Financial Resilience Starts Before the Scam
Welcome to this week’s Get Ready Newsletter.
This week, I’ve been thinking about financial resilience.
Financial resilience grows when we know what to watch for, who to call, and when to pause before acting.
Financial readiness helps us build the habits, buffers, conversations, and awareness we need before pressure arrives.
The Question to Ask Before Life Happens
Would you know what to do if you or someone you love received a convincing and urgent financial request?
From the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast
How Financial Resilience Protects People from Scams
Julia Chin, financial crime fighter and founder of JFourth Solutions, joined me to talk about why financial crime prevention must start with human understanding.
In financial services, three voices often dominate the conversation: regulators, institutions, and technology. Julia believes there is a fourth voice we need to hear more clearly: the human voice trying to make sense of it all.
The key takeaway: financial resilience protects people, not just systems.
Buffers like emergency savings, financial knowledge, inclusion, dignity, curiosity, caution, compassion, and creativity all help people navigate an increasingly complex financial world.
Tony’s Take: Financial systems work best when they protect people. When we build resilience, stay curious, and understand the risks around us, we strengthen our ability to protect ourselves and the people we care about.
This episode is a collaboration with The Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards, the MAIAs, which celebrate the important work being done to help people understand money better.
🎙️Watch or listen (here)
Make Your Next Chapter Your Best One
Tamara Cortoos, midlife coach and founder of Midlife Crossroads Academy, joined me to talk about making your next chapter your best one by aligning your time, energy, and money with who you are becoming.
The key takeaway: your experience and perspective are assets that grow in value.
Small, consistent steps shape your next chapter over time. As your identity evolves, clarify what matters most as financial clarity equals financial freedom. Women should always know where they stand financially, since life can change quickly.
Tony’s Take: Midlife is an opportunity to move forward with intention.
🎙️ Watch or listen (here).
On My Radar
Helping Widows and the Advisors Who Serve Them
Kathleen Rehl joined Christine Benz and Amy Arnott on The Long View Podcast to discuss widowhood, estate planning, and finding purpose in later life.
Why it caught my attention: Widowhood often creates emotional and financial decisions at the same time. Slowing down, stress-testing life without a spouse, and helping advisors serve widows with more care all connect directly to financial readiness.
🎙️ Kathleen Rehl, Christine Benz, and Amy Arnott on The Long View Podcast (listen)
Gray Divorce and Retirement: Redefining Your Life and Identity
Oona Metz and Eric Blake discussed the emotional journey women may face during divorce and how it connects to retirement planning.
Why it caught my attention: Major life transitions shape the financial plan, identity, confidence, community, and what comes next.
🎙️ Oona Metz and Eric Blake on The Simply Retirement Podcast (watch or listen)
Schwab Moneywise Momentum Grants
Charles Schwab Foundation launched Schwab Moneywise Momentum Grants as part of a $20 million multi-year commitment to financial education.
Why it caught my attention: Practical financial education needs both trusted content and funding. This grant program supports fresh thinking and creative solutions to help people build financial knowledge and confidence.
đź“Ś Learn more (here)
Weekly Picks
Women Finding Their Financial Voice
Linda Grizely and Jennifer Edwards discussed how women can understand their money, ask better questions, and take ownership of financial decisions with more confidence.
Finding your financial voice starts with awareness: knowing where the accounts are, what debts exist, how retirement is being planned, and how decisions are being made.
Tony’s Take: Silence around money can create risk. Finding your financial voice begins with curiosity, perhaps having a money date without blame.
🎙️ Linda Grizely and Jennifer Edwards on the Real Money, Real Life Podcast (YouTube)
Worth Listening
The Ambition Penalty
Stefanie O’Connell joined Melissa Joy on Women’s Money Wisdom to discuss how women can be encouraged to step up while also facing systems that penalize ambition.
The conversation explores the gender pay gap, negotiation myths, leadership representation, pay transparency, and the limits of individual best practices when structural barriers remain.
Tony’s Take: Financial fluency includes understanding the systems around us. When people can see how money, work, power, and opportunity interact, they are better prepared to advocate for themselves and others.
🎙️ Stefanie O’Connell and Melissa Joy on the Women’s Money Wisdom Podcast (Apple Podcasts)
Study / Report
Social Security: Three Views on the Road Ahead
The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds (here).
Three perspectives caught my attention this week:
• Paul Krugman: Social Security is facing a political crisis (read).
• Jill Schlesinger: fixing Social Security is mostly about math (read).
• Laurence Kotlikoff: the system’s long-term unfunded liability is much larger than commonly discussed (read).
Tony’s Take: Social Security needs action. The longer policymakers wait, the harder the tradeoffs become. There’s no perfect solution, however there are measures that can be taken that will enable the program to continue at full benefits for current beneficiaries.
Tool / Resource: Instant Nonprofit
Christian LeFer’s Instant Nonprofit helps mission-driven founders move from idea to 501(c)(3) without getting buried in complexity.
This also connects to my conversation with Christian on philanthropy and financial wellness, as well as his conversation with Rachel Gogos on The Business of You Podcast about simplifying nonprofit formation, fundraising, and mission-driven work.
Tony’s Take: Simplicity creates momentum. When people can move from idea to action with less friction, more good work has a chance to reach the world.
đź“Ś Instant Nonprofit (here)
🎙️ Philanthropy and Financial Wellness with Christian LeFer and Tony Steuer on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast (watch or listen)
🎙️ The Simpler Way to Start a Nonprofit with Christian LeFer and Rachel Gogos on The Business of You Podcast (Apple Podcasts)
Worth Reading
How Much Will SpaceX Actually Cost Your Index Fund?
Nick Maggiulli looks at how index fund investors may be affected by the inclusion and valuation of large private companies.
Tony’s Take: Financial readiness includes understanding what you own, how it changes, and what assumptions sit inside your portfolio.
đź“– Nick Maggiulli for Of Dollars and Data (read)
This Week’s Readiness Step
Create a family scam pause rule. Pick one phrase everyone agrees to use before responding to an urgent financial request.
Example: “Let’s pause and verify this directly.”
Then decide who to call before anyone sends money, shares personal information, clicks a link, or responds to a request that feels urgent.
Your Financial Readiness System
This week’s theme connects directly to scam awareness in your Financial Readiness Plan.
Scam prevention works best when you prepare before the message arrives. Add these three steps to your plan:
- Create a family passphrase. Use it to verify unexpected calls, texts, or requests that appear to come from family members.
- Write down trusted contacts. Identify who you will call before moving money, sharing personal information, or responding to urgent requests.
- Review your financial access points. Know where your accounts are, who has access, and what alerts or protections are already in place.
Financial resilience grows when people have both information and a plan for what to do under pressure.
👉A Financial Readiness Plan helps you organize what others may need if they ever have to step in: key information, trusted contacts, financial details, wishes, decisions, and next steps.
Start your Financial Readiness Plan at (tonysteuer.com) and make life’s what-ifs easier to navigate.
Final Thought
Financial resilience is built before the moment of pressure.
A scam, a life transition, a sudden request, or a confusing financial decision can feel less overwhelming when you already know who to call, what to check, and when to pause.
Curiosity is where financial readiness begins.
Ask better questions, and the path forward becomes clearer.
Because when life happens, the way you think about money matters.
— Tony
P.S. Have a new podcast episode, book, article, research report, tool, or project that helps people think differently about money or prepare before life happens? Send it my way. I’m always looking for thoughtful resources to consider sharing in a future Get Ready Newsletter.
Tony
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