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BONUS EPISODE: "What can I do to prepare for life in a post-Roe world?"

How to Prepare for a Post-Roe World (Bonus Episode)

May 10, 2022January 27, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

In a good timeline, no one would have to prepare for a post-Roe world. Reproductive rights would be safely enshrined in our constitution, where they belong. Plus, ice cream would never melt.

Unfortunately, last week’s news made it abundantly clear that we’re in a crappy timeline. I accepted this news with horror, but not surprise. My faith in my elected representatives is as melty as a tub of Americone Dream left on the counter overnight.

But this isn’t the time to despair. It’s time to take action. Someone gave us the incredible gift of forewarning. We have two months to prepare. And there’s a lot of steps you can take to protect yourself and others in your community from the appalling consequences of forced childbirth.

Piggy and I hopped on an impromptu recording session to help our readers and listeners steel themselves for the fall of Roe v. Wade. And I’m thrilled to say we left our aimless thrashing and redundant moralizing on the cutting room floor! (Mostly.) What remained were actionable steps to help you prepare for a post-Roe world.

Listen below, or read on for a text transcript.

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

March 22, 2022March 29, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 13 Comments

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!

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.

They’re Lying to Us About the True Causes of Inflation

March 9, 2022April 27, 2022 Piggy 21 Comments

Sigh. Fine. Let’s talk about inflation. Everyone else is!

Inflation is the highest it’s been in four decades. Which you know if you’ve paid attention to the news or had the misfortune of listening to a conservative Boomer dad complain recently. If you’ve casually absorbed information from these sources in recent weeks, then you’ve probably also heard that a) there’s no end in sight, b) this is all the government’s fault, and c) nothing can be done to stop the vicious shadowy hand of inflation!

In the words of noted jelly bean lover Ronald Reagan, “Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.” (Join our Patreon to make our weekly newsletter Giraffes That Look Like Ronald Reagan a reality.)

Scary stuff, right? Won’t somebody please think of the [checks notes] price per barrel of crude oil????

In all seriousness, I have to work hard to make jokes about inflation. Because it has real negative effects on real people who could really use a fucking break right about now. Somebody choosing between buying overpriced milk for their kids or overpriced gas for their commute to work probably doesn’t give a shit about what’s to blame for high inflation. They just want it to stop.

Which is why today I’m going to toss out all the usual inflation red herrings—the political convenience of using inflation to shit on the current administration, for example—and distractions. And then I’m going to talk about the real struggle.

… the CLASS STRUGGLE, of course!

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford To Dine Out

February 22, 2022April 4, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 59 Comments

The tipping system sucks. It should be eradicated. But it’s the system that servers are stuck with to pay their rent this month, so we are where we are.

In the United States, we’ve built a tipping system that is designed to replace employer-provided wages with customer-provided tips. This is in opposition to how tipping was originally intended: as a merit-based reward system for service above and beyond the norm. Under this tipping reality, the amount of your tip isn’t a whimsy, but a necessity to servers.

So if you don’t tip 20%, your server isn’t getting paid even close to a living wage. And if you can’t afford to tip 20%… then you sure as hell can’t afford to dine out.

The power dynamics of tipping

There’s a perfect phrase to describe someone who tips low, or not at all: “garbage person.”

Investing in Cryptocurrency is Bad and Stupid

February 15, 2022April 4, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 23 Comments

If you’ve been reading our blog for long, you probably could’ve guessed we think investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid.

And yeah, I considered using more expansive words like “unethical” and “speculative” instead of “bad and stupid.” Those words had precision, but lacked panache.

Our Patreon donors vote on potential article topics, and this month they wanted to read our thoughts on investing in cryptocurrency. So we get questions about it all the time! Which isn’t surprising. Relative to cash and traditional investment vehicles, crypto is new and confusing. To make matters worse, there’s so much hype surrounding it in the personal finance world that research feels like reading a data science textbook through a swarm of bees.

Mercifully, we’re not here to explain what crypto is, or how the mysterious blockchain technology works (others have done that intolerably boring work for us). Rather, we’re going to release you from caring about crypto in the first place!

So it’s our personal opinion that investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid, and you shouldn’t do it. Here’s why.

How To Support a Labor Strike with 3 Simple Steps

February 1, 2022August 2, 2022 Piggy 4 Comments

Today is a momentous day, dear readers! For today I’m using ~*current events*~ to teach you a relevant thing about the world. Instead of pulling it straight out of the depths of my own ass, like usual. You’re welcome!

The employees of King Soopers—one of the largest grocery store chains in Colorado, and my personal neighborhood grocery store—just went on strike and won. And while the actual labor strike itself only lasted a total of ten days, it was a textbook example of the genre. From the workers’ motivations, to the company’s reaction, to the negotiations, to the community support, we hit every step in the classic life cycle of a strike.

And much like the Krebs Cycle, it was orderly, justified, and important to all life on earth. I’m proud that I could contribute to the labor strike in a tiny way, as a supportive consumer. Let me show you just how so you too can enjoy the smugness of supporting a labor strike!

Why Are Poor People Poor and Rich People Rich?

January 19, 2022June 16, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 25 Comments

In a society that’s supposedly equitable, why are some people poor, and other people rich?

Piggy and I discussed a ton of things when we first started our personal finance blog. But one thing we didn’t talk about was our target audience. We didn’t have to! We both knew immediately that we wanted to write for our younger selves.

Years later, we’re older and more financially stable—but inside we still feel like a pair of broke young folks. And maybe we always will? As we’ve discussed, money doesn’t immediately cure the financial anxieties you develop when you’re poor.

Our twenties were a decade-long financial panic. It was so stressful trying to figure everything out on our own. So we spent a lot of time talking about all the bad financial advice we’d received.

Some advice was simply too old. It relied on outdated growth models, or ignored a rapidly changing globalized economy, or discounted the possibilities of living in a world transformed by technology. My grandpa loves telling his grandkids that the best way to get a job is to put on an uncomfortably formal suit and stroll into literally any workplace without an appointment or even a lead on open positions. Which sounds like a great way to get escorted off the property by security guards.

As far as bad advice goes, that stuff is kinda innocent. He’s old, and he grew up in another world. He just doesn’t get it. THIS GRANDPA is making SEVEN FIGURES with this ONE COOL TRICK—recruiters HATE him!

But the worst financial advice we grew up hearing is definitely not innocent.

The worst stuff is based around a horrific lie. It’s a lie about the fundamental reasons why poor people are poor and rich people are rich. A lie that harms and oppresses every rung of our society save the very tippy-top. And unlike my Grandpa’s stale takes, it’s constantly being revitalized and perpetuated by people who should know better.

(A version of this article was originally published on July 15, 2017. We expanded and revised the shit out of it because everything we’re saying has only gotten truer, and we’ve only gotten more pissed off about it.)

Antiwork Is the New American Dream

November 17, 2021April 4, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 19 Comments

For the past few years, I’ve been a member of a subreddit called Antiwork (r/antiwork). I think I found my way there through r/PovertyFinance or r/LostGeneration, where I lurk, occasionally answering questions about surviving life in a capitalist hellscape. (Usually while on the toilet. Sorry, jut being real!)

Antiwork is a place for people to vent about their jobs, mostly through memes and frustrated rants. But instead of drawing individualistic conclusions (“this job sucks”), they take a more wholistic view. They view those negative experiences as evidence of a deeper and more systemic dysfunction of labor (“all work sucks”) that deserves serious discussion and commiseration.

The vibe is pessimistic, almost to the point of fatalism. The stories are depressing, petty, and brutal. Doesn’t sound like a fun place for people to spend social recreational time, does it? But oh, how it’s landed recently…!

I joined way back in 2018, when the subreddit had about 3,000 subscribers. Today, it has over a million—with more joining every day.

Its sudden popularity is making a lot of powerful people nervous, to which I say… AHAHAHAHA, GOOD!!

Wallet Activism: Using Your Money for Good with Author Tanja Hester

November 9, 2021November 26, 2021 Piggy 1 Comment

“Do no harm” isn’t just for doctors anymore! When it comes to being a consumer, a member of society, we all should strive to do as little harm as possible. From reducing your carbon footprint to supporting ethical business and labor practices to eating environmentally sustainable food, the concept is generally known as “ethical consumption.” We cover some of these ideas here.

But what if we take it a step further? What if you incorporate ethics and doing-no-harm into every money decision you make in your life?

Well then, my Level 15 Social Justice Warrior, you’re talking about wallet activism.

Because I’ve recently developed an allergy to working too hard, I found an expert to explain the concept to y’all.

Wallet Activism: New book coming out next week

Enter Tanja Hester, author of the new book Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and save as a Force for Change, out November 16^th! Tanja’s magnum opus is packed with brain-changing information and actionable advice for using your money to make the world a better place.

Alert readers will recognize Tanja as the critically acclaimed (by us) genius behind the blog Our Next Life and her first book, Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way. Tanja spent 16 whole years as a consultant to Democratic politics and progressive cause campaigns, working on everything from renewable energy to healthcare for low-income families. Before that, she covered politics as a public radio journalist.

Tanja Hester, author of Wallet Activism and boss-ass bitch.

She’s been outspoken in personal finance media about the need to consider systemic barriers and opportunity gaps, rather than simply pushing already privileged people to accumulate more wealth. It’s part of why the New York Times called her “the matriarch of the women’s FIRE movement.”

In other words, her progressive activist bona fides are well in order. If anyone is going to out-social-justice-warrior me… it’s this bitch.

Frugal Disaster Preparedness for Chill People

September 28, 2021August 2, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 19 Comments

Disaster preparedness for chill people doesn’t really seem to exist. Like many personal finance nerds, I am a resource hoarder to my squirrelly little core. I finish every video game with a massive pile of money and top-tier supplies I worked feverishly to acquire, but never actually used.

It’s not a virtue… it’s an -itis. Don’t be like me, kids! Use those megalixers!

Given this facet of my personality, you’d think I’d be drawn to the survivalism (aka “prepping”) community. And I am—but I’ve never really gotten into it. Because most survivalist literature is too extreme for me. Exxxtreme, you could say. I swear I’ve read more than one “beginner’s guide” suggesting tools for your inevitable DIY dentistry. There is no Hint of Sea Salt prepping! FLAVOR-BLASTED ONLY!

But the coronavirus pandemic gave everyone fresh, realistic insights into what a modern large-scale disaster really looks like. Additionally, mine and Piggy’s homes have recently taken a pounding from unusual weather events caused by climate change (floods and storms for me, wildfires and droughts for Piggy). So I spent a lot of time this year thinking about this question:

What have I done—or owned—that made me actually safer or happier during a disaster?

It was hard to articulate… but it definitely wasn’t iodine tablets and camp stoves! See? I was right! As usual, I always find retrospective validation for my laziness, unpreparedness, and/or procrastination.

After a lot of deep thinking, I finally feel prepared (PREPPED?!) to define my own brand of survivalism. This is disaster preparedness for chill people!