Debit card users are quietly funding everyone else's credit card rewards. Wheeler and Colin trace the three ways credit card companies actually make money, interchange fees, net interest income, and annual fees, and land on why swiping a debit card doesn't opt you out of the cost, it just means someone else collects the reward. A client story backs it up: a couple who paid off $40,000 to $50,000 in credit card debt across five cards by switching to debit, now sitting on a new house, no debt, and $300,000 saved.

From there, a chart on rate hike expectations versus the Truflation Index, a real-time inflation measure built on actual merchant transactions instead of the CPI's monthly surveys, plus a fast history of the CPI itself. Then the big number of the episode: a $1,000 government seed plus $100 a month to age 60 turns $73,000 in total contributions into $1.87 million, the anchor for a full breakdown of the newly formalized Trump accounts for kids under 18.

Sources:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index history and methodology
Truflation.com, index methodology (real-time alternative inflation index)
CME Group FedWatch Tool, market-implied Fed rate expectations
U.S. Department of the Treasury and IRS.gov, Trump Accounts program guidance
Congress.gov, Road to Housing Act legislative record
Visa and Mastercard interchange fee schedules; Square payment processing rate disclosures

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

The personal savings rate sits at 2.6%, and Wheeler and Colin argue it tells you almost nothing. Someone making $100,000 who saves $10,000 is saving at 10%. Someone making $1,000,000 who saves the same $10,000 is saving at 1%. Both count exactly the same in that national number, which isn't weighted by income, doesn't separate working professionals from retirees on Social Security, and says nothing about your own household.

From there, a rabbit hole on GLP-1s and fertility. The US total fertility rate hit a record low of 1.6 in 2024, well below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to sustain the population. Immigration is the only thing still growing the US population, and it's slowing too, with the country projected to peak sometime in the 2030s. That combination is the real risk sitting under Social Security: fewer people paying in, not just more people drawing out.

That leads into a wider debate about optimism versus scarcity, why some friends are opting out of having kids altogether, and whether taxing billionaires is as simple as it sounds. A history lesson on the 1990s luxury yacht tax (it mostly just moved shipbuilding jobs to Europe) sets up Jess's pitch for a "choose your own adventure" tax, where taxpayers could direct a slice of what they owe toward causes they actually believe in.

On the charts: 60% of tech stocks, including Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Palantir, and newly public SpaceX, are sitting in bear market territory even as the S&P and Dow grind higher. The S&P 500's forward PE ratio is 20.1, above the 10-year average of 19.1 but well off last October's peak near 23, a sign companies are growing into their valuations rather than getting more expensive.

Last up: Bilt Rewards now lets cardholders transfer points earned on rent payments directly to student loan servicers like Nelnet, Mohela, Sallie Mae, and Navient. Wheeler and Colin split hard on whether that's a genuine value-add for renters carrying debt or another hook aimed at a financially fragile group, and Tori weighs in from the actual seat this offer is built for.

Sources:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Income and Outlays report (personal savings rate)
CDC National Center for Health Statistics, provisional 2024 natality data (total fertility rate)
Social Security Administration Trustees Report (funding and demographic projections)
Market and valuation data via YCharts (tech sector bear market breadth, S&P 500 forward P/E)
Bilt Rewards program announcement (student loan servicer transfer partners)

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

June brought rotation, not direction. The Nasdaq finished down almost 3%, the S&P was flat, the Dow was up, and small caps led with the Russell 2000 up 3.6%. Taiwan's index is up 62% year to date, but it's essentially two stocks, and that same concentration shows up in the margin debt numbers. The US just hit $1.28 trillion in margin debt, an all-time high, while Taiwan's is up 160% year over year and past dot-com bubble levels.

Inflation is sticky (core PCE at 3.4%) even as wages stall, and Wheeler and Colin bet on the Fed doing nothing before year end. The savings conversation gets messier from there: the personal savings rate is near an all-time low, and new Fidelity data shows 19.6% of 401k participants have a loan against their account, Gen X highest at 25.5%.

SpaceX's IPO gets a reality check, up 27% from its offer price but already wrapped in 2X and 3X leveraged ETFs with zero trading history behind them. It all circles back to the episode's real thesis: almost every ultra-high-net-worth client they know built wealth slowly, including Warren Buffett. They close on a labor market that feels worse than the stock market looks, and the bigger question of just how dependent the country now is on the market itself.

Sources:
Fidelity Investments Q2 2026 retirement analysis (401k loan and savings rate data)
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey (jobs plentiful / hard-to-get differential)
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Income and Outlays report (core PCE)
Market and margin debt data via YCharts (SpaceX, Taiwan Weighted Index, margin debt by country)

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

Colin came in from fishing. Wheeler was trying to buy Olivia Rodrigo tickets mid-recording. They still got through a packed week.

The Road to Housing Act passed with bipartisan support — a bill to cut red tape on home construction and limit corporate ownership of residential properties. Then the president refused to sign it, tying it to a separate voter ID bill. Wheeler and Colin get into why builders are financially incentivized to build expensive homes over affordable ones, and how badly the math has shifted. A starting advisor ten years ago earned $50K with homes around $400K. Today that same job pays $60K. Those same homes are $900K.

Portsmouth attorney and former congressional candidate Justin Nadeau was sentenced to seven and a half to fifteen years for stealing from a client who had suffered a traumatic brain injury. The takeaway: a designation doesn't make someone the right person for you — in law, finance, or healthcare.

Women face disproportionate risk if Social Security gets cut — not because the headline says so, but because the math backs it up. Women receive lower monthly benefits than men but collect longer due to longevity. The structural problem: women who step back from the workforce to raise children are financially penalized by a system built entirely around hours worked. About 14% of retired Americans rely on Social Security entirely. Roughly a quarter have it making up more than 75% of their retirement income.

The GLP-1 market is having a Big Short moment. Colin noticed the lineup at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans and it reminded him of the Vegas conference scene — a year ago nobody cared, now every drug company is flooding in. Injectables, pills, and probably a powder coming soon. What makes GLP-1s interesting is that they appear to solve one problem — appetite satiation — that then cascades into improvements across addiction, heart health, and metabolic function.

A Nomura chart tracking combined free cash flow across five hyperscalers — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle — tells the story of the AI buildout better than most headlines. Free cash flow grew from $50 billion in 2012 to over $300 billion. It is now projected to hit zero by year-end. The debate it opens up: Chamath's "spend through zero now, earn it back later" versus Kai Wu's "asset-light was the whole thesis." Nvidia and Micron are being rewarded. Most hyperscalers aren't. Apple isn't in the chart at all — which might be exactly the right place to be.

They close on robotics. Elon's $20K household robot. Nvidia in the space. VC funding at record levels. Colin is skeptical — it feels like EVTOLs, early and overhyped. His mom just moved to assisted living and would never trust a robot nurse. Wheeler's counterpoint: nobody trusted driverless cars fifteen years ago either. The investor answer is probably what it always is: big companies acquire whoever wins, and you don't have to pick early to benefit.

Sources:
Why Women May Bear the Brunt If Social Security Gets Cut — USA Today
Portsmouth Lawyer Justin Nadeau Sentenced to Prison — Seacoastonline
GLP-1 Competition Heats Up: Oral Pills, New Entrants, and Price Compression — BioPharma Dive / Reuters / CNBC
Robotics Startups Are Having a Moment — VC Funding Hits Records — CryptoRank / RoboZaps
Housing Forecasts Revised Down Again — NAR / Realtor.com
Global Tech Selloff: Nasdaq Futures -3%, Chips Routed — CNBC / Reuters

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

This week Wheeler and Colin open with a conversation about inflation — what it actually costs to travel in Vegas and California right now, why broad inflation numbers don't tell the full story, and how the experience varies dramatically depending on income. It's a grounded setup for everything that follows.

From there they get into the week's biggest stories. Big tech collectively spent $630 billion on AI infrastructure in Q1 alone, and the build-out shows no signs of slowing — even as data centers face growing pushback from communities that don't want them nearby. New Hampshire is already seeing that tension play out politically. SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history and surpassed Amazon and Microsoft in market cap within days of trading, but with only 5% of the company available in the market, Wheeler and Colin break down what that number actually reflects and what it doesn't.

They turn to the Fed next — what Kevin Warsh is likely to do on rates, why the market has shifted from pricing in cuts to pricing in a potential hike, and how the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is complicating every macro forecast on the table. The episode wraps with two personal finance stories worth paying attention to: the American savings rate just fell to its lowest point since 2022, and private assets are being quietly added to 401(k) plan menus. Wheeler and Colin dig into what that shift in private credit means for the average investor and why they're skeptical of it.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

In this episode of Compound Growth, Colin and Wheeler sit down with their colleague and the third leg of the stool — Shae Murray — for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about non-traditional career paths, what it really takes to build confidence in a new field, and why growth often looks nothing like you planned.

Shae shares her journey from early childhood education — working across Montessori schools, Head Start programs, and a childcare center for MGH doctors — to landing in the world of financial services completely by accident. What followed was a crash course in everything from the stock market to the Series 7 exam, navigating corporate culture, getting licensed, and ultimately finding her place at CoFi Advisors as the team's very first employee.

Along the way, Colin and Wheeler get personal. They talk about identity (yes, the name thing), the mentor who shaped how Shae approaches her work, what it means to be a client's first point of contact, and a surprisingly spirited 53-minute conversation about AI that nobody planned to have.

Shae also shares her perspective on women in financial services — where the industry falls short, what the RIA space gets right, and why she thinks the tide is starting to turn.

It's honest, warm, funny in places, and — yes — it does start with a very sad stuffed horse named Fuego.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

Did you know that in the United States, anyone can sign your tax return — no license required? Katrina Kowalski found that out the hard way when her husband got hit with a $50,000-plus IRS audit, courtesy of an unlicensed preparer who was a family friend. That moment set her on a path from mortgage industry burnout, to quitting a Big 5 accounting firm on the day after Christmas, to eventually building On Point Wealth and On Point Tax Services in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

In this conversation, Katrina joins Wheeler and Colin to talk about what business owners get wrong about taxes, why the goal shouldn't just be paying as little as possible, and how the right CPA relationship looks less like damage control and more like a long-term financial partnership. She walks through the hidden complexity of RSUs and IPO stock — including the client who watched their stock fall 65% and still got the tax bill — and why your CPA and your financial advisor need to be in the same conversation, not separate silos.

The episode goes deeper than tactics: Katrina talks about launching her firm in August 2019, six months before COVID, building a partnership with her now-co-owner Emily Roster, and why she believes the CPA talent shortage is a direct result of an industry that still rewards volume over relationship. And with $34 trillion of wealth transferring across generations, she makes the case that women need to be at the financial table — not just inheriting a box of paperwork they've never seen before.

Katrina's guiding philosophy: do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

Ferrari announced a $640,000 electric car with worse performance than a Tesla Model S — and screened the journalists who came to see it based on how they felt about EVs. It's a strange move for a brand built on confidence. It's also a pretty good lens for what's happening across a lot of big institutions right now.

The bigger conversation this month is the SpaceX IPO. One theory floating around is that it's a head fake entirely — that Tesla absorbs SpaceX instead, because the demand simply isn't there to support a deal that size. If the IPO does happen, it would be the largest the market has ever seen. Either outcome changes things. The Cerebras IPO already showed what happens when the demand doesn't show up.

Underneath all of it: strong tech earnings, real AI adoption, and the honest question of whether this ends like the internet revolution or the dot-com crash. The gladiators are in the arena. It's too early to call.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

Buy now, pay later has gone from a niche checkout option to a fixture of how Americans spend — on everything from concert tickets to groceries to medical bills. The industry processed over $114 billion in transactions in 2024 alone, and the numbers are still growing. But the conversation around it rarely goes deeper than whether a specific purchase is worth it.

This episode does.

Wheeler and Colin break down how BNPL actually works, why it's grown so fast, and what separates a useful financial tool from a mechanism that quietly accelerates debt. They dig into the credit score question — why most BNPL products don't build credit, and what that means for borrowers who are trying to. They cover the real cost of convenience when deferred payments stack up, and where 0% financing is genuinely worth taking.

The bigger thread running through the episode: debt isn't inherently good or bad. A 0% BNPL plan on a Peloton is a different decision than spreading out Coachella across six payments. Context, opportunity cost, and self-awareness about your own spending patterns are the variables that actually determine whether any of these tools help or hurt you. That's true for an $8 burrito and a $3 million home purchase in equal measure.

The episode also covers the history of consumer credit — including the fact that women in the U.S. couldn't open their own credit cards until 1974 — and what the rise of BNPL reflects about how the financial system is evolving for people who have historically been locked out of it.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

There's a gap between what the data says and how people feel — and right now, that gap is enormous. Wheeler and Colin sit down with Seth Buks, a market strategist and thought leader who has spent nearly two decades translating complex financial ideas into clear, actionable guidance for advisors and their clients. The conversation covers a lot of ground: where the economy actually stands on growth, inflation, and interest rates; why real wage growth over the past five years tells a very different story than the one most people believe; and what behavioral finance reveals about the decisions investors make when fear and greed start running the show.

Seth breaks down the "vibesession" — the phenomenon where people feel economically terrible despite data pointing in the opposite direction — and explains the behavioral biases behind it, including recency bias, herding, and representativeness. The conversation shifts to AI and what the productivity data actually shows, why the bakery analogy matters for understanding GDP, and how to separate what's real from what's noise when every headline feels urgent.

They also get into the mechanics of why markets compress: the investor psychology cycle, the buy-the-dip conditioning of the past decade, and what's been missing from recent market downturns that makes this moment harder to read. And in a candid conversation about private credit, the three explore how an investment product can start well-intentioned and quietly become something clients don't fully understand they've bought into — and what advisors owe clients when complexity steps in.

The episode closes with one of the better pieces of career advice the show has heard: the asset that compounds most reliably isn't a portfolio. It's the relationships you keep.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell