Money Diaries’ Lindsey Stanberry on her media career and popular Substack, The Purse
Lindsey Stanberry’s been around the New York media block and even worked on a book with Madeleine Albright. But the best thing she’s done for her career? Let’s dig in.
Occupation: Founder, The Purse; author, Money Diaries
Age: 44 (for a few more weeks!)
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Previous locations: I grew up in Cincinnati and went to college in Boston at Boston University, but I’ve lived in NYC for my entire adult life.
I’m in the midst of: Trying to build a media business from the ground up while also studying to become a certified financial planner. And then there’s my personal life …
Most impactful career experience so far: Two things. One, running Money Diaries at Refinery29, writing the book and hosting the podcast. It was such a “pinch me” experience.
The second was managing a team of young reporters at CNBC through the pandemic. It was so hard. I was so stressed trying to juggle that job with raising a 3-year-old. We were living with my parents so we could have childcare support, and we were so lucky to have that support, but our lives were still so disrupted by everything that was going on in the world. I feel like I made a lot of mistakes during that time, but it also helped me grow as a manager.
My dream job: Running The Purse is my dream job.
I love to connect with: people who are interested in having open and honest conversations about money.
My relationship and/or family status: I’m married (16 years), and we have a 9-year-old son.
My income: Maybe it seems funny that The Purse is all about money, but I tend to not feel super comfortable sharing my finances publicly. Now, if we were sitting down to a coffee and you had specific questions, I might share, especially if I thought sharing that knowledge would be helpful to you. I tend to be pretty open in one-on-one conversations.
So without getting into specifics, I’ll say that I make most of my income from paid subscribers and some brand partnerships. From January to May 2025, I also worked a full-time temp job, and I tried to save a big chunk of that so I could spend the second half of the year completely focused on The Purse. My husband has a full-time job, as well, and we completely share our finances and expenses.
Monthly expenses in a nutshell: I’m lucky to be in a phase of life where we’re able to keep our expenses low, and that’s allowed me to take this risk and start my own business.
My son is in public school and we’re not paying for much child care at the moment. We own our apartment, and we benefited from being able to refinance during the pandemic and have a low interest rate. We paid off our car earlier this year. I try not to spend a whole lot on the unnecessary expenses that I enjoyed when I had a job that came with a regular paycheck (re: shopping for new clothes and paying for private exercise classes, for example). I’d guess beyond my mortgage, my biggest expense is groceries, and I’d estimate we spend around $1,000 a month to feed our family of three.
Primary personal debts: Slowly — so slowly — paying off our mortgage. We’re lucky that’s our only debt.
Retirement savings: Let’s just say it’s healthy! Beyond our low expenses, I’d say the second reason that I could comfortably take the risk and start my own business is because my husband and I were big savers for most of our 20s and 30s. We socked away money in savings and in our 401(k)s — and some is invested in a brokerage account — so we’ve been able to reduce how much we save recently while most of our earnings are funneled into paying our bills.
I would like to get back to a point where we’re able to invest more in retirement, but I feel good that we’ll get there.
Number of hours per week that I work: I honestly have no idea, but it feels like all the time. And with a lot of starts and stops built in. Most days, I work from 5:30 to 7 a.m., then from 8:30ish to 3ish, stop to pick up my son from school, then get back to work from 4:30 to 6ish.
I don’t usually work anymore after dinner because I’m too tired. I spend at least one weekend day studying for whatever class I’m in the middle of. Sometimes I’ll also work on Purse stuff on the weekends. Right now, it feels like too much because school/studying takes up a lot of time.
Where I work: I have a dedicated desk at a coworking space about a mile from my apartment. I work there three to four days a week, and often on weekends I’ll go there to study. If I’m not at the coworking space, I work from a small desk in my bedroom. My husband also works from home, and he works from our dining room table.
How I feel about the traditional 9-to-5: I don’t think I’m either pro or anti. I loved having a full-time job and going to an office every day. I’m one of the few people who misses office life before the pandemic.
I like the separation between work and my personal life. But I think …
Read more about Lindsey Stanberry’s life and career at Fortune, Refinery29, Martha Stewart, and more on our sister platform, The Midst Substack.
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