On Wallet Activism - Using Our Money for Change: An Interview with Tanja Hester
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Release Date: 04/08/2022
Financial Enabling vs Financial Generosity: An Interview with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
In this episode, I bring back financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin. Lindsay is a biracial financial wellness expert, speaker, and author of the book "The Financial Anxiety Solution”. Lindsay uses a shame-free approach to help people get their minds and money in balance by focusing on the intersection of money and mental health using financial therapy. We dig deep into when do we help people and when do we harm them by giving money, how to know if we are being taken advantage of and what to consider before giving someone money. “Being an enabler prevents the person from...
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On Divorce and Bankruptcy + How to Get Control Over Your Physical, Mental, and Financial Health: An Interview with Kyle Nichol
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Kyle Nichol has experienced divorce, bankruptcy, severe mental illness, and depression. In this episode, Kyle talks about his stories and how he started over. He also shares tips from his new book “Mind Body and Money” on how to manage physical, mental, and financial health. “The one thing that people can really use more of is just control. Control over everything in their life; their thoughts, their emotions, their money.” - Kyle Nichol “The bankruptcy was a blessing and a curse at the same time. It was a wake-up call. It was scary but it also got me super, super focused.” -...
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On Divorce and Bankruptcy + How to Get Control Over Your Physical, Mental, and Financial Health: An Interview with Kyle Nichol
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Kyle Nichol has experienced divorce, bankruptcy, severe mental illness, and depression. In this episode, Kyle talks about his stories and how he started over. He also shares tips from his new book “Mind Body and Money” on how to manage physical, mental, and financial health. “The one thing that people can really use more of is just control. Control over everything in their life; their thoughts, their emotions, their money.” - Kyle Nichol “The bankruptcy was a blessing and a curse at the same time. It was a wake-up call. It was scary but it also got me super, super focused.” -...
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Connecting Money to the 8 Dimensions of Wellness to Achieve a Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier Life: An Interview with Jason Vitug
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
In today’s episode, I’m bringing back my friend Jason Vitug who is a wellness advocate and best-selling author of two books, ‘Happy Money, Happy Life’ and ‘You Only Live Once’. He's the founder of phroogal.com and is an award-winning creator of the Road to Financial Wellness Project. He is also a certified diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, a certified yoga teacher, and a breathwork specialist. We talk about how money can affect your happiness, the dimensions of wellness that relate to money, and how to achieve a happier life. “When we can use money as a tool, we can then...
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How to Mentally and Financially Prepare to Take a Gap Year and Have an Adventure with Your Family: An Interview with Heidi Dusek
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
What would it look like to take a gap year and travel with your family? Find out in this episode as I chat with Heidi Dusek. Heidi is known as the “Adventurous Mom” and the podcast host and founder of Ordinary Sherpa, an online community designed to inspire families to connect through simple and authentic adventure experiences. You will hear her story of family adventure, how they prepared financially and mentally, and how she faces winding down her career in order to have a gap year. “I decided to, instead of having these external goals as metrics on what success looks like, I decided...
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On Post-Traumatic Growth, Psychedelics, Overcoming Depression and Achieving a Healthy Money Mindset: An Interview with Benoit Kim
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Benoit Kim is a US army veteran, Penn-educated former policymaker turned psychotherapist, and host of the Discover More Podcast. In this episode, he shares how he got his depression, his coping mechanism to overcome it, and how it led him to shift into a different career. We also talk about the phenomenon called post-traumatic growth (which is on the other side of PTSD), psychedelics, and what it looks like to have a healthy money mindset. “The famous mental health adage states that the opposite of depression is expression, what you don't express gets depressed. And of course, it's a general...
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The Mental Health and Wealth Show
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Why We’re Seeing a Drop in the Financial Health of American Households and How We Can Improve It: An Interview with Angela Fontes
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
What is the difference between surviving and thriving? It’s all a matter of financial health. In today’s episode, I chat with Angela Fontes of the Financial Health Network about their Financial Health Pulse report. Find out how income, race, gender, and more all impact financial health and what we can do to improve our financial health. "I think we want to sort of think about financial health as both an individual responsibility and certainly as part of a macro-environment." - Angela Fontes "So many different identities are getting left out of the conversation and it’s like...
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How to Pay Off Your Debt By Getting the Help You Need: An Interview with Tasha Bishop of Apprisen
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Are you struggling with debt? Do you feel depressed and anxious wondering how you can get support? Today's episode is brought to you in partnership with Apprisen, an organization that helps people with their finances and credit. I chat with Tasha Bishop, the Director of Digital Innovation at Apprisen on why debt causes so much shame and guilt, when you should reach out for help, what your options are, the difference between a non-profit debt management plan and a for-profit debt settlement, and how to use credit in a smart way. "The more that you open up and the more you share these, the...
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How to Get the Most Out of Life with Money, Purpose, Connection: An Interview with Doc G aka Jordan Grumet
The Mental Health and Wealth Show
Money can't buy everything. It can't buy you the most important stuff like love, health, and family. In this episode, learn how to have a rich and purposeful life regardless of money as I chat with Doc G aka Jordan Grumet about his new book on money and life advice as a hospice doctor. Jordan is a financial expert, host of the Earn & Invest podcast, author, and currently an associate medical director at Journeycare Hospice. "When I've sat with the dying, almost never do they say, I regret that I only ended up with a networth of $500,000 and I really wanted to hit that million mark. No one...
info_outlineYour money is a tool to support the people and the causes that you care about. In this episode, I talk with Tanja Hester about becoming a wallet activist. Tanja Hester is the author of the award-winning book Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change. She is also, as The New York Times called her, “the matriarch of the women’s FIRE movement.” Listen and learn how to find out what your values are, spend on what matters, and raise your consciousness around how things are made and the impact our purchases have on the environment and other people.
“Wallet activism is using your financial power and all its forms for the greater good or the collective good.” - Tanja Hester
What You Will Learn From This Episode
- What is wallet activism and how it can help us spend our money appropriately
- How can we find out what our values are and how to not get paralyzed when making decisions that align with our values
- What are ‘externalities’, why it’s important to recognize them, how it can help us, and what to consider when shopping for deals
- Why Starbucks, notebooks, and the dollar store can be problematic
- How we can be aware when a company is using ‘greenwashing’ as a marketing tactic
- What white people should consider before buying certain food or living in a certain area that can impact indigenous people or people of color
- All about ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) investing
- Do you need money to be a conscious and empowered consumer; what you can do if you don't have much financial resources
About Tanja Hester:
Tanja Hester is the author of the award-winning books Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change and Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way. After spending most of her career as a consultant to Democratic politics and progressive issue campaigns, and before that as a public radio journalist, Tanja retired early at the age of thirty-eight. She documented the process on her financial independence/retire early (FIRE) blog, Our Next Life.
She’s been an outspoken voice in the personal finance media community to consider systemic barriers and opportunity gaps, rather than simply pushing people with lots of advantages already to accumulate more wealth, part of why The New York Times called her “the matriarch of the women’s FIRE movement.” She hosts a podcast also called Wallet Activism, writes an occasional opinion column for MarketWatch, and lives in a burgeoning permaculture food forest she’s growing in North Lake Tahoe, California, with her husband, Mark Bunge, and a flock of tiny rescue dogs. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @our_nextlife and visit her blog at OurNextLife.com
Resources:
- Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change by Tanja Hester
Connect with Tanja
Connect with Melanie
- mentalhealthandwealth.com
- melanielockert.com
- Support the podcast through Ko-Fi
- Buy Melanie’s book “Dear Debt”
- Contact: [email protected]
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