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What is Money with Katie behind the scenes really like? We compiled all your submitted questions from Instagram, and Katie and Henah share the inside scoop on everything from revenue and sponsorships, to how they pick and write episodes.

Welcome back to #RichGirlRoundup, Money with Katie's weekly segment where Katie and MWK's Executive Producer Henah answer your burning money questions. Each month, we'll put out a call for questions on her Instagram (@moneywithkatie). New episodes every week.

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Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is our Chief Content Officer and additional fact checking comes from Kate Brandt.

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Intro Music:

Rich Girl Roundup.

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Katie:

Welcome back, rich girls and boys to the Rich Girl Roundup weekly discussion of the Money with Katie Show. Today's episode is going to be a little bit meta. As always, I'm your host Katie Gatti Tassin. And every Monday morning, we're going to dig into an interesting money discussion.

And before we do that, here is a quick message from the sponsors of this segment.

And before we jump into our topic today, I just wanted to make you all aware that this week's upcoming main episode is all about house hacking and $0 shelter costs, which is the very clickbait-y way to talk about this.

But we had a real estate expert come in and just talk about how if you're feeling as though you're never going to be able to buy a house, that this might be a creative solution to get your foot in the literal and I guess metaphoric door. Okay, onto the roundup, Henah, what is our topic today?

Henah:

This week's question came from a feedback over on Instagram that we've gotten in the past. And we decided to do it because I think for the second time ever, Katie and I have met this week and we are actually sitting face-to-face in a studio for the first time. So, the people wanted to know what is Money with Katie like behind the scenes? So, it is in-

Katie:

Behind the scenes.

Henah:

... fact very meta. And so, we also asked our audience on Instagram ahead of us being in studio together, what do they want to know? So, we've compiled a few questions here. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to rapid fire them to you.

Katie:

Okay. First of all, can I just say that the fact that people care enough to ask these questions, I read these questions and I'm like, "You care about how we spend our day? You care about our team?" And oh, my gosh, it just makes me feel so warm and fuzzy.

Henah:

Yeah. It really warms my heart, especially when people email us and they're like, "Hi, Katie, Hannah, and Nicole." which is just so sweet that they go out of their way to do that. All right. I thought we could hit them with the overview first. So, what is the Money with Katie business model?

One thing that I thought was funny was before I joined the team, I saw that you had an Instagram, which we'll talk about how we met, but I also knew that you had a podcast and a blog. And I remember thinking, "Oh, well, if this is what she does full-time, how hard could it be? How much time could it take?" So, I think people would want to know what is our business model and how does everything work?

Katie:

Are you saying how much time going to take because now you're in it and you're like, how... two people can't even do?

Henah:

Correct. That is 100% correct.

Katie:

Okay. So, the business model, I think about it in two buckets. So, the first bucket is the ad supported side of the business, which is that we do content like this. We produce podcasts and blogs and social media content, and we're putting out things constantly that are free to the audience.

But obviously, they're not free to produce. They cost money to produce, they cost money to pay people to work on. And so, who pays for that? The advertisers who would like to speak to our audience. So, the ad supported side is one piece of this.

But then, there's also the direct revenue or direct-to-consumer sales side, which is we also sell our own products that bring in revenue that in my mind take the philosophies and the mindsets and the things that we talk about on the show and help you really operationalize that.

So, if you're like, "Great, I'm getting all these ideas and all this input." But then, "How do I actually take that and apply that to my own life and use my own numbers in this context?" That's where the products come in. And so, our hero product, if you will, is the wealth planner that relaunches in a month for 2024.

That's the way that I think about it. So, within those two sides, we have the wealth planner on the direct-to-consumer side, we also have two courses. We have Budget Like a Millionaire, which is how do you set up a strategic spending plan.

And basically, holding your hand through building out an effective budget that's going to get you where you want to go, but really philosophically and psychologically get you in a place where you can actually stick to that plan. Because so often, I think if we jump right into, okay, this is how much I'm going to spend on this every month.

But we're not really aligned to what's the vision that that's powering? Why are we only spending that or why are we cutting back on this or why are we spending more on that?

Henah:

The wealth planner is the DIY. But if you want a little bit more of the money fundamentals, BLAM is the way to go.

Katie:

Yes. So, Budget Like a Millionaire, that's one course. We also have another course, there's a tax smart investing masterclass that we have too, that basically for someone that is making pretty much more than six figures or feels as though, and maybe not in New York City or San Francisco.

Someone who's making six figures and is like, "I have all this money to save, but I have no idea what to do with it and I'm not tax optimized at all." that's where that one comes in.

So, that's that side of the business. There's also merchandise like the, "Mom, I'm a rich man" crew neck which sold out. We need to order more of those. But the other side of the ad supported model is the podcast has sponsors. Actually, not sponsored, the blog is just me out here, slinging takes.

Henah:

And sometimes I have to be like, "Katie, what take is this?" Where are we going here?

Katie:

My favorite is putting together a blog post and then writing a comment in the document at the end being like, I don't know how to land the plane. Not sure what I'm trying to say. Someone else tried to massage this into something cohesive, but there's the blog.

And then, social, we had a lot of branded social in the beginning because it was part of the podcast package, but that was really draining. So, now, honestly, mostly social media for us is we're starting to think about it as a place more to just have fun wrap little nuggets, if you will.

And we're doing less in the way of promoting of other things, I guess on social. And then, obviously, the newsletter, which goes out once a week and there will be sponsors on the newsletter.

Henah:

And so, people also wanted to know, what's the revenue and who owns Money with Katie?

Katie:

Yes. So, Morning Brew owns Money with Katie. So, I started Money with Katie independently in 2020. And then, in January 2022, it got acquired by Morning Brew. Someone was like, "How much of it do they own?" They own 100% of it. But the way that the revenue works is I basically run it for Morning Brew and have my salary and percentage of revenue.

And then, the benefit of working that way is that if formerly in a solopreneur style model, you're plugging yourself into this big media company. We're sitting in a studio right now recording this that probably costs 100,000 to outfit if not more.

All these lights and cameras, I'm like, "I don't know how much these costs." but it was probably a lot. And so, it's benefiting from the scale of the larger organization. And so, that's also why Henah can have healthcare benefits and a 401k plan and-

Henah:

Thank you, Morning Brew.

Katie:

... why I can have a healthcare plan, that's how that got set up. But as far as revenue goes, 2020, it made no money. It was eight months of just slinging those takes. There was no strategy. It was just, I'm out here living-

Henah:

Living on vibes.

Katie:

... doing vibes, that's the strategy, is vibes. 2021 is when things started to take off. And I think singularly, I had done around 250,000 and that was probably half and half direct consumer and sponsors. And then, 2022, was my first full year with Morning Brew, and I think it was like 1.1 million.

We just eeked over the 1 million mark and that was, again, half and half, I think. And then, this year, I honestly don't know how things are going to shake out. I think we're over a million now, but I don't know if we would hit the two mark. I don't know if it's going to double.

I mean, that'd be sick if it did. I don't know if it will, but that's to give a sense of scale. And then, as far as the people that work on it, I am obviously full-time. Henah is full-time. Nicole is full-time, so there's three of us that are fully devoted to this.

And then, we have a lot of part-time people who work for Morning Brew and work on our content, but also work on other things. So, when it comes to the help that we get, there's Nick who's the audio engineer who's going to make this sound amazing-

Henah:

Shout-out, Nick.

Katie:

And she's the one that's making songs out of me being like, I want to-

Henah:

Reagan drop.

Katie:

... a synth with a drop of me talking about trickle-down economics. Nick's like, "I got you."

Speaker 6:

Reagan.

Katie:

There's Nick. There's a whole video team, Christie and Sebastian, and then there's Kate, who's our fact-checker. So, these are folks that their full-time job is not Money with Katie, but they're doing probably, I don't know, 10 hours a week maybe.

Henah:

Yeah.

Katie:

If I had to guess, 10 to 15?

Henah:

It's definitely a team effort of probably 10 people and we could not do it without them. Someone actually asked how did you and I meet? And I think that that's a really fun little tidbit. I had actually followed Money with Katie or Katie when she had I think 4,000, sub 5,000 followers.

I watched her do a whiteboard video about how to retire without paying taxes. I was just like, "Oh, she actually makes this fun." It's interesting. I would want to watch this chaos all the time. So, I started looking at all of her posts. And my previous position was an editor.

And then, when she got hired at Morning Brew, she said she was hiring for a senior editor. And around that same time, I had written a post about health insurance for my previous role. And Katie ended up doing an episode on health insurance and asking for resources or something.

So, I DM'd her and I said, "Hey, I wrote this. I don't know if it's helpful." And then, she messaged me back and said, "Oh, my gosh, this is actually helpful. I used part of it in my script or something." And so, I was like, "Cool, she knows who I am." I have a leg up.

And so, I applied when they opened up the senior editor position and I thought, well, this is good as a trajectory, but also, I just want to work with Katie. And I truly was like, "Oh, there's no way they're going to pick me." Because the job I think had been open for six or seven weeks.

But instead, I got connected with Katie. We had one interview at the beginning. And I remember you showed up with your hair in this messy bun and a sweatshirt, and I was in formal attire and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, who knows if this is going to work?"

And I remember I sat there and I was like, "Katie, even if this goes nowhere, I just want you to know you changed my life." And I was like, "Oh, she totally thinks I'm a suck up." But you actually said, "No, I saw your name come in and I picked you out of the pile."

So, I don't know. We just started talking. I did my edit test and all of that. I think in the beginning, we weren't sure how we would work together because I had never done podcast and multimedia. I'd only really ever done editorial.

Katie:

Which by the way, neither had I. It wasn't like I was coming in as some professional.

Henah:

That was a big focus when I was going through the hiring process with Morning Brew, they were like, "This is where we want to head. The podcast is where we want to spend a lot of time." And I was like, "Transferable skills, baby. If I can do it for editorial, I could do it here." Fake it till you make it.

And you offered me the job. And I remember almost crying. My jaw was on the floor. And I remember you said, "So, what salary would you like?" And I said, "What's the range?" And I had had another offer from another company. Katie said, "Oh, it's this range." And I said, "Well, I heard in your podcast that whoever caress less wins."

Katie:

No, you didn't say that. You said, "Okay, well, I have this other offer." or whatever. I can't remember how you phrased it. But basically, what she's alluding to is the fact that there was a recent episode about negotiation and she just used all my own tactics on me.

And I honestly respected it so much. I was like, "All right, sweet. Let me go see if we can make that work." And I Slacked someone in real time. I was like, "Hold on." And I was like, "Hey, can we pay her? Is this cool?" And they were like, "Yeah, okay." And I was like, "All right, good." You probably increased it by 20% with that one question.

Henah:

My old salary to this salary, I bumped my own pay by 30%, which obviously you didn't know at the time and I acted I knew what I was doing. But I remember you said, "Well, you used my own thing against me. I respect it and I also really want you, so what's the number that will make you say yes?" And I threw out a number and you said, "Okay."

Katie:

I said let me get approval from the people that are going to-

Henah:

To this day, one of my biggest blessings, because I do think that we worked together really well. I don't think we knew that before we started working together. But then, as soon as we did, we were like, "Oh, both type A, both time blockers on our schedule, both very detail oriented." which leads into a lot of questions we got actually about how do we manage our time?

What do our weeks look like? Actually, the question was what do our day-to-days look like? And I wanted to talk about this because you just changed how you work. And I think it'd be really interesting to talk about that a little bit.

Katie:

What prompted me to change how I was working was that I started writing the book and that's a pretty big effort that you can't really bang out an hour here and there, it's like you have to get into the state of flow. And then I try to do five to six hours in a row and I can't be checking Slack and getting distracted.

And that partially, but then also the launch of our second show Bossy knowing that I'm going to have a second weekly show, that also made me feel like, okay, my current approach is probably not going to scale very well.

And my current approach used to be I'll work on deep work things in the morning and then I'll take meetings all afternoon, but that wasn't really allowing me enough time to make progress on the things that I needed to make progress on.

And it all coincided with me moving to the West Coast. Everyone I worked with was in the East Coast. I was Pacific time. I'm an early riser. But by 8:00 A.M. my time, it's already 11:00 in New York and Atlanta. So, everyone is already needs all these things.

So, what we ended up doing was now Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I don't take any meetings. It is a heads down day, those three days. And there are different deliverables that need to come out of those days.

And then, Tuesdays and Thursdays become okay from 7:38 A.M. Pacific to 6:00 P.M. Pacific, it's just back-to-back, any meetings, any interviews, any recordings, anything that's more execution oriented just gets back-to-back on those days. And so, Tuesdays and Thursdays are often very tiring.

But I think because I know it's two days a week out of the seven, I can psych myself up for that and be like, all right, I got 10 hours to get through today, let's go. Let me get the big coffee and get in the right frame of mind, because I know that there's only these two days a week where all these things need to happen.

Henah:

Some days she'll message me and she's like, "I had four shots, espresso, baby. I'm ready to roll." Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. We were also doing in the beginning a lot of context switching. So, we would start working on something for one episode and then we'd have to work on something else for another episode and it's just hard to do that.

Katie:

Well, that's the thing, is that there's so many, and we'll get into this how we are actually creating the episodes, but there are typically several in development at a time. One thing will be in research ideation while something else is in the first draft edits, while something else is already in post-production.

I think that is the mental switch. And there was a moment earlier this year where I told Henah, I feel like you and I are both playing both roles a little bit and we need to both pick a lane and stay in it, because I feel like I can't show up for the things that I need to do if I'm also trying to play organization.

And I'm like, you're really good at that and already doing it. So, just what fully own it. You tell me what I need to do when. I'm not going to be looking at the roadmap anymore. I just need you to be like, this is what phase, this script is in and needs.

This script is here. This is here. This is what I need it by and hold me accountable. That way, I'm not constantly having to be PMing or mentally feeling like I'm PMing anything. So, fully making that shift was good.

Henah:

When I think about my own week, I don't have the two days, the meeting days and three days of heavy work. I'm a little bit more accessible or flexible for things like if a sponsor wants to reach out with a potential package, I'm the person that vets it before it even gets to Katie, or there are things that we're prepping and the newsletter or a podcast episode.

So, I'm often the person that's more signing off on things and making sure that they're good to go live. And then, I'll usually message Katie and say, "This is where everything is at." And I think that that process has been working pretty well.

Katie:

It has helped tremendously. And to give Henah props, she is truly so on top of it. We have unlimited PTO at Morning Brew and she'll use it, she'll take a week off. But before she's out of the office, she's thinking three steps ahead. Everyone knows what's going on, she's doing a lot of work ahead of time.

She can leave and it's not like, "Oh, my God, everything's falling apart." And anyone that's worked in a PTO environment knows that sometimes people will just dip and you're like, "Okay, well, now, I have to do their job for a week." She's very good at managing a lot of moving pieces, which has truly just been serendipitous because that was not why we hired you.

But I don't think we even knew what we were looking for at that point. What we really needed was a right-hand man. And you brought that into the interview. I was like, I didn't know what I was looking for. I was like, I've been told I need an editor. I've been told I need a producer, but I don't know what I need that for. I was skeptical and you were like-

Henah:

Really?

Katie:

Yeah.

Henah:

I thought you were like, "I can't do this."

Katie:

Well, I was drowning, but I also didn't understand how a producer was going to fix that. But I think you were like I see myself as the gatekeeper I think is what you said of I can shield you from things so that you can work on stuff and I can take things off your plate.

You framed it where I think you came in with a different vision for the role that ended up being closer to what it actually was. It's worked out great like put into it without you.

Henah:

I personally think this is the most fulfilling professional relationship I've had. We don't have enough love-

Katie:

This is just going to be us making out for 45 minutes, clearly.

Henah:

Not really HR, I promise. But I do think that our working relationship is a really special one. I've had yet to find something that works as well as we do. And actually, I was thinking about this this morning, we've never really had a blowout or a real disagreement. I think we've always just been like, this is what I think, this is what you think we're going to find in midway. And now, that I've said that, of course we will-

Katie:

Now, we got to have a fight.

Henah:

Now, I'll quit the Rich Girl Roundup, so good luck. I do think that has worked out well. So, people really wanted to know how do we pick our content? How do we ideate? How long do we work on an episode? Are things scripted? Which I think it might be surprising to know that we actually plan our podcast schedule and topics out a quarter, like 12 weeks in advance, really.

Katie:

Which is fairly, I would say new in the grand scheme of things in the sense that you wanted to do an editorial pitch meeting to plan a quarter out. I was, again, more in the vibes mindset where I was, first of all, how we were picking topics.

And to some degree, how we still do is I get interested in something and I'm like, I just think this is interesting and want to talk about it. But through the editorial pitch meeting process, which we probably started in-

Henah:

I think beginning of this year.

Katie:

Yeah, I think that was just-

Henah:

Or maybe even March.

Katie:

You and Nicole will come to the meeting and say, I think it'd be interesting, like you pitched the fertility episode. I think Nicole pitched the crypto episode. So, there are things where it's not like anyone's coming in and being like, "Here's your script."

But it's like you're bringing ideas to the table that weren't on my radar and then we can tag team. For the fertility episode, you'd handled the bulk of the research for that one.

Henah:

Yeah, I have never seen anyone do as much research for 45-minute piece of content as Katie. You'll sometimes spend two or three full days sometimes just thinking about what you want to do for an episode. What's the angle? What's the Money with Katie lens?

Katie:

Well, usually, things are percolating for a little bit. My process is more about for the healthcare stuff, that's an easy example where I read a few books about it and then had listened to a bunch of podcasts.

Henah:

And then, when she got screwed over by her doctor, she was like, "We're doing this."

Katie:

So, that's typically how it works. It's like my PG&E story where I'm like, "I will be crossed by some institution." and then I'll have this personal vendetta where I'm like, well, now I'm going to take them down. And by take them down, I mean, I'm going to talk about them for 30 minutes on my podcast because I'm a millennial and that's what we do.

Henah:

One thing you said in a bossy recording, which honestly, I'm so excited for the audience to hear more of these episodes. But one thing you said in them was that you started Money with Katie as a spite blog because a company did not hire you. And I think it's hilarious how many times Katie will see an injustice or experience one and then be like, "This is my now North Star for the next four weeks."

Katie:

Usually, the topics for the main episodes, we go back and forth. And if someone listens every week, they may have noticed this, but we try to switch between more philosophical topics that are more, maybe they have a social justice bent, maybe they're about psychology, they're a little more fluid and maybe a little more squishy.

There's not as much of a tangible, you need to go open this type of account takeaway. And then, we have episodes that are more tactical where it's hard hitting. You're going to listen to this and then you're going to know something more about personal finance that you can go implement today.

So, we like to go back and forth partially because I get bored with just one or the other. And I think that both are very valuable and we'll plan to Henah's point quarter in advance. So, we'll have that pitch meeting. Usually, I have several scripts written already.

Right now, in the fall, I'm writing scripts for Q1 of 2024 and starting the research. There will be a big research document that eventually gets written into a script, and then it gets passed to Henah and Kate. And Henah will make the structural edits and be like, "Oh, I think you need to unpack that more."

Or I think you could lose this, or this is reading weirdly to me, I don't think that's going to land. And then, Kate will go through for more of a fact checking lens and make sure that there's backup for everything that we're claiming and that all the citations are legit. And then, there's the math check for some of them that are a little more challenging.

Henah:

Sometimes we're like, "Hey, Katie, could you text one of your money friends who does this every day to make sure this is correct?"

Katie:

What is this?

Henah:

We try to make sure that we've considered all POVs. We try to make sure that there's a sensitivity read on a lot of these things. We try to be really mindful. I know Kate is eventually going to hear this, but I just need to shout out Kate, because sometimes she just makes the most incredible nuances or she'll point out pieces of feedback, and I think that our pieces are stronger because of her.

Katie:

Absolutely.

Henah:

Thank you, Kate.

Katie:

Team effort on that. But then, it takes, well, I would say three months, start to finish. And it's not like we're working on it the entire time, but from inception to something being then in post-production where we've sat down, we've recorded it, we have the guest recordings.

Henah then will take all of those pieces and build it into the production document that the audio engineer is using to then actually physically build the episode. And then she'll sit there and listen to it a couple times and give feedback on, okay, I think this music is too much, or I think that-

Henah:

This section should be moved or stuff like that.

Katie:

Sometimes things will get moved around at the end.

Henah:

Even the ad break, I think this needs to come in earlier. High level, the steps are ideation, writing and scripting, editing and revising, recording, post-production and QA, and then scheduling. If we hadn't started planning so far in advance, it would probably still take four to six weeks.

Katie:

Yeah, it's not the only thing. I think if it was the only thing we were focused on, it would be a lot faster.

Henah:

Which is what my brain would say before I started working. I was like, "Oh, she's doing one podcast episode." I mean, what does it take? A day for her to write it and record it?

Katie:

I feel very vindicated. Because there was one time, a couple weeks in where you were like, "This is way too much. What are we doing?"

Henah:

I could not believe the amount of work you were doing. And even when I joined, I was like, "This is a lot for two people." And I think to make sure that our editorial standards stay as high as they are, it's different if we were just banging out whatever came into our minds.

Katie:

Yeah, I think quality is very important to both of us and we take feedback to heart. That's why constructive criticism that is coming from an earnest place of thinking that it could be better is so valuable, and why just straight up mean criticism is so hurtful, because so much work goes into it and we both care a lot that it's good.

So, when people poke holes or are like, hey, I think that actually you really missed the mark because you didn't consider this, it's like that's going to be in the back of my mind forever moving forward, I'm going to be thinking about this feedback.

Henah:

I read every single piece of feedback or review or email that comes in and I'll collate all of it for Katie.

Katie:

And you protect me from a lot of it. I think the straight-up hateful stuff, you just won't show me. Or you'll be like, "Haha."

Henah:

You have to have nothing better to do than to send mean things online. But I got my first negative review. And I remember texting friends and they were like, "Well, you made it." That means it's a good thing that you're staying in people's-

Katie:

You have a hater.

Henah:

And I was like, "Yeah, that doesn't really help the way I thought I would." So, I texted Katie and I was like, "I have been crying." And she was like, "Listen, it sucks. It sucks every time but it will get easier, blah, blah, blah." It's a world that's very hard to understand unless you're in it. And so, I really admire Katie for putting herself out there so much every week, because I only joined once a week and I'm still scared.

Katie:

Well, I think that was the thing that we talked about is it does suck every time. It's not like it never doesn't sting, but you get better at moving on from it faster. It used to ruin my week and then it would only ruin my day. And then, it was like, okay, well, now, it's ruining this hour, but you get better at Tefloning a little bit. I think where it hurts is when they pick up on something that you feel insecure about-

Henah:

Which this person did.

Katie:

... that's where it sucks. Someone used to make fun of my voice and my vocal fry and my swallowing, and I'm like, all right, well I'm speaking for 45 minutes, I'm going to swallow, sorry. But it did make me more aware of it so that in future recordings it was like, okay, let's make sure we're editing that out. So, in a way, that person being an asshole made the show better.

Henah:

There was someone who said I was useless and I thought, "Well, I'm still here."

Katie:

Well, I'm on payroll.

Henah:

I mean, hey, I'm sorry if you think it is. One thing that I did want to point out though is when we do our full episodes, those are scripted.

Katie:

Those are fully scripted.

Henah:

Katie will ad-lib I think a little bit if something is resonating or she'll go on a bit of an aside. But for Rich Girl Roundup, which I think we've talked about a little bit, we write our own talking points in advance.

So, I will tell Katie, here are the questions that are coming in. Here are the ones that we think are really resonating with the audience before, but we do not discuss our own talking points before we go into record.

Katie:

No.

Henah:

So, I think it really is an honest conversation. And I think it flows generally, but it is something that we don't really sit there and riff on before.

Katie:

Well, and I've been trying to challenge myself and you both of us to show up to those with a distinct POV that we feel good about defending and some things don't lend themselves to that. So, sometimes it's like, okay, well, we're not going to sit here and defend a POV around-

Henah:

You should spend 40% of your income on child care.

Katie:

No, you should send 40... yeah, no. But I do think that I am more interested when two people are having a conversation where there is some disagreement and they're pushing on each other's viewpoints and then maybe they're both coming around a little bit.

But I just personally find that more intriguing as a format. I bet you if we went back and listened to the first one compared to the most recent one would be night and day.

Henah:

Miles apart. I think even the impacts of small business one was probably our most high school debate club. Before we wrap up, I have three quick rapid-fire questions that came in. One, what is a challenge you never expected by doing Money with Katie?

Katie:

Well, I should start my answer by saying that I never expected this to happen to me and I feel incredibly grateful. Sometimes I have moments where I'm like, "I can't believe I do this for a living." Actually, I really have a hard time articulating how grateful I feel that this is my job.

Henah:

I think every week there's a moment where Katie is like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I get to do this every day." And every week, I'm like, "Yeah, but you deserve it." And she's like, "I don't know."

Katie:

That's the other thing is I feel guilty sometimes, because sometimes I really make myself miserable. I never thought that caring a lot would end up being a bad thing. But I think sometimes it becomes so all-consuming that I really can't turn it off.

And sometimes I really am like, "Oh, man, I just want a break." I want a couple weeks where I'm not thinking about any of this or where sometimes you feel very exposed and I don't think I thought I would. I thought I was really into that.

And I remember when the audience started to grow, particularly on social media, I felt very vulnerable and exposed and shrank a little bit because I don't know, there was just an element of not feeling like I had earned it that made me a little bit uncertain. So, I don't know if that was imposter syndrome, but that was an odd experience that I had not.

I think I've gotten over it a little bit, but I wasn't expecting there to be challenges relatively regularly in the amount that it really made me work on myself and my own relationship with what I do.

And I think what's been the challenge recently is making sure it stays really fun and letting my instincts guide me as opposed, because that's what I did in the beginning and it worked really well. But you start to put pressure on yourself a little bit and you start to feel like, okay, well, now, it's actually a thing and now I have to defend this thing. And-

Henah:

I think I feel enough confidence for the both of us to be able to take this thing and do it. A lot of the challenges are psychological or emotional.

Katie:

100%.

Henah:

And I would also like to add though, before we get to the next question, that I think that you and I are trying much harder to establish a work-life balance that does enable us for you specifically to take a week off, two weeks off or trying to support one another in what is it that we really want to be doing and that we have fun doing and how do we divvy up the work that way? It's a challenge, but it's something that we're working on.

Katie:

Yeah, definitely.

Henah:

The second rapid fire question, I'm going to skip the other one because you answered it. The other rapid-fire question is what is the funniest thing that never made it into an episode? And I'll say for me, Katie has two pets, Sam, her cat and Beans, her dog.

And Sam will often interrupt by walking on the keyboard or whatever. But there was one time that we were recording and he jumped onto her and then bit her scalp as we were-

Katie:

He's insane.

Henah:

... in the middle of an interview. I just remember when I edit an episode, I have to see all of that stuff over and over again and figure out what to cut. And so, I just sat there and watched it on my feet because it was so funny. And then, sometimes Beans will be barking.

Katie:

They take turns being chaotic.

Henah:

And sometimes we'll sit there for literally 12 minutes while Beans is barking and we'll just hear Katie go, "Beans. It's okay. Mama's got to work. She has to earn a paycheck. It's all right."

Katie:

I'll be like, "Thank You Georgia. Thank you." I try to tell her things for barking as if she knows. I was going to say something similar. When we used to put the whole show on YouTube, you probably would see more of that as a viewer.

There are probably countless moments in the recordings that are out there live right now where Sam is just going apeshit on my forearm, just scratching and biting me and trying to get my attention. I also think that the other broad bucket I would put is we talk to a lot of people for the show.

And some of the interviews never make it onto the show. Some of them get really seriously cut down because we'll talk to them for an hour, but then there will be 20 minutes of material that really supplements what we're trying to say.

And more often than not, someone says something that's super off color or insensitive or offensive, and I'll be like, "Oh." And I'm slacking Henah, like you know what? You're going to have to cut here, pull that line out.

Henah:

Yeah. There are a lot of times where we'll be doing an interview and I'll just Slack Nick, our audio engineer, and I'll be like, "I got my work cut out for me."

Katie:

So, our guests are honestly great. So, anyone that's like, let me go back and try to figure out who that... it's like, no, there are also a lot of people that you have never even heard from. But we just talk to so many people as part of the research process that every once in a while, you'll get hit with something that you're just like, "Well, that's offensive as hell." And there is no way we would put that in this episode.

Henah:

I mean, I think too, we try to have a really careful eye for things that could be offensive, so ableist remarks, things like that. And there's some things that people say, for example, up the totem pole, that's something that's culturally appropriative. So, we try to be really mindful of those things. And so, I don't think that the guests even know that they're necessarily problematic.

Katie:

I have learned a lot from you about that because you are super in tune with inclusive language. And I wouldn't even be thinking about how it could be misconstrued, but it's good because I think I've gotten better about it where I'll notice it more myself now. And so, I feel like over time I've even needed less. You've made me a more culturally sensitive individual.

Henah:

There's so many things that are just in our vernacular that we don't even think about. So, one example is there was a mass shooting, which of course there was, I'm going to knock on wood as we're talking. And then, we did something in the script and it said, "Oh, I'm going to pull the trigger on doing this." And I was like, "Oh, that's got to go."

Katie:

See? And that's the careful stuff that it's so nice that you pull the trigger, I need some ammo. I use that type of metaphor all the time. Normally, I probably wouldn't think twice about it, but given the severity of the event that it just happened, you were like, "Yeah, let's get that out of here." We can think of a better analogy for this.

Henah:

We really care about the quality of the work. And I hope that that shows just in this conversation just how much we put into every episode. But hopefully, that you all find it interesting enough to listen to week after week. Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Katie:

Well, the only thing I wanted to finish with was that I think it's fun when we look back at the history of the show and the way that it has grown over time. That if you look from the beginning, it really has been a wobbly line up into the right. I would just ask, and I'm going to be the shameless plug here.

If you love the show and if you're really enjoying it, if you're getting a lot out of it, leaving a review, a positive review, please send your negative reviews privately. Leaving a review and truly sharing it with other people, sending it to friends, forwarding it to others, that is how podcasts grow.

It's very difficult to grow a podcast and it really is an endurance game. We're over 100 episodes in now and we want to do it for a very long time. It just goes such a long way and we just genuinely appreciate it so much when you like it enough to share it with a friend or a family member.

And if there are things that we're not talking about or not addressing that you want to see more of. Or frankly, things you want to see less of. There are helpful themes that emerge in the feedback that we get. So, don't be shy about sending us an email at moneywithkatie@morningbrew.com. We want to hear from you. You've already heard she reads all of it.

Henah:

I do. I read every single one.

Katie:

So, every single one that comes in is getting our attention. And so, I think if you have feedback, positive or negative or things that you're just like, "Hey, I'm dying to know more about this and I feel like it'd be really interesting." please send it our way.

Henah:

Yeah, Katie really does take everything to heart. She is someone who will read something and think thoughtfully. What is the way that we can bring this to the audience in a valuable tactical way.

Katie:

Thank you.

Henah:

So, that's all for this Rich Girl Roundup.

Katie:

Henah's on payroll as you can tell. She's sitting here gassing me up. All right, that is for this week. We will see you on Wednesday to talk about house hacking.

Henah:

House hacking.

Katie:

Bye.

Henah:

Bye.