Stimulus Wreck: Rebuilding After a Financial Disaster

By Gabe Dunn

Understanding money—how to make it, save it, and grow it—has always been fraught for most people, even in the best of times. So what went down when a global pandemic threw a monstrous wrench in the works was sadly-predictable. What was already confusing and stressful became overwhelming and existential, even for someone like Gaby Dunn, who’d spent the past few years researching and reporting on financial literacy for the underserved.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 began to bring the world to a stuttering halt, Dunn—author of Bad with Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together and host of the Bad with Money podcast—watched as their income dropped by roughly 50 percent. Suddenly, what had been more of a passion for helping others became a renewed struggle for survival in the midst of economic disaster.  

What Dunn has learned in the interim takes center stage in this conversational how-to guide on navigating our new reality, including finance hacks not in pursuit of the ever-elusive American dream but, rather, a thoughtful, more inclusive approach to making the most of your money and surviving amidst financial jargon, shame and judgement.

From worker advocacy, scam awareness, and positive thinking to earth-friendly practices, bill negotiation, and overlooked assistance programs, Stimulus Wreck serves as a primer on putting more power in your own hands. It’s also an inspiring reference for those who would take advantage of a system that is always taking advantage of you.

With immense empathy and enlightening experience, Dunn doles out dozens of helpful ideas for common-sense steps you can take to turn things around and rebuild when all might seem lost—“so that people can afford to take care of themselves and their families and to plan for a future that allows them basic human rights like food, water, health care, shelter, and more.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Originals
• Release date: Jun 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094447940

Gabe Dunn

GABE DUNN is a New York Times bestselling author, comedian and LGBTQ+ advocate living in Los Angeles. Gabe has served as a writer on BIG MOUTH (Netflix) and has developed original television pilots with MTV, 20th Century Fox, YouTube Originals, FX and Netflix. Gabe is the host and creator of the podcast, BAD WITH MONEY WITH GABY DUNN, now in its eighth season, where they have interviewed guests like Suze Orman, Andrew Yang, and Elizabeth Warren. A non-fiction book based on the podcast was published by Simon & Schuster in 2019. Gabe co-wrote the novels I HATE EVERYONE BUT YOU, a New York Times bestseller in 2018, and the sequel PLEASE SEND HELP… published in 2019. Both of Gabe's latest novels garnered a placement on The 20 Best LGBTQ Books of 2019 list by Harper's Bazaar. They also created, and starred in the Audible Original series APOCALYPSE UNTREATED and co-host of the JUST BETWEEN US podcast on the Forever Dog network.

Book preview

Introduction

In early March 2020, I was planning on heading back home to Los Angeles from New York City. I had just done an online commercial for an overpriced skin-care company. That company partnered with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and we were all expected to enthusiastically post on social media about the upcoming, definitely happening event. Surely nothing would ever interfere with the Olympics! That would be crazy.

Work had taken my business partner and I to the middle of Times Square, where she was wearing gloves and a mask—but no one else was. I heard rumblings that a virus circulating in China was barreling toward the U.S., but I wasn’t concerned, because my mind was elsewhere. My mom had just experienced what we thought was a heart attack, and I was constantly on the phone with my dad trying to figure out if I needed to fly home to see and help take care of her.

A few organizers at the NYC skin-care product kickoff wandered around passing out hand sanitizer, which stood out to me, but COVID-19 seemed like it was a distant problem and my mom’s health was a current one.

By March 5, flights were being grounded. If I flew to Florida to be with my ailing mom, it was unclear if or when I’d be able to return to Los Angeles.

I was also in a long-distance relationship. I had been overspending for about a year to see my partner once a month, while trying (and largely failing) to scrounge up enough work excuses to be in NYC. I’d even taken a deal with a mommy blog to host a three-part web series for them, despite not being a mother or having any interest in ever having children. Mostly though, I was blowing through all of my income to travel and see my new love.

In late February, just before the chaos really erupted, I finished recording a six-hour audio fiction series for a major podcast distributor and was ready for it to be edited and finalized. It was about kids surviving an apocalypse, if you can believe the timing. I had some money but definitely not enough to survive an unforeseen, unprecedented world disaster. I needed payment per my usual schedule, plus I needed to not dip into emergency savings (which, again, I’d been blowing through out of a misguided notion of romance). Also, while my mom’s illness was unexpected, this new virus wasn’t going to do anything to help my finances. Fat chance of any of that.

In 2020, I made about half of the income that I usually make. This was bad … very bad. I don’t come from generational wealth; growing up, my family was lower middle-class, and I always had to work to support myself. It was the worst financial year I’ve had since I started making enough money to sustain myself consistently (which was around 2016). I launched my financial podcast, Bad with Money, in 2016 and made a personal promise to learn as much as I could in order to stabilize my finances. From 2016 to 2019, I’d mostly succeeded.

Looking back on 2016, I knew nothing about finances and struggled every day. But doing research for what was then my new podcast had helped me get so much better with money. That is, until now.

Many of my friends from all different walks of life were having the same experience. Los Angeles already has an overwhelming unhoused population (which the city should be embarrassed of their failure to address). Politicians and the police did nothing useful to help the massive evictions and job losses when the pandemic kicked in. (Spoiler alert: They weren’t doing anything useful before 2020 either.)

Housing became a serious problem across all economic and social classes. My friends were posting on Instagram about being newly unhoused. Some moved back home, if they were lucky, or into smaller apartments with more roommates, or into camper vans. I let a friend stay at my place for free while I moved to a rental in the desert with my partner. Unpredictability about the basic human right of housing—along with other, once stable aspects of daily life—suddenly became the norm. Fear touched everything.

Most money media keep people from cleaning up their acts, because the host either yells at listeners, speaks in unrecognizable jargon, or assumes a level of knowledge that doesn’t allow for the average person to ask questions—or makes people feel like their money questions are stupid, so they don’t dare to ask them.

Come on. Would you rather ask something you think is obvious or have more information about what to do with your money? The answer is always your money.

That’s the great privilege I have as someone who comes from a lower middle-class background, is queer and nonbinary, and has held jobs in food service and sex work. I can provide context and advice that many other money experts can’t and that hopefully makes you feel seen and empowered rather than embarrassed and demoralized—advice and information that make you feel big rather than small.

Section Break

I thought I was prepared for this.

In early 2019, I published a whole-ass book, Bad with Money, about my journey toward becoming better with money. The advice in that book is still relevant. Since then, and under the shadow of an unprecedented decimating event, I’ve learned more about what needs to change in order to help more people. Our government responded with less than timely assistance and less than stellar coordinated efforts to keep Americans afloat. With years to prepare for a proper pandemic response, officials and politicians flailed and floundered in the moment we needed them most. The U.S. economy changed around us. Striving for stability became confusing for everyone.

In the past five years of producing and hosting my money podcast, I’ve learned that the titular phrase doesn’t mean what people might think at first blush. Someone who has a lot of income, or even deep generational wealth, can be bad with money. Someone who is perpetually broke or even poor can be good with money.

The way I’ve come to define it is through awareness.

If you have no idea regarding what money you have flowing in or out, or where your bills are from or what they total, or don’t keep track of future expenses and/or don’t have savings in place for unforeseen circumstances, you are bad with money.

People who are good with money are often those who don’t have disposable income, don’t have much (if any) familial financial backup support, and/or are mindful of where every penny goes—they don’t have much to work with. The label has nothing to do with amounts of money or wealth … at all. It has to

Reviews for Stimulus Wreck

[Amanda Bobbitt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great advice for a post (?) Covid world! Highly recommend this and Gaby’s original book too!

[Darsey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent update on the considerations Gaby shared with us in Bad with Money (the book, as well as the podcast). The combination of specific suggestions and thoughtful, compassionate big-idea discussions make this a great read, and one that makes you want to actually go and do something about your own financial situation. An empowering read that deserves to be picked up and shared.

[Mae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I’m a huge fan of Gaby’s and I’m so glad I got to read this book! It’s great to get financial advice from someone like me (bisexual icon, wink!)