In this special New Year’s episode, we’re diving into a fresh start with reflections on 2024, exciting updates for our podcast, and inspiration to take action on your financial goals.
Welcome to 2025! In this special New Year’s episode, we’re diving into a fresh start with reflections on 2024, exciting updates for our podcast, and inspiration to take action on your financial goals. This year, we’re all about building a strong community, empowering women to take control of their finances, and making progress—one step at a time.
In this episode, we reflect on the incredible milestones of 2024, including our first in-person event, which brought together women from all walks of life to share their stories of financial empowerment and resilience. We also dive into what’s new for 2025, like our commitment to weekly podcast episodes and the launch of “Money Talks,” our new interactive Zoom sessions designed to foster community and answer your pressing financial questions. Plus, we share our personal goals for the new year! We also offer a sneak peek at upcoming guests, including Cary Carbonaro and Lissa, who will bring fresh perspectives on breaking down financial barriers and thriving in the digital space.
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Highlights and Timestamps:
[00:01:00] A new year, a fresh start: What we’re grateful for in 2025.
[00:03:00] Reflections on our first in-person event
[00:08:00] Introducing “Money Talks,” our new weekly community sessions.
[00:13:00] What’s ahead: Cary Carbonaro and other exciting guests this month.
[00:14:00] Your financial story matters—how to share it with us.
Episode Transcript
(This transcript was generated using AI, so please excuse any misspellings or errors)
Barb: [00:00:00] Isn’t that funny that we both have black turtlenecks on and we just showed up this way. Great minds.
Maggie: who we are.
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: it’s who we are.
Barb: So happy new year, everyone! It’s Barb and Maggie here. We made it to 2025.
Maggie: We did, we did. How was your new year? Any resolutions? What are you grateful for this year?
Barb: Well, for you, of course, first and foremost. Always for my family, right? For good health. That’s always a great thing to do. It’s interesting because we were reading about somebody who recently got sick and they said, you know, you have a thousand problems until you get sick. Then you have one.
Which is really true. Yeah,
So grateful for good health and it always feels good to start fresh, doesn’t it? A whole new year, I have like a whole new calendar that I open up, blank slate, ready for me to write all my notes and all my wishes and dreams on it. So, want to share the big news that we have going forward?
[00:01:00]
Barb: So, want to share the big news that we have going forward?
Maggie: We can start there. This year, 2025, we are bringing the podcast weekly. So you get more of us, more of our amazing guests and more shit to talk about.
Barb: Yeah. we’re going to really dig in, dig deep. We’ve got some fantastic people lined up already and we’ve really are bringing in quite a cool mixture of women to talk about their stories, their greatest stories, their stories of success, of overcoming. Oh my God, [00:02:00] some of the things these women have overcome is been amazing. It’s just shows how strong women are. It’s amazing, right? Some of the stories we’ve heard. Yeah,
Maggie: I was like thinking about some of the guests that we’re going to have. There’s some big names with some great followings and are super inspirational, but just hearing some people’s stories of just like the average Jane who like you hear their story and you’re like, there’s nothing average about this person.
Like they have overcome so much like highs and lows and highs and lows again. It’s crazy. Sometimes I take a step back and I’m like, wow, I could still have a lot more highs and lows in my life still, you know, we’re just getting started.
Barb: Exactly at your age, that’s for sure. We’re excited to move to weekly because there are just so many amazing stories and important topics to cover. You know, two podcast a month really didn’t do it for us and we knew we wanted to dig in a little deeper and get more robust and really shine the light on some of these amazing women and showing how you can really overcome some of these struggles that they’ve been through and be really triumphant.
It’s [00:03:00] amazing.
Maggie: Yeah, I hope it’s a little bit more weekly inspiration for everyone to talk about money even a little bit more frequently, be tuning in and just to take some action on these conversations. I’m pretty excited for it. You know, we get to do more education and content really building our community.
So I think it should be a fun year!
Barb: I can’t wait. It just shows baby steps, right? It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just nuggets, just small actions every day. And boy, they add up. Yeah. So jazzed about it. And we get to be more engaged with our community as well, which is always really fun. But let’s take a look back on some of the incredible things that happened over the past 2024.
Maggie: We had our big event at the end of October, our first in person full day event. And it went well, people are still talking about it, which is always exciting to hear and see.
Barb: It is. When I first launched the idea to you about having an event, cause we’ve always wanted to have an in person event. So much of what we do is virtual, right? Cause we started during COVID [00:04:00] when everything was virtual. But we really wanted the opportunity to bring women in provide education to them like eyeball to eyeball, but also get our amazing Purse Strings professionals out in front as well, shine a light on them and give them the opportunity to share their wisdom, their expertise. And wow! It was so much more powerful than I even imagined.
Maggie: I agree. Since we had so many people with that different expertise, like it’s not just straight financial advisors, but like people help with credit, people who sell a business, people help with divorce and like how you need all these people and how like they can go so deep on all these topics, but it didn’t feel overwhelming, you know, cause it could, but it was just very high level just getting started. But it was just like, wow, There’s just so much to learn so much to talk about so much action to take and just different routes out there, too. When everyone’s answer is always like well, it depends, you know, it’s like well, yeah, it depends cuz like, you’re talking about credit score.
You’re talking about widowhood. You’re talking about, you know kids going to college like all these different [00:05:00] things.
Barb: Well, it just shows it. Women are in different places. places in their lives, right? Everyone has their own financial journey. We want to make sure that we’re supporting and upholding women wherever they are on their financial journey. And I was so honored to have Candy kick off the day with her very powerful story about how she suddenly lost her husband and the impact on that, because right, Maggie, not a day goes by that we don’t hear a story about a woman who’s lost her husband or suddenly faced with divorce or something out of the blue happens in just a matter of seconds or hours or days, all of a sudden their life has been turned upside down. And when she kicked off our event and she shared her story about losing her husband and not being prepared at all around the finances, where the money was, how to pay her mortgage, any of those things. It was strategically placed at the beginning of our event because we want women to know, this happens all the time.
Maggie: Yeah.
Barb: The mission on Purse Strings is to [00:06:00] let’s learn and get ahead of these situations. So we’re not caught like a dare in the headlights, not knowing how to manage our own finances. Once we kicked it off with that, that just got the whole day rolling.
Maggie: It really kind of put the end to like, it’s not going to happen to me or like I have time, because none of these people were 85, you know, or like none of them were really ill, like, it just shows that like, it is sad as it is, it can happen anytime, anywhere. And so it’s just been being prepared and being part of that conversation. I mean, I just know like you could see these different faces in the room and I’m just like, Oh, I can see that that person is a widow, that this person is a widow and they are, they can relate to the story, you know? So we had this room of women and it wasn’t just this one woman we brought in sharing her story of widowhood. There are five other women in the room who could have came off and talked about their story as well. And so you know, it was good. We had that, but I also love when Alan came in and she has those new money cards that help you talk about money, which we know can be a tough conversation for people. And I think it [00:07:00] was her who just kind of took a step back and was like, look, like we’re having these conversations about our money stories with these people. I have never even talked to before. Like I didn’t even want to talk about money and I’m in this room talking with a random stranger about it.
And it’s not like, Oh, I earned this and spend it on this, but it’s just like, this is we didn’t talk about it growing up or whatever their story is. And it was just like, amazing to see these women and then it was like, all right, switch. So you’d go to a new person and talk about your finances and it was just like, Oh my God, we’re doing it. We’re doing the thing.
Barb: We’re talking about money because we always say at Purse Strings, if we’re not talking about money, we’re not learning about money. So we were able to open that dialogue in a very fun and compelling way. It was fantastic.
Maggie: [00:08:00] Yeah. So after the day, after a lot of feedback, it was definitely a reminder of what we do, why we do it, creating that safe space for women to talk about money and to learn from each other. So we’re bringing a couple of different things like that and it’s 2025.
So let’s kind of move on there and talk about what’s going on in 2025 now that we’re here.
Barb: Okay, so our mission in 2025 is to continue building this community where women feel safe talking about money, whether it’s big wins OR those messy struggles, right?
Maggie: Yeah, definitely. We want to continue that conversation. And [00:09:00] so to kick it off, do you have any goals going into the year, personal or professional?
Barb: I want to travel more.
Maggie: Yeah, where are you going to go? Where are you going to take us?
Barb: we should go on a tour around the United States and just tour Purse Strings and we do want to do some events in different areas of the country as well, just like we did here in Illinois for Purse Strings.
Maggie: Yeah, but we’re not getting like a big, a big boss and living on that.
Barb: no, we’re not busing
Maggie: The only thing is like a tour bus that we’re going to
Barb: No. With our faces on the side, wouldn’t that be funny? And it would just say be financially fearless and they’d be like, Oh, there’s Barb and Maggie. Everyone can wave at us.
Maggie: I want to have jazz hands on it.
Barb: And maybe we could do our podcast from the tour bus. Maybe we should get a tour bus. We’ll see. Anyway, what are some of the things that you hope to achieve in 2025. Maggie?
Maggie: 2025. Well, I came up with this goal the other day. I want to walk 10 steps on my hands. I wish I was [00:10:00] joking.
Barb: Why?
Maggie: I just want to be able to walk 10 steps on my hands. No, I’m also making it the year of the dentist. I’m getting dental insurance and gonna go back to the dentist after taking a year off. And so, I was pondering this the other day. I was thinking about sharing it. I don’t know, it’s kind of a random story, but, dental insurance, it kind of breaks even with paying just for checkups, but always been a cavity kid. So I don’t want to pay that out of pocket, but I know I need to keep going to the dentist because I was lucky enough to have parents who let me have really good teeth as a kid and took care of them. So I was like, I should keep taking care of them. I know I’m not just going to put the money aside to go to the dentist one day, I’ll never go if I pay the dental insurance. And then it’s like, you have two free cleanings. I would probably go, I would go. So we’re making it the year of the dentist, getting dental insurance, going twice. Also covers this huge fear that I have that one day, one of my front teeth are going to be like, knocked.
Okay. And I have insurance for it if that ever does happen.
Barb: Okay. I don’t think [00:11:00] anybody will ever come up with the same goals.
Maggie: And then there’s, you know, personally one more credit card that I want to pay off this year. So a little physical, a little taking care of yourself, a little financial. And I hear you’re taking us traveling. So whatever that entails,
Barb: Yeah. Well, we’ll have to unpack what that’s going to look like, but thank you for sharing. I want to see you walking on your hands.
Maggie: I’ll send you guys an update. I got like the handstand down the other day when I was practicing.
Barb: All right. Well, every little bit helps. Maybe then you could join the circus. Oh, Maggie, you always keep me laughing. You have the funniest stories. Okay. So my goals?
Yeah just I would like to travel more with my husband and there’s a few places I’d like to go.
Maggie: With your husband.
Barb: Well, I can travel with you too, but I also like traveling with him too and spend more time with my kiddos, of course. So yeah, I’m living the dream already. What are you talking about?
Maggie: It sounds great. Sounds great. This is really what I wanted to share [00:12:00] is how we’re thinking about what we’re going to do coffee talks in the new year.
Yes,
Barb: coffee talks. Well, we’re actually calling them ‘Money Talks’.
Maggie: Yeah, but there will be a
Barb: There will be coffee involved.
Maggie: Yeah. I mean, it will be on zoom, so it’s like BYOC, but we’ll have our own.
Barb: Yeah, this is going to be really fun. It’s going to be like, I always said I wanted my own talk show, like financial talk show. So this will be like that. So you and I will come together every week with our coffee and we’re going to talk about money. We’re going to money talk and we’re going to invite people to come and join us.
And we’re going to invite people to dial in the way that they can dial in, whether it be text or whatever to communicate with us and ask their questions. So it’ll be the start of our own show, the Barb and Maggie podcast. Purse Strings show.
Maggie: I think we’ll just do it on zoom so people can jump in and ask their questions as well. And then we’ll have some professionals who can help answer your questions. So it’s just weekly community comes together. We get our questions answered. We keep making those small steps, moving forward.
Barb: Yeah. That’s going to be so fun. It’s just going to be so fun. [00:13:00] I can’t wait for people just to jump in and ask their questions. Because we saw the energy when we had women come to the event and they’re just simple questions, but they wanted answers. So you have financial questions, we have answers and we have experts that can help us as well.
So that’s really exciting. We’re going to have to put some promotion around that so people know when to dial in.
Maggie: So that should be starting in a couple of weeks, you know.
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: Let’s see. We got some amazing guests lined up. So next week we’re already going to kick it off with Cary Carbonaro
talking all about financial planning for the new year and really breaking it into manageable chunks. And she has so many great tips to share. So it’s a must listen if you have felt overwhelmed for the financial planning for the year.
Barb: Yeah. And she’s got so much energy and she’s an award-winning financial professional. She’s a lot of fun.
Maggie: And let’s see, we’re going to have one where we’re going to talk about planning and our kind of goal setting journeys, highlighting the highs and lows. And I know Barb has some stories to expose me [00:14:00] about, but I’m not quite sure what they are. But when we came up this topic, she was laughing with ideas.
Barb: Yeah,
Planning. I have ideas, Maggie. We’ll talk about it. And then Lissa, she’s coming up in January. She’s super cool. She’s gonna talk about how she started this community educating women of color, financial literacy. She’s killing it on TikTok and YouTube so a lot to learn from her. She’s just a gem.
Yes.
Maggie: so I’m excited for everything else that is coming up and we’re going to wrap this up. But before we go, we have a question for you. Do you have a financial story that you have been dying to share,
whether it’s about crushing debt, building wealth, a surprise windfall or just a crazy scenario?
Let us know. We would love to hear it.
Barb: Or if you’re a professional who works with women in money, like a financial coach, maybe an attorney, a CPA, reach out to us too. There’s a link in the show notes to fill out a quick form so we can make 2025 the [00:15:00] year that we’d tackle all this money stuff.
Maggie: So that is it for this week, but we are just getting started. Don’t miss next week’s episode with Cary. And if you love this episode, please share it with a friend. Let’s spread the money love!
Barb: See you next week, ladies. Let’s make 2025 our best year yet!
