Lauren Torres ("Kitty"), Author at Bitches Get Riches • Page 21 of 23

9 Essential Tools for Apartment-Dwellers (and 6 That Are Kinda Useless)

May 26, 2017May 11, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 14 Comments

Bitch Nation, I have lovely news. My little brother just moved in with me!

He’s almost a full decade younger than me, and is graduating college a semester early. His final task before graduation is completing an internship, and it just so happens that he was accepted at one in my city. He’s crashing for the summer and filling the house with all sorts of dangerous new ideas. (Sports jerseys can be wall decor. WHO KNEW?)

As my whole being pulsates with prideful big sister vibes, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it was like to be twenty-one and living in a big city for the first time. If I could go back ten years, there’s so much I would tell myself to spare me time, heartache, and money. So if you notice a certain nostalgia creeping into my upcoming posts, that’s probably why!

I got tons of advice when I moved into my first apartment. Some friend or family member gifted me with the tiny toolbox I called Baby’s First Toolbox. It was the size of a slim binder and probably cost them $20.

And that $20 box of tools has saved me thousands of dollars over the last decade.

In the spirit of learning from the past and embracing the skills you need for the future, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite and least favorite tools for beginners. These tools assume you’re not super handy (yet), and that you have a very limited amount of both space and money.

Every one of the tools on the first half of this list can be purchased for less than $10, and they’re among the most ubiquitous finds at garage sales. Ask your parents and grandparents if they have extras they would give to you—because I’ve learned that part of being an adult is magically acquiring one new screwdriver every two years???

I don’t know what’s up with that. It’s like the tooth fairy, but even lamer.

The Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend

May 18, 2017February 25, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 11 Comments

Ah. Thursday afternoon. The perfect and natural time to begin contemplating your weekend plans.

We learned from our Myers-Briggs and finance article that we have quite a lot of introverted readers. In particular, we have a veritable army of female INTJs. Y’all are only 0.8% of the population! So since there’s five or six of you, we can assume that literally every female INTJ alive is present and accounted for in the comments section of BGR.

I made this post especially for all of you. I know how much you guys enjoy plans, backup plans, schemes, machinations, and gambits (an INTJ somewhere is rushing to the comments with “DON’T FORGET STRATAGEMS”). I’m also aware that your drug of choice is that sweet, sweet Get Shit Done feeling. Yet you struggle with prioritizing self-care and have difficulty enjoying lazy, unscheduled weekend time. Don’t we all!

That’s why I have developed this Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend. It’s a bunch of free and low-cost stuff you can do in your home that will make you feel rested, tested, and invested (TM, TM, we’re starting an MLM and that phrase is gonna be part of our cult-like sales culture).

How To Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

May 8, 2017June 4, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 28 Comments

Retirement is a difficult concept for young people to wrap their heads around. It’s hard enough figuring out how to be An Adult, let alone An Old.

We’ll be talking more broadly in the near future about the general concept of retirement. (Spoiler alert: it’s as outdated as an avocado-colored refrigerator.) But today I’d like to talk directly about the concept of saving for retirement while pretty legit poor.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to define that as someone making $30,000 a year or less. Obviously there are lots of factors that can stretch this figure. A mom of three with a high school education in Washington, D.C. is going to have a much harder time than a single, highly-educated person making the same amount in Woodstock, Alabama. And actually, that number is still more than double the official so-called “poverty line,” which is just under $13,000.

But Piggy and I feel strongly that there isn’t enough realistic, valuable advice for people in this general bracket. So we’d like to talk to them.

Pet Insurance: Is It Worth It?

April 27, 2017August 14, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

As we’ve discussed, Piggy and I are pretty obsessed with our pets. I admire Piggy’s restraint in having but a single dog. My house currently contains four dogs, one cat, six chickens, and two clinically narcissistic garbage disposals guinea pigs. Friends who know me to be an IRL Pokemon Master often ask me what my pet insurance rates are like.

My pet insurance bill is approximately zero dollars. Same goes for Piggy.

Neither of us have pet insurance. And there’s a reason for that.

So I Got Chickens, Part 1: Return on Investment

April 20, 2017August 14, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

As I have already confessed, I love animals a bit too much. My husband and I, primates that we are, are minorities in our household. We have two dogs, a cat who believes she is a dog, and two maned pork tenderloins guinea pigs. And just this past Thursday, we came home from the feed store with six new additions.

Whoops! We now own chickens.

And from a financial perspective, we really couldn’t have done anything stupider.

Myers-Briggs Personalities and Income: What Your Type Says About Your Salary

April 14, 2017June 4, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 61 Comments

There are two valid forms of personality tests: Myers-Briggs and the Sorting Hat—BUT ONLY the Sorting Hat as defined by the collective wisdom of the broader Harry Potter fandom. J. K. Rowling’s Slytherinphobia is as well-documented as it is inexplicable. We cannot trust Pottermore.

If you don’t know your Myers-Briggs personality type, you can find out pretty easily. Free tests of varying length and quality clog the internet. I like this one, personally. It’s thorough but nowhere near as long as others.

In general, Myers-Briggs judges personalities in four metrics: introvert (I) vs. extrovert (E), sensing (S) vs. intuition (N), thinking (T) vs. feeling (F), and judging (J) vs. perceiving (P).

If you don’t want to take a quiz, you may be able to guess what you are. Introverts feel recharged when alone, and extroverts feel at-home among others. Sensors like to take people at their word, while intuits tend to look for meaning between the lines. Thinkers are rational and logical, while feelers are empathetic and expressive. Judgers (not to be confused with the judgmental) prefer plans and orderliness over the perceiver’s more casual, open-ended approach.

Santa Isn’t Coming and Neither Is Your Promotion: How To Get Promoted

April 6, 2017May 19, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 16 Comments

Some people are told there is no Santa Claus. Their dick cousin tells them as vengeance for a lost game of Monopoly Junior. Or they saw Gremlins.

Others figure it out on their own. I was one of these. It took me eight years of cognitive development to get there. The physical impossibility and the logistical improbability pressed at my young mind, but my biggest question was one of motivation.

At eight years old, I had recently begun to understand money. I’d come to understand that one Breyer Horse was equal to approximately one thousand years of untouched allowance. I’d also begun my education in the concept of Stranger Danger. I had a newly honed ability to scrutinize adults for their intentions.

And I found myself wondering, “If this old man has such limitless wealth and power, what is his angle in using it to buy presents for children he’ll never meet?”

So I asked my parents, and they confirmed. “Yeah, that’s a thing adults made up to incentivize kids to conform to behavioral expectations,” they said, in so many words.

The thing is, Santa Claus is not an isolated incident. False or greatly exaggerated incentives exist everywhere to compel you to behave yourself. I’d like to talk about one of those false incentives today. The merit-based promotion is a comforting myth that took me thirty years to unravel. Much like with Santa, it was a rude awakening, but I’m much happier knowing the truth.

Bitchtastic Game Review: Darkest Dungeon

March 30, 2017May 27, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 4 Comments

When I asked a family member why he was considering voting for Donald Trump in last year’s election, his answer was something you likely heard many times. “He is a businessman,” he said, “and the country would be better off if it were run like a successful business.”

If memory serves I took the bait and started pummeling away with evidence that Donald Trump is a remarkably unsuccessful businessman. What I should’ve done was question the entire underlying supposition of his argument.

Let’s be real. I’m a progressive soul, and nothing short of bamboo under my nails was ever going to entice me to vote for Donald Trump. But what if a democratic candidate appeared with a strong, successful business background? Would I count that as a boon if the shoe were on the other foot? Would we all be better off if the country was run more like a business?

The most amusing way possible to answer that question is to play Red Hook Studio’s Darkest Dungeon.

Labor Shortages ARE the Father of American Business Ethics, Maury Povich Confirms

March 23, 2017November 28, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 2 Comments

Time for some History Lessons with Kitty and Piggy!

America is an interesting example of a country whose economic needs have flip-flopped wildly since its founding. The most interesting aspect to me is the story of American labor.

In the days of the American Revolution, labor was the scarcest commodity in the colonies. Which is hardly surprising if you think about it.

Bitchtastic Game Review: This War of Mine

March 16, 2017May 27, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 2 Comments

Friends, I love games. I also love talking about games. Unfortunately, I am not alone. There are approximately four great video game review sites for every human being currently alive on this planet. So occasionally here I’d like to talk about a game I’m playing. I’ll focus specifically on the game’s financial mechanics. There are lots of games of uneven quality that nevertheless come up with cool inventory systems and in-game economies.

I strongly believe that gamification is the key to engaging more young people in the unsexy art of understanding personal finance. So even if these games aren’t individually great, I want to call out the interesting ways in which they use items and currency.

Sound good? I’m starting with This War of Mine, a 2014 war survival game published by 11 bit studios. Specifically, I’m playing the recent The Little Ones expansion, which introduces children into the game’s mechanics.