The Trick to Figuring Out "Your Worth" in the Market When That Phrase Makes No Damn Sense To You

Bottom Lines Top Dollars

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 force you into unhealthy precarity. The Ladies Who Crunch walk you thru a bunch of different hands on activities to help you see this problem from different angles so that you can re-set your sense of monetary scale to help empower you to advocate for an income that makes more sense for you in the here and now. And yes, these activities are inclusive of both wage earners and the self-employed! This episode lays essential groundwork to shift your thinking about your income goals when you and everyone you know has always made very little, so that in future episode(s) we can tackle the issue of actualizing those goals.

Plus! In this episode you'll hear lots of punk stories and random chatter, such as:

• What’s the punkest thing you did to avoid spending money?
• When you were a dirtbag, what did you think was "a lot of money"?
• Is garbage picking really better than a job?
• How can we reframe “know your worth!” without having to financialize our every moment of time on the planet as human beings?
• Tips for making a realistic budget that doesn't omit important shit and results in you ending the year broke and pissed off

----

This episode is part of our second season. We are calling this season "Punks Not Dead and Capitalism Still Sucks" and it explores the question: how did 90s and 2000’s punk intersect with money, and what can that teach us today? What if you don’t “Live fast die young,” but have to meet needs over the course of your life instead?

Listeners will hear stories -- from “the punkest way I ever made money,” to “the worst minimum wage job I ever had,” to “magic bullshit I did to try to avoid working” -- as well as learn facts about how the financial systems around us operate.

The show is written and produced by the Ladies Who Crunch: Queer femme artist/organizers turned financial professionals Laura and Hadassah, who explore the alternative ways of being that crafted the bedrock of who they are today to understand what they learned - and had to unlearn - from punk in order to figure out their money lives and to understand financial systems.

-------

The Ladies Who Crunch are Hadassah Damien and Laura Boo. More information about us and this podcast can be found at ladieswhocrunch.club.

Please follow us on Instagram (@bottomlinestopdollars) and if you want to send us questions or episode ideas, email us at [e-mail].