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. And if you can believe it this is the last Friday of the YEAR! The last Friday of 2021! In our final happy hour of the year, the ladies and I reflect on our highs and lows of the year, the goals we set for 2021, and set goals for 2022. This is the 6th year we are doing this episode and we have a special guest joining us. And now here are my friends to reflect on 2021.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/episode401

7 years ago, I attended a financial bloggers conference and it was while I was at this conference that I was dared by friends of mine to start a podcast of my own. At this point, I had only been a guest on one podcast, Stacking Benjamins, to talk about my book, Train Your Way to Financial Fitness, and other than listening to myself on that show, I had never even listened to another podcast. At the time, I had no idea what I would talk about on a show, but I knew I liked to drink and I knew I loved talking about money, and a few months later, Martinis and Your Money the podcast debuted. And today’s episode represents my 400th episode. 

What started as a dare, has turned into a 7-year and 400 episode adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. To take this trip down memory lane with me, I invited my good friend, and the person who’s appeared on the podcast the most, after me, Melanie Lockert, from the Mental Health and Wealth show and previously from Dear Debt. I had such a great time sharing some of my favorite memories of these first 400 episodes and I hope you enjoy hearing them as well. And now here’s my dear friend Melanie. 

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/episode400

I have been working as a financial planner for over 10 years now and while my clients are all unique with different life goals, a common question that comes up repeatedly is how to best save for retirement, specifically, should you utilize a traditional IRA or 401k plan, otherwise known and the pre-tax options or utilize a Roth IRA or Roth 401k plan or the post-tax options. This question has become increasingly important given that the Roth options have appeared in recent legislative bills, so I thought I would bring on the show a good friend of mine and an expert in helping plan for retirement, Michael Kitces. Michael is the Chief Financial Planning Nerd of Kitces.com, which teaches and trains financial advisors, he’s Head of Planning Strategy for Buckingham Wealth Partners, which provides wealth management to retirees. And Co-Founder of XY Planning Network, a network of 1,500+ fee-only financial planners who provide advice to consumers in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Michael joins me today to help answer the question, to Roth or not to Roth. 

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/episode399

For over 10 years now, I’ve been helping people plan for the life they want to live and frequently, part of my job involves planning for the life events that we hope never happen. It’s a very difficult but essential part of the planning process and at Financial Gym, we’re always looking for the best tools and resources to help our clients with this. Joining me on the show today is Chelsea, founder of Smart Money Mamas to talk about why she left a successful six-figure career at a hedge fund to help people develop a better relationship with money and to talk about how she created the Family Emergency Binder which is a resource at the Gym we love. 

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/episode398

No matter what financial state you start in with us at The Financial Gym, at some point, we like to see all of our clients graduate to investing. To give a Gym analogy to investing, I like to think of investing as taking your money off the sofa and putting it on the treadmill to make it work harder for you. I always say that we work hard for every dollar that we make and when we invest our money, we’re asking our money to work hard for us in return. A common theme that we see with a number of our clients is a desire to invest in companies that are socially impactful, whether it’s the way they manage employees to the way they navigate the environment, there’s a number of ways that companies can be considered impact companies; however, it’s often hard to truly decipher the right companies and the best ways to invest in them. 

So joining me today is Jean Case, CEO of Case Impact Network to share with us why she thinks impact investing makes sense, how you can participate and what her company is doing to make it easier for us to get involved with impact investing.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.martinisandyourmoney.com/show-notes/episode397