credit card debt Archives • Bitches Get Riches

We’re in a New Bull Market! Should You Give One Single Fuck?

February 6, 2024February 2, 2024 Piggy 11 Comments

While out at dinner last week, a friend turned to me and said, “I heard some positive news about the economy and a new bull market today. Yet it seems like nothing has changed for the better with the finances of most people I know. My sister in money nerdery… what, pray tell, the fuck?”

What the fuck indeed!

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more Americans than ever are struggling to pay their household bills. Housing is currently unaffordable for half of American renters, a record high as reported by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. And analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Lewis shows that Americans’ financial stress due to credit card debt has reached levels not seen since the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Yet despite all of these extremely fucking dire stats, there’s apparently reason to celebrate! For we have entered a new bull market! That’s way more important to the economy than [checks notes] rising eviction rates and a massive baby formula shortage, right? Right?

… right?

Hello, class inequality, my old friend. It’s time we got super bummed about you again.

Season 4, Episode 3: “My credit card debt is slowly crushing me. Is there any escape from this horrible cycle?”

November 29, 2022October 8, 2023 Piggy 2 Comments

If thinking about credit card debt puts a terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach, we get it. We all live in a world where the cost of living keeps climbing while minimum wage remains frozen in carbonite. Everybody’s out there trying to find ways to make up the impossible difference. Unsurprisingly, consumer debt is at an all-time high. And a lot of people struggle silently as their money struggles mount.

The good news? Well, there’s not much, but there is this: you are not alone. So many people experience the same confusion, frustration, dread, and shame that you do. Nobody plans to enter a cycle of insurmountable credit card debt. Shit happens, and it happens to all of us.

More good news? You aren’t doomed to stay in credit card debt forever. There’s a path to climb out of the chasm of despair that is consumer debt. Now, this path is no escalator. Depending on how bad your situation is, it’s a steep staircase at best (at worst, bring your crampons). But as two people who climbed that difficult path ourselves, we have a lot of advice and encouragement to give.

If you’re in credit card debt and you don’t want to be, listen to today’s episode. And if you’re good, share this article with a friend who might be struggling. It’s a friendly and compassionate introduction to the basics of getting out of credit card debt.

Credit Card Companies HATE Her! Stay Out of Credit Card Debt With This One Weird Trick

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022 Piggy 30 Comments

Kitty was once at an event where a credit card company was hawking their new cash rewards credit card. The credit card rep excitedly told her about all the cash back rewards she could earn by using the card, and how the interest wasn’t even “that bad!”

But mama didn’t raise no fool. Instead of falling head over heels for low interest, Kitty asked, “But what if someone pays off the credit card debt in full and on time? Will they still get the rewards?”

“Ah,” the credit card rep sighed, “we call those people deadbeats.”

That’s right: deadbeats. Credit card companies fucking hate people like Kitty and I. And that’s exactly how we like it!

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

September 21, 2021July 31, 2023 Piggy Leave a comment

You’ve passed the trials. You’ve fought hard and won your place among the champions. At long last, it is time to be inducted into the Secret Society. Which secret society, you ask? It’s a secret.

As you take your place among the robed and hooded figures in this subterranean chamber, you know not what to expect. They are lit only by the flames of an ancient fire.

One by one, the hooded figures raise their arms to the stalactites above and intone:

Let us pay off debt, brothers and sisters!

Elmo amid the flames, presumably chanting "pay off debt."

Darling readers, debt fucking happens. Having debt doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, nor that you’re lazy or stupid. But it is something you’ll have to work hard to get past. So here is our collected advice on the subject of how to pay off debt.

Go forth and conquer, for you are soon to be debt-free!

Kill Your Debt Faster With the Death by a Thousand Cuts Technique

May 11, 2020April 14, 2022 Piggy 11 Comments

Sometimes I take for granted that everyone knows basic tenets of finance. Like how the IRS will never ever call you, or how money depreciates due to inflation. Or even how Harriet Tubman should absolutely replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill.

But every once in a while one of our darling readers (who are the salt of the Earth, but like, fancy Himalayan pink sea salt with grains of dried truffles mixed in) will remind me why we need to focus on basic financial literacy. It is, after all, our sacred mission, bestowed upon us by the goddess of internet memes!

Thanks to a conversation I recently had with some of our Gen Z readers on the sosh’ meeds’, today I’m going to focus on a frighteningly simple tactic for paying off debt. For once it’s understood, it could save you metric buttloads of money on interest, help you pay off your debt faster, and bring about world peace.

You’re heckin’ welcome, world.

A Hand-holding Guide To Getting Your First Credit Card

February 17, 2020March 21, 2023 Piggy 6 Comments

I got my first credit card at age eighteen. I was a high school senior. I’d just been accepted into college, and the world was my goddamn oyster (but slightly less like salty snot). The year was 2005… and getting that shiny little piece of plastic was just about as easy as putting out my hand and asking for it.

Times have changed. We now live in a post-2008 Recession world, and getting your first credit card has become markedly harder. This is probably why we constantly receive questions from eighteen-year-olds like “I’ve submitted nine applications and no one will give me a credit card. What do???”

The Ramseyan debt purists will say “Do without it, you fool!” But we believe a credit card can be an extremely useful weapon in your financial arsenal. Just look at what happened when Kitty and her boyfriend tried to rent an apartment together and couldn’t because he had no credit!