September 2025 Receipts

Hello! I usually send out the monthly recaps on the last day of the month, but it felt strange to send back-to-back emails, especially since I’ve been showing up in your inboxes quite a bit this month now that Alicia and I are sending weekly recaps.

I’ve loved being able to expand what I’m doing on The Purse thanks to Alicia’s help. It might seem weird, but I always feel a little trepidation wading into newsier topics. For one, there’s a lot of competition out there, and I sometimes worry about what I add to the conversation. But more than that, I sometimes doubt my own skills. Not gonna lie, it’s much easier to write about hobbies than it is to write about the Fed. But we’ve received so much good feedback from readers, and I’m excited to continue to refine the weekly roundups over the next few months.

Having Alicia join the team has also freed up some time for me to really think about money—specifically, how I can make more of it for The Purse. I pay Alicia and myself a small amount, but obviously if this is going to be a successful long-term endeavor, we both need to earn more. Learning the business side of running a newsletter is both challenging and exciting. Half the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. But I also weirdly enjoy pushing myself into uncomfortable territory and learning more.

Over the last four months, I’ve had a few really great brand sponsorships (thanks, Acorns Early and Steward!), and I’m in the process of seeking more of them. (Are you a brand interested in working with The Purse? Reach out!) I see this as one piece in my monetization pie. Of course, paid subscribers are another big piece of the pie. This is a hard category, though, because I’m competing with a lot of other newsletters. According to Substack, my retention rate of paid subscribers isn’t great. Figuring out how to get and keep paid subscribers is a big project on my to-do list this fall.

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In October, I hope to start experimenting with a new way to make money: affiliate links. And I want to be open with you Purse readers about my thoughts behind this endeavor. Alicia and I have been talking with a company that offers an affiliate program for a number of financial brands. We are going to start experimenting with writing more service-focused stories on The Purse website, and some of those stories might include an affiliate widget. Everything will be clearly labeled, and we don’t plan on recommending products we don’t believe in.

I have a lot of experience with affiliate programs, because I ran editorial at CNBC Select, where we made a commission from many financial partners. At Select, the editorial and business departments were kept separate in order to maintain journalistic integrity. At The Purse, I’m both the editorial and business departments, and I’m afraid I can’t keep things separate. And frankly, I don’t want to.

But I also realize that in order for The Purse to be successful, you readers need to trust me. And I take that very seriously. I carefully consider each sponsorship to make sure it’s a product or service I feel comfortable promoting. And I plan to approach affiliate partnerships in much the same way. Recommending financial products is different from recommending clothing or beauty products. The stakes feel higher. Also, you readers have come to expect a certain level of transparency from me, and I plan to be as forthcoming as possible as The Purse continues to grow.

Over the next few weeks, Alicia and I are planning to sit down and write up an FAQ that includes a statement of ethics. You’ll also see us start rolling out more content on the website. I’m excited!

I hope you all will be supportive of these different monetization endeavors. I think building a successful business (and by extension earning a healthy salary and paying the people who work with me a healthy wage) aligns with the overall mission of The Purse. I want to help women feel more comfortable owning their success, negotiating for what they want, and not feeling ashamed about earning good money. I want that for Purse readers, and I want that for myself.

OK, enough about money! On to the September recap. The month might have been 30 days, but we sure packed a lot into it!

September on The Purse

I kicked off the month with an essay about my love for 30-day challenges, even though I can never get my act together to complete (or even start) one. I still haven’t found a weight-lifting program I like, and my social media presence has been inconsistent (though I did post two reels!), but time-blocking and working with a coach are going pretty well! I’m always reminding myself that baby steps are OK!

Thanks to our partnership with Steward, I launched a how-to guide on estate planning. I feel so passionately about this topic. Setting up these documents seems sad and scary and annoying, but it can really make such a huge difference for your family in a worst-case-scenario situation. Also, I updated this with a recording of the webinar in cased you missed it. (And don’t forget that Purse readers can get a $500 discount on a Steward estate plan through October 31, 2025. More info here.)

This month’s free Home Economics was a crowd-pleaser! And what’s not to love about the 46-year-old Brooklyner who makes six figures and has big plans to be a rich aunt who leaves her niece a fortune when she dies?
We launched Alicia’s new series, 30-Something, and she dove into one of my favorite topics: friends and money. This one has such a lovely comment section!

In our weekly roundups, Alicia and I wrote about tariffs, the S&P 500, drama around the Federal Reserve, and why we don’t really feel like shopping right now. Beyond the newsier essays, these weekly roundups also include fun links and recommendations!
The paid Home Economics was really fascinating (and didn’t get the love it deserved, IMO!). The writer took a fed buyout earlier this year, and while she’s been enjoying an extra paycheck for the past several months, eventually her family will need to adjust to living on $65k less annually.

This month’s Division of Labor featured our first (but certainly not last) same-sex couple. I enjoyed reading about Brianna and Meghan’s experience raising a toddler, but I especially loved this quote from Brianna: “As a same-sex couple, our roles didn’t fall into anything gender-specific, which I think really played to our advantage… It forced us to have the ‘division of labor’ conversation early and often to be sure that everything is getting done.”

I went to Portland for FinCon—and I didn’t have the best time. I wrote a little bit about the experience on LinkedIn.
I attended the loveliest brunch hosted by Neha Ruch of The Power Pause and Emily Green of Ellevest. There’s nothing better than spending a morning with a bunch of super smart women talking about our big goals.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I finally chose winners and sent out packages for all the sweepstakes I ran between October 2024 and May 2025. It was sort of awkward emailing people to tell them they won a contest that I ran a year ago. But everyone was so kind and excited to win a prize. Big congrats to Kendall, who was the winner of the massive January giveaway! I don’t know why I found this to be such an impossible task, but I’m so glad I finally got it done. Well, almost—there are still two outstanding winners who need to email me back. Check your inbox to make sure you didn’t miss an email from me.
In all my running around this month, I managed to squeeze in a stop at the CashApp Afterpay offices for a fun panel featuring my friend Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, who’s a financial therapist, all about shopping and fall fashion trends. Afterpay recently ran a survey that found that two in five shoppers plan to get their holiday shopping done in September and October this year. Prices be damned, I’m never organized enough to start shopping that early. What about you?

Coming up in October

We’re launching another new series this month! It will land in your inboxes next Wednesday, October 8.
Division of Labor will feature my friends Heather and Doug Boneparth. The timing aligns with the publication of their new book, Money Together, which comes out on October 28. Pre-order here!
I’m still looking for new editions of Home Economics. You can submit yours here!