Millennials are an extremely debt-averse demographic, so it’s not surprising that they’re also ambivalent toward credit cards. 63% of people aged 18-29 have no credit card whatsoever. And 23% have only one.
I’m of the opinion that it’s extremely wise to have one credit card. I myself fall into the one-card group; it’s a valuable tool in my financial toolbox.
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If you work for a large company, or a well-connected small one, you should investigate if part of your benefits package includes any unexpectedly awesome free shit.
Many companies act as corporate sponsors of local theaters, symphonies, museums, zoos, sporting teams, and other cultural institutions. And sometimes their patronage can translate to free or discounted tickets for you.
This is also the case for many colleges and universities. Whether you’re a grad or undergrad, the right student ID can equal discounted membership, classes, and admission to any institution your school partners with. I regret not taking advantage of my college’s generous museum consortium membership more often when I was a student. (To be fair to myself, I had just discovered alcohol. So. Mm-hmm!)
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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.
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I paid off my student loans almost five years ahead of schedule.
For a little over a year, I dedicated every waking hour to stomping out these loans like the parasitic infestation that they were, and now that this monumental task has been accomplished it feels really, really good. I wiped out about the last $18k of loans in 14 months, and doing that required intense discipline and concentration. I channeled the mental fortitude of a Buddhist monk and the austerity of an Irish peasant circa the Potato Famine. Here’s why and how I did it.
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(Please queue up Kenny Rogers’s timelessly wise “The Gambler” while reading this post.)
We ladies at Bitches Get Riches are enthusiastic do-it-yourselfers—mostly by way of being stingy harpies with desk jobs that leave us thirsting to interact with something other than glowing ones and zeros. But sometimes, you need a pro more than you need the money you’ll save by doing it yourself.
Here’s a handy guide that should help you spot the difference.
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Gather round, children, while I tell you one of adulthood’s greatest secrets. It is a pearl of wisdom that can only be gained by leaving the nest, spreading your wings, and comparison shopping. Retailers don’t want you to know it, advertising agencies spend bajillions trying to keep you from learning it. You can live your whole life in ignorance of this simple fact if you don’t spend a little extra effort to look around yourself and pay attention at the goddamn grocery store.
Are you ready? Of course you are, you badass paragon of frugality and virtue.
You don’t have to buy name brand products. Most of the time the generic or store brand is the exact same thing for less money.
Armed with this knowledge, you are ready to embark on a spiritual and financial journey of fiduciary gratification the likes of which the world has never known. You will suddenly discover whole dollars in your grocery budget you never even knew existed. Let the scales fall from your eyes, dear readers, for truly name brand products are beneath you.
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Shit’s expensive. If you need to buy shit, you should try to make it less expensive. Spend less on the shit you need to buy, and you’ll have more money to spend on your other financial goals. A great way to do this is by buying your shit secondhand.
Gently used, pre-owned shit is often just as good as brand-spanking-new shit, and can always be purchased less expensively than new shit. It can even be free! To really drive this point home, I’m going to start with a by-no-means comprehensive list of shit you can (and should!) get secondhand.
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Being unhealthy and generally unfit is expensive. Living a truly sedentary lifestyle (one in which the word “exercise” is avoided at all cost and bursts of physical motion are vanishingly rare) is associated with all kinds of expensive illnesses and health risks. It literally costs you money to be lazy and out of shape.
But being fit and healthy is affordable by comparison. You can save yourself all kinds of money on healthcare costs and lifestyle expenses just by working your muscles periodically throughout the day. As far as frugality goes, physical fitness is an all-around genius tactic for saving.
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When you’re short on money and long on time you get creative about paying for things. And a great, creative way to save money on goods and services is by trading for them with other goods and services.
I haven’t paid for a haircut in literally years. My hairstylist friend just happens to be a mom, so I trade babysitting for haircuts and we both walk away happy. This friend trade is a mutually beneficial arrangement: we both get something we really need, we both save money, and we both get the satisfaction of helping a sister in her hour of need.
But the friend trade is a delicate art. There’s no faster way to sour a friendship—and jeopardize your future trading opportunities—than to badly mishandle the intricacies of the friend trade.
Let’s examine how you can save money by navigating the waters of friend trading without being a total garbage person.
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This is the wedding ring that I wanted.
Hand-crafted by a bearded artisan, it’s made from dinosaur fossils and deer antlers and meteorites. Is there anything cooler?
A lot of people like diamonds because they represent eternity, but this strange mishmash of textures represented it much more clearly to me. The bones of things long dead. The pieces of ourselves that die and renew each year. Starstuff from dark, unknown, unknowable places our species will die without ever setting eyes upon.
This is the wedding ring that I got.
It was available on Amazon Prime for $25.
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