TEENS Archives • Bitches Get Riches

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Make Myself Financially Secure Before Age 30?

August 10, 2021August 19, 2024 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 26 Comments

Our beloved darlings of Tumblr ask the best questions. And we love answering them because the Tumblr kids are simply inspiring in their determination to get good at adulting. Some of our answers spin out into novel-length screeds on finance, feminism, and figuring shit out. And sometimes they ask us for help with the most quintessential financial problems. Like, how does one become financially secure before age 30?

Loyal follower of the Bitches pallid-etoiles asked:

Hey BGR! (Sue me I acronymed it.) (Please don’t.)
What are your wise ways of making yourself financially secure before you hit 30? What’s the best way to start financially with limited experience as a 17-year-old who hasn’t any of the knowledge of what to do on her own?
– A Tumblr follower on the Bitches Get Riches Tumblr

How indeed?

The fact that you’re even thinking about this at age 17 means you win ALL THE AWARDS! Seriously, this is a great time to start prepping for your future. You’re way ahead of the game by even reading finance blogs. Let alone trying to get your shit together and become financially secure!

Here’s our step-by-step advice for a teenager to get financially secure by age 30.

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time

May 26, 2020April 15, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 2 Comments

It comes to you in a dream: ethereal voices, echoing through the fog of your resting mind. You toss and turn as you try to decipher their meaning. The voices are unspeakably beautiful, inspiring, gregarious… and it is then you know they are the voices of… the Bitches. And they speak… of living independently for the first time.

For it is they who bless the minds of young wanderers in the Land of Dreams! They who deliver divine inspiration directly to the soul so that upon waking, the listener is fortified with the knowledge to go forth, living independently, and conquer the world.

You strain to hear. You yearn for their wisdom and sage advice. And at last you make out what they’re telling you:

“This is how you adult like a fucking champ…”

Readers, enjoy this masterpost of all our articles on living independently for the first time, so that you may learn to become your very own adult. For it’s the last you’ll hear from us for a while! That’s right: we’re taking our annual two-week summer vacation starting… now!

Don’t worry: we promise to come back better and bitchier than ever!

Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”

February 11, 2020April 15, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 18 Comments

Today’s question is from a Patreon donor I’ll call Star who is getting kicked out of their home by their parents. It will include a lot of discussions about abusive parental relationships, so please be forewarned.

Star is in a Patreon tier that guarantees we will answer one question. We often do so privately, as the circumstances are often quite particular. But sometimes we post them publicly as articles if we think they would be helpful to others. That’s the case with today’s letter.

Hello! I just became a Patron. I’m currently in a situation where my family has been threatening to kick me out of the house. I just turned eighteen two weeks ago, so my adult legs are a bit wobbly. I’m trying to save up for a car, as that’s most important to me right now. My question is: Do you queen genius Bitches know if there’s any way I could get government assistance? Or any advice as to how I can move out from my abusive home on my own terms, but as soon as possible? Thank you in advance.

We’re so sorry you’re in this situation.

Eighteen has to be the most fraught age for the relationship between children and parents. It’s normal for once-loving family relationships to feel strained as you all struggle to adjust to the transformation from dependent child to independent adult.

But it is not normal for parents to hang the threat of homelessness and poverty over their teenage child’s head. I really wish you weren’t going through this, weren’t getting kicked out.

Piggy and I are here in your corner with you, Star. And so is every other BGR reader. We have a substantial population of Hip Mom™ readers, and I am hyper-aware of them right now, because I can feel their simmering rage at reading your letter. It’s warming my keyboard. Ow ow ow!

I hope you have a lot of people in your corner besides us, both because you deserve love and support, and because we’re dumbasses who will probably get plenty of this wrong.

But we’re going to do everything we can to help you regardless as you’re being kicked out. Let’s get into it.

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

January 18, 2018May 27, 2022 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.

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

January 12, 2018May 27, 2022 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.