Category: Debt

Season 3, Episode 1: "I Worry Paying for My Kids’ College Will Spoil Them. Don’t Student Loans Help Build Character?"

Season 3, Episode 1: “I Worry Paying for My Kids’ College Will Spoil Them. Don’t Student Loans Build Character?”

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 2 Comments

Do student loans build character? Or is debt in our fucked-up society suffering without meaning?

Who’s worse: the parents who give their kids every advantage in life even at their own expense? Or parents who withhold crucial help in order to teach toughness and independence? Truly, this is the weightiest question in the American experience since Jubilee asked if “a mall babe eats chili fries.” (The previous record-holder? Eh, probably Socrates?)

Here it is, Bitch Nation: the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The moment we’ve been teasing for months. It’s time for SEASON THREE OF THE BITCHES GET RICHES PODCAST!!!

Yeah, yeah, I know it took a while. But there were extenuating circumstances (see: coronavirus resulting in general ennui). But since we recently won the Plutus Award for Podcast of the Year (#stopthesteal), we figured we should get off our shapely butts and actually put out an episode of said podcast.

So here it is! And it’s a good one, if we do say so ourselves. In this episode we demonstrate our extensive parenting expertise (none) and experience with student loans (lots). We also wax philosophical about the future costs of higher education. Will little Timmy eventually have to fight in the Thunderdome to get into Princeton? Only time will tell!

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{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") Leave a comment

You’ve passed the trials. You’ve fought hard and won your place among the champions. At long last, it is time to be inducted into the Secret Society. Which secret society, you ask? It’s a secret.

As you take your place among the robed and hooded figures in this subterranean chamber, you know not what to expect. They are lit only by the flames of an ancient fire.

One by one, the hooded figures raise their arms to the stalactites above and intone:

Let us pay off debt, brothers and sisters!

Elmo amid the flames, presumably chanting "pay off debt."

Darling readers, debt fucking happens. Having debt doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, nor that you’re lazy or stupid. But it is something you’ll have to work hard to get past. So here is our collected advice on the subject of how to pay off debt.

Go forth and conquer, for you are soon to be debt-free!

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

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

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

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Case Study: Held Back by Past Financial Mistakes, Fighting Bad Credit and $90K in Debt

Case Study: Held Back by Past Financial Mistakes, Fighting Bad Credit and $90K in Debt

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 13 Comments

Hi, it’s me again—your Good With Money Friend! It’s time for another case study. This time we’re talking about how to recover from past financial mistakes.

You guys really enjoyed our first case study. It tackled problems related to student loan debt, employment instability, and paying through the nose for rent in a high cost of living area. I’ve been hoping to do another one, but all of my friends’ most recent money issues have been too specific to their situations to be helpful to a broader audience.

Until now!

A friend reached out, asking for help repairing her damaged credit score. So she scheduled a 30 minute call with me to discuss her options, because I’m literally that bitch.

Obviously it turned into a ninety-minute call, mostly because I love the sound of my own voice. (Vocal fry ’til I die!) But really because the more we talked, the clearer it became that her credit score wasn’t her main enemy on the battlefield for financial stability. It was like a machine gun a mile away: an easy threat to identify, making a huge racket and scaring the shit out of everyone, but not actually that threatening in her present circumstances.

If you’ve struggled with debt, or you want to hone your Good With Money Friend skills, read on. Hopefully hearing about her situation will help some other folks!

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When (And How) To Try Refinancing or Consolidating Student Loans

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 5 Comments

Friends, does this sound familiar?: You’re describing the crushing emotional and financial burden of student loan debt, and the grown-up you’re speaking to says something like, “Wow, that sounds really rough, have you thought about *refinancing* and also ma’am this is a Wendy’s??”

And having no idea what the fuck that actually meant, you drove forward to the next window, dabbing at your eyes with the crumpled receipt for your vanilla Frosty, weeping in confusion and sadness and brain freeze?

I knew it. I knew it wasn’t just me!

Yes that’s right, my lambs: we’re talking about student loans again. This time we’re discussing your options for refinancing or consolidating student loans.

What the fuck do these mysterious terms even mean? What’s the difference between the two? How do you know if one is right for you—and if it is, how do you actually do it? Be amazed as we reveal the secrets!

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Season 2 Episode 10: "Which is Smarter: Getting a Loan? or Saving up to Pay Cash?"

Season 2, Episode 10: “Which Is Smarter: Getting a Loan? or Saving up to Pay Cash?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") Leave a comment

The financial lessons we received from our parents are problematic for many reasons.

For one thing, they’re often out of date, as the economic atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s is a far cry from what we’ve experienced in a post-2008 world. We’re long past the quaint advice to pay for college by “getting a summer job” and to start a career by “walking into a business and asking for a job in the mailroom.” Heckin precious.

But there’s also the way an assumption of background knowledge can lead to further confusion. For if you don’t understand basic financial principles, the sweet knowledge nuggets your beloved Boomer dad drops on you might go down like lead balloons. Just as you can’t understand where Beyoncé came from without Destiny’s Child, you can’t talk about getting loans until you understand how interest works!

This week we’re dealing with just this issue. Petey is one of my oldest and strangest friends. I made him walk down the aisle with Kitty at my wedding in the hopes that those two weirdos would have a vulgar joke-off (alas, they conducted themselves with the decorum expected of a bridesmaid and a groomsman and saved the nasty shit for the dance floor).

Petey has his head all in a tizzy over his dad’s vague and incomplete financial advice. So we decided to set the poor boy straight!

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How To Pay for College Without Selling Your Soul to the Devil

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 47 Comments

Listen you lazy, entitled whiners: it’s easy to pay for college. Just get a summer job! Why, in my day I worked weekends as a fry cook down at the diner on Main, graduated without debt, and now I’m sixty-five years old and completely delusional about the inflated costs of higher education! Ask me more about the house I bought for $60,000 and how much I resent the respectful empathy of the children I raised!

Sorry, y’all. Probably should’ve started that with a trigger warning.

Whenever we write about student loans, we get at least one comment like this. Except with more caps lock. We delete them. For while we never silence interesting criticism, come on. This ain’t a public square for every old man who wants to yell at a cloud! We pay good money for this web hosting!

At least where the cost of college is concerned, things aren’t what they used to be. Thirty years ago, it cost the modern equivalent of $8K per year to attend a public college and $18K per year to attend a private college.

Today, the same year of school would cost $21K and $48K. And you’re supposed to buy FOUR of them!

Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics

If the cost of regular goods and services grows at a steady walking pace, the cost of higher education is galloping away like a Triple Crown winner whose ass just met a hornet. I didn’t even mention the cost of textbooks, room and board, and other academic fees, which are all even worse. Can’t be giving you nightmares!

Meanwhile, average hourly wages have barely increased 11% (adjusted for inflation), making the wage-to-college-cost-ratio just fucking laughable. Yet college is still a barrier to entry into not only white collar jobs, but an ever-increasing number of blue collar jobs.

My purpose here is not to unpack the absurd inflation of higher education costs in recent years (I’d need another 2,500 words, and I can only hold your attention through so many gifs). Nor is it to debate the relative value of a college degree (another 3,000 words).

Instead, I want to focus on practical solutions for people who’ve already weighed their options and decided that college is right for them. Yes, a traditional four-year undergraduate degree is heckin’ expensive as fuck. Short of The Deep Magic, how do we mere mortals even attempt to pay for it?

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The Real Story of How I Paid Off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years

The Real Story of How I Paid off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 26 Comments

As of fifteen minutes (and one very cold beer) ago, I officially own the beautiful house I’m sitting in right now.

That’s right: I paid off my mortgage early.

My partner and I have been refreshing our mortgage account every few hours today, waiting for the final payment to process. (Weirdly, you have to WIRE the final payment. Seriously? After this years-long relationship of sending personal check after personal check, our mortgage lender refuses to trust us at the finish line? Fine, whatever…) Just before the close of the day, it happened.

Look! I paid off my mortgage early!

Current principal balance: $0.00.

$0.00.

My mortgage is gone. I am done paying rent. I paid off my mortgage early. If all things go according to plan, I will never ever pay rent again for as long as I live. Let’s talk about it!

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Ask the Bitches: “The Government Put Student Loans in Forbearance. Can I Stop Paying—or Is It a Trap?”

Ask the Bitches: “The Government Put Student Loans in Forbearance. Can I Stop Paying—or Is It a Trap?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 11 Comments

So… I made a mistake.

Our Patreon donors have been so wise with choosing quality topics in the past. So this month, I invited our supporters to pitch article topics directly to us.

Sounds great, right? WRONG. This was a huge mistake because all of our supporters’ ideas are fucking great! Now I have no choice: I simply must write them all. When am I supposed to do my life’s most important work: incorrectly cutting the wood for my woodworking project, then driving to Lowe’s to buy more wood???

This is technically incorrect. Piggy is the Chip.

One question stood out as being particularly time-sensitive, so today I’m answering this question from our patron Rachel, who we all know to be so glitteringly beautiful that she’s regularly mistaken for an ice sculpture of herself:

I’d love to know your thoughts on U.S. federal student loans currently being deferred with no interest. Is it smart to continue to make my regular loan repayment? Or should I stop making student loan payments and use that money to invest in other things?

– Patreon Donor Rachel

An excellent question! Today we’ll address the basics of student loan forbearance, including how it pertains to the CARES Act. (That’s the $2 trillion stimulus package we explained here.)

Luckily there’s a fairly definitive answer, which I am just barely capable of explaining in human speech. Let’s get into it!

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