A Rebuttal to The 8 (Actually 11) Way's Millennials Accidently Ruin Their Finances, by FinanceBuzz

 I spend too much time on Facebook. Can you really blame me? I'm a social butterfly who run a quasi-legal advice blog, of course, I check Facebook often. It was while checking Facebook recently that this sponsored ad popped up on my feed. 

BS articles like this were the inspiration for Financial Pro-Tip, and I haven't really been seeing many of them recently. But I wanted to take this article, rip it apart piece by piece, and save you the trouble of actually reading it and, god forbid, giving this creeps more money. 

Let's begin. 

1. Don't overpay when you shop online.

Fun Fact: They don't offer any actual advice other than to get a capital one credit card. This won't actually save you money, but marketing this crap is the only reason for this article's existence.

2. Not Investing Enough

This tip is an ad for Stash, a micro-investing tool. Remember, the stock market is just a massive casino for the ultrawealthy, and apps like Stash, Robinhood, and the 401K, are all designed to give the working class the illusion that they are in any way connected to the stock market.

3. Overpaying for Car Insurance.

Yeah, probably, but this is still an ad for Financebuzz.
That said, feel free to shop around for car insurance. By law, you can leave and join a new company at any point, and insurance companies will often undercut each other to get you as a customer. Pitch the capitalists against each other, and in the end, you win.

4. Not getting life insurance when you're young.

Life insurance is largely a scam. They will do everything they can to avoid paying out, and since you, the person most familiar with the policy, will be dead, it's very easy for the insurance company to deny a payout.
Also, this is an ad for Bestow.

5. Paying Interest in 2021

*Stares at my student loan interest rates. Rate*s*, plural, multiple interest rates on my multiple student loans*
It's an ad for American Express.

6. Forgetting to Negotiate.

Okay, this one looks good, but hold on...let me check,
Okay, it's an ad for Truebill.
But really, always negotiate. A lot of places set quotas for the customer service team. They want you as a customer, and they're willing to undercut their prices. Most of how they make their money, in the end, is going to be the hidden fees and figures, so you might as well cut costs somewhere.

7. Not having a healthy emergency fund.

The minimum wage, by federal law, is still $7.50 an hour. There is not a single state in the United States where you can afford an apartment on the minimum wage for 40 hours. How the heck are you also supposed to have an emergency account?

8. Not taking simple steps to improve your credit.

This is an Ad for Experian boost. You remember Experian? The company that had a massive data breach and leaked all your personal info to hostile foreign powers? Well now, if you bribe them, they'll increase your credit. No really. Credit is a joke.

Edit: My brother helpfully reminded me that it was Equifax that had the breach and not Experian.  He adds: "1/5 Credit Reports have a small error on it. 1/20 have a major error. Now that employers and landlords are looking at credit, Experian is like tolling a d20 and being unable to find work or housing on a nat 1. Fuck Credit Bureaus." 

9. Get spotted up to $100* if your account balance runs low.

I had to do a doubletake, but both the banner above and the headline in the article both say 8, but there are actually 11 ads here.
This one is an ad for chime, and it seems sketch as hell. No* Hidden* Fees* and we'll* front* you* $100* if your balance* gets too low* * *.
This ad has more asterisks than a redacted transcript of an episode of the Osbournes.

10. Not saving an average of $83^2 per month on refinancing.

The article actually has $83 squared in the headline. It's a baffling typo. How do you accidentally hit the square root key on a qwerty keyboard?
$83 squared would be $6,889 a month. The writing in this article is so bad that it's begun to ruin math as well.

Bonus: #11 Get Smarter about money in just five minutes a day.

It's the sign up for their newsletter hard pass.

What an absolute dumpster fire of an article. I'm sure Financebuzz made decent money writing it, what with all the corporate sponsors. What's distressing is that we're once again perpetuating the myth that Millenials are bad with money, and not that Millenials came of age between the two worst economic collapses of the past half-century, graduating with college degrees that have been hyperinflated since our grandparents went to school, into a job market with diminished union presences that treat them as disposable commodities.

Want some real advice? Don't ever spend money on a service that promises to help you make more money. How's that for a Financial Pro-Tip?