enRICHed: volume 88

you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?? 🏝

Jul 21, 2024

Volume 88

Hey besties!

After a WHIRLWIND month of travels—Italy, Las Vegas, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles this coming week—I am in DIRE need of some self-care. There are not enough face masks and eye jellies on earth to suck out the tiredness from my face. That said, it’s also been an amazing month of once-in-a-lifetime experiences! From literally getting married on the shores of Lake Como to doing one of the coolest (but top secret, shhhh) projects in Las Vegas, I’ve been reflecting this past week and just feeling so endlessly grateful for the direction my life, career, and relationships are headed in! So excuse me for being sappy during a quiet Sunday morning amidst the dog days of summer, but I’m just feeling very in love with life right now. Furthermore, this bodes well for the next month because I am very much an “emotions by momentum” person—meaning if I’m down bad, I’ll keep feeling and seeing all the negativity around me, but if I’m up big, NOTHING can bring me down. If you’re not feeling as positive as I am right now, try one of my favorite tricks: Sit yourself down and say from this moment onward today: I am going to have a GREAT day. And then force yourself every few hours or so to say out loud something good or positive you have noticed. Can be a kind gesture from a co-worker, a delicious lunch, or even just your appreciation for AC during a heatwave. The more good you acknowledge, the harder it is to stay down in the dumps. Love you guys so much and I hope you have the BEST week coming up.

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.

Who Shut This Thing Down? 💡

What may be the biggest technology outage in history is happening through this weekend, and it wreaked havoc across airports, media outlets, government operations, healthcare systems and more.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike had a technical glitch on Friday, saying that the issue was not believed to be a security incident or cyberattack—but that the call was lowkey coming from inside the house. Some experts are calling it the “the worst faux pas […] of any security software provider ever.” Yikes, what a review.
It’s a massive deal because whoever elbowed the big red button caused a chain of dominoes to topple over. An entire county in Michigan shut down non-essential operations for the day, Universal Studios Japan reported that its ticket sales were affected, and some airlines were forced to ground flights amidst the whole debacle.
HYCU; I’m willing to bet a lot of Besties were impacted by this outage. For business owners, you might have seen issues with your sales; for travelers, your flight may have gotten canceled. And especially if you work in the IT department, RIP to your weekend. On the bright side, if you use Microsoft work laptops, you might just get a day off or two while they sort this mess out. And if you’re still struggling with your travel plans, check out the quick what you should do—vid HERE!

WNBA Price Going Up 🏀

WNBA teams like the Phoenix Mercury and Chicago Sky have suddenly begun jacking up their prices, according to irate fans, with some season VIP seats doubling and even quadrupling in price.
Over the past few months there has been exploding interest in women’s basketball, with rookie stars like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark taking over the timeline as they begin their first year in the W. Seats have been sold out, demand has been sky-high (lol?), and everyone wants to see what the hype is all about.
Some fans reported that their season VIP tickets went from $4,704 to $8,624 including taxes and fees; others said they got sudden notifications that their passes were jumping from $8,960 to $19,712.
Fans aren’t really getting any clarity on where all this extra money will go, or specifically, if the players will get a cut of it or not. WNBA players have been historically underpaid, and some say they want a better explanation on why these changes are being made.
HYCU; When will companies learn not to mess with a fandom? You can’t just make changes like this and not expect any questions. Current fans are doing the right thing, in my opinion, by asking what they’ll get out of it—it’s always important to know where your money is going (a new and improved stadium, more money for the players, better facilities, etc). As for those trying to get tickets now, well, may the odds be ever in your favor.

Bumping That (Student Debt Relief) 🥳

The Biden administration announced this week that it is forgiving $1.2 billion in student debt for 35,000 borrowers who work in public service, ranging from teachers to firefighters.
According to the administration, this latest push of student debt forgiveness waived $168.5 billion in debt for roughly 4.8 million Americans. It’s been difficult and tricky to get broad student debt forgiveness legislation passed, as the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s wider plan for forgiveness.
The people who qualify for forgiveness are part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which aims to help public servants like teachers, nurses and law enforcement officers get their debt canceled after 10 years of repayments.
HYCU; This is huge news for all the besties who qualify for the PSLF program—debt is such a stressor for so many peoples’ finances, and I hope this eases some of the strain to pay it back. You have so much more time now to exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

The McMansion Expansion 🏡

Local officials are trying to rein back the number of megamansions being built across the country, in an effort to preserve the charm of small towns, as well as lower both real estate prices and local carbon footprints.
A working group in East Hampton, New York, recently proposed slashing the town’s maximum-allowed house size from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet, while the ski resort town of Routt County, Colorado adopted a proposal last month capping house sizes at 7,500 square feet.
It’s causing beef in the neighborhoods where these big ol’ estates have become an attraction for the wealthy—those who want their McMansions are calling those who want these caps jealous haters, while those who advocate for the caps are calling the Bougie House Bloc a bunch of excessive gremlins.
HYCU; It is true that mansions do use more energy, emit more greenhouse gasses, and generally cost more to maintain. They are also very pretty. Two things can be true at once! TBH, I think the local residents of these vacation towns should be the ones with the final call. I already hate when someone sits right up next to you on the train, spreading their legs out at an obtuse angle, so cramping up the space in my hometown would be so frustrating. If you are trying to build a property in these towns, though, you should definitely check to see what the local size caps are.

Commonly asked question: Amaya Smith asks, “Hi, Vivian! After graduating from college in 2022, my mother advised me that I should apply for a credit card. I had no trouble being approved for one, which was through Discover. Not long after, I applied for another one (Capital One) and was approved again. At the moment, my credit score is excellent, ranging in the 700s, but I am unsure what to do with the cash back rewards. Should I use the money to build up my savings, use it to pay off debt like my student loans, or use it to spend? Thanks for the advice!”

Hi Amaya! First and foremost, congratulations on obtaining such a strong credit score so soon after college! You’re already doing great. When it comes to credit card rewards, the first thing I would recommend you do is to check to see if Cash Back Rewards are actually the most efficient redemption of your points. In many cases, cards that offer cash back will actually provide better redemption if you choose to redeem through other avenues such as gift cards, their travel portal, or transferring to partner hotels/airlines. Once you've confirmed that cash back is in fact the most efficient way to redeem your rewards, then you can move on to the waterfall of what you should do with that money.

The first thing you should do is focus on building an emergency fund. For all my single people, this is 3-6 months of living expenses and if you are head of household, try and get 6-12 months of living expenses saved. Targeting an emergency fund first will allow you to build up your savings while also making sure that if any emergency were to come your way, you would be covered. Once you have your emergency fund covered, I would move onto paying off debt. My personal favorite debt paydown method is the avalanche method. The avalanche method dictates that you should rank your debt from highest to lowest interest rate, make the minimum payment across everything, and then put any additional debt pay down funds towards the debt with the highest interest rate. I’d knock out any debt with an interest rate of 7% or higher first, and then last but not least you can begin investing or treat yourself to something special!

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Rich Tip of the Week: Here’s what to do if you get laid off!
I’m so obsessed with the TikTok discourse right now about the lack of Gen Zers wearing heels to the club—it’s sparked a hilarious conversation about sneakers versus heels. I certainly had my fun wearing my peplum tops on the dance floor, but honestly now, the only club I want is a club soda.
They’re saying Hello Kitty is not a cat now…I’m shocked! It’s IN THE NAME!
The Emmy nominations are out now, and some of my favorite shows from this year like The Bear and Shogun are getting some major nods.

SEE YOU IN THE COMMENTS BESTIES