By coinnews 
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Welcome to living not so fabulously. Uh, so David, you have a confession to make. The floor is yours.
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Hi, my name is David Otten, and I didn’t watch the Golden Girls until 2004.And we frequently fall
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asleep watching true crime stories, which brings us to today’s guest. Patrick Hines is the fabulous force behind the hit podcast True Crime Obsessed, and the host of the Golden Girls Deep Dive, blending heart, humor, and true crime realness.
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He’s also the author of Failure Is Not Not an Option, a hilarious and heartfelt memoir about reinvention and resilience. From growing up with little to owning a slice of New York today, Patrick proves that being unapologetically queer can be your best investment. Thank you for joining us, Patrick.
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Hey guys, thanks for having me.
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Of course, excited to talk to you,
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definitely. So you shared that you grew up very poor as the 2nd of 4 children by a working mom who also was raised in poverty. So we’re curious, how did that affect your perception of how money works?
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Well, it’s so interesting. I was also raised by a gay mom. My mom, when, when she left my dad, she came out of the closet. So there’s a lot going on there, you know, my mom was, um, newly out. She was newly discovered she was an alcoholic and went into the program and was working a full-time job and raising 4 kids with no money, no help from my father. Um, and I was, it served me in a lot of ways.Because I just developed a strong work ethic really young. I knew, you know, early on that if I was going to have any money, I was gonna have to make my money. Um, I learned young that I loved to work. I loved to work hard. Um, I liked sort of being the, uh, steward of my own financial future, but at the same time, I never had any financial guidance at all. I mean, it wasVery much, you know, I was living paycheck to paycheck from the time I was 14 years old, you know, I, I had no sense of how to save, how to invest. I never, literally never learned how to balance a checkbook, you know, because I was of the age where checks became sort of obsolete as I was coming into my adulthood, and I had a checking account when I was young, but never kind of by the grace of God, things didn’t bounce, or if they did, you paid the overdraft fee.And it was a mess, boys. It was a it was a real mess until I was in my late 20s and I met my husband who, um, really, you know, loved me and, and, and helped me get it all together financially.
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So you didalso share at one point in time that in your 20s you were terrified about facing some realities about your financial situation, things like your credit score, the bills.Maybe you couldelaborate on that.
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You know, my, my, uh, my early twenties and my early to mid-twenties were, were really bad. I ended up having to, you know, get apartments that didn’t do credit checks or, you know, I, um, I didn’t have a credit card, really, I didn’t have a credit card until we got married and my husband gave me a credit card in his name, you know, I mean, it was, it was that bad. I mean, life was good, life was fun. I was, you know, I was living my life but not responsibly andUm, it is kind of a miracle that all these years later I’ve, I’ve ended up in a, in a very solid financial position because, uh, without Steve, I don’t think that would have happened.
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Do you haveany advice for somebody who may be in that situation today, who is kind offor lack of a better way of saying it, may be deer in the headlights feeling when they think about their money, and, you know, whether you’re living in New York City or you’re living in Ames, Iowa, right? You can still have that kind of same similar experience with saying I don’t know what to do.
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Yeah, there, there were things I didn’t know, you know, that there were programs that were designed to help people who can’t afford to pay their loans. That for me was the big thing. My loans were like in the $80,000 range, and I remember looking at the bill and being like, I’ve no, I can’t do, I’m just gonna put this over here, rather than investigating what is there’s got to be resources out there, and there are, there are ways that you can get umYou know, there are ways that you can pay what you can pay, you know, ultimately they want you to pay something and there are ways to. There are, there is help and there are resources and I wish I had investigated that further, you know, because it like I was concerned about like saving money as opposed to like learning how to manage the money that I had and and paying the bills that I needed to pay andUm, I, I, you know, I think the big advice would be, be brave, you know, be brave. Open the envelope. That’s the advice. Don’t be so afraid of the bill that you don’t open it. Open the envelope. Oftentimes there’s resources on the bill itself, you know, that if you can’t pay this or you need help or whatever, call this number, go to this website, um, and, and, and take it seriously because not everybody is gonna meet a Steve who’s gonna, you know, help you get your financial life together.
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And at the very least, it helps you prepare for when you open up the Oscar, the Grammy envelope and you announcethe winner. Yeah exactly for that
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exactly. I really do mean it like if anybody can take one thing away from my story, open the envelope. That was the thing I was so scared to do. Open the andI remember the day that my husband sat me down with the stack of bills that I put in the corner. He’s like, we’re just going to go through this. We’re just going to see what’s here, you know. And there really were resources on almost every bill. I really, they, they, they want you to pay your bills and um open the envelope.
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Ironic enough, you’re right, they definitely, they definitely do want you to pay your bills. They’d rather have that happen than you declarebankruptcy.
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So you, yeah,
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truly. Here that you’ve you’ve reached a level of success today, and you’ve attributed much of that to the fact that you really leaned into this idea of, of being authentically yourself. Um, did you ever feel the pressure to code switch or change so that you were more marketable?
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So yeah, I mean, not really other than from myself. So, you know, when I became a full-time podcaster, uh, I was sort of starting from the beginning. I’ve been making a podcast as a hobby for a long time.Uh, in the world of theater, which is like to be like an out screaming queen gay guy in the theater podcast makes sense. Uh, but when I was like, you know, I want to see if I can like make a living doing this, and I really wanted to make a marketable, potentially popular true crime podcast, I really was wondering if there was space for somebody who sounded like me, somebody with my life experience. I wanted to be able to share my experience.on the on the podcast. There was no world in which I was ever going to sort of live in the closet or try to change my voice, but, but I did wonder if it would just be a nonstarter that that a person like me could find success in that world. And I think what I, what I really found podcasting is such a personal, intimate medium that I think listeners really are looking for authenticity from the hosts that they that they listen to. And um and I think that like right from the beginning, both myself and my co-host, Gillian.Uh, we really just were authentic selves, and people really resonated with that. And I, I wanna also give credit to the other creators, really popular creators in the true crime space who not only made space for us, but really supported and encouraged us. A lot of them were straight men, you know, that really were like, no, you guys are great, keep going, we’ll help you.Um, we were able to pay that back and pay that forward as we got bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, and, and I, you know, I’ve landed in a in a financial position that I never could have imagined when I was, you know, in my twenties really struggling to make ends meet.
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So hold that thought, Patrick, we’ll be right back after this break.Welcome back. If you’re just tuning in to Living Not So Fabulously, we’re interviewing serial podcast host, author, and New York City property owner, Patrick Hind.
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That is a wild thing to hear said out loud. Like New York City property owner. Oh my God.
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It is interesting because especially with the way that that property prices have increased in the city. So, in your book, failure is not not an option. You dig into some of the mistakes and the reinvention that you have gone through. Um, is there a money mistake that you still maybe feel a little embarrassed about, but when you look back, you think to yourself, well, that actually did help me become the person I am today.
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Yeah, I mean, there was a time when our daughter came to us that I really wanted to be a stay at home dad somehow, and I, I decided I was going to open a home daycare, you guys. And, uh, we did it. I, I spent a year of my life, you know, training and studying and and figuring out how to do it. Um, I quit my job, we gave away everything we had except for our couch essentially, and turned our little two bedroom apartment in Harlem into a home daycare thatUh, I was so miserable running that we closed it like one week after we opened, and there we were, I mean with no job, no furniture, like just like staring at the walls of our apartment with a baby and a like.Lots and lots of cubbies out the wazoo, and just sort of being like, what are we what are we gonna do now? And it was only really in that moment that my husband looked at me and was like, well, we’re at the bottom, you know, like, the all you’ve ever wanted to do is be a podcaster, all you’ve ever thought you could do is be a podcaster, go be a podcaster, and that was really the the beginning of the changing of everything.The origin story
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started in a daycare.
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Yeah, is it, you know, it’s it that I I really appreciate that because so many people feel like once they’ve committed.They have to power through it, right? They have to, they have to power through the struggle. They keep on hearing that story of he was 3 inches away from the the the the vein of gold that turned somebody else into a multimillionaire, and you just keep on thinking I’m just, just a little bit further, just a little bit further just but sometimes saying.This isn’t working. I’m gonna try something else, is actually the way to go.
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Yeah, I mean, I, for so many years I had done, I forced myself to do jobs I didn’t like because I thought I was making more money than I would have, you know, I was a hotel concierge in New York City, which was an interestingly lucrative job. I was a bartender at a steakhouse for, you know, 8 or 9 years, and that was, that was a lucrative lucrative job, but I was not happy. I was not creatively or really in any way fulfilled, um, and, and so yeah, when, when the daycare happened and I was so unhappy from like moment one.I just was like, you know, there’s no way I can force myself to do this every day for the rest of my life, you know, and, and luckily, I mean, find yourself a, a partner that supports you because thank thank God my husband was like, he had just finished a math degree, uh, and hehad gotten a job and we were in an OK. Like he could afford to float us for maybe a year. And he was like, take that year and try to take this dream and make it a reality. Um, and you know, by the grace of goddess, it worked out.
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So it sounds like your husband has been very critical in where you’ve gotten today. Can you sort of elaborate on what that means to you?
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Oh my God, I mean, even, even today, you know, my husband Steve is the most supportive man and a great dad, an amazing partner, and um, you know, I, I can, people, some people think I’m a little nuts. I have these really big ideas and uh no real idea how to execute them, but I will sort of say like, I really want to do this. I really believe in this idea, and Steve, 90% of the time will say let’s try it, let’s go for it, you know, andAnd even now, I mean, you know, with the amount of work that I have and with the podcast business that I have and, uh, you know, I’m I’m doing this live tour, I’m doing 40 cities, which is a lot of time away from home and a lot of time away from parenting. My husband, I always say he’s not just um supportive, he’s encouraging, you know, he just believes in me, he believes in us. He runs the whole back end of our business. So it’s not like I’m doing this alone. He, you know, I’m the front facing part of it, but he does everything behind the scenes andUm, and I think that he just, he just really believes in me. He believes in my vision, I think, um, and yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m just, I’m very, very lucky to have such a supportive and encouraging husband.
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We jokingly say that that uh that means that you’re the lead singer and your husband is the either the bassist of the drum player, cause
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that’s John and I always say that
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if
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ever
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ifwe were ever in a band, and sometimes, you know, that is your business, right? John would be the lead singer and I would be the backup.
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I’m Stevie Nicks. Yeah. Well, they always there there was this meme that was going around the internet for a while that said, um, within every gay couple, there’s one person.10,000 Instagram followers and one person who runs the Google, the Google calendar, you know, like it’s very much like that dynamic, um, which is not to say, you know, my husband was a professional actor for 10 years before we got together. He was nominated for awards and he toured and he very much has like main character energy as well, but he, um, he also loves numbers and he loves organization, and he loves a spreadsheet, and he loves the Google calendar and, you know, I think that like running this small business that we have has been a good opportunity for him to flex all those muscles.
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Maybe that’s the correlation. If you are attracted to mathy things, you’re attracted to the back of the
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stage. I don’t know
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yeah.
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Because he loves math and we make him do that in our business. So I’m curious, there’s there’s some attacks on the on on same-sex marriage these days, and there are some states who are trying to define what natural marriage means in their state constitutions. What would you say to those people who say that you might be happy, but it’s not the same, it’s not it’s not a true marriage because you’re not opposite sex?
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I mean, it’s just it, you know, well, I would say, yeah, you’re right, it isn’t the same marriage. It’s like we we like marriages look in many, many there, you know what I mean, there are, there are heterosexual marriages, there are gay marriages, there are interracial marriages, there are intergenerational marriages, there are marriage doesn’t look like one thing, but marriage is marriage is marriage, commitment is is marriage andYou know, I grew up in a time, I was saying my mom is gay, um, my mom was actually my mom and her wife are the first two people to get a marriage license in their town in 2004 when gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts. And I was raised in that era of people trying to say, call it a civil union. It’s to say, who cares as long as you even have mostly the same rights, it matters. I have a daughter. If you know, my daughter shouldn’t have to.Go to school and explain to her friends why I have a civil union and her friends are married. It is, we are all the same, you know, all of our, um, there, there, there are some gay people who for a long time didn’t want to be boxed into heteronormativity and fine, that’s fine, but everybody should have the opportunity to have access to the same thing. And legally it also matters, you know, marriage means one thing.union means something else and it all, we all need to be entitled to the same rights and responsibilities. And that’s the part of marriage I think that sometimes gets lost too is that it’s not just about rights, it’s also about responsibilities. We as married people have responsibilities to each other, to the state, to our community, to our faith communities. We, you know, it’s, um, to me it’s, it’s, it’s so obvious and it’s a no brainer. And also I would say.We have history now of seeing that gay marriage happens and the sky doesn’t fall. Everything is fine. Communities get stronger, faith communities get stronger, school boards get stronger, you know, I mean, everything gets better when gay people are seen as equal to everybody else.Oh, put me on my soapbox boys. Yeah,
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that’s no, that’s perfect. I loved it, definitely. There’s one question that we love to ask all of our guests, um, and this can come come from something that’s personal to your story, uh or maybe something related to your business. What is one piece of personal finance advice that you would share with the LGBT community?
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Um, God, it’s, it’s hard to say, it’s hard to say one thing because I’ve, I’ve been on all sides of it. I’ve been extremely poor, I’ve been extremely middle class, and I’ve had the fortune to, to, uh, you know, be in a position in my life now where I have some money, you know, um, and I think that like, I, I think, um,One piece of advice. It feels weird for me to give any financial advice, but I, I would say take your finances seriously. I guess that’s, that’s sort of where I come from is don’t be afraid, finances can be scary, you know, invest in yourself, invest in yourFamily, you know, if you can, if you are in a position to buy property, buy property. If you can just squirrel away a little bit of money, squirrel away a little bit of money. If you can invest in a 401k, invest in a 401k. But I would just say, you know, don’t be afraid to try to understand the world of finance. That was always, it felt like such a bigBarrier, uh, of entry to me, but I think, and I think as maybe as gay people, some of us can feel, some of us maybe just have that, I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, you know, you are, you’re good enough and you’re smart enough. Don’t, don’t let finance scare you, just, you know, find where you fit in the world of finance and and and do your best.Oh that, yeah,
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that’sI I love that. One of the ways that you are actually funding this life that you have with your family now is through things other than just your podcast. So you have a tour coming up, but you would maybe share a little bit about that and maybe some of the upcoming dates?
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Yeah, so I’m doing a 40 city tour, um, it’s called An Evening with Patrick Hinds, and it’s a really, really fun night. So basically, it’s, it’s a whole evening where, um, for an hour I tell a story, it’s a true story uh about a night that I spent with a Golden Girls icon Be Arthur, when I was in college and I was her host and guide for the weekend. I just wanted her to like and love me.The more I wanted it, the more she hated me. She just got drunk and was mean to me, and it’s a really, really funny story. Uh, I love telling it. I have this wonderful drag performer playing Be Arthur via video, um, from beyond the grave, they’re just sort of tell her side of the story. So that’s one hour, and the rest of it is really meant to be like a community building experience. So before the show.There’s like a pre-party, we kind of just hang out in the room and be there’s drinks and we get to know each other. We do my, I do my show, and then after the show, there’s an after party at the venue bar where we just go to the bar and we take pictures and we have drinks if that’s your journey. Um, but we, you know, basically just spend another hour together just kind of hanging out and getting to know each other. It’s a super fun night. I’ve done 20 of them already. people are having such a great time.I’ve got 20 more to go. Uh, in the month of June, I’m gonna be in Boston on June 6th, uh, Saint Louis on June 23rd, and I’m doing my hometown show in New York City on June 26th for Pride Weekend. So it’s the Thursday of Pride weekend in New York City, and I, I’m very, very excited for that show.
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Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you, Patrick. We really appreciate you joiningus today.
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Thanks for having me, guys. It’s been so fun. I never thought I’d be asked to speak about money, but here we are.
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Well, Patrick has so much energy. You can totally tell that he’s a podcaster. Yeah, definitely. So what was your
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favorite part? I think that my favorite part was the line of the show. Open the envelope. And no, there may not be a gold statue waiting for you on the other side, but we also know that not opening the envelope is kind of like sticking your head in the sand, and we know that from that.There are only two outcomes, right?
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Youeither suffocate because you can’t breathe or you face your fears and you succeed. So use today’s episode of living not so fabulously as your opportunity to face whatever difficult financial fears you have in your life right now, face those head on so you can succeed.
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This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.