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Saving, spending, planning — you've got money questions and we've got answers. Every week host Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp challenge the conventional wisdom on life's biggest financial issues to reveal what you really need to know to make smart money moves. In this week's episode, the team is joined by Dr. Rakesh Kochhar from the Pew Research Center to help us understand how the unemployment rate is calculated, how to dig into the numbers of the monthly Jobs Report, and the impact of COVID-19 on workers in the US.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: Snowflake dazzles with the biggest software IPO ever; Adobe reports record revenue; Lennar Corp raises the roof with big earnings; Nvidia makes a $40 billion buy; Telehealth company AmWell makes its debut on Wall Street; FedEx hits a new all-time high; Dave & Buster’s declines on bankruptcy concerns; And the nation prepares for a Peeps-free Halloween. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser discuss those stories and share a couple of stocks on their radar: Nike and Freshpet. Plus, award-winning personal finance expert Laura Adams offers helpful tips for anyone starting a business and shares other insights from her new book, Money-Smart Solopreneur: A Personal Finance System for Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, and Side-Hustlers.

Britain is in the grip of a mysterious property mini-boom. Talk of a property market more buoyant than it’s been in years, of viewings and offers flooding in and family homes in hot demand, doesn’t seem to just be the usual estate agent puff. Evidence from mortgage reports, surveyors and data on estate agent activity, appears to bear this out. The stamp duty holiday and lockdown itchy feet have combine to make parts of the market a sellers’ one, so as a buyer what can you do to get a decent offer accepted and avoid overpaying? On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Georgie Frost and Lee Boyce talk buying homes. They discuss what’s going on, whether all parts of the market are flying (not quite), why some homes go to above asking price offers but others linger, and how as a buyer you can get a good deal, while as a seller you can also try to go under offer swiftly at a decent price. Also, on this week’s show, the team discuss the rise of the lockdown trader and why more people – and younger ones at that – are buying shares. They look at inflation and how many savings account beat it. And finally, why has the Royal Mint said it probably won’t need to make anymore 2p pieces or £2 coins for a very long time?

For women (59%), the resounding role of wealth is being able to provide comfort and security for themselves and their family. But many women neglect to plan and invest sufficiently to provide for their retirement; currently women lose nearly £1million over the course of their lives through a lack of investing. COVID-19 has dramatically impacted financial security, changed the ways in which we work, and the way we think about life, the future, and retirement. As the age of retirement keeps rising and we find ourselves in uncertain times, we should all be thinking about how we want to spend our lives and be armed with the knowledge needed to make the right financial choices to fuel the future we want. In this episode, Tamara Gillan is joined by Wealth Director of Brewin Dolphin, Carla Morris, to share her knowledge and expertise on pensions and female prosperity – both now, and in the future.

Graham Spooner of The Share Centre looks at recent numbers from Ocado, which has just begun its tie-up with Marks & Spencer, replacing its longstanding relationship with Waitrose. He also looks at the arrival on the stock market of the multi-billion e-commerce company The Hut Group. Looking ahead, he considers what we might expect from water companies United Utilities and Pennon, as well as retailer Kingfisher and conglomerate Smiths Group.

Tim Price of Price Value Partners looks at the psychology of money and investment as discussed in The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. With reference to Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, he discusses why patience, time and compounding are the investor's friend. He gives his opinion on the current irrational state of markets, particularly those linked to tech companies from the viewpoint of a patient, value investor concerned with absolute rather than relative returns. And he explains why he so often invokes the films of John Carpenter when discussing modern markets.

James Cameron-Wilson looks at the UK box office, where Tenet still rules supreme. He reviews two current cinema releases, The Broken Hearts Gallery and Sally Potter's The Roads Not Taken. For home viewing he looks at the restored Blu-Ray release of the 1942 Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake film noir This Gun For Hire and Netflix's controversial Paris-set movie Cuties about the sexualisation of children.

Technology editor Steve Caplin looks at the latest products from Apple, marvels at news of probable life on Venus, asks how you can locate human bodies in a forest, scoffs at the usability of Britbox for its main purpose, admires a face mask that incorporates air conditioning, praises scientists helping robots and amputees to feel pain, approves of the world's first portable MRI brain scanner and gushes over the Oceanbird sailing ship, providing a more environmentally-friendly freight solution.

Adam is joined by hypnotherapist and trainer Sheila Granger who discusses how she responded to the tourism industry screeching to a halt by using hypnosis to enable people to travel to exotic locations while still in their own homes. Sheila uses hypnotherapy to take clients to beaches like the Seychelles or hidden gems throughout the world. Sheila shares where the idea came from and what the future has in store for imagination travel.

Saving, spending, planning — you've got money questions and we've got answers. Every week host Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp challenge the conventional wisdom on life's biggest financial issues to reveal what you really need to know to make smart money moves. In this week's show, Richard Johnson of the Urban Institute discusses the likelihood that workers over the age of 50 will experience a career disruption, and how to increase the chances that you can work well into your 60s.