Personal finance advice often gets repeated as if it applies equally to everyone, but a new podcast is asking whether the math actually works. Have You Tried Being Rich? launched September 1 with a simple premise: take the financial advice everyone has heard, strip away the soundbites and success stories, and figure out what actually survives contact with real life. Hosted by financial experts Dria Benjamin and Kristin Geosits, the biweekly show examines popular money tips, wealth claims and hustle-culture nonsense to separate advice that changes financial outcomes from advice that merely sounds like it should.
The podcast arrives amid a boom in personal finance content that rewards certainty. There are books to sell, courses to launch, algorithms to feed and audiences to grow. That environment often turns complicated financial decisions into simple rules people can repeat in a TikTok or sell from a stage. But as Geosits notes, "Financial advice gets repeated like it applies equally to everyone, and it just doesn't. Income matters. Debt matters. Housing costs matter. Your obligations, opportunities and stage of life matter." Benjamin adds, "If skipping coffee were the secret, every office break room would be full of millionaires." The show's approach is not to replace one set of rigid money rules with another, but to start with the strongest version of an idea, examine why people believe it, where it can be useful, what the numbers say and where the argument falls apart.
The first three episodes take on deeply embedded American money culture ideas. Episode 1, "Stop Blaming the Latte: The $5 Lie Keeping You Broke," tackles the "Latte Factor"—the idea that cutting small everyday purchases and investing the difference can dramatically change your financial future. The hosts dig into where the advice came from, why the math can look convincing and the difference between encouraging better spending habits and blaming a $5 purchase for much larger financial problems. Episode 2, "Rich Dad, Poor Advice," examines Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad and nearly three decades of "think like the rich" advice, looking at what the book gets right about cash flow and ownership before getting into the messier reality of leverage, rental properties, entrepreneurship and so-called passive income. Episode 3, "The Pyramid You Can't Climb: MLMs Won't Make You Rich," goes after multi-level marketing, breaking down why the pitch can be so convincing and what participant income disclosures look like once you get past the luxury cars and curated success stories.
Each episode ends with the featured advice facing the show's BS Meter, with three possible verdicts: This Gets You Rich, This Won't Hurt, or You'll Die Trying. The goal is to separate advice that actually changes financial outcomes from advice that mostly sounds like it should. As Benjamin puts it, "A money tip can be good advice without being the reason somebody gets rich. That's where things get weird. We take one decent habit, give it a cape, and suddenly it is supposed to solve capitalism." New episodes are released every two weeks and are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
