The Commercial Break - TCB Introduces: What We Spend

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Bryan introduces the new podcast from Courtney Harrell and Audacy Podcasts, What We Spend.  Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. On What We Spend, people from across the country and across the financial spectrum are opening their wallets—and their lives—to tell you everything: what they make, what they want, and—for one week—what they spend. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to share more about a podcast that we are enjoying from our network partner, Odyssey. And the new podcast, What We Spend, is extraordinarily interesting, let me tell you why. So much of the commercial break is a fly on the wall perspective of the unfiltered conversations that Chrissy and I have about friendship, offbeat topics, things we find interesting,

wild, unforgettable, or just a crazy story from our personal life. One thing that always gets a laugh but often doesn't get talked about in a deeper way on the commercial break is personal finances. That's because personal finances are personal. We all want to know what our friends make and what they spend their money on, how they're flourishing or how they're suffering around money. But do we ask? No, we do not.

We never dare ask. Well, this new podcast, What We Spend, it does just that. Every episode, host Courtney Harrell talks with just one person and they document an entire week of their lives and all the ways money plays a factor in it. People from all over the country, in all walks of life. They talk about how they make money, how they spend money, all the thoughts and emotions they have around money. These conversations are intimate, they're thoughtful, funny, sometimes emotional, but

it's always raw and it's always real. In 2025, when so much of our social media, our news, the people we look up to, our politicians, sports players, all make us feel this keeping up with the Joneses, jealousy, or desire, I think this podcast has come along at the exact right time. I want to share a preview with you. In this clip, we hear from Kelly, as she navigates life with her burden of outstanding loan debt, something I'm sure a lot of you can understand. If you want to listen to the full episode, search for What We Spend on your favorite

podcast platform wherever you're listening to this show, or you can download the free Odyssey app and find it there. What We Spend by Courtney Harrell. Okay, let me drop in that clip. I'll be back in a few minutes. You know how you always want to know about everyone else's money? You do, right? Like, you'll see someone buying something you want or taking some amazing vacation and you think, how can they afford that? Or you meet your friend's new girlfriend and she has some

very impressive job and you think, how much money does she make? I think when it comes to money, even if you don't want to admit it, we're all a little nosy. But I don't know, I actually think that's good. I think we should be talking about money more. And all the ways, big and small, that it impacts our lives. On this show, we are actually going to do that. We are going to go somewhere that we almost never get to go, deep into the heart of someone else's finances.

Here's how this is going to work. Each week, I'm going to introduce you to a new person from somewhere across the country, and they are going to tell us everything about their finances. How much they make, how much they want to make, what they worry about, or if they don't worry at all. And then for one week, we'll follow them through their daily routine. Every day, they'll record an audio diary with all the nitty gritty details of how they're spending their money.

I mean, the coffees, the groceries, the rent that's due, the car accident that suddenly happens, everything. And after that, we'll talk about what the week brought up for them. What it's made them feel. Because whatever you're buying or not buying or saving or spending, at the end of the day, money is always about more than your balance. I'm Courtney Harrell, this is what we spend. How much school debt do you have? I have 150,000.

I had more. I had 300,000 after my masters. I had a great uncle, Pasaway, who was an artist. And my parents chose with their share of that, that they would help pay off all my private loans. And so that was a crazy night. We'd like, I remember pressing submit on $150,000 payment and just being like, holy shit. And they were like, yay, doesn't that feel so much better? And I was kind of like, it feels like 50% better. And it still feels like I have still $150,000 of debt. This is Kelly. I turn 32 in one week and I live in Salt Lake City. Kelly is one of the 42.8

million Americans who has student loan debt. And also like a lot of her generation, she wants to buy a home and have a baby. And she's trying to figure out if it's possible to make all that work. Kelly married her husband about a year ago. And eight months ago, the two of them moved from Tennessee

to Salt Lake City, Utah. Ben is an engineer for a software company. Kelly is a director of client experience at a medical spa, and she's also an online mental wellness coach. I used to be a therapist and for lots of reasons I'm not right now, but I will always have therapy or coaching in my life and I will probably go back to that full time at some point. Kelly is paid hourly, but she makes about 50k a year. And Ben makes about 78k. That's before taxes and health insurance. Together, that puts them just under the average income

for married couple families in Salt Lake City. How would you describe your relationship with money? Consuming. Oh. I would describe it as all-consuming, yeah. The thing that keeps coming to mind is when someone has an addiction or a struggle and they caught the monkey on their back. Yeah.

Because you just can't get away from it. It's just clinging and it's present with you all the time. It feels like that. And I try really hard to like be in control, like maintain my control. But it's kind of this tug of war. What do you do on a weekly basis to manage your expenses? On a Sunday, I will sit down and look at the budget. And I made a spreadsheet. Okay, yeah. So walk me through your spreadsheet.

So I would love to hear what all of your regular expenses are and like what you kind of typically pay in each category. So rent and utilities, $2,800. That's pretty expensive for rent. Anytime I tell someone that, they're like, that's more than my mortgage. I'm like, yeah, I know. Please don't tell me what your mortgage is. I don't want to know. Two gym memberships, 108. Car insurance, 254.

Gas, 125. Do you have a car payment? No, we just buy used cars. Nice. Ben's car, basically the roof flies off, but you know, just don't take it on the highway, you know? We don't have a car payment. Who needs a roof?

Yeah, who needs that? It's a convertible. Phone payment, 75, pet insurance, 76, and physical therapy for 250. It helps with Kelly's chronic back pain and osteoarthritis. And then groceries, this one sucks the most right now and I really feel like everyone will understand. I put 600 a month for groceries and I mean that includes like toiletries and stuff too.

They have a Costco membership but they pay that yearly fee with the cash back they get from their credit card. Medications and supplements like Ben works out so he has like this huge bag of protein powder that he gets from Costco. So Ben's is mostly workout supplements and just one medication and mine is I think like four medications and like a probiotic and some multi-vitamins. Total for that is 650. Streaming platforms? No, we moved off of our families. Some of the subscriptions are on them though.

Dropbox for 12, SoundCloud for six, Spotify for 10. Hair, my hair. I put $40 next to my hair. And that's so I can spend that $40 and get my hair washed by somebody else one time every month. And it is like the gift to me to have somebody else wash my hair every once in a while.

Isn't that shitty that like even now just reading my own budget, that it really is just my business, I still feel the need to justify like, I just need to treat myself sometimes and have my hair washed. What does that make your expenses altogether, your regular expenses? Around $4,800 a month, but then you get to debt. How much debt do you have?

A lot. If you are including my student loans, we have $202,728 in debt. Where did you go to school? I went to Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Why did you go to school? I thought I was supposed to because I was told that, you know, this is the next step. And I think this is part of like the dream or the lie that was sold to my generation was like if you don't go to college you're gonna end up working at McDonald's you know and like

you're gonna be a deadbeat and you're gonna have to live with your parents and you're probably gonna use marijuana even now like're going to be a bad person, essentially, if you don't go to college. Kelly's degree cost about 40 grand a year. And after undergrad, Kelly went on to grad school at the same university. She has a master's in mental health counseling. But as Kelly sees it now, the math doesn't make much sense. I want to ask you something about that. And I mean, no judgment sense. I want to ask you something about that and I mean no judgment with this. How did you think you were going to pay off that amount of tuition or were you at the time like, I know I can't pay this off, like how did you think about it then? Oh no, it's a good question. I didn't. I did not think about it. I had no clue what I was doing.

It wasn't like, hmm, I wonder how I'm going to pay this off when the average annual salary for a therapist is $40,000 to $60,000 a year. I was not thinking about that. I had no idea what I was doing. And I didn't really have anyone around me who was explaining what I was not thinking about that. I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't really have anyone around me who was explaining what I was doing. Like your prefrontal cortex is not developed

when you are making those decisions. Ultimately, I don't regret anything because I am who I am and I'm happy, but I'm financially trapped. So that's Kelly. And this week, instead of just tracking it in her spreadsheet, she's going to tell us about every dollar she spends and every feeling that comes with it. How are you feeling about tracking your finances for a week? How are you feeling about tracking your finances for a week? I'm feeling nervous because maybe I will just realize through tracking every expense that I'm actually just a dumb dumb and I'm very irresponsible and this is all my fault.

But I'm feeling curious. I'm just curious to see what comes of it. Yeah, me too. I will check in with you on the other side of your week. Okay. Like butter cutting through a knife listening to that. I recognize myself in it. I recognize my emotions in it. I recognize my thoughts and fears around money. I recognize myself in it. I recognize my emotions in it. I recognize my thoughts and fears around money. I recognize this specific verbiage monkey on my back.

All consuming. Listen, it doesn't take a genius to figure out, nor do you have to listen to 658,000 episodes of The Commercial Break to understand being an independent creator and being an entrepreneur doesn't always mean multimillionaire or financial comfort. I'm sure that that clip resonated with a lot of people, and as tough as some of that is to hear, there's a certain level of comfort that comes with knowing somebody else is out there tossing and turning at night, thinking about the same thing.

Plus, let's be honest, Kourtney has that like calm, reassuring voice. I feel like everything's gonna be okay for Kelly, and now I feel like everything's gonna be okay for me, too. What We Spend is available now, wherever you're listening to this podcast or on the free Odyssey app. You can go download it from the app store. Go take a listen to a full episode of What We Spend. This is one of those shows where we will leave entertained, but we may also leave feeling

better and smarter. What We Spend by Courtney Harrell, available now. We'll see you on the flip side. Bye!