travel Archives • Bitches Get Riches

What Does Your Dream Cost?

January 4, 2022April 4, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 17 Comments

Have you ever sat down and truly asked yourself: What does your dream cost?

It’s a new year. Lots of folks use this time to buckle down and set new goals. Personally, I’m eschewing any kind of quest for productivity or self-improvement this year. Both Bitches had an incredibly stressful holiday season, so we’re too busy being in emotional recovery hibernation mode. Declining with regrets!

Still, I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. And I think one of the most powerful ways to transform dreams into plans is to answer the question “what does your dream cost?”

Our dreams feel more fragile and far away than ever

Young people are pretty gun-shy when it comes to discussing their dreams. Which is totally understandable and fair. Life’s reneged on a lot of important promises. When you unwrap gift after gift to find nothing but coal, you stop bounding joyfully down the stairs on Christmas morning.

If you ask them to describe their plans to achieve something they madly, desperately want, a lot of people freeze up. Or deflect with cynical nihilism. “I dream of owning a little cottage in the woods, but I guess I’ll die in a fire instead lmao!”

(Side note: guys, we GOTTA stop using “lmao” as a synonym for “I am having a mental health crisis.” Can’t we assign some kind of non-standard punctuation mark to this purpose‽)

Anyway, the road to the things you want most may be unfairly long and winding. But that is all the more reason to drive it in daylight, with GPS. Today, I’m going to walk you through some strategies to price out the kind of ambitious, lifelong dreams that feel so hard to quantify. Hopefully it’ll inspire you to do the same with your own bucket list! I promise this exercise will help you pluck your unreachable dreams out of the nebulous realm of “stuff I wanna do” and fix them amongst the stars of “stuff I’m doing.”

Hide your wives! The bitches are going to Ecuador.

DON’T Join Us for the 2020 Financial Independence Chautauqua

March 2, 2020April 8, 2020 Piggy 1 Comment

The 2020 Financial Independence Chautauqua has been canceled due to ~~an international shortage of toilet paper~~ the coronavirus pandemic. So the Bitches will NOT be going to Ecuador. We’re super bummed, but Cheryl has made the right decision by canceling this year’s event for everyone’s safety. Stay tuned for news about the chautauqua in 2021! We repeat: THE BITCHES ARE NOT GOING TO ECUADOR.

Throughout our illustrious career as the owners and proprietors of Bitches Get Riches, we the titular Bitches have become infamous for many things: berating you for throwing away your leftovers; trying desperately to appear young and hip yet betraying our ages with 1990s pop culture references; causing mass “language warnings” whenever our content is shared; arguing viciously over cheese crackers; and holding court at the hotel pool during personal finance conferences.

Yet there is one feather we have yet to add to our ostentatious hats: we are not yet widely known for speaking engagements.

Brace yourselves, for all of that is about to change.

Come see us talk in Ecuador of all places!

We’ve been invited to speak at the 2020 Financial Independence Chautauqua this August 29th to September 5th in Ecuador! AND YOU CAN COME TOO!

The FI Chautauqua was started in 2013 by J. L. Collins and Cheryl Ree d. It’s a week-long retreat for forward-thinking humans to discuss the path to financial independence and—more importantly—what comes after. There are presentations, break-out sessions, discussions, tours of the incredible natural landscape and indigenous culture of Ecuador, along with plenty of time to shoot the shit and compare notes with your fellow travelers.

Since its inception, the retreat has hosted some of the finest minds in money nerdery waxing both philosophical and instructional about the finer points of financial independence, money management, and life.

Past speakers have included space mermaid and human inspiration dispenser Paula Pant; the mysterious yet whimsical Mad Fientist; the sparkling singularity known as Jesse Mecham of You Need A Budget; our sexy Gandalf himself, J. D. Roth; and the original bikevangelist and Man Who Can Do a Better Pool Cannonball Than Kitty, Mr. Money Mustache. Fucking ~~nerdy, money-obsessed~~ rockstars, all of them.

(Yet for some reason they’re adding us mere mortals to the roster this year. Clearly the Chautauqua has fallen on hard times.)

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

April 30, 2019June 2, 2022 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?

Queer Finance 101: Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances

November 12, 2018June 16, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 18 Comments

Ah.

Gay rights.

That thing we don’t have to do anymore because they’re finally getting married!

Hold on please, my producer is speaking into my earpiece… Okay, my producer is saying that evidently legal integration into the institution of marriage is actually not the final and defining achievement of queerdom.

Our clear-eyed, big-hearted Patreon donors have requested an article on how queerness affects people’s finances. It’s good timing because I just finished watching The Haunting of Hill House and I’ve never felt bi-er! (And yes, before you ask, my official order is Theo > Shirley > Luke > Nell > dead kitten > Steven.)

I am ready and raring to accept my crown as queer queen of bummer-ass articles!

Note: Throughout this article, I will use the word “queer” to encompass all people who are not both cisgender and heterosexual. I’ll talk a lot about gay people and trans people specifically because those are the populations that usually have all the good scientific studies and economic surveys to shellac my ramblings with a gorgeous patina of Facts.

But we love all you aces, aros, bis, enbies, pans, polys, intersex individuals, questioners, queens, and whatever the hell other gender and sexual minorities I left out.

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.

Other People’s Weddings Don’t Have to Make You Broke

December 19, 2016May 27, 2022 Piggy 7 Comments

There’s a code of honor when it comes to weddings: if you came to mine, then I will go to yours. Even if yours is on the other side of the country, and especially if you boarded an airplane to get to mine.

I don’t think I need to point out the flaw in this reasoning.

Other people’s weddings are expensive. This past year my husband and I collectively attended five weddings, two in the state where we currently live and three about 2,000 miles away in the region where we grew up. And that was it. That was our travel budget for the year. All gone.

So this isn’t going to be a story about how to save money on your own damn wedding. Today I’m going to tell you how to save money on other people’s weddings.