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I moved out to the Denver metro area with my partner in 2009 after graduating from college (SPOILER ALERT NEWBIES, WE OLD). We’d been living in Boston and, uh, not only was the cost of living and housing pretty steep, but the job market in the area was waaaay competitive. We knew we wanted to move somewhere cheaper with more job opportunities (this was in the Before Times when most jobs were location-dependent). So we narrowed it down to a handful of places in the U.S. and did our research. Everywhere we looked was an urban area with lots of rural space nearby. So that almost completely excluded the East Coast from our search. We looked at places like Pittsburgh, Portland Oregon, Bozeman Montana, Denver, Santa Fe, Austin, and Seattle. Most of those places are now wildly expensive, but at the time they were way more affordable than, say, Boston, Chicago, or New York. We chose Denver because my partner’s company was able to transfer him out there and I got accepted to a graduate certificate program at a nearby university. Plus, some of my partner’s coworkers were also moving there, so we had immediate roommates. At the time, this move didn’t feel so monumental. Our attitude was “Hey, this could work, so let’s try it for a while.” Fifteen years later, I still live in Colorado. So I guess that means I should have some sound advice for deciding where to live??? Let’s find out in today’s episode of the Bitches Get Riches podcast! This week’s question Today’s letter comes to us from a follower who prefers to remain anonymous. So we’ll call them Pickle. Pickle writes: I just read your article about the issues living in tiny houses and loved it! Kitty said that her house was n-times cheaper than the nearest metro area and that made me wonder . . . did you choose where you wanted to live and then look for a house or did you base where you lived on the best housing option? I’d love to hear more about both kitty and piggy’s thought process on whether to live in city vs suburb vs town vs country. This question is a rich text! Which is, in fact, a requirement for every question we answer on the podcast. Including the one about B.O. Our answer [embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Bn8c2UF3gI&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent[/embed] We’ve published a thing or two about moving in the past. So if you want to learn more, check out these fine, Bitch-crafted articles and episodes” Season 4, Episode 8: “I’m Queer, and Want To Find an Affordable Place To Retire. How Do I Balance Safety With Cost of Living?” Master the Logistics and Etiquette of Moving Out Season 4, Episode 12: “I’m Considering Moving Across the Country With My Partner. How Hard Is It To Start Over?” Season 4, Episode 2: “We’re Moving in Together but Don’t Plan To Get Married. How Can We Split Finances Fairly?” Season 2, Episode 5: “What Do I Need to Know about Moving into My First Apartment?” Five Reasons To Love the Tiny
I recently got an e-mail from a reader who’s on the fence about having kids, wondering why we decided to have a kid, and how they can make the decision. I told him while I couldn’t give them the answer, I could at least explain how I made my decision, and maybe the question that finally helped me decide could be used to help him and other “fence-sitters”. So, if you’re on-the-fence, here’s the story […]
A year ago, I published my second book The Wealth Ladder. It’s sold over 100,000 copies worldwide and hit the New York Times bestseller list in its third week of publication. At the time, I was thrilled that my work was finally getting some mainstream media attention. After nine years of writing online, it felt like I had finally made it to the big leagues. But since then, I’ve learned that many of these bestseller lists aren’t what they initially seem. For example, Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money has now sold over 10 million copies worldwide, yet has never made the NY Times bestseller list. Want to know why? Because he didn’t publish his book with one of the Big Five American publishers (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, or Macmillan). If you self-publish or publish your book with a non-Big Five publisher, your chance of making the NY Times list is slim to none even if you sell millions of copies. This is why Just Keep Buying will never make the NY Times list either. But even if you do sell lots of books and are with a Big Five publisher, there’s still no guarantee. Unfortunately, the NY Times has plenty of discretion in how they choose which books to include on their list. For example, Rob Henderson’s Troubled fit all the criteria of a book that should’ve made the list. It had the right initial sales and won multiple book awards, but was never included. Was it the underlying message of the book that the NY Times didn’t like? I’m not sure. But I’ve also learned that some people were able to get on the NY Times list simply by spending enough money. This shouldn’t be possible, but it is. Unlike the USA Today bestseller list, which is based on total sales, the NY Times list cares about types of sales as well. For example, if you sell 15,000 books in a week, you will very likely make the USA Today bestseller list. It doesn’t matter if you have one order of 15,000 books or 15,000 orders of one book. USA Today treats these sales the same. The NY Times doesn’t. One order of 15,000 books means you convinced one large corporate client to buy your book for their employees. 15,000 orders of one book means you convinced 15,000 people to buy your book. These aren’t the same. However, there is a way to game the system to make one large order look like many small orders (to inflate your perceived organic reach). I know an author who spent over half a million dollars doing this and successfully got on the NY Times list. The crux of their strategy was a “giveaway” where their readers provided their name and address to have “a chance” to win a free copy of their book. They collected 5,000 names and addresses for the giveaway. But instead of giving away 1 book or 10 books or even 100 books, they gave away 2,000.
I discovered something last month. It’s something I intuitively knew, but gained a new appreciation for on a June day in Youngstown, Ohio. But…I’m getting ahead of myself. I could just tell you what I discovered, but what’s the fun in that? Rather, I’m taking you on a short journey of exploration to help you discover the same thing for yourself. Somehow, it just seems better that way. So, buckle up – we’re heading out […]
A major retirement decision is when to start claiming Social Security benefits. There are many ways to visualize the decision process, and here is another interesting one based on taking the “Net Present Value”. Essentially, you are taking into account the time value of money to aide your comparison, here assuming a 4% real return (which is both rather optimistic and yet somehow less than what people have received over the last ~10 years). Source: […]
I get asked about this a lot, so I figured it was time to just lay it all out. This is not a “you should do this too” post. Personal finance is personal, and what works for our family is specific to our situation. But I’m a big believer in transparency – because when I … Read more
Nolan has stripped the ambiguity that makes Homer’s characters so interesting, and served up a cosy morality play with all the depth of warmed-over Marvel slop.
ELI5: What the Heck is BIP-110? Imagine Bitcoin is a giant shared notebook that everyone uses to write down things like: “I paid you 0.05 Bitcoin.” For years, people mostly just wrote payment notes. Then in 2022–2023 some clever folks figured out how to paste huge pictures, memes, NFT art, and random junk directly into the notebook (this is Ordinals, inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens, Runes, etc.). The notebook got bloated. Fees went crazy for normal payments. […]
Here in Ohio we can choose our electric supplier… But not who delivers it. I suppose that makes sense. The “natural monopoly” argument for this is that it doesn’t make sense to have multiple telephone poles with multiple wires going into houses. That might be a mess. I’ve chosen my own supplier – check out my post where I visualized my electric energy options – so I know what my supplier rate is. But what […]
It’s been 20 years, almost to the day, since I left the corporate world. And while I’ve forayed back into it a couple of brief stints, freelancing and contract work has paid my bills for most of the last two decades. Since mom died, I am back at job seeking full time. And I’m averaging 2-3 interviews per week, and have picked up 3 new contracts over the last couple of weeks. Yeah! I’m also actively seeking full time roles in Austin and Atlanta. Upwork application status for the last month Overall, my hunt has been much more successful, much more quickly then in years past. And I think the work I did on my 3 week journey really made a difference. So what am I doing differently? Tips for Growing Your Contract Business (from someone who has failed as many or more times than I’ve succeeded) Specialize – Specializing as a contractor just makes you easier to hire. When you’re the “kitchen remodel guy” instead of “does everything,” or in my case an “online business manager” instead of a “jill of all trades” people searching for that exact job find you faster and trust you more, so there’s less back and forth proving you’re capable. It also makes referrals way easier since past clients can describe exactly what you do instead of a vague “he’s pretty handy.” And once you build a name in a niche, you can usually charge more and get more repeat work than someone spreading themselves thin across every kind of job. Set a standard – Setting clear standards for what work you’ll take on saves you from a ton of headaches down the line. If you don’t know your own boundaries going in, you end up saying yes to stuff that drains you or pays less than it’s worth. And it’s way harder to walk it back later. For me that’s meant setting a firm hourly rate I don’t budge on, only applying to projects that are mostly behind the scenes with maybe 15% or less phone time, and sticking to the specific skillsets. In the past, I’ve tended to stretch for anything that comes my way. Having those lines drawn ahead of time makes it so much easier to know what to say yes to and what to skip, without second guessing every opportunity that lands in your inbox. Do the research & write the cover letter – Doing your homework before you apply makes a real difference, even when you’re working with limited info. Since I usually can’t see much about the client beyond the listing itself, I try to squeeze every clue I can out of the project description, tone, specific phrasing, what they emphasize, what they leave out. Then I match that same tone in my proposal instead of defaulting to one generic pitch I copy and paste everywhere. I make sure to respond explicitly to what they said they want and need, point by point, while
Lean Guide To Spread Betting. Introduction One of the biggest advantages of spread betting is the flexibility it offers. Unlike buying shares, where you typically profit only if the price rises, spread betting allows you to speculate on both rising and falling markets. This makes it a useful tool not only for traders looking to profit from declining share prices, but also for investors who want to hedge an existing portfolio during periods of market […]
I find myself coming back to the FBI’s cybercrime stats over and over, because they’re just mind-blowing. Over the last decade (2015-2025), annual losses to cybercrime for people age 60+ grew by an annualized rate of 39%. For comparison, NVIDIA’s annual revenue also grew by 39% annualized from 2015-2025. And over that time NVIDIA went from being a company most people hadn’t heard of to being the largest or second largest company in the world. […]
I get emails from people asking me to mention their website. Usually I just delete them, but this one was interesting. Retiresmarter.ca is a Canadian calculator website that doesn’t take your information, it’s free (apparently always will be free), and is sleek and fast. I … Read moreRetireSmarter.ca Review The post RetireSmarter.ca Review appeared first on Genymoney.ca.