Get Smart with Money is not an educational documentary teaching its audience the basics of personal finance: it's a reality show in which, over the course of a year, four self-appointed experts give questionable advice to a group of financially troubled young people from varying backgrounds and income levels.
Tears are shed, lessons are (presumably) learned, and the viewer is left wondering how they got themselves into watching yet another shallow, schmaltzy, patronizing Netflix excuse for a film.
The "experts" offer empty self-help platitudes along with financial advice ranging from obvious to completely unsound.
Among the hilariously misguided suggestions by our gurus, one is offered to an unhappy waitress who dabbles in digital art: accost people walking their dogs and hock your drawings; also try selling NFTs.
To a former rising football star with questionable career prospects, the advice is to invest in an S&P500 index fund, and avoid stock picking. When the guy also starts purchasing Meta and Apple stocks, our guru compliments the investment.
Not even Peter Adeney of Mr. Money Mustache personal finance blogging fame comes out unscathed: He brags about all the money he's saved by cutting his own hair. The problem is, he didn't need to say that. We can tell by looking at his hair.
The triumphant final montage informs us about how these young people's lives were changed for the better after a year: the football star's career prospects improved (completely unrelated to financial expert's help); the well-off young couple is closer to early retirement (tangentially related to financial expert's help); the young mother with numerous credit card bills got a raise (completely unrelated to financial expert's help); the artist/waitress got healthcare from her partner's employment (completely unrelated to the financial expert's help).
Thanks, Netflix finance wizard! Not even a whole year after you told that woman to start bothering people picking up their dogs' crap, she managed to get healthcare through her fianceé's employer. Truly inspiring stuff. In the words of the one woman making 200k a year by working as a female-empowerment psychotherapist for three hours a day over Zoom: money isn't everything.
Tears are shed, lessons are (presumably) learned, and the viewer is left wondering how they got themselves into watching yet another shallow, schmaltzy, patronizing Netflix excuse for a film.
The "experts" offer empty self-help platitudes along with financial advice ranging from obvious to completely unsound.
Among the hilariously misguided suggestions by our gurus, one is offered to an unhappy waitress who dabbles in digital art: accost people walking their dogs and hock your drawings; also try selling NFTs.
To a former rising football star with questionable career prospects, the advice is to invest in an S&P500 index fund, and avoid stock picking. When the guy also starts purchasing Meta and Apple stocks, our guru compliments the investment.
Not even Peter Adeney of Mr. Money Mustache personal finance blogging fame comes out unscathed: He brags about all the money he's saved by cutting his own hair. The problem is, he didn't need to say that. We can tell by looking at his hair.
The triumphant final montage informs us about how these young people's lives were changed for the better after a year: the football star's career prospects improved (completely unrelated to financial expert's help); the well-off young couple is closer to early retirement (tangentially related to financial expert's help); the young mother with numerous credit card bills got a raise (completely unrelated to financial expert's help); the artist/waitress got healthcare from her partner's employment (completely unrelated to the financial expert's help).
Thanks, Netflix finance wizard! Not even a whole year after you told that woman to start bothering people picking up their dogs' crap, she managed to get healthcare through her fianceé's employer. Truly inspiring stuff. In the words of the one woman making 200k a year by working as a female-empowerment psychotherapist for three hours a day over Zoom: money isn't everything.