5 Rad Queer Money Experts You Should Follow This Pride Month

It’s Pride Month! The most gayest time of the year! The month when corporations release rainbow-embossed merch and proclaim themselves Down With the Gayness. Yet here at Bitches Get Riches Incorporated, we’re not just LGBTQ+ community spokespeople… we’re also members!

And so it is with zero hypocrisy and a whole lot of enthusiasm that we come to you this week with a very special message. And that message is: personal finance media is gay as hell.

Why do we even need queer money experts?

When we started writing this blog—back when ultra skinny jeans still roamed the earth—our industry was absolutely inundated with straight male proto-influencers extolling the virtues of extreme frugality. You couldn’t throw a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad without braining some hetero-married tech bro early retiree.

Yet queer folks have some different needs when it comes to personal finance advice. In case you don’t have time to read our whole article on the subject, I’ll summarize:

• Social isolation is the root issue of the financial struggles queer people face. Your family is your first and most important safety net. Your next is your community—your church, your school, your workplace. When these nets chuck you out, there’s nowhere to land but the cold, hard ground.
• 40% of homeless youths in America are queer. The problem isn’t unique to young people. Queer parents are three times more likely than straight, cisgender parents to be homeless themselves.
• Queer people are overrepresented in America’s criminal justice system. One study found that young people with same-sex attractions are more likely to be stopped by police, expelled from school, arrested, and convicted. 20% of people in juvenile facilities identify as queer.
• Men who “sound gay” are less likely to be hired and promoted on the basis of their voice alone. LGBT indicators on a lesbian woman’s application make employers 30% less likely to call.
• The queer community faces unique health challenges, which are greatly exacerbated by lower rates of employment and health insurance. 38% of queer people lack access to a routine annual physical.

(Bummed out yet? Good! It was getting too cheerful around here. For Pride Month isn’t just a celebration—it’s a time to remember the activists and brick-throwers who risked their lives fighting for our rights.)

All of these markers of discrimination weigh heavily on a person’s financial prospects. Which is why LGBTQ+ leaders in the personal finance community have become so damn vital. Personal finance—it’s not just for medium-ugly straight people anymore!

So today, let’s celebrate some of our favorite queer money experts.

They’re here, they’re queer, and they know about menny, henny

1. The Queer Money Podcast

#MarriedCoupleGoals John Schneider and David Auten got their start writing about their journey to debt freedom as the Debt Free Guys. Since then, their mission has expanded into the Queer Money Podcast, where they dispense wisdom on everything it takes to lead a healthy, wealthy life as a queer person. They regularly interview experts on topics ranging from the unique retirement considerations of the LGBTQ community to the economics of being a drag queen.

They recently interviewed your humble Bitches about our new Burnout Workshop! We’ve loved John and David ever since we dished by the pool at a conference years ago, and you should too! Love them, we mean. Though if you can get them to come to your pool party too, we highly recommend it!

2. I Like to Dabble

Daniella Flores is the nonbinary, neurodivergent, queer Latine entrepreneur behind I Like to Dabble—a blog on side hustling and career advice. Their ~*financial journey*~ began when they paid off $40k in debt with their wife, and since then they started the podcast Remote Work Bestie all about… well, the perils of working remotely. Truly, an oracle for our strange times!

If you have questions about healthy side hustling, salary transparency, having a successful career while also having ADHD, or managing passive income streams, you should be following I Like to Dabble. Plus her lipstick game is fire.

3. Oh My Dollar

Have you ever wanted cats to explain personal finance to you? Then boy howdy do I have the book for you: A Cat’s Guide to Money: Everything You Need to Know to Master your Purrsonal Finances, Explained by Cats by Lillian Karabaic. Just as Bono lamented that he did not write Take Me to Church before Hozier, so we Bitches curse the heavens that we did not think to write a money book from the POV of our dogs before Lillian scooped us.

Lillian is the queer, jargon-free personal finance expert behind Oh My Dollar!, a blog for artists and small business entrepreneurs. She is not here to tell you to grow up and get a “real” job. But she is here to crack wise and help people achieve financial well-being no matter their income. Through her regular Get Your Money Together Bootcamps and weekly podcast, Lillian is here to inject you with the confidence you need to reach your ideal financial future.

4. Queer & Trans Wealth

Leo Aquino is an award-winning journalist covering anti-capitalist personal finance and the founder of educational resource Queer & Trans Wealth. In other words: this trans badass had your humble Bitches at “hello.” And as a person of color, their perspective tends to totally buck the stereotypes of the generic white tech bro who used to dominate the personal finance space.

“Anti-capitalist” might sound contradictory with “personal finance,” but we assure you it’s not. Your humble Bitches have learned so, so much from Leo’s work in our pursuit of an ethical philosophy of wealth-building. And y’all can too through their 1:1 coaching sessions and regular newsletters.

5. A Purple Life

Last but not least is our pal Purple from A Purple Life. Hers is a story of FIRE: she retired at age 30 (beating BGR’s own Kitty by 5 whole years!) through a combination of extreme frugality, aggressively increasing her income throughout her career, and geoarbitrage. She’s also rad as hell, and like many in the LGBTQ+ community, bucks societal norms in a thoughtful, progressive way. Ask her why she’s decided not to get married or have kids!

If you’re looking for a by-the-numbers plan for financial independence and early retirement, Purple’s blog is a must-read. She literally laughs in the face of the kind of traditional financial “wisdom” designed to keep you in the rat race and working for The Man. Plus, Purple is a great hang. We personally endorse her hang-worthiness!

Who’s your favorite queer money expert? Share with the whole class in the comment section! And while you’re at it… have a great Pride Month, everyone. Remember: