Year: 2021

January 14, 2021 | GretchenAdd to my favorites

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In my day job at a major technology company, I mentor a lot of young adults. Most of them are college-aged interns and recent graduates.
You’ll be shocked—shocked!—to learn that my mentoring sessions are popular because of their “no bullshit” vibe. If we’re getting coffee for thirty minutes, we’ll spend two of them introducing ourselves and making pleasant chit-chat about the weather. That leaves twenty-eight minutes for me to break the speed of sound delivering my very best general adulting advice.

Not gonna lie, this is kinda the energy I bring to mentoring sessions.
I live for the moment when these young folks realize I’m here to talk straight to them. They go from having no questions (because they’re terrified of looking unprepared) to having dozens.
One question I get asked a lot is, “Should I go to grad school?”
I always say the same thing, without any hesitation.
“No.”
The last young person I was mentoring specifically asked if he should go on to grad school to get his master’s degree in Marketing Operations. Which did get me to change my stance a little bit.
“Fuck no.”
There are exceptions (obviously). Every person, career, and life situation is different. There are some people who can confidently move straight from their undergraduate degree into a graduate program. And good for them! But I suspect that population is small compared to the total number of people who consider pursuing advanced degrees.
So today I’ll break down why my knee-jerk advice is always “no.” (Or “fuck no,” as the case may be.)

Quick rundown for international readers
Skip this if you know it already.
In America, two years of full-time classwork gets you an associate’s degree. Four years gets you a bachelor’s degree. Six gets you a master’s degree. And eight gets you a doctoral degree, the highest possible level.
An associate’s degree is often preparation for a specific job—such as a dental hygienist or paralegal.
A bachelor’s degree is “the default” college experience. Most white-collar jobs want you to have a bachelor’s, though they don’t usually care what you studied (possibly because it’s more of a class marker than anything). Most people stop their formal education after reaching this point.
A master’s degree is uncommon, but required in fields that have a lot of responsibility or require a ton of specialized technical knowledge—teachers, nurse practitioners, social workers, physical therapists.
Doctorate degrees are pretty rare. People who have them are often researchers, scientists, professors, experts, or authors with a very narrow field of focus.
All of these degrees fit under the umbrella of “higher education,” which is anything past high school level. When I say “advanced degrees,” we’re talking about master’s and above. M’kay?
Advanced degrees are expensive af
Unless you’ve spent the last several decades living feral in the woods (and believe me, I get why you would want to), you know that America has reached a crisis point with, uh, many things. It’s hard to pick just one when they’re all sooooooo pretty, but I guess today it’s the skyrocketing cost of higher education!
As of 2018, getting a bachelor’s degree ranges on average from $10,000 at an in-state public university to $35,000 at a private college. This only accounts for tuition—room and board can damn near double those costs.
That is an insane and unsustainable price tag. If you want a stable, well-paying job, you need to cough up five figures and four years to show how bad you want it. Class mobility in America has stagnated in recent years, and this is one of the many crooked culprits. If you didn’t live in a good school district with financially stable parents who prioritized your future education, good luck clawing your way through institutional indifference and crushing debt!
Master’s degrees take that insane cost and essentially double it. They cost an average of $9,000 at public universities and $30,000 at private colleges. Again, this doesn’t include room and board. And it assumes you will attend school full-time, devoting your attention completely to your studies instead of generating income.
The cost of a master’s degree is also growing rapidly. In the ten-year span from 2008-2018, master’s degrees ballooned in cost. Up 45% for public universities—the “cheap” option!—and 16% for private colleges.
Advanced degrees don’t make you much more employable
What kind of amazing returns can you expect for such a significant investment? Well, a lot of young people think that having a master’s degree will give them an edge when looking for jobs.
And they do! For very, very specific jobs. I have a personal friend who works in a field that expects advanced degrees. Her employer basically told her “there’s a higher level job waiting for you, should you decide to get your masters.”
But for jobs in general? Let’s look at the unemployment rates for Americans based on their educational attainment…

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate for people with a bachelor’s degree is 2.2%. For those with a master’s degree, it’s 2.1%. So, uh, let me see if I’m doing this math correctly… I don’t have my master’s in economics, but something tells me that ROI sucks.

Two years of your life
+ Two years of potential full-time income and career growth
+ $10,000 to 30,000 in tuition costs
—————————————————————
= A 0.1% drop in your unemployment rate

Yes, really. That’s it.
If you think that a master’s degree will make you a more attractive job candidate within the general pool, the numbers just don’t support that hypothesis. Part of that may just be the number and kind of job openings available today. But there are other, more subtle reasons too.
Advanced degrees scare employers
Rightly or wrongly, advanced degrees make some recruiters and hiring managers nervous. They think candidates will be bored in entry-level roles, or expect too high of a salary. There’s an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review, which you can read here, that describes this wariness.

Early-stage start-ups fear entitlement. The psychology of a good start-up can only be described as relentless scrappiness. When evaluating candidates, the start-up seeks out a commando mentality and a willingness to do grunt work.  In both of these aspects, prestigious degrees are seen as a warning sign if not a negative signal.
“Commandos” do their own thing and are effective as individual operators.  They are self-motivated to a fault, often not buying in to any incentive system that would infringe on their autonomy — promotions, money, grades, or credentials.  It’s rare that someone with such a commando mentality would have a clean track record at school.
Elite degrees, meanwhile, can signal that people excel within organizations and feedback systems, neither of which exist in a start-up.  New founders struggle to provide consistent direction, and very few start-ups have operational procedures for recognition or incentives.  So companies select for candidates who will find ways to create value with no input, feedback, or immediate recognition from management.
When A Fancy Degree Scares Employers Away
Although the focus here is specifically on the tech/startup space, I think it’s a valuable perspective to consider more broadly. I don’t really endorse the startup mentality as a good, healthy, sustainable thing. I think we’ll see this culture collapse in the next ten years, and it’ll be good riddance when it does.
But this characterization of the expectations is dead-on. People who succeed in academic settings can’t always instantly adapt to roles in the “real world.” And sometimes they can come in with a bit of a ‘tude considering their lack of tangible experience.

Advanced degrees mean more money—but it’s not the only way
Educational attainment correlates strongly with income, this is definitely true. The average holder of a master’s degree makes $236 more per week than the average holder of a bachelor’s degree.

If that master’s degree holder paid the average of $20,000 for his additional education, in the average time of two years, it would take him about two years to start to see a return on that investment. Though that doesn’t consider the lost time in the field, or the two years of lost income if he wasn’t working, or was only working part time.
You know what will make your average weekly salary climb by about the same amount? Regular old aging!

Unlike getting a master’s degree, aging is free! And the program has auto-enrollment!
What I take away from this is that experience can have an equally powerful effect on your income as an advanced degree. If you spend ages 22-24 getting an advanced degree, monetarily, it’s almost a complete wash with just waiting to turn 25.
Experience in the field is incredibly valuable. When you’re working, you’re adding new skills, growing your network, and (ideally) translating those gains into higher salaries and better positions. You need to think really carefully before you sacrifice that for yet more academic accomplishments.
Your future employer might pay for it
You can get a steep discount on continuing education if you get an employer to subsidize it.
Companies large and small offer this kind of perk. It can be a formal benefit, or something that you negotiate. It can be a really smart move to take a job strategically, knowing you plan to utilize a tuition reimbursement plan.
Plus, these companies will probably have a culture that accommodates the realities of working while also taking classes. They may be more flexible with letting you leave early to get to your class. You can even use your vacation time or sick days to prepare for exams or write major papers. Trying to work and study at the same time is hard enough as it is; you don’t need to also be fighting your boss’s disdain or hardassery.
Just plan it out thoroughly. Schedule a meeting with your HR rep to go over all the terms and conditions of the perk. There may be stipulations about the types of institutions you can use, or the classes you can take. You don’t want any nasty surprises later.
Escape the academic bubble
We’re not talking about how American colleges are a hotbed of leftist propaganda and socialism. Which they are! The chain emails your dad sends you from his AOL.com address can’t be wrong!
Sit for a moment and consider the fact that the average American is in some kind of school setting for six hours a day, from ages six to eighteen. Twelve years is a really, really long time to be in one career—especially a career you did not choose. And higher education will lengthen that career by two, four, six, or eight years. Two decades is a whole lot of life!
Academia is a bubble. The skills you need in school are different from the skills you need in business and life. You will have limited chances to discover if you are entrepreneurial, inventive, good at managing other people…
Socially, when you’re in school, you tend to be surrounded by people with similar interests and similar backgrounds, who are the same age you are and grew up with all the same cultural experiences. That’s an awesome opportunity to form solid friendships that can last a lifetime. I liked my first college roommate so much I started an award-winning blog with her to further disseminate our leftist propaganda and socialism!
But I’ve build much more diverse friendships with people I’ve met at work. I lucked out with a string of snarky older lady mentors, who had so much wit and wisdom to impart. I met people who juggled young kids and aging parents long before my peer group was hitting those milestones. It’s through work that I’m friendly with folks from India and Brazil and Scotland and Haiti and Luxembourg. I wouldn’t hang out with data scientists, or Mormons, or cancer-surviving triathletes, or parents raising six children if I didn’t work with those people.
If you like to learn and identify as a lifelong learner, don’t think that means you need to stay in school forever! The right role will have you learning and challenging yourself every day in ways school cannot.
You can always go back
I feel the same way about careers and advanced degrees as I do about relationships. If it’s meant to be, what’s the rush? Why get married at twenty-two when you could enjoy a long, comfortable period of cohabitation and engagement? You’re going to be together forever either way, right?
If you think you want to pursue a master’s degree, why not give yourself a break first? Take two years, five years, ten years to unwind from taking classes, explore your career, and revel in your own good choice?
A handful of years working in your field—even if it’s at a lower-level—might give you extremely valuable fresh insights into exactly what you want. Something you thought would be boring will turn out to be fascinating; some duty you thought you’d love, you’ll end up disliking. You can relocate to an area that has a higher concentration of jobs in your field and see if you like it. You can acquire mentors who have the career you want and you can talk to them about exactly how they got there.
Take it from this ancient and withered thirty-two-year-old: your life is long enough to take the time to smell the roses.
Learning as an adult is even more rewarding
You also may find that you get more out of college as an adult.
I took horseback riding lessons when I was a kid. There’s this thing you have to do called “two-point.” You position your body like a jockey: barely touching the saddle, butt thrust out, back arched, head up, balancing on the balls of your feet, without slipping and tugging on the horse’s mouth, even as the horse jostles you around. It requires a ton of strength, focus, and balance. It’s completely exhausting to hold. And I remember as a kid absolutely hating it. If my instructor’s attention was momentarily called elsewhere, I’d sneakily slip back into my seat to rest.
Twenty years later, I’m taking lessons again. My instructor left me alone to warm up. And as my horse walked, I voluntarily rose up into my two-point. I experimented with tiny adjustments, and I held it until I was red-faced and shaking. When my instructor came back in, she saw what I was doing and lit up. “This is why I love teaching you. You actually want to learn.”
It really does make all the difference.
Are there any folks out there in Bitch Nation who went to grad school straight out of college? Did you like it? Would you recommend it to someone else? Tell us about it in the comments below! […]

Sometimes I feel really in-touch with America’s youths.
Like when I read a headline about how they don’t care about Joe Biden. “I, too, don’t care about Joe Biden!” I cry, pulling off my readers, rising up out of my Chesterfield, knees cracking, brandishing the physical copy of the newspaper, feeling positively nineteen again!
On the other hand, young people like a lot of wacky shit that I just don’t get. Like the D*va x Lucio ship. And the word “yeet.”
One of the trends I find a little mystifying is the return of interest in astrology. You know. Them little amminals that live in the sky and make us impulsive or conflict-avoidant or whatever. These proto-Pokemon (Capricorn = the Water Goat Pokemon, don’t @ me) are part of an ancient tradition of what we now call woo.
Woo (also called woo-woo) is a catch-all term for pseudoscientific models of thought that don’t hold up to much logical scrutiny, but are popular nonetheless because they simplify the world and appeal to the base human predisposition to find patterns, connections, and order in our extremely strange world.
The term woo can encompass a lot more—everything from the belief in ghosts to the belief in chem-trails. But I’m focusing today on types of woo that are meant to guide adherents through an understanding of the future and/or themselves, like astrology. Because consumption of those beliefs are growing rapidly.

From The Atlantic:

“Callie Beusman, a senior editor at Broadly, says traffic for the site’s horoscopes ‘has grown really exponentially.’ Stella Bugbee, the president and editor-in-chief of The Cut, says a typical horoscope post on the site got 150 percent more traffic in 2017 than the year before.”

So why is astrology making a comeback? I have no judgements, but many theories! And some recommendations for astrology-adjacent ideas that young people might find a little bit more rewarding.
Let’s get into it.
Astrology doesn’t ask us to change
Ask anyone who’s been in therapy for a long time: making progress requires incredibly hard work. It also requires time, money, energy, direction, and the fortitude to deeply examine a lot of unpleasant ideas. If you only talk about easy, surface-level things with your ‘pist, you probably ain’t making a lot of progress toward whatever goals you’ve set for yourself.
Many people use systems like astrology to gain self-knowledge and personal growth. But unlike therapy, astrology frames your life and personality as the product of external influences that are often outside of your control. And taking ownership of internal influences is an enormous amount of never-ending responsibility.
Humans LOVE external causes! External causes ain’t our faults!
“I snapped at my partner because I am an adult who can’t manage her own hanger” becomes “I snapped at my partner because Mars.” It’s easier to write Mars off as an immutable fact of the universe, instead of recognizing your shortcomings and proactively working to slowly shift your lifelong habits.
Also, yes, I am the mysterious unnamed woman who can’t control her hanger in that hypothetical—which is not hypothetical, it’s just my life.
Young people have had to cope with a lot of unprecedented changes. Is it any wonder they’re drawn to a system that doesn’t expect them to be a highly motivated change-agent for every single flipping thing?
Astrology has a low barrier to entry
There are lots of models that people use to understand more about themselves. Some are based on complicated conceptual theories of human psychology, like Myers-Briggs Type Indication. Others are silly and shallow and fictional, like contemplating what Divergent faction you might belong to. (Wow, that series really died a silent death, huh?)
Astrology is low-commitment TV for self-understanding. It’s something you can get into either shallowly or deeply. You can get your information from a supermarket checkout aisle rag or create customized star charts aligning the entire universe with your exact personal point of origin.
There isn’t really a wrong way to do it, which is honestly pretty relaxing to think about.
Astrology puts us where we want to be: at the center of the universe
Millennials, as we well know, have personally committed A Homicide on a long list of products, services, and abstract cultural concepts.
One of the murdered parties? Religion.
At no point in American history has religion polled so low. Young people are substantially less likely to believe in a god than their elders. Almost half of all people under the age of thirty list their religion, when asked, as “none.”
As a nonreligious person, this works a-okay for me! I think there are a lot of benefits to life in a secular world.

But there’s babies getting thrown out with that bathwater. Religion is a longstanding delivery method for a lot of good things: community, care-giving, charity, meditation, unity, purpose, justice.
What I miss most about being religious is the feeling of always having a safety net. It was nice to know that if I spun out on black ice on my way to Cincinnati on a snow white Christmas Eve, someone would be there to take the wheel. Like! That’s a real thing! That’s a real comfort.
Over the centuries we’ve learned that we aren’t all that special as a species. We used to think we were the center of the universe, but we aren’t. We used to think we were being benevolently watched over, but now we don’t. A system like astrology grounds us in an ancient human need to see ourselves as special and important. And it’s really nice to think that the stars hang in the sky just for us!
Astrology has adapted well to new modes of communication
Millennials invented memes; Gen Z perfected them.
Memes are Peak Culture. And systems like astrology are super well-adapted for memeification.
Here’s a random horoscope, rather typical of the variety that was popular from the 1930s to the very recent past:

“This is a tricky day with finances. Make friends with your bank account. If you are in big debt, the posse could be after you. Surprises with anything you own jointly with others could erupt today.”
-Georgia Nicols for The Province
Hardly compelling by today’s standards.
Now, behold: a meme I made myself, in about three minutes!

See? See how easy it is?!
Funny. Recognizable. Relatable. Shareable. Content for our time! I bet you anything this image will get reposted somewhere and end up outperforming this article!
In researching this topic, I found on overwhelming number of blogs, apps, Pinterest boards, and Instagram accounts dedicated solely to creating and distributing horoscope information via memes. Even when they only use the written word, they’re still leaning into the kind of language and tropes that resonate with young people.

What does your zodiac sign say about you if you’re Taurus? In a nutshell, you really like to treat yo’ self.
-Rebecca Lake for Chime Bank
What a poppin’ fresh Parks and Rec reference. The crazy thing is—Rebecca Lake is a real finance writer, with real expertise! And Chime Bank is a real bank, with real money! I kinda can’t believe this exists!
It goes to show you how adaptable astrology is: a belief system that fits in with Buzzfeed Quiz: Your Chipotle® Order Will Reveal Which Marvel® Avengers® Store-Bought Cake You’re Most Likely to Cry into When You Realize These Quizzes Are Nothing but Free Market Research with Random Outcomes!
Astrology is always right
Ah, confirmation bias. The odd quirk of our big monkey brains that causes us to lean on the scales when weighing new information. If it confirms what we already think is true, we hear it loudly; if it contradicts, we filter it out like we never read it at all.
Horoscopes are usually a list of loosely-related suggestions. And the ideas that seem “right” jump out to us, while the stuff that’s obviously wrong fades to the background. So they only need to get a small portion of things “right” for us to register them as true and correct in their entirety.
But objectively, study after study demonstrates that there is no link between the month you are born and the personality traits you possess. And thank god for that! I much prefer the sexually-charged tango of nature and nurture.
When I was reading descriptions of my own sign, I found myself nodding along and saying “yeah, sorta, I guess that’s true.” So out of curiosity, I ran a small experiment. I wrote down twelve traits I thought summarized me as a person.

Kitty describing Kitty: Efficient. Strategic. Witty. Assertive. Charismatic. Loyal. Insightful. Decisive. Protective. Arrogant. Domineering. Lazy.
Accuracy: 12/12

Then I collected twelve traits commonly ascribed to my astrological sign (Pisces).

Astrology describing Kitty: Sensitive. Imaginative. Kind. Compassionate. Intuitive. Selfless. Idealistic. Romantic. Escapist. Weak-Willed. Fearful. Lazy.
Accuracy: 2/12

We’re in agreement on laziness, and I’ll give them intuitive, but everything else is all over the place. Many are in direct opposition. (Weak-willed? Fearful?—I? MON DIEU!) Yet my general impression had been vaguely affirmative! Curse my human brain and its strange, illogical foibles.
It’s harmless—mostly
There’s nothing wrong with liking astrology. Whether you hardcore believe in it or casually follow it, who cares? It’s pretty harmless. And a lot of the hand-wringing over its silliness is probably rooted in sexism. Because remember! Everything is dumber if wimmin like it!
That said, three caveats!
Don’t make important decisions based on horoscopes. A lot of horoscopes nowadays seem to be written as general affirmations and platitudes. That’s awesome! Draw all the inspiration you want from them! But if you’re ready to date someone, or change jobs, or buy a house, or sit inside and eat cheese until you break out in Cheese Sweats, you are the only expert on what you need. Don’t let whatever’s written in a horoscope deter you from doing what needs to be done.
Don’t climb into boxes built by other people. I’m struggling to think of what kind of life I would have today if I honestly believed myself to be what a Pisces is described to be: sensitive, kind, and weak-willed. No one ever used words like “ambitious” or “strategic” to describe me as a young person. I spent a lot of years of life discovering those words, and when I did, it brought me peace and clarity. Which I wish for all of you.
The rate at which you acquire and spend money has nothing whatsoever to do with the distribution of other suns burning billions of light years away. No matter how much those suns sorta look like an aqua!goat when you squint on a clear night. If you’ve told yourself “I’m bad with money,” I am here to gently pry that label out of your hands forever. Handling money is a learned skill, not an indelible character trait.
Alternatives to astrology
Astrology is nothing more than the application of a system to try to understand more about yourself and your place in the world. And I have good news: there are so, so many choices of systems you can investigate!
Therapy
Therapy isn’t available to everyone, and it isn’t necessarily for everyone. But it’s also the best tool we have for helping people understand who they are and why they act the way they do.
Friends
Friends are excellent mirrors to help us see our strengths and weaknesses. I’m happy to have found friends who respect me and expect good things of me. Out of curiosity, I asked three close friends to describe me in four words.

Kitty’s close friends describing Kitty: Insightful. Ambitious. Determined. Powerful. Considerate. Noble. Generous. Genius. Stunning. Fierce. Manipulative. Cunning.
Accuracy: 11/12

I didn’t agree with my partner who kindly described me as “considerate,” but I DID agree with Piggy who slipped that manipulative in there and immediately tried to claw it back with “strategic.” THE SHADE OF IT ALL!

All of that is super aligned with how I view myself! There’s no higher human social need than to be understood. So even the negative terms make me happy because they true!
MBTI
We’ve written a little bit about the intersection of Myers-Briggs personality types, and the differences in how they approach careers and money. The difference between a Myers-Briggs personality type and a horoscope is that the former is based on you as an individual across a number of selective traits, and the other is predicated on literally everyone who shares your birthday.
Reading about your type may lead you to insights about yourself you wouldn’t otherwise discover.

Myers-Briggs describing Kitty: Efficient. Energetic. Confident. Strong-Willed. Strategic. Charismatic. Stubborn. Dominant. Intolerant. Impatient. Arrogant. Ruthless.
Accuracy: 10/12

Woo-hoo! YMMV, but for me, MBTI is #accurate. By necessity, it’s based on simplifications of human behavior. But those simplifications are magnitudes more complex than “what day were you born lol.”
Enneagrams
Enneagrams are another framework for understanding personalities, similar to Myers-Briggs. What I like about Enneagrams is that their descriptions encompass people at their best and at their worst. I’ve definitely observed that when people are stressed out, they act less like their true selves.

Enneagrams describing Kitty: Energetic. Empowering. Direct. Confident. Inspiring. Resilient. Loyal. Compassionate. Protective. Loud. Domineering. Vengeful.
Accuracy: 10/12

Right on, dude, right on.
Sorting Hats
I use the term “sorting hats” as a broad catch-all referring to fictional systems of personality categorization. They were really big in young adult literature for, oh, approximately 10,000 years.
There are tons and tons of fictional systems that are interesting to think about. And we’ll probably keep writing them! In a turbulent time like ours, young adults feel an understandable need to define themselves and join like-minded communities.
Don’t let anybody tell you it’s a waste of time! Thinking about yourself and learning about yourself are healthy habits, and you can arrive at them however you damn well please!
Tarot Cards
“Did this bitch really just shit on astrology as unscientific woo, then turn around and tout tarot cards as a legitimate alternative?” Why yes, I am That Bitch!
I’m an artist. A household name tech company pays me six figures to make art that positions their brand. When Piggy says I’m manipulative, this is one of the manifestations of that trait: I understand how to use visual symbols to whisper to your subconscious. If you walk past an ad I’ve designed, I’ve told you that my product is luxurious, or affordable, or ethical, even if all you did was glance at it without stopping to read a word.
That’s why I love tarot cards. I firmly believe that there is nothing magical, mystical, or supernatural about them. Yet something interesting happens when you present your brain with a random assortment of images loaded with potential meaning (like, IDK, a crawdad interrupting a tense conversation between a dog and a coyote).
Our brains have incredible processing power. We notice a lot, and consciously study only a tiny percentage of it. Those symbols can stir our subconscious and float new concepts up to the surface. The cards don’t “tell you” shit. Sadly, they can’t communicate, because they are bits of paper. But it’s just a fun way to organize all the thoughts you already thought.
Plus tarot artwork is a genre unto itself. Whether you like minimalism, abstraction, old stuff, trendy stuff, meditations on Asian diaspora… Tons of gorgeous conceptual artwork, often by under-appreciated artists.
Concern trolling
I will say that the increasing popularity of astrology among young people does have me a little worried.
As they say in Animorphs: “Earth is a tough neighborhood.” The best defense is a good offense. Skepticism is your pal. You’re less likely to be taken advantage of if you think about things critically and demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
I think the most comforting aspect of astrology is the idea that somebody out there knows what’s going on. They can read the invisible signs, and tap-tap-tap on their keyboards, and suddenly there’s a perfect forecast with all the answers you need. But life just doesn’t work that way. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Nobody. And that’s a thought to keep you cold on warm nights.
It makes me think of this line, from the highly underrated reprise of “Wicked Little Town.”

“You think that luck has left you there
But maybe there’s nothing up in the sky but air.
And there’s no mystical design
No cosmic lover, preassigned.
There’s nothing you can find that cannot be found.
‘Cause with all the changes you’ve been through
It seems the stranger’s always you.

Okay Bitch Nation. What are your thoughts on woo? Where do you stand with this kind of stuff? Have you found it helpful? Relaxing? Defining? Or do you roll your eyes at the whole thing? I mean, yeah, if it wasn’t clear, that’s pretty much where I’m at. But it’s respectful eye-rolling, I swear!
Tell us in the comments below!
More articles on harnessing the power of your personality… […]

I recently went adventuring with some friends. As we were sitting in a hot spring at the end of a long day spent rock climbing in a national park (because we’re like biscotti: glamorous and crunchy), we started talking about money. My favorite topic!
None of these particular friends know about this blog. They don’t know I research money stuff and answer questions about personal finance for fun. So, in the tradition of thirsty voyeurs everywhere, I sat back to listen as my friends talked about negotiating higher salaries and faking it till you make it and—wait, hiring a maid? Ok, so there were clearly some differences in perspective. We’ll come back to that.
One of my friends proudly revealed that she is now making $130k a year at her new job. Babies, I am thrilled for her. She works super damn hard and she’s gifted and brilliant. But what happened next gave me pause.
“Your husband’s an art director, right? So he must be making pretty good money too by now,” I asked.
“Oh no. He only makes $70k a year. And he has student loans,” she answered, sincerely.
That response really took me back for a moment. Because fam… she was describing me exactly. I also make about $70k a year (at two whole jobs). And I also started my career with student loans. Yet I don’t feel like what I have is an “only.”
As a matter of fact, I feel filthy fucking rich.

Times have changed, but the memories remain
I know my friend didn’t mean what she said dismissively. If anything, she may have been trying to downplay her immediate family’s good fortune out of a sense of decorum. But I think it’s an interesting perspective to examine.
We’ve talked about the subjectivity of wealth before. In that piece, I was writing about a time in my life when I made $30k and was still frantically paying off student loans while trying to beat my bills into submission through sheer force of will. And I resented anyone who shrugged off my money problems like there was a handy Get Out of Jail Free card at my disposal.
That was a different time. Since then I’ve paid off my student loans in half the scheduled time, fully funded my various retirement accounts, started investing outside of retirement, bought a home, and paid for a car.
The desperation and resentment I used to feel about reaching monetary goals—nay, just paying my bills—has been replaced by an all-encompassing sense of security.
But I remember how it used to be. With vivid clarity, I recall how utterly my life would have been changed, improved by an additional $5k a year. I remember how furious it made me when people ignorantly suggested that salaries twice as high as mine were poverty wages.
Because I was making it work. And I was making it work with the knowledge that there were those who make it work on even less than I had. It’s a humbling, sobering thing, the understanding of just how people make it work on significantly less money than I make every year.
It all came flooding back in a very visceral, emotional way when my friend said her husband “only” made $70k a year. Is what I have now an “only?”
Controlling my personal narrative
I’m now looking at the subjectivity of wealth from the other side. And I had to remind myself of this to avoid lashing out at my splendid, well-meaning, golden desert mermaid of a friend. Because it doesn’t matter what she or anyone else thinks! At this stage in my #personalfinancialjourney, all that matters is my mindset.
I try to control as much as I can about the amount of money I spend and the amount of money I make. And I train others to seek that greater level of control too, because I think it’s empowering and rewarding. As much as I wish I could, I’m never fully in control of that. However, I am capable of controlling the narrative for myself.
And my narrative dictates that I am not only not “only,” but I feel filthy fucking rich. Like… filthy fucking rich. Here’s why:
I have enough
I have all the money I need, plus some extra. Do you realize how freeing that is? I’ll say it again: I HAVE ALL THE MONEY I NEED PLUS SOME EXTRA.
What unbelievable luxury! What utter opulence! The treat-yo-selfness of this state of being fills me with delirious comfort and satisfaction. I’m basically the love child of Bruce Wayne and a Louis Vuitton dog camisole!

For I have enough.
I have an emergency fund
My emergency fund is nice and fat, which means that when an emergency rears its ugly head, I can handle it without going tits-up.
Remember that time last year when I burned the everloving shitfuck out of my hand and arm? BOOM: EMERGENCY FUNDED. My backyard fence blew down in a windstorm. EMERGENCY FUNDED. My dog needed urgent veterinary care. EMERGENCY FUNDED. I, uh, really wanted some bacon. EMERGENCY FUN-DED.
Many households can’t cope easily with unexpected, large expenses. Lots of people could be financially crippled for months or even years by the wrong emergency at the wrong time. So the fact that I’m able to shrug them off makes me feel indisputably posh af.
I can afford to help
More than once now, I’ve loaned a friend an advance on her paycheck so she could pay her rent on time. I drove a friend to urgent care to get stitches after a terrifying breakfast smoothie accident, and when she didn’t have enough money in her account to cover the bill, I paid it.
Psychological studies demonstrate that wealthy people tend to be less generous with charitable donations than poorer people. The flip side of this is that most poor people probably want to give more than they already do.
I have achieved a level of financial security that allows me to help others without hurting myself. More than anything else on this list, that makes me feel rich.
I can afford most of the things that I want
As the great and glamorous Paula Pant says: “You can afford anything… just not everything.” And I feel that in the best possible way at this point in life.
When I want something, I can afford to buy it, often without the need to save up for very long.
Granted, I don’t think I want much. At least, I’m not one for stuff most of the time. I don’t have a passion for fast cars. Yet I will lustily imbibe the finest of low-range box wines. I don’t say that to virtue signal; one thing isn’t better that the other. There are some people whose fundamental driving passions are expensive. In many ways, I’m lucky that my passions are cheap—or that I’ve been able to successfully wrestle them into submissive cheapness.
But that rock climbing trip to a national park? It’s something I sure as hell wanted, despite being outside the scope of my basic necessities. And I could easily afford it.
Basically, somebody get me on Cribs because that’s the level of wealth I’m rolling in over here.

My bills are all on auto-pay
Once upon a time I had to carefully schedule my bills so that my account was never overdrawn. Now all of my bills are set up to be automatically paid. I don’t have to sweat buckets wondering if my insurance will lapse or my water will be shut off because of precarious bill-juggling.
When bills are forgotten or paid from the wrong account at the wrong time, fees accumulate. And fees make it that much harder to dig out of a financial hole—especially if those fees are from the state or a court. Plus, the act of actively shuffling and managing money is stressful and time-consuming. Calling someone to beg them not to cash the check you sent them is a formative humiliation for a lot of people. It ain’t fun.
Now the bills get paid and I go about my day without noticing. I don’t notice or care about the money leaving my account. How fucking decadent is that shit?! In comparison, that’s Scrooge McDuck levels of opulence!
I save steadily and easily
You know what else is automated? My savings and investments.
People often set aside saving and investing for “someday.” To actually start doing it, you need a confluence of stability, focus, and financial literacy.
And even if you have those three things, you also need a healthy period of good luck. If your apartment catches fire, or you get sick, or you break up with your live-in romantic partner, you could be back to square one despite the best intentions.
I have multiple savings, investment, and retirement accounts, all with different purposes. Just the very fact of having enough money socked away to warrant multiple accounts speaks of absurd levels of wealth. Guys, that’s so much money.
I own my car outright
I don’t have a car payment! Do you realize how fucking liberating that shit is? I bought the damn thing cheap and had it paid off in two fucking years. I’m rolling around town in a vehicle I fully own like

Oh yeah, and if you want to know how I pulled off that action, I wrote all about it here:
The personal finance mediasphere loves to shit on cars. And not needing a car is awesome. But we don’t talk enough about how controlling your own reliable method of transportation is an under-appreciated major life stabilizer. When you’re at the mercy of Lyfting through traffic, bikes that drench you in bad weather, and bus schedules that STRAIGHT UP LIE—it becomes a lot harder to be the reliable person you want to be.
Student loans: managed
I don’t need to tell y’all that student loans are a crushing millstone around the neck of every single generation in America right now. Student loan debt is among the few kinds of debt that can’t easily be discharged (or “got the fuck rid of”) in bankruptcy.
Despite the absurd costs, a four-year degree requirement guards the gates of most stable career paths like a monstrous, classist Cerberus. Nine out of every ten new jobs are going to someone with a college degree. The debt crisis grows on and on.
I’m lucky. I graduated with $28,000 in loans, which is below the current average of $38,000. My industry wasn’t exactly tiptoeing through the daffodils during the Great Recession, but we also weren’t as pummeled as others. The result is that I paid my student loans off years ago. This one event, more than anything else, changed my financial life.
It was like suddenly getting a massive raise without having to ask for it—without the negotiating, justifying, pleading, and awkward boss confrontations! I just sent in that last payment and suddenly more of my money was truly mine again.
Coins may jingle, children, but paper folds soooo nicely.
I feel rich af…

For all of these reasons, I am filthy fucking rich. And I “only” make $70,000 a year at two jobs.

I’m a fucking baller, you guys! Watch me pay my bills like it ain’t no thang! You need $20 for gas this week? I got you, friend! Fender bender? Check out how I pay that shit from my thicc emergency fund! (Is this proper use of “thicc”? Because in addition to being rich I am also deeply, deeply old.)
“Rich” is not a dollar amount to me. It’s a practical function. I have enough and then some. Therefore, I’m rich. And admitting that, embracing that, has opened me up to both satisfaction and generosity in a way I couldn’t before I was rich.
Taking stock of my advantages, assessing how my personal finances have improved over the years has done wonders for my outlook on the present and the future. My friend’s perspective on her husband’s income definitely shook me for a hot second! But other people’s subjective idea of wealth doesn’t have to have any bearing whatsoever on me.
After all, what do I care? I’m hella rich, bitches!
… but maybe what I really am is “middle class”?
The middle class! I have heard the Mystics speak of it! It was in the Before Times: before the coming of the Skeksis and the sundering of the Crystal.
Looking back on all the benchmarks that make me feel rich, I’m struck by how eminently reasonable they are. Humane, even.
How low have my expectations fallen that a comfortable, modest lifestyle feels so decadent? That visiting national parks (A THING I PARTIALLY OWN, AS A TAX-PAYING CITIZEN, BALD EAGLE SCREEEEECH) feels luxurious? That having a lifestyle that can withstand an injury, or a major repair bill, feels downright elite?
My state of richness is entirely internal, rather than based on social comparison. I’m not rich in comparison to Beyoncé, hallowed be her name. I’m not rich next to Warren Buffett, though I have mad respect for his game. I certainly do not have Jeff Bezos money, an amount so bloated and disgusting it manifests pitchforks and torches into my hands. And though I may not even be rich compared to my friend who makes $130k a year, both of us can meet all of our needs and wants.
I’ve been dancing around a point, but here it is: listening to rich people refer to themselves as “middle class” makes my skin crawl. I once nannied for a millionaire with a heated koi pond in his house’s courtyard who told my husband, “Not bad for a middle class family, eh?” It made me want to break things.
Yet I cannot deny that everything that makes me feel rich, all the comfort and security I have achieved at my level of wealth… doesn’t seem unreasonable. I don’t actually believe that an emergency fund and the ability to automate one’s bills denotes staggering luxury. These things are normal. Or they damn well should be, anyway.
I feel rich, but I wish I felt middle class. I wish my lifestyle were more common, that none of what makes me feel rich were out of the ordinary for ordinary people. Yet it is. […]

Listen you lazy, entitled whiners: it’s easy to pay for college. Just get a summer job! Why, in my day I worked weekends as a fry cook down at the diner on Main, graduated without debt, and now I’m sixty-five years old and completely delusional about the inflated costs of higher education! Ask me more about the house I bought for $60,000 and how much I resent the respectful empathy of the children I raised!
Sorry, y’all. Probably should’ve started that with a trigger warning.
Whenever we write about student loans, we get at least one comment like this. Except with more caps lock. We delete them. We never silence interesting criticism, but come on, this ain’t a public square for every old man who wants to yell at a cloud! We pay good money for this web hosting!
At least where the cost of college is concerned, things aren’t what they used to be. Thirty years ago, it cost the modern equivalent of $8K per year to attend a public college and $18K per year to attend a private college.
Today, the same year of school would cost $21K and $48K. And you’re supposed to buy FOUR of them!

If the cost of regular goods and services grows at a steady walking pace, the cost of higher education is galloping away like a Triple Crown winner whose ass just met a hornet. I didn’t even mention the cost of textbooks, room and board, and other academic fees, which are all even worse. Can’t be giving you nightmares!
Meanwhile, average hourly wages have barely increased 11% (adjusted for inflation), making the wage-to-college-cost-ratio just fucking laughable. Yet college is still a barrier to entry into not only white collar jobs, but an ever-increasing number of blue collar jobs.

My purpose here is not to unpack the absurd inflation of higher education costs in recent years (I’d need another 2,500 words, and I can only hold your attention through so many gifs). Nor is it to debate the relative value of a college degree (another 3,000 words).
Instead, I want to focus on practical solutions for people who’ve already weighed their options and decided that college is right for them. Yes, a traditional four-year undergraduate degree is heckin’ expensive as fuck. Short of The Deep Magic, how do we mere mortals even attempt to pay for it?

Grants
Over $2.9 billion in federal college grants went unclaimed in 2014. That’s $2.9 billion that could’ve been used to lessen the debt burden of recent graduates all over the country. Wasted.
And it’s all for want of a completed FAFSA form.
Grants, like scholarships, are free money for school. Whether they’re from the federal government, state governments, or private college aid programs, grants are given out on a first-come-first-served, need-dependent basis. And you nab ’em by filling out the FAFSA.
The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the one and only form you fill out to qualify for financial aid for college. Filling it out should be inextricably linked in your mind with the college application process. You need to fill it out between October 1st and June 30th the year before you start college, but the sooner the better. Because remember: most of the grants and financial aid doled out because of the FAFSA are on a first-come-first-served basis, honey. Get it before it runs out!
There is literally no catch: just complete the form and send it in. And because we believe in gently guiding our beloved readers by the hand into the warm embrace of financial freedom, here’s a handy link:
FILL OUT YOUR GODDAMN FAFSA RIGHT FUCKING HERE.
Scholarships
One of the most lauded ways of paying for college is through scholarships.
Scholarships are basically free money. You don’t have to save it up yourself, you don’t have to pay it back, and in many cases you barely have to earn it. It’s just pure-as-the-driven-snow, no-strings-attached cash for college, full stop.
And lest you think scholarships are only for the smartest of kids who skipped homecoming to study for midterms, allow me to disabuse you of that notion! There are scholarships for everything. There are left-handed scholarships. A scholarship for making your prom dress out of duct tape. This scholarship awarded to the student who applies for the most scholarships. A scholarship for living in a mobile home (at last, a truly valid reason to love the tiny house movement). Scholarships for being tall! Scholarships for being vegetarian! And my personal favorite: the Zombie Apocalypse Scholarship.
And yes, there are also plenty of merit-based scholarships, so don’t think you can coast through senior year without doing your homework just because you’re a tall, left-handed vegetarian who lives in a mobile home and practices their crossbow headshots on the weekend. (Though if you are, boy howdy do I want to meet you!)
You might notice, in clicking the examples above, that many scholarships don’t offer much money—a few grand here and there. And while there are hefty scholarships that’ll pay for a whole year or more of college, the competition for these bad boys is fiercer than a drag queen in a Ru Paul’s audition tape.
Which is why we recommend the tactic of applying for as many of the smaller, less competitive scholarships as you can. For there’s no limit to how much scholarship money you can collect. And the little ones add up quick.
Here are some of the best places to start looking for scholarships:
Work study
Many colleges offer a federal work study program, which allows students who need financial help to work a part-time job on campus.
The jobs available vary from food service to bookstore clerk to custodian to person-who-sits-at-the-door-of-the-dorm-and-checks-in-residents. (Or my favorite: the campus convenience store clerk too busy munching on stolen Parmesan Goldfish to scold you for stealing Parmesan Goldfish.) The compensation comes in the form of actual money, not just tuition forgiveness or reimbursement.
In many ways, it’s the same as getting a part-time job off-campus, but with a few more advantages. For one thing, the applicant pool is smaller, so you have a better chance of getting a work study than an off-campus gig. And for another, if you apply for federal work study and qualify, the school has to give you a job. And the job security is pretty legit too, as the school is unlikely to go out of business mid-semester and lay you off, unlike the Earth’s last Blockbuster Video.
You’ll earn at least the federal minimum wage, which (see above) is generally not enough to cover the full cost of a four-year undergraduate program plus living expenses. So those who can get a higher-paying job off campus might be better off that way.
Working and saving
As the triggering fictional Baby Boomer of the introduction is fond of reminding us, you can get a job and pay for college yourself!
Not that anyone needs this reminder, of course. It’s the four-piece jigsaw puzzle of how-to-pay-for college advice.
Lots of people work throughout high school to save money for college. And still more keep working through their university years! Personally, I’m grateful for the time I spent balancing a job and classes. As hard and stressful as it was at times, it still taught me shit like time management and the value of money. And it gave me the perfect ammunition for firing back at assholes who insult me for using student loans “instead of just getting a job.”

I worked as a part-time nanny during college, earning $20 an hour. Cash. Under the table. And while minding the spoiled children of the uber-wealthy is its own unique form of punishment, I’m not gonna lie: it was a pretty sweet gig! But it still wasn’t enough to pay for my tuition, rent, food, commute, and other living costs and college-related expenses.
The advantage of earning money through working is, of course, that you neither need to pay it back, compete for it with other students, nor rely on the generosity of others. Trading your time for money is the kind of red-blooded, salt-of-the-earth shit you can feel proud of.
It’s also fucking hard. Scheduling a job around classes is its own sort of logistical nightmare, and choosing between studying for a major exam and taking a shift to pay for said exam is a cruel joke. Yes, you should get a job during college if you can. But it’s not the one-size-fits-all solution some make it out to be.
Go to an elite university
Super elite universities are also super expensive. But here’s the thing: they’re also super desperate to dispel their reputations as classist gatekeepers unfairly filled with legacy students. Which means they’re somewhat more likely than state schools to dispense financial aid to low-income students.
Put plainly: if you’re from a low-income family, you are more likely to get a full ride from Cornell than you are from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
On the surface, it makes no sense. Elite private school tuition is magnitudes more expensive than that of your average state college!
And yet elite colleges also have more money than God. (Listen to the excellent Revisionist History episode on why you shouldn’t donate to fucking Stanford.) So it follows that if they want to extend a generous financial aid package to a needy student… they can. Easily.
So if you’re limiting your college search to modest state schools and less expensive institutions because you’re worried about paying for college, think again. Your reach school might be just as eager to have you as you are to get that swanky degree.
Student loans
At last we come to it: student loans.
I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but I need you to hear the truth. You could spend hundreds of hours pursuing grants and scholarships and never get even one.
Do you know how many hours I spent answering soul-baring personal essay prompts in pursuit of money that would never, ever materialize? Many. Admittedly, many of the tactics covered here work best for great students with compelling personal stories. And while that may not be you, it also shouldn’t disqualify you from furthering your education.
And unfortunately, there are some things you can’t control that may negatively impact your eligibility for aid. For example, Kitty’s tuition bill shot up when her father remarried because on paper, his household’s income suddenly doubled. Does anyone at the FAFSA office care that it’s gauche af to expect a new stepparent to pay for her adult stepchild’s schooling? Nope! That’s firmly in the category of “shit happens.”
So if you’ve tried everything, and you haven’t found success, don’t beat yourself up.
Student loans are the great equalizer. But oh, how we despise them.

Student loans work like any other debt: the lender gives you money up front to pay for school, and you pay it back later on… with interest. For exactly why this bargain with the Devil sucks rabid monkey balls, we wrote all of this:
There are basically two kinds of student loans…
Federal student loans
If you must get a student loan or three, try to only get federal student loans.
Federal loans are provided by the federal government, rather than a private lender, and they come with a few distinct advantages. Mind you, they’re still loans, which means you’re still taking on debt, but they’re almost always preferable to private student loans. Here’s a summary of the differences:
Federal student loans aren’t due until after you graduate or leave school.
Interest rates are fixed and generally lower than private loans.
Often the government subsidizes the interest, paying it while you’re still in school.
You don’t have to pass a credit check to qualify for a federal loan.
They can be consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan.
The repayments can be postponed or lowered through a number of options including deferral, Income Based Repayment, or forbearance.
There’s no penalty for prepaying the loan or paying it off early.
Some federal loans qualify for loan forgiveness if you work in public service.
In times of extreme financial turbulence (see: right the fuck now) the federal government may pass legislation like the CARES Act to give borrowers a little relief.
Private student loans
Private student loans are provided by a bank, credit union, state agency, or school. They should be your college tuition payment of last resort.
They truly are the Devil at the Crossroads of college payment plans. You accept that sweet, sweet tuition money up-front… and four years down the line the Devil comes to collect with a lethal dose of strychnine in your moonshine devastating interest rates and an ironclad repayment schedule.
Private student loans often require you to pay them back while you’re still enrolled in school, or only offer deferment with full interest during this time.
Interest rates are generally higher than federal student loans… and they can be fixed or variable, meaning they can “raise your rent” whenever they feel like it. And trust us: they will feel like it.
They’re not subsidized. You’re responsible for paying all of the interest.
You need to be able to pass a credit check or have a co-signer with good credit.
They can’t be consolidated, though they can be refinanced.
Postponing your payments usually comes with a hefty penalty.
There is often a penalty fee for prepayment.
Loan forgiveness? Bitch please.

This isn’t a “choose your fighter” scenario. You should be doing some combination of all of the above to pay for college. Don’t rely solely on the FAFSA (unless they give you a really, really good financial aid package) or apply for a handful of scholarships and call it good. And definitely don’t think you’ll be able to pay your room and board through a federal work study alone. Eggs! Baskets! Combine them wisely!
Elder members of Bitch Nation—how did you pay for college? And what did it cost? Share with the whole class in a comment. Bonus points for actionable tips to the wee baby bitches on their way to college. […]

It’s hard to pinpoint which personal finance site I dislike the most. There are so many tone-deaf mansplainers and pyramid scammers to choose from!
… But The Penny Hoarder is way up there.
I see their ads everywhere. And I’ve read more than a few of their articles, thanks to their scientifically-engineered-for-maximum-clickbait titles. But they are so utterly and embarrassingly saturated with affiliate referral links promising “quick” and “easy” money that I feel the strong need to shower afterwards.
Ugh. I just really hate that kind of crap.
Spoiler alert, kids: almost nothing worth doing can be done quickly or easily. By definition, people only seek quick and easy solutions to long and hard problems! “One cool trick” ads ain’t out there saving lives.
If there were miracle exercises that gave you Jason Momoa’s body with only ten minutes of weekly exercise, there would be no highly compensated personal trainers in LA, and everyone would look like Jason Momoa. (And what a lovely planet that would be!)
If there were miracle diets or supplements that could really change the shape of your body quickly and easily, we’d’ve discovered them millennia ago, because there is nothing on this green earth that a human being hasn’t shoved in their pie hole. The only truly new food we have invented in the last ten thousand years is Velveeta, and in my hands-on experience, eating Velveeta initiates a slow process of becoming Velveeta.
If there were some miracle product that could eliminate acne, there wouldn’t be 2.5 aisles full of hundreds of different skincare products at Target. We would just use The One!
The same is absolutely true for money as well. If it could grow on trees, there’d be a fuck ton more arborists. Alas, currency is a scarce commodity that’s difficult and time-consuming to accumulate by its very nature.
I say all of this so that you understand how shocked I am to be writing an article with this headline… and meaning every word of it.
I just made $1,900 very quickly and very easily. And you may be able to make money in the exact same way—but it only works if you are as irresponsible and disorganized as I am.
Intrigued? Mwa ha ha… good.

What is unclaimed property?
“Unclaimed property” is a blanket term for any money that’s been sitting inactive with a business or financial institution for a length of time. (Guidelines vary, but usually it’s one year.)
It could be…
Checking or savings accounts
Stocks
Uncashed checks
Stock dividends
Trust distributions
Unredeemed money orders
Refunds for customer overpayments
Security deposits
Insurance payments
And more!
How does it work?
Let’s say you move into your first apartment and plop down a $500 security deposit.
Years pass. You eventually get a new job, move to a new city, and leave your old apartment behind. And you didn’t provide your old landlords with your new address, so the rental management company has no idea where to send your $500 check.
By law, the rental company can’t just keep your money. They must turn it over to the State Treasurer. The Treasurer keeps a record of to whom the money belongs. If that person reappears and proves their identity, the Treasury will cut them a check for the missing money.
How common is this?
Uh, real common! About one in ten people have unclaimed property.
When I started searching for unclaimed property, I plugged in the names of about thirty of my closest friends and family members. Almost half of them had something waiting for them!
It’s not too unusual when you consider how many people spend their twenties moving from dorm to dorm, apartment to apartment, part-time job to part-time job, across different cities and states. Of course it’s easy to lose just one piece of mail!
The money may not even be yours! If you’ve inherited an estate (from the passing of, say, a parent or grandparent), your deceased family member could have unclaimed property. As their heir, you’re entitled to it.
So wait—how do I know if I have unclaimed property?
Y’all. It’s so fucking simple I kinda wanna cry…
You go to the official website of the Treasury Department of your state. Then you type in your first and last name, and hit search.
That’s. It.
Last known addresses, towns, or counties are usually provided to help differentiate between people with similar names. Also, the search function likely won’t tell you how much money it is.
You can Google your state’s name, plus the term “unclaimed property.” Or check out this handy list from Unclaimed.Org.
WARNING: be extra careful that you’re actually clicking on a legit link! It really doesn’t help that 100% of these websites are suspiciously ugly and badly designed. And although some have very legit-sounded URLs (like Nevada’s NevadaTeasurer.gov or Missouri’s Treasurer.MO.gov), others have extremely suspicious-sounding names. I have no idea what  Florida’s “FLTreasureHunt.gov” or New Hampshire’s “NewHampshire.FindYourUnclaimedProperty.com“ were thinking! Where’s the .gov hustle, Granite State??
So always follow the link directly from a reputable source.
What happens if I DO have unclaimed property?
It differs slightly from state to state and account to account. But for me, the process was extraordinarily simple.
I clicked “submit a claim” for the two accounts that appeared to be me. Filled in a few easy fields and hit “send.” Within a few minutes, I got an automated email asking for me to do three things:
Sign and upload a document that basically says “I promise I’m not lying about who I am to do you A Bamboozle.”
Upload proof of your identity, such as a photo of your driver’s license.
Upload proof of your social security or tax number, such as your social security card or an copy of a past year’s tax filing.
Once I uploaded those three documents to their online portal, a check from the Treasury Department appeared about a week later. I cashed it this very morning.

Wait, you really made $1,900 this way?
Sigh…
I am not proud to admit this, but, yes.
I found two unclaimed properties. One was a prorated refund from an auto insurance policy I’d canceled. So that was about about $20. “Hey, cool, $20 buys a lot of Skyr!”
Side note: Do you think Icelandic Provisions wants to sponsor the next season of our podcast? Because I will talk for hours about the firm, velvety texture and tangy-yet-sweet flavor of their extremely perfect fermented dairy product, but my inner capitalist says “Don’t do it, what if Chobani or Dannon want to sponsor you one day!?” But honestly, I already know that I have too much integrity to ever hawk such SAD, SLOPPY, FLOPPY YOGURTS. That shit is mad unacceptable.
Skyr ’till I die. No, Skyr from beyond the grave. When I die, brick me up inside a pharaoh’s pyramid with six hundred cartons of Coconut Skyr. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk and all but what was I talking about before this…?
Yes, I’m scatterbrained. This isn’t an “I’m perfect, be like me” blog. It’s an “I’m often lazy and disorganized, plz don’t be like me” blog.
So, uh, the other account was for $1,872.
Evidently, when I started at my first-ever Big Girl corporate job, I had opened an HSA. I’m sure I just followed whatever prompts I was given as I worked through a mountain of paperwork in my first week! I put $50 a month into that HSA, apparently. It quietly accumulated without my knowledge over the two to three years I worked at that company, then sat unclaimed, waiting to be rediscovered.

I’m pretty embarrassed that I could lose track of nearly $2K that easily. It just goes to show you how right Piggy was when she wrote about the magic of rounding up! I didn’t miss such a small amount of money per paycheck, but it had one helluvah glow up.
Also, read some of those papers you’re signing, I guess? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Can anyone beat my record?
Alright, readers. Here’s your call to action. Go to Unclaimed.org, click on your state, and do a quick search for your name and the names of a few close loved ones, including anyone whose estate you’ve inherited.
If you find some money, tell us how much in the comments below!
And if anyone is able to beat my $1,894.61, I will prostrate myself on the ground at your feet and hail you as The One True Queen of Disorganization, Wearer of the Jewel-Encrusted Crown of Perpetual Tardiness, Bearer of the Royal Scepter of Lifelong Undiagnosed ADHD, Keeper of the Golden Keys of Where The Fuck Are My Keys, Ope, There They Are, They Were Exactly Where They’re Supposed To Go, Which Really Threw Me Off. […]

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