Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough

And Other Scandals Women getting together to talk about money is totally radical. In that, it used to not be…encouraged?…so it breaks societal norms, and it’s also cool. I think we’re all familiar with that simple math equation of money = power. So, talking about money is really talking about - and, dare I say? - stepping into that power. And yet. Growing up without female role models or movie cha...

Most of this episode is about what both partners should know - or at least be able to know - in a romantic partnership where one person does all the money stuff. Sara even does a “the four numbers every non-money partner should know” clickbait thing. It’s good stuff. And helpful, and useful and food for thought. But the REAL subject of this episode is how Sara deals with laundry in her household....

Two episode drops in one day?? What the what?? This special mini episode is a quick (but mighty!) follow-up to Season 4, Episode 11 about stepping out of the workforce to care for kids. What happens when you’re ready to work again (or just need to for $$$)? You might not be sure how to start. What is a TPS report again? Pulled from our conversation with career development expert Susanne Aronowitz,...

What’s the point of having a salary if the whole thing goes to paying for daycare? The back-of-the-napkin math for many couples says that it’s “cheaper” for one partner to stay home and take care of the kids because childcare is so freaking expensive. Because statistically women earn less than men (how is this still true??), in heterosexual couples, it often “makes more sense” for it to be the wom...

Hello and welcome to all of you anxious/avoidant attachers out there! And a shout out to you secure attachment weirdos, too! On this episode, Sara and Caitlin talk to New York-based financial advisor Rebecca Pino about how our relationship to money is like any other relationship we have. Uh oh. Don’t worry - there’s a financial strategy for all of us, no matter how much or little we ghost our reti...

When a man loves a woman very, very much….lol. Baby-making / family-creating can be hella expensive and complicated. Is egg freezing tax deductible? Can my partner’s FSA pay for my fertility shots? Is IVF a legit topic to bring up with a financial advisor? Our guest Anna Bell Gall, Austin-based financial advisor, has the answers to all of these questions and more. All the single ladies, LGBTQ pair...

Back to the basics, Women on the Verge! WTF is a stock??? LOL. Jkjk. (But that’s a totally legit question - find the answer here !) If you thought the annuities episode was boring, come on back for a real snoozer. This time Sara explains WTF CD ladders and money market accounts. Are you still awake? What’s wrong with you?! Poor Sara. If you have a bunch of money you can’t invest because you might...

Ugh. This is hard. So many of us are sandwiched between our kids and our aging parents with difficult decisions coming down the pike. We invited Julie Latson, an expert in helping families figure out what their options are when a family member starts needing care, including navigating how it’s going to get paid for, to walk us through what this all looks like. This is the episode where we realize...

This week, Women on the Verge fan favorite Kacie Swartz returns, arms in the air, to hold forth on another man money myth. Money shouldn’t be emotional? What the eff are you talking about Uncle Warren?* Kacie kicks off with the radical notion that your money decisions are supposed to be emotional - we’re humans, not spreadsheets. The actual purpose of financial planning is matching up what’s impor...

If you’ve bought six pairs of cheap, mediocre black leggings instead of one quality pair to “save money”, this episode is for you. Caitlin invited her lifelong family friend who happens to be an international home-organizing legend and life-decluttering queen, Shira Gill, to talk about how owning less stuff can actually buy you more time, money, and mental peace. What’s that like?? Caitlin admits...

Welcome to another buzzkill week here on the Women on the Verge pod! Close your eyes and think of the adult task YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD’VE ALREADY DONE but still haven’t…. Let’s learn about estate-planning!!! That’s the bad news. But the good news is our charming special guest Carlotta Garza-Kilcullen , an Austin-based estate planning attorney, helps the medicine go down very easily. By the end of yo...

Welcome to the career class you should’ve gotten in college. This week, Sara and Caitlin ask Susanne Aronowitz, career and executive coach, how to talk about compensation without sweating through our pantsuits. How do we know what we’re worth? If they agree too fast to our ask did we go too low? If they say no, do we go back into our caves and never ask again? What about writing a number down on a...

Turns out money baggage isn’t suitcase jammed with hundred dollar bills - it’s the stuff we drag around from childhood that sneaks into every tap and Venmo request of our adult lives. But don’t worry! Financial therapy, people. It’s a thing. And we have the wonderful Dr. Shaywanna Harris-Pierce on the pod to tell us all about it. Maybe you avoid your credit card statements and just swipe and pray?...

We’re back for season four, and ready to sneak into business class to live our best lives. Climb aboard! Caitlin’s friend Katherine Fan is a credit card and loyalty programs expert who was The Points Guy 's first senior travel reporter, and has covered credit cards for NerdWallet , Condé Nast Traveler , AFAR , and Business Insider . So, like, super profesh. She’s our guest to answer all of our que...

Do you know anything about personal bankruptcy? Us neither. I mean, we knew the rumor that it ruins your credit and should be the OPTION OF LAST RESORT, but we actually didn’t know anything useful. Kind of the opposite - we knew just enough to be scared of it without any actual information. Sounds like the stock market all over again! So, for our last episode of Season 3, we decided to learn about...

Hey - if you’re super risk-averse (despite listening to our very soothing risk-encouraging podcast), this episode is for you! Caitlin learns that her big investment idea to get an annuity so she gets paid some amount of money every year actually has nothing to do with investing. It’s insurance??? Get the F out of here, Sara. Do you even know what you’re talking about?? Sara goes on to explain that...

Can’t I just sell some stocks to make a bunch of money and then use that money to make more money and then I’ll be rich? Um. Sort of? Sara explains how there’s no such thing as free lunch, or, in the stock market world, tax-free income from your clever little (or big) trades. It’s all fun and games during the year while you’re buying low and selling high with individual stocks, but then, whoops!,...

Did you listen to Season 3, Episode 1 where Caitlin grilled Sara about whether anybody ever knows if we’re in a recession or not, and Sara said we do because a brilliant economist named Claudia Sahm invented a rule called the Sahm Rule and male economists are always mansplaining the Sahm rule to Sahm? If yes, then oh my god, you’ll never believe who our special guest is this week: Claudia Fucking...

The wrong guy* is gonna win so the economy is going to go to hell in a hand basket and the stock market will tank and we’ll need our savings in the form of a pile of five dollar bills so we can buy milk and tangerines, right? (* I was gonna say “person” but who am I kidding? It’s always an effing guy.) Sara explains how people always freak out about presidential elections and threaten to cash out...

It feels like there are so many financial landmines when we buy a car, but maybe there aren’t as many as we think? Guest star Kacie Swartz from Blackbarn Financial joins Caitlin and Sara again to explain all the ways we over complicate the car-buying process and undervalue our time. It turns out no one gets gold stars at the end of life for the moral way they paid for their car. What?? And maybe p...

Most of us who are only learning about finance and investing as grown ups have one very loud question in our minds: Why don’t they teach this stuff in high school??? We had to learn about dangling participles and square dancing but not how to construct a budget or what’s being deducted from our dish washing paychecks and why? To answer these questions and more, we invited an expert on what teens s...

Should you pay income taxes now or later on all that money you’re earning? Most of us think about putting our money in retirement accounts as a way to save on how much income tax we have to pay this year, as well as saving all of that money to live on after we retire. But, wait! For many people who make under a certain amount of money (I’m pretty sure Sara says how much in this episode so you shou...

Am I the prenup type? Will my house still be my house after it will be our house if I become a me again? Will I sound shallow/greedy/pessimistic/calculating/shrill/selfish/gold-diggy/cold-hearted if I tell my partner I want a prenup before we get married? So many questions and fears and misconceptions about what it means to consider the financial implications of signing a contract to join forces!...

Welcome to the episode where Caitlin exploits having a podcast with Sara to get Sara to tell her whether or not to sell her house. Does Sara take the bait?? In true Sara fashion, she leans into empowering Caitlin to make her own damn financial decisions, offering a framework to make big one-off financial moves. Like, how scared are we supposed to be of tax implications? (And what is a capital gain...

The long-dreaded day has come: We try to tackle a tiny bit of crypto, whatever that means. What is the occasion for wading into these bro-infested waters? The government changed a rule, so crypto can now creep into our legit retirement investment accounts. Do we care?? Maybe? As for the “content”, Caitlin makes ridiculous analogies about opening a shell-only currency shop in a beach side village i...