the rescue of the female protagonist, typically a princess or a damsel in distress, and they live happily ever after. It’s a fantasy that has been perpetuated in every aspect of pop culture, from the novels we read to the movies we watch. And it is pure storybook snake oil.

Such a narrative is yet another way to brainwash us into relinquishing agency and control over our lives. Women are depicted as weak creatures who need to be saved, and this reinforces gender stereotypes—more false narratives that encourage a woman to take a passive approach to life, where she relies on a man to provide for her needs, solve all her problems, and make her happy.

Although most of us are no longer jobless at home, so many women still wait for a man to rescue them emotionally and financially. And we half-joke about waiting for a man to come along so that we can stop being so damn tired at work. We wait for him to pay off our debt, buy us a car or a designer bag, take us to fancy dinners or on vacation, buy us a house, deliver us financial stability, and make us happy. We still don’t think we can achieve any of this alone and rely on a hypothetical prince to make our dream life a reality.

I’m not saying we’re all guilty of looking for the next human ATM machine, but women do tend to look for a rescuer to swoop in—someone to make us feel loved, safe, and whole. Many of us cling to that hope, no matter how much we are already doing for ourselves. There is always this fantasy, this “Man as Exit from Workforce” trope coloring how we view our lives and ourselves. Yet there are countless real-life stories of women who “thought” they had found their prince, only to find out later that he was a turd.

One of the most egregious examples of this in popular culture is the story of Erika Jayne, a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. She and her husband, Tom Girardi, who was thirty-three years her senior, met when Erika was just twenty-seven years old. She was a waitress at a restaurant he frequented. She was beautiful and funny; he was sophisticated and charming. Soon they fell in love and got married.

By most standards, Tom was a “prince.” He was a prominent trial attorney who worked on the notable Erin Brockovich water contamination case. Which meant he was rich. Very rich.

The couple had a home in Pasadena that resembled a mansion in Italy. They had not one but two private jets. Erika had so much jewelry dangling from her body, she looked like a Christmas tree. Erika even built a church in her house. And her closet… it looked like a department store.

Although Erika made approximately $500,000 a year as a Real Housewife, she once bragged that she spent $40,000 per month just on her beauty routine. That’s more than many people make in a year, yet it certainly wasn’t enough to sustain her lavish lifestyle. To top it off, she and Tom seemed very happy together. She had it all, the prince and everything that went with him.

Many women were envious of Erika’s seemingly perfect lifestyle. She became the poster child for “See? Fairy tales do come true.” And waitresses all over the world gazed into the eyes of every rich man they served, wondering whether he was their “Tom.”

Until December 2020 hit. Tom and Erika Girardi’s assets were seized by a federal judge after allegations were made that the couple mishandled and embezzled client funds to support their lavish lifestyle. Erika said she had no knowledge of the embezzlement and was cleared of any wrongdoing. Although Tom did not plead guilty to criminal counts of wire fraud and criminal contempt, he was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud for stealing millions of dollars from his clients over many years, and some of his clients were waiting for payment for severe injuries.

Erika left her mansion with little if any money. Lucky for her, she still had her income from The Real Housewives TV show, and she was able to generate more cash on her social media platform. But her lifestyle greatly deteriorated, and to pay off her ex’s debts, she sold many of the possessions that she had prized when she was still living inside her “fairy tale.” Erika also alleged that Tom was very controlling and abusive and unfaithful to her—which he denies—and that the reason she couldn’t leave him was because he controlled all their finances. So, he was more like a Prince of Darkness than a Prince Charming.

I’m not one to judge Erika for her life choices. I had the same mindset for much of my adult life. I had an education, a great career, and made good money, but I still felt I needed a man in order to be the best version of myself. I fantasized about paying off my credit card debt and student loans and buying a home… with his money. Even I, the feminist who cried “Equality!” at every turn and who was browbeaten into making and controlling her own money, still couldn’t shake the allure of the Prince Charming fairy tale.

So, when I finally met my own prince at thirty-three, I was thrilled! He was Persian, tall, educated, sophisticated, funny, and charming, which made up for the 6 out of 10 I would rate him in the “looks” category. He was also rich. I mean rich. He had more money than God.

My boyfriend owned homes across the country, and we rotated our weekends among the houses. We went to amazing dinners, attended exclusive parties, and vacationed in places I had only dreamed of. With every happy day we spent together, I got closer to the lifestyle of my dreams: no debt, no student loans, homeownership, fancy vacations, and financial stability. Everything on my wish list was coming true!

Until one morning, I woke up to the incessant beeping of his phone in the kitchen. (Back then, we had flip phones, which beeped constantly if you had a text message.) He was still sleeping, so I got up to silence his phone. To do so, I had to flip it open, and when I did, I discovered a salacious text message from a girl. I’m not the type who creeps around and spies on a dude, but you couldn’t miss the incriminating, intimate nature of this text. Then I found another one and another. He was cheating on me. In an instant, everything came crashing down, revealing all the problems I thought he would solve. The loneliness, debt, and student loans were still waiting for me.”

BUY HERE

Pattie Ehsaei is a Director of Mergers & Acquisitions financing at a major lending institution. She has led many teams in the financial services industry, ranging from commercial banking to investment banking, where she was managing partner and head of business development at GRID Partners. She regularly provides commentary on personal finance topics to a variety of media outlets, including Good Morning America, Huffington Post, Yahoo, BBC, and on her TikTok channel, @DuchessOfDecorum. Pattie holds a B.A. from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School in Chicago. For five years, she served as an Assistant State’s Attorney at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago. She is licensed to practice law in California and Illinois.

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