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You have been trying for years to pay off your debts, and you are getting nowhere. It is only natural to feel demoralized. Even those lab rats that press the lever multiple times, but it gives them treats less and less often, eventually give up. Of course, you are not a lab rat, and you…

When you are watching every penny, you sit at home and make financial calculations in your mind while other people are out engaging in leisure pursuits, or so the influencers on YouTube would have you believe, then you try to spend your free time on income-generating activities, or at least on doing things that do…

If you are bummed out about the fact that everyone in California has been in a foul mood for as long as you can remember, count your blessings. Try driving a few states east to Utah or Texas, where the older generations have managed to impress upon their daughters, even in these turbulent times, that…

In a perfect world, no one would need to use credit cards, but a perfect world is so far away that you have already maxed out one credit card with grocery purchases and other expenses that no one would consider luxuries, and now you are running up the balance on at least one other card.…

How bad your finances are is, at least partially, a matter of perspective. Sure, you don’t have any money left at the end of the month to put into savings. If you are so optimistic that you transfer a percentage of your paycheck into savings every payday, then you end up transferring it back into…

In the corners of the Internet dedicated to the debt-free lifestyle, people will tell you that you should never borrow money under any circumstances. People who manage to do this are relying in part on good luck. Who can own a house without taking out a mortgage loan?  Only people who inherited houses from relatives…

Reading the news can fill you with dread, and most Internet content is designed to play on your insecurities, even if they are of a personal nature, but you can also count on the Internet to find evidence that there are other people out there who are even more hopeless than you are. According to…

It is infuriating when old people give you outdated financial advice that makes it sound like your financial problems are all your fault. They tell you that you are wasting money by paying rent instead of a mortgage, but they do not have a plan for how you can qualify for a mortgage and get…

If you have accessed the Internet at any time in the past decade, you have probably found content about how people your age do not understand the financial struggles that young people are facing, and that you and your peers are unfairly blaming the young generation for their dismal financial situation. Now think about the…

Making your debts go away quickly comes at a cost. The best-case scenario is that you win the lottery, inherit money from a relative, or land your dream job; if that happens, you will gain money but lose friends, either because they are jealous of you or because your newfound fortune brings out your worst…

Getting through another month without overdrawing your bank account and without incurring any more late fees feels like a win.  You should congratulate yourself by doing something that ostensibly doesn’t cost any money, like going for a walk for the length of time it takes to listen to three songs or procrastinating going to bed…

Not having any money is bad enough, but it only adds insult to injury when you check your bank account balance, and it shows you a negative number, so you can see exactly how much less than nothing you have.  The indignity of having an overdrawn bank account does not end as soon as you…

Florida may call itself the Sunshine State, but the muggy Everglades, where the alligators can always slide into the water to cool off, and the single-family homes where a chill sets in during the daily lightning storms, have got nothing on the likes of Death Valley, where there is no shade, no rain, and no…

The rumblings about one or another flyover state unseating California as the new favorite destination for working-age adults in the Sun Belt have only been getting louder since the COVID-19 pandemic tempted us with the possibility of continuing to work at our high-paying jobs. Every time you open a news app or social media feed,…

Everywhere you look, you see self-help content that explicitly tells you, or else implicitly operates on the assumption that winning at all costs is the only acceptable option. The Internet, where everyone antagonizes each other openly, seems to be united in the belief that everyone who does not get what they want through honest or…