I am the first person to tell someone that spite motivated me to start something. This newsletter started out of spite because a lot of media outlets weren’t interested in hearing about single people’s lives and finances. I got annoyed and started writing. Nearly six years later, that burst of annoyed energy has served me well. 

I want to talk about spite because I tend to run low-key annoyed on most days and have used it to inform a lot of my decisions, both in life and financially.

So can spite motivate you into better financial planning? There is a particular kind of financial thinking that happens when you are single for a long time. It’s that realization that there is no second income (or third, fourth) to catch you in case something happens. stares at my multiple gigs

Single people frequently build financial lives around risk containment because the margin for error is smaller on one income. If a partnered household loses one salary, there may still be another income covering housing costs, groceries or insurance premiums. Solo earners do not usually have that buffer.

Single-income earners are often less able to absorb entrepreneurial risk, career gaps or periods of retraining. Stable employment becomes less about loyalty and more about having an income, though I’d argue that company loyalty is gone. The rise of side hustles and contract work among professionals is frequently discussed as ambition, but for many single people it functions as income diversification and a safety net.

Some solo earners maintain higher cash positions than financial planners would traditionally advise because liquidity offers psychological and practical protection against instability. Others aggressively pursue dividend income or secondary revenue streams to reduce dependence on one employer. Others work themselves to the bone with three or four gigs to make as money as they can while they have the health and stamina. 

That worry can turn into spite, a sense of showing everyone that solo earners can do this. We can manage our finances and lives all by ourselves. We think about layoffs differently. We often stay hyper-employed and have emergency funds that we won’t touch unless we absolutely have to because one emergency can destabilize an entire household when that household is just us. 

In other words, many of us are not building wealth from a position of expansion. We’re building from a position of shock absorption. 

Algorithmic pricing is going to SUCK for singles

Many single people become deeply financially literate not because we love spreadsheets, budgeting apps and watching personal finance social media, but because we know how expensive instability can become when we feel financially insecure. 

So spite-planning sounds good, right? It can be a form of financial discipline in the beginning, providing motivation via anger and frustration. Nothing wrong with that. Harness that energy because we have to start from somewhere.

Where it can get sticky is when that state of frustration lingers, calcifies and suppresses long-term wealth creation. 

That can look like hesitating to launch a project or applying for a better-paying job. We all know that changing jobs is the best way to make more money. You might be comfortable where you are because you have some security and let’s face it, rent is due. Can’t blame a person for that these days. 

We're all preppers now with money

It can also look like holding a lot of cash (outside of an emergency fund) instead of investing it because you want the easy access to the money just in case, instead of investing it. Or putting off big purchases like a home, a business or even a new pair of winter boots. 

Women, singles, retirement and common money mistakes

The economics of solo living are producing households optimized for survival rather than wealth accumulation and production and that sucks because there’s no enjoyment, just anxiety.

There is a difference between financial resilience and financial contraction. Resilience (and I hate this word) allows you to recover from setbacks while still leaving room for progress. Contraction keeps you permanently braced for impact.

A lot of single people (and yes, everyone) are quietly living in that second state because modern life has trained us to expect precarity at any moment. Layoffs happen quickly and rudely. Rent rises faster than salaries. Inflation is still lurking depending on your country. Contract work disappears overnight especially now thanks to employers and clients thinking AI can do something better. 

The result is that many solo earners become excellent at survival, but survival is not the same thing as prosperity. You cannot build a full financial life if every decision is filtered through fear of your life collapsing out of your control.

Still, I get why spite remains such a powerful motivator. I use it all the time. Sometimes anger is the thing that gets people to finally open the investing account, negotiate the salary, start the side business or build the emergency fund. Sometimes it is the emotional fuel behind refusing to become financially invisible. Which reminds me, fill out your census, please. I’m dying to know how many single people and households there are now. Has to be more than 4.4 million, yes? Remember how I say that some things can’t be solved individually but with government policy? This is what I mean. 

But back to my point. Eventually the goal has to evolve beyond spite and proving that you can survive alone. The real financial shift happens when solo earners stop building lives designed only to withstand emergencies and start building lives that can actually show some signs of growth. Sometimes it starts by asking for help. That could be financially or just asking a friend to lend an ear. It could be setting up automatic deposits and refusing to think about them on a daily basis. 

It’s just really goddamn difficult to get to that state and I’m still trying to figure the ideal for myself. 

Feel free to share this newsletter with an annoyed friend, upgrade to a paid subscription to get access to Q&As with experts or buy me a coffee.

Oh, and I have this other newsletter where I talk about being single and friendships with occasional outfit posts because I don’t only like talking about money.

This week’s readings:

By me: Do you have to claim all your income on your taxes? (Neo)

Kind of by me: How to beat the Singles Tax and still build wealth (Girlboss)

Should advisors help clients budget, meal prep, and even plan their grocery trips? (Wealth Professional)

America’s biggest career hurdle? Being a daughter (Business Insider)

—-
Recent survey news that I found interesting:

The first is by Beyond Finance which found that for American Gen Xers and Millennials, the financial reset after divorce is colliding with the high-cost housing market at exactly the wrong moment. Gray divorce, defined as divorce among those 50 and older, has doubled since the 1990s, with the median age now in the mid-40s. Many are re-entering the housing market on a single income after seeing household earnings drop 30 to 40 percent. At the same time, mortgage rates near 6 to 7 per cent, combined with home prices above $ 400,000, are pushing affordability further out of reach.

A Harris Poll and SunLife survey of more than 1,700 working Canadians found that younger workers are the most financially anxious generation, yet often have the least access to workplace savings support and financial guidance.

Some of the findings include:

• 85% of Gen Z workers believe employers should play a role in helping employees build financial security, compared to 67% of Boomers+

• 77% of Gen Z say workplace financial guidance should be considered a standard employee benefit

• Younger workers were also significantly more likely to report not knowing where to start financially, lacking access to guidance and experiencing workplace impacts tied to financial stress