“If money were no object, what would you do with your life?”
Did people ask you this hypothetical question a lot? Especially around high school and college graduation? I did. And it was frustrating as hell, because I was so overwhelmed by my choices that I had no idea how to answer.
This question requires you to have a deep knowledge of yourself and your place in the world—deeper than many young people will have adequate experiences to inform.
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It’s Pride Month! The most gayest time of the year! The month when corporations release rainbow-embossed merch and proclaim themselves Down With the Gayness. Yet here at Bitches Get Riches Incorporated, we’re not just LGBTQ+ community spokespeople… we’re also members!
And so it is with zero hypocrisy and a whole lot of enthusiasm that we come to you this week with a very special message. And that message is: personal finance media is gay as hell.
Hiya, Bitch Nation. Ducky here!
Kitty and Piggy are the best bosses I’ve ever had (and not just because I’m legally required to refer to said bosses as “the Bitches” in casual conversation). They are unquestionably brilliant, unfairly funny, and unbelievably supportive.
Both Kitty and Piggy have been through their share of burnout. And while I’ve been dealing with it due to the stress of one of my other jobs, they have been consistently by my metaphorical side, gleefully eating metaphorical popcorn, and providing invaluable, actionable advice.
There is no one better to have on your team when you’re considering questions like, “Am I experiencing burnout?” or “How much stress and toxicity in the workplace is too much?” or “If I follow Kitty’s advice and actually drop the line ‘It sounds like I’m not meeting your expectations as an employee—should we go ahead and set my last day?’ will I get fired on the spot?” (Spoiler alert: we were severely understaffed, so no!)
All of which is to say that after many years of putting their brilliance on the internet for free, the Bitches are offering their first ever course on the topic of burnout! It was, to quote Piggy, a labor of love… but a labor nonetheless. And to quote Kitty as her body broke down into its component parts upon completion of this project, “Oh god my spleen!” (probably).
In today’s special bonus episode of the BGR podcast, the Bitches walk you through a sneak peek of their new course. Listen here and on your favorite streaming platform, or scroll down for a transcript of the episode.
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In recent years your humble Bitches have been hired to give a few live, in-person speeches and workshops. We always ask the organizers to set a topic (since as you know, we can talk for hours on everything from our chickens to how everyone in the world can be categorized as either a Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard or a Dr. Richard Kimble from the 1993 classic The Fugitive). And we give our spin on whatever they suggest.
Then something interesting happened. During our closing Q&A sessions, no matter what the topic of our presentation was, the conversation with our audience would turn towards the same issue.
That issue was burnout.
Now, we already knew that burnout is a widespread issue. After all, we live on this planet. We’ve delved into the topic quite a bit over the years.
But seeing the pain in people’s eyes and hearing the desperation in their voices was a whole new level of fuckery. Awareness dawned on us that burnout is, for many people, a life-swallowing emergency faced without help, support, or even basic human compassion. These poor people are like sailors lost at sea. They use all of their strength to just keep floating for another moment. They’re too exhausted and depleted to swim for land, even if we told them where it was and how to get there. Our voices were reaching them far too late.
We’ve always felt it was our mission to help people. So when we saw for ourselves how many talented, bright, good-hearted people burnout was grinding into a fine powder, our new goal became clear.
And then we got to work.
Now, at long last, we’re unveiling the fruits of our labor.
The Burnout Workshop, presented by Bitches Get Riches and written by us, is complete. Unlike in the past, you don’t have to attend an in-person event to hear it. It’s available to everyone, everywhere—and you can take it right now.
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As we mentioned in our last article, Kitty and I recently taught a workshop on burnout. We did a ton of research around it. Obviously, we already knew that burnout sucks and is bad (not our hottest take, historically). But that research led us to a much deeper, scarier understanding of exactly how widespread and devastating burnout really is. It’s the difference between knowing how big a blue whale is because Google told you, and knowing how big a blue whale is because it’s rising up from the water beneath you.
The causes of burnout aren’t straightforward. A variety of cultural, organizational, and individual traits work together to burn a person out. Although bigger structural issues deserve the lion’s share of blame, individual struggles with perfectionism, breakneck compulsory productivity, and a cruel inner voice appear in story after story.
I recognize those struggles in the stories we’ve heard from readers. And from many personal friends and loved ones. And from my coblogger, Kitty.
But most especially, from myself.
Today I’m discussing why I hold myself to a higher standard than I hold everyone else. I want to think about how to let go of this unhealthy habit and start treating myself with more kindness and compassion. And since I know this is something I’m profoundly Not Alone in, I’ll share what I’ve learned.
Note: I talk about suicidal ideation and post-traumatic stress in this post. If you don’t feel ready for those topics, maybe skip this one! And if you struggle with suicidal thoughts, please call 988 for help and resources from the Suicide and Crisis Hotline.*
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It’s that time of year again, Bitch Nation! SUMMER VACATION!
Long time devotees of the Bitches know that we take precisely two hiatuses (hiati? I’m a highly paid professional editor) every year: one in winter and one in summer. And our summer hiatus starts riiiiiight about… meow. So say good-bye to your Bitches for two whole weeks!
During the break we’ll be doing some richly deserved grape-eating and cabana-boy-gazing. Hah! Just kidding. As usual, we’ll use this time to work on the site and begin production on the next season of the podcast. Call it a “working vacation”—that most repugnant of contradictory terms.
Even though you won’t hear from us for two weeks, we won’t leave you empty-handed. Can’t have you getting bored or restless with no riveting personal finance content to keep you edutained! So of course this hiatus comes with homework.
Man, let me tell ya, I hate few things more than advertisements.
Ads are the worst. They waste my time and attention. They make me feel spied-upon. Their fundamental purpose is to part me with my hard-won money. Worst of all, they remind me of my dark past working in marketing. I’m trying to leave that behind me, thank you very much!
You might remember this passage from high school…
“If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear…”
It’s from Homer’s Odyssey. Specifically, it’s the part where the sorceress Bavmorda gives advice to Willow Ufgood (you know, the hero of the Odyssey) about how to navigate temptation.
Although she’s a rapscallion known for turning soldiers into pigs, Bavmorda is also a smart lady who gives pretty good advice. Willow ends up lashing Madmartigan to the mast of their ship while stopping his own ears (and those of the prophesied child Elora Danan) with wax.
The moral of this ancient epic poem? Sometimes, the best way to resist temptation is to physically stop yourself from experiencing it in the first place.
Here are some easy ways to make yourself harder to find—and harder to tempt.
Have you ever sat down and truly asked yourself: What does your dream cost?
It’s a new year. Lots of folks use this time to buckle down and set new goals. Personally, I’m eschewing any kind of quest for productivity or self-improvement this year. Both Bitches had an incredibly stressful holiday season, so we’re too busy being in emotional recovery hibernation mode. Declining with regrets!
Still, I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. And I think one of the most powerful ways to transform dreams into plans is to answer the question “what does your dream cost?”
Young people are pretty gun-shy when it comes to discussing their dreams. Which is totally understandable and fair. Life’s reneged on a lot of important promises. When you unwrap gift after gift to find nothing but coal, you stop bounding joyfully down the stairs on Christmas morning.
If you ask them to describe their plans to achieve something they madly, desperately want, a lot of people freeze up. Or deflect with cynical nihilism. “I dream of owning a little cottage in the woods, but I guess I’ll die in a fire instead lmao!”
(Side note: guys, we GOTTA stop using “lmao” as a synonym for “I am having a mental health crisis.” Can’t we assign some kind of non-standard punctuation mark to this purpose‽)
Anyway, the road to the things you want most may be unfairly long and winding. But that is all the more reason to drive it in daylight, with GPS. Today, I’m going to walk you through some strategies to price out the kind of ambitious, lifelong dreams that feel so hard to quantify. Hopefully it’ll inspire you to do the same with your own bucket list! I promise this exercise will help you pluck your unreachable dreams out of the nebulous realm of “stuff I wanna do” and fix them amongst the stars of “stuff I’m doing.”
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“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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Earlier this month at the EconoMe Conference, I gave a speech where I revealed I was planning on retiring at 35 years old.
I practiced the speech many times, mostly in the sacred privacy of my shower. To be honest, I wasn’t happy with it! When I tried to talk about how and why I was going for such an early retirement age, I faltered, rambled, and went on weird tangents that had too many 1990s anime references (or not enough, depending on your perspective).
My youthful days as a theatre kid had imbued me with an unshakable certainty that there was no point in worrying about it. The show would go on. I would get up on the stage and say something, and people would clap politely when I was done. Because they always do that, even when you suck! Ah, the beauty of social contracts!
Surprisingly, the words flowed easiest when I was standing on a stage in front of a few hundred people. I could kinda see the faces of my audience through the haze of the UFO tractor beam lighting. I had the world’s best business partner on stage next to me; the front row was packed with wise and supportive personal finance industry mentors; and past them, a sea of faces belonging to people who intimately understood what I was there to say about financial freedom. Before the most welcoming and encouraging audience imaginable, my words came out effortlessly.
“Work sucks, and I hate it, so I’m not gonna do it anymore.”
I should’ve just said that and trusted this audience to fill my remaining 28 minutes with a standing ovation. Maybe wrap with some local jokes? “Thanks for attending my TedTalk. Go Cincinnati, um, Owlbears? No, no, that’s definitely a D&D monster, hold on… [checks notes] Bearcats! Go Bearcats!”
It’s true. If all goes as planned, I’m retiring at 35 years old this coming spring.
Here’s my story.
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