In 2021, we talked to a listener that we’re calling Tessa, who found themselves in $19,000 worth of credit card debt. When Tessa’s sister offered to pay a huge chunk of the debt, new problems arose. First, the offer didn’t bring instant peace-of-mind. Second, it wasn’t clear if paying off the debt right away was even the best solution. This week, we revisit the conversation with Tessa and her sister and reflect on what they learned about debt, family, and mental health.  If you're struggling with consumer debt, check out these resources. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we’re revisiting our conversation with (now Emmy-winning) actor Niecy Nash and her wife, singer-songwriter Jessica Betts. They discuss their initial friendship, their steamy first date, the process of going public with their relationship, and much more.  Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus. Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we get an update from Mason Earle, a former professional rock climber who we spoke to back in 2021. Mason had been diagnosed with ME/CFS, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome, and he discussed his former career, how he was adjusting to life and marriage with a disability, and why he doesn't miss rock climbing. This week, Mason shares what he’s been up to since we last spoke.  Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus. Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we’re revisiting an episode about the transitional lives of Uber drivers. Anna and then-producer Katie Bishop hitched multiple rides in the Bay Area and heard stories about immigration, domestic violence, personal finance, and more.  Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus. Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To mark the return of Death, Sex & Money, we’re presenting a live celebration of new beginnings, featuring interviews with comedian and TV host W. Kamau Bell, writer Vicki Larson, Dr. Bonnie Chen, and artist Carissa Potter. You’ll also hear lively music accompaniment by D’Wayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné! This episode was recorded live at KQED in San Francisco on February 29, 2024.  Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus. Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special Valentine’s Day episode, Anna revisits a conversation she had with former Senator Al Simpson and his wife Ann, who provided some much-needed relationship advice at a crucial moment in Anna’s life.  Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.   And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna's newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hear about the new life for Death, Sex & Money, with new episodes coming soon! In the meantime, subscribe to Anna's newsletter here to keep in touch and help shape this new era of the show. And tell us your favorite Death, Sex & Money episodes in a review on Apple Podcasts to help new listeners get to know us as all our archives move to our new home.

When we heard that Death, Sex, & Money was coming to an end at WNYC, we decided there was only one thing to do: throw ourselves an in-person goodbye celebration. In this week’s episode, you’ll hear audio from “Four Interviews and a Funeral,” a show we hosted at Caveat in Manhattan. In it, Anna talks to past guests, like comedian Chris Gethard, Lawrence and Ronnine Bartley, mover Adonis Williams, and NYC’s subway voice, Bernie Wagenblast about their experiences with endings and life transitions. Also, actress Ellen Burstyn reads a poem, Anna gives a eulogy for the show, and The Outer Borough Brass Band plays us home. Read more about the event in The New Yorker here, and sign up for Anna’s new newsletter  where you can read her weekly musings, hear from other listeners, and get updates about the future of the show.

Over the past few months, we’ve been collecting your stories about inheritance, from those who have it and those who don’t. You told us about when inheritance was a surprise, when it felt like a control tactic, a safety net, an expression of love, or an opportunity to redistribute generational wealth. In this episode, Anna talks to four people about their inheritance experiences: Gwynn, who is grappling with whether or not to faithfully execute her mother’s will, and cut her sister out; Trevor, who received inheritance from his father and, with it, a mystery about how long his father had been planning his death; and Anna talks to two young people who want to give away their inherited wealth to social causes, despite some opposition from family members.Want to learn more about the nonprofit Resource Generation? Check out their website here.And here's the link to sign up to Anna's newsletter: https://annasale.substack.com/

Meshell Ndegeocello has been a working musician since she was a teenager. She’s probably best known for her biggest hit to date, “Wild Night,” a Van Morrison cover she recorded with John Mellancamp back in 1994. Meshell is 55 now and just put out her 11th solo album, “The Omnichord Real Book,” her first in five years. The album started as a kind of personal pandemic project before she decided to share it with the world, and it’s now been nominated for a Best Alternative Jazz Album Grammy award.When Anna spoke with Meshell, she was just back from a quick European tour, and they talked about what it was like for her to grow up in the 70s and 80s in the Washington D.C. area, surrounded by music, and how she found the bass, her main instrument, by chance (and with a little help from Prince.) In this episode, Meshell shares how her life with music has evolved through the years, what she’s learned to let go of – as a performer, as a mother and a daughter – and how the ‘musical transmissions’ that she receives help her stay grounded and present to who she really is, moment to moment.

Hannah is 34, has two kids, and lives in Casper, Wyoming, where she was born and raised. Hannah’s been working in construction for 3 years, ever since she graduated from Climb Wyoming’s 12 week job training program, where she earned her commercial drivers license. Climb Wyoming has been around for more than 36 years and helps single moms like Hannah gain financial independence and stability by teaching them the specific skills that are needed to get hired for local jobs. These are jobs that have a path for advancement, and can help get the moms out of poverty, like commercial truck driving for Hannah, or, for a mom named Kendra, becoming a bank teller at a bank in her small town. But Climb Wyoming also provides mental health and emotional support—among the moms and from the staff. This is key in helping moms like Hannah, who dropped out of school when she was 16 because of crippling anxiety. Anna talks with Hannah about finding a sense of belonging and how Climb gave her the tools to stay present in moments of stress. Anna also talks with Climb leaders, Katie Hogarty and Molly Kruger, about why centering mental health is crucial to the success of their program, and to 24-year-old mom, Kendra, who shares one of the most valuable lessons she learned at Climb: “We had a saying that says, ‘They hire you for your hard skills, but they fire you for your soft skills.’”

Maria Bamford is a comedian and actress who you may know from her standup specials, her Netflix show Lady Dynamite, or her 2020 interview with Anna on our show. She’s just released a book called, Sure I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere. In this new conversation, recorded live from the stage of City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco, Maria and Anna discuss some of the themes and stories that she writes about in her memoir, including her experience of hospitalization, advocating for herself at work, and her relationship with her parents, before and after their deaths.

With their underdog-against-all-odds-redemption stories and epic training montages, sports movies can be the best source of support when we’re deep in the toughest moments in our lives. Earlier this year, when our executive producer, Liliana Maria, found herself surrounded by cancer and death in her close circle of family and friends, she turned to the Michael B. Jordan movie, Creed III, to help her keep going. She kept repeating Adonis Creed’s mantra to herself each day: “One step at a time, one punch at a time, one round at a time.” In this week's episode, hosted by Liliana Maria, we share your stories about sports movies like Hoosiers, Whip It, Brittany Runs A Marathon and Cool Runnings, which have accompanied you when you needed them most.

When Giulia Lukach had her first manic episode, it seemed to come out of nowhere. She was in her late twenties, and had been married to her husband, Mark, for three years. “For him it was just so new because I’ve always been the happy girl,” Giulia told Anna in an interview in 2015. Her psychosis was dark and intense.“ The only thing she could talk about was the devil and that she needed to protect the world because the devil was inside her,” Mark said in their 2015 interview.In 2023, Mark and Giulia sat down with Anna again. In the intervening years, they had a second child, and after years without Giulia having a manic episode, they thought they were in the clear. “We had this quasi-pseudo-science theory that maybe by sharing our story with the world, that was becoming this like protective barrier,” Mark told Anna. In this episode, you’ll hear parts of the couple’s original 2015 conversation, and how their outlook has changed since, both in how they treat each other, and how they deal with the unknown. “I have been to war with myself and with my mind many times,” Giulia said, “knowing that my episodes can come at any moment – that's like high anxiety for me – and so I literally live in the moment now. I only live in today.”Also, side note: Will you be in New York City on Saturday, December 9th at 12:30pm? Come to a Death, Sex, & Money live event at Caveat, a cabaret on the Lower East Side, to celebrate the show’s run at WNYC. We’re calling it Four Interviews and a Funeral. Join Anna, the team, special guests, and dance along to live music. Tickets are available here.

This fall, Tony! Toni! Toné! is on tour for the first time in twenty years. Raphael Saadiq's career took off as a member of the R&B trio —a group whose music taught Anna, a pre-teen at the time, a thing or two about romance and sexiness. Raphael left the group in the mid-'90s, launching a successful solo career and co-writing and producing music with everyone from Solange and Mary J. Blige to John Legend and D'Angelo. This week, we revisit Anna’s 2019 conversation with Raphael about how he's dealt with family deaths over the years, paying off his studio, and what his love life looks like today, in his 50s.

Dr. Bonnie Chen is no stranger to grief. The majority of her patients are facing a terminal illness and, as a palliative care doctor, her job is to help ease their symptoms. “It's a different kind of satisfaction than being able to fix someone or cure someone,” Bonnie told Anna, and she found pride in being able to offer comfort and have hard conversations about pain and about death, “I just always cherished that moment.” And then, in the summer of 2022 her 16-month old son, Benji, died suddenly, and Bonnie found herself thrust on the other side of the medical system, and bowled over by her own deep grief. In this episode, Bonnie talks about how Benji’s death has changed the way she thinks about her job and how she talks to patients.Read an essay Bonnie wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle titled, “As a doctor, I thought I was familiar with death. Until it came for my son.”

Albert and Sue Sommers met, fell in love and got married in their 40s. Albert is a rancher whose family has worked the same land in Pinedale, Wyoming for over 100 years, and Sue is a writer and multimedia artist who grew up in New Jersey. Since they married later in life and don’t have kids, that raised big questions about what would happen to Albert’s family ranch once they were gone. Ranching is a tough business, and the Sommers family land is in a part of Wyoming where property values have soared as very wealthy people have moved in. That increases development pressure to turn that land into cash. In 2010, Albert and his family decided on a different, novel path that both preserved the Sommers’ family land from development and enabled them to pass the business to a young neighbor who’s no relation. Albert and Sue tell Anna about how they got together and took on these big family decisions, and despite their offering differing opinions, how they “continue the conversation.”  Did you know we have a weekly email newsletter for the Death, Sex & Money community? Every Wednesday we send out podcast listening recommendations, fascinating letters from our inbox, and updates from the show. Sign up at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter, and follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This week, we are very excited to introduce you all to one of our favorite podcasts: Heavyweight, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein. First, Jonathan chats with Anna about the art of asking difficult questions, why he loves awkward phone calls, and the emotional power of deadlines. Then, we're playing the first episode of Heavyweight’s new season. In it, Jonathan finds out his childhood best friend is dying, and though they haven't spoken in years, Jonathan and Lenny begin nightly phone calls. New episodes of Heavyweight are available every Thursday through the end of the year — listen wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know we have a weekly email newsletter for the Death, Sex & Money community? Every Wednesday we send out podcast listening recommendations, fascinating letters from our inbox, and updates from the show. Sign up at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter, and follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Got a story to share? Email us at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.

Documentary filmmaker John Wilson is the writer, director, cameraman, producer, and narrator of the HBO docu-comedy series How To with John Wilson which just finished its third and final season last month. In his show, John showcases the everyday lives of fellow New Yorkers, managing to be both wildly absurd and achingly sweet in his portrayal of them, while also always treating them – and their obsessions – with dignity. In this episode, John gives Anna a peek inside how his brain works, and why building a life around his hobbies, like journaling and checking Craigslist ads obsessively, gives him a deeper understanding of himself and the world around him.

Adonis Williams has been a mover in New York City for 20 years. He says he’s moved about 3,500 people, and with each move, he catches a glimpse of a life in transition. There are the happy moves: getting a bigger place, couples moving in together, kids going off to college. There are also the sad moves: divorce, breakups, eviction. Adonis says he talks with his customers about it all. “You become the bartender or the taxi driver that they need to vent to.” In this episode, Adonis explains why he didn’t charge any money for the first five years of being a mover, and what he’s observed on the job about relationships, family and cost of living in New York.

Last week we heard one of Anna's most treasured episodes: her 2014 interview with actor Ellen Burstyn. Now, a brand new conversation. At 90, Ellen is busy with a new dog, sharing life with family and friends, and curating a book of her favorite poetry. “I hate to sound like I'm bragging,” she told Anna, “but I'm still working. I'm in good shape. I'm having a very good time.” You can listen to the original interview here.

This week we’re sharing one of Anna’s favorite episodes. It’s from 2014, when actor Ellen Burstyn invited us into her New York apartment for a sprawling interview. She told Anna about getting on a Greyhound bus to Dallas at 18 with 50 cents in her pocket, and about surviving an illegal abortion. And she described adopting her son, leaving an abusive marriage, and starring as a newly single mom in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The role was based in part on her own life, and it won her an Oscar. "I really think of myself as a work in progress," Ellen Burstyn, then 81 years old, told Anna as they sat in wicker furniture in her Manhattan bedroom, "But I don’t feel I’m necessarily a successful person." In next week’s episode, you’ll hear a new conversation between Anna and Ellen, recorded just a few weeks ago. But until then, you can also listen back to Ellen’s conversation with journalist and feminist icon Gloria Steinem on our show from 2016 here.

When Sarah Short was pregnant with her first child, her health insurance didn’t cover it. She was 19, and by the time she found that out, it was also too late to apply for Medicaid. Her hospital bill for her daughter’s birth was around $10,000 — a figure that felt insurmountable. At first, the envelopes were something she tried to ignore. “I just threw them away,” she told Anna. “And then they turned red. And they kept showing up.” Sarah was newly married at the time, and was afraid of how the rising debt would affect her family’s future. So she looked for ways to pay it off. And when she chose to become a surrogate, the impact of that decision transformed her relationship with her body, money, debt, and her confidence.  Anna and Sarah first spoke in a 2017 episode, and in this update, Sarah tells Anna about getting divorced and starting over in her 30s, launching her own business, and why this chapter of her life feels “freeing.”

Lawrence Bartley is a journalist devoted to getting news stories about criminal justice inside prisons and jails, something he wished he had access to when he was incarcerated. “I could have used some of that language to move the court to get my sentence reduced. I could have just been abreast of what's going on in other prisons and jails.” Anna first interviewed Lawrence in 2014 when he was still in prison, and two more times after his release. Today, they talk about their years-long relationship, how the media (including our show) can be insensitive when covering incarcerated people, and how Lawrence’s life experience influences his work and his parenting style.

The New York Times journalist Ezra Klein thinks a lot about the impacts of policy and systems on our personal lives. On his podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, he recently mentioned how American society insufficiently supports families of young kids, and wondered why living in community is so hard, and the isolation that it can breed as a result. Ezra’s thinking about all of these issues in his own life as well: he’s married to fellow journalist Annie Lowrey, and they have two young kids. The family moved to California before the pandemic, and after a health crisis they struggled to find the support they needed for their family. They eventually decide to move back to the East Coast, and as they settle into their lives in New York, Ezra’s thinking a lot about the tradeoffs of two-parent households. “I don't believe people are meant to do this. You know, two parents plus kids, it's too few people,” he said. Ezra and Anna talk about the beloved communal spaces of his 20s and 30s, the tension between autonomy and community, and why he believes our emphasis on two-parent families is “a cultural mistake.”   Want more from Ezra on the topics in today’s episode? We recommend the following: This episode of The Ezra Klein Show with scholar Kristen Ghodsee on communes and intentional communities, a conversation with The Atlantic’s Jerusalem Demsas about homelessness and the origins of our current housing crisis, an interview with writer Sheila Liming on loneliness in America, and two interviews he’s done with child psychologist Alison Gopnik. Finally, you can read Annie Lowrey’s piece about her experiences with pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting here.

Beverly Glenn-Copeland was in his 20s when he left a classical singing career to create experimental music. And at the time, making that change didn’t feel scary. “I felt totally free,” he told Anna. “I wasn't afraid of it. It was just like, this is what it is. I'm free to explore this.” But it took decades for that gamble to pay off, and 2020 was supposed to be Glenn’s breakthrough year. At 76 years old, he was going to go on an international tour, and move into a new home with his wife, Elizabeth. But then the pandemic hit, his tour was canceled and he lost his housing. When Anna and Glenn first spoke in 2020, he talked about his complex relationship with his parents growing, quietly releasing his music for years, and how his newer fans supported him during the precarity of the early months of the pandemic. This year, Glenn’s releasing a new album, and he’s finally going on tour. And even with the success he’s found, there are still moments of uncertainty. Glenn and Elizabeth told Anna about what’s changed—and what hasn’t.   Listen to the music in this episode from Glenn’s album, "Transmissions," here, and you can stream his new album, “The Ones Ahead,” here.