0:00 / 0:00
Category: Latest Stories
0:00 / 0:00
This International Women’s Day, Wealthie shares the story of banking’s First Lady, Maggie Lena Walker.
Maggie Walker became the first woman in America to own and serve as president of a bank. Her St. Luke Penny Savings Bank opened its doors in Richmond, Virginia in 1903. It is still in operation today.
The bank served as an important lifeline within the community. By 1920, Penny Savings had issued more than 600 mortgages to Black families. It had also built up a significant African American staff. Ms. Walker understood the importance of financial access and independence in the ongoing quest for civil rights and equal opportunity.
And the bank was only one piece of this effort. Prior to opening her bank, Ms. Walker launched a community insurance company for women. She also launched the St. Luke Herald weekly newspaper, promoting economic empowerment in Black communities, civil rights, and justice.
Finally, this may sound familiar… Ms. Walker believed the best way to build financial independence was by STARTING EARLY. The St. Luke Penny Savings Bank handed out penny banks to kids to support their early savings habit. With their first 100 pennies saved, a kid could open a Penny Savings Bank deposit account.
Ms. Walker’s story is one worth celebrating on Women’s Day and every day. Check out Wealthie’s IG post for more on the Boss herself.
0:00 / 0:00
Caring for a pet can be a great way for kids to learn responsibility, but they don’t come cheap. Americans spent $123.6 billion on their pets in 2021, up nearly 20% from 2020 (aka the Year of the Pandemic Puppy).
Here’s a closer look at some common costs of common household pets.
Dogs
Man’s best friend? More like man’s priciest friend: dogs cost their owners $1,391 a year on average between food, vet visits, grooming, treats and toys. And remember: the bigger the breed, the bigger the food bill.
Adopt > shop: Especially if you’re buying designer. Tibetan mastiff puppies can run from $3,000-$5,000, all the way to $1.95M!
Cats
With many of the same carrying costs as dogs, a pet cat will run you $1,149 annually. And while you won’t have to pay for a dog walker, you’ll want to set aside $150/year for litter—unless you plan on monetizing your kitty as a “petfluencer.”
Pro tip: It’s cheaper to invest in scratching posts and cat towers than new couches and carpets.
Birds
The chattier the bird, the more expensive: cockatoos and macaws can have a $5,000+ price tag, while parakeets are the “cheepest” (sorry). Parakeets are also quite budget-friendly, with annual costs of only $185.
Customers also bought: You’ll want to invest in an air filter if you plan on getting a cockatiel, cockatoo or African grey, which produce a lot of “dusty powder down“.
Fish
Fish can be one of the least expensive pets to own, or one of the priciest. Try $300K for a single Asian arowana… Saltwater tanks also cost significantly more than freshwater. Plan to budget $15-200 per month.
Budget for home decor: Found Nemo? Next, you’ll want to kit out their tank with lights, gravel, plants and driftwood. Treasure chest optional.
Gerbils/hamsters
A popular “starter pet” for kids, they’re relatively inexpensive and low maintenance. (Even the Cadillac of hamster wheels is only $35.) Again, litter is your biggest cost, followed by bedding—which you can DIY using toilet paper. Although that might actually increase your expenses now that TP prices are on the rise.
Guinea pigs come with a 2x multiplier: Guinea pigs are social creatures. This from the guinea pig lobby: experts recommend picking up a pair so they don’t get lonely.
Rabbits
A pet rabbit’s diet consists of hay, high-fiber pellets and plenty of fresh veggies, costing owners about $190/year. Green thumb? Grow your own “rabbit food”.
What’s up, doc?: Rabbits have been known to gnaw on cables and drywall, making for potentially pricey snack sessions. Stay vigilant!
Reptiles
Like birds and fish, reptile costs vary: expect to pay $30-50 for a leopard gecko or baby iguana, and $100K+ for a rare white monitor lizard. Also like fish, there’s a high start-up cost involved, with terrariums typically ranging between $100-$180.
Cold-blooded ≠ energy efficient: Between the under-tank heater, heat lamp and lighting, reptiles will run up your electric bill almost as quickly as a teenager.
0:00 / 0:00
It may seem like Christmas starts earlier every year, but the holidays don’t officially begin until “All I Want for Christmas is You” charts on the Billboard Hot 100, a hallowed week-after-Thanksgiving tradition, right up there with Googling “how long does leftover turkey last in the fridge?”. In 2019, the GOAT Xmas bop became just the second Christmas song to hit #1 overall (“The Chipmunk Song” was the first, in 1958). And it held onto #1 all the way through NYE.
But Mariah is far from the only holiday hitmaker. Christmas music brings in over $177M annually. (And that’s a conservative estimate.) Here’s a closer look at the business of making music that’s technically only meant to be played one month a year.
All hail the Queen of Christmas
It’s easy for Mariah to say that all she wants for Christmas is you, considering MarketPlace estimates she rakes in $10 million per holiday season. Merry Christmas, indeed. So how does Mariah do it, considering the song – which she famously wrote in 15 minutes – is nearly 30 years old? Royalties.
The gift that keeps on giving
Music royalties are complicated (really complicated). For every song, there are six different types of royalty payments, plus two sets of copyrights. With “AIWFCIY”, Mariah’s not just the performer, she’s also the co-writer and co-producer, giving her multiple ways to cash in every time you hit play.
It’s also how artists like Elmo & Patsy can become millionaires off of a novelty tune like “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”—a song the former husband-and-wife duo paid $500 to record. The beauty of passive income….
Streaming has supercharged the holiday music industry
December is the only time of year you’ll see artists from the ‘40s chart alongside Drake and T-Swift. Holiday tunes made up 10% of all US music streams the week before Christmas in 2021. Landing on a popular holiday playlist can mean the difference between a white Christmas and a green one for artists: streaming revenues are projected to hit $13.66B this year, and show no sign of slowing down.
So, if anyone’s got a chance at taking Mariah’s crown, bet on Ariana Grande. Her 2014 hit “Santa Tell Me” is already the third most-streamed Christmas song of all time on Spotify, behind Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and, who else, Mariah.
0:00 / 0:00
The 2022 World Cup is the most expensive in history, costing host country Qatar an estimated $229 billion. Or nearly 5 times more than the price tags of the last seven World Cups combined. And you thought planning kids’ birthday parties was getting out of hand…
Here’s a look at some of the big numbers behind the sports world’s biggest tournament.
$500 million: How much Qatar’s dropped per week since “winning” its Word Cup bid. Where’d the money go? New stadiums, hotels, roads, a new railway system. Plus a Parisian desert oasis complete with Dior and Louis Vuitton outlets. One the world’s wealthiest nations (per capita) is banking on being front-and-center on the world stage being good for business.
$1.7 billion: What FIFA’s paying Qatar to cover the costs of running the month-long tourney, including prize money and operational expenses.
$7.5 billion: Expected revenue from the ‘22 Cup, which includes TV/sponsorship deals, plus ticket sales and merch —100% of which goes to FIFA, not the host country. Remind us why countries fight to host these things, again?
$1.025 billion: Cost for the US broadcast rights for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. $425M came from Fox, while Telemundo dropped $600M for Spanish-language rights. Still, considering over half the world’s population tuned in in 2018, those prices seems like a steal.
$75 million: The reported price tag for Budweiser’s sponsorship deal with FIFA, which gives it exclusive rights to sell beer at World Cup matches. …Or did, until Qatar announced it’d be banning beer sales just days before the tournament started.
Introducing Budweiser Zero, the official beer of game day…
$440 million: The total prize pool being paid out to the tournament’s 32 teams. Squads get $9M for making the group stage, with the winning country taking home a cool $42M this year. Plus all the Bud their fans can drink.
After Budweiser’s now-deleted tweet heard round the world: “Well, this is awkward”, the company followed up with this: “New Day, New Tweet. Winning Country gets the Buds. Who will get them?”
There is a LOT of Budweiser currently sitting un-drunk in storage in Qatar.
$812: The average ticket price for the finals match, up nearly 40% from 2018, making this the most expensive World Cup ever, in far more ways than one. Still, that ticket price seems downright reasonable compared to the Super Bowl, which remains in a league of its own…
0:00 / 0:00
The FTX story just Keeps. Getting. Worse. Less than a year ago, the former crypto giant was valued at $32 billion while its golden-boy founder graced magazine covers. Now, SBF’s being called the “millennial Madoff” for his role in a scandal that’s “worse than Enron.” Big yikes.
FTX investors and account holders aren’t the only ones left holding the bag either. Here’s a closer look at how the fallout is changing the celebrity influencer game as we know it.
The People vs. Celebrity Influencers
Turns out Larry David was right to be skeptical. Now, the Curb star is part of a who’s who of A-list defendants being accused of using their celeb status to promote the web3 Ponzi scheme, alongside Steph Curry, Shaq, Tom Brady and Gisele.
It may feel like this lawsuit is just doing exactly what FTX did – leveraging big names for big publicity – but no one’s claiming the celebs were actively involved in the fraud. Or even understood what they were endorsing (something Curry’s ad made perfectly clear). Still, there are different rules for pushing securities vs. supplements, a lesson the OG celeb influencer Kim Kardashain learned the hard way in October, when she was fined $1.26 million for shilling cryptocoins on IG.
MSN | November 18, 2022
Celebrity investors got burned too
At its peak, everyone from Goop to Eminem joined the Bored Ape (Yacht) club as investing in the colorful NFT collection became Hollywood’s trendiest new flex. Apparently A-listers are every bit as prone to financial FOMO as the rest of us. (Celebs, they’re just like us!) And their investments got hit just as hard when FTX’s collapse pushed crypto prices down even further.
Justin Bieber’s Bored Ape #3001 took a 95% hit in value; purchased for $1.3M in January, it’s now worth an estimated $70K. (Is it too late now to say sorry?) Fueled by FTX, the NFT market just keeps dipping, partly due to spooked investors and partly due to crypto’s shrinking buying power.
Decrypt | November 16, 2022
Ronaldo x Binance 🚀
Maybe Ronaldo was too busy forcing his Man U release to pay attention to the latest web3 news, but the soccer superstar recently joined forces with FTX’s former rival Binance to launch an NFT collection on the eve of the World Cup. And while we’re sure the endorsement deal was in the works long before FTX broke, it’s still not great timing, considering, well, see above…
Here’s hoping Ronaldo took his cut in fiat.
Insider | November 21, 2022
From OC to SEC
File this under “I told you so”: Ben McKenzie (aka Ryan from The O.C.) first sounded the alarm about the dangers of lax regulations and celebs like TB12 and Kim K shilling crypto in a 2021 guest post for Slate. Now, he’s writing a book about it, called “Easy Money.”
The more McKenzie researched, the more worried he got about crypto’s potential to defraud retail investors. “It’s a massive speculative bubble,” he told a Wall Street Journal conference last month, saying he felt “an obligation to speak out.” Call him the world’s first anti-crypto celebrity influencer.
Wall Street Journal | October 25, 2022
Say goodbye to the age of influence?
FTX may not mean the end of the celebrity endorsement (clearly), but it might make influencers think twice before dropping their next #ad. According to MarketWatch, YouTube stars like Meet Kevin were paid $2,500 for every FTX mention, and some even received commissions for customer referrals.
Now, these financial influencers are scrambling to issue apology videos, claiming they were duped by FTX just like everyone else. Fans and federal investigators aren’t as sure, and SEC fines could be incoming. So stay tuned, and don’t forget to like and subscribe. haha.
MarketWatch | November 22, 2022
0:00 / 0:00
We’ve talked about the “lipstick index” before – the debunked theory that we splurge on small luxuries more frequently during a recession. After booming in early 2022, the effect’s beginning to fade. Blame the decidedly-less-rosy “misery index” – which got us thinking about other Greatest Hits coined during economic downturns.
So gather ‘round: it’s time for recession ABCs.
(What even is a “recession,” anyway? Technically-speaking, it’s when a country’s GDP declines for 2+ straight quarters.)
The dot-com bubble
Economic “bubbles” date wayyyyyyyyy back to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720, when British investors got whipped into a speculative frenzy, only to lose their waistcoats. Fast-forward to 2000, when “dot-com” startups collectively went poof. Unfortunately, most bubbles only seem obvious after they’ve burst.
See also: “The everything bubble”
Like a regular bubble, only instead of one industry being up, everything’s up. (And we do mean everything.) Which only makes it that much more 😱when it finally pops.
The Shecession
COVID’s economic effects hit everyone hard. It just hit women harder (especially WOC). The unemployment rate for women jumped to 15% in spring 2020, and the effects continue to linger.
See also: “Mancession”
Coined during the Great Recession, after men accounted for 80% of job losses in ‘09.
The Great Recession
As in, the Great Depression. Although, turns out the punny moniker’s not exactly fresh. It’s been used to describe recessions big and small since the early ‘70s.
See also: “Bailout”
Another golden oldie. Merriam-Webster’s 2008 “Word of the Year” first appeared in print in 1939, the year the US economy finally pulled out of the Great Depression. Makes sense. Remakes were big business in the 2000s.
Airbnbust
The short-term rental market exploded as a pandemic hustle in 2021, leading to a 62% increase in listings, and a crash course in supply-and-demand for would-be Airbnbarons. In markets where listings boomed by over 50%, occupancy rates have dropped by 10%. Even though bookings are down, the company reported record profits in Q3 — meaning it’s still too early to say for sure if this Airbnbubble has Airbnburst.
See also: “Staycation”
This WWII-era mashup morphed from quippy way of saying “We can’t afford to go away” during the Great Recession to a form of pandemic self-care. Glow-up!
0:00 / 0:00
So, you won the $2B Powerball haul. Congratulations. Any interest in buying Twitter in a month? I digress. We’ve got stuff to discuss. Psychology stuff. Your brain and money stuff.
According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, about 70% of people who win the lottery, or receive a large windfall, go bankrupt within a few years. Why does this happen? Mental Accounting has something to do with it. US Economist Richard Thaler coined the term, and it looks at the ways in which we view and consider the money we have.
When someone wins the lottery, they tend to view that money differently than the money they’ve earned. They value it differently, and so they tend to treat it differently, and spend it more easily. Actually, lottery winners are more likely to declare bankruptcy within 3 to 5 years.
Combine the reality of Mental Accounting with the stress of family… and neighbours, and friends, and dogs, and your friend’s cousin’s boyfriend’s roommate all thinking they’d like a piece of that sweet lottery pie, and suddenly you can understand why the few States that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous are praised, mostly by the winners of their lotteries.
What are we getting at? The lottery is not a good investment. The return on your lottery ticket investment is almost always nothing. Zero. Zilch. And studies show that the majority of winners end up with less than they had before winning.
So, instead of spending $2 on a lottery ticket every week, put that money somewhere you know it will grow. But also… remember I’m your best friend and could use a new TV Car House.
Kidding! Just not about the lottery stuff. x
0:00 / 0:00
Love a good horror movie on Halloween? You’re not alone. 48% of Americans say they’re planning to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve with a scary movie. Horror movies are a perfect recipe for Halloween fun. They’re also a scary-good investment.
Blockbusters and superhero movies still reign supreme in terms of overall dollars, but the horror genre has historically offered the best value, or return on investment, for a movie studio’s money. (Net profits / initial investment = ROI.) The higher the ROI, the better the investment, and horror movies have boasted some truly eye-popping ROIs, thanks to their ability to deliver big box office on comparatively teeny budgets.
Take Avengers: Endgame, one of the top-grossing movies of all-time. $2.7B at the worldwide box office on a $356M budget = a 685% ROI. Pretty good, right? Now take Stephen King’s It, the top-grossing horror movie of all-time, raking in $701M worldwide on a $35M budget for an ROI of over 1,900%.
Here are a (severed) handful of scary-profitable horror movies:
A Quiet Place
💸 Budget: $17,000,000
💰Box office: $334,000,000
✨ROI: 1,865%
Halloween (2018)
💸 Budget: $10,000,000
💰Box office: $255,000,000
✨ROI: 2,450%
Halloween (1978)
💸 Budget: $320,000
💰Box office: $47,000,000
✨ROI: 14,588%
The Blair Witch Project
💸 Budget: $60,000
💰Box office: $245,000,000
✨ROI: 408,230%
Paranormal Activity
💸 Budget: $15,000
💰Box office: $193,000,000
✨ROI: 1,286,600%
0:00 / 0:00
Spooky season’s become big business. Now one of one North America’s spendingest holidays, Halloween spending is expected to reach $10.6 billion in 2022. That’s up from an all-time high of $10.1B last year. The average consumer plans to drop over $100 on candy, costumes, and decorations.
So, are these record numbers due to record participation after two years of socially-distant celebrations, are they a result of record inflation, or is it a bit of both?
We do the monster mash math
The incredible shrinking candy bars
As Americans shell out over $3.1B on Halloween candy this year, they’ll get less for their money than ever before.
Boo.
That’s shrinkflation for you — when companies reduce items without reducing prices.
Here’s something even scarier: candy’s experiencing regular inflation too. You likely won’t notice that your Reese’s got 0.1 ounces lighter, but there’s no missing a 35% higher price tag. Thanks to supply chain issues + increased sugar prices, Halloween candy prices have jumped an unlucky 13% since last October (Twix fans have got it the worst, with a 53% hike.) Overall sales volume is actually down for the first time in years, but don’t cry for the candy companies — Nestle and Hershey profits still increased after both raised their prices by 9.5% and 14%, respectively.
Some trick.
DIY > store-bought costumes
More people are planning to dress up for Halloween this year, with Americans predicted to drop $2.9B on kids’ and adult costumes, plus a record $710M on costumes for their pets. There’s no official index to track costume cost, but an increase in clothing prices – up 5.5% since 2021 – should mean a return to DIY (especially now that Gen Z’s have made thrifting cool again). Unfortch, fabric and sewing supplies are also up 11%. Still, it’s better than trying to save a few bucks with that unlicensed “Blue Speed Mouse” costume.
A giant monster arms race
There is at least one Halloween standby that’s remained immune to inflation: Home Depot’s 12-foot-tall skeleton still costs $299, same as it did when it was introduced in 2020. “Skelly” has been a graveyard smash ever since, with annual sell-outs and eBay listings for $1K+. Lowe’s has responded with their own 12-foot animatronic mummy, as retailers raced to create enough supersized Halloween decor to keep up with demand. Now, you can kit out your lawn with a whole crew of enormous monsters, from 15-foot phantoms to giant werewolves, witches, even something called an “Inferno Pumpkin Skeleton.” Big box stores more than doubled their Halloween inventory in 2022, as decoration spending hit its own all-time high of $3.4 billion.
And so we’re welcoming our new giant skeleton overlords with the obvious question: trick or treat?
0:00 / 0:00
It’s not just the crown that’s changed over following Queen Elizabeth’s recent passing. Everything, from Britain’s mailboxes to its money, is getting a “royal makeover”, and it’s costing the UK a pretty penny pence.
Here’s a closer look at the business of giving money a (literal) facelift.
New bill, who dis?
Britain’s not the only country updating its bills now that King Charles is in charge. According to Guinness, the late Queen appears on a record 33 currencies! And, while this is uncharted territory for the UK – Elizabeth became the first, and only, monarch to appear on British bank notes in 1960 – luckily, other countries can offer a few tips.
In 2018, Canada released a new $10 featuring civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond—winning Bank Note of the Year (a real award, we swear). The US is also planning to put Harriet Tubman on the $20. Fiiiiinally.
But expect to see Queen E. on bills for the next few years, because of the cost of putting King C3 on an #irl C note.
The real cost of a dollar? 7.5 cents
The New York Times estimates that producing new coins to celebrate Charles’ reign could cost $600+ million. Canada’s limited-edition 150th anniversary $10 bill cost $5.7 million to design, test, and develop. And in the US, printing costs range from 7.5 cents per $1 bill to 17 cents for a hundred. (The penny, now retired, used to cost twice its face value to mint…)
Of course, they say, you’ve gotta spend money to make money and, well, turns out this is literally true…
Paper or plastic?
When Canada switched to polymer bills, manufacturing costs jumped from $0.11 per bill to $0.20. Ultimately, the move paid for itself: the harder-to-counterfeit “plastic” money also lasts 2.5x longer.
The Queen will live on… as a meme coin
The market for rare currency featuring the Queen skyrocketed after her death. Crypto got in on the action too, with 40+ new meme coins minted within 24 hours after the announcement of her death. Like most meme coins, the swings were wild: the Queen Elizabeth Inu jumped nearly 30,000% before the inevitable dump. Another coin saw $2.7 million worth in trade volume in under 12 hours. It’s the web3 equivalent of unlicensed Royals merch.
0:00 / 0:00
Fat Bear Week is back — the “March Madness” of Brown Bears getting wide for the winter!
Fat Bear Week is a celebration of success, survival, and fattening. It’s a chance to learn about bears (and the salmon they love) at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Humans around the world can get online, learn about the 12 biggest bear finalists, and vote for their favourites.
Okay, but just how big are these bears? Well, they really stuff themselves. They have to. In fact, they eat the equivalent of a year’s worth of food in six months, in order to survive the winter. They can live off their fat stores for up to 100 days while they hibernate.
Okay, enough with the science. How much is this going to cost me?
A Brown Bear can eat 100 lbs of sockeye salmon on a good day. Lucky for them, they don’t have to pay for their meals. But what if you wanted to eat like a Brown Bear? How would your food bill look?
We’ll start here. The cost of an annual Alaskan hunting and fishing license for a resident is $60. Reasonable.
But maybe you’re over the hustle. Maybe you want someone else to do the hunting. For ready-to-order salmon at the grocery store, expect to pay about $20 per pound of sockeye (uncooked). Okaaaay. Your salmon habit now costs about $2,000 a day.
And if you prefer your salmon as sashimi from that fancy sushi joint that just opened up where the Outback Steakhouse used to be? Prices vary, but it’s pretty standard for a one-ounce piece of salmon sashimi to sell for about $5. At 16 ounces to a pound, that’s $80 per pound. If you’re eating like a brown bear at the sushi bar, dinner’s about to cost you $8000… sans tip!
Did we mention that NONE OF THIS FISH IS EVEN COOKED?!
Listen. A dream’s a dream, and if you want a shot at victory during Fat Bear Week, we have two suggestions… Either become a bear and move to Alaska, or invest your money so that in the future, you can buy yourself unlimited amounts of uncooked salmon. Choose the option that sounds simplest, and good luck!