Ladies Get Paid

How do you start over when life falls apart, again and again? Rachel Kennedy moved seven times in ten years, went through two miscarriages, changed careers, and was widowed at 35. Now an image consultant and author, she shares how she rebuilt her life after loss and the question that helps her choose desire over fear: do you want the curtains up?

We talk about the strengths you can lean on after a loss, the habits that once kept you safe and now hold you back, why control is an illusion, and why Rachel starts with a client’s calendar instead of her closet.

Read the companion Substack post with key insights and action steps: ladiesgetpaid.substack.com

Learn more about Rachel at thekennedycurate.com
Follow Claire: @clairegetspaid
Work with Claire: ladiesgetpaid.com

After being laid off from Peloton, Meris Stone moved to Mexico City, met her husband, and built a consulting and coaching business while still job searching. Claire Wasserman and Meris talk about getting hired through referrals and transferable skills, finding your first freelance client in your existing network, making LinkedIn self-promotion feel less cringe, using AI to save 10 hours a week, and why your job doesn’t have to hold all of your passions.

Key insights and action steps are in our companion Substack post:

Connect with Meris: nostoneunturnedconsult.com
Connect with Claire: ladiesgetpaid.com | @clairegetspaid

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Certified financial planner AJ Ayers explains stock options and RSUs, how to negotiate equity in a job offer, the 90-day window after a layoff, why she skips budgets and saves first, and how to think about credit card debt, renting vs. buying, and getting started with investing.

AJ’s book, Creative Money: New Financial Rules for Artists, Innovators, and Misfits, is out November 10. Pre-order at ajayers.com.

Companion Substack post with key insights and action steps:
More at ladiesgetpaid.com

Jamia Wilson has been asked if she’s the intern in rooms where she was running the place.

She was the youngest director in the history of the Feminist Press and the first woman of color to lead it. She’s now a VP and executive editor at Random House. Gloria Steinem was her mentor, and then she became Gloria’s editor.

In this episode we talk about where feminism stands right now, what she learned about money from her mother and grandmothers, and how she decided what she was worth when her employers kept deciding for her.

She never got resentful about any of it. She kept track, and then she left.

Companion post with her key insights: https://ladiesgetpaid.substack.com/p/they-thought-she-was-the-intern

At 14, Ella Rivkin immigrated from Moscow to New York with about $100 and became her family’s money manager. In 2009 she walked out of her accounting partnership with $12,000 in the bank, two small kids, and an underwater mortgage, and built her own firm. Years later, Tony Robbins told her she still wasn’t financially free.

Claire Wasserman and Ella talk about betting on yourself, leaving a job without a safety net, the self-doubt that keeps women in situations they’ve outgrown, and why a high income isn’t the same as freedom.

Read the key insights and action steps at ladiesgetpaid.substack.com/p/what-it-takes-to-risk-it-all
Connect with Ella at ellarivkin.com/

Erin Lowry wrote four books about money. Her business bank account is the lowest it's ever been.

She built a career as Broke Millennial — Penguin, CBS Sunday Morning, the person a generation of us learned to open a Roth IRA from. She isn't broke the way she was at 23 on $23,000 a year in New York. She's broke the way self-employed people are broke: the money arrives in waves, and sometimes the wave is late.

We go back to the yard sale that taught her net profit at seven, the scarcity her father handed down without meaning to, the job she turned down to protect a blog that was making her nothing, and the identity crisis that showed up at the same time as her daughter. Plus the hardest money conversation most of us are avoiding — the one with our parents — and the exact words to use when they won't engage.

Full write-up at ladiesgetpaid.substack.com. Find Erin at the brokemillennial.substack.com.

Rita Boccuzzi was sued for gender discrimination for hosting money events for women, by the same two men who sued me. Instead of settling, she fought for three and a half years. We talk about the lawsuit, the 38 lawyers she called, turning her camera on in her deposition, and how it finally ended.

Rita also shares how cancer drained her savings, why medical debt and caregiving costs wipe out so many families, and what helped her get through years she couldn't control. Find Rita at achievefinancialaspirations.com, and learn more about my work at ladiesgetpaid.com.

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Habit change expert Connie Kwan explains why willpower isn't the problem; the story you're telling yourself is. She shares her STORY method, the two numbers that predict whether a habit change will stick, and how a client quit a ten-year french fry habit in two weeks. Then she coaches me live on my doom scrolling, and we end up somewhere I didn't expect: why I can't lie down for ten minutes without almost having a panic attack.

Connie is the author of Story Habits, out in November. Find her at conniekwan.com.

Read the companion post for key insights and action steps: https://ladiesgetpaid.substack.com/p/change-your-bad-habits-for-good

Cathy's husband was fired without warning in 2018. She'd left her six-figure job two years before to stay home with their kids. What was left: a $1.32 million mortgage, over $100,000 in credit card debt across eleven maxed cards, another $100,000 borrowed from friends, and no income.

Eight years on, every card is at zero and her credit score is 815. She walks me through exactly how — the jobs, the calls to card companies that went nowhere, the decision about their house, and the parts that still haven't resolved. Including the bank account that got frozen last October.

Full write-up on ladiesgetpaid.substack.com. If you have a money story to share, email [email protected].

Five years at a tech startup. Four rounds of layoffs. Seven managers. And a side business as a death doula that she loves but isn't sure can pay her.

Natasha came in asking when to make the leap. A few minutes in, she mentioned her health insurance and called her attachment to it silly — and the conversation turned into something else entirely.

We get into why binary thinking keeps you stuck, how to sort your fears into the ones that need a spreadsheet and the ones that need a conversation with yourself, what it costs to be the person everyone relies on, and why leaving a job you've outgrown can feel like a death you have to grieve.

Free companion post with all the key takeaways and action steps: https://ladiesgetpaid.substack.com/p/when-should-i-quit-my-job?Want to be coached for free on the podcast? Email [email protected] to keep things private? Book a free fit call: https://calendly.com/claire-wasserman/coaching-fit-call🚨 Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.