For The Hayters: The Stories We Survive

The Keeper of Secrets: A Marriage Built and Nearly Lost on Hidden Bills

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses financial trauma, debt, foreclosure and eviction, childhood dysfunction, the death of a family member, substance use, and a dark p

A Parent Worth Mourning: Justine on Abuse, Surrogacy Loss, and Choosing Herself

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, alcoholism, a disclosure that wasn't believed, pregnancy loss, surrogacy, and estrangement

Wallet Therapy: Credit Cards - Are You Using Them, or Are They Using You?

Credit cards are the topic where everyone has an extreme opinion. Either they're a free travel hack or they're evil and you should cut them all up. Alex's take is neither

A Mother, Two Suicide Attempts, and the Marriage That Came After | The Beautiful Disaster

TW: This episode discusses suicide attempts and methods, self-harm, domestic violence and strangulation, psychiatric hospitalization, postpartum depression, and the death

Three Pieces of Salt: A Grandmother’s Fight for Skylar and Gage

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses child death, fentanyl poisoning, overdose, CPR, and suicide in detail. Listener discretion is advised. On a snow day in January o

Wallet Therapy: The Bank Said Yes. Should You?

I had to pull cash out of my savings this week to pay for a patio, because apparently some people still only take cash in the year of our lord. So I am feeling some feeli

32-Year-Old Mom Faces Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

TW: cancer, medical trauma, death of a loved one, grief, body image. At 32, Jess found a lump adjusting a bra she'd bought herself for Christmas. What followed was a year

Hydrocephalus, Brain Surgery, and Building an Ordinary Life Anyway

Val was diagnosed with hydrocephalus before she was born, and the doctors gave her mom a number and a recommendation. She's 27 now, married, teaching special education, f

Wallet Therapy: How Do I Prioritize My Money?

Today’s episode is a little different because Becky is away on her podcast tour, so Alex is flying solo and answering your money questions. From $18,000 in credit card d

Eleven Years Between a Prescription and a Backyard | Lauren's Story

TW: opioid addiction, drug poisoning and overdose, suicide loss, incarceration, newborn withdrawal, loss of custody. Lauren was 16 when a doctor handed her a prescriptio

Three Losses, Endometriosis, and Choosing a Hysterectomy at 28

TW: pregnancy loss, infant loss, medical trauma and dismissal, hysterectomy, immigration enforcement and community fear. Yari became a mom at 19 and spent the next decad

Wallet Therapy: Investing Isn't an Exclusive Club

For the longest time I thought investing was a members only club and nobody sent me the invite. People would say things like index fund and expense ratio and diversificat

A Small-Town Social Worker, Court, Addiction at Home, and the Year Her Word Was Survive

TW: This episode discusses secondary trauma, child abuse and neglect, substance use and addiction, overdose loss, suicidal ideation, stalking, and a mention of gun violen

The And of It All | Grief, Recovery, and Refusing to Stop

TW: This episode discusses opiate addiction, stillbirth, miscarriage, and infant loss. Katie loved her husband through seven years of active addiction, then lost her dau

Wallet Therapy: Free Money for Your Kid? The Trump Account, Explained

Everyone is talking about the Trump accounts, and honestly, the information out there is all over the place. One video says every kid gets $1,000. Another says run, don't

A Vacuum Delivery: How One Birth Rewrote Every Birth After

TW: birth trauma, medical procedures performed without consent, infant medical emergency, NICU. At 21, Angelina walked into her first birth expecting it to look like th

The Quiet War: Tim on the Fight That Started When the Bullets Stopped

TW: PTSD, suicidal ideation, self-harm, alcohol use, and war. Tim was told he was stupid before he was old enough to argue, and spent the next thirty years proving he c

Wallet Therapy: Would You Rather: The Money Edition

We got Alex and me in the same room for once, in New Jersey for Bex's birthday, and instead of yip-yapping about numbers and the hard stuff, we decided to play a game. Wo

Not My Baby: A Surrogate on the Pregnancy She Couldn't Control

TW: pregnancy loss, medical trauma, premature birth, surrogacy complications. Sara drove six and a half hours to tell me what surrogacy actually took from her, and it w

Waiting to Be Chosen: Kail's Part 2

TW: domestic violence, suicidal ideation, child neglect, miscarriage, addiction. In Part 2, Kail tells me about the dad she built into a knight in her head, the night i