Money Tales

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Jaclynn (Jax) Brennan. Jax has been on both sides of the wealth spectrum. When she was young, Jax’s family went from having wealth to having nothing. She says this experience has allowed her to be comfortable taking incredible risks and leaps as a founder of a growing business. If her entrepreneurial endeavors don’t work out, Jax has the confidence of k...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Rocco Orlando. Rocco tells us that when he was coming out of college, he noticed he was an entitled pretentious person who was taking shortcuts through life because so many doors were open to him. In short, Rocco was becoming someone he disliked. His antidote was to join the army. While Rocco qualified as an officer, he chose to enlist as a private. Thi...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Esther Choy. Esther recently published a white paper on first generation wealth creators. The New York Times featured her report, focusing on the philanthropic aspects of her research. Most wealthy people today created the wealth over their lifetime. This is a major transition for those individuals, who often keep the values they were raised with Esther...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Jeremy Savlov. Jeremy is a young, goals-driven professional. An important objective of his is to buy a home. To achieve this desire sooner, Jeremy decided to live with his parents to save money on expensive rent. By living in the suburbs, he’s intentionally sacrificing some of his social life, and rather than splurge in his twenties, he’s focused on sav...

hardest lessons to learn are often the ones that stick. When he was a young adult, Jonathan hit a financial snag because he wasn’t budgeting. He called an aunt for some assistance. Jonathan explains that she’s the one the family runs to when they need help because she's responsible with money. That said, she isn’t the kind of aunt to provide money without asking questions and offering lessons to a...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Lubna Bhayani. Lubna is a globetrotter. For most of her marriage, she followed her husband from country to country, wherever his job took them. Recently, they turned the tables. Lubna relocated the family to Kenya for an exciting position she wanted to take. This latest move has caused the couple to go deep into money conversations, which she shares wit...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Evelyn Starr. Evelyn is an entrepreneur. She started her business when she was pregnant with her second child, and her goal was to be productive outside of the confines of corporate America. Because she and her husband planned their personal finances carefully, they could rely on a single income to cover their expenses. This gave Evelyn freedom to grow...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. Mallory Dwinal-Palisch. Mallory’s thinking about the role of money in her life drastically changed when her dad unexpectedly died months after he turned 60. Mallory describes him as someone who talked about all the things he was going to do – hike mountains, go on trips, pursue other adventures. But he and her mom didn’t have gobs of money piled up...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Kasey Lundquist. When Kasey was growing up, she worked really hard to make the club volleyball team. She was excited when she achieved this goal, but there was a problem. Club volleyball would cost $2,000 per year. That was outside of what her parents could afford. Kasey shares that she felt crushed by that. It was the first thing in her life that she r...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Marit Bakken. Marit grew up in Norway where her grandparents had a little farm. For them, money was bartering arrangements with neighbors. As Marit says, they’d pay half a pig to have someone slay their field for a month. Money was tight and the family had to work really hard. When she was twelve years old, her grandfather died. Shortly afterwards, Mari...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Morwari Zafar. Morwari was born in Kabul, Afghanistan to a father who was a diplomat and a mother who was a doctor. As Morwari tells us, in this culture social capital has a much higher value than financial capital. Politics and geopolitical challenges caused her family to move around the globe requiring her parents to take on different, less prestigiou...

In this episode of Money Tales our guest is Amanda Gibson. Amanda started adulting when she was twelve years old. As Amanda tells us, she developed a budget and related proposal to move out and pitched it to her parents. It was rejected! Only four years later, she was successful and started an independent life of her own. Reflecting on this years later, Amanda views curiosity as her superpower to...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Monica Mazzei. When she was a teenager enrolled at a private high school, Monica’s parents told her that she’d have to be financially self-sufficient after graduation. This meant Monica was on her own to pay for the formal education needed to achieve her dream of becoming an attorney. Monica tells us that financing college with loans makes you look at y...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Paul Hood. Paul is a “recovering tax lawyer”. Among many things, he is also a prolific writer. Paul recently published his ninth book, Yours, Mine & Ours: Estate Planning for People in Blended or Stepfamilies. In this Money Tales conversation, Paul talks about his personal journey navigating his own blended family. Paul has two sons from his first marri...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Julius Robinson. As Julius explains, he came from pretty meager beginnings, raised by a single mother of four kids, living in one of the traditionally low-income areas of Los Angeles. When he was a college student, Julius made a commitment to himself to shine a proverbial light over his shoulders so that others wouldn't stumble on the potholes and rocks...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. Amber Banks. When she was in second grade, Amber switched from a private elementary school to a public one. The private school was predominantly white, and the public school was predominantly black. For Amber, who self-identifies as a black biracial woman, this was a pivotal moment requiring her to navigate two different environments and become a br...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Ira Bryck. Ira’s family created what became the oldest children's clothing store in the United States. The neighborhood the store was located in changed dramatically over the decades. As Ira describes it, the town became rough, had crime problems, and people were scared to shop there. During its 90th year, Ira made the difficult decision to close the st...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Sara Munro. In our experience, people do not give much thought about the implications of facing a short-term or a long-term disability. Sara was in that camp. As a young woman, she experienced a physical disability. The injury came on slowly, and the recovery was a steep hill to climb. This experience impacted Sara financially and taught her an importan...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guests are John and David Auten-Schneider. John and David are known as the Debt Free Guys. Early in their relationship John and David were considering buying land in the mountains where they could build their dream vacation home. During their drive back to Denver after looking at some properties, they fantasized about the home they’d build. Then, as they were de...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Lisa Skye. At age 26, Lisa’s dad was killed in a car crash. Her father was the most important person in her life, and she still misses him dearly. For Lisa, this period was bittersweet. She inherited significant assets that impacted the course of her life, yet Lisa was overwhelmed with emotions and responsibilities because there was much to sort out. He...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. Jeremy Lurey. Jeremy had all the right conditions when he was young to set him up to be a spoiled and entitled adult. He grew up in an affluent community in Malibu, traveled the world more than he traveled the US, once had an elephant in his back yard and when he wrecked his car, a hand-me-down from his parents, they replaced it. When we asked Jerem...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dorien Morin-van Dam. The first airplane Dorien ever took landed her in Boston from her home in the Netherlands. It was July 1988. She had $100 in her pocket and was ready for adventure! Dorien made wonderful memories as an Au Pair, found the love of her life at a bus stop, got married at 19 years old, and stayed... forever. Dorien was a stay-at-home mo...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Rohit Bhargava. Rohit prides himself on being a non-obvious thinker. Dismayed by traditional publishing practices, Rohit decided with his wife to launch IdeaPress, an alternative to the big book publishers. He was motivated by an entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to have greater control. Rohit tells us that he was inspired by Beyoncé. If she could...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Robin Hauser. Robin is an award-winning director of documentary films at Finish Line Features. In 2021 she released the documentary, $avvy, which contemplates the historical, cultural and societal norms around women and money and explores why it’s critical for women to take an active role in managing personal finance. This film was inspired by Robin’s p...

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Afam Onyema. When Afam was graduating from Stanford Law School he decided to pass on the lucrative job offers he received to help co-found the GEANCO Foundation. Up until that point, Afam thought a person had to first be wealthy to create a foundation. But he decided to make the leap and had to figure out how to raise money for GEANCO, and also figure w...