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 something together. Finally we’re both the dummies!

To walk us through the process, we invited Texas-based bankruptcy attorney Justice Pierce with Lincoln-Goldfinch Law. What a treasure! Justice is the most compassionate, understanding and knowledgeable expert we could’ve ever asked for.

We learned a lot. The most important thing was something we talk about a lot on the WOTV - the intersection of shame and money.

Guess what?

Bankruptcy is not a moral failing.

It’s just not. Justice explained that it’s actually a feature of the entire system that people are supposed to use. Politicians from both sides of the aisle support it - that’s how universally valued it is!

So, if it’s not a reason to tar and feather yourself because of you moral failures, what is it?

It’s actually a legal tool specially designed to help people escape overwhelming debt and start fresh that has different categories depending on what your situation is. Unexpected medical bills, job loss, or economic downturns can push even the most responsible people to their limits. But you know what, even people with some irresponsible blips also get our support.

But it ruins your credit forever!! OR DOES IT?

Listen as Justice tells us everything we didn’t know we wanted to know about this option.

Oh! And we realized after the episode that we didn’t ask her how much hiring a bankruptcy attorney costs. It sounds like anywhere between $4,000 - $5,000, depending on where you live. If you’re curious, call one and find out! Report back!

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for….Season 4 (which will happen some day in the future!) on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 annuities are contracts with insurance companies to protect us from losing money in the stock market and guarantee a yearly income in our senior years. But ON THE OTHER HAND, you don’t get any of the advantages of compounding interest.

The lows are higher and the highs are lower. That doesn’t sound like the way to make a million dollars. And it’s not. Sara says that they really only appeal to the moooooost risk adverse humans who are okay with giving up the chance to make more money in the stock market in exchange for a sure thing.

In fact, we go so far as to claim that getting an annuity is more like a psychological strategy than an investing one. Look at us go! A couple of Freuds over here!

We even (lightly) touch on actuarial sciences! (I know that has nothing to do with Freud, but it’s also very sophisticated.)

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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!, there comes April and a tax bill for all of the money you earned for each transaction. Even though it might feel like “fun” money, you actually pay a higher income tax rate for quick trades! They don’t show that in the movies!

Caitlin (AGAIN) asks WTF she should do with her Airbnb stock now that she’s gone to therapy to become un-emotionally attached to it. Sara walks her through selling it at the price she would feel good about, and Caitlin might as well be considered a stock broker now.

Is buying individual stocks really worth it for normal people like you and me? Listen to this episode and decide for yourself.

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 Sahm! The economist who invented the Sahm rule!!!

Claudia Sahm, Chief Economist of New Century Advisors and former Federal Reserve economist, came on Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough to answer our (Caitlin’s) dumb questions about her job and the economy.

Like, for instance, what is the Federal Reserve again? And, just to review for people that missed the last class: What is “economics” again? Hmmm. This is tricky.

Come listen in to Sara resisting the urge to ask all of her high-level fancy-pants-finance questions with every fiber in her body so Caitlin can complain about the price of Cheerios!

Here is Claudia’s Substack to get all of her research and thoughts into your inbox.

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 their investment accounts because of the inevitable apocalypse. And then the apocalypse doesn’t actually come, and surprise, surprise, the cold-hearted stock market is entirely indifferent to who we elect or defeat.

Caitlin tries to catch Sara with some gotcha questions about specific areas of the economy that must suffer when the other side wins…only to be schooled, again. This time with a chart that even a Caitlin can understand.

Look on our website to see the Bespoke chart Sara refers to that shows what our investment accounts would look like if we only kept our money in the stock market when our person wins the presidency, and what it would look like if we just left it the fuck alone compounding its little (actually big) interest.

So, tune in to listen to Sara explain why all this fear mongering is way off base, and how we can thoughtfully respond to women that aren’t on the verge of a financial breakthrough with our facts and charts.

We’re not falling for this alarmist bullshit! (But it still seems kind of counter-intuitive, right??)

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 people that buy new cars right off the lot or lease aren’t suckers? What??

Come on over and think through the options with us: borrow, save, lease, new, old, now or later. So many decisions. And Kacie and Sara have some pretty good answers, without shaming Caitlin about her tortured, overwrought and misplaced sense of moral smugness too much.

Oh wait, and Caitlin pressures Sara to sell her own damn used car. And co-producer Kelly leaves her first podcast easter egg…you’ll know it when you hear it.

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 should know about finance and investing, and when they should know it. Jacqueline Collins, a Massachusetts-based high school business and finance teacher (the 2021 National Business Teacher of the Year, in fact!), told us about how to meet kids where they are, how to freak them our with our health insurance claims, and why Robin Hood and other games might teach all the wrong lessons.

Jackie takes us through a semester in the life of one of her students and answers the question: What is the one thing all teens should know about finance before leaving the house? (Edge of your seat?? Listen!)

Last thing - even if you don’t have a teen in your life, you might learn something new. Do you know what a neobank is? Neither did we!!

I’ll give you a hint: you probably use one without knowing what it is and might be trusting it a little too much. Get informed!

Teen financial literacy resources, thanks to Jackie:

- extGen Personal Finance (NGPF) Live Dashboard: https://www.ngpf.org/live-us-dashboard/

- NGPF Arcade: https://www.ngpf.org/arcade/

- Build Your Stax is in the arcade!

- If you don't have a class in school, you could try a full-service program like Your Money Vehicle (https://yourmoneyvehicle.com/) *no relation to Jedidiah Collins

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 should listen), it might actually make more sense to put at least some of your investment dollars into a different kind of investment account. Enter: Roth.

Fun! Another financial tool to try to remember.

Sara breaks down what the “Roth” part of a Roth investment account means, and how it’s different than a non-Roth (normal?) investment account while Caitlin misunderstands for the 47th time. It has to do with taxes, people.

And if you just can’t live another moment without understanding more about how income taxes work, listen to our episode Women on the Verge of Doing Their Taxes!

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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! For many, it’s super awkward and feels like the wrong vibe to be starting out with. Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough need to turn that vibe upside down.

But first, we need more information. So, welcome to today’s episode.

Our guest expert, Hannah Hembree Bell, is a family law attorney who sets us straight on who needs a prenup (everyone?), what should be in it and why talking about money with your partner before, during and after marriage is ALWAYS a good idea. Follow @hembreebelllaw for all things divorce and lawyer and mom and mindset and all of that on all of the channels. It’s an education!

After you hear Hannah, you’re going to want to talk about this stuff a lot, to anyone who will listen. Even if you’re not getting married, you can bug your smug engaged friends!

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.

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 tax and how the hell could it possibly apply to a normal person like me?) And, how can we tell if the stories of our past financial successes are standing in the way of making new decisions that make sense for our future? (Caitlin raises hand.)

Caitlin relishes the power of a “good deal” story, and how maybe those stories are worth their weight in gold (but not helpful in building a future, reality-based investment portfolio, perhaps.) Do you remember the time Caitlin found a Le Creuset dutch oven at a Goodwill in 2007? She does! And she’ll tell you all about it!

Also, along the way, some ins and outs of the consequences of investing in real estate rather than index funds, and the emotional/financial/logistical math that goes along with owning rental properties.

Listeners - what do you think?? Should Caitlin sell her house??

Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page!

We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.

This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.