News in the US this week was dominated by Congress passing President Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," which he signed into law on Friday.

The mega bill is hundreds of pages in length, and like many tax bills, it weaves in stipulations and conditions that are hard for many Americans to grasp. Not a great formula for social media reactions.

Some highlights to know:

Quite a few updates to student loans. Federal student loans are now capped at $150,000, interest will no longer be subsidized while enrolled, and some income-based repayment programs were revised or eliminated.

The fact that our system lets people get into this big a hole in the first place is ridiculous. Medical TikTok is in a flurry about the new updates.

I appreciated ​this video​, which pointed out that regulation on tuition cost never seems to be on the table. Student loan debt hasn't exploded because people are getting way more educated; the costs themselves are what inflated rapidly.

Students in professional programs (law school, med school) who go over the $150K threshold will need to leverage private loans, which have variable interest rates, for the rest.

About 50% of medical students had at least this much debt in 2023, according to the ​AMA​.

And the average student loan balance in America in 2024 for all programs was $38,375, per the ​Education Data Initiative.​

I think about this stuff a lot as someone who grew up low-income, what scholarships made possible for me, and how today's young people often don't have the same opportunities.

"No tax on tips or overtime" was a prominent marketing tagline. It's a deduction, not a credit, and applies to up to $12,500 in overtime pay and up to $25,000 in tips. Because it's a deduction, it isn't realized until you file your return for the year prior.

The topline criticism is that most who benefit from this perk are in lower income brackets, and that other aspects of the bill, like cuts to SNAP benefits, cancel out the perk for a good swath of this group.

Wage activists also note that no tax on tips just gives employers another excuse to not raise wages. It's also only in effect for three years, whereas the billionaire tax cuts are permanent.

This also happened in 2017. 2017 was the first year of the first Trump presidency, when the Tax Jobs and Cuts Act was passed. That was more of a 1.0, whereas this is a 2.0. But it was pretty much the same playbook; we just have TikTok now, so dissent is more amplified (at least it feels that way). Sharing the ​Wikipedia page​ on that bill, rather than the .gov summary, because all the .gov pages are getting updated with political bias now. 🫠

It's important to stay informed. But let's also be careful of discourse and reaction this weekend. I'm seeing a lot of financial misinformation on my feeds.

Get those news sources tight and right so you know what's up.

Out Magazine column

Surprise, I'm a sex columnist now! Well, sort of.

My finance column doubled as a guest spot in Out' magazine's health section this month. For this story, I looked at the idea of sexuality as a life domain, one of several life domains we have, and how our definition of wealth can be broadened to include things like health, relationships, time freedom, and more.

I interviewed a sex educator and a sex therapist on what people spend money on related to sex, specifically eroticism, and why.

This came out as a 5-page spread, but my column was its usual length for print, about 1,500 words. I try to submit a lot of sources' photos for print to help with the typeset... and maybe angle for an extra page or two.

Would love to hear what you thought of this piece.

​Read at Out magazine​

Money Proud Book Launch

Book launch: 25 weeks to go

This week, I got approvals on some marketing materials, wrote a batch of video scripts for social media, and am organizing my rolodex.

I'm doing separate outreach strategies for legacy media, independent media, podcasts, bookstores, local businesses, creators, and online business owners.

Why so granular? Well, even though many of these asks can happen later this fall, but others will have to happen now to get my foot in the door, so my current focus is mapping and project planning.

I've been planting the seeds for some big media swings, things that will require a lot of production and approvals, so we'll see what unfolds.

Also -- this book is hilarious. So I want to show off the prose as much as I can and let the style do the talking.

It's in my HarperCollins contract to not leverage more than 10 percent of the manuscript for marketing purposes, and I doubt I'll come anywhere close to that. But that limit is making me think strategically about what text I want to drip out over the next six months and in what order.

I'm taking inventory of all my best zingers.

Here's a snippet from the introduction. This is part of a 1,000-word section in which I'm priming the reader for the nutgraf (one-paragraph summary) of the entire book and why it matters.

Want to help? Intro me to someone!

If you know of an LGBTQ+ or personal finance creator who might be interested in collaborating in some way -- or are just a big fan of! -- I would love to hear from you.

Hot Links

What happened this week

Disclosure: I work at Ziff Davis, the parent company of CNET, Mashable, PCMag, Lifehacker, and ZDNET, and equalpride, the parent company of Out magazine and The Advocate.

Economy, business, money, entrepreneurship

​President Trump signed his controversial megabill into law yesterday​ in a White House ceremony that included military flyovers and fireworks. (Trevor Hunnicutt / Reuters)

​The stock market hit record highs this week.​ Several tariff decisions are expected next week as various 90-day pauses are set to expire. (Saqib Iqbal Ahmed / Reuters)

​Robinhood gives out tokens of OpenAI and SpaceX in Europe. ​"Tokenized shares" are being argued as a way to invest in private companies. It's... weird. But we also have to keep an eye on it, because it could change the landscape of investing, since cryptocurrency trades 24/7. (MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC)

​The Mysterious Billionaire Behind the OnlyFans Porn Empire.​ The company is up for sale at a price tag of up to $8 billion. (Sam Schechner and Katherine Sayre / The Wall Street Journal)

​Five financial lies people should stop telling themselves.​ Michelle Singletary's finance column in WaPo is so good she can re-run a story from five years ago, like she did here, and it still slaps. (Michelle Singletary / The Washington Post) (friend link)

LGBTQ

​Why LGBTQ+ advocates hope Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' costs the Republicans in the midterms.​ (Christopher Wiggins / The Advocate)

​An appeals court ruled that a transgender Florida teacher cannot use female pronouns in school.​ (Jacob Ogles / The Advocate)

​The Supreme Court will decide whether states can ban transgender women & girls from sports.​ The decision is expected to arrive next summer. (Christopher Wiggins / The Advocate)

​Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy implied that rainbow crosswalks could lead to traffic dangers.​ (Christopher Wiggins / The Advocate)

​'Saving and destroying me': Fans react to the 'Brokeback Mountain' rerelease for its 20-year anniversary.​ (Bernardo Sim / Out magazine)

​Ohio Blocks Funding For Trans-Affirming Mental Health Care For Youth And Adults.​ (Erin Reed / Erin In The Morning)

​The Trump bill's SNAP benefit cuts will affect approximately 2 million LGBTQ+ Americans.​ (Ryan Adamczeski / The Advocate)

On a brighter note, Love Bailey's new video Tranz Panic came out and it is everything. ​Made a little video on my Insta to support it​ and her upcoming short film. (Nick Wolny IG)

Industry

​Substack Is Having a Moment—Again. But Time Is Running Out.​ Have never liked Substack personally -- an old review ​is here​ -- though I acknowledge its merits and discoverability appeal. Few features on the backend. I use ​Kit (ConvertKit)​ now. (Steven Levy / WIRED)