Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, grew up with MTV and empty houses, earning them the name “latchkey kids.”
The first generation who logged onto AOL Instant Messenger and played video games while still enjoying the freedom that came before helicopter parents took over is fascinating. But as a small generation that falls between baby boomers and millennials, they’re often overlooked.
When it comes to their spending power, however, Gen X is small but mighty. According to a new report from ICSC, a trade association for retail real estate, Gen X may have more spending power than brands realize.
While Gen X only makes up around 19% of the U.S. population, the demographic is responsible for 31% of online and in-person spending, the report finds.
Not only do Gen Xers buy more in stores than baby boomers, millennials, and Gen Z across categories (luxury, fitness, and total retail costs), they’re also driving spending on dining out.
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Per the report, Gen X is responsible for nearly one-third of all restaurant spending.
Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC, said in a press release that Gen X is “the powerhouse driving todays retail economy, spending more per shopper than all other generations.”
Outsized spending impact in five states
According to the report, Gen Xers are such powerful spenders that their mere presence in locations across the United States actually has a major impact on the market in that area.
More than one-third of the generation’s population lives in just five states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, and their spending is impactful.
It’s especially evident in Florida cities like Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, as well as Houston, Texas, and more.
We know that younger shoppers tend to be deeply loyal to the brands they love. But Gen X is exceptionally set in their ways, too. No big surprise. I mean, have you ever met a Gen Xer? You can’t convince them to love something they hate and vice-versa.
That’s likely why 81% of latchkey kids say they are loyal to the brands they trustand they probably always will be.
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“Gen X is pragmatic, loyal to brands they trust, and influential decision-makers for themselves, their children, and their parents, McGee says. For retailers, there is no bigger near-term growth opportunity than winning the loyalty and the dollars of Gen X.
Gen X isn’t just spending more than other generations. They’re also plugged in online, as they are massively tech-savvy, using online tools like social media regularly. According to the report, 92% of the generation is on social media daily.
Still, brands aren’t marketing to them. Only 5% of brand influencing spending targets Gen X, which experts say is a huge mistake.
“Theyve got wealth . . . They may be looking to start to make that semi-retirement-type transition,” Ryan Marshall, president and CEO of PulteGroup, a homebuilder, says in the report, “but they still consider themselves to be very young and active.”
Those factors definitely seem to promote spending. But soon, that may be especially true of Gen X, as a major transfer of wealth is about to take place. Around one in three Gen Xers expect to receive an inheritance, which could come out to around $308 billion annually in spending.
While Gen X’s lingo may be lowkey dated, their currency still works. Brands may be focused on appealing to on-trend millennials and Gen Zers, but they’d be wise not to write off the MTV kids just yet.
I have never had any interest in getting a hardware wallet like the new Ledger Nano Gen 5. But talking with Susan Karethe designer of the original Apple Macintosh icons and an endless torrent wonderful pixel artmade me realize I need one. “The idea that an individual can really control their own assets without a government or anything political coming between you and your assets. I like that,” she tells me.
The Ledger Nano is a 0.3-inch-thick credit card-sized block that keeps your digital assets secure by storing them offline. It has a frontal e-ink display that displays a grid of pixel art icons that look very much like the original Mac. For the Nano Gent 5, Kare worked with the French company to design a set of nine pixel-art icons that are laser-engraved onto small aluminum tags. These tags physically snap into a dedicated slot on the Nano Gen 5, allowing owners to customize their device with a satisfying click.
Kare got involved thanks to Tony Fadell”the Father of the Apple iPod” and board member of Ledgerwho called her to see if she’d like to work on the project. It was a call between old friends; the two had worked together at General Magic, the secretive Silicon Valley startup founded in 1990 by Apple veterans Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat that tried to build the first smartphone decades too early.
Fadell knows her taste, Kare says, and pitched the project as a high-concept design challenge she would enjoy, similar to the work she did for Asprey Studio. He kept the details intentionally mysterious, not even mentioning Ledger by name at first. The only hook was the promise of a fun, creative puzzle. For Kare, that was more than enough.
Of course, I wrote back immediately, like, tell me more, she recalls. A meeting in San Francisco with Ariel Wengroff, Ledgers EVP of Communications and Marketing, sealed the deal, and soon Kare was back at her digital drawing board.
Ledger Nano Gen 5 [Photo: Ledger]
Power and fun
Kares collaboration comes as Ledger reinvents its flagship product. The new Ledger Nano Gen 5 is a significant evolution of the device used by eight million people in 165 countries. More than 20% of the world’s crypto assets are secured by its hardware wallets, the company tells me.
Physically, Ledge Nano Gen 5 is larger and more refined, with a 2.76-inch E Ink touchscreen that now dominates its face. The new energy-efficient display enables advanced security features like clear signing, which gives you an unambiguous on-screen verification of any transaction or approval, and a Transaction Check function, a security feature that simulates a transaction to identify potential threats before you give final approval.
The device, now officially called a signer to reflect its expanded role beyond just financial transactions, is built to be your key to a broader digital life. With Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC capabilities, its designed for on-the-go use, allowing you to securely manage your assets or verify your identity from anywhere.
It connects to the revamped Ledger Wallet app, which acts as a secure control center for buying, swapping, and earning assets, and can now connect directly to popular decentralized apps, like 1inch, a service that searches across multiple cryptocurrency exchanges to find the best possible price for a token swap. The company claims that its devices have never been hacked, but every Nano Gen 5 includes a Ledger Recovery Key as a physical backup, just in case.
While the technology is serious, the company claims it wanted to inject a dose of personality into the experience. Thats where Kare came in. Wengroff tells me that as our digital and physical lives blur, the team wanted to offer a form of personal expression. The idea was to create a series of collectible badges that would physically snap into the new Nanos chassis.
We really thought, actually, the perfect person would be Susan Kare, Wengroff says. She believes that Kares has a legendary ability to create an emotional connection for new technology using her pixel art.
The badges themselves are small, laser-engraved aluminum tags, each featuring a new pixel-art icon from Kare, manufactured in Ledgers own facility in Vierzon, France. They click into place with a satisfying snap, a small sensory experience.
For Kare, the project was a perfect fit. I usually jokingly say, you know, give me 16 by 16 and a concept and I will make it happen, she says. The first step was deciding on the actual grid resolution. To ensure the designs were bold and clear on the small tags, she and the Ledger team opted for fewer, but larger, pixels, with each icon fitting within roughly an 18 by 20 pixel grid.
Rather than being handed a specific list, the company just told Kare to do her thing. Any other thing would have been like asking David Bowie to write something retro like Life on Mars for you. She ultimately developed around 30 concepts for the team to choose from. Her goal was to create an assortment that felt fresh and spirited, steering clear of anything that felt like a standard emoji.
Through weekly Zoom calls with Ledgers creative director, they whittled the collection down to the final nine, which include a mischievous cherry, a magic 8-ball, a horseshoe, and a chihuahua the team has fittingly named Nano.
[Image: Ledger]
But the bestand apparently everyones favoriteis the crowned frog. Wengroff believed it was a frog princess bt Kare was thinking about the frog prince. Its funny because I thought it was a frog prince, Kare says, referencing the fairy tale and the dating adage about having to kiss a lot of frogs. But, she adds, it can totally be either. And I realized that thats good.
Wengroff notes that everyone in the office has interpreted the icons differently and picked their own favorites, proving the designs power to evoke a personal response. In fact, everyone in Wengroff’s team was so focused on the badges that she says she constantly had to remind everyone that the launch was for a new device, not for the badges. Which I guess is exactly the whole point of this article and also the device itself.
For Kare, this is the joy of her work. While the device itself is the point, it is that little dab of something with a little feel of art or personality, as Kare describes it, what makes it (clickity clack) click. Its the same philosophy that has made her work timeless. And what makes the new Ledger Nano not just a powerful tool for securing your digital life, but a small canvas for expressing it.
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According to ResiClubs analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s new annual data, 40.3% of U.S. owner-occupied housing units are now mortgage-free, marking a new high for this data series. Thats up from 39.8% in 2023.
The portion of homeowners with no mortgage has ticked up almost every year since 2010when it was 32.8%.
A key factor driving the rise in mortgage-free homeownership is demographics. Older homeowners are more likely to be mortgage-free, and as Americans live longer and the massive baby boomer generation ages into their senior years, the U.S. population has skewed olderpushing up the share of homeowners without mortgages.
According to ResiClubs analysis, 54% of the 35 million U.S. homeowners who are mortgage-free are 65 years old or older.
People aged 65 and older make up more than a third (34.1%) of current U.S. homeowners. Among those 65 and older, 64% own their primary homes free and clear.
Across the country, mortgage-free status varies A LOT.
Regions with lower home values and areas with a higher proportion of older populations tend to have a slightly higher percentage of homeowners without mortgages.
Among the 200 largest U.S. metros by population, these 5 have the HIGHEST percentage of mortgage-free homeowners:
61.8% > McAllen, TX
57.8% > Brownsville, TX
57.1% > Beaumont, TX
56.2% > Kingsport, TN
55.8% > Longview, TX
Among the 200 largest U.S. metros by population, these 5 have the LOWEST percentage of mortgage-free homeowners:
26.4% > Washington, DC
27.0% > Provo, UT
27.1% > Denver, CO
27.2% > Greeley, CO
28.8% > Ogden, UT
Click here to view an interactive version of the map below
Mortgage-free homeownership has reached a new high. Demographicsparticularly the aging of baby boomersis a key force behind this trend.
In the years ahead, ResiClub expects more equity products (such as reverse mortgages) to emerge and expand, as some older mortgage-free homeowners look to tap into the equity theyve built without selling their homes.
Like clockwork, every few years viral relationship tests or theories will resurface online, prompting renewed discourse about the state of romantic unions. The latest test doing the rounds: the bird theory.”
The idea first went viral two years ago but has recently resurfaced on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The concept is simple: Point out something mundane to your partner, like spotting a bird, then watch how they react.
If your partner matches your enthusiasm or reacts with curiosity, then congratulationstheyre a keeper. The thinking goes that if they respond with interest to your attempts at connection, they’re emotionally invested in the relationship. If they ignore you, react with indifferenceor worse, get frustratedwell, your relationship might be in trouble.
The theory resurfaced after a video by @keketherealmrsjones went viral this month. The day I realize Husband doesnt want me the caption read, as the clip shows her trying, and failing, to engage her husbands attention. The video currently has over 56 million views. Before anyone gets married please test the bird theory, one commenter wrote. I keep telling people about the bird theory and they just wont listen, another added. Many have also jumped on the trend to test their unwitting partners, mostly to positive results.
Turns out, the bird theory is not just TikTok pseudoscience: It’s grounded in real research by psychologist John Gottman.
Gottman refers to bids (not birds) as the fundamental unit of emotional communication. His research suggests that the way in which partners respond to these bidsby “turning towards” and engaging with the bid or “turning away” and ignoring itis a strong predictor of a relationship’s long-term success.
A bid for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection, could be as simple as smiling, reaching for a hand, requesting help, or, yes, pointing out a bird.
Gottman published a paper in the Journal of Marriage and the Family in 1998 sharing the results of a study based on 130 newlyweds. Six years later, the couples that were going from strength to strength were the ones who, 86% of the time, turned toward each other’s bids for connection. The couples who didn’t? Only 33% were still together.
According to Gottmans findings, couples who ignore each others bids about 5080% of the time are far more likely to divorce.
While microtesting your relationship isnt always advised, use at your own risk.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday that he is about make good on a threat to revoke millions in federal funds for California because he says the state is illegally issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens.In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Duffy said Gov. Gavin Newsom has refused to comply with Department of Transportation rules that require the state to stop issuing such licenses and review those already issued.“So, one, I’m about to pull $160 million from California,” Duffy said. “And, as we pull more money, we also have the option of pulling California’s ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses.”Eva Spiegel, a spokesperson for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, said the Trump administration “has no legitimate basis” to withhold federal highway transportation funds.“The federal government previously allowed commercial driver’s licenses for asylum seekers and refugees and on September 26 announced emergency regulations to cease this practice that went into effect on September 29. California is in compliance with these regulations and will remain in compliance with federal law,” Spiegel said via email.When Duffy threatened to revoke funds last month, a spokesperson for Newsom dismissed the attack and noted that CDL holders from California have a significantly lower rate of crashes than both the national average and that of Texas, which is the only state with more licensed commercial drivers.Last month the Transportation Department tightened commercial driver’s license requirements for noncitizens after three fatal crashes that officials said were caused by immigrant truck drivers. Only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible for CDLs under the new rules and states must verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. The licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner.Duffy said last month that California should never have issued 25% of 145 licenses investigators reviewed. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after the driver’s work permit expired sometimes years after. The state had 30 days to come up with a plan to comply or lose funding.A nationwide commercial driver’s license audit began after officials say a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. It found licenses that were issued improperly in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.Duffy said Sunday that California has unlawfully issued tens of thousands of these licenses to noncitizens.“So you have 60,000 people on the roads who shouldn’t have licenses,” Duffy said. “They’re driving fuel tankers, they’re driving school buses, and we have seen some of the crashes on American roadways that come from these people who shouldn’t have these licenses.”Duffy said earlier this month that he would withhold $40 million from California because it is the only state that is failing to enforce English language requirements for truckers. California defended its practices in a formal response to the Transportation Department, but federal officials were not satisfied.The investigation launched after the Florida crash found what Duffy called significant failures in the way California is enforcing rules that took effect in June after one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders. California had issued the driver a commercial license, but these English rules predate the crash.
Associated Press
Well, friends. I did it. Ive now had my highest-income month of my life again.
So begins a TikTok video by content creator Chelsea Langenstam detailing her $56,244 income month breakdown, along with deductibles, as a solopreneur.
Langenstam then outlines her various income streams: budget templates, brand deals, referral fees. I dont share to brag, she says in the video, currently sitting at over 100,000 views. I share because I want to show you whats possible in real time.
Her videos are among hundreds on TikTok and Instagram, lifting the curtain on how much solopreneurs of all kinds actually earn month to monthand exactly where each dollar comes from.
These income breakdowns sit within a wider trend toward financial transparency online. From loud budgeting to no-spend challenges, talking about money is no longer taboo for the online generation. They are bucking the decades-old trend of silence: 53% of Gen Zers and 58% of millennials say they would post how much money they make online.
Show me the money
Solopreneursor businesses with no paid employeescontribute $1.7 trillion to the U.S. economy, representing 6.8% of total economic activity, according to recently published U.S. Census Bureau data.
But when striking out on ones own, the honest truth is that few have any idea what theyre doing at first, let alone where the next paycheck is coming from. Now, social media is democratizing the process, with a number of content creators breaking down the financials of running a business solo.
Not every month is a five-figure month for Langenstam. She has also divulged what a lower-income month looks like, for the sake of transparency. Others reveal their financial particulars to advocate for the solopreneur life, breaking free from the corporate grind and embracing the freelance economy.
Freelance social media manager Mila Holmes has been sharing her project rates since 2020, but only recently started opening up about income breakdowns. The whole reason I make content on TikTok is to advocate for freelancing, she says, explaining which streams of income made her $14,616.99 over the past three weeks. These include consulting calls, freelance influencer marketing, and hosting classes on brand partnerships.
I want people to know financial security and prosperity are possible through nontraditional means, Holmes tells Fast Company. I think a lot of people view freelancing and/or content creation as a temporary thing between real jobs. I believe it can be more than that. It’s one thing to tell them that’s possible, and another to actually show earnings.
A new model of transparency
Income breakdowns push the needle further by modeling how the money is made, as well as how much. But, as with anything you see online, influencers announcing regular five-figure months should be taken with a grain of salt. In particular, you should be wary of any income breakdowns by those who try to sell you quick fixes, with a promise of achieving similar results. Still, thats not to say solopreneurship cant be lucrative.
According to MBO Partners 2025 “State of Independence” report, 5.6 million independent workers reported earning more than $100,000 annually. This was up 19% from 2024, and nearly double the number of six-figure earners in 2020. The average U.S. worker salary, by comparison, is $66,000.
When I started freelancing, the idea of a $10,000 month felt like it was a world away, and a $20,000 month felt even further, solopreneur Grace Lemire says in a TikTok video, reporting an income of $10,700 for the month. But when I started to see other entrepreneurs break down their revenue streams, it started to feel within reach.
Lemire doesnt reveal her top-line revenue, but she did start sharing what she charges clients, as well as certain monthly earnings, a few years ago. I share because I want people to see what’s possible, Lemire tells Fast Company. I want to show people that there is more out there for them than they might be able to conceptualize with the information they have available to them.
For a younger generation already seeking a fast track to success, the allure of solopreneurship is clear. A 2023 study found that Gen Z places greater importance on being rich than any other age demographic. And with the traditional career ladder shakier than ever, young and ambitious workers are forging their own paths and not risking their future in anyone elses hands.
Thanks to social media, its never been easier to go it alone. Instagram, YouTube, Patreon, and TikTok give solopreneurs a number of platforms to establish their brands and get their products or services in front of millions of people worldwide. Thats something these young female solopreneurs understand better than most.
Finance is a big player, and content earnings are high, Holmes explains. Creating under #financialtransparency, #income, #money, and #budgeting opens up a whole new world of opportunity for me. Not only on the brand partnership side, but also on the digital product side.
For young solo business owners online, sharing income breakdowns not only promotes financial transparency, but its also a smart business strategy.
In 2018, Joy DasGupta walked away from a steady job in marketing at Starbucks after 13 years to work for herself as a rewards program consultant.
As a caregiver with a young child, DasGupta says the corporate life proved too inflexible, and the logistics of balancing her personal life and career were becoming overwhelming. Starbucks was also undergoing restructuring, and DasGuptas once-secure corporate job was starting to feel a little shaky.
She explains that for most working mothers, if you get the opportunity to make as much moneymaybe even a little lessand get flexibility, many will take that option. She adds that there aren’t enough companies that are innovating around ways to compensate people with time, as opposed to just money.
Instead, shes earning what she calls a good income as a solopreneur, while enjoying the flexibility to structure her own schedule in a way that allows her to show up for her daughter and her clients.
The hourly [rate] is great in terms of the return on my time.
Between return to office mandates, AI-driven job insecurity, and a struggling labor market, American employees are feeling disengaged at work, inspiring many to seek an alternative. At the same time, solopreneursor those with full-time independent businesses and no desire to hire staffare thriving.
It pays to be a solopreneur
According to a recent study conducted by online payroll and HR provider Gusto, solopreneurs typically earn about one-third less than similarly skilled employees in year one, but catch up quickly.
By year two, the average solopreneur is making about 15% more than a similarly-skilled employee, and that goes up to about 25% by year five, says Gusto economist Nich Tremper.
According to the study, the average solopreneur earns about $41,000 in year oneand over $83,000 by year three.
The most popular industry for solopreneurs, according to the study, is professional, scientific, and technical services, followed closely by transportation and warehousing, each accounting for about 13%. Those in the information sector typically see the sharpest annual revenue growth at over 51% per year, followed by arts, entertainment, and recreation at about 30%. Real estate, rental, and leasing professionals placed third with nearly 12%.
When people think about small businesses, they tend to imagine folks that are on Main Street, with stafflittle shops, little restaurants, says Tremper. In reality, 80% of small businesses dont have any W2 employees, so solopreneurs are really foundational to the economy in a lot of ways.
Since the pandemic the United States has seen a significant spike in new businesses, and that entrepreneurial boom includes both traditional business owners and solopreneurs.
Why more workers are going solo
Not long ago, starting a business required a formal business plan, a loan, a lease, and a staff. Then the internet and mobile technology allowed individuals to open a digital storefront at almost no cost and connect with customers around the world.
Now, AI is enabling solopreneurs to create professional quality marketing materials, websites, apps, presentations, proposals, and more without hiring help.
Its become a solopreneurs silent business partner, says Caroline Castrillon, a Forbes senior contributor and founder of Corporate Escape Artist, which helps individuals transition into entrepreneurship. What once required teams is now available to one person, so AI is really an equalizer.
But its not just tech thats made the solopreneur lifestyle more appealing.
It really took off around the pandemic as people’s priorities and values changed, Castrillon says. Millennials and Gen Z in particular want autonomy, meaning and control. Work used to define our identities, now people are designing work around their identity.
An entrepreneurial pull, a corporate disengagement push
As solopreneurship becomes more appealingand more attainable, thanks to technologyperceptions of the corporate lifestyle have simultaneously moved in a more negative direction.
We have all these RTO mandates, there’s layoffs left and right, people don’t feel secure in their jobs, salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation, so what incentive is there to stay in the corporate world? Castrillon says, adding thats especially true for caregivers.
Companies often claim to support families, but they rarely back that up with meaningful programs, and for women especially, solopreneurship is one way to find the flexibility that they need.
That is ultimately what drove DasGupta from Starbucks to solopreneurship. Seven years later, she says she has no regrets.
Corporations are really meeting-centric, and there was this really amazing transition to actually being able to dedicate myself to producing work for people, she says. I wouldn’t trade it. It’s been a great experience.
Life with a fluctuating income is a lot like being left-handed: The world isnt designed to meet your needs, so you need to adjust accordingly.
Those who make the leap into solopreneurship are often struck by all the little things they took for granted as salaried employees. Things like having health benefits, taxes and retirement savings deducted from their earnings, knowing exactly when the next injection of cash is coming, or what theyll make next month. Even monthly billing cycles for things like rent, student loans, and car payments are based on the assumption of predictable monthly earnings.
Most dont ditch the corporate life because theyre really good at finance and tax planningunless, of course, theyre venturing off to become an independent accounting professional. For most, having to suddenly act as your own finance department is not just jarring, but also distracting from the countless other challenges that come with establishing an independent business.
Solopreneurs have so much on their plate already; adding money stress is siphoning off creativity that would be much better spent making their businesses successful, says Ashley Lapato, personal finance educator for budgeting software provider YNAB. Once they get a handle on it, they tend to see more success.
Here are some expert tips to help solopreneurs put away the calculator and spreadsheets, and get back to the things they do best. (Unless, of course, that thing also involves a calculator and spreadsheet.)
Know your baseline
When you dont know how much will be in the earnings column each month, it’s even more important to get a handle on expenses.
According to Lapato, the first step is understanding the bare minimum you need to support your lifestyle.
That might not include your Netflix subscription, but it’s things like your mortgage, minimums on any debt, your car payment, and groceries, she says. Then add irregular expenses. Because once you make that leap into solopreneurship, those irregular expenses can feel like emergencies.
For example, if you travel to visit family each year, want to send your kids to summer camp, or have a big annual auto insurance bill, Lapato recommends breaking up those expenses and incorporating them into your baseline. Knowing that number, she says, allows solopreneurs to cover the necessities and then, once they earn that minimum, start saving for the next month.
If, for example, that baseline is $8,000, Lapato says every dollar you earn in a given month after reaching that $8,000 minimum can be put toward next months baseline, longer-term savings, discretionary spending, or investing in the business. I would want at least three months of baseline buffer covered before taking the leap into full-time solopreneurship, she adds.
Set up a legal entity
There comes a point at which American solopreneurs can start seeing big tax savings by setting up a limited liability company (LLC) and registering as an S corporation, establishing a formal business for their solo venture in the United Statesthough similar tax structures exist elsewhere, too.
If you make $70,000 and you’re going to get to $100,000 in the next couple of years, its the right solution, says Ran Harpaz, the CEO of Lettuce Financial, an accounting and tax software platform for solopreneurs earning six figures. People on our platform see annual average savings of $15,000, so the S corp election and the structure of the company are very meaningful.
Harpaz explains that having an S corporation separates business earnings and expenses; your customers pay into the company, and the company pays you what the government considers a reasonable salary. The salary portion is subject to traditional tax requirements. The rest is taxed at much more favorable corporate rates.
Creating a separate business entity also allows you to open business bank accounts and credit cards.
It’s the right thing to do compliance-wise, but it’s also the right thing to do for financial management, Harpaz says, explaining that having separate accounts makes it easier to keep tax-exempt business expenses separate from personal spending.
Put money aside for taxes
There is perhaps nothing more sobering than seeing your first tax bill as a solopreneur.
For those accustomed to having their taxes automatically deducted from paychecks, that bill will make you go numb, especially if you havent planned accordingly. Though its hard to predict how much youll owe when you dont know how much youll make, solopreneurs can often make an educated, conservative estimate and save accordingly.
Every Monday, my wife and I fill out a sheet that says how much income we made [the previous week], how much we have to set aside for taxes, and what we spent, says Justin Welsh, a content creator and author of The Saturday Solopreneur newsletter. We pay our credit cards off, and then we set aside the money for taxes, we save and invest anything that’s left over, and that is a weekly recurring meeting that we’ve done for over five years.
Over time, Welsh says the weekly fluctuations can be used to calculate a more predictable average, which helps the couple anticipate which tax bracket theyll fall into at the end of the year, and avoid overspending on the good weeks or panicking on the not-so-good ones.
The goal is never to get too high with the highs and too low with the lows, he says. You just pretend you’re average every single week.
Use tools, but keep it simple
As the community of solopreneurs expands, so does the market for tools and technologies to make their lives easierYNAB and Lettuce among them.
Welsh, for his part, is bullish on AI, but warns solopreneurs not to over-subscribe themselves. The whole goal of solopreneurship is simplicity, he says. I think you can do that through smart planning, using a simple spreadsheet and a thought partner in an LLM.
For example, Welsh says solopreneurs can input their income and expense details and ask an AI platform to create a customized financial plan for them, or a contingency plan for when earnings drop unexpectedly.
My advice to solopreneurs is to start simple and only add software or tools when it absolutely keeps you from making a big mistake or gives you a large percentage of your revenue back through tax optimization, he says. Other than that, just try and make as much as you can, try and keep as much as you can, and try and spend as little as you can.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading Democratic critic of President Donald Trump, says he will consider running for the White House in 2028 after the midterm elections next year.Asked in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” whether if would be fair to say he would give a campaign serious thought after the November 2026 vote, the term-limited governor said, “I’d be lying otherwise.”Newsom has been trying to raise his national profile, adopting a combative style that parodies Trump’s social media strategy with similar all-caps posts, memes and merchandise.The Democratic governor has sparred with the Republican president over the deployment of the California National Guard following immigration protests and Trump’s redistricting moves in Texas. Newsom has also led a campaign to redraw California’s own maps to add five Democratic U.S. House seats in response to the changes in Texas. Voting is underway on the so-called Proposition 50 and concludes Nov. 4.“I’m looking forward to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that moment. And that’s the question for the American people,” he said in the interview that aired Sunday.The feud between Trump and Newsom does not seem like it’s going away anytime soon. On Thursday, Trump acknowledged he had agreed to halt a planned show of federal force planned for this weekend in San Francisco after appeals from tech executives and the mayor. Newsom was mayor of San Francisco between 2004 and 2011.In the interview, Newsom described Trump as an “invasive species.”“He’s a wrecking ball. Not just the symbolism and substance of the East Wing,” Newsom said, referring to the demolition of that part of the White House to build a ballroom. “He’s wrecking alliances, truth, trust, tradition, institutions.”Earlier this year, Newsom launched a podcast in an effort to brand himself as a centrist. During the show, he has held conversations with influential figures all across the political spectrum, from late conservative Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on a college campus tour, as well as former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat.
Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press
For most of its two-decade history, ActBlue hummed along in relative obscurityand for Democrats, it might have been better off that way.
The online donation platform for the left was founded in 2004 with a mission to harness the power of the internet and fuel political campaigns through small dollar donations. In the 2008 presidential cycle, it set out with the humble goal of raising $100 million for Democrats; this year, it raised nearly eight times that much in the first half of 2025 alone. ActBlue processed another $482 million in the third quarter of this year.
As ActBlues coffers have grown, so has the target on its back.
What began as a series of spurious online rumors about alleged fraud on the platform has since spiraled into a slew of state investigations, a lengthy ongoing probe led by House Republicans, and a Department of Justice investigation ordered by President Trump himself in April. At the same time, the organization, which operates as a political action committee, has recently seen a number of high profile departures, including within its legal team, which have only fanned the flames of Republican inquiries.
The DOJs deadline to complete its investigation has already passed, and the department declined to comment for this story. The Houses investigation, meanwhile, has yielded one preliminary report, which charges ActBlue executives with failing to take the threat of fraud seriously, without identifying any instances of potential fraud that ActBlue hadnt already caught. The report also made no mention of WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform, which is facing its own investigations regarding allegedly deceptive fundraising practices.
Still, the political attacks and turnover have placed substantial strain on a vital piece of Democratic infrastructure, through which billions of dollars in funding flow. Now, the question is whether ActBlue can survive this relentless firestormand what it will mean to the party if it cant.
Fast Company spoke with more than a dozen sources, including ActBlues CEO, current leadership, former employees, Democratic strategists, and other former party officials. These conversations show that even as Democrats rally around ActBlue in the face of what they say are dangerous attacks from the right, they are also sharply divided over whether the organization is equipped to handle these blows and whether the right leaders are in place to meet the moment.
Internal turmoil
One figure at the center of this divide is ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, who joined the organization in 2023 after spending her career working at tech companies (eBay, Facebook, Yahoo) and serving in local government in East Palo Alto. After The New York Times reported on the departures of at least seven senior ActBlue leaders in April, ActBlue sought to cast the moves as part of the natural turnover after the 2024 election cycle.
But former ActBlue employees and Democratic strategists familiar with the exits told Fast Company that many of the departures stemmed from what one former employee characterized as a verbally abusive working environment under Wallace-Jones, marked by major blowouts. This employee described Wallace-Jones as deeply distrustful of both the Democratic ecosystem and members of her own staff.
The former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of being singled out by members of Congress, described a situation in which he briefed ActBlues general counsel on a potential sponsorship that could have had legal implications for ActBlue. According to internal communications viewed by Fast Company, Wallace-Jones later chastised the former employee for sharing information with ActBlues legal team, suggesting that doing so was tantamount to leaking. (ActBlue declined to respond directly to this claim).
People did not just leave because it was the end of a cycle, the former employee said. We did not trust that she was the leader to take this organization forward anymore.
“She made it very clear to everybody that they were replaceable,” said another former employee.
According to The New York Timess reporting in April, unions representing ActBlue employees wrote a letter to the board asking it to hire outside counsel to investigate the current state of the organization and evaluate if our C.E.O. is doing her job in an appropriate, competent and responsible manner. A spokesperson for ActBlue told Fast Company the firm had in fact supported an independent and privileged investigation, which had concluded that the allegations in the letter could not be substantiated.
Many of these interpersonal challenges would scarcely bear mentioning in the cutthroat world of politics or even tech, if it werent for the fact that theyve bled out into the public domain and are now being used as evidence by House Republicans that something must be awry within ActBlue.
After the Times report, the committees investigating ActBlue shifted focus, sending another letter to the organization, this time demanding documents related to the resignations and possible retaliation against whistleblowers. In July, the committees subpoenaed ActBlue for further documents, arguing that the staff departures may be related to ActBlues fraud-prevention efforts. In September, the committees reportedly subpoenaed ActBlues former lawyers, including its former general counsel, Darrin Hurwitz. (Hurwitz did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment).
The sources who spoke to Fast Company say ActBlues staff turnover has nothing to do with what they say are baseless allegations of fraud being leveled by Republicans. They want to say, Oh, all the executives fled the company because of all the craziness they saw, said one former employee. That could not be farther from the truth.
Still, they point to these allegations as one side effect of Wallace-Joness leadership and an example of how the organization has failed to navigate the political messaging of this moment.
At its core, ActBlue is a olitical organization that does tech, not a tech organization that works in politics. At every turn, theyve fucked up the politics, said one former Democratic National Committee official, who critiqued ActBlue for failing to work with the rest of the party to combat the GOPs attacks and disseminate information about the recent staff departures. No one knows whats going on over there. Thats led to more fear than is rational, he said.
One of the former employees who spoke with Fast Company said Wallace-Jones did not appear to take the GOPs attacks on the platform seriously until it was too late. Of all the priorities, this was not a top one, and it should have been, considering the risk its yielded, the former employee said.
Asked about this claim, an ActBlue spokesperson told Fast Company, Everything weve said from last August through today has demonstrated we are fighting these attacks aggressively, thoughtfully, and honestly.
Hard choices
In an interview with Fast Company, Wallace-Jones said she needed to make hard choices when she arrived at ActBlue. Indeed, a few months after she joined the organization, ActBlue laid off one-sixth of its staff in what Wallace-Jones said at the time was an effort to control costs and focus on its technology.
Some of the former employees interviewed for this story agreed that, while painful, many of the organizational changes Wallace-Jones made were necessary.
It is my job to bring ActBlue into its next phase of contribution, and in so doing, any CEO has got to evaluate what the present state of the organization is. Any CEO has got to evaluate whether all of the pieces are in place to support the go forward. In some cases there are hard choices to be made, Wallace-Jones told Fast Company. She said her current team is the right team to carry us forward into who we can become.
An ActBlue spokesperson said in a statement that it would be difficult to imagine or point to an instance where a male CEO would be similarly scrutinized, let alone have a credible media article focused on such a non-issue.
The spokesperson described the Republican attacks against ActBlue as attacks against democracy itself. [T]hey are coming after ActBlue because we are the largest, most successful and impactful technology-driven fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and Progressive causes, the spokesperson said. To suggest that their attacks are due to anything other than a desire to take out the infrastructure of the Left is short-sided at Best. [sic]
Several current ActBlue executives and Democratic strategists also described Wallace-Jones as precisely the kind of leader the organization now requires. Jason Wong, who has been ActBlues vice president of engineering since 2022, said that prior to Wallace-Joness arrival ActBlue operated mostly on a consensus basis, making it difficult to move transformative projects forward.
Wallace-Jones has brought more clarity to ActBlue, Wong said, and has pushed ActBlue to take on a bigger role within the party. Recently, the firm acquired its first company, a digital organizing platform called Impactive, and announced it would be donating $1 million to Democratic state parties to bolster their infrastructure. It also recently launched Raise, a simplified version of its fundraising tools, designed for down-ballot races.
We’re a different company today than we were back then, Wong said. He acknowledged that, those transformations are difficult for everyone involved.
Lawrence Oliver, ActBlues new chief legal officer, who joined the firm after the departure of its former general counsel, also described Wallace-Jones as the perfect leader for this.
Is she demanding? Yes. Is she tough? Yes. But Ive worked for a lot of tough and demanding people, said Oliver, who was previously chief counsel of investigations at Boeing and a special counsel in the Cook County, Illinois State Attorneys Office.
Others outside of the organization defended Wallace-Joness communication within the broader Democratic party. She worked overtime trying to make sure she had meetings with people, said Minyon Moore, who has previously served as chair of the Democratic National Convention Committee and CEO of the Democratic National Committee. She called the notion that Wallace-Jones has been slow to respond to the GOPs attacks BS.
We can blame ActBlue for showing up slow or coming on too fast, but the fact is we all should be ready to pounce on that, Moore said.
One platform, lots of vulnerabilities
Some of the people Fast Company spoke to pointed to ActBlues record under Wallace-Jones, which includes processing more than $3.8 billion in donations in 2024. WinRed, by contrast, brought in less than half of that. But Wallace-Joness critics argue that ActBlue can only take so much credit for that cash bump. The money the party and the candidates are raising is because were in a huge crisis moment and huge fight, said the former DNC official. The historic nature of Democratic fundraising is despite ActBlue at this point, not because of it.
Beyond the questions about ActBlues current leadership, the conflict surrounding the organization has highlighted the risks of relying on a single payment platform. Trump attacks or not, it’s a precarious place to be, said one Democratic strategist.
Daniel Garcia, communications director for the Democratic party of New Mexico, said his team began working with another payment platform, GoodChange, in addition to ActBlue, earlier this year, in part due to the ongoing investigations.
The potential for ActBlue to come under attack certainly is a concern for us, Garcia said. In the event something does happen to ActBlue because of the Trump administration, we do want to be prepared and have another option.
GoodChange cofounder Becky Pittman told Fast Company the firm is now working with 20 state parties and county committees. She said GoodChanges platformwhich includes, among other things, event features and a tool that allows donors to donate spare change from every purchase they makeoften complements other payment platforms. And she condemned the GOPs attacks on ActBlue. It makes it dangerous for everyone, Pittman said.
In an interview, Wallace-Jones said Democrats arent moving away from ActBlue, pointing to the amount of donations that have flowed through the platform this year. ActBlue has had, bar none, the most successful fundraising cycle its ever had in its history, she said.
Of course, if Democrats wanted to distance themselves from ActBlue entirely, it would be no trivial thing. ActBlues sheer size and dominance has made it challenging for other startups to even raise the funding they would need to operate a viable challenger, said a Democratic strategist who spoke with Fast Company.
ActBlue has also become the de facto keeper of Democratic donors information, an advantage that makes it possible for people to seamlessly donate across campaigns without reentering that information. Another enity can rebuild that, but it would just take time, said the strategist, adding that thats time most campaigns dont have.
There are also risks inherent to experimenting with new technology. Wong, ActBlues vice president of engineering, noted that the platform saw unprecedented levels of traffic in 2024 without experiencing any outages, strain that newer platforms could struggle to withstand.
And in a political climate in which the president appears hellbent on punishing perceived enemies, theres no guarantee a more diversified landscape would be any safer from political attacks. If they’re going to come after us, he said, they can come after anyone.
