You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

I don’t give a flying nun about inheriting money when my parents eventually buy the farm. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their hard-earned dough. They should use every blessed penny to enjoy their retirement and live comfortably until the day they die.

In fact, I truly hope they do!

They can give me a much greater gift instead of an inheritance: the knowledge that their retirement and passing won’t be a financial burden on me.

Knowing that my parents have a solid retirement plan will grant me enormous peace of mind. I can’t imagine a more generous gift than the ability to enjoy our last years together without worrying about how to pay for their care. I want to compete with my mom at nightly Jeopardy! when she’s shrunken and toothless, not take a second job to keep her TV on! (Note: There would be no competition. My mother is a ruthless, cutthroat home Jeopardy! contender. Fools and kings have fallen before her. She’s banned from pub trivia in three states.)

A solid retirement plan for my parents will also allow me to focus on growing my own wealth. That way, when I get to the age where I’m allowed to be embarrassingly blunt in public, I won’t be dragging down the finances of my younger relatives.

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The FIRE Movement, Explained

Am I really writing about the FIRE movement? Seven years into running what is, ostensibly, a FIRE movement blog? Why yes, I am!

We’ve published over 400 articles for Bitches Get Riches. It’s possible that one day we’ll stop because we’ve run out of things to say. But today ain’t that day.

A day may come when I'm over the FIRE movement. But it is not this day!

Today, I’m explaining a concept so important to us—so central and foundational to every aspect of our lives—that we forgot to write about it. For years.

What can I say? It’s peak me! When a friend comes to visit, I often meet them at the threshold, drag them inside, thrust food into their hands, and press them to name their favorite title card from the original Batman: the Animated Series before I remember to actually, y’know, greet them. A tiny minority of people find this blunderbuss communication style charming. I’m grateful to them! I collect them! And if you’re still reading our blog after such a glaring long-term omission, congratulations: you’re a part of my collection.

If this is your first time hearing about the FIRE movement, sit down. Get comfortable. I might have the privilege of changing your life—and I want us both to enjoy it.

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Procrastinating on opening a retirement account? Here's 3 ways that'll fuck you over.

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over.

If I had to rank all the things I love to do in my precious free time, where would opening a retirement account fall? Let me see, hmm… above a root canal, but below politely accepting a religious tract from a door-knocking missionary. (What can I say? Some of them have pretty nice artwork!)

Have you been procrastinating on opening your retirement account? Feeling lazy? Avoidant? Afraid of the paperwork? Feel like you’d rather use that money on stuff you need or want right now? Obviously, I feel you.

But buck up, son! I’m about to tell you why you can’t afford not to open a retirement account.

Wait… what’s a retirement account again?

To recap with a vast simplification: Americans have access to two main kinds of retirement accounts.

First, a 401(k)—or 403(b), if you work for a nonprofit—is a retirement fund facilitated by your employer. You set it up so they can take money directly out of your paycheck and squirrel it safely away for you to use when you’re terrorizing orderlies in the nursing home. That way you can focus on maintaining your record as Wheelchair Drag Race Champion of Shady Hills Retirement Community and not get distracted by petty financial concerns.

Pictured here: retirement goals.

Second, there’s IRAs (individual retirement accounts), both traditional and Roth. IRAs are very similar to 401(k)s, but they’re attached to you directly instead of your employer. There are other differences, but meh, they’re pretty minor. You can get acquainted with the finer points later.

Retirement accounts are powerful tools for growing wealth and stability for your future self. The trick is you have to opt into your retirement account. If you’re self-employed, or you work for a company that doesn’t offer 401(k)s, you need to go out and open your own IRA. And if you work for a company that offers 401(k)s, you need to sign up and voluntarily tell someone to NOT give you part of your paycheck every month.

As broke as you are right now, ignoring a perfectly good retirement fund is a terrible idea. Because if you do that, you’ll lose money in three different ways.

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{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners

Long after the Cataclysm, when the Reavers stalked the Land and life in the Before Times was but a distant memory, there were those who sought to understand the past. They sifted through the rubble of long-forgotten cities, searching for clues to the life of prosperity and ease their ancestors had enjoyed.

Ticker tape was found, and a dusty DVD of The Wolf of Wall Street. These artifacts were carefully preserved and venerated, mystics and scholars studying them to unravel the Deep Mysteries. There was a ritual known as “investing,” which took place in a temple called “the stock market” and bestowed upon the masses “dividends.” Could this be the key to the prosperity and opulence of their ancestors?

Only time would tell.

But there were some who remembered the Wysdom of Thee Bitches. You could hear these cultists crying out in the darkness, amidst their nightly rituals, “It’s about time IN the market! Not timING the market!” as they cackled and danced.

It’s been said you can’t save your way to financial independence—you have to invest your way there. But investing in the stock market seems like a complicated, daunting practice reserved for rich people and the bebuttsticked class. In the articles below, we attempt to demystify investing into something everyone can—and should—do.

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How to Painlessly Run the Gauntlet of a 401k Rollover

If we’ve taught you nothing else here at Bitches Get Riches, it’s that you should:

  1. sign up for your employer’s retirement plan and
  2. job hop your way to a nice fat salary.

Yet these two bits of career advice might seem to conflict with one another. After all, if you’re job-hopping your way up the salary food-chain, you might be leaving a trail of old retirement plans behind you to languish. What do you do with your old 401k when you move on to a new employer, or even embrace self-employment?

Enter the 401k rollover: the most hateful, obnoxious, and needlessly complicated bureaucratic process known to man.

Today we’re not only going to demystify the process of how to roll over an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401k—we’re going to make it beautifully, sinfully painless. It’s going to be so much fun you guys!!!!!

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Ask the Bitches: "Do Women Need Different Financial Advice Than Men?"

Ask the Bitches: “Do Women Need Different Financial Advice Than Men?”

Today on Ask the Bitches, we’ve got a GREAT question about whether women need different financial advice than men. And it was asked by… A MAN?!

(Cue: crashing thunder, rain SFX, opening cords of “It’s Raining Men.”)

That’s right, doubters and haters. Despite our joyless misandrist ways, we’ve got male readers. We’ve even got male readers who are so into what we talk about they’re willing to pay us for our work by becoming Patreon donors!

Our male fans be like...

One such donor asked us a thought-provoking question about gender and money that initially kinda stumped me. In short: do women need different financial advice than men?

I had a knee-jerk reaction to say “no” and leave it at that. (Helpful!) But as I thought about it, I realized there are some significant biological and cultural differences worth discussing. Let’s start by reading the particulars of Patron Mat’s excellent question.

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The Resignation Checklist: 25 Sneaky Ways To Bleed Your Employer Dry Before Quitting

The Resignation Checklist: 25 Sneaky Ways To Bleed Your Employer Dry Before Quitting

I awoke last night in a cold sweat, gripped with the sudden realization that I have an incredibly comprehensive resignation checklist… and I’ve been selfishly sitting on it, to the detriment of the millions of Americans who’ve walked away from their jobs in recent months.

I recognize that this constitutes a top ten anime betrayal.

許してくれ。

I'm so sorry I didn't write this resignation checklist sooner!!

The thing is… I’ve been daydreaming about leaving my job for years. These plans have been a part of me for so long that I kinda forgot they were plans at all. Like, I don’t necessarily notice my own breathing, stretching, or constructing elaborate fantasies about leaving corporate America forever.

Planning to quit ahead of time is a great advantage, and not everyone gets it. In most states, people can be fired suddenly, for no reason. Other people need to leave their job abruptly because of absolutely untenable issues like workplace safety or harassment. Those people do not have the luxury of planning a soft landing for themselves. 

But if you’re planning to quit voluntarily, you can do what they cannot. You can be strategic. Y’know, like Light Yagami eating potato chips! And in doing so, you can extract a ton of value back from your employer and/or your government before you go.

I’m down to just one month at my job, and I’m systematically going through this list. It will save me thousands of dollars. It will also prevent a lot of logistical headaches for my future self. Because I wanna set her up with a low stress post-job lifestyle. Listening to the hold music for the COBRA continuation assistance hotline is not on my retirement vision board!

Here’s my ultimate resignation checklist…

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Your Girl is Officially Retiring at 35 Years Old

Your Girl Is Officially Retiring at 35 Years Old

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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