Well, here at Pinko HQ, we like to think we are working for the liberation of all workers from the yoke of capitalist oppression! REVO-LU-U-U-U-U-U-UTION!

That said, my focus is this: if you have a job and are not teetering on the brink of homelessness, then you have the ability to get your finances squared away, get rid of your debt, and increase both your freedom and your peace of mind. It won’t even be that hard to do if you can get a new perspective on what money is good for (and what it isn’t), what lasting happiness looks like (you can’t buy it), and why foregoing buying “luxuries” for even a short period of time makes it increasingly easy to forego more useless spending and keep saving and investing.

And we will do this not via some amazing investment opportunity (scam), secret strategy (scam), or spiritual practice that brings prosperity (scammity-scam-scam), but by simple, boring, repetitive practices that pay down what you owe, help you make good decisions with what you have, and help you develop a plan to point you in the direction you want to go. What we talk about on the blog won’t be exciting to do, but doing it might allow you to bring other excitements into your life–travel, a new job, or getting by on one job instead of two.

Which brings me to a second aspect of our work here at Pinko HQ–I’m not interested in talking with people who are earning $100,000 a year.  I’m interested in strategies for the person who is busting their hump every day at a job (or two) and struggling to get debt under control, the person working in the shadow economy who isn’t sure how to be legit, the artist who works a day job to afford to make sculpture on the weekends, the musician who is a bar-back Sunday through Thursday so she can play with her band on Friday and Saturday nights,  and the person who has stepped off the careerist track to walk a different, less lucrative, more fulfilling path.

And finally, this site is for the person who knows nothing about money, personal finance, investment, or budgeting. Most sites that talk about money are only speaking to people who are already extremely interested in money, but not us! The Pinko Guide assumes you know nothing about money and seeks to give you a solid footing, but not by boring you to death with some academic, super-technical, hyper-quant approach to finance. Just the basics and the gritty.  So, we will talk about the fundamentals of finance, about the building blocks of saving and investing, but also what happens when it doesn’t work out, you don’t get a break, or when you are stone broke. Stay tuned.

Welcome, friends and comrades!

The Pinko’s  Guide To Surviving Capitalism is a blog for those of us who feel mystified, put upon, run over, and otherwise abused by life in our consumerist, money-worshiping, all-work-no-play 21st Century culture. We are going to run through the fundamentals of understanding how money works and how we all ended up chasing it and all the consumer crap we buy with it. In the process, we will talk about strategies and plans for dealing with money and personal finance in healthy, proactive ways that will help us reduce our anxiety, clear up our confusion, and break down the constant societal drumbeat that “we are what we buy.”

There will be a concerted effort on our part here at Pinko HQ to help you throw off the golden handcuffs of consumerism, debt, convenience, status, and the pursuit of “luxury.” This means examining  what society tells us we should want out of life and then asking what is it we do want?

While we will likely have guest posts, interviews, the occasional suggested reading, and anything else we think might be fun and useful, most of this blog will be penned by me, Comrade B. My goal will be to make you throw off your social blinders, make choices that help you live the life you want to live, and feel more empowered in your relationship to money. I have strong opinions and encourage you to question everything and think for yourself. If I haven’t convinced you of my case, call me on it. Better yet, show me how to get it right!

At the base of all this blather is this–to be an American now is to live in a society that has evolved to keep us:

• on the hamster wheel, spending beyond our means,
• scrabbling for basics like shelter and health care,
• thinking that we need to buy to be happy, and
• drowning in fear, insecurity and self-doubt.

Here at Pinko HQ, we only have one response: F@#% THAT!

We won’t bullshit you. We aren’t telling you to move to the desert, cut your ties to society, rely on barter and foraging for roots and berries. However if, like us, you have chosen to live rather than to mindlessly shop for the next thrill, we can help you come up with some freedom from fear and bullshit. Stay tuned in and get ready to drop out.