We’re in a New Bull Market! Should You Give One Single Fuck?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 11 Comments

While out at dinner last week, a friend turned to me and said, “I heard some positive news about the economy and a new bull market today. Yet it seems like nothing has changed for the better with the finances of most people I know. My sister in money nerdery… what, pray tell, the fuck?”

What the fuck indeed!

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more Americans than ever are struggling to pay their household bills. Housing is currently unaffordable for half of American renters, a record high as reported by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. And analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Lewis shows that Americans’ financial stress due to credit card debt has reached levels not seen since the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Yet despite all of these extremely fucking dire stats, there’s apparently reason to celebrate! For we have entered a new bull market! That’s way more important to the economy than [checks notes] rising eviction rates and a massive baby formula shortage, right? Right?

… right?

Hello, class inequality, my old friend. It’s time we got super bummed about you again.

Read More

How Saving Money Is Like Losing Weight… And How It’s Really Not

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 20 Comments

In 2024, the second most common New Year’s Resolution is to save money.

The first most common? To lose weight.

Dear readers, I have made both of these resolutions. I slogged through months of dieting—both of spending and of eating—dragging my goals and expectations behind me. And I emerged from the experience wiser, richer… and the exact same weight.

How I felt after dieting for both my weight and my money.

That’s right. Today we’re talking about dieting.

Controlling one’s body and controlling one’s finances are often brought up in the same breath. And I think it’s useful to talk about the ways in which they’re similar—but also so very different!

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to define a diet as a temporary change of exercise and eating habits for the purposes of changing your body shape and weight. Temporarily cutting out all carbohydrates counts as a diet, as does implementing a points system a la the WeightWatchers diet. But we wouldn’t include, say, omitting gluten because you have Celiac disease. Having a diet ≠ dieting.

If that’s not your jam… blame our Patreon supporters! Those gorgeous, charitable, artistically gifted people specifically chose today’s topic. And as they literally pay the bills around here, I’m going to lay my heart (and my cellulite) bare according to their whims.

Today’s topic includes discussions of dieting, weight, fatphobia, and eating disorders. I’m going to use the word “fat” a lot because we believe in reclaiming it as a neutral description so that it loses its power to demean and insult. If you’d rather not read this post, it’s okay. I promise I still love you.

Read More
You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 6 Comments

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.

Read More

The Best Personal Finance Books of the Year, According to Our Very Exacting Standards

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 2 Comments

Ah, the liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Time to eat snacks, play video games, and read some books!

While we can’t feed you delectable morsels directly from our freshly manicured fingertips, nor beat Margit the Fell Omen in Elden Ring for you, we can help with the third one. For we Bitches are avid readers! Every year we scour the shelves for excellent books on money, glean their wisdom, and pass on the best ones to you.

Without further ado, here it is: The Bitches Get Riches guide to the best personal finance books of the year.

Read More

Would You Rather Owe Taxes or Get a Tax Refund This April? The Answer Might Surprise You!

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 3 Comments

Gird your loins, everyone! Tax season is almost upon us.

International readers, today you are dismissed. Go prance off to enjoy your state-sponsored healthcare or hold a wealthy politician accountable for their actions. Or, if you enjoy being baffled and horrified by uniquely American shitfuckery, stick around! Because nothing will make you more grateful to live in Denmark, Canada, or Namibia than the tax laws of the United States.

A few years ago I asked Lauren this question: “When it comes time to file your taxes, would you rather receive a tax refund or owe taxes to the government?”

“Get a tax return. No question,” she answered.

Which surprised me! Because as far as I was concerned, I’d much rather owe taxes than get a tax refund. I told her as much, to which she said “Just wait until your income increases. You’ll change your mind real quick the first time you get a five-figure tax bill.”

So what was that all about? Which Bitch had the right answer? Is there a “right” answer?

Today I want to go over a little-known quirk of the tax system, one that affects taxpayers from all across the income spectrum. And in the end, I’ll go over what you can do about it to save yourself the most money in the coming tax season.

Read More

It’s Not Your Imagination—Secondhand Stuff IS More Expensive Than Ever

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 25 Comments

Have you noticed that secondhand stuff is more expensive than it used to be? Because I absolutely have!

Since I retired, I’ve been on a bit of a secondhand shopping spree. You see, I inherited almost all of my current furniture. I acquired it randomly from old roommates, friends moving across the country, my grandparents’ downsizing, and the legendary Allston Christmas. Now that work isn’t gobbling up my best hours, I finally have the bandwidth to upgrade these pieces. That rickety side table I found on the side of the road can now be transformed, Cinderella-like, into a charming antique that some sucker let go of for $50!

… Yet I’ve noticed something disturbing. The suckers have grown few and far between.

Dummies selling solid oak headboards they found in Grandma’s attic for a sawbuck are like fireflies. I remember vast clouds of them in my childhood… but now, I’m thrilled if I see a dozen in a season. Where have they gone?

Today, I’m explaining my hypothesis for why secondhand stuff is more expensive than it used to be. I see a variety of factors that have far-reaching impacts on everything we buy and sell. We love noticing inflection points when traditional personal finance wisdom shifts from the “useful” column to the “ok thanks Grandpa” column—and this is definitely one of those moments. Let’s explore the answer together!

Read More

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Salary

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 18 Comments

We’re Millennials. Which means we graduated from college in 2009, just in time for the Great Recession to really fuck with our job prospects and salary levels. Nevertheless, we persisted, managing to carve careers out of the bleak post-recession landscape, a feat that eventually led to us being amateur career advice-givers right here on the internet!

I lead with all this because circumstances are feeling… familiar. The COVID-19 pandemic has hammered Gen Z especially, just as they’re starting their careers and building independent lives. And no matter your age, the pandemic took a toll on a lot of folks’ livelihoods. They’re facing challenges like what we experienced, and we hate it. So our time has come! Learn from your slightly-elders, younglings!

Graduating in a recession leads to earnings losses of about 9% compared to those who graduate in balmier financial climates. The pay gap takes a full decade to become statistically insignificant. For the average worker, that amounts to five grand in a single year. The lost opportunities to invest some of that income—as well as the recession-graduate’s stymied options for other jobs—creates a staggering wealth gap.

Worst of all, it’s completely fucking unfair, because those affected were kids when this hot mess was cooked up, yet still the ones who have to eat it. You have every right to be salty about that.

So here’s what we suggest you do to get yourself back up to the level you deserve.

Read More

Yanely Espinal Gets Real About Financial Strategy in New Book Mind Your Money

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 3 Comments

During our reign as the overlords of Bitches Get Riches, Kitty and I have met a lot of interesting and successful people: millionaires, rich startup founders, wealthy media darlings, best-selling authors. But every once in a while we meet someone way more interesting.

The first time we were booked to speak at an event with Yanely Espinal, we did a collective double-take as soon as she started talking (and not just because of her delightful Brooklyn accent). Yanely was talking about strategies for breaking the cycles of generational poverty, how to make wealth-building accessible, and practical ways to motivate, educate, and inspire normal-ass humans to reach their money goals.

Most folks probably know her as MissBeHelpful on YouTube and Instagram. But Yanely has been making a name for herself all over the place as a storyteller who makes financial concepts straightforward and blessedly non-boring. The Brooklyn native also left her job as an elementary school teacher to direct general do-goodery at the educational outreach nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance.

And naturally, we dig her with a real big shovel.

I caught up with Yanely to talk about her new book, Mind Your Money, and find out what she has against exorbitant credit card interest rates.

Read More
5 Horror Movies About Money to Terrify You This Spooktober

5 Horror Movies About Money to Terrify You This Spooktober

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 15 Comments

Just in time for Halloween, we’re here to pitch five of our favorite horror movies about money. We just noticed it’s been far too long since we wrote something unabashedly silly. Forgive us!

You may not know this about us, but we Bitches are high-key obsessed with scary movies. If we’re hanging out together, odds are high we’ll throw on something with ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, or axe-wielding serial killers. There are three main reasons this genre appeals to us:

  1. Horror movies are creative. They often have tiny budgets, which forces filmmakers to work with what they have and hone in on what matters. Many household names got their start in the proving grounds of horror. It’s a chance to see fascinating examples of undiscovered genius.
  2. Horror movies expose uncomfortable truths about life and society. All great spooky films are about something real. The surface-level scares of a zombie horde are symbolically linked to our deepest anxieties about other people. The vampire is the unknown outsider; the werewolf the uncontrollable id. The horror genre boldly leaps into subjects where comedies and dramas fear to tread.
  3. Adrenaline is a helluva drug. We’re too old to know where to get good drugs. We have to make them the old fashioned way: by abusing our endocrine systems. With art!

And really, isn’t that what’s interesting about money, too? Our ~*whole deal*~ is trying to make the best, most values-aligned decisions we can with limited funds. This article is extremely on-brand and aligned with our core mission. DO NOT try to tell us otherwise!

Today, we’re plugging a few of our favorite horror movies with a financial twist. The terrifying root of each one is something related to money and the power it brings.

Read More

Update: Do I Have a Right To Know About My Partner’s Finances?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") Leave a comment

Friends, I come to you today breathless with excitement. Remember Anonymous Rex, the bitchling who wrote to us about their secretive significant other? The one whose partner was all like “I can know about your finances, but you can’t know about mine“? The one whose partner was most likely hiding something sketchy from Anonymous Rex, according to moi?

They wrote back.

And oh baby is it juicy:

Hey Bitches,

Anon with the cagey significant other here. Turns out they were alarmingly deep in debt, were not honest about how much they were working, and more. They were very upset about having to mention anything financial, and were pissed that I thought I had a right to know their personal matters.

So, I broke up with them. Not just because of the finance stuff, though it was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back. And I feel freer and happier than I have in years. Which probably sounds really heartless, because you’re supposed to be all torn up about ending relationships, especially ones that are as serious as that one was, but… it’s true. I don’t know what it says about the relationship if when it ends, all you feel is overwhelming relief, but… that’s how I felt.

Thank you so much for your response to my question. It’s good to know that it isn’t crazy or invasive or unreasonable to want to know a significant other’s financial situation/how they handle their finances. I was beginning to think it was. I’ll keep that “personal finance is personal—not private” mantra in my head, going forward.

-Anonymous Rex again

No but in all seriousness it sucks to be vindicated in this way. The full-body orgasm I receive from being right about something is somewhat dampened by being right about bad shit happening.

Read More