The Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 11 Comments

Ah. Thursday afternoon. The perfect and natural time to begin contemplating your weekend plans.

We learned from our Myers-Briggs and finance article that we have quite a lot of introverted readers. In particular, we have a veritable army of female INTJs. Y’all are only 0.8% of the population! So since there’s five or six of you, we can assume that literally every female INTJ alive is present and accounted for in the comments section of BGR.

I made this post especially for all of you. I know how much you guys enjoy plans, backup plans, schemes, machinations, and gambits (an INTJ somewhere is rushing to the comments with “DON’T FORGET STRATAGEMS”). I’m also aware that your drug of choice is that sweet, sweet Get Shit Done feeling. Yet you struggle with prioritizing self-care and have difficulty enjoying lazy, unscheduled weekend time. Don’t we all!

That’s why I have developed this Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend. It’s a bunch of free and low-cost stuff you can do in your home that will make you feel rested, tested, and invested (TM, TM, we’re starting an MLM and that phrase is gonna be part of our cult-like sales culture).

Read More

I’m Proud To Be a Millennial So Fuck Off

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 28 Comments

Lazy, entitled, freeloading, whiny, safe-space-inhabiting, impatient, thin-skinned, don’t-know-the-meaning-of-a-hard-day’s-work, precious snowflakes. Millennials. My generation.

Or, if you’re Time Magazine, “The Me Me Me Generation.” This is but one example of the current favorite editorial of the lazy middle-aged journalist. It’s one in which they trash millennials for everything they’re anecdotally doing wrong. And they do it with very little empirical evidence about what’s actually going on in their lives.

Writing indignant think pieces about how awful the young people are these days has been in style since Socrates was wearing bedsheets as a fashion statement in the amphitheaters of Athens. But this style of editorializing still pisses me off.

I’m tired of it. For one thing, the entire concept of “generations” is bullshit, as perfectly explained by Adam Ruins Everything:

For another, the Millennial stereotype is pure, unfiltered cockamamie. So let’s set aside for a moment the fact that generations are a nebulous concept devoid of meaning and that the popular stereotype of millennials is false. I’d like to take this moment to explain a thing at you.

I’m proud to be a millennial. Here’s why.

Read More

Is Gentrification Just Artisanal, Small-Batch Displacement of the Poor?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 7 Comments

I had just come home from work when three students from the college down the street approached my porch with official-looking clipboards in hand. “Excuse me ma’am,” (I’m a ma’am now? When did this happen?) “Can we ask you some questions for a school research project?”

Instead of hissing “Youths!” and retreating into the darkness of my lair, I obliged. I am a “ma’am” now, after all. That comes with a responsibility to be magnanimous toward fine upstanding young people everywhere.

First question: “What does gentrification mean to you?”

Read More

How To Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 28 Comments

Retirement is a difficult concept for young people to wrap their heads around. It’s hard enough figuring out how to be An Adult, let alone An Old.

We’ll be talking more broadly in the near future about the general concept of retirement. (Spoiler alert: it’s as outdated as an avocado-colored refrigerator.) But today I’d like to talk directly about the concept of saving for retirement while pretty legit poor.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to define that as someone making $30,000 a year or less. Obviously there are lots of factors that can stretch this figure. A mom of three with a high school education in Washington, D.C. is going to have a much harder time than a single, highly-educated person making the same amount in Woodstock, Alabama. And actually, that number is still more than double the official so-called “poverty line,” which is just under $13,000.

But Piggy and I feel strongly that there isn’t enough realistic, valuable advice for people in this general bracket. So we’d like to talk to them.

Read More

The Subscription Box Craze and the Mindlessness of Wasteful Spending

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 48 Comments

It’s time for another edition of Piggy Complains About Wasteful Spending! In this episode, I’m going to cover a recent phenomenon so antithetical to both minimalism and frugal spending that it has literally left me apoplectic with indignation. I am speaking, of course, of the monthly subscription box.

As best I can tell, the subscription box trend started with Birch Box, a monthly package of beauty product samples to which you can subscribe. Here’s how the model works: you pay a monthly subscription and in exchange you’re sent a monthly box of stuff. You do not get to choose the stuff. You are not told what the stuff will be. And usually you don’t get to exchange the stuff for stuff you would prefer.

Most of the companies providing this service have a theme: there’s the dog theme, the nerd theme, the clothing theme, the healthy snack theme, the makeup theme, I shit you not the Ron Swanson theme, the I-need-help-meal-planning theme, the affluent vegan theme, the agoraphobic bookworm theme, and the I-find-the-wine-selection-at-my-local-liquor-store-intimidating theme, just to name a few.

Read More

Pet Insurance: Is It Worth It?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

As we’ve discussed, Piggy and I are pretty obsessed with our pets. I admire Piggy’s restraint in having but a single dog. My house currently contains four dogs, one cat, six chickens, and two clinically narcissistic garbage disposals guinea pigs. Friends who know me to be an IRL Pokemon Master often ask me what my pet insurance rates are like.

My pet insurance bill is approximately zero dollars. Same goes for Piggy.

Neither of us have pet insurance. And there’s a reason for that.

Read More

Should You Increase Your Salary or Decrease Your Spending?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 8 Comments

When it comes to advice on how to become financially independent, there are two schools of thought:

  1. Increase your salary as much as possible.
  2. Decrease your spending as much as possible.

There are personal finance gurus who scoff at the idea of cutting out lattes and other minor unnecessary expenses as a path to wealth and security. They instead advise you to spend your time making as much money as possible. Then there are others who extoll the virtues of thrifty living and frugality in the extreme. They champion a spartan lifestyle in which you can retire early by spending minimally.

So who’s right? Which method will lead most quickly to financial independence? Which to a life in which you no longer have to worry about money? And which tactic for peak prosperity should you pursue?

Read More

So I Got Chickens, Part 1: Return on Investment

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

As I have already confessed, I love animals a bit too much. My husband and I, primates that we are, are minorities in our household. We have two dogs, a cat who believes she is a dog, and two maned pork tenderloins guinea pigs. And just this past Thursday, we came home from the feed store with six new additions.

Whoops! We now own chickens.

And from a financial perspective, we really couldn’t have done anything stupider.

Read More

Romanticizing the Side Hustle: When 1 Job Isn’t Enough

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 24 Comments

Ah, the side hustle. More commonly known as the “second job,” side hustles are a badass, creative, independent—yet completely romanticized—way to increase your income. They’ve become a symbol of entrepreneurial go-gettership, a way to show the world that your ideas and goals are far too important to contain in a single 9-5. Side hustlers are super humans with the energy and vision to Get Shit Done.

Or at least, that’s the rhetoric we all perpetuate by romanticizing the side hustle.

Let’s call a spade a spade. A side hustle is a goddamn second job, and if you have one it means either a) your first job is failing to pay the bills, or b) you’re willing to trade all of your free time in order to retire early because your job sucks and doesn’t pay enough to achieve this goal. Neither scenario is particularly inspiring or empowering.

I’m not saying we should all revolt against the concept of side hustles and give up our efforts to make extra money. You can pry my side hustle from my cold, dead hands, as a matter of fact. But I think a dose of realism is in order lest we get carried away romanticizing the side hustle.

Read More

Myers-Briggs Personalities and Income: What Your Type Says About Your Salary

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 62 Comments

There are two valid forms of personality tests: Myers-Briggs and the Sorting Hat—BUT ONLY the Sorting Hat as defined by the collective wisdom of the broader Harry Potter fandom. J. K. Rowling’s Slytherinphobia is as well-documented as it is inexplicable. We cannot trust Pottermore.

If you don’t know your Myers-Briggs personality type, you can find out pretty easily. Free tests of varying length and quality clog the internet. I like this one, personally. It’s thorough but nowhere near as long as others.

In general, Myers-Briggs judges personalities in four metrics: introvert (I) vs. extrovert (E), sensing (S) vs. intuition (N), thinking (T) vs. feeling (F), and judging (J) vs. perceiving (P).

If you don’t want to take a quiz, you may be able to guess what you are. Introverts feel recharged when alone, and extroverts feel at-home among others. Sensors like to take people at their word, while intuits tend to look for meaning between the lines. Thinkers are rational and logical, while feelers are empathetic and expressive. Judgers (not to be confused with the judgmental) prefer plans and orderliness over the perceiver’s more casual, open-ended approach.

Read More