Capitalism sucks, but we don’t have to
I’ve been writing about making and managing money for more than a decade. I’ve learned a ton of “rules” about money that never seem to work for me — or the vast array of folks who aren’t like the typical wealthy white dudes who peddle most financial advice.
I created Healthy Rich to find and connect with the artists, queers, autistics, feminists, leftists, self-employed, marginalized, racialized, paupers, activists and other misfits who are tired of struggling and striving against a system that’s not made for us.
What if we didn’t have to follow their rules?
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My name is Dana; I’m the creator and editor of Healthy Rich. I write many of the posts you’ll find in the newsletter, and I edit others contributed by folks in our community.
I’m a personal finance writer and a certified educator in personal finance. I’ve been writing about making and managing money since 2015 for publications including TIME, Forbes Advisor, Fortune, Kiplinger, Business Insider, Salon, CNET Money and more.
I reject our culture’s restrictive, one-size-fits-all approach to money. I instead advocate for a budget-free approach, which recognizes the ways financial education fails to meet the needs of marginalized folks and shifts the conversation toward a better relationship with money for everyone.
I also put out my first book in 2024: You Don’t Need a Budget: Stop Worrying about Debt, Spend without Shame, and Manage Money with Ease. It goes deeper into my budget-free approach and investigates our typical culture of money, which I call “budget culture.”
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The bulk of Healthy Rich content (including comments) is free for everyone! A few things are behind a paywall as a thank you to anyone who supports this publication.
🤑 Here’s why you might want to join them:
Support diverse writers! Healthy Rich makes space for the misfit voices we don’t hear enough in personal finance media, including women and BIPOC, LGBTQ+, rural, working-class, and disabled people. Because of your subscriptions, I’m able to pay writers and interviewees competitive rates for their contributions.
Resist intrusive ads and sponsors. This newsletter is ad-free (save for affiliate links to Bookshop.org and the rare solopreneur whose work I’m excited to share). Reader support keeps this one of the only personal finance publications not paid for by banks, creditors, fintech companies and investment firms.
🙏 As a thank you, paid subscribers get access to:
My money dates, where you can follow my personal experiences with money and talk with the community about your own.
Reader debt diaries, where Healthy Rich community members break the stigma around talking about debt and let you know you’re not alone.
Self-paced classes on making and managing money without restriction, shame or greed.
A paid subscription is $5/month or $35/year.
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You can also support this work without a Substack subscription by:
Buying You Don’t Need a Budget, or another book from a friend of the newsletter through the Healthy Rich bookshop.
Throwing any amount you want into my digital tip jar.
Donating to my annual scholarship for LGBTQ+ and other misfit grads from my local rural high school.
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Contact
Email: hi (at) healthyrich (dot) co
