Morgan Lavoie

Yeah, right.

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Yeah.

I can't breathe.

Oh my God.

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That's something that really does... sort of serve as a heartbeat through rinse, the consideration of the people along that are involved in the processes, like the fact that your valets are W2 employees and the fact that you actually are supporting local mom and shop businesses, because especially like you think about the time and the influences, you mentioned Uber and Lyft.

Around the same time, people are getting really interested in marketplaces like Airbnb. And so I could see a world in which Rinse is a marketplace that helps people find those mom and pop shops. Or you could have decided we're going to have Rinse facilities and we'll own the space and the machines and things like that.

But I love that you've kept this through line of just really considering the industry at large and the people involved to pull it off. It really shows.

Yeah, that's great. Make mom proud. That's going to be our KPR, our key performance indicator for next year. I love that.

Speaking of KPIs for next year, we're approaching the end of 2024. This is a time where people, businesses are making their goals for next year. Can you talk a little bit about how you set goals as a company and use what your goals are for 2025 as an example of that decision-making process?

I love how you take this sort of, there's a lot to do, but we don't have to do a lot and give people a framework that they can always sort of do a gut check of like, does this support the overarching goal? And we had the co-founder of Club Penguin come on the show a while ago.

And he said that they had a similar framework where, you know, the company was big and they were selling to Disney and they were getting invited to all of these conferences. And they were like, wouldn't eight-year-olds care about this? And that was sort of their their pillar. And so if an eight year old wouldn't care about it, they just sort of didn't do it.

And that was how they filtered like there's a lot to do. But what are the things that we're actually going to do and what should we be putting our focus on? And I know for for 2025, in fact, you may be announcing it today as we're as we're talking, but you're doing a partnership with Barrier Free Living. Can you talk a little bit about what that is?

I do think that that is such a smart way to provide that social impact because I remember even when I was going to college, my mom moving me in my freshman year, the first thing she said was, you have to make your bed because that's what makes you feel like you're having this fresh start in your home. That's really amazing.

I'm sure between your social impact work and the growth and profitability goals you have for next year, 2025 is going to be another great year for Rinse. And Again, like this is the time of year where businesses are making their goals for the year. Individuals are also making their goals for the year. We hear from a lot of listeners who are like, I've always wanted to start a business.

It's 2025, the year that I actually do it. Can you give advice for a founder in those shoes or a would-be founder about how to know when it's the right time to make the leap?

It's Morgan, the EP of the show filling in this week for Nicole while she's out on mat leave. A few weeks ago, Nicole did an episode about old school businesses that are finally having their day in the sun and getting real props for their recurring revenue. Businesses like plumbing companies, pest control, and laundry.

Yeah. And what about founders or potential founders who are in discussion with friends about starting a business together? I know that this is, of course, something that you did with James. You had known each other since college. And I think people worry if I start a business with a friend, how do I make sure that neither suffers?

The friendship doesn't suffer, but also the business doesn't suffer because of the friendship. So what advice would you give to friends who are considering starting something together?

According to data from PitchBook, private equity investors have bought over 800 plumbing, electrical, and HVAC companies since 2022. Today, I'm talking to someone who saw this potential long ago, Ajay Prakash, co-founder and CEO of Rinse, a company that is building the first national brand in laundry and dry cleaning.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And that is something we've talked about a bit on the show. We do both business content, personal finance. And like you're saying about a marriage, it's so important to, once you feel like you're ready to put a ring on it, lock it in. It's like, how old do you want to be when you retire? What are your expectations about what our lifestyle will be like in retirement?

Similar to like, do you want this to be a unicorn? How long can you go without taking a salary? It's really helpful to be on the same page there. And so let's talk to some... not would-be founders, but founders, you say that one of the priorities for you is ruthless prioritization. Can you explain what that is and why that's important?

We end all of our episodes by asking our guests for one tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. That is such a good one. But if there's any other piece of advice that you could leave our listeners with on career or business, could be anything, fundraising, starting a business, what's one tip that you would leave listeners with today?

And you might be thinking, how excited could someone really get about running a laundry business? The answer will surprise you. My fiance, Jack, bought and operated a laundry business in college with some of his friends. One of his partners in that business, Eitan, hi Eitan, went to work at, you guessed it, Rinse after college.

And you should see how excited Jack and Eitan get when they talk about laundry even now. So in my conversation with Ajay, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And I have to admit, I'm kind of excited about laundry now. Ajay and I chat about how to find, test, and scale these old school businesses that are ripe for innovation. But we also go beyond that. Ajay is a really excellent leader.

You can tell that just by listening to how thoughtful he is about how he manages his company and team. And as we're staring down the final days of 2024, I wanted to get some advice. Ajay gives a framework for founders on how to set goals for your company in a meaningful and achievable way.

And also advice for anyone who's thinking 2025 might be the year they finally take the leap and start their own company. Here's our conversation. Ajay Prakash, welcome to Money Rehab.

So happy to have you here. Of course, we have to start with the origin story of Rince. Can you take us through it?

So you knew that you wanted to apply innovation and disruption to an old school business. And we actually did an episode about this on the show a couple of weeks ago because we've been seeing a lot of business media recently really glorifying some of those kind of more traditional businesses. Like there's a lot of reporting around is the plumber your millionaire next door type of thing.

But businesses like plumbing, pest control, laundromats. And I think part of the reason why there's this glorification happening in the media is because there's more PE activity around these types of businesses. So is this what you were seeing 11, almost 12 years ago that made you excited about an idea like Rinse?

I love that, that sort of check-in of, are you still excited about this? Are you still excited about this? And so you went through that process of saying, what am I good at? And then you mentioned another question you asked yourself, which is so important. And it's that question of like, is this something that's needed? Like, what do people need? And I think that...

That can be an easy trap for entrepreneurs to fall into. If they're just really excited about an idea, they feel like they want to do something, but actually testing whether or not something is needed, their ideal customer profile is somebody who actually needs this service. And so you did a test with 11 friends. Was there anything about that test that surprised you?

Yeah. Yeah. Debate debatably. One of the more important steps was rinse always called rinse, or was there another idea for the name of the business that you tossed around?

That makes so much sense. And I'm so glad that you did that. And I love that you brought up Lyft because I was wondering if this story would go like, we considered Rince with a Y, we considered Rince without an I, we considered Rince with no E at the end. So that's the origin story of, Fast forward 11, almost 12 years.

I'd love for you to sort of paint a picture for the listeners about what the service actually looks like. So I'm in a room where I can see my laundry hamper right now. I have a puppy. We went to the dog park today. We both came back muddy and disgusting. If I want to use rinse, can you tell me about the journey that my now muddy pair of jeans will go on?

Yeah. Yeah. During COVID, I watched TV shows that got really hyped up that I had missed, like Game of Thrones and I watched Breaking Bad. I had sort of missed the train on that by many years, but I had heard of it and I knew so many people were big fans. And what was so shocking to me at first was that people just sort of accepted the premise.

that somebody got a terminal illness and had to cook meth in order to provide for his own healthcare costs. It's crazy. If the show were to take place in Canada, it would have been a very boring show. It would have been one episode and he would have got chemo and it would have been fine.

So because this outrage does seem to be across the aisle, can we expect a solution from the government to fix the broken healthcare system?

And lastly, can we expect a solution from the healthcare industry and UnitedHealthcare itself? I'll leave you with an excerpt from Gia's piece.

He was also the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the health insurance company with the highest rate of claim denials in the industry. So Jia, at what point did you think to yourself, I have to write about this. That's a good question. That's Gia Tolentino. Gia is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the New York Times bestselling author of a collection of essays titled Trick Mirror.

In an interview on the podcast, We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, Doyle said that if the news is ever dark or complicated, she asks herself her own version of what would Jesus do, which is what will Gia write about this? And I find myself doing the same thing in moments like this. Gia wrote a piece in The New Yorker about what Brian Thompson's death means to America.

It's an amazing piece, and I linked it in the show notes so you can read it if you haven't already. Here she is on why she wrote it.

comments that people were posting before the Facebook was shut down that are like burned into your mind?

merchants of violence in some way and in the way that that was just instantly flipped back onto this news story was so striking thompson's death his murder is a difficult topic to cover it's difficult because there are two truths that feel mutually exclusive brian thompson should not have been killed and the health care system in the united states is broken

If you acknowledge that second truth, some say it's disrespectful to Thompson's family or it validates this really violent act. And I do understand that criticism. But I think that reaction comes from an assumption. The assumption is this. Anyone who is talking about the flaws in the healthcare system right now is arguing that the ends justify the means.

That in this case, the ends, people looking critically at the broken healthcare system in the United States, is justifying the murder of Brian Thompson. I want to be clear, that's not what I'm doing today. I'm going to be talking about the healthcare industry, what the stakes are, and how we can have a better system. But I'm not debating whether the ends justify the means.

I'll tell you personally, I think Thompson's death is terrible and tragic. But what I'm trying to do, and I hope you'll do with me, is separate the ends and the means. to acknowledge that killing is always wrong, but also to look at how we got here, how we might be able to fix what is clearly very broken in the healthcare system.

So let's rewind. Let's talk about what we know about UnitedHealthcare.

UnitedHealthcare is part of the health insurance conglomerate UnitedHealth Group, which is the fifth largest company in the United States by revenue and the largest insurance company in the United States. It's also the largest provider of Medicare Advantage, which is a type of health insurance you might get if you're over 65.

United Health Group is a public company and their stock is up 63% compared to its price five years ago. In Gia's piece, she notes that United Healthcare has the highest claim denial rate of any private insurance company. It denies 32% of claims. Claim denial is a profitability driver for healthcare companies. When Thompson was killed, he was actually headed into an investor conference.

In that conference, claim denial rate was likely going to be a topic of discussion. In fact, according to Vox, the most watched number on every earnings call for an insurance company is the, quote, medical loss ratio, which is the percentage of premiums that are spent on paying out claims. Shareholders want to see that number low. The patients, of course, would want to see that number high.

If the number is higher than expected, the share price of the stock can suffer. Jia also points out that one driver of UnitedHealth's high claim denials is a software they use called NaviHealth, which is an algorithm that provides care recommendations for patients, including when care is no longer necessary after a surgery or illness.

In 2023, a class action lawsuit alleges that Navi Health has a known error rate of 90%. This means that many people have had to face the choice of either going without care that they, by statistic likelihood, actually need or pay out of pocket. In the class action lawsuit, there are many stories of people going without the care they need and dying shortly thereafter.

Today, the parent company UnitedHealth Group is valued at $560 billion. UnitedHealth Care made $281 billion in revenue in 2023. The outstanding amount of medical debt in the United States is $220 billion. Medical debt is in fact the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

The American Journal of Public Health found that 66% of bankruptcies in the United States were due to medical problems. I should note here that we do have resources for anyone struggling with medical debt, and I've linked those in the show notes. The fact that claim denials are so common makes this a blatant socioeconomic inequality issue.

If it costs more money to heal, to get care, to live, wealthier Americans can live longer, healthier lives than poor Americans.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought one of the really interesting things that you said about that, but also how people are seeing it the same way from both sides of the aisle is everyone's pointing at this and saying social decay is but the origin they're sort of pointing at different places. Like some people are pointing at the killing itself.

Some people are pointing at all of the comments online that seemed heartless. And some people are pointing upstream and talking more about the structural violence that has happened long before.

Acknowledging this head-on pushes the conversation back into the feedback loop of criticism. But again, I think it's perfectly acceptable in this complicated time we're living in to feel the weight of Bretton Johnson's death and the weight of the harm people have endured through not having access to affordable health care.

So that's what people are feeling right now. And it's notably been across the aisle.

it's morgan the ep of the show filling in for nicole this week while she's on mat leave today we're going to talk about health insurance we're talking about this today because on december 4th brian thompson was murdered in midtown manhattan at 6 44 a.m he was 50 years old he played golf and wordle He had two sons.

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Hey, money rehabbers. It's Morgan, the EP of the show. It's January 15th. How are those financial New Year's resolutions going? You know, we've been doing this show for four years now and we hear the same pain point from money rehabbers over and over again around this time of year. Maybe you're feeling it too. It goes like this. You set a financial goal.

Maybe it's buying your first house or an investment property or retiring with enough money to take your family on vacations or sending your kids to college. Or maybe you're just killing it in your career and you wanna know how to make your money work harder for you.

It certainly has.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. If you're ready to team up with a financial advisor to help you reach your financial goals, or even if you just want to learn more about how a financial advisor can help you with your specific goals, you can set up for free a 15-minute consultation with Creative Planning at creativeplanning.com slash Nicole. Let's make 2025 the best year yet.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network.

Whatever your goal is, you've set it, you feel excited about it, you're ready to make it happen, and then you realize that you don't actually know how to get there. Setting goals is not something you can outsource. That is deeply personal and just depends on how you want to live your life. But making the strategy to help you get there, that is something that you can outsource to a wealth advisor.

But I get it. It can feel really overwhelming to let someone into your financial life. So today, you're going to hear a conversation between Nicole and Peter Malouk, CEO of the award-winning wealth management and investment advisory firm Creative Planning. In this conversation, they talk about when to hire a financial advisor and how to find the right one for you.

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And they get super granular, even down to what you should bring with you in your first meeting so that all of the guesswork is taken out. This conversation should make you feel like you're ready to take the next step. And when you are, well, I'll tell you exactly what to do at the end of the episode. But first, here's Nicole and Peter.

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Hey, it's Morgan, the executive producer of the show. And as you know, this week we are playing the money rehab episodes that will make the biggest difference to help you meet your financial goals in 2025. Today's episode is all about saving for retirement. Enjoy.

$50 million, I'd probably go back to the housewives. $10 million.

What? But it sounds like the salary isn't really where you're making the money. But you get paid by episode? It depends on your deal. So there's not a standard thing. Everybody gets.

What do you think about prenups?

Fair.

Casual $110 million in sales later. Last year. Yeah, just last year. In one year. One year.

Those are the things that people need. Everybody needs shelter from the storm.

Morgan Lavoie, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you so much.

Not the first time.

Well, let's figure it out.

Just wasn't.

Yeah.

So but pre-drag race, it sounds like you were not making enough money from drag that you could live on. You were like working in coffee shops, doing other things.

Is that right? And then when you were in L.A., you got a shitty apartment so that you could save for a second audition tape for drag race, right?

So you did your audition tape for season two. You auditioned every year until season five.

And so I also read it in your memoir that you said that early on you were like, I'm going to be famous. And when I'm famous, all my problems are going to go away. Yeah.

The folly of youth. And so when you did get cast, did you think this is it? I'm going to be famous and all of my problems are going to go away?

And so how have you had to think about redefining success for yourself so that you can feel like it's not tied to fame, but it's tied to maybe something that is self-worth, happiness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's exactly like the movie The Substance.

Before you got that call saying that you were on Drag Race, were you stressed about money?

Yeah. And so do you think if you hadn't have gotten on Drag Race, would you have kept doing drag?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I first moved to New York after college, it took me a long time to get a job. And I did the thing where I sold my car to move here and moved with one suitcase and was like, this is the total amount of money that I have in my life. Yeah. And I just watched it go down while I was trying to get a job.

And when I finally got a job at iHeartRadio, I didn't have enough money in my bank account to pay for Subway fare. So I walked to work every morning. Yeah. Thank you. Do you have any stories like that where you're like, I just got to fucking make it work?

Can you tell me about drag musical?

Let's start with where did this idea come from? How long have you been working on it?

My God.

Yeah, how hard could it be?

Yeah, you did it and people love it. And so you didn't just write it, you also star in it. Can you tell us a little bit about what the show is about?

Yeah.

Yeah. What would seeing something like that have meant to you when you were 10?

Yeah. Yeah. One of the parts of your memoir that really made me feel for little Alaska was when your mom was like, don't play like a girl.

Yeah. That's really hard. That's really hard. And then you're also, it struck me that you're also doing this show and then the election happens. So do you feel like the stakes are higher now somehow or do you try to keep it in its own creative bubble?

I was reading the comments of some of the posts on the drag, the musical Instagram account and just so many people being like, hi from Minnesota. Like I took my kids when we were visiting New York. It meant so much to them. And it's amazing. It must feel so good to hear stories like that and see how it's how it's resonating because it is such a light.

Hi, Money Rehabbers. It's Morgan, the EP of the show, guest hosting Money Rehab this week while Nicole is on maternity leave. Today, I'm going to be talking about the business of drag. This is an episode I've wanted to do for so long because one, I'm just a big fan of drag, but also because it's one of those jobs where I've just always wondered how people actually make money doing it.

I would love that.

Yeah. Because again, it's like more people need to see it.

Before I let you go, I would love to play a game with you.

It's Never Have I Ever, but money themed.

And we're not drinking. So we'll just put our hands up.

And so if you have done something, you put a finger down. Oh, okay. And if you haven't, you keep it up.

So never have I ever split the check on a first date. If you have done it, put your finger down. I have done it.

Never have I ever maxed out a credit card. I don't think I've done that.

Never have I ever won a cash prize.

So you put a finger down. Okay. Never have I ever invested in the stock market.

You haven't? We got to get you in there. Okay. We're going to make you rich.

Never have I ever given a big gift to a friend or family member.

Yeah. Okay. Put that finger down. Never have I ever had credit card debt.

Yeah. What kind of debt have you had?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I've had credit card debt either.

Never have I ever played the lottery. I have.

Scratchers absolutely count.

Okay, perfect. Never have I ever been fired from a job. I haven't.

What's that story?

You were like, fair enough.

I mean, was it worth it?

We end all of our episodes by asking our guests for a money tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. And so it can be anything about something, a lesson that you've learned, something that you use to save, negotiate, make money, shop, anything.

Yeah.

It's like when Tiffany Haddish re-wore a dress that she wore to an award show when she was hosting SNL. She was like, I need to get my money's worth.

I love that.

And it saves money. Good for the environment. I'm sold.

Today I'm talking to one of the most iconic drag queens ever, Alaska. She goes by Alaska or Alaska Thunderfuck. And so today I'm just going to stick with Alaska because I don't know how many times I can say Thunderfuck without the show getting canceled to already feels like I'm kind of pushing it.

Alaska grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania and worked in Pittsburgh and LA before getting cast on the Olympics of Drag, the show RuPaul's Drag Race. Alaska was a runner-up on season five and then went on to win RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season two. If you don't know Alaska, you just simply have to. Her memoir, My Name's Yours, What's Alaska?, is a good place to start.

She has a huge fan base, 1.8 million followers on Instagram alone. And she just does a zillion different things from performing to her drag race rewatch podcast, Race Chasers. She makes music. She tours. She has a fragrance. And now she has a show in New York City. Alaska co-wrote and stars in Drag the Musical, which if you're in New York, you definitely should see.

And she tells me a little bit more about it in this conversation. Today, we talk about the business of drag through her story, from how she got started to redefining success after Drag Race, how she kept going when she had no money, and yes, how drag queens actually make money. Here's Alaska. Alaska. Welcome to Money Rehab.

The pleasure is all ours. I'm so excited to talk to you about the business of drag really through your story. So let's start with you. Do you remember the first drag performance you ever saw?

Do you remember what she sang and what she was wearing?

And so this was in Pittsburgh.

That's a plot twist. That is what I thought. West Virginia, okay.

And so when you saw that, did you think, I want to do that immediately? No. No.

And did you?

And so this happened in West Virginia, maybe. It did not happen in Erie, where you grew up. Not a lot of drag representation in Erie.

Yeah. But even though you felt at the time that could never be me, you had an early interest in style. I read in your memoir that you would make cat woman suits out of trash bags and you would dye your contacts with food coloring.

So when then did you for the first time think like, I can do that. Like I could do drag.

And so how long after that did you perform as Alaska for the first time?

The fishbowl?

And you did?

And so I love that you knew what your name would be as soon as you encountered it, which was a weed strain, right?

Love that. And so there was never another contender. You were like...

So tell me about the fishbowl performance.

So was that actually your first time performing as Alaska?

And so how did it feel?

And so then you decide to move to L.A.

But you decide at the time that you're not going to do drag there. You like pack your wigs and then you go through security at the airport. And then you take your wigs out because you're like, I'm not doing drag.

No, I got you.

Yeah. And well, thank God that you did. What a gift. So at some point you're like, okay, I'm doing drag for fun. Now I have to make money doing it. And I read that you sort of like looked around and you're like, what, how are other drag queens making money? And so you saw somebody sell t-shirts online. So you're like, I'll sell t-shirts online.

You saw people promoting and producing shows and parties. So you're like, I'll try that. And then also making their own music. And so, well, first of all, do you have any of those old T-shirts still? Because I want one. I do. Yeah.

OK, well, if you find one, let me know. But when I was reading that, I was surprised because I figured that sort of the big moneymaker is performing. Is that right?

So tell me about that.

Keeping costs low. Yes. No, perfect. And so when so you said you're getting paid like a hundred bucks, maybe. So is that normally the structure? It's like you'll get a fee and then tips.

So how much, like, say the Blue Moon, where, you know, bar in Pittsburgh, where you're a big part of the legacy there. How much would somebody make in tips a night there?

$20?

Yeah. Yeah. And so what are the what are the costs? How does it get so expensive?

Yeah. And do you think because I was thinking about it and not every job has such startup costs like that.

And so you really have to be willing to invest in yourself.

And so did that make you feel differently, do you think, than if you had a job where like you could have just jumped into it? Like, do you feel like you were more confident because you're investing or did you feel like I got to make this work because I'm like putting my money into it?

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Whatever it is, Claire is really, really talented at identifying what that core issue is and giving you a strategy to help you overcome that. This week, you're going to hear examples of exactly that.

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This week, while Claire is guest hosting the podcast, you're going to hear conversations in the style of her podcast where she has women come on her show anonymously and talk through a money or career problem that they're having. This week, it's all about money because, you know, money rehab. But check out Claire's podcast linked in the show notes because there's a lot that she covers there.

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And now for some more money rehab.

So that's going to be what happens this week. But first, again, here's a conversation that Claire had with Nicole before Nicole went on maternity leave. In the first part of their conversation, you'll hear Claire share tips and strategies that you can use if you're asking for a raise or for more money out of a job offer.

And you'll hear tips that you can use that are, you know, gender non-specific, but Claire does have an extra layer of advice for women specifically just because, you know, the wealth gap, traditionally, it's been hard. Women have needed extra strategies to get what they deserve.

In the second part of their conversation, you'll hear Claire's origin story and more information about what she's working on and what you can expect out of this week of episodes. Enjoy.

Yeah.

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Hi, this is Morgan, the executive producer of the show. And today, you are going to hear a conversation that Nicole taped before she was on maternity leave with Claire Wasserman, who happens to be the guest host of Money Rehab this week.

Claire is the co-founder of Ladies Get Paid, which is a community where women can find resources on how to succeed in their careers, negotiate their salaries, land new jobs, and build their wealth. It's a job board, there's personal finance resources, and a network of over 50,000 women.

She wrote a bestselling book of the same name, Ladies Get Paid, which is the preeminent guide on how women can get recognized and rewarded at work. Claire has this really special ability to coach people on how to get the money that they are worth and that they deserve through addressing whatever root problem is holding them back. Sometimes it's emotional. Sometimes it's systemic.

Hi, Money Rehabbers. It's Morgan Levoy, the EP of the show. And this week, I'm going to be guest hosting Money Rehab. I've been producing Money Rehab with Nicole since it launched in 2021. I remember so clearly the first time I ever met Nicole, it was over Zoom because, you know, it was 2021 and everything was over Zoom. It might have even been 2020.

And Nicole had booked an Airbnb to write, honestly, I forget which book at that point. It might have been Miss Independent. And she was in the middle of the desert somewhere. And so we were on this call talking about what the show might look like. And every so often there would just be this screeching noise in the background because where Nicole was, there was a large population of wild hogs.

And so every so often she would flip her camera around and you would just see this small stampede of very scary looking wild creatures. And I just remember thinking, I love this woman and I can't wait to work with her. And at the time I was at iHeartRadio also producing other shows like Bethany Frankel's podcast and Bill Clinton's podcast, Minnie Driver's podcast and a bunch of others.

But Money Rehab has always had a really special place in my heart. I love the show so much that I actually left my job at iHeart to start M&N with Nicole. And it's just been the ride of a lifetime, the biggest opportunity I've ever had, which is why I'm so grateful to be guest hosting the show this week.

So this week, you'll hear episodes ranging from a conversation on the business of drag with the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2, Alaska. A deeper dive on some of those quote unquote boring businesses Nicole has talked about. For that conversation, I'm going to be talking with the CEO of laundry and dry cleaning company Rinse.

You're also going to hear my conversation with Gia Tolentino, staff writer at The New Yorker and one of the most important writers of our time, talk about what the killing of the UnitedHealth CEO says about the state of the healthcare system in the U.S. All of that and more you'll hear this week.

But first, I'm going to share the very first episode of Money Rehab that I was ever featured on with an even more special guest, my mom. And in that conversation, Nicole will also help you find free money. So here's that episode.

Okay, so here's what happened. Also, hi, everyone. It's Morgan, one of the producers on Money Rehab. So I did go to unclaimed.org. And spoiler alert, I did have unclaimed money, which is so exciting. It's weird. I guess the college that I went to owes me money. I'm honestly not sure what it's for.

But to be totally straight up with you, because of the way that the unclaimed money was sent to New York State, I actually can't collect it online. And I also can't see how much money there is for me. So fingers crossed it's, you know, a million dollars. But what I have to do now is print out the mail-in form and send it in, which is totally fine.

There's money out there that I didn't know about that has my name on it. That's awesome. But in terms of the show, I don't want to leave you guys hanging. You know, snail mail. Who knows how long this could take? I thought instead I would try to help someone find some unclaimed money. So I called my mom.

Hi, Mom.

Let's find you your unclaimed money.

So we went to unclaimed.org first, and there were only a couple pieces of information that we had to put in before we could start the free search. Claimant relationship. Personal representative.

No. Okay, so it says claimant individual for last name, first name. Now it's asking for your address. And that was really it. So then we submitted it. You have a couple things, but the one that looks most interesting to me. Oh, wait, there's more. There's one that just belongs to you and it's under $25. But there's another one between both you and Tim and it's over $25.

So I feel like we should look into that one. Let's look into that one. So to get my mom's unclaimed money, we had to submit a claim, which we did right through the website. Okay, so right now it's asking me for your last name, your first name, so far so good.

I do know those things. Your home phone. I'm just gonna put your cell phone. Okay, I'm gonna pause the recording right now because I'm gonna ask for your social security number. All right, address. How did you hear about us? My daughter. The next page is electronic signature and preview your claim. By clicking the agree button below, I certify the following. I am the person whose name I keyed in.

Kind of. All the information I have keyed in.

There's a lot of overlap. All the information I have keyed in is true and accurate. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. So check if you agree to the above conditions. Check. Okay. You should have gotten an email.

So the email we were waiting for would tell her what the next step was to get the money that she was owed and how much money she was owed.

And then after maybe two minutes, she got the email.

How do you feel?

Hey, Money Rehabbers, it's Morgan Levoy, the executive producer of the show. This week, you're going to hear three of our favorite episodes that Nicole taped before she went on maternity leave. And in honor of the Super Bowl, congrats to all the Eagles fans out there, we're going to play an episode that Nicole taped with NFL player turned financial guru, Brandon Copeland. Enjoy. Enjoy.

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Hey, it's Morgan, the executive producer of the show. And if you hear kind of like a crunching in the background, that's because my dog Skipper is chewing on a chew toy. So sorry for that. We got a request from a listener to re-release some of the Money Rehab episodes that will make the biggest impact to your wallet in 2025.

Kind of a cover your basics as you're trying to get your financial New Year's resolutions in order. Last week on Friday, you heard an episode about how to make your first investment. And that is such a good resolution for this year if you haven't started investing. So please go back and listen to that one if you missed it.

Today, you're going to hear Nicole's guide to how to make and keep a budget that works for you and your future self. Enjoy.

cozy earth sheets are so breathable you'll sleep several degrees cooler and that's how both jack and i love to sleep so that is so important to us and we're just sleeping better because of it honestly these sheets redefine what it means to relax together imagine the softest bedding it's like sleeping on a cloud and they make every night feel like a mini getaway right in your bed surprise your valentine with cozy earth get 40 off at cozyearth.com money rehab with my code money rehab

And don't forget, if you're asked in a post-purchase survey, let them know you heard about Cozy Earth right here on Money Rehab. It really helps support the show. So please and thank you. Your Valentine deserves this. You deserve this. Elevate your love with Cozy Earth. Is it just me or is everything more expensive right now? I mean, don't even get me started on the price of eggs.

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You'll find titles on better health, including personal fitness, nutrition, and relaxation. Here are ways to improve your relationships, both in your work and personal life, or how to embark on a new career strategy. If you want to overhaul your financial life or hear smart talk about investing for your future, you'll find that too. Ultimately, it's all about starting good habits.

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Yes, questions. So can you talk about the choice to have that repeating format? Because I imagine that it benefits both you and the reader, right? Like there's some sort of outline that you have as the person writing this thing that you can kind of shade in, but also to your point, your readers know what to expect. There's that predictability element.

And it would be very easy for me as a reader of yours to pick one thing better out of a lineup. Like if I just saw it on a PDF, And somebody said, whose newsletter is this? I would say this is Jason's. It's a really strong brand. So can you talk about that choice?

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Hi, it's Morgan, the executive producer of Money Rehab. And today's episode is all about making a newsletter that helps you further your career and business goals. But first, I want to tell you what we're doing next week. Next week, the guest hosts of Money Rehab will be Mosh Winunu and Jill Wagner. Mosh and Jill co-host a daily news podcast called Mo News, which is my favorite daily news podcast.

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This ad is brought to you by Charlotte Tilbury, USA customers only and valid until March 2nd, 2025. For full terms and conditions and exclusions, see the Charlotte Tilbury website. I have made it my mission this year to cut out extra fees. It really adds up. I mean, think about it.

When you go to the movies, when you travel, when you see a concert, when you go to a game, these fees can really jump out at you and make it really hard to stay on budget. When we're trying to make progress, life's curveballs often feel like this, taking one step forward and two steps back.

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Open your account in two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. And now for some more money rehab.

Okay. I'm going to explain this in parts. It's sort of a nesting doll of stories, but you're actually a part of this in a couple of ways. Oh, great. But do you remember when we went to dinner with Terry and Matt?

Okay, great. And Terry Rice, who is multi-hyphenate entrepreneur and consultant, and Matt Gartland, who you introduced me to, how do you even describe Matt?

So super, super smart, interesting group of people. And you asked a question that I really love and I've asked a lot of people since, which is you asked people, what is the idea for a project that you're holding on to that you just haven't done yet?

I did. I did. And it goes back to, so I studied neuroscience in college and I had a genetics professor who was kind of giving his background. And he was like, well, like a career advisor asked me once, what's the most important thing that you should be doing right now? And he said, it's studying the brain and genetics. And so that's what he did. And my answer to that question has always been,

I swapped the daily out for Mo News a long time ago. Sorry, Michael Barbaro, it's just the truth. Next week in the Money Rehab feed, you'll be hearing the week of Mo News episodes, and it's going to be a really jam-packed week for news because of the inauguration, so you're definitely going to want to tune in. But back to newsletters.

around the climate crisis and everything that's going on in Los Angeles right now has just been sort of like echoing that back to me. And I'm not actually doing anything. I'm not doing anything helpful where that's concerned. And so that also led me to go through an exercise, which I learned from you, which is your mission statement exercise. Can you describe what that is?

I have found that so helpful and I applied that to this problem because I thought, okay, so, you know, the problem is global warming.

Global warming, it's a problem.

But what am I actually good at? And that's kind of more how I thought about using the mission statement exercise. Like how can I leverage what I'm good at to make any sort of an impact? So what I arrived at for my mission statement is I am good at simplifying academic topics through storytelling. That's something that I've always been good at.

I was a tutor in college and I helped people in their science courses who had to take them liberal arts major. It was a requirement to graduate and just tried to use storytelling to explain the academic concepts. I do that at MNN through writing business and finance content, often very academic, but I can make them more palatable through storytelling.

So I think a newsletter is actually a good format for me for this. But where I feel like there is a need is a lot of the people who write about climate write about the very far end of the spectrum in terms of action, which looks like making lifestyle changes that are very dramatic. Like people writing about not flying on airplanes anymore or only wearing hemp.

Today, I'm going to be giving you a deep dive on the step-by-step process of creating a newsletter, or if you already have one, making it better. There's a few reasons you'll find this useful. First, if you've been thinking about starting a newsletter or if you have one and want to get more people to read it, well then, obviously, this is going to be helpful.

I'm not going to do that. And so what I want to see and what I would benefit from is somebody writing from the perspective of what can you do to be better, but not the best. And so I have sort of in my head called my newsletter greener for that exact reason. Like, how can you be greener?

And so my idea is that throughout the course of the week, I would focus on one thing that's hurting the planet, like microplastics, the meat industry, things like that. And then I would think of something that I could do consistently throughout the week as a sort of challenge to help that problem. Like this week, I'm not eating any meat. How did that feel? What was hard about that?

This week, I'm not using any single use plastic. What was hard about that? Did I do it? And- Then writing about that and my experience with it. And then, you know, sort of like at the top, my first section would be, why is this a problem in the first place?

And something that I am thinking about doing too is at sort of the end of the newsletter, I would say what the challenge that I'm setting for myself is going to be throughout the next week so that people could try it too. And I think that that would sort of to incentivize people to continue to read because they are kind of like following along. We're doing this together sort of a thing.

So that is my idea. What do you think?

Yay. Perfect. I want to hear all of it.

But if you don't have a newsletter and it's not on your bingo card for 2025, you might want to consider it anyway. If you run a business or if you have a side hustle or if you're interested in dipping your toes into the creator economy, a newsletter is a really good way to connect with your customers or community. If you're wondering why, look no further than TikTok.

So that's the advice that I got from Jason. And oh my God, it's so painful to listen back to me explaining my idea. If it takes you five minutes to explain a newsletter concept, it probably needs some work just as a general rule. But let me just take a step back. The idea for Greener hit me two years ago on a day in June when the sky in New York was red.

And this wasn't the first time I had felt anxiety around climate change. I doom scroll on climate news and click on any headline about how the world is going to end in 150, 30 years. So while it wasn't a new feeling, I had never really done anything about it.

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And like I said to Jason, I'm not going to pull up a seat alongside Greta Thunberg on a sailboat in order to get to my friend's wedding in California. To be honest, whether it's my love of my carbon indulgences or just laziness and a dependency on convenience, that extreme way of living is just not going to be something that I do. But I know I have to make some changes because I see it happening.

At the time I'm recording this, it's looking like TikTok is probably going to be banned in the US. If you had hitched your business wagon to TikTok star, you're going to lose the community you built there.

I see the effects of climate change all the time. I grew up in Maine and Maine winters used to be just the bane of my existence. We used to get so much snow that at our local movie theater, the people that worked there would change the names on the marquee by climbing the snow banks. That's how high it was. You could reach the marquee in the movie theater just by standing on the snow bank.

But now winters are just manageable. January used to be so bitterly cold that it felt wrong to be outside. But now the mildness, it just feels worse. It's kind of like the quiet, too quiet of temperatures. But there are bigger signs, of course. I mean, look to Los Angeles, which we'll be covering more in the coming weeks.

But beyond that, flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, I know I need to change and I know I need to be greener. But I couldn't find a resource out there that was situated in this middle ground that I wanted to occupy.

Every resource I found was either a really drastic departure from what my life looks like now, a la sailboats and Greta Thunberg, or just eye-rollingly obvious ordinances to turn the lights off and take shorter showers. And I couldn't find anything for where I was at, just non-judgmental advice for someone not wanting to be perfect, but just better.

So I thought that I could make it with my newsletter. And I could try to do one thing every week that would help me live a greener life and talk about why it worked and how it worked. But Jason is totally right. My idea is too complicated. And it actually used to be even more complicated. I was going to include interviews with people solving climate issues at scale.

Some TikTok creators are scrambling now, trying to get their audience to follow them on other platforms, but this is just the inherent issue with being dependent on a platform that you don't control. The algorithm could change and all of a sudden your posts are shadow banned or the app could go away entirely and then you lose that base. But newsletters are different.

I'm definitely not doing that anymore. I've been thinking a lot about what Jason said since we spoke. And again, he is totally right and his advice is really solid. But I am going to inexplicably still try to do the unmanageable thing, the thing that he said would make me burn out.

And that's because I'm not thinking about doing these climate experiments, as he called them, just to write about them in a newsletter. I want to do them anyway because I think I should be more conscious about my footprint. So I actually think that writing about it and starting this newsletter will help me make some real change in my life and hopefully in others too.

But I am going to forget putting in interviews and some of the other section and segment ideas because I should try to decomplicate this workflow for myself. He's totally right. This conversation left me feeling really excited. So once I felt like I had my idea workshopped, it was time to make the thing. So this is when I talked to Alyssa Doolin. Again, she manages the creator growth team at KIT.

I asked her all of my technical questions, like how do I protect myself from being sent to spam? How do I get people to open my emails? Oh, and importantly, I'm not a celebrity, so how do I actually get people to find my newsletter? She helped me out with all of these questions. Here she is. I have some questions for you, Alyssa, but my biggest worry is that I just don't know what I don't know.

So I actually want to start by asking you generally, what are some important best practices when starting a newsletter?

Yeah, you just touched on so many things that I want to circle back to and double click on. But you mentioned the user experience and how you're welcoming people. And that reminded me of the fact that for the newsletters that I subscribe to, when I first subscribed to them, I did get like a welcome email. Is that something that you recommend creators have? Yeah.

In business speak, the difference is that with a newsletter, you, quote, own your customer. That sounds weird, but the big point there is that you are in control of your relationship with the customer because you have a way to reach them that is independent of the platform. And that's just because you have their email addresses.

Okay, interesting. And so that is something that would potentially help my email not be flagged as spam. Yes.

Okay, great. So say I am sending out my first email and I've asked some friends to subscribe. So I have some people that are on the list already, but I haven't sent anything yet. Is there anything I should be doing for the very first newsletter that I send out that will increase the probability that my email doesn't just automatically go to a spam or junk folder? Yeah.

Yeah, you could be on a newsletter platform that goes the way of TikTok, but you would still be able to, quote, keep those customers because you can just export the email list and then write to them on another newsletter platform. So that's the business use case for newsletters. There's also, of course, the creative use case.

It's great to hear because I have sort of been sitting here thinking that I don't have a big list to start. Like I'm not going to get a lot of people to sign up initially. I just know that to be true. And I have been sort of taking myself thinking that that's a bad thing, but it's nice to hear that there are some kind of good things about it too. So that's really good to know.

Some other things that you mentioned around user experience is like, Length and cadence, how often are your subscribers going to be hearing from you? These are the things that I'm thinking through right now, like all of these little decisions around how long the newsletter is going to be and what is the cadence and should I have headings and different sections and things like that.

Are there any lessons from Kit's top writers about what works? Yeah.

If it makes you happy to write things and put them out in the world, that's cool too. And that's sort of the bucket I fall into, kind of. I've been really interested in the idea of starting a newsletter for reasons I'm going to explain a little bit later. But for now, all you need to know is that I have wanted to start a newsletter for over two years now, and I haven't.

Okay, great. That's really helpful. I know another thing that people look at really closely and want to make sure they optimize for is a good open rate. Do you have any tips on getting a good open rate?

That's really helpful. And I alluded to this before, but I am not a celebrity. I am not Tim Ferriss. I I don't have a big audience of people that I know are going to subscribe to the newsletter. And so I effectively, in order to grow it, need to kind of get strangers to discover it. Like I don't have an audience that I'm tapping into. And so how do I do that?

Like how do I grow a newsletter beyond what my own personal reach or network is? Yeah.

Because I have a lot of questions, and there's a lot that I don't know. And when I say a lot, I mean I don't know anything. I have both left brain and right brain questions on this. I want to know what makes newsletter creative stand out, and I want to know what technical best practices I need to know so that my stuff just doesn't end up in spam folder limbo forever.

So lead magnets, that's something I'm familiar with. I don't know if I've ever heard of someone doing an email challenge or a newsletter challenge. What would that look like? Like what's an example of something someone has done before?

And I know that another tool that Kit has, because I... So I'm going to start my newsletter on Kit. I have not sent anything out yet, but I did create an account. And I know that there is like tech within the platform to cross promote newsletters. So I could recommend, do like a recommendation swap with another writer on Kit.

And I think the way that this would work, and correct me if I'm wrong, is if like... Someone subscribes to my newsletter and I'm recommending some, you know, let's say Jason's newsletter that when they subscribe to mine, they would get a pop up that's like you might like or like this author recommends or something like that. Do you have any sense of best practices around that?

Because I can see like. it being a really good idea to just try and get a recommendation from someone with a really big audience. But is it perhaps more important to work with someone who's like writing in the same genre that you're writing in? Or like, what are some of the considerations for using a swap tool like that?

So today I'm talking to two experts. First, you're going to hear advice from Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, the host of MNN's career and business podcast, Help Wanted, and author of the newsletter, One Thing Better.

Okay, great. That's really helpful. And in terms of like, you know, because in a best case scenario, I would recommend a newsletter and they would recommend me back. If I recommend a newsletter, does the writer of that newsletter see that on their end?

All right, great. This has been really helpful. I really appreciate it so much, especially just because I'm going through this myself and it's all very new. So getting expert advice is really helpful. Is there any other last parting piece of advice that you would give me and anyone else who's starting a newsletter from scratch?

I went to Jason for advice because I always go to him for advice and also because his newsletter is one of my favorites that I subscribe to and definitely one of the only ones that I actually read every week. I saved all of my questions on creative for Jason.

Wow. I didn't even think about that as a possibility. That's really useful. And so before I let you go, Alyssa, what's the name of your newsletter so people can subscribe?

That was my conversation with Alyssa. And not only did I find her technical advice helpful, but it also helped me think about my creative. Both Jason and Alyssa mentioned that a newsletter should be easily readable. The way I had been thinking about my newsletter was part journal, almost, so that's not particularly readable and definitely not skimmable.

So it made me start to think that I should have some sort of heading at the top for out-of-the-box tips for being more sustainable that could suit people who were just looking for a quick read. But I'll be honest. I started to kind of freak out at this point. I started to doubt my concept.

I worried that Greener would not be successful, and that's actually the reason this episode is coming out so late today. I've been having a bit of a crisis of confidence, and I think that's why it's taken me two years to get to this point. In all of my jobs, I've been behind the scenes. I'm a producer. Before that, I was an assistant. I've always put work out under someone else's name.

And it's scary to think about putting something out with your own name. Nowhere to hide. So today I just kept going back and forth about how to get my concept perfect. But I think what I've come to accept is that it just won't be. And that's okay. My newsletter doesn't have to be in its final form now. I can try things and then try some other things and then keep doing that until I like it.

We talked about what makes a good newsletter, what he learned through going through three iterations of his current newsletter, and I asked him for feedback on my idea. So then you'll hear more about what I'm trying to do with this thing. Then you're going to hear advice from Alyssa Doolin, who manages the growth team at Kit, formerly known as ConvertKit.

So giving myself a little grace made me put some of the final touches on my welcome email and my landing page.

All right, now we're looking at fonts. How do I make this bigger? Feels like it should be bigger. I want the font to be a little bit more blocky. Dare we just do Ariel? We don't dare. We don't dare for that. Oh man, I guess I can always change this if I end up hating it. I heard once that medical school

applications that used georgia were accepted at higher rates what if i just make everything georgia i'm so confused i did this already what's the difference nobody knows did i break it I wonder how I fix that.

That is actual audio of me tinkering with my landing page. There's actually 25 minutes of that, but I'm going to spare you. And now I have a newsletter. It exists. It's not perfect. When you subscribe to my newsletter, it says something weird like, thank you for subscribing. You will receive my emails when I send them in the future, which is not something that I would actually ever say to anyone.

And in the picture of myself that I used for the photo for my newsletter, I have a gigantic sunburn on my chest. The URL for my landing page is greener.kit.com slash F6A2222630. And I don't know how to change that, but I have it. It exists. Tomorrow I'll make it better. And right now that's enough.

And so if you're listening to this and it's helped you think about how to make a newsletter that will further your mission, work or otherwise, Just know that's enough. Don't wait two years. The day for making it perfect will be tomorrow because perfect and tomorrow are both concepts that are just not achievable. But today, just make it. I can't wait to read it.

And hey, you can subscribe to my newsletter at greener.kit.com slash F6A2222630. But I also put it in the show notes.

Kit is a newsletter platform that I decided to go with because Jason does his newsletter there and I will just do whatever he does. And so that leads me pretty perfectly into sharing the advice that I got from him on making a good newsletter. Can you describe your newsletter in one sentence?

I mean, don't even get me started on the price of eggs. And so with life getting more expensive, we probably are all spending more. But the last thing any of us want, I'm sure, is credit card debt. Enter the Chime Credit Builder card. This is a secured credit card with no annual fees. You can build credit with money you set aside and avoid interest or expensive debt.

That's so good. How did you get there? Because when I first subscribed to your newsletter, it was called something different, actually.

That's before my time.

That is so helpful. And the reason why I ask is because I know you've gone through these different iterations. And my hope is that I can sort of use you as a little bit of a cheat code so that I have to go through fewer iterations myself.

That's the goal. But realistically, I know that I will have to respond in real time to feedback and things like that. But I'm curious why you knew or how you knew that you needed to make these changes in the first place. I hear you say... That people don't wake up in the morning thinking, I want to learn about change. And so that's sort of where the Build for Tomorrow transition came from.

But were you getting that feedback or were you seeing something that made you feel like it wasn't working and then thought that you needed to change something?

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Yeah, that makes so much sense as a reader of your newsletter as well. And something that I really like as a reader of yours is that the predictability isn't just in the promise of the newsletter, but it's also in the format. And so I wanted to talk to you about that too.

In addition to, again, just the reader having that element of predictability, they know that they are going to be reading about one change that they can make that will benefit their career or business in some way. But you also use the same sort of formula week over week to tee up the newsletter.

You describe a problem that people are most definitely having, and then you tease the solution with a hook that tells people what they can expect to learn in that day's newsletter if they keep reading. And it might be easier to just give an example. I'd love to hear it in your voice, just the one maybe from yesterday's newsletter, The Secret to Living Without Regrets. Exactly.

Hey, money rehabbers, it's Morgan Levoy, the executive producer of the show. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. As you know, this week we're re-airing some of our favorite episodes of Money Rehab. And so in honor of the day, we're taking you behind the scenes of what it's like for a big flower company on Valentine's Day. Enjoy.

Oh,

Hey, it's Morgan, the executive producer of the show. And as you know, this week, we are re-releasing episodes of Money Rehab that will make the biggest impact for your financial resolutions for 2025. Today's is a sneaky one. It is the three things that you absolutely should be negotiating with your credit card. And you might be thinking, is this just about credit card debt? The answer is no.

These tips will help you regardless of whether or not you're in credit card debt. Even if you have a perfect credit score, even if you love your credit card, these are three things that you absolutely should be negotiating. So listen up and start today.

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Hey, it's Morgan, the executive producer of the show, and happy new year, everyone. As we look back on 2024, we are going to share some of our favorite episodes from the year. Today, you're going to hear the biggest deep dive Nicole has ever done on how to invest in the market. Enjoy.

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