Written By The Wave
How much do you feel like you know about money? How to save it, how to invest it, how to negotiate for more, how to (insert all other stressors that come with it here)? In this article, I’m going to let you know how podcasts have helped me get wayyyyy more comfortable with—and informed about—all things money. First, though, let me take you back.
✴Money and Me, My Early Twenties
When I entered my twenties, I felt super confident in how to save my money. But, that was only because I grew up in an uber practical, slightly anxiety-driven household; one that communicated, above all else, I should always have enough money to pay my bills. So, I personally haven’t struggled with denying myself “extras” when I know I need to be saving. However, that didn’t mean that I knew much else about money or really how to save it in a way that best served my future goals.
For a long time I let money just sit in my checking account, too afraid to touch it. When I started my first full-time job after leaving undergrad, I remember staring at the 401k package offering being like “What the—,” having essentially no idea how it worked or whether I should do it. I consulted my parents and they helped me decide, but the rest of this money lingo was still very foreign to me. Even what my parents did teach me prior to that moment, I didn’t have an interest or respect for it and so I would just choose the “safest” option and forget about the rest.
✴ When I Realized “Safe” Wasn’t Enough
The following year during my one year anniversary meeting at work, I realized that I had done myself a disservice. I stumbled over random statistics and felt ill-equipped to have any type of negotiation conversation. It definitely didn’t help when I received major push back from my boss. By the time I began to fantasize about freelance years later, I knew I needed to change my relationship with money. But, where to start? So many articles I found online failed to acknowledge the key nuances of the intersection between womanhood and finances. Plus, they were boring.
✴ How Podcasts Got Involved
That’s where podcasts come in. One night, while I was making dinner in my Williamsburg apartment that I shared with one other roommate, paid $1000 a month for, and had no living room (it was a literal square), I began to listen to the podcast Jen Gotch is Okay...Sometimes. If you aren’t familiar, Jen Gotch is the founder of ban.do (a super successful company, I might add) and is candid about her experiences with mental health and her career. Episodes like “Building Ban.Do: The REAL Story” showed me that this conversation didn’t have to be dry or separated from the rest of my life and full identity.
✴ Some Podcasts that Really Helped
Later, when I found Starving Artist, specifically the episode, “Taking Control of Your Finances with Sarah Firth,” I started to feel like, “Oh, I can do this!” In that episode, Sarah breaks down how to calculate your freelance rate (or even desired hourly or yearly income), and she says that we need to have an honest conversation with ourselves about money. ‘Cause, the thing is, money is not this thing that exists separately from our mental and emotional state of being. It’s all wrapped up together.
After that I binged. My playlists would shift from Girlboss to The Goal Digger Podcast to Secrets of Wealthy Women to really anything I could get my hands on that resonated with me and taught me more not just about money management but how to get more comfortable with thinking and talking about money in a productive and smart way--not just safe.
Related: 12 Must-Listen Podcasts for Every Entrepreneurial Woman
✴ Podcasts are Free KnowledgeCc
In the past year, I have continued to deepen my financial literacy and recently wrote a whole blog post on this excellent episode of Bad On Paper that really gets into the nitty gritty of salary, negotiations, investment, and more. I also entered into the investment, debt, and retirement conversation with As Your Friend’s episode “Making Money Moves.” Unlike many articles, they are both entertaining, informative, and nuanced.
Now, thanks to all of these podcasts, I have a full arsenal for when I negotiate rates and salary. Or, for as I am building my financial portfolio and planning for the future. There is so much FREE information out there, and it is in a space you can listen and learn without judgement or fear of moving too fast (hello, the beauty of a pause and rewind button). It is also not just in the obvious business podcasts out there, so keep a keen eye. We all have some type of podcast app on our phones, so I just want to make sure you use it.
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The Wave
