1835: Rebuilding After Divorce, Debt, and a Pandemic: One Woman’s Financial Comeback

So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

Farnoosh Torabi

Entrepreneurship, Business

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we're exploring how financial literacy changed a person's life. Our guest is Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin — former Wall Street lawyer, leadership consultant, single mom, and founder of The Gaia Leadership Project. From the outside, her life looked picture-perfect: elite career, national media appearances, a thriving business. But behind the scenes, Elizabeth was battling deep financial insecurity, credit card debt, and the emotional weight of divorce and single motherhood — all while running a nearly 7-figure company.

In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, Elizabeth opens up about hitting financial rock bottom during the pandemic and the mindset shift that pulled her out. She shares how investing in financial education helped her pay off $50,000 in debt in six months, build emergency savings, and teach her children what she was never taught: how to talk about — and take control of — their money.

To learn more about BudgetDog, click here and say you were referred by Elizabeth!

Transcript

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0:00.0	How did the dog sneak out?
0:02.4	When did that parcel vanish?
0:04.8	Who was outside last night?
0:07.4	Arlo doesn't miss a thing.
0:09.8	From 4K cameras to powerful AI detection,
0:13.5	Arlo makes a watched over space, a safer space.
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0:25.8	Find out more and get conditions at arlo.com.
0:31.9	So many episode 1835, rebuilding after divorce, debt and a pandemic. One Woman's Financial Comeback.
0:41.4	You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnush Karabi. Each day, get a 30-minute
0:47.8	dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from
0:53.6	Farnoose yourself.
0:55.7	Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong
1:00.9	place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to So Money. There was one
1:09.3	incident in particular I can remember, which I think will haunt me until the end of my days, where I took my kids to a free high school play.
1:16.8	And all my accounts were overdrawn.
1:18.6	And I had, I think, one dollar bill for a snack.
1:22.5	And my kids wanted something that was more than that.
1:25.3	And I had to say to them, I can't do it.
1:29.8	And that window of time was just an enormous wake-up call to me. Welcome to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnush Tarabi.
1:36.3	I love a good comeback story. And today's episode chronicles how one woman claimed her financial
1:42.2	independence after a number of setbacks. Her story is so inspiring.
	...

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