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Not Every Savings Account Is Created Equal

November 16, 2017January 8, 2022 Piggy 15 Comments

When I was but a wee little thing, my mom took me down to the local branch of our regional bank and helped me open a savings account. We deposited my birthday money from Grandma, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I would thenceforth deposit half of my $2 a week allowance into the account (the other half went into the basket at church… a fact about which this apostate is still a little bitter).

Then Mom and the bank clerk told me of the wonders of my new savings account. “It’s a safe place to keep your money while you’re saving up for something like a car!” they said. “Plus, it earns interest.”

Interest, as you know, has the ability to work for you and for the forces of darkness in equal measure. You want your savings and not your debts to earn interest. So having a savings account is a great way to lure the vicious specter of interest to your side of the financial war.

I was all excited to check my balance and see how much interest I’d earned after a few months of dutifully depositing half of my allowance. But alas…

Baby’s first savings account wasn’t accruing jack shit in the way of interest. This is because most brick-and-mortar banks offer savings accounts with dismally uncompetitive interest rates.

I was facing an APY (annual percentage yield) of 0.01%. That’s… almost literally nothing. Which meant my savings weren’t even going to keep up with inflation if I trusted to the false promise that interest would help grow my savings.

Enter the high-yield online savings account.

The high-yield savings account

Investing Deathmatch: Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA

September 18, 2017March 25, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

Two methods of investing in the stock market enter the ring.

Only one will leave victorious.

Welcome back to another installment of… INVESTING DEATHMATCH!!!!!!!!!

If you’re one of our Patreon supporters, there are four things I know for sure about you. One: you’re beautiful on the inside and out. Two: you’re powerful, also on the inside and out (like, you are spiritually intimidating and also extremely muscular). Three: You have excellent taste in blogs run by women who are emotionally in their mid-seventies but physically in their early thirties.

The fourth and most important thing I know about our Patreon supporters: Once a month, they get to choose a topic for an upcoming blog post. And this month they selected a battle royale between traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs.

So if you enjoy this week’s post, you have our gorgeous, strong, good-taste-having, democratically empowered Patreon supporters to thank for it. Please consider becoming one, or continue to aspire to grow up to be one.

Now let’s get down to the EXTREMELY ANALYTICAL CARNAGE.

When Money in the Bank Is a Bad Thing: Understanding Inflation and Depreciation

August 31, 2017June 25, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 5 Comments

Here’s a riddle: when is $100 worth $97?

The answer: when you put it in the bank a year ago.

Being frugal and being money-savvy are actually two very different skills. The former requires discipline, planning, and a strong sense of the relative importance of resources. The latter relies more on understanding how to take advantage of existing financial systems, economic regulations, and mathematical quirks.

Think of it this way: a frugal person packs their own lunch, whereas a money-savvy person itemizes it.

Depreciation expense is one of those mathematical quirks. It sounds tricky, but it’s really not! And if you know how depreciation works, you can make it work for you.

Investing Deathmatch: Managed Funds vs. Index Funds

August 21, 2017March 25, 2022 Piggy 23 Comments

Two methods of investing in the stock market enter the ring.

Only one will leave victorious.

Welcome to… INVESTING DEATHMATCH!!!!!!!!!

Hey! Get back here! Don’t you dare click away. This is fucking important and I am stretching a goddamn WWE metaphor past the bounds of decency to make it interesting for you.

So sit your ass down and learn a thing.

Before we ring the bell and start this fight, we should get the basic concept of investing out of the way. Investing in the stock market means you buy tiny chunks of various companies and in return you get tiny chunks of their profits. These tiny chunks add up over time so that you make more money than you would if you just put your money in a savings account.

Got it? For more on investing, we strongly recommend you check out Dumpster Doggy’s Invested Development course or this beginner’s guide over at Half Banked.

Ok. Now I want a good, clean fight…

3 Badass, Sexy, Totally Metal Reasons To Save $1,000

April 3, 2017August 14, 2021 Piggy 5 Comments

Here at Bitches Get Riches we soundly reject the notion that personal finance is a dry, boring, unsexy topic. In fact, nothing gets us metaphorically harder than a solid breakdown of modest, cautious techniques for growing personal wealth and how to save money. Day drinking? More like day trading, AMIRITE?

And this is why we’ve set about to change some preconceived notions about all the wild and wondrous things you can do with a large chunk of money—let’s say $1,000 for the purposes of this article. Not quite enough to drastically change the life of the average person, but definitely enough to have some fun.

With $1k saved you could go to Cuba for a few days (seriously y’all, flights are dirt cheap). You could revamp your wardrobe! Or you could buy a brand new PS5 and a flat screen on which to play it! You and your dog could have a spa day!*

But we’re here to urge you to take a different approach. Don’t waste that $1k on basic shit like a new wardrobe, a trip abroad, or canine mani pedis. At least not before you’ve cut your teeth on these badass, sexiful, metal af ways to really make $1k worth saving for.

I Paid off My Student Loans. Now What?

August 22, 2016May 27, 2022 Piggy 4 Comments

After spending over a year scrambling to put every extra dollar I could find into my student loans, I’ve paid them all off almost five years ahead of schedule. I’m now in the enviable position of having a big chunk of extra money every month. It literally feels like I just got a massive raise. So what do I do with it?

Building a Scrooge McDuckian money vault is far too gauche. And besides, I want to use this money to improve my financial position in the fastest, most badass way possible (with badass defined as “most profitable in the long-term”). There’s no shortage of options.