By Holly Trantham, Lauren Ver Hage, Chelsea Fagan
Living with money, not for it
Subject
Themes
The girlboss is dead, and something better is taking her place. The idea that women could achieve liberation through individual wealth accumulation collapsed under the weight of scandals, toxic workplaces, and the basic mathematical impossibility of giving 100 per cent to career, home, marriage, and social life simultaneously. What remains is a more honest question: once you have your finances under control, what actually makes a life worth living?
The girlboss is dead, and something better is taking her place. The idea that women could achieve liberation through individual wealth accumulation collapsed under the weight of scandals, toxic workplaces, and the basic mathematical impossibility of giving 100 per cent to career, home, marriage, and…
Beyond Getting By arrives at a moment when the personal finance genre is undergoing a fundamental reckoning. For decades, the dominant voices in financial advice were figures like Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, and Robert Kiyosaki, who treated money management as a matter of individual discipline and…
For decades, the dominant approach to personal finance in America has been rooted in shame. The most influential figure in this tradition, Dave Ramsey, built his empire on Evangelical Christian principles that frame poverty as a moral failing and wealth as divine reward. His advice forbids all debt,…
The notion that success is earned through talent and hard work alone is one of the most persistent and damaging myths in American culture. From Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop empire to the Kardashian-Jenner family's collective fortune, the most visible success stories are built on foundations of privilege…
Around 1900, leisure signalled wealth: the aristocracy demonstrated their status by conspicuously not working. By the twenty-first century, the signal has inverted completely. Being "unmanageably busy" is now a class marker, and billionaire tech figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg work…
Women entering the workforce was supposed to herald a revolution in domestic equality. Instead, it created a situation where women are expected to do everything: maintain careers, manage households, raise children, and sustain social lives, all while their male partners largely continue as before.…
The most counterintuitive principle running through the entire work is this: when in doubt, choose the less convenient option. Modern culture is saturated with quick fixes. Thirty-day challenges, fifteen-minute workout hacks, and listicles promising instant financial transformation form what amounts…
At twenty-four, Holly Trantham took a web editor job she found on Craigslist. The start-up seemed ideal: a full-time salaried position interviewing local artists for a membership-based company, funded by a charismatic ex-Wall Street founder. After receiving exactly one week of pay in cash (because…
Nearly half of Americans cannot cover a $500 emergency, which means advice about cutting spending only works for those who actually have something left to cut. The viral concept of a "happiness threshold," the idea that happiness peaks at a specific income (often cited as $75,000 per year), is an…
Holly Trantham and her husband Peter celebrated paying off his student loans with an extravagant dinner at The River Cafe in Brooklyn. That same month, President Biden announced his federal student loan forgiveness plan. People asked whether Peter resented the announcement, but he did not: he would…
"Money manifesting," popularised by The Secret in 2006, promises that visualising and vocalising goals will make them come true. The dangerous flipside is that failure becomes a personal spiritual shortcoming rather than a systemic outcome. Manifestation is the wellness-world equivalent of…
TikTok is flooded with "adult toddler husband" content: women joking about partners who treat a single household chore as a monumental achievement. The joke resonates because the data backs it up. American women spend over 16 hours per week on domestic labour, 5.5 more than men. Even when women work…
The pandemic worsened overwork culture dramatically. In 2022, 55 per cent of paid time off went unused, compared with just 28 per cent in 2019. Lower earners use 52 per cent less PTO than high earners. Busyness has become a status symbol: researcher Jonathan Gershuny notes that around 1900, leisure…
Quick fixes dominate modern culture. Thirty-day challenges, fifteen-minute workout hacks, and listicles promising instant financial transformation are everywhere. The "Quick-Fix Industrial Complex" sells easy solutions while ignoring that meaningful change requires sustained, often inconvenient…
By Holly Trantham, Lauren Ver Hage, Chelsea Fagan
Subject
Themes
The girlboss is dead, and something better is taking her place. The idea that women could achieve liberation through individual wealth accumulation collapsed under the weight of scandals, toxic workplaces, and the basic mathematical impossibility of giving 100 per cent to career, home, marriage, and social life simultaneously. What remains is a more honest question: once you have your finances under control, what actually makes a life worth living?