So Money is the personal finance podcast for people who want frameworks, not formulas

💸 Do you actually know how to handle your money? So Money — hosted by American journalist and financial expert Farnoush Torabi — has survived more than a decade by doing something most personal finance content doesn’t: treating money as something tangled up with gender, work, relationships, and the way economics shapes real life.

What to expect: Torabi brings weight to the show — she hosted a program on CNBC before launching So Money in 2015, and that experience shows in how she navigates complex financial territory without getting lost in it. The podcast boasts three episodes a week, topics vary widely, and the language stays accessible. What distinguishes the show is its insistence on discussing financial wellbeing through the lens of a changing world: who actually gets to build wealth, and why the old rules no longer apply to everyone.

The USD mn question: In one episode, Torabi hosted YNAB founder Jesse Mecham, who builds his thinking around a simple idea: money isn’t just a medium of exchange but rather a physical representation of your time, energy, and accumulated experience. Mecham argued that the real purpose of budgeting is to align spending with what you actually value, making a budget a tool for freedom rather than a source of guilt.

He also made the case that financial stress is usually a product of unconscious spending rather than a lack of resources — which is why high earners can carry the same financial anxiety as people on much lower incomes. His solution is what he calls a “zero-based” mindset: once you see your choices and their trade-offs clearly, you can redirect money toward what matters — and often find you’re willing to cut things you thought you needed.

What we liked: Torabi is a skilled interviewer — she can make a complex financial topic feel manageable without making it feel trivial. The show also stays current, engaging with the kinds of questions that actually occupy people thinking about money right now. And its willingness to address the emotional dimensions of finance — inequality, caregiving, income gaps within relationships — gives it a texture that most personal finance content simply doesn’t have.

…What we didn’t: That accessibility sometimes comes at the cost of depth. Some interviews felt like they stayed in the shallows, leaving you with broad strokes rather than anything you could act on. The show is also heavily US-focused: the specifics around student debt, credit scores, and retirement accounts are built around the American system. Arab listeners will get more from the frameworks and general principles than from the practical mechanics.

The verdict: A reliable and humanizing guide to the basics of personal finance — the right choice if you want to build a better mental model for how to think about money, less so if you’re looking for tactics you can apply directly.

WHERE TO LISTEN- You can tune in on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anghami.