So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

How should a person start the conversation concerning a promotion at work? What's the best education fund for my daughter's college savings? If I switch to another credit card with my current credit card company how will it impact my credit score?Answering these questions of yours and more on this week's Ask Farnoosh with special co-host Megan Betterman.For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re going to dig into what actually has people create crime. Not just any crime but financial crime. What is actually behind it... the motivation, the mindset?Our guest, Kelly Richmond Pope, will help bring this to life. She is the genius behind the movie All the Queen’s Horses. It is a true story of Rita Crundwell, one of the national’s leading quarter horse breeders, who was also arrested in 2012. She was the largest municipal fraud perpetrator in the country’s history. She embezzled upwards of $50 million dollars as a comptroller and treasurer of Dixon, Illinois.It’s not $50 or $60 billion, like Bernie Madoff. But $50 million is a lot of money. Plus, we’re talking small town Illinois and about a woman who was trusted. She was a horse breeder. There were no signs that she was going to be stealing your money... but were there?The film has actually won HBO’s best documentary award at the Martha’s Vineyard African-American film festival. Critics are going nuts. They love it.Kelly is not just a filmmaker. She’s also an associate professor in the school of accountancy at MIS at DePaul University in Chicago. There she teaches a lot of different courses around accounting and a course on leadership. She is also a speaker and an author. She’s worked in the forensic practice at KPMG on anti-money laundering engagements, insurance fraud investigations and fraud risk management projects. She is well-versed in the forensic accounting field. She’s also on a ton of forensic accounting seminars around the world for universities, corporations and governments.To learn more visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is Bitcoin? I’ve been getting more pitches about Bitcoin in the last 30 days than I have in last three years. It's one of those things that made me go, “Hmm, maybe we should do an entry-level, 101 discussion around this on the show?” I thought that it would be great to bring on co-founder of Fund3 Jack Finio for this discussion.Fund3 it’s a quantitative hedge fund that uses machine learning to make sense of digital assets and cryptocurrency markets. Jack is totally immersed in this market. He’s going to tell us, what is Bitcoin? Why we should care and what is the future? How is Bitcoin going to revolutionize the way we bank today? We could be on the brink of change. He’s going to talk about what he is experiencing in how Fund3 is part of this market.A little bit more about Jack... he’s a native New Yorker and grew up just steps away from Wall Street. As a result, he was intrigued by finance, investing and entrepreneurship from a very early age. By 17, Jack had won multiple business plan competitions. In college, he studied traditional finance and computer science. He quickly learned that AI and blockchain technology could become extremely disruptive and it was there he saw an opportunity to capitalize on this trend to eventually start Fund3.To learn more visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The podcast makes me rethink my relationship with money, yet I still can't seem to pay off $14,000 worth of credit card debt. What's a good first step?My employer gives 53 cents back for every mile when I commute to and from work using a rideshare service. Should I just fight for a full refund?Answering these questions of yours and more on today's Ask Farnoosh. Have a question of your own you'd like to share? Submit a question by visiting www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony Robbins likes to say that, "The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with." So, let me ask you: how often do you leave your comfort zone? As tough as that can be, our guest today says it is this very practice that often leads to success. I can vouch for that. Getting laid off in 2009 was a very uncomfortable, uncertain time in my life. But I didn't cower. I didn't play the victim and I credit so much of my success today to that unexpected kick in the pants back in the day.But, back to our guest, Andy Molinksy, he's a popular professor at Brandeis University who has delivered a tremendous book on this topic called Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge and Build Confidence. In it he helps people conquer the uncomfortable so they can succeed. This is Andy's second book. His first book, Global Dexterity, was a huge success receiving the Axiom Award for best business book in international business and globalization. Organizations around the world have used this book including the US Air Force Academy and the Clinton Foundation.To learn more visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever wonder how Wall Street works? I mean, really? We see how Wall Street is portrayed in dramatic movies, like Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short, and of course the iconic movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas. Personally, I’m obsessed with the show time show Billions. So, how accurate are these portrayals really? Today we go behind the scenes thanks to our guest and her groundbreaking reporting.Sheelah Kolhatkar is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and has published her first book called Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street. We’re not talking about Bernie Madoff. This book details the story of a billionaire trader Steven A. Cohen, and the rise and fall of his hedge fund SAC Capital. It is the largest inside our trading investigation in history. This is the kicker, Cohen was never charged.We will dive into all of this with Sheelah, as well as her background as a former hedge fund analyst herself. How did that experience bring her to her role today as an investigative business reporter? As I mentioned, she is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she covers Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the economy and national politics. She also writes the magazine’s financial page and is a regular contributor to NPR’s marketplace.To learn more visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Should I stop saving to pay off my student loans or keep saving?Are you supposed to pay off debt after you get your paycheck or pay your necessities first and then see what's left over to pay off the debt?How feasible is it to negotiate or lower any fees associated with a retirement account?Answering these questions of yours and more on today's Ask Farnoosh with Dan Andrews of Well Rounded Success.For more information or to share your own question for an upcoming Ask Farnoosh Friday episode visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special BONUS episode on the heels of my new partnership with Citizens Bank. I normally don’t publish new episodes on Thursdays, but this one couldn’t wait!Earlier this fall, Citizens Investment Services introduced a new digital investment advisory platform called SpeciFi, and they’ve invited me to join them on their campaign to educate people about retirement and the importance of investing for the future.You know I’m all for ways to make investing simple and efficient and we often talk about the value of digital investment platforms on the show…but, call me old–fashioned, I also believe it can be useful to work with real, licensed professionals to help guide our investment planning, and the great news is SpeciFi delivers both of these services in one robust platform.It’s one of the reasons I’m proud to team up with the folks at Citizens and SpeciFi. The other reason is that I’m a New England girl and Citizens, for those of you who may not know, is one of the oldest and largest financial institutions, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, just an hour away from Worcester, MA (my birth town!). Citizens was our neighborhood’s bank growing up, so this is a very cool, full-circle moment for me.Joining me to discuss more about the ways we can all leverage investing for our goals and how SpeciFi can help investors is John Bahnken, President, Citizens Bank Wealth Management. To learn more visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Question: how do you decide what stocks or funds to buy?For me, financial health is key. It’s an important marker, but do we care so much about a company’s social mission, really? What’s under the hood? How do they care about their employees? Are they really making an impact in the world? Are they values-driven?Dave Fanger is dedicated to making what he calls "values-driven" investing more accessible. He's the founder and CEO of Swell Investing. It is an innovative impact investing platform that aims to deliver profit, as well as purpose with six socially responsible investment portfolios. It’s a platform he started while working for his employer who actually helped Dave incubate the idea. This is a great story within a story, right?We dive into the meaning of values-driven investing and how Swell Investing selects investments, but also how to convince our boss to let you incubate your big idea while working at the company. We always say, “Don’t quit your day job.” This is literally working your day job and coming up with your idea and incubating your idea at the day job. Pretty genius.For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is gender equality really possible? Claudia Chan, our So Money guest today, has made it her life's mission to close the gender equality gap and has inked a new book on the topic. It's called This Is How We Rise: Reach Your Highest Potential, Empower Women, Lead Change in the World.She's also the founder and CEO of S.H.E. Global Media and she's a recognized expert on leadership and social entrepreneurship. S.H.E. Global Media just wrapped it's annual S.H.E. Summit. It's an event that aims to help Fortune 1000 companies modernize and accelerate diversity with the goal of achieving gender parity by 2030, which is not that far away. That's pretty ambitious. I hope we get there. To support this, I was on a panel at S.H.E. Summit in New York discussing financial equality and how women can earn more. You can probably guess, I had quite a bit to say.Anyways, Claudia's impetus for launching S.H.E. Global Media actually came after starting a multimillion dollar business. You might have heard of it. It's called Shecky's. It was after achieving tremendous success and still feeling like she wasn't pursuing her life's true calling that she was inspired to do some soul searching. She says step into a new consciousness of what it means to be a woman in today's world. Claudia's book talks about the need to shift to a "me for we" mindset in order to achieve gender equality. “What does that mean?” I ask. And also, How can men be a part of this important revolution?For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.