July 2026 • Bitches Get Riches

I moved out to the Denver metro area with my partner in 2009 after graduating from college (SPOILER ALERT NEWBIES, WE OLD).

We’d been living in Boston and, uh, not only was the cost of living and housing pretty steep, but the job market in the area was waaaay competitive. We knew we wanted to move somewhere cheaper with more job opportunities (this was in the Before Times when most jobs were location-dependent). So we narrowed it down to a handful of places in the U.S. and did our research.

Everywhere we looked was an urban area with lots of rural space nearby. So that almost completely excluded the East Coast from our search. We looked at places like Pittsburgh, Portland Oregon, Bozeman Montana, Denver, Santa Fe, Austin, and Seattle. Most of those places are now wildly expensive, but at the time they were way more affordable than, say, Boston, Chicago, or New York.

We chose Denver because my partner’s company was able to transfer him out there and I got accepted to a graduate certificate program at a nearby university. Plus, some of my partner’s coworkers were also moving there, so we had immediate roommates.

At the time, this move didn’t feel so monumental. Our attitude was “Hey, this could work, so let’s try it for a while.” Fifteen years later, I still live in Colorado.

So I guess that means I should have some sound advice for deciding where to live??? Let’s find out in today’s episode of the Bitches Get Riches podcast!

My spouse has been unemployed for the last 14 months. And 15 months ago, I lost my full-time job and had to immediately pivot to freelancing to support us both.

It’s cool! We’re good! We are millennials forged in the fires of multiple once-in-a-lifetime economic disasters. We’re Frugal and Good With Money and totally unsurprised to find ourselves yet again scraping our way up from the bottom.

… is what I would’ve told you nine, or even six months ago.

But now, more than a year into being a single-income household, cracks are starting to show in our optimism. My husband, a college-educated, highly talented, experienced worker, has applied to more than 300 jobs. He made it to the interview stage of 10 of those. He made it to the final interview for 5 jobs. And he has yet to receive a single job offer. (Completely unrelated, uh… join our Patreon!)

He’s not alone. Not being alone is part of the problem. Millions of people are going through the same struggle right now, flooding the job market with too much competition for too few job openings.

We got a message from a follower who goes by Cloud Structures that read,

“I did everything ‘right’: I went to a great school, did all the internships, worked hard, and… nothing. I’ve applied to hundreds and hundreds of jobs in the past few years. I’ve gotten career coaching, gotten certifications, networked, and chatted, and schmoozed. I feel insane.“

I really don’t blame them for feeling insane. It’s hard out there for a jobseeker! This whole process has made my spouse and all my unemployed friends (of whom there are disturbingly many at the moment) feel completely worthless, unemployable, and disrespected.

My husband has been ghosted by companies and recruiters alike. He’s received form rejection letters for applications when he was perfectly, 100% qualified, without even a screening interview.

I don’t think it’s dramatic to say that we’re currently experiencing an epidemic of unemployment during one of the worst job markets in a century. So today I’m gonna roll up my sleeves and unpack just why that is.

Month: July 2026

Season 5, Episode 3: “I Can’t Decide Where To Live. Do Taxes, Housing, and Cost of Living Really Matter?”