Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they have for the rest of us. So today,
Speaker 2: I am delighted to welcome Farnush to Robbie to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: Farnush is a personal.
Speaker 2: Finance expert, host of the So Money podcast, author of
Speaker 2: many books, including A Healthy State of Panic and psych
Speaker 2: Yourself Rich.
Speaker 1: So Farnush, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, It's so great to be here and reconnect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you again. Why don't
Speaker 2: you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3: Well, I am.
Speaker 4: For twenty over twenty years, I've been working as a
Speaker 4: financial journalist and content creator educator. I started as a journalist,
Speaker 4: but really the work has expanded to all sorts of
Speaker 4: care communication around financial literacy. I have a podcast as well,
Speaker 4: I've written books, I speak, and I'm also a wife
Speaker 4: and a mom.
Speaker 3: I I you know, I'm not doing it all, but
Speaker 3: not all the time.
Speaker 4: But you know, over the years, it's accumulated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how old are your kids now?
Speaker 4: They are eight and eleven?
Speaker 1: Gotcha, boy, girl boy.
Speaker 2: And we are recording this in January, where those of
Speaker 2: us on the East Coast are.
Speaker 1: Preparing for a giant snowstorm. Apparently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just got back from the grocery store.
Speaker 3: I thought I was ahead of it. I was like
Speaker 3: everybody else.
Speaker 1: Everyone's there, everyone's there.
Speaker 3: I got there before all the water and meat was gone, though.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although it's slightly in today.
Speaker 2: I mean, if your kids will have virtual school the
Speaker 2: Monday or whatever, it's it's gotten a little easier as
Speaker 2: they get older, right, well.
Speaker 4: It's gotten in some ways easier, but you know, I
Speaker 4: miss the days where they together would play well together.
Speaker 4: They are getting more on each other's nerves, so the
Speaker 4: yelling and the screaming has intensified when they're all under
Speaker 4: one roof. And so we also need to go to
Speaker 4: the wine store before the blizzard arrives.
Speaker 2: That's on art, getting salt, gas in the car and
Speaker 2: wine for you know that when that inevitable need arise.
Speaker 2: So how did you wind up in the personal finance business?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Well, I studied finance at Penn State.
Speaker 4: That was my degree. That was my intention, was to
Speaker 4: go in and be a finance person, working in a
Speaker 4: finance department or a Wall Street maybe even. But pretty
Speaker 4: quickly into that degree studying at Penn State, I realized,
Speaker 4: you know, well, I like the idea of this, I
Speaker 4: like the stories behind this. I like studying companies and
Speaker 4: corporate structure. I love storytelling. I've always loved storytelling. I've
Speaker 4: always been drawn to journalism and being on a stage
Speaker 4: even and like the creative side of work and life.
Speaker 4: And I thought, is there a away for me to
Speaker 4: not abandon this? You know, I want to use what
Speaker 4: I've invested so far and finish the degree, but maybe
Speaker 4: do a pivot that isn't such a hard right, And
Speaker 4: I realized, you know, it was around two thousand and two,
Speaker 4: and we had a lot of scandal in the financial world.
Speaker 4: Wall Street was becoming main street news. We had a
Speaker 4: lot of white collar crime, and I don't know, I
Speaker 4: just felt like CNBC was becoming a thing, and I
Speaker 4: felt like there was a market now for financial journalism
Speaker 4: more than ever before. So I thought, maybe there's a
Speaker 4: way to combine what I'm already studying at Penn State
Speaker 4: with journalism. So right after Penn State, I entered into
Speaker 4: the Columbia's a journalism program for graduate school and really
Speaker 4: just hit the ground from there. There were a lot
Speaker 4: of people like me at the time who were consciously
Speaker 4: trying to do this at least and so that I
Speaker 4: will I will say that contributed a lot to my
Speaker 4: early success, just kind of like knowing what you want
Speaker 4: to to do early on, didn't know if it was
Speaker 4: going to stick, but I ended up loving it. And
Speaker 4: even within the personal even within like the whole financial
Speaker 4: reporting world, finding a niche within that was important, and
Speaker 4: for me it was personal finance. It wasn't so much
Speaker 4: following the crooks in the business world. That was definitely
Speaker 4: someone else's job, but not for me. It was like
Speaker 4: just trying to help people with their money, trying to
Speaker 4: help people dissect their retirement plans, and especially young people
Speaker 4: and women, because I felt like that was a very
Speaker 4: underserved market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you've done a lot of different iterations
Speaker 2: of that. I mean, you've you know, done TV, you've
Speaker 2: done print, You've done all sorts of different things for that,
Speaker 2: and so you've seen a lot of different people's lives
Speaker 2: I'm curious, what is a money goal you would like
Speaker 2: to see more people set.
Speaker 4: I would love to see more people believe that they
Speaker 4: can be wealthy. I know that so many of us
Speaker 4: are just trying to get to zero, and that's understandable.
Speaker 4: We have a an incredibly huge debt crisis in our country,
Speaker 4: led by student loans and of course credit cards, and
Speaker 4: just the idea of getting to a day where you
Speaker 4: don't have debt is the dream come true for so
Speaker 4: many of us, and I really want us to push
Speaker 4: that goal further, especially again for women. I think that
Speaker 4: we've often been sold this narrative of like complacency right,
Speaker 4: and also to have someone else take care of our
Speaker 4: financial life for us, and I want us to be
Speaker 4: more aspirational in our financial lives. And if that means,
Speaker 4: you know, making more money, clearing our debt and then
Speaker 4: making more money, I want that for everybody. I want
Speaker 4: more people to feel more empowered around their finances, to
Speaker 4: feel more in control around their finances, and also to
Speaker 4: just be more curious about it too, to ask the questions.
Speaker 4: Money is still such a taboo topic and it keeps
Speaker 4: us from keeps us from playing big, and that's that's
Speaker 4: what I want. That's what I want for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and especially to talk about this with women, I
Speaker 2: feel like a lot of the literature and stuff aimed
Speaker 2: at women is more focused on the frugality part of it,
Speaker 2: like don't waste your money on expensive handbags or something
Speaker 2: like that or whatever for stereotypically buying, but not so
Speaker 2: much about like, you know, you have a life you want,
Speaker 2: here's what you need to do to make sure that
Speaker 2: you can produce this life that you want for you
Speaker 2: and your family exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I remember leaving college and even for me, someone again
Speaker 4: who studied finance and was raised to really feel independent
Speaker 4: and want that independence, early on, I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: you know, when will my life start? And I realized
Speaker 4: it's like now. And I don't know if it was
Speaker 4: a it was me being a woman or what, but
Speaker 4: I do I sense it in my female friends in
Speaker 4: my twenties, where we almost felt like our lives couldn't
Speaker 4: really start until we met someone, you know, and maybe
Speaker 4: it was like the guy who would come and like
Speaker 4: support us and would have the bigger salary and then
Speaker 4: our dreams would come true and then we could finally
Speaker 4: buy the house and then we could finally have the kids.
Speaker 4: And I want to tell women like, you know, your
Speaker 4: life starts now and you're in charge, and it's you're
Speaker 4: driving the ship, and the earlier that you can start
Speaker 4: to figure out how to support yourself and invest in
Speaker 4: your future. Look, you know, your prince charming or your
Speaker 4: Princess charming may come still and that's great, Like have
Speaker 4: that also be a goal, but not to be the
Speaker 4: only goal. And sometimes we just wait for that and
Speaker 4: at the expense of losing out on our independence and
Speaker 4: our financial future.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, well, we're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 2: and then I will be back with more from Varnish
Speaker 2: to Rabi. Well, I am back talking with Furnish to
Speaker 2: Rabbi was a personal finance expert host of these So
Speaker 2: Money podcast So interestingly, you know you've, I said, you've
Speaker 2: went through all these different iterations in your career, the
Speaker 2: different kinds of personal finance journalism.
Speaker 1: We've done with it, you know, making a brand for yourself.
Speaker 2: And I saw that one of the things you do
Speaker 2: in addition to personal finance work is coaching people on
Speaker 2: personal branding. I wonder if you could talk a little
Speaker 2: bit on that. Is there something you wish you had known,
Speaker 2: like when you were starting out about building the brand
Speaker 2: that is Furnishe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that I felt like someone had to
Speaker 4: give me permission to put myself out there and believe
Speaker 4: in myself. Like I gosh, I always felt like I
Speaker 4: had to and I, you know, arm myself with more credentials.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a moment in my career, despite
Speaker 4: the fact that I had been doing what I was
Speaker 4: doing for a decade and I had all this experience
Speaker 4: helping people, all these I had books, I was like,
Speaker 4: maybe I should get a license in financial planning because
Speaker 4: then people will take me seriously. And sure, maybe that
Speaker 4: is something credible to do, but that's a whole different
Speaker 4: career path. But for some reason, I thought like I
Speaker 4: need this because otherwise I'm going to miss out on
Speaker 4: more speaking opportunities and people won't take me seriously. And
Speaker 4: I still hear this from especially women who are educated experience,
Speaker 4: They have clients, and they are worried that they're not
Speaker 4: going to get press or the media won't care about
Speaker 4: their story or won't want to feature them as experts
Speaker 4: because they don't have say, ten thousand followers on Instagram,
Speaker 4: or they don't have already a huge track record in
Speaker 4: the press, and so we're always like getting in our way.
Speaker 4: We're always finding excuses for why we're not that special,
Speaker 4: and I'm here to say, like, you have it, you know.
Speaker 4: It's like we it goes back to what Cheryl Sandberg
Speaker 4: said and lean in. Like when men apply for a job,
Speaker 4: if they can qualify for about thirty percent of the
Speaker 4: of the bulleted requirements for the job, they're going to
Speaker 4: apply For women, it's like I need to have all
Speaker 4: of the I need to qualify for everything before I
Speaker 4: will put myself in for possible, you know, before I apply.
Speaker 4: So I see that in the entrepreneurial world as well,
Speaker 4: where we are our biggest enemies, sometimes we are our
Speaker 4: biggest critics.
Speaker 3: And why, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just the imposter syndrome, which I know is
Speaker 4: also like a fabricated thing too, But I read up
Speaker 4: against that and I still see that now in my
Speaker 4: clients and I'm just here to tell them, like, you
Speaker 4: have what it takes. And if you want evidence of that,
Speaker 4: look at the people who are being featured online. You know,
Speaker 4: if you're looking for exposure and press, and that's what
Speaker 4: I often help them with is like getting out there
Speaker 4: more right, getting more eyebos on their work.
Speaker 2: I mean practically, like I was saying, Okay, well I
Speaker 2: have this expertise and I want to put myself out there.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Like you should be just reaching out constantly, like thinking
Speaker 2: about you know, story angles, like what would you recommend?
Speaker 3: First?
Speaker 4: It's about a couple of things. One is what is
Speaker 4: your expertise? What do you want to help people with?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And what are the three to five things big ideas
Speaker 4: that you have, the counterculture ideas maybe that you have,
Speaker 4: or maybe you see something in the news and you're like,
Speaker 4: I want to have a I want to share an
Speaker 4: opinion about that and root it in my expertise. But
Speaker 4: also who's your audience, because you don't want to be
Speaker 4: pitching everywhere, Right, There's probably like three to five outlets
Speaker 4: that make the most sense for you. Sometimes it is
Speaker 4: general news, but sometimes it's a very niche outlet, publication,
Speaker 4: a trade magazine. So it's doing a lot of that
Speaker 4: homework first to kind of understand where your audience is
Speaker 4: hanging out and what is your goal for this press?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Is it just to get out there, to get out
Speaker 4: there and get those you know, those press labels on
Speaker 4: your website, which is definitely fine. Like in the beginning,
Speaker 4: that helps to boost your credibility, but after that, what's
Speaker 4: the goal, right, Is it to have people find you
Speaker 4: and have those people ultimately come work with you? Is
Speaker 4: it to promote your book, is it to promote your workshop?
Speaker 4: Whatever it is. So maybe that it's catering what you're
Speaker 4: putting out there to that so that it aligns with
Speaker 4: what product you're selling or service you're selling. So that's
Speaker 4: kind of the the algorithm, so to speak. And then
Speaker 4: the pitch, right, it's figuring out who is behind that
Speaker 4: media outlet on the receiving end, and then creating an
Speaker 4: authentic relationship first with that person. I don't often say
Speaker 4: like cold pitches are fine, they work, But if you
Speaker 4: can find a way to first make a connection with
Speaker 4: this person that has nothing to do with selling anything
Speaker 4: to them, I find that that's always playing the long
Speaker 4: game in other words, is always a great strategy. But
Speaker 4: of course, if you have something immediate on your to
Speaker 4: do list, like you have a book that you want
Speaker 4: to see you know, you're selling, I get that, but
Speaker 4: I find that building those bridges really do pay off.
Speaker 4: And these days everybody's online, right journalists online. The other
Speaker 4: way you could do it is just write your own articles.
Speaker 4: A lot of places take contributor pieces, so that's another
Speaker 4: thing that I coach people on how to do that,
Speaker 4: how to write for those publications and get them in
Speaker 4: the right hands.
Speaker 1: Absolutely sounds good. Well, what does a day tend to
Speaker 1: look like for you right now?
Speaker 2: As you're managing you know, your many parts of your business,
Speaker 2: your different hats you're wearing.
Speaker 4: Well, lately it's a lot of staying local to my
Speaker 4: neighborhood here in Montclair, New Jersey. I used to travel
Speaker 4: to New York more often. I used to live in
Speaker 4: New York City, but during COVID we moved to the suburbs,
Speaker 4: about fifteen miles outside of the city. This is a
Speaker 4: big commuter town. But I started a local podcast about
Speaker 4: my town. So that, in addition to the personal finance
Speaker 4: work has taken over a lot of my sort of
Speaker 4: business career time, and so I'm really tethered to, you know,
Speaker 4: being here. I've become suddenly like a local journalist again.
Speaker 4: My day is pretty much, you know, mornings is doing
Speaker 4: the school rush, you know, getting my kids off to
Speaker 4: the bus and that starts around six thirty am. We
Speaker 4: live in a magnet school district, so we have six
Speaker 4: seven elementary schools. We don't have like a neighborhood school
Speaker 4: that we go to, so my kids get on the
Speaker 4: very early bus to go, you know, to the school uptown.
Speaker 4: And then after that it's usually getting a workout in
Speaker 4: and then it's starting work and then work, work, work, work,
Speaker 4: work until probably four thirty five, with some breaks to eat,
Speaker 4: maybe get a stretch in meetings, sometimes going in and
Speaker 4: out of the house. You're working from home, right, so
Speaker 4: it's like putting in a load of laundry, putting in
Speaker 4: a load of dishes. I'm a neat freak, so I'm
Speaker 4: constantly tidying up. It's a problem, probably takes a lot
Speaker 4: of time out of my day. I can't help it. But
Speaker 4: also I feel like it makes me more focused, and
Speaker 4: I need those resets. I need, like to constantly reset.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty good at powering through work, but I do
Speaker 4: need those quick little resets, whether it's getting up and
Speaker 4: getting a drink of water, getting up and just putting
Speaker 4: in a load of you know, the dishes, and then
Speaker 4: coming back and then powering through another hour of work.
Speaker 4: So I know that about me. And then once my
Speaker 4: son comes home from school around two thirty, he's pretty
Speaker 4: self sufficient. He's eleven, he does his homework. He knows
Speaker 4: not to bother me, but I won't lie. Like dinners,
Speaker 4: we like to have a family dinner, but not always
Speaker 4: do I make it. I think probably I get about
Speaker 4: forty to fifty percent of the week is a home
Speaker 4: cooked meal, and buy home cooked, don't. I'm not fancy
Speaker 4: about it. It's usually like three or five ingredients, and
Speaker 4: the other days we're ordering. And that is just because
Speaker 4: neither one of us really enjoys cooking and it's convenient.
Speaker 4: So you know, I'm not proud of that, but that's
Speaker 4: just how it's working out right now. And that's my weekday.
Speaker 4: I mean, sometimes I go into the city, but seldom
Speaker 4: really I try to. And when I do go into
Speaker 4: the city, it's like I want to stack the day,
Speaker 4: try to really get in, make it productive, get in,
Speaker 4: get a haircut in, get a media hit, in a meeting,
Speaker 4: and be back before dinner. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd love to hear that a personal finance expert
Speaker 2: is okay with ordering dinner.
Speaker 1: If that's the thing that makes life for me.
Speaker 4: You bridget for it. It's you know, and we also,
Speaker 4: you know, we what we really want to try to
Speaker 4: do is have the family dinners, you know, and if
Speaker 4: that means we have to order in, because that's the
Speaker 4: quickest thing to do to be able to have that
Speaker 4: family dinner, because then at six o'clock, my daughter has
Speaker 4: to go to basketball. And if that, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: really it's about priorities. Right In the long run, I
Speaker 4: think I'm going to be less upset about the fact
Speaker 4: that I maybe overspent a little bit on eating out,
Speaker 4: and I'll be more happy that we got to eat together.
Speaker 1: I believe it.
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, we're gonna take one more quick ad break,
Speaker 2: then I'll be back with more from Furnish to Rubbie. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Fernush to Robbie, who is
Speaker 2: a personal finance expert host of the so many podcasts
Speaker 2: plus a local one about Montclair, New Jersey.
Speaker 3: What's the name of that one, The Montclair Pod?
Speaker 1: The Montclair Pod.
Speaker 2: Okay, So for my listeners who are interested living in Montclair,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, or who are otherwise drawn, c're curious Mount
Speaker 2: Claire curious, you can listen to that. So you've been
Speaker 2: talking a little bit about things that make you more productive,
Speaker 2: like taking little breaks during the day. I'm curious if
Speaker 2: there are any other strategies you use to make yourself
Speaker 2: more productive.
Speaker 4: Well, I have been picking up the phone and calling
Speaker 4: instead of text and email, and you know sometimes when
Speaker 4: you're For example, I have a co host on the
Speaker 4: Montclair Pod, Michael. We've known each other for twenty five years.
Speaker 4: We share a brain at this point. He lives in town,
Speaker 4: and it's partly why this podcast has been so successful.
Speaker 3: Lease gen X.
Speaker 4: I am right on the cusp, and I find that
Speaker 4: the gen xers love to talk on the phone. He
Speaker 4: will call, and it's a little it's gotten a little
Speaker 4: taking use getting used to for me because I've been
Speaker 4: a big Texter. He will call, he will FaceTime sometimes
Speaker 4: in call and it's very like put off, putting sometimes
Speaker 4: because if you're not used to it, and but it's
Speaker 4: it's actually been really good because a phone call you
Speaker 4: can get so much done in fifteen minutes. Then trying
Speaker 4: to like explain something over eighty texts and then you know,
Speaker 4: it's also distracting if you're trying to manage dinner time
Speaker 4: with your family. So it's just like taking that ten
Speaker 4: minutes to have the phone call. And it's just easier
Speaker 4: multitasking too. You can put it on audio. So that
Speaker 4: analogue hack has been actually a great productivity thing for me,
Speaker 4: and I really thank my gen X friend for incorporating
Speaker 4: that into my workflow.
Speaker 2: For reminding you that you can in fact use your
Speaker 2: phone as a phone. Yes, yes, I know, it's crazy,
Speaker 2: crazy enough. What does your planning process look.
Speaker 3: Like my planning process, Well, we have my husband.
Speaker 4: I have a shared Google calendar, and I have multiple
Speaker 4: calendars within the calendar. So there's my work calendar, but
Speaker 4: even within my work calendar, I break it out to
Speaker 4: my podcast calendar. There's a personal calendar for me. It's
Speaker 4: all color coded. There's the Montclair pod calendar, there's the
Speaker 4: share calendar with my husband. I share a calendar with
Speaker 4: my work husband, Michael, and so I know what he's
Speaker 4: up to. And that's kind of how I stay aware
Speaker 4: of everyone's whereabouts, including my own. And when everyone says
Speaker 4: how do you book so many guests on your podcast?
Speaker 4: I have two guests per week. Do you have a booker?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How does it work?
Speaker 4: I say, I have a scheduling link. I send this out.
Speaker 4: People choose their own dates, but I block dates on
Speaker 4: that scheduling calendar so that I give myself, you know,
Speaker 4: basically peace during the week. So I'm not doing podcasts
Speaker 4: at all times. So the podcasts are sort of reserved
Speaker 4: for certain days of the week and even just certain
Speaker 4: blocks during the day.
Speaker 3: So I try to budget.
Speaker 4: The different things that I'm doing during the week, and
Speaker 4: I try to do nothing on Fridays. I really try
Speaker 4: to have not that I'm doing nothing on Fridays, I
Speaker 4: should say, I take that back. No calls on Fridays,
Speaker 4: no big meetings on Fridays that keeps me at my desk.
Speaker 4: I will go out and have meetings. I might have
Speaker 4: coffee with a friend on Fridays. I like to use
Speaker 4: Fridays and really starting on Thursdays, Thursdays and Fridays to
Speaker 4: go out of the house and see people in person locally,
Speaker 4: because Monday through Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Is a real mad dash.
Speaker 4: We publish the Montclair Pod on Thursdays, so it's a
Speaker 4: lot of work tethered to my desk Monday to Wednesday,
Speaker 4: and then Thursday Friday, I like to just kind of
Speaker 4: get out and get some fresh air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and actually see Montclair. Yeah, precisely.
Speaker 2: So what is something you have done recently to take
Speaker 2: a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really proud of this.
Speaker 4: I on a Sunday, my best friend was in town
Speaker 4: from Philadelphia. She was in New York, actually not even
Speaker 4: in Montclair. And you know, I already said I don't
Speaker 4: love going into New York unless.
Speaker 2: I have to.
Speaker 4: And she was in town and she said, do you
Speaker 4: want to hang out today? And it was a Sunday,
Speaker 4: and you know, my kids are a lot Sundays are busy,
Speaker 4: and I said sure, And my husband's great, he's not
Speaker 4: gonna but even still, you know, I think as a
Speaker 4: parent with growing kids, you do feel like it's a
Speaker 4: lot like to take to take yourself away from that life.
Speaker 4: And then but I was so happy to do it.
Speaker 4: I just I took I didn't even go on a train.
Speaker 4: I drove, which is unlike me. I always like to
Speaker 4: take the train. But I was like, I'm just going
Speaker 4: to drive. I'm going to drive into the city. And
Speaker 4: then I realized, actually, how easy this is. I should
Speaker 4: do this more often. I saw her, I got parking
Speaker 4: on the street. I felt like I'd won the lottery,
Speaker 4: and then I went and we just did a little
Speaker 4: you know, window shopping. We had a nice lunch, be
Speaker 4: caught up, and it's just a reminder, especially in midlife,
Speaker 4: how important your relationships are, outside of your family, your friendships.
Speaker 4: My friend and I, Kate, we've been friends since the
Speaker 4: first day of college, and.
Speaker 3: I need that, she needs that. We all need that.
Speaker 4: And it would have been such a shame if I
Speaker 4: had said no, and I could have easily said no
Speaker 4: and she would have understood. I think we all kind
Speaker 4: of understand how life can get at this stage. But
Speaker 4: I was so happy that I did. And of course
Speaker 4: I came home to a little bit of a mess,
Speaker 4: but that's okay. You just spend They will survive, Everyone
Speaker 4: will survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean I was terrified of driving into
Speaker 2: New York for ages, and then I did and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah, people do this all the time
Speaker 2: and they're not better drivers than I am.
Speaker 4: So no, it was actually, you know, Sundays can be
Speaker 4: hit or miss going into the city. There can be
Speaker 4: during specially.
Speaker 3: During great or something exactly.
Speaker 4: We've gotten stuck in so much traffic. I do have
Speaker 4: some PTSD driving into the city on weekends. But I
Speaker 4: checked the traffic. Nothing seemed to be going on, and
Speaker 4: like I said, I got free parking on the street.
Speaker 4: It was unprecedented good as you can get with stuff
Speaker 4: like that. Yeah, it does take a day from great
Speaker 4: to awesome when you're parking is free, so furnish.
Speaker 1: What are you looking forward to, Well.
Speaker 4: I'm really looking forward to making local news great again.
Speaker 4: And you know, you read about so many local papers
Speaker 4: shuttering and just media in general is having a really
Speaker 4: rough road. And I started my career actually in local news.
Speaker 4: We don't even really talk about that, but even with
Speaker 4: the financial news path that I've been on, I started
Speaker 4: doing that locally. I worked at New York one News
Speaker 4: as a business news producer, talking about the local economy
Speaker 4: and small businesses. And I've done a kind of a
Speaker 4: full circle now and now I cover everything. I cover
Speaker 4: education and restaurants and all that. But I really love
Speaker 4: doing it through a podcast. I think it's people are listening,
Speaker 4: people are engaged again. It's really a validating, a validating exercise.
Speaker 4: And we won an award last year for like one
Speaker 4: of the best local podcasts in the country, and so
Speaker 4: we're just hoping to build on that momentum, and I
Speaker 4: don't think I can. We're nowhere near abandoning the personal
Speaker 4: finance business that I've built, But I do think I'm
Speaker 4: building something where in ten years, I can, you know,
Speaker 4: step into this, perhaps full time, and maybe even have
Speaker 4: it be a legacy business. It's not about me, this
Speaker 4: Montclair Pod. It's really about giving back to the community.
Speaker 4: My daughters eight, and she said, will this still be
Speaker 4: around when I'm in high school? Because she's into it.
Speaker 4: She wants to contribute. And I'm excited for that. You
Speaker 4: didn't ask about. You asked about probably this year what
Speaker 4: I'm excited about. But I'm excited about this being something
Speaker 4: that my kids can participate in. I don't think they
Speaker 4: want to take over the So Money Podcast, but I
Speaker 4: think they'd be into the Montclair Pod.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent furnish. Where can people find you?
Speaker 4: You can find me on the so Many Podcasts, so
Speaker 4: Many Podcasts dot Com three days a week and as
Speaker 4: well if you are in the Essex County area in Jersey,
Speaker 4: the Montclair Pod. We actually have a majority of our
Speaker 4: audience outside of Montclair.
Speaker 2: People who list I still want to know where ye are,
Speaker 2: Like Montclair is doing, We think there's a.
Speaker 4: Park slopers in Brooklyn who are often the ones moving
Speaker 4: here and they want to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly awesome, Well, Furnish, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you
Speaker 2: have feedback on this or any other episode, you can
Speaker 2: always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 2: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 2: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 2: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.