The Bitches Get Riches Annual Review and Soirée

‘Tis the season… for the Bitches to take a hiatus!

That’s right, my darlings. Your humble hosts are fucking tired as shit. So we’re going to take our own advice and go on a brief two-week hiatus for some R&R.

During this hiatus, we will be busily contemplating the mysteries of the universe and researching all things economic and adulty. That way, when we come back from our vacation in early January, we can continue to give you the same mildly useful, humorously tasteless, unrepentantly self-referential content you’ve come to expect from us.

Just kidding. We’ll mostly be doing this:

State of the Blog

When we last updated you, Kitty and I were pretty sheepish about how much we suck at setting goals. We were throwing ourselves softballs, and given how easily we blasted past every goal post, we knew we needed to raise the bar. (Yes. I know that’s a triple-mixed sports metaphor. Hold your applause.)

Well, we raised the bar… but we still suck at anticipating our success. For in the last six months before this hiatus, we achieved stuff we didn’t even know was an option!

Awards and accolades

Most notably (or at least most publicized), we won the Plutus Award for Funniest Personal Finance Blog. This preposterous award is a total slap in the face, since as you know, this blog is deadly serious at all times. Who even nominated us? Outrageous!

Since this was far too much respectability for us to handle, we immediately published an article that will ensure we’re never nominated for a Plutus Award again. You’re welcome, also-rans.

Our loyal patrons

Guys. I don’t know if you know this… but this blog is supported by the best looking, most clever, discerning, and generous souls the world has ever known.

We started our Patreon campaign a few months ago, hoping to get a handful of people to make $1 donations to help us cover our hosting fees. Instead, we ended up with a legion of embarrassingly magnanimous do-gooders who clearly are too precious for this world.

It legit chokes me up when I think that our readers care enough about our little blog to spend their hard earned dollars keeping us up and running. More than that, I am filled with a sense of pride and responsibility knowing that readers actually find us… helpful, useful, and encouraging? What???

Every time we receive a message from one of our patrons about how much we’ve helped them through our writing, it fills me with a painful amount of gratitude. Here, experience the overwhelming humility with me through this note from loyal patron Kelly Jo:

“I heard you on the Bad with Money podcast and just looked up your blog today. Holy shit, thank you! We have been working hard for two and a half years to get out of credit card debt (which will happen next month!) and I’ve been so bummed reading most messages from PF blogs not taking into account the issues my family is dealing with in our American society. But you get me. You totally get me. The Financial Advantages to Being White should be required reading in all junior high schools. Thank you! I’m now donating $1 a month to help keep your blog healthy. Keep doing it, Bitches!”

Basically… we’re not worthy.

So thanks.

Thank you so much.

In the community

We were featured on Rockstar Finance a few more times, and our syndication with The Financial Diet continues to be the happiest of misandrist marriages. Kitty also participated in a super fun new project with some other money bloggers, the first installment in the Personal Finance Chat Series hosted by Done By Forty.

The haters

One of our favorite milestones comes straight from the fragile, uncomprehending minds of people who don’t really get what we’re doing here, but are positive they really, really don’t like it.

Some of our most cherished and incomprehensible criticism can be found in our own comments section, on Twitter, and in the comments on other blogs. Ah, the joys of being opinionated women on the Internet!

In our first year before this hiatus, we’ve been told that…

• We need to swear less. We’ll get right on that shit.
• We hate white men. How rude! Some of our best friends are white men!
• We’re unwelcoming to certain audiences because we “aggressively market” ourselves as being “non-white.” (This is news to us because we’re… white?)
• Privilege is not a thing because sometimes life is hard for privileged demographics. Please continue to fill our comments section with your life stories. Definitely don’t read perspectives from other personal finance writers who challenge your worldview. And definitely don’t read about all the examples of privilege that are a lot more subtle than the ones you’re thinking of.
• Feminism is a toxic bullying movement. They’ve got us figured out!
• We’re what’s wrong with personal finance. At last, a goal we can really reach for.

Whew! We’ve sure been told a lot! We welcome this constructive and relevant criticism from what coincidentally appear to be all white, straight men. In return, we humbly recommend these helpful critics read Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me.

Honestly, we are stoked about criticism! We love being challenged by our readers to be better. (I’m sorry I said that cats are exclusive carnivores. You are right, Tumblr children, they are obligate carnivores.)

And the lame, outraged, ignorant criticism is valuable too. It is one of the key sources of our unholy power. It sharpens our hag claws, adds dimension to our vile chanting, and speeds the approach of Samhain.

#Winning

On a personal note, we’re kicking ass. Kitty got a huge promotion and I got a new job! More on that when we come back from our hiatus. But we’re both resting on our laurels and feeling cocky af right now.

So surely something is about to go horribly wrong during hiatus.

The Bitches Get Riches Winter 2017 Hiatus Required Reading List

You didn’t think we’d leave you with nothing to do, did you? Of course not. Here is a carefully curated list of some of our favorite stuff to occupy your time while we’re away.

Blogs

• Your New Apartment: One of the chief progenitors of the “adulting” community of Tumblr blogs, Your New Apartment offers advice and answers questions on all your concerns about just starting out in the world.
• The Dumpster Dog Blog: Amanda Holden is a member of our super secret feminist cabal and we heartily recommend her tales of drunken debauchery and shameless frugality. She’s charming, hilarious, and knowledgeable about all things personal finance. Also this one time she gave her earrings to a stripper in New Orleans and that’s the kind of selfless generosity we like to support here at BGR.
• I Rewatched Love Actually and Am Here to Ruin It for All of You, by Lindy West: This classic blog post by the inestimable Lindy West is truly high art. We read it aloud every single year at Christmastime. Like a fine wine, it’s better every time. Fatalie is all of us.

Podcasts

• The Fairer Cents: Two of our favorite bloggers—Tanya from Our Next Life and Kara from Bravely Go—have joined forces to make a podcast! They are pulling no punches when it comes to money management for real women and also giggling incessantly at their own jokes. It’s the best.
• Clever Girls Know: It’s about damn time Bola of Clever Girl Finance made a podcast. If saving is your goal, Bola is your girl.

Books & movies

• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis: Really, you could go book or movie on this one. But be warned: if you aren’t already angry about the housing bubble and subsequent Great Recession of 2008, you will be after cramming this knowledge into your brain.
• Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty, by Jerry Oppenheimer: This book is all about the Johnson & Johnson family and how they’re all miserable, hateful people despite being among the very richest in the world. Food for thought for our middle class readers.
• Tokyo Godfathers: This Satoshi Kon film is about three homeless people (an alcoholic, a drag queen, and a teenage runaway) who find an abandoned newborn on Christmas Eve. And it’s the perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit, goddammit.

That’s it, my loves! We’ll be back in early January, same bat time, same bat channel. If you’re looking for ways to support the Bitches and all that we stand for (read: smashing the patriarchy, sharing useful information about how to win at money despite the odds), the best way to do that is to join our Patreon.

In the meantime…