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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You Won’t Regret Your Frugal 20s

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 14 Comments

The topic of regret is a controversial one, especially in personal finance. Whole treatises have been written on the premise that if you live frugally during your twenties and make sound financial decisions for the future, you’ll regret wasting your youth as a joyless loner.

We reject this characterization of a frugal youth for a couple of reasons:

  1. It doesn’t take a lot of (or any) money to have fun with your friends. In fact, some of the best times I’ve had with friends involved spending zero dollars!
  2. You can (and should) pursue fun long past your twenties. A great woman once said that if you’re not getting happier as you grow older, you’re fucking up. And I whole-heartedly agree! Life has only gotten better after thirty for me.
  3. You’re at more risk of regretting not saving than you are at risk of regretting not going out to da clerb that one time. Saving for retirement in your twenties isn’t a ticket to Regretsville or Unfuntown. It’s a way of ensuring you’ll be able to have fun later in life instead of working forever.

And yet fear of this kind of regret persists.

FOMO

I get it! No one wants to constantly feel left out. FOMO is real! But I also firmly believe that no one wants to get to retirement age only to realize that all the money they could’ve lived on for another twenty to thirty years got puked out after a night of binge drinking. (It has been said that you’d have to drink a lot of alcohol to puke out your retirement savings. These naysayers underestimate both the power of compound interest and the alcohol tolerance of the average 23-year-old.)

Yet I don’t fear regretting my frugal twenties when I get to my twilight years. Now, depending on a single, barely funded income stream after retirement, one that could easily go up in a puff of smoke… that’s something worth regretting.

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In Defense of Shameless Regifting

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 8 Comments

“There is only one fruitcake in the entire world and people keep passing it around.” Ah, Johnny Carson’s ole’ traveling fruitcake story. So ancient and apocryphal it took significant googling to uncover its origins.

It’s a perfect example of the holiday season’s most notorious social faux pas: regifting.

Many consider regifting tacky and thoughtless: the worst version of “being cheap.” If you regift, it means a) you were too lazy to go out and buy a new gift for someone, b) you didn’t actually appreciate the gift in the first place, and c) you care so little about the giftee that you won’t even spend a little money on a personalized gift for them.

I’m here to propose a new way of looking at the practice of regifting. In fact, I think it can be an economical, creative, waste-free, and considerate way of bestowing presents upon your loved ones.

Yes, I am of course an uncouth and cold-hearted shrew. But I’m also an uncouth and cold-hearted shrew with a damn good point… and a damn fat wallet.

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Share My Horror at the World’s Worst Debt Visualization

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 24 Comments

Some days I wake up ready to crush my debts. I am filled with fire and vinegar. (No, the vinegar does not put out the fire.) I double down on everything I do on that day—I spend less, work harder, and plan more.

Other days, I wake up feeling like Idgaf, Queen of the I Don’t Give a Fuck Tribe of Greater New England. On those days, I find myself wasting time with stuff that distracts me rather than enriches me. I play old video games I’ve already beaten three times, and mewl at my partner to take me to Five Guys. On those days, it can feel like the sacrifices aren’t getting me anywhere.

What can I learn from this? Besides the fact that I suffer from intermittent depression, because I already knew that.

I have a sprinter’s attention span and marathon financial goals. My current financial goal will take at least nine years to achieve. Maintaining momentum and motivation over such a long period of time is really hard.

I’ve tried making visualizations to help me stay on track, and I’m going to share two with you today. Including an old one that is weirdly fucked up and embarrassing.

Embarrassing!!!
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Dafuq Is Insurance and Why Do You Even Need It?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 11 Comments

This article is definitely not about health insurance. I specifically refer to pretty much every other kind of insurance you can get in the United States, but not health insurance. Because contrary to what our fearless leader said recently, everyone knows that healthcare is really fucking complicated. Not to mention expensive.

Therefore, I’m saving it for another post so as not to muddy the waters… with our tears.

Our readers from civilized countries like Canada and Namibia are probably recoiling in horror right about now. Yeah. WELCOME TO THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE, BITCHES. Moving on.

Insurance in general can seem like a confusing and unnecessary gamble. Obtaining it and taking advantage of its benefits might seem daunting. Why should you pay money for something you might never need? You’re healthy and careful! What’s the point of this expensive service?

Worry not, my confident yet naive marshmallow peeps. I’ll break it all down for you.

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Sailor Scouts Ranked by Estimated Net Worth

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

You know that feeling when you’ve been writing scathing 4,000 word critiques of entrenched white supremacist attitudes in the personal finance community? And you get really tired and depressed? So therefore you decide to write about Sailor Scouts instead?

No? Did y’all think I was joking?

Uh uh. No sirs and ma’ams. Fighting evil by moonlight, making money by daylight. That’s the Bitches Get Riches mission statement in a nutshell!

I’ve conducted thousands of hours of exhaustive research on Sailor Moon (this research was done from age ten to, um… the present). And I am ready to provide a definitive ranking of the hypothetical net worth of all the Sailor Scouts.*

*This research does not include Tuxedo Mask, whose star seed belongs to the guardian of planet Earth but is technically not a true scout. Also does not include villains, such as the Amazoness Quartet or the members of Shadow Galactica. Also-also does not include one-offs, musical exclusives, corporeal manifestations of the light of hope, and other bullshit characters.

It’s dinnertime, people. Let’s get to the meat!

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How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Financial Math

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 16 Comments

I fucking hated math in high school.

It was torture. Though I did ok throughout Algebra I and Geometry, once I got to Algebra II… the wheels came off the bus. I listened to entire lectures on logarithms delivered in the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher. I didn’t understand why it mattered, its practical application, nor why I needed it.

And to this day I’m convinced my teacher was a sociopath who derived great joy from my confusion. Let’s call her Dorothy Ball because her fucking name was Dorothy Ball. (How you like me now, Dotty?) She was one of those teachers who, instead of motivating students to give it their all, slowly crushed the joy of learning out of me and convinced me that I was a feeble-minded and frivolous girl for not picking up what she put down.

Clearly I wanted to learn math—or at least I cared about my academic standing—because I remember sitting through a meeting with my mom and Ms. Ball to come up with a strategy for improving. I’ll never forget that meeting.

With great pity in her eyes, she said, “It’s ok that you’re not good at math. You’re good at other things. So let’s just shoot for passing, ok?”

The callous harridan was right: I was good at other things. Like mentally eviscerating those who dared to condescend to me.

But, as we all know… I still needed math to survive.

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