"I make $180k and have 2 kids, can I justify my $200 Pilates membership?"

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky Her Money

Investing, Entrepreneurship, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special Mailbag episode, we welcome back personal finance expert Dana Miranda, author of You Don’t Need a Budget, to tackle your most pressing money questions. From navigating early retirement goals to rebuilding credit post-divorce to whether or not you can justify your boutique Pilates membership, we’re getting real about money, self-care, and financial freedom. Mailbag Questions: 01:00 “I’m 58, burnt out, and want to retire early; is $200k saved enough?” 07:00 “Should I use my 401(k) to pay off $70K in debt?” 13:00 “Can I afford to work part-time post-divorce, or do I need to look for a full-time job?” 20:00 “I make $180k and have 2 kids, is $200 a month too much for a gym membership?” Looking for more financial confidence? 🚀 FinanceFixx – Our 4-week or 8-week coaching program to get your finances on track! 📈 InvestingFixx – A club for women ready to grow their wealth. Your first month is FREE. Have a question for us? Write to us (or send us a voice note!) at [email protected]. While you’re at it, join the HerMoney community! For the latest episode drops and financial news-you-can-use, subscribe to our newsletter at Hermoney.com/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Gene Chatsky. We have had so many new listeners join us lately, and I just wanted to take a sec to say welcome.
0:07.3	Before we dive into today's episode, let me just take a moment to reintroduce myself. I am a long time personal finance journalist.
0:20.1	You might remember me for my 25 years on the Today Show.
0:24.2	And I started this podcast back in 2016 with one goal to help women take control of our money
0:32.3	and build the financial lives that we deserve. Whether you are budgeting, investing, negotiating, or
0:39.9	just looking to make some smarter financial choices, you're in the right place. And if you're
0:45.5	ready to go even deeper, I've got two fantastic programs. Finance Fix is my hands-on budgeting course,
1:02.6	and investing fix is the investing club I run with Karen Feinerman from CNBC that's designed just for women.
1:13.2	You can find out more about these programs at FinanceFix.com and InvestingFix.com, and by the way, we spell fix with two X's. We are so glad you're here.
1:14.8	Now let's get into the show.
1:24.0	There's so much messaging, especially for women and especially for purchases that are very kind of coded as female. A lot of things that we consider to be really necessary self-care
1:28.3	end up being coded as female and downgraded as luxuries and not priorities.
1:37.0	Hey, everyone, I'm Gene Chatsky. Thank you so much for joining us on her money.
1:41.8	We've got a special mailbag episode for all of you with Dana Miranda,
1:46.9	author of the book, You Don't Need a Budget. If you caught our Wednesday episode with Dana,
1:52.5	you know that she is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, especially when it comes
1:58.3	to budgeting. Clearly, her message struck a nerve because we heard from
2:02.7	so many of you with incredible follow-up questions. So today, Dana's back. She's going to help
2:09.2	us tackle some of the real-life money problems that you all are navigating right now. Everything
2:13.9	from questions about early retirement to strategies for paying off debt and a fun one is spending $200 a month on Pilates justifiable.
2:25.0	Personally, I would say yes, but I'm going to wait to see what Dana has to say.
2:28.8	Dana, you ready?
	...

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