Stimulus Wreck: Rebuilding After a Financial Disaster

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.”