Classy with Jonathan Menjivar · Pineapple Street Studios and Audacy

Introducing: What We Spend

April 9, 2025·12 min·1 clip

Jonathan Menjivar previews What We Spend, where people record every dollar and feeling for a week.

Host Jonathan Menjivar introduces the episode as a preview of What We Spend, a new weekly Odyssey podcast in which host Courtney Harrell follows one person through a full week of financial life, capturing audio diaries about every purchase and the emotions around it. Courtney opens the preview by naming the shared curiosity people have about others' finances and framing the show as a space to go deeper into someone else's money life. The main subject is Kelly, who is turning 32 in Salt Lake City and describes her finances as 'all-consuming.' Kelly and her husband Ben — a software engineer — moved from Tennessee to Salt Lake City eight months before the episode. Kelly works as a director of client experience at a medical spa and as an online mental wellness coach; she earns around $50,000 a year and Ben earns $78,000, putting them just below the average income for married couples in Salt Lake City. Kelly has $150,000 remaining in student loans after her parents used an inheritance to pay off another $150,000 — a moment Kelly describes as feeling only 50% better. Her total debt including other obligations is $202,728. She walks through her monthly budget: $2,800 rent, two gym memberships at $108, car insurance $254, gas $125, phone $75, pet insurance $76, physical therapy $250, groceries $600, medications and supplements $6.50, Dropbox $12, SoundCloud $6, Spotify $10, and $40 for a monthly hair wash as a personal treat she feels compelled to justify. Kelly explains she attended Belmont University in Nashville because she believed the college-or-failure narrative and never thought about repayment — she had no one advising her that therapists earn $40–60,000 a year. She describes her prefrontal cortex as undeveloped at the time of taking on $40,000 per year in undergraduate debt. Her weekly financial tracking diary is the premise the show will explore in its full episodes.

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