{"podcast":{"title":"Becoming Financially Confident","slug":"financially-confident-christian-773313","podcast_index_feed_id":773313,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/ask-ralph-podcast/","website_url":"http://www.becomingfinanciallyconfident.com/","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/c17cbaaa-ac0e-40c1-abbe-52b5e2557b3f/BFC-Podcast-Cover-Final-v2.jpg","author":"Ralph V. Estep, Jr.","episode_count":1257,"summary":"Breaking Free from Financial Shame, one conversation at a time. Most money advice assumes you already know what you're doing. This show doesn't. Becoming Financially Confident is a live weekday show for people who want to get their financial life in order without being lectured, judged, or sold something. Host Ralph Estep Jr. is a Licensed Public Accountant with more than 30 years of experience sitting across the desk from real people and real businesses — the shoebox of receipts, the tax notice nobody wants to open, the budget that never quite balances. He has made his own expensive mistakes, and he talks about them openly. This is not a new voice. Ralph has published more than 1,200 episodes across eight seasons, earned national recognition for his work, and written nearly a thousand articles on money, taxes, technology, and small business. Becoming Financially Confident is the next chapter of that same show, in the same feed — sharper, live, and built around one idea: you are capable of figuring this out. Every show opens with Headlines: what happened in the money world, and why it matters to your money and not just somebody's portfolio. From there, the recurring segments inclu…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-16T10:17:43.701925+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/financially-confident-christian-773313"},"episode":{"title":"What a Cash-Out Refinance Really Costs You","slug":"what-a-cash-out-refinance-really-costs-you","published_at":"2026-09-04T21:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/financially-confident-christian-773313/what-a-cash-out-refinance-really-costs-you","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/financially-confident-christian-773313","url":"https://www.becomingfinanciallyconfident.com/cash-out-refinance","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/32758792-b939-4490-ae96-2f739be53530.mp3","summary":"Happy Friday! Today's episode centers on something a lot of homeowners are being offered right now. If your lender has dangled a refinance that \"saves you $700 a month,\" you need to hear this before you sign anything. That's the big one today, and we've also got childcare costs, a shorter health insurance deadline, and a scam worth knowing about. I'm Ralph Estep Jr., a licensed public accountant with 30 years in the business, and I'm joined by my cohost Juliet. We're live every Monday through Friday from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern on Becoming Financially Confident. Here's what we got into today: In the mailbag, Mark and Krista asked if cash-out refinance money counts as income. It doesn't, but that's not the real cost. The lender resets your loan back to a full 30-year term, which wipes out years of paydown, tacks on closing costs, and can even cost you the mortgage interest deduction if the cash isn't spent on the house The government says childcare is affordable at 7% of income. Real families are paying closer to 20%, and I see it every day in my tax practice. If your employer offers a Dependent Care FSA, that's worth checking before open enrollment closes Health insurance open enrollment through the marketplace now runs November 1 to December 15, a month shorter than it used to be. My own premium went from $1,500 to $2,600 a month for two people, and it's projected to jump another 25% this year A cruel new scam is targeting people who already got scammed once, promising to recover their money for an upfront fee. There's no such thing, so report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov, call your bank's fraud department, and file with your state attorney general's office instead Our Friday money move was freezing your credit at all three bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax…","meta_description":"Happy Friday! Today's episode centers on something a lot of homeowners are being offered right now. If your lender has dangled a refinance that \"saves you…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3378,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/financially-confident-christian-773313/episodes/what-a-cash-out-refinance-really-costs-you/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/financially-confident-christian-773313/what-a-cash-out-refinance-really-costs-you.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}