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economy

Education

The 25-year-old money-saving 'bible' that millennials and Gen Zers absolutely need to read

This book has saved me thousands of dollars and changed my entire perspective on "frugality."

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

"The Complete Tightwad Gazette" offers timeless money-saving advice.

Let me start by saying that young adults these days absolutely do have economics stacked against them. There's no question that stagnant wages, the unaffordability of housing, outrageous college costs, post-pandemic inflation and good ol' American corporate greed have all combined to create a tough financial reality for us all, but particularly for the millennials and Gen Zers who are starting off their adult lives feeling already underwater.

If you're in that boat, allow a Gen X auntie to give you some sage advice. Absolutely, rail against the man and shake your fist at the skyscrapers and vent on TikTok if it makes you feel better. But also, none of that is going to change super soon, so you've got to own what you actually have control over, and that's managing the money that you do have (however little it may be).

When my kids were little back in the early 2000s, my husband and I were living on one not-at-all-amazing income. I had been raised quite frugally, so I was comfortable penny-pinching as needed, but I was looking for more creative ways to stretch our dollars.

I had no idea how much one book would change my entire view of saving money—or how much money it would actually save me over the years.

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A blockbuster story from The New York Times on Sunday revealed President Trump paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 and no taxes for 10 of the 15 years before entering the White House.

The extremely low figures are shocking because, according to Forbes, Trump is worth approximately $2.5 billion.

"His portfolio, which includes commercial buildings, golf properties and branding businesses, is worth an estimated $3.66 billion before debt," Forbes reports. "The president has a fair amount of leverage — adding up to a roughly $1.13 billion — but not enough to drag his net worth below a billion dollars."

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Five years ago, Dan Price upended the status quo of the corporate world—one in which executives reap many times what employees sow—by taking a radical stance on salaries at his credit card processing company, Gravity Payments. First, he cut his own salary from more than $1 million to $70,000. Then he created a minimum salary of $70,000 for every employee at his company.

These moves made waves. People debated whether it was brilliance or silly idealism on Price's part.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding. And after five years, Price has receipts.

He recently wrote on Twitter:

"When I started a $70k minimum wage for my company in 2015, Rush Limbaugh said: 'I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it's gonna fail.'

Since then our company tripled & we're a successful case study at Harvard Business School."

He added in another tweet:

"Since my company started a $70k min wage in 2015:

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via 10TV / Twitter

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on Black small business owners. An analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the number of active Black business owners in the U.S. dropped by 41% from February to April 2020.

That figure is nearly double the national average of 22%.

By comparison, the number of Asian small business owners dropped by 26% and Latino by 32%.

While those numbers are surely devastating, there is a ray of hope in a recent study published by Yelp. From May 25 to July 10, 2020 there was a historic surge in interest Black-owned businesses on the site.

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