What’s the Effect of Social Media on Your Finances?

What’s the Effect of Social Media on Your Finances?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 22 Comments

“What’s the effect of social media on my finances?”

Our regular readers know that we ask our Patreon supporters to help us choose article topics. This month’s poll was a dead heat, so we decided to take on both! And this was the question posed.

It’s a tough one to answer comprehensively with data. Everyone uses different platforms, in different amounts, for different reasons. But some immediate commonalities jumped out at us. Some were good, and some were bad. In honor of my tepid* acknowledgment that Star Wars exists, I’ve categorized them into light and dark sides.

GUYS I’M JUST SO

HIP AND TOPICAL

YOU CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT.

Go see a star war.
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Understand the Hidden Costs of Travel and Avoid Them Like the Plague

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

Jess Fickett ("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.

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The Actually Helpful, Nuanced, Non-Bullshit Way to Choose a Future Career

The Actually Helpful, Nuanced, Non-Bullshit Way to Choose a Future Career

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 31 Comments

I waded into a lot of “career advice” as part of my research for this article. It was so universally bad that I feel stirred to apologize for it, even though I didn’t write it.

I am so, so sorry. 

We haven’t improved on any of it over the last few decades. In fact, it may have gotten worse since I was a student, back during the Polk administration.

This article is my apology to you. It contains all of the best and wisest advice I have for teenagers and young adults trying to choose which career is right for them. It may also be helpful to fellow olds who have a vague feeling that they’re ready for a change.

The key isn’t to rely on experiences. Instead you must identify and follow where the immutable parts of your deeper personality.

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High School Students Have No Way of Knowing What Career to Choose. Why Do We Make Them Do It Anyway?

High School Students Have No Way of Knowing What Career to Choose. Why Do We Make Them Do It Anyway?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 11 Comments

We have a favorite reader demographic. And no, it’s not fellow personal-finance-slash-chicken enthusiasts, though they’re a damn close second!

It’s the Younglings. The sweet children of winter who live in the wild, welcoming woods of Tumblr. They are wise beyond their years, eager for our advice, and willing to politely overlook the old-ass pop cultural references they don’t understand.

Crying Native American man, Geocities, “fingerprints,” carrying no more than exactly 2,000 pounds of meat, the shoeing of George W. Bush, and Pogs, Pogs, Pogs!

A very frequent question we get from them concerns the choosing of a future career path. For high-school-age kids, there’s a lot of pressure to articulate some kind of plan for what you want to study, and how you’d like to translate that into a job. It’s appallingly weird that we would set such questions to fifteen-year-olds! Especially given all the ways that we as a society fail to help them find the answer.

But seriously, though: Pogs.

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I've Succeeded at Every New Year's Resolution I've Ever Made. Here's How.

I’ve Succeeded at Every New Year’s Resolution I’ve Ever Made. Here’s How.

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 22 Comments

Ah, January. The time when everyone bravely makes a super ambitious New Year’s Resolution to Lose Weight™, Get Better At Money™, and Stop Stalking Exes on Facebook™. And then, before the Ides of February, quietly shelving said resolution and wallowing in nihilistic self-loathing. “Nothing ever changes, so why bother?” millions ask as they wipe Cheeto dust from their fingers to scroll through the Facebook profile of ex-boyfriend Doug Jackson and wonder how he can look so happy and fit now that he’s dating what’s-her-face.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could make a New Year’s Resolution and actually keep it?

According to Kitty, I am the only person in America who ever completes a New Year’s Resolution. I therefore consider myself a bit of an authority on the topic.

For the past five years, I have made a New Year’s Resolution. And every single year, I have succeeded at my resolution. Here’s a quick tally:

2013 Read a book a week (52 in all)
2014 Run a 5k comfortably by the end of the year
2015 Write 100,000 words by the end of the year
2016 Save $10,000 by the end of the year
2017 Do a good deed every week (52 in all)

Every one of these goals was made in the spirit of self-improvement and creating a life I love. They were rewarding, challenging, fun, and empowering. I am #livingmytruth and a dozen other inane platitudes AND SO CAN YOU!

Below, I’ll use each of my goals from the past five years as an example of effective New Year’s Resolutioning. Buckle up.

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The Bitches Get Riches Annual Review and Soirée

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 18 Comments

‘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:

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The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

Kitty: <writes title>

Kitty: <pats self on back until wrist breaks>

Self-congratulatory.

As we discussed earlier this month, shopping for a holiday gift can be… well, sucky. As often as it’s fun, it’s stressful and financially draining.

But if you’ve been paying attention to our RADICAL SOCIAL JUSTICE WAR CRIES, you won’t be surprised to hear that we’re pretty conflicted about holiday gift-giving in general. Specifically, our gripe is with the hyped-up mass commercialization and the endless push to consume.

Tokens and gestures of kindness give us a seasonal thrill—I mean, we’re not totally dead inside! Merely partially! But when you hate consumerism, it can be really hard to participate in the good parts of the tradition without feeling like you’ve lost touch with your own values.

Anti-consumerism is a lake fed by many rivers. Mindless consumption is bad for people, bad for the planet, bad for your wallet, and rote and impersonal. Some people care a lot about one or two of those aspects more strongly than others. If only there were some kind of helpful Venn diagram that broke down anti-consumerist attitudes about gift giving…

Oh wait! Silly me, I’m a graphic designer! I’m paid to eat data and shit out Venn diagrams!

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Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 13 Comments

We’ve been talking a lot recently about unequal circumstances. Some people, through no fault of their own, have a harder time achieving financial independence than others. This is why the “anyone can do it,” one-size-fits-all success narrative is harmful and exclusionary.

This question about an abusive parent is a good example of one such set of circumstances. This came to us from an anonymous Tumblr follower.

“Bitches I need advice, I have never had a job because I was guilted into caring for an emotionaly abusive sick mother right out of high school. I am twenty three and have no idea what to go into now that I am free. I’m mostly afraid of going to school because I don’t have any money, but I have no idea what jobs I can get without an education! I don’t want to work in fast food and retail until I’m thirty, please tell me you can advise this poor bitch :(“

A poor bitch indeed. Oh, my sweet child of winter.

My poor child of winter with your sick, abusive parent to deal with.

You have opened the door to my heart, and also my memories. Because I, too, spent a precious chunk of my young adulthood doing the exact same thing—caring for a sick, abusive parent.

I ask myself why I did it all the time. The only real answer is that there is immense social pressure on children to care for their ill parents—particularly daughters. Friends and family members I hadn’t spoken with in years (or ever) tracked me down. They got my phone number from my mother, or found me on social media, and twisted my arm until it broke. I was too young and inexperienced to tell them to fuck off.

I share these details because I want you to know that you are not alone, and you will never be alone. Abusive and toxic people—especially an abusive parent—are very good at turning illness to their advantage. Their greedy hearts are fed by the sympathy and attention, and they will manipulate the situation to get what they want from you.

And the people who were absent? Who enabled them? Looked the other way? They’re tumbling out of the woodwork like termites to volunteer you for the job they don’t want to perform themselves.

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How Can I Tame My Family’s Crazy Gift-giving Expectations?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 16 Comments

Want to know how much the average American spends on Christmas gift-giving in a single year?

It’s $929.

Keep in mind that this does not include airfare to visit family, food and drink for large gatherings, donations to charity, holiday decorations, or other common yuletide purchases. That’s just the gift-giving.

Given that a majority of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency, it’s hardly surprising that a majority of Americans also go into debt to buy Christmas gifts.

This indicates there is a startling cognitive dissonance around Christmas. Our cultural scripts constantly remind us that gifts are unnecessary, that the true spirit of the season is love. Yet so many of us martyr ourselves financially to be able to give each other yet more stuff.

It’s hard to push back against the weight of tradition, but the results are well worth the effort. We Bitches, using different systems, have managed to make the last several winter holidays a stress-free, debt-free season. Here are our secrets.

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