enRICHed: volume 120

pisces season

Mar 09, 2025

Volume 120

Hey besties!

If you’ve been here for a while, you know I LOVE salary transparency: tell us what you made, how you made it and how you got there. This is something I especially love to do on the podcast, because if you’re coming on Networth and Chill, come with receipts! This week, we had a real treat! On the pod, I sat down with Brandon Edelman aka Bran Flakezz to chat all about his journey as a content creator and how much he actually makes. From his earnings in 2024, to taxes and paying his team, Bran breaks it all down to the dollar for us! New episodes of the podcast drop every single Wednesday so be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE or follow Networth and Chill wherever you get your podcasts!

Plus, keep up with the podcast on Instagram and TikTok!

As a reminder:

HYCU, pronounced haiku: how the news impacts you and your wallet, aka How You Can Use
The Prosperitea: think discount codes, non-boring finance articles, sales, and personal links from the week. The fun stuff 😉
We love your comments, but please remember to keep it positive! And don’t take investing advice from anyone who isn’t your registered financial advisor!

Now that you’re up to speed, let’s get you enRICHed.

Private Or Public? 📚📝

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a heartbeat away from enacting a $1 billion school voucher program that would provide tens of thousands of students with taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuition, adding fuel to the school choice movement led by conservatives.
If this gets passed, it would be the biggest school voucher program in US history, allowing more than 5 million public school students to access private school funding.
A few other states like Wyoming, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina have followed their lead, with Wyoming opening publicly-funded vouchers to all families, and the other three expanding their universal voucher programs.
HYCU; This plan sounds great in theory, but will realistically just benefit students already enrolled in private school, since the vouchers don’t actually cover the full cost of private tuition, so families who can’t pay the rest are out of luck. It’s also likely that only a fraction of students will actually leave for private schools in the program’s first year, so the impact of how many people will be affected overall is TBD. That being said, just because the movement’s being led by conservatives doesn’t mean everyone likes it. Both Republicans and Democrats who care about the families who rely on good public schools to raise their children are leading a cross-party effort to try and block Abbott’s program, saying that the plan won’t actually help these low-income families. It’ll likely also have impacts on special education programs, too. If you’re in Texas and have a school-aged child, definitely take a deeper look and see what it could mean for you and your family.

Everyone Getting Laid Off 💔

It appears the funemployment streets are filling up once more, as everyone faces layoffs left and right: according to reporting from CNBC, US employers announced 172,017 layoffs for February, up 245% from January and the highest monthly count since July 2020.
Over 30% (62,242) of these layoffs came from Elon Musk’s DOGE, which has been cutting jobs in the federal government in the name of slashing the budget.
It’s a really tough time to be laid off—there’s a lot of concern about the job market and the economy in general, especially as tariffs, political dissent, and mass deportations all begin to put more stress on the already-high cost of living.
HYCU; If you have been laid off in the last month, there are a few things you can do to make sure the next few months are manageable: make sure you ask HR for a layoff letter in order to help with your job hunt; investigate a severance package in case your company can give you some money to make ends meet (I’d ask for four weeks per year of employment - different industries will offer more or less); register for unemployment as soon as possible so you can get some assistance while you’re going through this tough time. Hopefully, setting these things up for yourself will give you a bit of financial breathing room and allow you to grieve a little bit, because losing your job is incredibly hard, and processing it is a major process in itself.

Bottoms…Down 🥃✋

As President Trump continues to swing back and forth on enacting different tariffs, many CEOs are beginning to complain about the impacts they’ll have on their business.
Automakers got a one-month break from the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico after the Big Three car companies (Ford, General Motors and Stellantis) spoke with Trump about how these additional fees would impact their businesses—which led to this month long pause that’s basically there to give everyone a little time to figure out how to make up-to-code cars without jacking up the prices too much. Should be no problem at all, right? Right?
Not to mention that Canada, in retaliation to the tariffs, began pulling American goods from the shelves, which led the CEO of Jack Daniel’s parent company to say that the move was “worse than a tariff.” Who knew Canada drank so much whiskey?
HYCU; We’ve already talked so much about how these tariffs are going to inevitably raise our costs, since companies are basically about to pass these levies to our wallets, but this is an interesting snapshot as to what goods will be impacted first. It’s also a sign that the execution of this will probably be mostly really confusing, since this sort of back-and-forth of enacting, pausing, and reenacting is going to disrupt business a lot. It’s also been impacting the stock market quite a bit as people react in confusion.

Marisol asks, “Hi all, my company granted me RSUs which have now vested. Since I accepted the grant, they were transferred to an individual brokerage account and they have been sitting there. The shares are now mine to sell. With a projected decrease of GDP (and recession), I would like to diversify. It makes me nervous as I already saw a 2.68% drop today. Is it too late?”

Hi Marisol! First off, congrats on those RSUs vesting! 🎉 Now, when it comes to market fluctuations, it’s totally normal to feel a bit anxious—especially with talk of GDP changes and recessions. Here’s how this typically works: once your RSUs vest and become yours, they count as income, and any future gains or losses are subject to capital gains tax.

Here’s something most people don’t realize: while it’s tempting to react to daily market changes, long-term investing often involves riding out these ups and downs. Historical patterns show that markets tend to recover over time. So, even if you’re seeing a drop today, it might not be the end of the world for your portfolio.

This matters because selling in a panic can lock in losses, whereas holding on might allow you to recover when the market bounces back. One thing to think about is your overall financial strategy—diversifying can help spread risk, but it’s also important to consider your comfort with market volatility and your long-term goals. So to bluntly answer your question, no it’s not too late, but if those vested RSUs don’t account for too massive of a portion of your portfolio, is there a reason you’re itching to sell?

Net net: Many people don’t realize that timing the market perfectly is nearly impossible. Instead, you should focus on building a diversified portfolio that aligns with your risk tolerance and financial objectives.

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Rich Tip of the Week: Are we going into a recession?
Hackers have been arrested for fencing $600,000 worth of stolen Taylor Swift tour tickets, in case you needed another reminder that you should never mess with a Swiftie.
Speaking of standoms, I’ve been obsessed with the solo album releases of the Blackpink girls, namely the Lisa album and this Jennie x Doechii song!
This Pokémon-shaped Cheeto sold for $78,000…

SEE YOU IN THE COMMENTS BESTIES