Bottom Lines Top Dollars

The Ladies Who Crunch pop off to talk banks! Silicon Valley Bank - Signature Bank - Credit Suisse - First Republic Bank…financial institutions are on a wild ride of their own making. This popup episode reviews how banking works, digs into the hand-waving ways risk is assessed, and touches on why any of us might care about non-big-banks collapsing and if a bank collapse is something we want to experience or not.

In this episode, we discuss the conflicting leftist desires behind wanting to start or scale a business in order to avoid working for the man – and fearing you might turn into “the man” you’re trying to avoid in the first place. We look at the anxieties that come up: exploiting others, making enough money / charging, earning money feeling somehow inherently wrong, being a good boss not a shit one. We also talk the ways running your own business can still be better than other options:...

Retirement, the state of having worked in the past but now being done with working, is a troubled concept. Given that it is a marginally possible golden carrot dangled in front of working life, how do you prepare to make it happen, when do you want it to happen, and how can you craft a post-work identity - when it happens or otherwise? For a lot of people, not working is the thing people talk about with the most anxiety. In this episode, we look at the history and concept of retirement in...

How do you prepare for a big financial purchase? Besides dreaming you also need to scheme because it’s all about putting yourself in a position to woo the unholy trinity: credit, capital, and income. FUN TIMES. We tell you how to get in the best position to get that sweet bank money – yes, get into debt, on purpose – so you can get that tricked out van/pirate sailboat, cooperative farm, or just a regular house or business loan. Learn how to eat the bran muffin of improving your credit,...

Much like the undead, debt can haunt and stalk you and limit what’s possible in your life - that is shitty debt. And however you got this shitty debt, which may be some bullshit: now it’s your bullshit - so now what? This episode guides you through mindsets and steps to deal with the feelings and face debt head on. You’ll learn how to understand your finances in terms of choice and how to use that framework to slay your debt and set yourself up to get ahead - so you can jump on the actions...

Bottom Lines Top Dollars third season focuses on Practical Ways to Thrive in Capitalism. First - you don’t have to love work, but you don’t want to hate your life. NOW WHAT? In this episode, we explore Jobs That Don’t Suck. Specifically: what makes a job be awful and not, how to get one of these jobs, and what to think about as you’re on your way to the negotiating table for that job. This episode will be relatable if the idea that you’re going to have a job you’re going to love so much no...

Listen up small business owners and future owners, this episode is for you! Having a business can directly grind against punk-credible assumptions and preferences: you’ll have to work with government systems and try to make money after all. Cuz if you fail, you [and your employees!] may have to work for The Man again. We’re here to help in this episode. Learn how to manage the Ways You Might Have to Interact with the Government as a Small Business, and How To Provide For Myself and Others...

So it's been a while huh? Well.... let us explain.... In this episode The Ladies Who Crunch talk about how sometimes shit goes a little sideways in life and we cope by doing something that only makes it worse: GHOSTING. When we ghost on part (or all) of our lives, we tend to dig ourselves a hole that is hard to climb out of. In this episode we discuss how to come back from exactly that kind of bullshit, whether that's with your friends, your collaborators or your finances (think taxes, debt...

This is our final episode of Season 2 and our final journey through this season's theme of punk storytelling as a mechanism for understanding our own relationships with money. And in this episode, The Ladies Who Crunch give our dear listeners an end-of-season parting gift: A guide to building a strategy to change your life! From the lofty process of visioning all the way back down to earth-bound planning tools, this episode's goal is an old school DIY workshop for giving yourself a future...

Leonard Cohen said, “the poor stay poor, the rich get rich, that’s how it goes, and everybody knows”. Well, once you know, then what? In punk culture, there's a general understanding that the world is fucked up and unfair. But what does that actually mean? If the outcome of the game is predetermined (and you are pretty sure you are a born loser), then what do you do? Do you walk away from the table? Flip it? Set it on fire? Try to cheat? If winning this game makes you a capitalist pig but...

In this episode the Ladies Who Crunch go deep into the dark topic of dealing with death, both that of the people you are connected to in this life and (eventually) your own. Whether you are terrified of talking about it or you’re that goth kid who loves to talk about it or you’re just that punk for whom living fast and dying young just didn’t happen (yet), this episode gets hella practical about the money issues that intersect with death: funerals, wills, settling an estate, inheritance, and...

In this episode the Ladies Who Crunch reflect on the coolest and best paid jobs that we all worked (or wanted to work) in our punk days, which were all strangely gigs that involved earning tips (bartenders, strippers, fancy restaurant workers), and ask, "was that shit actually as good as we thought?" And from that starting point, we go deep into the economics of tipping cultures: the good, the bad, the inequitable! In this episode we discuss: ---- This episode is part of our second...

Under capitalism we are all supposed to be self-sufficient, competitive and selfish individuals if we want to ensure we have (more than) what we need in life. Punk culture has long defined itself in opposition to this, choosing to build up beautiful communal sand castles. But how do we continue to work towards building communal wealth with lovers, partners, friends and our overall community without falling into all the same old conflicts that led the punk houses of our youth to fall...

How do you value your time? Especially when we’re also forced to value our labor time: does anyone really have a grasp on what “enough” money is, when it’s our lives we are trading it for? This episode grapples with ways to approach understanding whether what we are earning is "enough" (or maybe even too much?) to sustain what we want and need in life, especially if you are struggling to transition from a punk/artist/non-profit or otherwise alternative economic lifestyle to one that doesn't...

Western narratives LOVE the “hero,” but it’s much more punk to be in touch with the reality of the many people who feel they are losing out. In this day and age, that means people who have burdensome debt. 13% of Americans expect to be in debt the rest of their lives, and most people with student loans feel confident they will never go away. This experience is in stark contrast to the methodology of leverage that wealthy individuals and well-capitalized organizations employ, using debt as...

In this episode, the Ladies Who Crunch explore minimum wage, living wages, and the idea of maximum wages. Income inequality in the US and Canada is worse than it was in the 90s, and we were mad about it then, when we worked minimum wage jobs. Stories you’ll hear include: what minimum wages jobs we’ve had, who was the last person in your family to make minimum wage, and were they able to live off it? You’ll learn how minimum wage relates to living wages [hint: it’s lower than the basic...

Kicking off BLTD’s second season on punk and money, Laura Boo and Hadassah go back into their punk origin stories from the 90s to analyze the time-hardened debate: is it more punk to drop out of society and not work, or to “robin hood” your employment and extract from the extractors while doing the minimum? Outsider experiences have a lot to tell us about the underbelly of our social systems, and for decades punks and other counterculture types have cultivated lives outside the work+spend...

In our final episode of Season 1, we take a hot minute to reflect on the year that was 2020 and what it might mean for our future. Specifically, we dig into the massive wave of grassroots and hyper-local mutual aid responses to the COVID19 crisis and how these events are both tied to a deep and rich history but also potentially to a better future. We discuss how disasters and moments of crisis can create turning points of change, and how that change grows upward from community responses...

In this episode the Ladies Who Crunch open up the mail bag and answer questions sent by listeners! This episode includes: Some great end-of-year tax tips for those who are self-employed (aka "sole proprietors") A dive deep into the murky world of tax write offs and how they are both legit and necessary for anyone running a business and also ripe for abuse by those with the means to get away with it. A list of book recommendations about envisioning post-capitalist worlds, alternative ways of...

In this week's episode of Bottom Lines Top Dollars we discuss a question that many punks, weirdos, leftists, environmentalists and anti-capitalists ask themselves when they become financially stable: what do I do with my extra money? Investing your excess cash is an important way to save towards retirement, but can it be done ethically? Is it possible to grow your savings without contributing to bad things in the world (massive carbon emissions, pollution, unfair and exploitative labour...