Finerate

Do you really need to check the markets every day to be responsible with your money? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber take on the constant pull of financial news and dig into what is truly decision-relevant, why financial media is often structured to provoke a reaction rather than inform a financial decision, and what a sustainable, realistic "news diet" looks like in practice. They also dive into their own media habits and where they devote their attention to achieve financial success.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• A practical test for telling decision-relevant financial news apart from noise
• Why financial media is often incentivized toward urgency and alarm
• How the news cycle has changed over 40+ years and what that means for how we consume it today
• What a "financial news diet" looks like
• Which financial news is worth checking regularly, and which is safe to check only a few times a year
• What to keep track of, and what's safe to let go if you want to feel engaged with your money without feeling anxious about it

If you check the markets daily out of habit, feel guilty when you don't, or want a healthier relationship with financial news, this episode offers a CFP®'s and investment advisor's take on what actually deserves your attention.

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

A daily coffee, invested instead of spent, can grow into real money over a few decades. It's also true that one large purchase can wipe out years of saving on small items. So why does that one small purchase often carry more guilt than expenses that cost far more? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber dig into the psychology behind small, recurring purchases, and what they've paid attention to in their own lives that has made a meaningful difference.

Using behavioral economics, they explore why frequent, visible purchases get scrutinized while larger, less frequent ones often go unquestioned. They answer where your focus is best spent - is it the small purchases, large purchases, or something else entirely?

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What the math says about small daily purchases compounded over time
• Why frequent small expenses get more scrutiny than larger, one-time purchases
• What "mental accounting" is, and why it explains the guilt around small spending
• How decision fatigue plays into daily money choices
• The expenses Anastasia and Bill have paid attention to that have meaningfully contributed to their net worth
• How to determine which small expenses actually contribute to your sense of well-being and which ones don't
• What to do this week if you've been feeling guilty about a small recurring habit

If you've ever felt a flicker of guilt over a coffee, a subscription, or any small recurring purchase, this episode offers a grounded, judgment-free look at why that feeling shows up and where to put your financial attention instead.

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

Resources:

Compound Interest Calculator for the one action Anastasia recommends to take this week

Does writing down a goal actually make you more likely to achieve it or is that just motivational-poster advice? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber separate the research from the popular myths around goal-setting, and make the case for why a written plan changes financial outcomes.

Anastasia and Bill dig into what happens psychologically when you put a goal on paper instead of just thinking about it, why specificity matters more than motivation, and how accountability plays a role in whether a goal gets achieved. They also build directly on the previous episode's conversation about visualization, exploring how belief and a written plan work together rather than as separate steps.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Whether the research supports writing down your goals
• Why writing forces specificity, and why vague goals rarely get accomplished
• How accountability changes the odds of actually following through on a goal
• How a written plan connects to visualization and belief
• What an effective written financial plan looks like
• The most common mistakes people make when writing down goals
• A practical first step for putting your own financial goals on paper this week

Resources:

• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• The Franklin Planning System

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

What if getting clear on your priorities isn't about giving things up but about creating more freedom? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber make the case that real abundance starts with knowing exactly what you want.

Anastasia and Bill reflect on the phrase "You can have it all" and discuss how the power of visualization and believing in what's possible can change the financial decisions you make today. They talk through being intentional about priorities and share what's worked for them in attaining all the goals they've set for themselves.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why getting clear on your priorities leads to taking action
• How visualization can shape the financial choices you make right now
• Why working for an employer may increasingly become the riskier decision
• How to figure out what matters to you, versus what you've been told should matter
• Why trying to keep every option open often works against you
• A practical process for choosing confidently between two goals, instead of picking whichever feels less scary
• What growth feels like (spoiler: It's not comfortable)

Whether you're weighing a big financial decision, feeling stuck, or want a more intentional way to think about what you're building your life around, this episode offers a motivating and grounding approach from two financial professionals who believe wealth is about focus, not endless options.

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

Resources:

Olympian Eileen Gu on neuroplasticity

Ira Glass on the creative gap

What should you actually be teaching your teenager about money and when? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber tackle the real, practical money conversations parents should be having with 13-17 year olds, drawing on Bill's firsthand experience raising four financially independent adult children.

Anastasia and Bill break down the specific financial "firsts" worth being intentional about, from a teen's first job to their first credit-building move, along with the most common mistake parents make when talking to teenagers about money, and when to adjust your approach based on personality. They also cover Trump Accounts, the new federal child savings account that launched in July 2026, and how it stacks up against a Roth IRA or 529 plans.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The financial "firsts" every teenager should experience before leaving home
• What Trump Accounts are, how they work, and whether they're actually a good fit for a working teen compared to a Roth IRA or 529 plan
• The most common mistake parents make when talking to teenagers about money and how to adjust your approach based on your teen's motivation style
• Why financial knowledge alone doesn't build financial confidence and what actually does

Whether you're the parent of a teenager, planning ahead for one, or curious about what real financial preparation for young adults should look like, this episode offers grounded, experience-based guidance from two financial professionals; one who's done it in his own family, four times over.

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

Why are so many young investors choosing meme stocks, options trading, and crypto over traditional saving and investing? In this episode of Finerate, CFP® Anastasia Taber and 45-year investment advisor Bill Taber break down the psychology and economics behind the rise of high-risk retail trading and what it says about the state of financial confidence today.

A growing share of investors under 35 say they need to take big financial risks to reach their goals. Anastasia and Bill dig into why: rising home prices, wealth inequality, and a feeling that the slow, steady path - save consistently, invest patiently, wait decades - no longer guarantees the future it once did. Bill shares his read on strategies like buying call options on large-cap stocks, and reflects on how "paying tuition" for a hard lesson in the markets means something very different for a disciplined long-term investor than it does for someone chasing a quick win.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why more investors are embracing high-risk trading strategies instead of traditional investing
• How options trading actually works and what the real odds of success look like
• Whether Gen Z and millennials are falling behind financially versus feeling that way early on
• Why access to zero-commission trading apps changed retail investing forever
• How the housing affordability crisis is connected to rising financial risk-taking
• What separates destructive risk-taking from productive risk-taking
• What a healthier alternative to "swinging big" looks like

If you're curious about the meme-stock economy, wondering if you're behind on your own financial goals, or just want a grounded take on why so many people are gambling on their financial future, this episode offers real perspective from two financial professionals who've seen market cycles come and go.

Finerate is a financial education community helping people move from financial anxiety to financial confidence.

Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

Resources:

Gen Z Traders Go For Broke in Pursuit Of A New American Dream

Related Episodes:

Is Investing in the Stock Market the Same as Gambling?

What Really Makes Us Happy? Insights from Yale's Science of Well-Being, Part One

After six years and 163 episodes of Creating Wealth, we're turning the page.

This is the episode where we tell you what we're building, why now, and what drove each of us to take this step. Because Finerate came from something we kept seeing and haven't stopped thinking about.

Anastasia has spent years watching the financial planning industry concentrate its resources on high net worth families. But what about the people who are earlier in their journey, who are trying to figure it out, who know they should be doing something with their money, but don't have a clear path to professional guidance? They've largely been left out. Finerate is their answer to that gap.

Bill has spent 45 years in the room for conversations about money that most people never get to have, watching what separates the people who build financial security from those who don't, and wanting to give that knowledge to the people who need it.

Together, we're building Finerate: A financial education community for people who are ready to act. Not just another place to get financial information, but a place to close the gap between knowing and doing.

In this episode:

• Why we started Creating Wealth in April 2020 and what six years of conversations with listeners taught us about what people actually need
• The gap in the financial planning industry that motivated us to build something new
• What Bill has witnessed across four decades of advising that drives his conviction
• What Finerate actually is, including what the name means and who it's for
• Why this has to be a community and not just content
• The one question to ask yourself if you're trying to figure out whether Finerate is for you
• How to join from the very beginning and help shape what this becomes

If you've been listening to Creating Wealth and wondering what's next: This is it.

And if you're new here, this is actually a perfect place to start.

Join the Finerate waitlist at getfinerate.com

Finerate is the home of the podcast formerly known as Creating Wealth. Hosted by Anastasia Taber, CFP®, and her father Bill Taber, a 45 year investment advisor. New episodes every other Friday.

If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, start there first.

Part 1 laid out what's happening and named some truly wild predictions. Part 2 answers the question that actually matters: given all of that, what do you do?

With your money. With your career. With your mindset. And with the fear that many people feel right now.

In this episode:

• One prominent thinker predicted we're heading toward an "emotional pandemic" driven by the pace of AI change. Not a technological failure, but an emotional one.
• The United States is the most pessimistic country about AI. What does that tell us, and is the fear proportionate to the actual risk?
• If your income is less certain and your career is harder to predict, do the fundamentals of financial planning actually change or do the old principles hold?
• 55% of Americans now use AI to help manage their finances, up from 10% just a year ago. How good is that advice and what are the risks most people aren't thinking about? The research on this is more surprising than you'd expect
• The traits that matter most in an AI-disrupted world and what it means financially to invest in yourself right now
• Our honest gut reactions to where all of this is heading. Not the CFP® answer or the advisor answer, the human one
• The one thing each of us would tell you to do differently this week because of everything we discussed across both episodes

Finally, we're thrilled to announce that we are building Finerate: a financial education community for people who are ready to move from financial anxiety to financial confidence. Join the waitlist at getfinerate.com.

Check out our previous episodes on AI:

AI in 2025: What's New, What's Next, and What It Means for You, Part One

AI in 2025: What's New, What's Next, and What It Means for You, Part Two

2024 - Navigating the AI Revolution: Insights for Investors and Workers, Part One

2024 - Navigating the AI Revolution: Insights for Investors and Workers, Part Two

2023 - Are You Prepared for the AI Revolution?

We do this once a year: a dedicated episode on artificial intelligence and what it means for your financial life. And every year, the material is big enough for a two-parter.

Part 1 is the orientation: what's happening with AI right now, our honest reactions to some crazy predictions, and our biggest takeaways for adapting to these turbulent times.

We're not AI experts. We're a CFP® and a 40+ year investment advisor making sense of what we're seeing through the lens of our work, our experiences, and our long-term approach.

In this episode:

• What each of us has noticed in our daily lives over the last 12 months
• Why this technological moment feels different from any change that has come before it
• The predictions being made by those closest to the technology
• Why one prominent CEO says we're in the "hard takeoff" right now and wakes up to an AI breakthrough every morning, and how to evaluate a claim like that without either dismissing it or panicking
• The counternarrative: the more measured voices pushing back on the extreme predictions, and what approach to take
• What the mind-boggling investment numbers and record-breaking IPOs say about where we are in the cycle

Part 2 covers your money, your career, your mindset, and what to actually do. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so it lands directly in your feed in two weeks.

Check out our previous episodes on AI:

AI in 2025: What's New, What's Next, and What It Means for You, Part One

AI in 2025: What's New, What's Next, and What It Means for You, Part Two

2024 - Navigating the AI Revolution: Insights for Investors and Workers, Part One

2024 - Navigating the AI Revolution: Insights for Investors and Workers, Part Two

2023 - Are You Prepared for the AI Revolution?

We're bringing this one back, because the problem it covers is even more relevant in today's environment.

Social comparison has always been part of human nature. But financial social comparison in 2026 is a different beast. TikTok has entire subcultures built around money. Algorithms are engineered to show you exactly what makes you feel behind. The explosion of AI generated content will make the problem worse, not better.

This influences more people to make financial decisions based on what they think others are doing, without considering the consequences.

In this episode, Anastasia and Bill dig into the psychology and financial reality behind social comparison:

• How common is it for Millennials and Gen Z to compare their financial situations?
• What are some negative effects to comparing your finances to others?
• What strategies can you use to avoid comparison?
• Are there benefits to discussing finances with friends, or should you keep it confidential?
• What really matters when it comes to building your own version of financial success

Originally recorded in 2024 and more relevant than ever.

Creating Wealth is hosted by Anastasia Taber, CFP®, and her father Bill Taber, a 40+ year investment advisor. New episodes every other Friday.