Money Unplugged with Chris Hill

We think about wealth as a finish line — hit your number and the anxiety stops. Blair duQuesnay, a financial advisor at Ritholtz Wealth Management, says it's almost never that simple. Her clients (ultra-high-net-worth families) aren't worried about running out of money. They're worried about screwing it up.
Blair talks with Chris Hill about growing up in a Southern family where money was never really discussed, transferring colleges to study finance (after starting as a dance major), and writing The Belle Curve, her newsletter on money, markets, and wealth, as well as:
- Having a front-row seat to the 2008 financial crisis while working in an office right next to Lehman Brothers
- Starting her own RIA and having to wait tables to make ends meet
- What she wishes she had understood about risk earlier in her career
- The $400 phone call she would like to take back
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Opening clip – “Margin Call”

Jesse Cramer had two engineering degrees and a stable, well-paying career designing hardware for an aerospace company. Then one day, about six months into his first job out of college, he looked at his 401(k) statement and saw $11,000 sitting there. That single moment sparked an interest in investing and compound interest that eventually pulled him out of engineering altogether and into a career managing other people's money.
Jesse talks with Chris Hill about:
- Why he kept a full-time engineering career for years after that moment
- Starting a finance blog after colleagues kept asking him 401(k) questions at work
- What surprised him most about managing real money for clients versus just writing about it
- The hot tub purchase he still regrets and what it taught him
Why do YOU listen to Money Unplugged? Tell us at info@moneyunpluggedpod.com.

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Opening clip – “Moneyball”

Alison Kosik spent years reporting live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for CNN—and for most of that time, she wasn't investing a dollar of her own money. She could explain the market to millions of viewers, but couldn't bring herself to trust herself with her own finances.
Alison talks with Chris Hill about:
- How her parents' fights about money affected her financial confidence as an adult
- Taking a $13,000-a-year TV job in Corpus Christi and sleeping on a piece of foam to pursue her journalism career
- The divorce that finally pushed her to start investing with confidence
- Why she didn't truly believe in the power of compounding until recently
Check out Alison's book, What's Up With Women and Money? How to Do All the Financial Stuff You've Been Avoiding, wherever books are sold.

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Opening clip – “Wall Street”

We all outsource some part of our financial life — taxes, investments, retirement contributions, etc. But it turns out you can outsource the small stuff too! Even if that means leaning on the person sitting next to you at a blackjack table. 
In this holiday weekend solo episode, Chris Hill covers:
- A favor to ask of you — why do you listen to Money Unplugged, and what do you get out of it? (Email: info@moneyunpluggedpod.com)
- One thing every guest on this show, every Marvel superhero, and even America itself have in common
- What two very experienced friends taught him about knowing when to ask for help
Opening clip – “The Color of Money”

Paula Pant grew up watching her mother spend six hours going between four different grocery stores, coupons sorted by location, all to save a few dollars on milk and bread. Frugality wasn't a choice in the Pant household — it was the operating system. It took years for her to realize that nobody had ever asked what all that time was actually worth. Host of the popular podcast Afford Anything, Paula talks with Chris Hill about that early lesson and how she unlearned it, as well as:
- How getting rejected by Taco Bell at 15 led to a career in journalism (eventually)
- Why frugality can be its own trap
- What freelancing taught her about the real relationship between time and money
- Her framework for building wealth, and why mindset comes before tactics
Got a question for the show? Email info@moneyunpluggedpod.com.
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Opening clip – “Sex and the City”