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. 

This is our May Happy Hour and May happens to be Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, as well as Mental Health Awareness Month, so my friends joined me to not only amplify voices in communities that you may not be following but also share amazing resources (most of them free) for you to work on your mental health. As usual, another great episode with so much important information. 

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/aapi-and-mental-health-awareness-month-with-the-happy-hour-ladies

I know and hope that so many of us are taking away a number of life lessons from the experiences of 2020, and the start of 2021, and one of those lessons for me is the value of amplifying voices. I started this podcast over six years ago, as a dare to bring more female voices to the personal finance podcasting space. Over a million downloads later, I take this platform you’ve given to me, by listening over those years, 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, I’m excited to share the unique cultural and financial journey of my teammate at The Financial Gym, Ramona. Ramona’s family is from Guyana and she joins me today on how her family’s background and journey has influenced her.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/growing-up-guyanese-with-ramona

As as start-up founder, I’m always open to speaking to potential startup founders to hear their ideas and share my thoughts on next steps for them and what types of financing routes they may want to consider. After having three such conversations recently, I realized it would be really valuable to memorialize some of these thoughts for other potential founders, and when I thought of who I wanted to have this conversation with, my first thought was my good friend Hitha Palepu. 

Hitha is not only an entrepreneur, but she’s also an angel investor who’s invested in multiple start-ups, including The Financial Gym. Hitha joins me today to share her thoughts on the process of starting and financing a business. This is a valuable conversation for anyone thinking of pursuing their own business.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/financing-your-business-with-hitha-palepu

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, for the second time, is Liana. When we last got Financially Naked with Liana, she was living in Vermont, working as a medical writer, and planning a wedding. She joins us today to share if she had a pandemic wedding and what her career and finances look like over a year later.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/financially-naked-follow-up-with-liana