enRICHed: volume 85

yearning and earning 💸

Jun 30, 2024

Volume 85

Hey besties!

So you know how last week in the newsletter I wrote about having financial boundaries to help you save money? Well, I might need to take my own advice on this one, because I just cut some big checks for my wedding. I wasn’t prepared for how emotional planning a wedding would be. It can be really hard to say no to things when it comes to planning a giant party for friends and family. What started as a simple event has somehow devolved into a three day extravaganza. Almost wish I was kidding. Although I'm incredibly lucky to be in a financial position where my husband-to-be and I can really splurge on our special day, always make sure to spend your dollars where your values lie! In our case, we’re splurging on food and entertainment, but doing our best to save on florals, paper goods, and furniture rentals. Hope our guests love the pastas we paid for!

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.

I Got My Temu On Amazon 🛍

Amazon is apparently making plans to launch a new budget storefront that features low-cost apparel, home goods and other items, the company announced in a private event for potential sellers in China.
The new storefront would basically compete directly with retailers like Temu and Shein, and would be entirely dedicated to fashion and lifestyle items and would allow Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers.
Stores like Temu and Shein have become some of the e-commerce giant’s biggest competitors in recent months, establishing their footprint in the American market with big marketing rollouts and dirt-cheap prices for literally any kind of product you could think of—matching Lilo & Stitch shower sets, button-activated rice dispensers, or a stick-on automatic hand dryer (for all those times you wanted your own home to feel like an airport bathroom).
HYCU; The company will begin accepting sellers in the fall, so if you’re thinking about getting into the direct selling or dropshipping game, this might be interesting to follow. (Though, it's definitely not as easy of a sidehustle as the internet gurus make it seem.) As for us buyers, yeah, the products will probably be really cheap, but Temu and Shein have already come under fire for their labor practices, environmental impact, and shoddy quality. Listen, I respect a Temu warlock. But at some point, I need my stuff to start lasting beyond this month.

Contraception Is Free, But People Are Still Paying 🩺

Last week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate why insurance companies are still charging women for birth control, despite it being free under federal law.
If you didn’t know, private insurance plans have been required to cover the “full range” of FDA-approved contraceptives since 2012 (thank you Affordable Care Act), which includes products like female sterilizations and emergency contraceptives (like Plan B), as well as services like counseling, insertions or removals, and follow-up care.
This means that consumers technically shouldn’t have any co-payments with in-network providers, even if they haven’t met their deductibles—but as we all know, this isn’t always true. Sanders cited a study that showed around 25 percent of women with private insurance plans said they paid at least some part of the cost of their birth control.
In a letter to the office, Sanders pointed out that people are not only being charged for these contraceptives, but companies have also been denying appeals from consumers who were seeking to have their contraceptives covered.
HYCU; Paying for things you shouldn’t have to? Not in this household! If you’ve ever been charged for contraceptive-related costs, make sure you talk to your doctor and your insurance company to remind them that the law says you shouldn’t have to pay. The National Women’s Law Center also has a hotline where they can look at your plan and sometimes help you get reimbursements. Hopefully with more focus on reproductive rights in the government, there can be more enforcement put into place around all this, so you can save your coin.

Walgreens Shutting Down Locations 😱🏥

Walgreens is set to close a “significant” number of its 8,600 locations in the United States as the company looks to reset the struggling pharmaceutical chain’s business.
CEO Tim Wentworth announced this week that it would be closing 25% of “underperforming stores” as part of a multiyear optimization program. Other factors for the upcoming closures include stores that are too close together or struggling with theft.
The struggle to keep wages in line with inflation, as well as lower reimbursement rates and competition from Amazon, has taken a pretty major bite into the store’s sales. They’re not the only ones, either—CVS and Rite Aid have also struggled recently, closing down hundreds of locations in the past few years.
HYCU; If you rely on your local Walgreens for prescription refills, it might be a good idea to wait and see if they’re shutting down, and then figure out where they’ll transfer your location to. Those working at Walgreens also could face layoffs amidst the store shutdowns. It’s not happy news, but hopefully you’ll have time to prepare your next steps before the stores close. My bigger, long-term concern is how will this impact people living in pharmaceutical deserts—and if it could create even more pockets where people can’t easily access their medications.

Yearning, Not Earning 💔

New data from the Department of Labor released this week revealed that the number of people receiving jobless benefits for multiple weeks climbed to its highest level since November 2021.
Basically, unemployed Americans are having a tougher time finding new jobs, and they’re also spending longer periods of time filing for unemployment. The number of job openings on the market fell to a three-year low last month—meaning that as layoff activity continues to rise, there aren’t enough jobs to pull people out of joblessness.
Economists told CNN that hiring and firing indicators point to a significant slowing in job growth over the next three months—meaning this lull of job searching might continue through the end of September.
HYCU; These streets are brutal, and we finally have the data to prove it. At the very least, if you’re currently thinking about switching to a new job, perhaps this data might be an indication to hang onto the stability you currently have while keeping an eye out over the next three months, with hopefully more roles opening up in the fall. That said, even at your current job, you can’t get complacent. This is the perfect time to be asking for a raise! Everyone else will wait ‘til the winter, but if you start planting seeds in the summer, you’ll be sure to stand out! I break it down here!

Commonly asked question: Susan asks, “Hi Viv! My question is what to do with our first 100k? Everyone always says the first 100K is hardest to earn, but is the golden ticket to growing into 1M if invested, but no one ever tells you how. Would the entire 100k be placed in something like VOO or should it be spread out? What if we would like to have access to some of those funds in the future? Also, seeing you lead and thrive as an Asian female is inspiring. Especially when having grown up without seeing people like myself in the spotlight, so thank you very much ❤️”

Susan, thanks so much for your kind words! Representation is power and I’m so honored to help bring my AAPI community into the spotlight. Onto your question, you should absolutely invest but you should have a diversified portfolio. While VOO, which tracks the S&P 500, is a great start, there are other options you may want to consider as well. As for your $100k, the first thing I would do is start an emergency fund. This should be 3-6 months of living expenses if you are single and 6-12 months of living expenses if you have a partner, dependants, or help support any family. Next, I would pay down any high interest rate debt you have. Rank your debt from highest to lowest interest rate, make the minimum payment across everything, and put any additional debt paydown funds towards the debt with the highest interest rate. Make sure to pay down anything with higher than a 7% interest rate first before investing. After all of this is done, I would then move onto investing. First, start maxing out your tax advantaged retirement accounts, like an employed sponsored 401k or Roth IRA. These accounts are super important because you can get major tax benefits to help set you up for success in retirement. When investing in one of these accounts, you may want to consider target date retirement funds, index funds (like VOO), or even open the account specifically with a robo advisor, so that you can take a quick quiz and they can build a portfolio that makes sense for your age, risk tolerance, and income! You can learn more about investing in Chapter 5 of my book Rich AF—I walk you through it step by step!

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