Courtney Harrell (Host)
speaker
376 appearances
10 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Courtney Harrell (Host)’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And where do you live?
Helena and her boyfriend Ollie have been traveling for the last eight months, with a few stopovers back home in New York. They spent last summer in Europe, traveled around California, and then landed in LA for the week of her audio diaries. For Helena, the travel is partly about taking advantage of her and her boyfriend's remote jobs.
But underneath that, it's also a way for her to put into practice a new relationship with her money. When Helena was a teenager, her family had an unexpected change in their finances. The change was big and dramatic, and it had a tangible impact on what Helena could do with her life.
It also left her with an anxiety around money that she still carries, even now after years of trying to be responsible and working her way through her first jobs after college. But now she's trying to shake that off, trying to just enjoy the money she's got. And this week, we'll follow along and see if that's possible. I'm Courtney Harrell, and this is what we spend.
Let's get into Helena's numbers. Like she said, Helena makes $173,000 a year before taxes, health insurance, and bonuses. She also splits household bills, rent and utilities, and usually groceries, with her boyfriend. He's in tech sales and, with commission at the end of the year, usually makes a little over $200,000 before taxes. And their expenses?
They spent a total of $1,800 on their two weeks of housing in LA. But the rest of their time in California, they stayed with family for free. Back in New York, they'd be paying $1,500 a month for a room in a larger apartment that they share with roommates. There, utilities run roughly $100 to $200 a month, depending on the season.
In New York, she takes the subway for about $80 a month. But while she's been in California, she's been using her dad's car for free and spending less than $100 on gas.
Wi-Fi at home is $40 a month. Streaming services are $40 a month too. Digital storage is $4.99 a month. And she pays for Amazon Prime in one yearly $60 payment.
Her health, dental, and vision insurance come out of her paycheck for a total of $185 a month. Then she spends $50 a month on medication and has a $30 copay to see a psychiatrist once a month. She also has a recurring donation of $100 a month to the Brooklyn Bail Fund.
Tell me, what was money like growing up?
Oh God. First of all, you said it was a substantial inheritance. What does that mean? I think it was like $20 million. Helena's parents are from Iraq, and Helena's grandpa on her mom's side was on the board of a big oil company there. It was a great job, but Helena's grandpa was afraid of political instability in his country.
Helena says once he got to England, her grandpa started over. He took the cash he brought and bought an apartment that he started renting out in London. Then he reinvested the money he made from that property into more property until he was running a few bed and breakfasts.
Over time, he became more and more successful. Years later, when he passed away from a heart attack, he left the money he'd made throughout his life to his wife.
I mean, literally, how did they spend all that money? Do you know?
Before that point, Helena didn't really talk about money with her parents, including where their money came from. Her mom had been an interior designer, but she stopped working when Helena was born. Helena's dad did well as a software engineer, and they owned a few properties that brought in passive income. So Helena had always assumed that their money just came from that.
She didn't understand that her parents were spending with the knowledge that they had a huge future safety net and didn't need to save for things like retirement or college. She actually didn't even know about the inheritance until her mom told her it was gone. Tell me about when your parents told you that that money was gone.
Helena had just accepted an early decision offer to Columbia, her dream school. Her parents told her they were still going to do everything they could to pay for her tuition, but everything had to change. No more eating out, no more travel, no more big gifts.
Her parents refinanced their house to bring down the mortgage, sold a property, and started looking for places to cut spending or make more money anywhere they could.
After the break, we'll hear how Helena's relationship with money has changed as we dive into her week.
ClassPass is a subscription service that lets you exchange credits for different kinds of exercise classes. So Helena is basically getting a free gym membership from her work.
Showing 221–240 of 376 · page 12 of 19
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