Business

How Do You Deal With a Windfall in Your 20s?

Published

1 year ago

August 19, 2023

How Do You Deal With a Windfall in Your 20s?

Mattea Roach still gets around Toronto by subway. In a city where tear-down bungalows can sell for $1 million, Mx. Roach, who uses they/them pronouns, still shares an apartment with their brother despite having more than enough money to buy a house.

For Mx. Roach, 24, the youngest ever “Jeopardy” super-champion, the $560,983 in winnings has done little to change how they live their daily life. They haven’t bought a car or splurged on anything more than some new clothes and a few more trips to the record store.

Despite the popular fantasy that a sudden financial windfall — whether a game-show win, an inheritance or a lawsuit settlement — will radically change a young person’s life, it’s not a guarantee. It does, of course, for some, allowing them to buy a house or adventure around the world at a young age. But for those who receive money after losing a loved one or who are learning to manage large sums of money for the first time, a windfall can feel overwhelming.

Mx. Roach, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, had planned to attend law school, but is doing public speaking and podcasting for now. “School’s not going anywhere, and these other things won’t be around forever,” they said. “I once had a very good idea what I was going to do with my life.”

Now, perhaps surprisingly, Mx. Roach has less clarity than before their win. “There’s a sense of uncertainty and unease,” they said. “I have it more than ever.”

For Mx. Roach, the “Jeopardy” money offers a sort of relieved exhalation, the knowledge of having a cushion to make new, different and possibly more interesting choices with their life.

“I feel very much the same as I did before,” they said. “I always feel guilty spending money.” Having six figures in the bank, though, offers them a welcome safety net in case they ever get sick, become unable to work or need to help their mother. Mx. Roach’s father died unexpectedly when they were competing on the show.

“I don’t know yet what my lifestyle will be,” they said.

For Alexandra Merullo Steffgen, a 25-year-old writer in Fort Collins, Colo., a $10,000 fellowship changed her life for good. She was a scholarship student during her final two years at Phillips Exeter Academy, a prestigious preparatory school, with peers who were wealthy enough to fly to Europe on a private plane for a weekend and who had campus buildings named for family members.

“A lot of time I couldn’t keep up with my friends who had stipends,” Ms. Merullo Steffgen said. “I had a minimum-wage job two days a week at the library.”

She watched fellow seniors worry about which college they would get into and knew that wasn’t the path she wanted. She instead applied for two fellowships, each of which would give her the financial freedom to take a gap year and travel. At 18, she won a Phillips Exeter Academy fellowship worth $10,000 that allowed her to do just that.

“It was so exciting,” Ms. Merullo Steffgen said. “It was a sum of money I could barely fathom at that age. It felt really special.” She volunteered in Naples, Italy; hiked the Camino de Compostela in Spain; spent time in Berlin, Ireland and Florence, Italy; and went on a Buddhist retreat. She spent the last of her funds on a trip to Cambodia.

“I spent the money just indulging myself, which I don’t do anymore,” she said. “I let myself enjoy myself more than any other time. I’ve always felt like an overly responsible person making sure no one suffers because of me. That was the greatest gift it gave me.”

The irony to getting a windfall in your 20s or 30s? It can offer new freedom, but it can also feel disorienting, especially if your peers are still in early-stage careers, burdened by student debt and simply can’t relate to the sudden challenge of managing five or six figures.

Nicholas Freda, a tech worker in Seattle, was 26 when he received a $100,000 inheritance from his grandmother. The gift brought pangs of grief because his father had already died, which meant the money would be passed directly to him.

“I’d heard people talk about inheritance in old-timey movies,” Mr. Freda said. “It was something other people did.” When he was told to expect a payment, “I thought it would not be very much at all,” he said.

Mr. Freda said he was initially uncomfortable with the inheritance. He ultimately decided the money should go toward buying a house rather than unnecessary splurges and went in search of advice. He was surrounded by older and much higher-earning workers in his industry who owned multimillion-dollar homes.

“It was hard to discuss since we weren’t really using the same unit of measurement,” Mr. Freda said of the differences in buying power.

Yet it was also an odd feeling, he said, to be able to “have a conversation with people five, 10 or 15 years further along” in their careers. Two years after receiving the money, Mr. Freda put two-thirds of his inheritance into buying a house, where he now lives with his fiancée.

Gina Knox, a 30-year-old financial coach in San Antonio, has received two windfalls at an early age: $15,000 at the age of 22 and $100,000 at 28. The first was money from her parents left in her college account after graduation, which came as a shock.

Ms. Knox took $5,000 and traveled for a month through South America, riding horses in Argentina, savoring hot springs in Chile and taking a bus ride over the Andes. “I had a blast,” she said.

But she was stymied by what to do with the rest of it. “I sat on it for months not knowing what to do,” she said. “I was completely petrified I would mess it up or spend it.” She felt awkward and overwhelmed thinking, “this is too much money to have.”

By the time Ms. Knox received a $100,000 family inheritance, she had more confidence thanks to her father, who taught her about money management. “I had already saved and invested $100,000 on my own, so this was not the first time I’d managed six figures,” she said.

Ms. Knox now counsels others about managing their money. “If you don’t know what to do with it, it is vitally important to do nothing,” she said. “Ask a family member or financial adviser when you have large sums of money you are strategically or emotionally not prepared to deal with. Spend some time imagining what you want your life to be.”

Her splurge is driving a Mercedes station wagon, a purchase that gives her daily pleasure.

Those from lower-income families are even less equipped to smoothly integrate a windfall into their lives because managing large sums of money is a new skill they need to master. Steven M. Hughes, 36, a financial therapist based in Atlanta, is a first-generation American and knows the welter of emotions a sudden influx of cash can evoke. Fear, shame and guilt are three common ones he encounters with his clients.

“There are a lot of emotions tied into money, and there’s a rush of endorphins with an inheritance, but you may also feel a survivor’s remorse having more money than your family or your neighborhood ever had,” he said.

A windfall can also attract new pleas for aid. “You may now feel like a faucet for your family,” Mr. Hughes said.

Your first phone call should be to “the person you admire most in how they manage their money,” he said. “Ask who’s their accountant.” Your second phone call should be to a fee-based financial planner. “Once you have those people on your team, you can get some ideas from them,” he said.

If family or friends come asking for money, Mr. Hughes suggests giving yourself some guardrails. “Sometimes our heart and our eyes are bigger than our wallets,” he said. Lower-income recipients and people of color are often already financially supporting both younger and older relatives at the same time and can be seen as the savior, or the financial anchor of the family.

“Establish yourself financially first,” Mr. Hughes said.

Business

Starbucks Reverses Its Open-Door Policy for Bathroom Use and Lounging

Published

1 hour ago

January 14, 2025

Press Room

Starbucks Reverses Its Open-Door Policy for Bathroom Use and Lounging

Starbucks will require people visiting its coffee shops to buy something in order to stay or to use its bathrooms, the company announced in a letter sent to store managers on Monday.

The new policy, outlined in a Code of Conduct, will be enacted later this month and applies to the company’s cafes, patios and bathrooms.

“Implementing a Coffeehouse Code of Conduct is something most retailers already have and is a practical step that helps us prioritize our paying customers who want to sit and enjoy our cafes or need to use the restroom during their visit,” Jaci Anderson, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.

Ms. Anderson said that by outlining expectations for customers the company “can create a better environment for everyone.”

The Code of Conduct will be displayed in every store and prohibit behaviors including discrimination, harassment, smoking and panhandling.

People who violate the rules will be asked to leave the store, and employees may call law enforcement, the policy says.

Before implementation of the new policy begins on Jan. 27, store managers will be given 40 hours to prepare stores and workers, according to the company. There will also be training sessions for staff.

This training time will be used to prepare for other new practices, too, including asking customers if they want their drink to stay or to go and offering unlimited free refills of hot or iced coffee to customers who order a drink to stay.

The changes are part of an attempt by the company to prioritize customers and make the stores more inviting, Sara Trilling, the president of Starbucks North America, said in a letter to store managers.

“We know from customers that access to comfortable seating and a clean, safe environment is critical to the Starbucks experience they love,” she wrote. “We’ve also heard from you, our partners, that there is a need to reset expectations for how our spaces should be used, and who uses them.”

The changes come as the company responds to declining sales, falling stock prices and grumbling from activist investors. In August, the company appointed a new chief executive, Brian Niccol.

Mr. Niccol outlined changes the company needed to make in a video in October. “We will simplify our overly complex menu, fix our pricing architecture and ensure that every customer feels Starbucks is worth it every single time they visit,” he said.

The new purchase requirement reverses a policy Starbucks instituted in 2018 that said people could use its cafes and bathrooms even if they had not bought something.

The earlier policy was introduced a month after two Black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks while waiting to meet another man for a business meeting.

Officials said that the men had asked to use the bathroom, but that an employee had refused the request because they had not purchased anything. An employee then called the police, and part of the ensuing encounter was recorded on video and viewed by millions of people online, prompting boycotts and protests.

In 2022, Howard Schultz, the Starbucks chief executive at the time, said that the company was reconsidering the open-bathroom policy.

Business

'TikTok refugees' unexpectedly turn to Chinese alternative as ban looms

Published

2 hours ago

January 14, 2025

Press Room

'TikTok refugees' unexpectedly turn to Chinese alternative as ban looms

TAIPEI, Taiwan — TikTok users concerned about a looming ban are finding solace in a strange place.

Days ahead of a Supreme Court decision that could determine whether the popular short-video app shuts down starting Sunday, a number of users appear to be turning to an app called RedNote — more commonly known to its majority-Chinese audience by its Chinese name, Xiaohongshu.

It’s a surprising choice since Xiaohongshu is Chinese-owned, and such ties are the reason U.S. lawmakers moved to ban TikTok in the U.S., citing privacy and national security concerns.

Also Xiaohongshu is dominated by Chinese language, and its content is subject to censorship by Chinese government officials, something alien to most U.S. users.

But by embracing a Chinese social media and lifestyle app similar to Instagram, some U.S. TikTok users say they are protesting what they believe is the unfair ban of the ubiquitous app.

“I think America is trying to bully China into selling to an American owner. A lot of us just don’t want to give in to them,” said Samantha Manassero, a 39-year-old nurse in L.A. who downloaded Xiaohongshu on Sunday night after watching content creators on TikTok pitch it as a comparable app. “I think some of it is literally just pettiness.”

Last year, Congress passed a bill that requires TikTok’s owner, Bytedance, to sell the app to a U.S.-approved owner or face a nationwide ban. As soon as Wednesday, the Supreme Court is expected to uphold the legality of the ban.

It was unclear whether Xiaohongshu, which was started in 2013, would become a viable alternative to TikTok or if the recent migration to the Chinese platform accounts for a significant share of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users.

But a surge in new users made Xiaohongshu the top free download on Apple’s App Store this week. No. 2 on the charts was another social media app developed by Bytedance, Lemon8. It’s unclear whether either app will be subjected to the same U.S. government scrutiny as TikTok.

It is also difficult to determine exactly how many U.S. TikTok users have created accounts on Xiaohongshu or how many will stay on it. While many Xiaohongshu regulars have welcomed the influx of Americans identifying themselves as “TikTok refugees,” the app’s interface is largely in Chinese, making it difficult to navigate for non-native speakers.

Chinese apps are subject to stringent censorship on discussions that the Chinese government deems politically sensitive. These topics can range from illegal activities to LGBTQ+ rights to Winnie the Pooh, images of which have been used to mock Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Chinese version of TikTok, called Douyin, has different content restrictions and is only available for mobile download in China. Bytedance has argued that TikTok, which is used by the rest of the world, is a separate entity from Douyin and not beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.

That did not stop President-elect Donald Trump from proposing a ban of TikTok in 2020, or President Biden from signing it into law in 2024.

The legality of such a ban has been questioned several times. Last month, in an about-face, Trump, who has 14.8 million followers on TikTok, filed a legal brief requesting to stay the ban so he can negotiate a deal once he takes office.

As TikTok faces an uncertain future, Xiaohongshu’s latest arrivals were eager to try out the new app despite its foreign nature.

Manassero, who posts videos about healthcare and power lifting to about 7,000 followers on TikTok, said she already has a much larger audience of 26,000 on Instagram. However, she was motivated to create an account on Xiaohongshu partly out of frustration at the U.S. government’s determination to outlaw TikTok.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m reading, I’m just pressing buttons,” Manassero said in her first video post. The next morning, her account had received 5,000 views and 3,500 new followers. By Tuesday, the hashtag “Tiktok refugee” had received more than 90 million views and 2 million comments.

TikTokers sought each other out with introductions, follow requests and shared tips on how to navigate the app’s Chinese functions. On Monday, more than 190,000 viewers joined a live chat named “TikTok Refugees Club,” and held discussions in English about what a TikTok ban would mean and future plans for social media content. In the comments, users greeted new arrivals and lamented they could not understand each other.

“Maybe you can learn how to speak Chinese,” one user wrote in English.

“Where’s the translator?” another viewer asked in Chinese.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese officials had discussed the possibility of selling TikTok to a trusted non-Chinese party such as Elon Musk, who already owns social media platform X. However, analysts said that Bytedance is unlikely to agree to a sale of the underlying algorithm that powers the app, meaning the platform under a new owner could still look drastically different.

Manassero and other TikTokers expressed distaste at the prospect of migrating to U.S. tech platforms such as Instagram or X that could benefit from an influx of users if TikTok shuts down.

“We don’t want to turn around and make a bunch of billionaires even more rich,” she said. “I would honestly rather the app get shut down than be owned by Elon Musk.”

Though she is still trying to figure out how to use Xiaohongshu and message people back, Manassero said she would likely stay on the Chinese lifestyle app regardless of whether the TikTok ban goes through.

“The response has been so friendly and nice. It’s good energy,” she said. “This feels like the early TikTok days: a little more organic, so it’s fun.”

Business

Why TikTok Users Are Downloading ‘Red Note,’ the Chinese App

Published

9 hours ago

January 14, 2025

Press Room

Why TikTok Users Are Downloading ‘Red Note,’ the Chinese App

Manimatana Lee spent the past five years building one of the hottest commodities on the internet: a group of people who reliably watch her videos on TikTok.

She built an audience of nearly 10,000 followers with videos of herself vacuuming her house in Wisconsin while her youngest daughter napped in a carrier on her back. A video of Ms. Lee dancing and doing the dishes — while wearing her sleeping baby — has been watched more than one million times since November.

Now, with the Supreme Court soon to rule in a case that could determine whether TikTok could be banned in the United States over national security concerns, Ms. Lee and other Americans looking for alternatives are downloading Xiaohongshu, a social media app that is popular in China and little known outside the country.

“How funny would it be if they ban TikTok and we all just move over to this Chinese app,” Ms. Lee wrote on Monday on TikTok encouraging her followers to join her.

Xiaohongshu was the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple store on Tuesday. Over 300 million people, mostly in China, use the app, where they share short videos as well as still, text-based posts. People flocking to it said, in interviews and on the app, that they wanted to show they do not share Washington’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China.

TikTok, which is available in more than 150 countries but not China, is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. American creators who post videos on TikTok say the app has been a source of connection, entertainment and information since it became a sensation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its secret sauce is its proprietary algorithm, technology that recommends a constant stream of short videos targeted to keep people scrolling.

But lawmakers in the United States and other countries have warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access data about its users such as location and browsing histories. Officials in Washington say they are also concerned that China could use TikTok to spread false information among the 170 million people who use it in the United States.

Xiaohongshu means “little red book” in Mandarin. Americans new to the app said they were not put off by the reference to a book of Mao Zedong’s sayings. Many call the app “Red Note.”

“I don’t really care if I’m using a Chinese app at all,” said Ms. Lee. “It’s like a place for me to escape reality. And if it’s making me feel good, I’m here for it.”

A group of American creators have sued the government over the law that could see the TikTok app forcibly sold or banned in the United States, and TikTok is paying their legal fees. Ms. Lee and another creator said in interviews that their interest in Xiaohongshu had not been incentivized by either company. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

The Americans on Xiaohongshu have rallied under the hashtag “TikTokrefugee,” which had been viewed 100 million times and sparked around 2.5 million discussion threads on the app by Tuesday.

Joining the app has put American users in closer contact with people online in China than they have ever been on TikTok. In China, people use Douyin, a very similar app that ByteDance used to develop the technology that made TikTok a worldwide hit. Douyin is difficult to access outside China.

Many shared tips on how to navigate the app, which is mainly made for and used by people who read and speak Mandarin. Some took screenshots and asked ChatGPT to translate posts, they said.

Xiaohongshu displays the city or province of Chinese users who post and comment, and the country for users outside China. “We are coming to the Chinese spies and begging them to let us stay here,” said one American user. “Approved, welcome to Red Note,” someone in Shanghai replied.

Until late December, 85 percent of Xiaohongshu traffic was from China, according to Similarweb, a data provider and website traffic tracker. The app is especially popular among women in their 20s and 30s, and its long comment threads have become a popular source of information for people to swap questions about everyday concerns, similar to Reddit.

Xiaohongshu did not respond to requests for comment.

On Tuesday, more than 100,000 people had joined a live group chat hosted by a user named “TikTok Refugee Club,” where people from around the world chatted with Chinese users about urban safety. In another group chat, which had been viewed more than 30,000 times, participants discussed censorship and shared tips in the comments on how to avoid being banned from the platform for bringing up politically sensitive topics.

Under another video posted by someone who said they were usually on TikTok, a user in China responded with a meme of a cat with paws outstretched. “I’m your Chinese spy,” the comment said, “give me all your data.”