What's the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

What’s the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 5 Comments

Our awesome Patreon donors have asked us to tackle a really interesting question this week: what’s the real rate of return on the stock market?

If you ask people this question, you get surprisingly different answers. And for some reason (boredom at my day job) I decided to get all art school with it. Here, I wrote you a one-act play on the topic!

WHAT THE FUCK IS IT EVEN: THE REAL RATE OF RETURN ON THE STOCK MARKET

A Play in One Act

SOME PEOPLE
(With great confidence)
Ten percent!

OTHER PEOPLE
(With low confidence)
Ssssssssssix?

MOST PEOPLE
(In anguish)
Why are you asking me this?! Shit. Am I supposed to know?!

SOME PEOPLE
(Smugly)
It’s totally ten percent. Why would you ever buy a house or pay off debts when stocks are so mathematically superior?

OTHER PEOPLE
Ssssssseven??

MOST PEOPLE
(With self-loathing)
I feel like I’m too busy to know this. But also I made time to watch that Zac Efron Ted Bundy biopic on Netflix, so…

SOME PEOPLE
Don’t even buy a single tube of mascara or a ham sandwich. It’s a waste. It’s unoptimized garbage. I buy nothing but stocks and Soylent!

OTHER PEOPLE
Wait, is this the four percent thing? I’ve heard people talk about the four percent thing. Is it foooourrrr?

DAVE RAMSEY bursts onto the stage.

DAVE RAMSEY
It’s 12% if you follow my system! But I never agreed to be here! My company sends cease and desist letters to people who criticize me!

DAVE RAMSEY exits the stage and the playwright forgets to go back and delete that part.

MOST PEOPLE
(With resignation)
No, you know what? I know that Alleras the Sphinx is actually a lost Sand Snake, and I know three quarters of the verses of Mambo #5, but I do not know what the rate of return on the stock market is and I have accepted that fact about myself.

SOME PEOPLE rubs stocks all over his torso. He visibly nips out. OTHER PEOPLE keeps mumbling random numbers. MOST PEOPLE starts adjusting the Pinterest board for her wedding, even though she is not engaged or seeing anyone seriously.

Rocks fall; everyone dies.

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The Dark Magic of Financial Horcruxes: How and Why to Diversify Your Assets

The Dark Magic of Financial Horcruxes: How and Why to Diversify Your Assets

Piggy 15 Comments

Lord Voldemort was the unrecognized Suze Orman of the Potterverse. The man could’ve poured his money into nasal reconstruction surgery, yet instead he saw the value in diversification, making himself harder to kill by spreading his assets out among multiple Horcruxes.

You may not be a wizard, ‘Arry, but today you’re going to learn something about personal finance from He Who Must Not Be Named. For while we’ve already established that the good guys of J.K. Rowling’s seminal masterpiece are fucking idjits when it comes to money, the Dark Lord himself is another matter.

The principle of Horcruxes—dividing Voldemort’s soul into multiple containers so that he could only be killed when all of the Horcruxes were destroyed—is a pretty damn clear analogy for financial diversification.

Diversification, just like the dark magic of Horcruxes, is a strategy for risk management. The idea is to spread your money out into a variety of different investments and savings vehicles to lessen your overall risk should one or more of those investments go the way of Tom Riddle’s diary. Diversification generally helps you yield higher financial returns over the long term and wraps your financial future up in layers of safety you won’t get from sticking 100% of your net worth in a checking account.

You know: exactly like Voldemort’s Horcruxes.

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Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 14 Comments

Happy Pride, my beauties!

… okay okay, that’s enough pleasantries—I’m worked up about something!

I recently read an article about queer teens being thrown out of their homes by unsupportive families. It had a lot of advice that sounded pretty good. Pursue legal emancipation. Talk to your teachers and guidance counselors. Seek therapy.

“Bah,” I scoffed through a mouthful of Babybel cheese. “Amateurs! Someone needs to write a real guide. Someone who actually knows what it’s like!”

I was too busy playing with that weird red wax to remember I was exactly that person.

I left home when I was a junior in high school. The reasons were complicated and sad. Suffice to say it was driven by a need for physical and psychological safety I wasn’t getting at home.

Everything worked out for me. I got lucky and landed on my feet. A few psychological scars added to my roguish charm! But it’s not the best strategy. Sorta like throwing yourself down a mountain and hoping you learn to ski on the way down. (Also a thing I did once. How am I alive?)

There are many reasons a teenager might leave home early. Among them: poverty, instability, abuse, neglect, addiction, incarceration, system involvement, and mental and physical health issues. Some are thrown out or kicked out in stark, dramatic fashion. Others are slowly, painfully squeezed out or frozen out. Still more are ignored, unsupported, or victimized to the point that the child must take the initiative to leave.

Regardless of the method, one of the most prevalent reasons teens become homeless is due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Nine in ten homeless LGBT teens “ran away” (46%) to escape family rejection, or were actively forced out (43%) by unsupportive parents.

So I dedicate today’s article to our young queer readers. May you never need the tips I’m about to lay out.

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Listen to the Siren Song of the Bitches: Coming to a Podcast Near You!

Listen to the Siren Song of the Bitches: Coming to a Podcast Near You!

Piggy 3 Comments

It’s that time of year again—time for we, your humble yet inspiring Bitches, to go on summer vacation.

We have many exciting grandma activities to enjoy during our usual two-week hiatus: gardening, cooking, nature walks, fattening up Kitty’s desperately entitled guinea pigs, grinding the bones of the patriarchy to bake our bread. Big plans, y’all! Big plans!

We know how much you’ll miss us, which is why we want to remind you that this isn’t good-bye, only see-you-later you can soothe your grieving souls by listening to one of our recent appearances on your favorite podcasts. Plus, we have a surprise for you…

You’re heckin’ welcome.

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I Was Happy to Marry a Poor Man. Then Things Changed.

I Was Happy to Marry a Poor Man. Then Things Changed.

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 27 Comments

On the day my partner and I got married, I didn’t promise him much. Life is long. Uncertainty is its only certainty.

For poorer? In sickness? Forsaking all others? Until death?

Like, death-death??

I have questions. Why are we poor? Are we poor because capitalism sucks and robots took our jobs? Or poor because one of us hid a gambling addiction, and poured our life savings down a slot machine somewhere in Hollywood, Florida? Because those are pretty different things!

What sickness? All others? Because if I get a neurodegenerative disease, and I lose every memory of you, but you stay by my side, and the kind nurse (who has been with a long string of undeserving guys and who’s super pretty but doesn’t know she’s pretty) leans over to check my vitals, and compliments you on your unfaltering loyalty to me, and then your eyes meet, I do want you to kiss her. Details from my upcoming self-published romance novel to follow.

When comes the death? Who dies first? How different will we be? What kind of world will we live in? What will it cost me to keep these promises?

Obviously there is a pleasant future we’re aiming for where none of these mundane trials become marriage-ending events. But I am a realist. Life can change people, sometimes beyond recognition. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. So I would never promise to stay married to someone no matter what. And I would never expect a pledge from a partner that I myself am unwilling to give.

In the end, what we promised each other was this: “I will always enable your happiness.”

If we were happy together: mazel tov. If we were happy apart: so it goes.

That was a promise I knew I could keep. And it was the only one I wanted in return.

But I did make one other promise that day, this time to his parents. I took them by their shoulders, looked them square in the eyes, and gave them this pledge:

“I will take care of your son. You never need to worry about him ever again.”

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Earning Her First $100K: An Interview with Tori Dunlap

Earning Her First $100K: An Interview with Tori Dunlap

Piggy 7 Comments

They say the first $100,000 is the hardest to save. Wunderkind personal finance guru Tori Dunlap says, “Challenge accepted.”

Kitty and I have known Tori since BGR’s inception. She virtually forced us, through sheer tenacity and brilliance, to adopt her as our little sister—our more knowledgeable, successful, savvy, and funny little sister who in every way exceeds the promise of this very blog and inspires us every day.

Like, just look at this motivational young feminist do her thang:

So when Tori announced that she was emerging from the chrysalis of rebranding into a new feminist financial coaching venture, Her First $100K, I knew I had to pick her brains about it. I just didn’t realize I was simultaneously going to be schooled on the greatest animated movie of our time.

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Splurging on Kids: When It Works, and When It Doesn’t

Splurging on Kids: When It Works, and When It Doesn’t

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 39 Comments

Piggy and I have a general policy against giving childrearing advice.

It’s not because we don’t have opinions on the subject. Trust and believe: we have opinions on every subject. For example…

  • Opinions on land use in Paraguay? The Bitches say: Keep the grazing cattle in the Chaco region. Although we are Team Yerba Mate, everyone knows that the climate is just too arid—although better land management practices are needed to prevent desertification.
  • Thoughts on the performance of the current mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont? The Bitches say: We strongly approve of Lincoln, the Nubian goat. Eating the paperwork itself may be the best way to combat bureaucratic creep. Honestly, Lincoln the Goat 2020.
  • Was Paris wrong to give the Golden Apple of Discord to Aphrodite? The Bitches say: Absolutely! Athena clearly offered him wisdom because she could see he was sorely lacking in sense. Women are not prizes, Paris, so stop using your magical fruit like a fistful of arcade tickets you’re hot to trade in!

See? We’re a bottomless pit of opinions!

But because we don’t have children ourselves, we try to keep our big mouths shut on the subject. Especially when talking to actual-factual parents. We’ve lived the experience of mansplaining; we can only imagine that DINKsplaining is similarly annoying.

But today we wanted to explore an interesting topic for our readers who are becoming, thinking of becoming, or trying to become parents:

Think back to the times your parents “splurged” on you. In hindsight, you probably know which things you truly enjoyed, versus stuff you just put up with.

So which expenses were worth it? Which ones weren’t? If you could go back in time, what would you tell them to stop doing, or do more of?

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Ask the Bitches: Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?

Ask the Bitches: Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?

Piggy 29 Comments

Life is long. In theory, this means you have plenty of time and chances to fuck up, make mistakes, fix them, and get back on track.

And yet we’re surrounded by messages that instill the fear that if we don’t have our financial shit together by the age at which Warren Buffett was starting his prepubescent golf ball recovery empire, we’re doomed to a lifetime of grueling work and poverty.

In other words, if you don’t save $300,000 by the age of 30, you’re financially fucked for all eternity.

Many of the discouraging messages mean so, so well! Yet for the late bloomers, reading about thirty-year-old retirees and debt-free millennials can make it feel like they were late to the show and missed the main act.

And while I love savings and investment projections like this one for the purposes of setting goals… they can imbue the late bloomers among us with a sense of despair. For if you reach your thirties still knee-deep in debt and scrabbling at a meaningful career, it can seem like you’re already way too late. It can seem like it’ll take you forever to catch up. So why bother starting at all?

We got a question along these lines from an anonymous reader a little while back:

“Hi, Bitches. I’m so hooked on your material! Thank you so much for your dedication to financial literacy for us. My only issue is that I’m 26, so when I read through your material, I’m afraid I’ve made too many mistakes already or I’m too old to get on track to where you are. Any advice to us on the older side of this community?”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, creampuff.

I, Piggy, Co-Bitch of Bitches Get Riches, was twenty-six when I started cracking down on my finances.

So in my book, you’re not late at all. You’re right on time.

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My Taxes Are a Little, uh, Creative. What's My Risk of Being Audited?

My Taxes Are a Little, uh, Creative. What’s My Risk of Being Audited?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

Enough time has probably passed for me to admit to playing fast and loose with the truth in some very old tax returns. But let’s drape this whole conversation in a veil of hypotheticality to preserve our modesty.

THIS ARTICLE DEALS IN HYPOTHETICALS, I SAY!

MY FAN FICTION NOVEL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ONE DIRECTION, I SAY! NOTHING!

As all liars will tell you when caught, I (hypothetically) had great reasons for lying. I was (hypothetically) a new graduate during the worst part of the Great Recession, cobbling together freelance jobs to afford a gruel made of boxed mac and cheese thinned with water and Goya packets. I was (hypothetically) hanging onto adult independence by my fingernails. And my fingernails were notoriously hypothetically thin and weak from my high-sodium gruel diet!

This was pretty much how my first tax return after college went…

KITTY:
I made $18,000 last year.

IRS:
Awesome, give us $3,000 of it.

KITTY:
That can’t be right.

IRS:
It is.

KITTY:
Wh— Bu— I live in one of the most expensive cities in America. I can barely pay rent and put food in my cupboards. The unemployment rate for young people is almost 20%, for fuck’s sake! Surely you wouldn’t charge a flat tax rate on someone so desperate?

IRS:
We totally would.

KITTY:
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.
Lay open to my earthly gross conceit,
smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
the folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you
to make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? Would you create me now?
Transform me, then, and to your power I’ll yield.
But if I am that I am, then well I know
I do not have three thousand dollars, bro,
Nor to your purse no homage do I owe.

IRS:
Ma’am, will that be check or money order?

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How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

Piggy 6 Comments

It’s a fucking travesty that the leading cause of bankruptcy in these United States is medical bills. Not credit card bills nor risky investments. Not even student loans, but hospital bills. Invoices racked up through freak accidents and diseases the patient certainly didn’t ask for and would probably prefer to live without.

To our readers in other, more civilized countries, you’re dismissed. This week we’re going to be dissecting a uniquely American problem: exorbitant medical bills and how to pay them.

The CEO of GoFundMe, an online crowd-funding platform, never dreamed that his company would become synonymous with “I’m broke and need $300,000 to pay for my child’s cancer treatment.” What he envisioned as a way for entrepreneurs and artists to raise money for their passion projects has become the last desperate hope of sick and injured Americans on the verge of total financial ruin.

It blows, dear readers. It fucking blows.

Which is why we need to get creative with some of the lesser-known and best ways to pay for medical bills. Sure, it might be cheaper in the long run to move to Canada, Sweden, or Namibia. But if you bleed American blood on American soil, here’s what you do.

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