One Degree Turns: Small Money Shifts with Big Impact

One Degree Turns: Small Money Shifts with Big Impact

In this solo episode, I explore how each of us can make our money do good—starting right where we are. Using the five ways we interact with money—how we earn, spend, save, give, and invest. I share practical micro actions that align our finances with values of justice, care, and interconnection. This solo episode is rooted in my article The Interconnected Dollar and reflects on how money is never neutral; it’s always expressing something about what we value, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Throughout this episode, I ask: what would happen if our financial lives became one more site of solidarity and collective care?

There’s something uniquely clarifying about mapping your entire financial life—how you earn, spend, save, give, and invest—onto a framework of values like justice and environmental care. In this episode, I ask listeners to consider not just what they do with money, but who they become through those choices. I speak candidly about what it means to decouple our worth from wealth, how social structures skew our understanding of “deserving,” and how small shifts in where we bank or how we give can ripple out in unseen but powerful ways. 

These aren’t sweeping, overnight transformations—most of what I share are subtle reorientations, one-degree shifts that, over time, alter the course of our lives and communities. I also touch on the emotional labor of holding grief for the planet, the way capitalism numbs our natural instincts for mutual care, and how some of my most values-aligned moments came not from traditional financial success, but from reimagining what success even means.

This episode invites you to think with your whole self: intellectually, emotionally, politically, and spiritually. Not to arrive at perfection, but to stay present with the complexity—and the possibility—of living a life where our money reflects the world we want to build.

Episode Highlights

00:01:32 Introducing the five ways we interact with money 00:05:32 Capitalism, scarcity, and the myth of self-reliance 00:09:22 Social justice as mutual care, not saviorism 00:10:32 Honoring Joanna Macy and the grief of climate inaction 00:14:02 What spending choices say about our values 00:15:42 Redefining generosity through accessible pricing 00:18:32 When your income source drains your spirit 00:24:22 How your savings fuel the fossil fuel industry 00:26:32 A heart-based guide to values-aligned investing 00:29:32 One micro action you can take in each money area 00:32:32 Living in uncertainty—and choosing to care anyway

Keywords

#socialjusticefinance #ethicalinvesting #intentionalspending #valuesbasedliving #interconnectedness #climatejustice #moneyandmeaning #consciouscapitalism #mutualcare

Resources

The Interconnected Dollar: Aligning your money with social justice and environmental care The Dawn of Everything by David Graber and David Wengrow The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck Invest Your Values As You Sow Natural Investments Heart Rating The Dirty Dozen Banks Accidental Gods with Amanda Scott

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Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. All the Colors is not a registered entity and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Natural Investments. See our Disclosures and Disclaimers and read our Form CRS.