Today is the first Friday in April, and, in case you didn’t know, April is Financial Literacy Month, or, our favorite month of the year at The Gym. If you are listening to this podcast, you’ve made financial literacy an important part of your life. If you are looking for more resources, especially this month, we have a number of free events going on at The Financial Gym — we have one for every weekday. Check out the schedule at financialgym.com, and, again, everything is free. 

The Gym also has its own podcast call Financially Naked, where you can hear more from our clients and our trainers, and you can find that anywhere you listen to podcasts. I hope you will check out our events and share them with your friends, so they can embrace financial literacy as well.

Onto today’s show! Managing couples’ finances is a challenge, especially if you are in similar industries or have similar job types. Joining me today are my good friends David and John, otherwise known as the Debt Free Guys, and the the hosts of Queer Money Podcast, to discuss how they’ve managed their household finances as a couple, and also weathered a global pandemic that affected their joint business, and stayed financially healthy throughout it all.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/suviving-job-insecurity-with-the-debt-free-guys

Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics. 

March 12 marked the official one-year anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic in the U.S. Can you even believe it has been a year? What a wild year it has been. The ladies and I took the time to reflect on the year and share our highs and lows that have come from the pandemic.

March is also Women’s History month, and we also share some of the women who inspire us and who we’d love to support even more.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/highs-and-lows-of-the-pandemic-with-the-happy-hour-ladies

At the Financial Gym, we call the first meeting you have with a trainer, the “financially naked session”. In this meeting, you share everything about yourself financially so the trainer knows where you’re starting so that he or she can make the plan for how you can get where you want to go. Above all other meetings, this one scares clients the most because they are afraid or ashamed of their financial situation. Over two years ago on this podcast, I shared my financially naked session and it led to a request for more. Now, this is a regular series on this podcast. 

Getting in the hotseat today is our first Canadian guest, Margaret. She joins me to share not only her digits, but how she got her finances into shape and how she wants to help others do it as well.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/getting-financially-naked-with-margaret

Getting financially healthy is as much a mindset game as it is a numbers game, and part of changing your mindset includes changing how you view certain words around financial health, like budgeting, investing, and, our topic today, frugality. Before I set out on my path to financial wellness, I thought of frugal people as cheap people. Being frugal was not a goal I had for myself. Fast forward 10 years, and I know that frugal people are fabulous, and frugality is more of a money hack than anything else. 

Joining me today to speak more on this topic, and how you can change your mindset to embrace frugality, is Jen Smith, founder of the blog site Modern Frugality and co-host of the podcast Frugal Friends. She joins me to share how she became a frugal convert and how embracing frugality led to debt freedom for her and her husband.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/modern-frugality-with-jen-smith

March represents the opportunity to celebrate Women’s History Month. For those of you who don’t know, I attended an all-girls Catholic high school. From the early age of 14, I saw the value and positivity that could arise from women working in a supportive and collaborative environment. This experience literally defined a large part of my life, by instilling a desire to mentor, promote, and support women. As I always say, it’s not that I don’t love men — I married one, I birthed one, and I’m looking forward to falling in love again with another man in my future — but over my 20-year career, I’ve seen the constant need to build support networks to allow women to grow and thrive in the areas where they would love to grow and thrive. 

Joining me today is a long-time friend in the personal finance space, Stefanie O’Connell, founder of Statement Cards and host of the Money Confidential podcast, to discuss how her professional journey led her to start a company and brand that is essentially a movement to support women during their various life journeys.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/the-importance-of-statement-cards-with-stephanie-oconnell

Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics. 

In honor of Black History Month, and leaning into Women’s History month that begins next month, we’re going to share some of our favorite businesses, bloggers, podcasters, and resources where you can support women and people of color. We discuss a truly epic group of individuals that I hope you enjoy learning about as much as I did. Joining us again this month is Kassandra, while Liz is on sabbatical, and I truly appreciate your support and encouragement of Kassandra, while wishing Liz the best.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/supporting-people-of-color-with-the-happy-hour-ladies

One of the many things I love about hosting this show is discovering new and fascinating ways to help you think about financial health differently, or approach your financial health differently, and today’s episode is a great example of that. Joining me today is Juliet Obodo, Master Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner, to share her story of why she left a traditional corporate job to pursue a career in hypnotherapy and how hypnotherapy can help you overcome subconscious roadblocks you may have that would prevent you from living the life of your dreams. 

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/hypnosis-and-finances-with-juliet-obodo

I know and hope that so many of us are taking away a number of life lessons from the experiences of 2020, and honestly the beginning of 2021, as well. One of those lessons for me is the value of amplifying voices. I started this podcast over six years ago now as a dare to bring more female voices to the personal finance podcasting space, and over a million downloads later, I take this platform you’ve given to me by listening very seriously. 

Many of my long-term listeners know that, like you, I’m on a journey to learn every day and get better every day in all aspects of my life, especially finances, and I’m bringing those lessons to this community. Today is Lunar New Year, or, what I knew growing up as Chinese New Year, and it impacts millions of people on this planet, including three of my teammates at the Financial Gym. So joining me today is Sean, Remie, and Tina, to share their stories of lunar new year, how it impacts their families, and why they shouldn’t be working today.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/lunar-new-year-with-sean-remie-and-tina

Seven years ago, I had an idea for a business that took me on the wildest journey filled with my highest highs and my lowest lows. From the second I became an entrepreneur, though, I felt a kinship with other founders, especially female founders. This summer, when it seemed like the world was blowing up and we were trying to decide how to respond as a business to the world around us, my gut told me that supporting black female founders was the path that we should take. As a result, The Financial Gym partnered with iFundWomen to identify five black, female-founded businesses to receive a scholarship from us, as well as business coaching and any other resources The Gym could provide, to help these women create even more successful businesses. 

We started with the plan to help five women, but it became six, because of an impromptu conversation I had with today’s guest, Auzerais Bellamy, founder of Blondery. I was so blown away by this woman and her vision, that I knew we had to help. Joining me today is Auzerais to share her story about the challenges of being a black woman pastry chef in the world of fine dining. I hope you’re as motivated by her journey as I am

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/blondery-with-auzerais-bellamy

Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics. 

Today is the first happy hour of 2021, and what an eventful first month it has been so far. As many of you know or may remember, our regular happy hour cohost Liz, aka Mrs. Frugalwoods, is taking a sabbatical from the show. Starting this month, our good friend, Kassandra Dasent, will be filling the extra happy hour seat. Kassandra joins the show today to share more about her personal journey, and we all discuss our goals, plans, and thoughts on a new year. We will miss Liz, but you are really going to love hearing Kassandra’s take on personal finance.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/shifting-goals-in-2021-with-the-happy-hour-ladies