Money Unplugged with Chris Hill

Alison Kosik spent years reporting live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for CNN—and for most of that time, she wasn't investing a dollar of her own money. She could explain the market to millions of viewers, but couldn't bring herself to trust herself with her own finances. Alison talks with Chris Hill about: - How her parents' fights about money affected her financial...

We all outsource some part of our financial life — taxes, investments, retirement contributions, etc. But it turns out you can outsource the small stuff too! Even if that means leaning on the person sitting next to you at a blackjack table.  In this holiday weekend solo episode, Chris Hill covers: - A favor to ask of you — why do you listen to Money Unplugged, and what do you get out of it? (Email...

Paula Pant grew up watching her mother spend six hours going between four different grocery stores, coupons sorted by location, all to save a few dollars on milk and bread. Frugality wasn't a choice in the Pant household — it was the operating system. It took years for her to realize that nobody had ever asked what all that time was actually worth. Host of the popular podcast Afford Anything,...

Joe Saul-Sehy co-hosts Stacking Benjamins, one of the most popular personal finance podcasts in the world. But before that, he was a financial advisor with a secret — and a marriage the secret was about to put to the test. In the conclusion of his two-part conversation with Chris Hill, he shares: - What he was hiding from his wife when they got married — and how long it took him to come clean - A...

Joe Saul-Sehy is the co-host of Stacking Benjamins, one of the most downloaded personal finance podcasts in the world — but long before he was giving financial advice to millions of listeners, he was making every money mistake in the book. In this first of a two-part conversation with Chris Hill, Joe traces the roots of his complicated relationship with money, from a childhood defined by financial...

John Wordock spent decades working for the biggest names in financial journalism — Bloomberg, CBS MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones. He interviewed Jack Bogle, and Mike Bloomberg personally sent him to Washington DC to build a broadcast bureau. John knew everyone worth knowing in the world of money. And then he put his savings in index funds and stopped thinking about it. Chris Hill...

Hannah Cole grew up watching her father, a successful architect, call family meetings at the dinner table whenever the economy turned. Belt-tightening conversations. No explanation of how bad things actually were. Just anxiety, and a dad in a bad mood. Cole spent her early career as far from the world of money as she could get — a master's degree in painting from Boston University and years a...

Joseph Moore grew up in rural South Carolina, the son of an electrician who worked during the day and went to school at night. Money wasn't discussed in his house (there wasn't enough of it to make conversation). Today, Moore is a historian and author of the national bestseller How to Get Rich in American History: 300 Years of Financial Advice That Worked (& Didn’t) who achieved fina...

For nearly two decades, Marc Goldman was the voice of the Marine Corps Marathon — running marketing, communications, and sponsorships for one of the most prestigious road races in America. Five years ago, he walked away from that stability to launch Event Voice, his own announcing and event strategy business. In this conversation, Marc and Chris Hill explore: - Why the pandemic became the catalyst...

Ben Carlson has a simple philosophy when it comes to money — and life: less is more. He writes it in every book he signs. It sounds obvious, but most people never actually live it. He’s the co-host of Animal Spirits and author of the brand-new book, Risk and Reward: How to Handle Market Volatility and Build Long-Term Wealth . Chris Hill talks with Ben about: - The lesson his late brother Jon taugh...

Dan Caplinger has spent most of his career helping people understand money — first as a tax and estate planning attorney, then as a longtime writer at The Motley Fool. But the financial lessons that shaped him most started long before any of that: skipping school lunch to save a few dollars, counting coin rolls with his mom, and learning the hard way that a $60 Pac-Man game isn't what a nine-...

What if the stocks you believe in the most are the ones you actually own? Brian Stoffel spent years as a teacher before stumbling into investing — and one experiment changed everything. After reading Nassim Taleb's Skin in the Game, he went back and coded 300 of his own articles into two buckets: companies he wrote about positively that he owned, and companies he wrote about positively that h...

In January 2020, Jeff Santoro deposited $50 into a Robinhood account and started buying penny stocks. He had no idea what he was doing. Two months later, the pandemic hit — and he suddenly had a lot of time to figure it out. Santoro spent 12 years teaching music and has spent the past 13 as a school administrator. He is also the co-host of Investing Unscripted , a podcast he built from scratch (wi...

Brian Feroldi grew up in Rhode Island as a born saver — the kind of kid who hoarded his lunch money candy rather than eating it, just to watch his collection grow. His dad was a CFO. His mom raised money for the ALS Association. Nobody sat him down and explained how investing worked. That part he had to figure out on his own. A financial educator, YouTuber , and author of the book Why Does the Sto...

Jason Hall grew up in rural Georgia watching his dad treat money the way most people treat a hot potato — get it and spend it as fast as you can. Nobody talked about saving. Nobody talked about investing. The plan, such as it was, was to fix up a beat-up old truck his grandfather gave him, pulling parts from the junkyard ten miles down the road, and figure the rest out later. Co-host of the Invest...

Tyler Gardner grew up eating Cheerios from a bag on a Vermont ski slope while other kids bought hot chocolate. That early lesson about money — absorbed more than taught — sent him on one of the more unconventional paths in personal finance: from stealing grocery money as a kid, to Andover on financial aid, to teaching English at prep schools for a decade, to becoming a financial advisor who thinks...

Andy Hill hit a million-dollar net worth — and the first thing he did was sell part of his brokerage account and buy a Ford Mustang. It's the kind of decision that makes more sense once you understand how he got there. The host of the “Marriage Kids and Money” podcast and the author of Own Your Time , Hill grew up in Michigan learning early lessons about saving, investing, and building wealth...

Getting burned on a bad investment early in life can do one of two things: swear you off investing forever, or teach you exactly what kind of investor you want to become. For Laura Adams, it did the latter. Host of the Money Girl podcast — one of the longest-running personal finance podcasts in the world, with more than 1,000 episodes — Adams   grew up in Charleston, SC, in a household where money...

The best job is one you love. The second best? One you hate. Organizational psychologist Alison Fragale learned this the hard way — trading a McKinsey consulting career she couldn't stand for a Stanford PhD and a calling she never would have found otherwise. A professor at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and author of the bestseller Likeable Badass , Fragale grew up in Pittsburgh shaped by...

Dividend stocks don’t get the hype of high-growth tech names — but they’ve quietly delivered some of the market’s best long-term returns. Investor Matt Argersinger joins Chris Hill to break down why dividend-paying companies can outperform, why younger investors shouldn’t ignore them, and how the stigma around dividends began to fade. They discuss: - The myth that dividend stocks are “for retirees...

What's it like to start over in a new city on the day the financial world begins to fall apart? Douglas Boneparth flew into JFK in October 2008 with four boxes and a mattress to buy — and landed in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis. He didn't go home. Boneparth is a CFP, president of Bone Fide Wealth , and co-author with his wife Heather of Money Together. His path to New York sta...

Tim Hanson didn’t set out to become a capital allocator. Today he’s the President and CIO at Permanent Equity , helping steward long-term investments in private companies built to last. But his path to investing included playwriting, early stock picks, and lessons about money that started in childhood. Chris Hill talks with Tim about what separates investing from allocating capital — and why the d...

Personal finance isn’t just math—it’s memory, emotion, and lived experience. Chris Hill talks with MarketWatch columnist Beth Pinsker about why money decisions feel so hard, especially during life’s biggest transitions. Drawing from her work as a journalist and financial planner, Beth breaks down caregiving, taxes, and end-of-life planning in ways that actually make sense. They discuss: - How chil...

Denise Coursey didn’t grow up talking about investing—but she did grow up learning respect for money. Raised in a blue-collar, union household, Denise became a first-generation college student, took early career risks as a writer and editor, and eventually became a small business owner. Along the way, she developed strong views on scarcity, financial independence, and why “having enough” doesn’t a...

Money anxiety often starts long before our first paycheck. For Carl Richards, it showed up as “static in the air” growing up around unspoken financial stress—and it shaped everything that came after. In this candid conversation, Carl reflects on how early experiences with money quietly influence our beliefs about risk, security, and success. From diving for golf balls as a kid to accidentally land...