saving money Archives • Page 2 of 3 • Bitches Get Riches

Take Pride in Being a Cheap Date

July 30, 2018June 1, 2022 Piggy 34 Comments

I have no idea how to date. I accidentally fell in love with the boy next door at eighteen, married him at twenty-seven, and I don’t think you could call my high school floozyism before then “dating” by any stretch of the imagination (#noregerts).

So picture my horror when my single friends tell me about how goddamn expensive it can be to date. On top of dating being an often excruciatingly awkward, painful, nerve-wracking, and misery-inducing experience, it can also feel like throwing good money after bad dates.

My girl Gabby says of the dating experience, “Dating revolves a lot around going out for meals and activities. We went to Top Golf for an hour and a half and he spent over $100… for a casual weeknight date. Concert tickets at the best venues in town are no less than $50 a pop before you even add in any drinks or food. Not only is dating expensive because you’re going out, but it also means you want to look your best so you may get a few new articles of clothing, get your hair done (on your head or otherwise…), get your nails done…”

All of which is just financially dire enough to convince me there has to be a better way. And I don’t mean taking vows of chastity and poverty and joining a convent. Though that’s a truly tempting option in light of some men’s behavior.

So buckle up, kids, and let this old married hag tell you how to save money while still finding Prince or Princess Charming. Surely it can’t be that hard, right?

… right?

5 Easy Things You Can Do Right Fucking Now to Help Your Finances

March 12, 2018May 31, 2022 Piggy 19 Comments

When you wake up from the capitalist, consumerist nightmare that is our socioeconomic system (#SJW #eattherich), the thought of getting your financial shit together can be daunting. Where do you begin? What can you do right away to make an improvement in your financial prospects? How do you avoid fucking everything up even further?

It can all be a bit overwhelming.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Here are five easy, lightning-fast things you can do right fucking now to help your financial situation. Do them.

You Must Be This Big to Be an Emergency Fund

February 26, 2018May 30, 2022 Piggy 24 Comments

Here’s a horrifying fact. 46% of Americans can’t come up with $400 to pay for an emergency. Instead of an emergency fund, those people have to use credit cards, borrow from friends and family, or just… not pay for the emergency.

Scary, right? That means almost half of my countrymen are one fender bender, one slip on the ice, one infant with pneumonia away from—at best—massive debt. And at worst, massive bankruptcy. Homelessness. Abject poverty and desperation.

Think I’m being dramatic? I’m not.

My purpose in bringing up the nightmare that is living just above the poverty line is not to nag those who can’t afford an emergency. What kind of monster would belittle people so poor they have no way of saving themselves from one minor stumble on the road to making ends meet?

I’m also not here to advocate filing for bankruptcy multiple times (let’s say six) as a legitimate means of making emergencies go away.

Instead, we’re here to plumb the depths of one of personal finance’s most enigmatic puzzles:

How much money should you have in your emergency fund?

Investing Deathmatch: Paying off Debt vs. Investing in the Stock Market

February 5, 2018May 30, 2022 Piggy 13 Comments

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLE!

It’s time for another thrilling episode of Investing Deathmatch, in which two forms of investing enter the ring, and only one leaves victorious. Or, more accurately, we decide that investing is a far more complicated affair than wrestling and the outcome of the fight depends on a number of nuanced factors.

But I digress.

TO THE BLOOD SPORT!

This fight has a long and sordid history. We’ll be uncovering old wounds, dredging up arguments long held in stalemate. We’ll be discussing a topic about which every damn personal finance blogger on the Internet has a very firm opinion. And we’ll be demystifying an age-old enigma of financial independence.

Brawlers, take your corners.

The Magically Frugal Power of Patience

January 29, 2018May 30, 2022 Piggy 26 Comments

When I was a little kid, my dad explained the power of prayer to me. He said, “When you ask God for something you really, really want, He’ll give you one of three answers: yes, no, or wait.”

And kids? That’s when I became an atheist.

Just kidding. I didn’t apostatize until I was about nineteen, and the decision to leave religion forever had nothing to do with my dad’s words of wisdom.

But at the time my dad told me this story, I was pretty fucking disgruntled. “Wait”? Dafuq kind of answer was “wait” from an all-knowing, benevolent, magical guidance counselor in the sky? “Wait” was not in my eight-year-old vocabulary and I was damned if I was going to be patient for anything.

But with the perspective and wisdom of years, I now have good reason to embrace this concept of waiting, of being patient for the things I want.

My dad thought he was teaching me about faith and adult-level patience and serenity and shit. But what he really taught me about was far more interesting:

Money.

Understand the Hidden Costs of Travel and Avoid Them Like the Plague

January 22, 2018May 27, 2022 Piggy 26 Comments

Like traveling ladies of yore, we daintily but enthusiastically wave our kerchiefs to our Patreon supporters. They selected this week’s topic in our monthly donor polls, and I’m thrilled. Because I have some things to get off my chest. Other than my bra, which has already had its ceremonial end-of-day removal and flinging.

Gentle readers, I come to you straight from my biannual trip back home for Christmas.

It fucking suuuuucked.

It’s not that I hate spending time with my family (though the inclusion of the Commander in Chief in this year’s Christmas dinner prayer was more than enough to ruin my appetite). But visiting them during the holidays is an expensive logistical nightmare.

We have to buy our flights, get to and from the airport four times, feed ourselves during a long day of travel, arrange for pet care while we’re away, and even pay for lodgings and transportation once we’re there if my in-laws are inexplicably remodeling the house again during our visit.

Again: it sucks. And I’ve realized that traveling to visit family is the thing that most often puts me at risk of overspending my budget.

Fortunately, this cheap bitch has learned a few tricks along the way to cling to my hard-earned pennies.

You Won’t Regret Your Frugal 20s

November 30, 2017April 7, 2022 Piggy 14 Comments

The topic of regret is a controversial one, especially in personal finance. Whole treatises have been written on the premise that if you live frugally during your twenties and make sound financial decisions for the future, you’ll regret wasting your youth as a joyless loner.

We reject this characterization of a frugal youth for a couple of reasons:

It doesn’t take a lot of (or any) money to have fun with your friends. In fact, some of the best times I’ve had with friends involved spending zero dollars!
You can (and should) pursue fun long past your twenties. A great woman once said that if you’re not getting happier as you grow older, you’re fucking up. And I whole-heartedly agree! Life has only gotten better after thirty for me.
You’re at more risk of regretting not saving than you are at risk of regretting not going out to da clerb that one time. Saving for retirement in your twenties isn’t a ticket to Regretsville or Unfuntown. It’s a way of ensuring you’ll be able to have fun later in life instead of working forever.

And yet fear of this kind of regret persists.

FOMO

I get it! No one wants to constantly feel left out. FOMO is real! But I also firmly believe that no one wants to get to retirement age only to realize that all the money they could’ve lived on for another twenty to thirty years got puked out after a night of binge drinking. (It has been said that you’d have to drink a lot of alcohol to puke out your retirement savings. These naysayers underestimate both the power of compound interest and the alcohol tolerance of the average 23-year-old.)

Yet I don’t fear regretting my frugal twenties when I get to my twilight years. Now, depending on a single, barely funded income stream after retirement, one that could easily go up in a puff of smoke… that’s something worth regretting.

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

Slay Your Financial Vampires

October 19, 2017December 20, 2021 Piggy 24 Comments

For centuries they have lurked in the shadows. Stalking, hunting, draining their victims of their means of survival. They prey upon the weak-willed, the guileless.

I am of course speaking of financial vampires. And it’s time to slay these undead motherfuckers once and for all. Why? Because it’s October, the season for getting all spoopy.

A financial vampire is an activity, product, or person that routinely sucks you dry of money you didn’t plan to spend. It is tempting or unnoticeable, demanding or pitiful. They rely on you to spend unconsciously, or succumb to temptation.

Your financial vampires could be vices like absinthe and opium dens (or, y’know, cigarettes and beer). They could be the last-minute social invitations of your friends. They could be a beguiling advertisement for a fucking Amazon Echo (which I am as yet convinced no able-bodied person needs).

A financial vampire can derail your careful budget and responsible savings plan faster than you can say,

Let’s slay these bumpy-foreheaded, melanin-depleted, fruit-punch-mouthed bastards once and for all.

If You Don’t Eat Leftovers I Don’t Even Want To Know You

October 5, 2017January 31, 2022 Piggy 84 Comments

Here it is! Our most controversial article of all time! It has inspired more offended, angry comments than any other.

Yes, we get it: no one likes to be shamed for their life choices. I thought that my comedic use of hyperbole would make it clear that this is nuanced advice, meant to persuade, not condemn. But apparently not!

So if in extolling the frugal, environmentalist, and time-saving virtues of using all the food you prepare instead of throwing it away I’ve offended you, by all means, channel that righteous anger into a comment.

But I do hope you think twice before discarding perfectly good food. Children are STARVING in Wichita, Timmy!

Did you guys know there are people out there who just… don’t eat leftovers? Yes! These wasteful, absentminded heathens exist! And they’re coming for your delicious yet frugal lifestyle decisions.

To combat this slothful and uncreative attitude, I’m going to extoll the virtue of leftovers in all their glory. Because I think leftovers are the cat’s pajamas and you should too.

What do you take me for?