Wallet Activism: The book and podcast for anyone ready to change the status quo.

Book available everywhere books are sold, and podcast live now!

• Order on Indiebound (or through your local indie bookseller)
• Order on Bookshop.org
• Order from Powell’s
• Order on Amazon Smile (be sure to use smile.amazon.com so a portion goes to the nonprofit of your choice)
• Order on Barnes & Noble
• Order from BenBella Books
• Order from Booktopia (Australia)

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• PlayerFM
• iHeart Radio

How do we vote with our dollars, not just to make ourselves feel good, but to make a real difference? Wallet Activism challenges you to rethink your financial power so can feel confident spending, earning, and saving money in ways that align with your values.

While we call the American system a democracy, capitalism is the far more powerful force in our lives. The greatest power we have—especially when political leaders won’t move quickly enough— is how we use our money: where we shop, what we buy, where we live, what institutions we entrust with our money, who we work for, and where we donate determines the trajectory of our society and our planet. While our votes and voices are essential, too, Wallet Activism helps you use your money for real impact.

It can feel overwhelming to determine “the right way” to spend: a choice that might seem beneficial to the environment may have unintended consequences that hurt people. Wallet Activism empowers us to vote with our wallets by making sense of all the information coming at us, and teaching us to cultivate a more holistic mindset that considers the complex, interrelated ecosystems of people and the planet together, not as opposing forces.

About the Author

Tanja Hester is the author of Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change and Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way. After spending most of her career as a consultant to Democratic politics and progressive issue campaigns, and before that as a public radio journalist, Tanja retired early at the age of thirty-eight. She documented the process on her award-winning financial independence/retire early (FIRE) blog, Our Next Life. She’s been an outspoken voice in the personal finance media community to consider systemic barriers and opportunity gaps, rather than simply pushing people with lots of advantages already to accumulate more wealth, part of why the New York Times called her “the matriarch of the women’s FIRE movement.” She hosts a podcast also called Wallet Activism, writes an occasional opinion column for MarketWatch, and lives in a burgeoning permaculture food forest she’s growing in North Lake Tahoe, California, with her husband, Mark Bunge, and a flock of tiny rescue dogs. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @our_nextlife and visit her blog at OurNextLife.com.