Meet David & John Auten-Schneider | LGBTQ+ Money Experts

We had the good fortune of connecting with David & John Auten-Schneider and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David & John, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
A year after launching our first business, Debt Free Guys, we attended a conference for personal finance content creators and finance media. Of the 900 or so people there, we were the only out, LGBTQ+ couple. We noticed that while mommy bloggers were speaking to their audiences about couponing, budgeting, and savings, military bloggers were talking to their audiences about the unique money management of military families, and Black female content creators were speaking to their audiences about taking control of their money, no one was speaking to our queer community. Knowing our challenges and that of many of our LGBTQ+ friends with money, we launched the first iteration of the Queer Money podcast in June 2015.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The award-winning Queer Money podcast is the only show solely dedicated to the financial wellness of the queer community, helping LGBTQ+ people (and allies) live happier, healthier, and wealthier lives.

Both of us, as co-hosts and co-creators of the Queer Money podcast, spent most of our adult lives in financial services working for various firms. In most cases, we noticed a lack of effort in those companies genuinely serving our community. Leaving corporate America to launch our own businesses was not easy, especially as neither of us came from entrepreneurial families, and what we’re building with the Queer Money podcast – trying to get the LGBTQ+ community to talk about its personal finances and build generational wealth – has never been done. While similar models exist, there aren’t exact replicas to follow.

On one hand, we’ve overcome our challenges by staying focused on our ultimate goal – financial freedom for more LGBTQ+ folks – and on the other hand, the universe keeps giving us enough inspiration to keep going.

We want the LGBTQ+ community to one day benefit from generational wealth within the community, and we’d like to be known for having a small role in that.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’re not from LA, but our favorite trip to LA was because we visited the Getty Museum. Most recently, we hosted Queer Money Bingo! at the Santa Monica Capital One Cafe and thoroughly enjoyed Santa Monica and enjoyed the Misfit Bar & Restaurant and the Curious Palate.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Several people at that personal finance conference are integral in helping us get to where we are today. They include:

1. Miranda Marquit
2. JD Roth
3. Emma Johnson
4. Harlan Landes
5. Carleen Clearwater

Website: https://queermoneypodcast.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queermoneypodcast/

Linkedin: N/A

Twitter: N/A

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QueerMoneyPodcast

Yelp: N/A

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@queermoney

Image Credits
These are all our photos.