Jess Fickett ("Piggy"), Author at Bitches Get Riches • Page 9 of 24

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Make Myself Financially Secure Before Age 30?

August 10, 2021August 19, 2024 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 26 Comments

Our beloved darlings of Tumblr ask the best questions. And we love answering them because the Tumblr kids are simply inspiring in their determination to get good at adulting. Some of our answers spin out into novel-length screeds on finance, feminism, and figuring shit out. And sometimes they ask us for help with the most quintessential financial problems. Like, how does one become financially secure before age 30?

Loyal follower of the Bitches pallid-etoiles asked:

Hey BGR! (Sue me I acronymed it.) (Please don’t.)
What are your wise ways of making yourself financially secure before you hit 30? What’s the best way to start financially with limited experience as a 17-year-old who hasn’t any of the knowledge of what to do on her own?
– A Tumblr follower on the Bitches Get Riches Tumblr

How indeed?

The fact that you’re even thinking about this at age 17 means you win ALL THE AWARDS! Seriously, this is a great time to start prepping for your future. You’re way ahead of the game by even reading finance blogs. Let alone trying to get your shit together and become financially secure!

Here’s our step-by-step advice for a teenager to get financially secure by age 30.

Investing Deathmatch: Timing the Market vs. Time IN the Market

July 28, 2021April 15, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 7 Comments

Bitch Nation, things around here have been far too peaceful for far too long. No cage matches, no Fury Road-style races to the death. We haven’t even had an inter-Bitch argument in ages.*

So you know what that means…

IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER INSTALLMENT OF INVESTING DEATHMATCH!

In this recurring series, we pit two investing strategies against each other, examine the merits of each, and determine which is best for you, the investor. Along the way we hope you learn a little about the stock market, but really… we know you’re just here for the gifs.

Two investing strategies enter! Only one will survive! Who will win this most neurotic and numbers-based fight to the death??? Only time (and minute examination of historical stock market trends) will tell!

Let’s meet our contenders.

Should You Trust Your Human Resources Department?

July 13, 2021July 13, 2021 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 18 Comments

Ah, the human resources department: the Dolores Umbridge of work departments!

From Catbert the Evil Director of Human Resources to Office Space‘s The Bobs, HR as an institution has a less than stellar reputation. Some consider it downright evil.

But why? Why does HR get such a bad rap? Especially when they’re supposedly set up to provide employees with recourse against shitty coworkers and a direct pipeline to the EEOC?

Is HR really all that evil? And more importantly… should you trust them?

Beware These 5 (Perfectly Legal) Discriminatory Hiring Practices

June 29, 2021May 24, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 13 Comments

Admit it, Bitch Nation: you missed us and our relentless griping about labor rights during our two-week summer hiatus. Well cheer up, people, because the Bitches are BACK (and still griping about labor rights)!

Today’s topic: discriminatory hiring practices.

One of our most popular articles to date is our list of illegal job interview questions. In that post, we explained how how there are laws in place to mitigate discriminatory hiring practices. An employer can’t ask a job candidate’s age, for example, to avoid ageism when hiring.

If you’re on the job hunt, you should familiarize yourself with the questions a potential employer can’t ask you. Know your rights lest you unwittingly allow an employer to use your personal demographics (rather than your job qualifications) to exclude you from a job opportunity.

Yet despite all the things an employer can’t legally ask in a job interview… some weaselly fuckers still find ways to introduce bias into their hiring practices. In fact, a lot that can happen during job applications and interviews probably should be illegal… but isn’t.

Let’s go over some discriminatory hiring practices that are somehow still legal. Y’know, before we get to the inevitable pro-labor call to action. ¡Viva la revolución, comrades!

How To Get Married: Bureaucracy, Finances, and Legal Paperwork To Do Before “I Do”

June 1, 2021September 9, 2021 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 17 Comments

Every once in a while we Bitches are asked marriage or relationship questions. And it amuses me to no end that we are seen as ADULTS with STABLE MARRIAGES and HEALTHY LIFESTYLES. Because we live in keen awareness that we’re floating slowly down a river of Parmesan cheese straight into the yawning mouth of the Ninth Gate of Death, just like everybody else.

Not that’s it’s necessarily wrong! My marriage with Bear just feels like such a humble, natural thing. How could it possibly be instructional to others? He’s currently listening to a podcast in the shower while I do blog stuff from the couch and I love him so stupidly much.

Yet our loving relationship has much more to do with why we got married than how. Being in love and wanting to spend your life with someone is, sadly, not the only requirement for getting married (common law marriages notwithstanding).

So today I want to talk about the logistics of marriage: the paperwork, the bureaucracy, and the legal gauntlet you must run to get hitched.

In this era of modern romance, it’s pretty common for people to move in together before getting married, even to combine finances or buy property together. We did! That gradual combining of lives makes things pretty painless. But let’s say you’re doing it all at once around the time of the wedding! With that in mind, here’s a list of the steps you need to take to get married… punctuated with gifs from the wedding of John Legend’s dogs.

This is the slippery slope: dogs getting married.

Inclusive Finance and the Financial Feminist Summit: With Bravely Go’s Kara Perez

May 18, 2021February 2, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") Leave a comment

Bitch Nation, it’s time we talk about inclusive finance. It’s a nebulous concept! What constitutes inclusive access to financial products and education? How can we make our economic processes more inclusive of diverse populations? And if inclusivity is the goal, exactly who is currently being excluded?

As you know, I am ~~too pretty to work hard~~ lazy and averse to doing my own research on such an important yet complex topic. So naturally, I invited an expert to do my homework for me.

Enter the indomitable Kara Perez! Owner and founder of Bravely Go, activist for inclusivity and representation in financial education and economic opportunities, and all-around bad-ass. You guys… we are so lucky she lets us hang out with her.

Kara joined me to explain how we can embrace inclusivity in financial media and education and to tell me all about her upcoming event, the Financial Feminist Summit. Our conversation inspired me. It motivated me to do better for my community and my world. And it increased my hair’s natural luster by 32%.

Read on for wisdom and realness from Kara Perez.

10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself

May 4, 2021May 11, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 12 Comments

Last year we collectively lost our minds stanning MacKenzie Scott. She’s the absolute QUEEN making all the other billionaires look bad by giving away half of her money to charity. No expensive foundations, no self-congratulatory PR machine. Just direct funding to worthy causes. Y’know: what people with more money than they could ever possibly use should do.

Her philanthropy is especially popular because it came as a graceful “fuck you” to her amoral cheat of an ex-husband, Jeff Bezos. (And you guys know how we feel about that guy.)

The $6 billion she’s donated so far is literally record-breaking. Which is why it’s so reprehensible that scammers have taken advantage of Scott’s reputation to steal from unsuspecting victims.

Recently, criminals masquerading as MacKenzie Scott have targeted the vulnerable for financial scams. These desperate individuals have lost thousands in fake transfer fees at the promise that they could be the lucky recipients of Scott’s philanthropy. Which is… so breathtakingly heartbreaking yet also predictable.

Financial scams are on the rise. Thanks in part to advances in digital currencies, global communications, and tech in general, it’s easier than ever to fall prey to these criminal schemes. There are even brand new scams using the COVID-19 pandemic to fleece the unwary.

So today we’re talking about financial scams: how they work, who they target, and how to avoid them. That last one most of all.

We want to arm you against the forces of darkness and set you loose upon the criminal element! Like a bunch of Google-wielding vigilantes, you shall dispense justice by defending yourselves and developing the perfect level of disdain with which to utter “How do you sleep at night?“

Dafuq Is Interest? And How Does It Work for the Forces of Darkness?

April 21, 2021June 16, 2021 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 10 Comments

Here at Bitches Get Riches, we’re constantly extolling the virtues of compounding interest, which Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela all deemed the Eighth Wonder of the World.* This might lead personal finance novices to believe that interest is universally a great and wealth-building thing. Not so, dear readers. Not so.

Just as interest can work for you, contributing mightily to your financial goals over a long period of time, so it can spell your very doom. DOOM.

Like a monetary Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, interest has both your best interests (see what I did there?) and your utter financial destruction at its heart. Let’s explore its dual nature with a healthy dose of hyperbole, shall we?

*Not intended to be a factual statement

Ask the Bitches: What’s the Difference Between Credit Checks and Credit Monitoring?

April 6, 2021April 15, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 5 Comments

The world of personal finance is full of terms designed to confuse and waylay the innocent. Yet you are a beautiful and mysterious adventurer on the exciting journey of life! You do not have time to parse the different meanings of seemingly synonymous financial terms like “credit checks” and “credit monitoring.”

Fortunately, we’re a coupla’ nerds with nothing better to do.

Recently, an anonymous follower (we’ll call them “Pudding Cup” because I assume that, like pudding, they are both sweet and smooth) asked:

Dear Piggy and Kitty, I have a question. I just got an email from the auditing office of my state saying that the unemployment filing host “Accellion” was hacked and they don’t think anything happened, but are offering a free year of credit monitoring. I have no idea what that would do or how I would use it to make sure nothing bad happened? Also doesn’t monitoring your credit (somehow?) make it worse? Would this be helpful or not really?

In short, Pudding Cup has mixed up two distinctly different concepts to do with credit: credit monitoring and credit checks. I’ll detangle the two below.

My Career Transition Succeeded When I Gave Fewer Fucks, Made More Friends, and Had More Fun

March 23, 2021March 6, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 38 Comments

CAREER TRANSITION SUCCESSFUL: THIS BITCH IS EMPLOYED!

As our Patreon community already knows, I, your humble Bitch Piggy, have a shiny new job! This life update comes in the wake of being laid off from a large publishing house a year ago. (You can read about the painful details of that identity-crisis-cum-career-bellyflop here.) Since then, I’ve been rocking the self-employed life as an editorial consultant, literary agent, and blogger. The hustle, my friends. The hustle.

But now I’m very proud to announce I’ve joined the editorial team at The Motley Fool. Maybe you’ve heard of it? I’m the new managing editor for distribution acquisitions. Mostly that means that instead of wrangling book authors for a living, I’m going to be wrangling money writers.

Switching from a career in book publishing to one in financial media was no easy feat! But it did feel a helluva lot like destiny. Here’s how I made the career transition.