This Is Uncomfortable

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How many subscriptions are you paying for right now? Whether we’re watching TV, listening to music, or even just storing photos, it feels like we are required to rent so many parts of daily life these days. Reema talks to tech reporter Lance Ulanoff and finance writer Hanna Horvath about the origins of the subscription economy, what lies ahead, and how we can cope. Plus, we’ve got another edition of “Alice Gets Her Life Together,” where producer Alice Wilders joins Reema to investigate their own subscriptions and find ways to cut costs. If you like this episode, share it with a friend! And let us know what you think by calling 347-RING-TIU or emailing uncomfortable@marketplace.orgIf you want to answer our “Uncomfortable Money Questions” see more info here.Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok!Support This Is Uncomfortable with your donation today: https://bit.ly/mkp_tiu_pod

Help! I put in two months' notice… two years ago!

Is a frustrating dynamic in your workplace keeping you up at night? In our recurring advice column, “Work Drama”, we try to find answers to your sticky work questions. This week Reema is joined by Marketplace correspondent Kristin Schwab and host/correspondent Sabri Ben-Achour to answer your workplace questions – from favoritism getting in the way of a promotion to persistent recruitment for the office kickball league. If you like this episode, share it with a friend! And let us know what you think by calling 347-RING-TIU or emailing uncomfortable@marketplace.orgFollow us on Instagram and Tiktok!Support This Is Uncomfortable with your donation today: https://bit.ly/mkp_tiu_pod

Bonus: Should we mess with nature? From "How We Survive"

This week we’re sharing an episode of the Marketplace climate solutions podcast “How We Survive.” The new season is all about the controversial ways humans are tinkering with nature in an effort to save the planet, from shooting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, to launching sunshades into space. In this episode, they explore the wildest intervention to date: de-extinction.The team takes a tour of Colossal Labs, the $10 billion Dallas-based startup betting it can reverse-engineer extinction itself, to see how they plan to turn pigeons into dodos and Asian elephants into woolly mammoths. But whether it’s bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction or shooting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, just because we can mess with nature, does that mean we should? After the tour, host Amy Scott chats with Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert to find out. Follow “This Is Uncomfortable” on Instagram and Tiktok!Support Marketplace with your donation today: https://bit.ly/mkp_tiu_pod

Confessions of a former homesteader

Have you ever daydreamed about leaving your office job, moving to the countryside, and living off the land? In 2008, Laura Griggs and her husband did just that: they moved to a small farm in rural Missouri and raised their family there for nearly a decade. Reema talks with Laura about the real cost of homesteading, and why she ultimately had to leave it behind.And later in the episode, we’ve got another edition of Alice Gets Her Life Together, where producer Alice Wilder shuts down a high-interest credit card and learns why it’s so easy to get into debt. If you like this episode, share it with a friend! And let us know what you think by calling 347-RING-TIU or emailing uncomfortable@marketplace.orgIf you want to answer our “Uncomfortable Questions” see more info here.Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok!Support This Is Uncomfortable with your donation today: https://bit.ly/mkp_tiu_pod

Nicole Chung and the toll of caregiving

How are you supposed to juggle caring for your aging parents while also raising young children of your own? And how do you budget for those competing responsibilities? This week, Reema talks to Nicole Chung, author of “A Living Remedy,” about her experiences caring for her parents in their final years of illness, how the U.S. healthcare system failed them, and the toll it took on her both emotionally and financially.Plus, Reema and Alice dig into our mailbag and hear from listeners in the “sandwich generation” – those who have caregiving responsibilities for both their parents and their children. If you like this episode, share it with a friend! And let us know what you think by calling 347-RING-TIU or emailing uncomfortable@marketplace.orgIf you want to answer our “Uncomfortable Questions,” see more info here.Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok!Support This Is Uncomfortable with your donation today: https://bit.ly/mkp_tiu_pod