What would it look like if your financial plan actually included a line item for aesthetics? Melissa Joy, CFP®, sits down with Stephanie Stewart, PA-C, founder of The Aesthetic Method, an award-winning medical spa in Ferndale, Michigan, to have the honest conversation that most financial planners and patients avoid entirely. From the secret dollars women squirrel away for skincare to the emotional weight of wanting to invest in how you look and feel, this episode brings a private topic into t...
Jul 14
32 min
Episode 331: Getting Out of Debt: What Nonprofit Credit Counseling Can Do for You with Bruce McClary
Debt is one of the most emotionally charged topics in personal finance -- and one of the most common. This week Melissa Joy, CFP®, sits down with Bruce McClary, lead spokesperson for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), to take the stigma out of the conversation and walk through what it actually looks like to get professional help with debt. Whether you're watching balances creep up, fielding collection calls, or just feeling the financial squeeze of a world where credit card...
Jul 7
39 min
In many households, one person quietly carries the full weight of the family's financial life: tracking premiums, coordinating with advisors, managing the budget, and planning for the future. Melissa Joy, CFP®, founder and president of Pearl Planning, calls this person the family's chief financial officer, and she has been seeing the role come up repeatedly in client conversations. Whether that responsibility falls on a spouse, a partner, or a single individual managing everything alone...
Jun 30
20 min
As we move into the second half of the year, Melissa Joy, CFP®, takes a solo deep dive into five major themes shaping the current investment landscape. From artificial intelligence and IPO cycles to persistent inflation and the resilience of employment, Melissa unpacks what is actually happening in the markets and what it means for your financial life. Rather than reacting to pessimistic headlines, Melissa walks through the data behind recent market performance, explains why earnings growth m...
Jun 23
21 min
High-achieving women often wear exhaustion as a badge of honor, pushing through until the warning signs become impossible to ignore. For Molly Rosen, co-founder and co-CEO of Project Next Leadership, that moment came while driving between obligations, fantasizing not about a vacation, but about simply being allowed to stop. That recognition led to a sabbatical that stretched from one year to six, a journey that ultimately gave her the perspective, resilience, and clarity to build the leadersh...
Jun 16
39 min
Almost everyone has heard of a prenup, but very few of us have actually sat down and thought one through in practical terms. In this episode, Melissa Joy, CFP®, opens up a candid, surprisingly approachable conversation about what prenuptial agreements really are, who they are for, and why they belong in the financial planning discussion. Whether you are considering one for yourself or thinking about the next generation in your family, this is a topic worth understanding before the question ev...
Jun 9
33 min
Women are told to lean in, negotiate, and step up. And many do. But new research reveals that doing all the right things still isn’t enough — and may actually work against them. On this episode of Women’s Money Wisdom, Melissa Joy, CFP®, sits down with award-winning journalist and author Stefanie O’Connell to unpack the systemic forces that penalize women for their ambition, and what that means for their careers, their wealth, and their lives Stefanie’s book, The Ambition Penalty: How Corpora...
Jun 2
39 min
What does it look like to turn a hobby into a thriving business — with no roadmap, no industry model to follow, and a drafty warehouse as your starting point? Melissa Joy, CFP®, sits down with Christy Howden, CEO and co-founder of Wolverine Pickleball, to trace an extraordinary entrepreneurial journey from stay-at-home mom to leader of one of the country’s first pickleball-centric destination facilities. Christy shares how a 2017 New Year’s resolution sparked a business she never could have p...
May 26
28 min
The financial news cycle moves fast, but the fundamentals of investing have not changed. Melissa Joy, CFP® sits down with Ben Carlson, Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management and author of five books including his latest, Risk and Reward, to explore what history actually teaches us about markets, human nature, and the psychology behind smart long-term investing. Ben brings equal parts data and storytelling to make the case that understanding the past is one of...
May 19
35 min
Nearly a quarter of Americans have no traditional next of kin, yet the financial planning industry has long operated as if everyone will eventually have children. Melissa Joy, CFP® sits down with Maddy Roche, co-host of the Child Free Life by Design Podcast and Chief Growth Officer of Partnerships for Child Free Trust, to talk about what changes and what becomes possible when you are building a financial life without kids. Maddy brings both personal and professional perspective to the c...
May 12
33 min
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