💸🥴 Can’t afford a house? Try a $7 latte.

👠🎃 Win tickets to Boston’s boujee Halloween ball! Two lucky B-Side members get a pair of tickets to the BPL’s iconic annual fundraiser, Night in the Stacks. This fun event helps keep the lights on and books open at our libraries (it raised over $260k in 2024), so go check it out! Become a member to enter the giveaway tomorrow. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

You have enough money to pay the bills and then some. So why does it feel like it’s not enough? Welcome to the world of money dysmorphia — that perpetual financial dread you feel … even when you’re doing just fine.

Here’s what to know: 

💸 Young people are feeling money dysmorphia hard. The numbers don’t lie: A recent Credit Karma study found that 43% of Gen Zers and 41% of millennials say they experience money dysmorphia. Same goes for 66% of B-Side readers we polled.

😞 Which can chip away at their financial confidence. B-Sider Brynn Sandy knows she’s on relatively solid financial footing: Her full-time job allowed her to secure her own apartment and pays her monthly bills. But when she sees others in luxury Seaport high-rises or swanky Back Bay brownstones, those achievements lose their luster. “I can't help but think: Am I doing something wrong?” she said. 

📲 The culprits? Our FYPs and lost American dreams. Young people’s reference points for financial success are sky-high. But for most people, that success is steadily becoming less attainable. Why? Social media is making it easier than ever to compare our lives and finances to more people (read: wealthier people), while traditional benchmarks of success like homeownership inch further and further away, according to Hristina Nikolova, a Northeastern behavioral data scientist.

⚖️ That dysmorphia can feel even worse for BIPOC and low-income folks. Ultimately, our financial footing “boils down to generational wealth, and access to family resources and support,” said Ariana Contreras of Women’s Money Matters. When you’re not starting out on an equal playing field, money dysmorphia can feel even more extreme. 

😬 And bad feelings often = bad financial decisions. That’s for all sorts of psychological reasons, BU Marketing professor Carey Morewedge said. Spending can create the illusion of reclaiming control over your identity (a.k.a. compensatory consumption), or act as a way to metaphorically throw your hands up in the face of a bleak financial future (a.k.a the “what the hell effect”). But, spoiler: This kind of spending rarely makes you feel better, and often leads to more spending.

🙋‍♀️ The fix? Realign your choices with your values, not your rich friend’s. Money dysmorphia often boils down to the assumption that what’s on your rich friend’s IG will make you happy, said financial therapist Rachel C. Sykes. And while that’s not necessarily false, it’s also not necessarily true. So take a hard look at what YOU want for yourself, and let your decisions flow from there.

🏘️ The first sign of local brain drain: Apartment vacancies. Local schools are suspected to see a decline in graduate and international students under President Trump, which may be why so many apartments are still empty in some student-heavy neighborhoods post-Sept. 1. Apartment availability rates around Northeastern have more than doubled year over year, and some brokers have flagged less interest from those groups compared to domestic undergrads. If true, that could spell bad news for Mass.’ economy, which could take a $16.5 million hit with even a 10% student decrease.

🚩 Is this issue Gov. Healey’s biggest red flag? Healey’s two Republican opponents, Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, have latched onto her state flag, seal, and motto redesign as a potential political lightning rod. After years of attempts to nix the current symbols (which do give strong colonizer energy), Healey’s advisory commission is closer than ever to identifying replacements. In the meantime, Kennealy and Shortsleeve hope to capitalize on the controversial nature of flag redesigns to rally their base, arguing the swap is an unnecessary waste of money. Whether it’ll work? TBD.

🚰 You might want to skip that everything shower … ‘Cause the vast majority of Mass. is currently in a “significant” drought. Despite our weekend deluge that brought up to three inches of rain in some spots, most of the state has still only received 40 to 80% of its usual rainfall over the last three months, which = an increase in outdoor wildfire risks and local water restrictions. State officials are asking residents to avoid washing sidewalks, patios, driveways, and vehicles, and limit outdoor watering to hoses or watering cans between 5 p.m. to 9 a.m.

🤺 En garde! Touche! That could be YOU at a free lesson from Boston Fencing Club. Through September, the Allston club is offering a freebie lesson or beginner’s class to anyone interested in the fast-growing sport — gear included! Plus, on Sept. 21, they’ll be holding an open house where you can get a crash course in fencing and watch some pros in action. Fill out some info and redeem your fencing freebie here!

We all joke that we could run faster than the Green Line. But these days, it’s actually not as easy as you’d think. The Charlie Card challenge, an unsanctioned annual race that pits runners against the B Line from Boston College to Park Street, seeks to put that theory to the test.

Historically, the runners have nabbed a decisive victory. But this year, the Green Line came to PLAY, cutting its average trip time down from 52:07 (8:41/mile pace) in 2024 to 46:51 minutes (7:49/mile pace) this year.

Out of over 500 runners, just 177 were able to beat the T in its new and improved form. But even amid the fierce competition, two runners showed the T who’s boss, setting new men’s and women’s course records: Christina Crow finished in 37:03 (6:10/mile), and Mike Durkin finished in 30:22 (5:03/mile).

Dive into the results here.

— Written by Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

🚃 Thanks for reading! Hear us out, B.A.A.: Beating the T = automatic Boston Qualifier.

📝 Quick correction: The correct date for Harvard Square and HONK! Parade is Oct. 12. Happy honking!

👋 Pssst. If you’re a B-Side member, you can enter to win two VIP tickets to Red Bull Cliff Diving (a $650 value!). Come back tomorrow to enter!

🤑 The results are in: We got you this time, B-Siders. Just 12% of you correctly guessed that the combined net worth of all 400 of the richest Americans is $6.6 trillion. One reader said: “All of these choices are so high, they all seem like imaginary numbers to me.”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].