Tag: saving money

To Hell and Back for Cheap Groceries

To Hell and Back for Cheap Groceries: The Epic Investigation (and Shocking Results) of My Grocery Store Price Comparison Quest

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 78 Comments

Today, I’m talking about grocery store prices.

I chose this topic because I’m worried. Terrible times are ahead. We’ve been writing a lot about politics—and we’ll keep doing so—but it can feel like scream-preaching to the void-choir. We’ve been wracking our brains to come up with nourishing, material strategies to help our followers through the lean times ahead.

Right now, all I want is to give you guys an easy win. If I could use my time and talents to help you folks save $20 a month, I’d be good with that. Groceries are something we all must buy in order to live. So I opened a small investigation comparing prices at a few local grocery stores.

My “small investigation” became the most time- and labor-intensive topic I’ve ever covered for Bitches Get Riches.

This investigation hauled me bodily to the summit of my abilities, then cast me down the mountainside of my own ambition into a boiling, stinking chasm of magmatic insanity.

Do you want to save $20 a month? I’m positive I can help you do it. But there’s a price to be paid. You’ll have to come with me on a journey. A journey from the worst grocery stores in America, all the way to the best.

Casual visitors, turn back! You don’t need to notice deceptive unit pricing at our nation’s largest budget retailers! You can spend your whole life not caring about the product-to-price ratio of frozen pizzas! Swallow the blue pill and sleep forever in ignorant bliss. I don’t judge you; I envy you.

But if you really want to save money on groceries, take a deep breath. Take my hand. Trust me.

We’re going to hell and back for cheap groceries.

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The Library is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There

The Library Is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 48 Comments

Back when I lived in a hippie commune with approximately 9 humans and 37 dogs, I biked to the library on a regular basis. It was an easy way to keep myself in reading material without spending all of my meager paycheck on books.

As I was leaving one day, I asked one of my roommates if she wanted me to pick up anything at the library for her. Her response: “Is it free?”

Is it free? Is it free?

Let’s pretend for a minute that it’s not completely weird and unbelievable that an adult human being could grow up in LeVar Burton’s United States of America without ever having learned the first thing (literally, the very first thing) about the public library. Let’s also set aside the fact that this particular person was an English major! I’ll just state, definitively and for the record:

Yes, the library is free, you darling fool. But it might not be for much longer. Let’s get into it.

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Our 5 Best Secrets for Secondhand Shopping Like a Frugal Warrior

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 13 Comments

Gather ’round, ye children, and I will teach you of an essential moment in Millennial cultural history.

The year was 2012 and a white boy with an egregious undercut was topping the charts rapping about your granddad’s clothes. Not only was this chart-topping song a banger (in fact, it slapped). And not only was the music video a cultural zeitgeist that would define a generation’s visual aesthetic. But the whole moment of “Thrift Shop” was a lovingly earnest ode to what we, the post-Great Recession generation, valued.

It was tacky. It was fun. It was simultaneously both anti-consumerism and materialistic. It was juvenile and absurd and it loved a goddamn deal. Did I mention that it slapped?

Secondhand shopping never looked so incredible.

Anyway that’s how I remember it and I will not be accepting alternate historical interpretations at this time!

The point is that I am still living inside of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” And that makes me kind of an expert on secondhand shopping.

This expertise is more valuable now than ever! It’s been ages since we first wrote about how almost anything can be purchased secondhand. Since then we’ve covered how a lot of secondhand shopping is experiencing a nauseating price hike.

But there is cheap treasure yet to be found if you know where to look. It just requires a little extra time, wisdom, and elbow grease. Here are our five best secrets to secondhand shopping like you want to make an elder Millennial proud.

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How Saving Money Is Like Losing Weight… And How It’s Really Not

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 20 Comments

In 2024, the second most common New Year’s Resolution is to save money.

The first most common? To lose weight.

Dear readers, I have made both of these resolutions. I slogged through months of dieting—both of spending and of eating—dragging my goals and expectations behind me. And I emerged from the experience wiser, richer… and the exact same weight.

How I felt after dieting for both my weight and my money.

That’s right. Today we’re talking about dieting.

Controlling one’s body and controlling one’s finances are often brought up in the same breath. And I think it’s useful to talk about the ways in which they’re similar—but also so very different!

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to define a diet as a temporary change of exercise and eating habits for the purposes of changing your body shape and weight. Temporarily cutting out all carbohydrates counts as a diet, as does implementing a points system a la the WeightWatchers diet. But we wouldn’t include, say, omitting gluten because you have Celiac disease. Having a diet ≠ dieting.

If that’s not your jam… blame our Patreon supporters! Those gorgeous, charitable, artistically gifted people specifically chose today’s topic. And as they literally pay the bills around here, I’m going to lay my heart (and my cellulite) bare according to their whims.

Today’s topic includes discussions of dieting, weight, fatphobia, and eating disorders. I’m going to use the word “fat” a lot because we believe in reclaiming it as a neutral description so that it loses its power to demean and insult. If you’d rather not read this post, it’s okay. I promise I still love you.

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You Have the Frugal Right to Repair Your Shit. Or Do You?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 40 Comments

Let me tell you about my favorite pair of boots.

They’re calf-high brown leather with a one-inch heel that makes this short Bitch feel just a little more powerful. They’re the kind of boots you can wear with a dress, with leggings, with jeans—they’re exactly as dressy or as casual as you want. I got them almost five years ago for about $200.

Recently, the heels broke. I’d worn them down to the point that chunks of the sole had snapped off and gotten trapped inside the heel so they rattled when I walked. So I took them to a cobbler. $50 later, I had new, beautiful heels attached to my favorite boots. Good as new!

Now let me tell you about my last phone. It was a magical pocket-size computer that did everything from calculating tips to playing music to oversharing on social media. (Note: it did not call home often enough, which was a major design flaw as far as my mom’s concerned.) After three years, I noticed the battery failing. Soon it could barely hold a charge for a few hours, let alone all day.

I brought it in for repairs. And they told me that replacing the battery was so financially and technically inefficient that they simply… wouldn’t. But, they assured me, I could upgrade to a newer, better model for only $24.99! Per month, that is. Which is way cheaper than replacing the battery, promise!

I couldn’t get anyone to replace my phone battery. There was no cobbler-equivalent phone artisan wearing a leather apron and bifocals in a musty shop lovingly repairing old phones.

Out of options, I bought a new phone. And just to spite the fuckers, I paid the total cost up-front.

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How to Start Small by Saving Small

How To Start Small by Saving Small

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 9 Comments

“If you don’t start saving your money when you’re young, you’re going to die impoverished, overworked, and alone!” says every personal finance guru ever to young people just starting out in the world.

And while it’s only a slight exaggeration, this kind of enormous pressure can be overwhelming and demoralizing when you’re just starting to get your financial life under control and barely bringing in enough money to make ends meet.

So what’s a young, financially inexperienced person to do? What’s anyone with bills and debt to do with the specter of an empty savings account looming and no solution in sight?

The answer, as with most personal finance, is to start small. Because when saving, your little savings really do add up.

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Season 3, Episode 7: "I'm Finished With the Basic Shit. What're the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?"

Season 3, Episode 7: “I’m Finished With the Basic Shit. What Are the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?”

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 3 Comments

When people ask us about the target demographic of Bitches Get Riches, we tell them “It’s for the children.” You can tell because of the G-rated content!

True, our readers-slash-listeners trend young and untested in the ways of the financial world. We wouldn’t have it any other way, of course, which is why so much of what we write concerns the problems of early-career personal finance.

But what about those who have “made it”—gotten through the lean years and succeeded financially? What do we have to say to the children once they grow up and leave the nest?

Getting to the advanced financial steps is harrrrrrd...

In today’s podcast episode, we’re talking about Advanced Financial Steps: the shit you want to get to, but can’t until you get through the boring slog of paying off debt and establishing a financial safety net for yourself.

To this end, we focus a lot on investing: investing in yourself, in your goals, in your community. We don’t simply mean stock market investing, or even financial investing. Treat those investments like the horcruxes they are and spread ’em around—diversify! (Just fulfilling our contractual obligation to include one Harry Potter reference per episode. Read the fine print.)

But how does one determine those post-making-it goals? How do you choose where to stash your horcruxes investments once you’ve joined the ranks of the rich? What’s the most effective way to spread the wealth and lift up those around you?

I wish I could say “all will be revealed in this week’s episode” but really, that’s a lofty fucking goal for a twenty-minute podcast by two day-drunk dumbasses with a microphone. So, uh… adjust your expectations accordingly!

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How to Avoid Lifestyle Inflation … and When to Embrace It

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 32 Comments

A strange thing happens every time my income increases. My life magically gets… easier, better, and happier.

Getting my very first raise at work made it easier for me to pay off my student loans ahead of schedule. That meant the money I used to spend on student loans could instead be spent on making my life more comfortable. And that meant moving out of the house I rented with six roommates and finally buying decent food.

Getting a job that cut out my daily commute allowed me to spend more time doing things I love instead of impotently cursing the traffic. I could get drinks with friends after work, or go to the climbing gym, both of which cost money. Or, for free, I could stand by the highway yelling “SUCKERS!” at passing commuters at 5:30 p.m. every day!

And getting a new job at almost double my previous salary meant I could afford things I previously thought would take years of saving. Plane tickets to a friend’s destination wedding in Mexico. Drywall for my unfinished basement. Eating at a shmancy restaurant without checking the menu for prices.

If all of this sounds suspiciously like lifestyle inflation, that’s because it is! And yet I feel no guilt over inflating my lifestyle from time to time when my income significantly increases.

This is generally considered a cardinal sin of personal finance. It’s right up there with buying lattes or taking the name of Dave Ramsey in vain. So let’s unpack that.

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