We stan Ariana Grande. I can confirm with my middle school tutee group that I am using stan correctly, but there is no doubt about it: Ariana Grande is queen. From raising awareness about mental health to dropping hit after hit after hit, Ariana has broken an insane number of records in the music industry, comparable to the Beatles in her number of chart toppers. Needless to say, Ariana’s musical success has come with a giant paycheck, something Ariana has not been quiet about, as witnessed in her feminist anthem “7 Rings.” While few of us will ever have Ariana’s paycheck, we can appreciate a woman singing about her spending power, usually a domain left to men. When we do think about songs about women spending money, we think about Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” or ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money” where women marry men to get a paycheck. Not Ariana. She reminds us that she writes her own checks like she writes what she sings; She doesn’t need a man to get money. After all, then she’d have to share her closets! In honor of Ariana Grande opening the convo to women about their own spending power, here are 5 things to buy when you become Ariana Grande rich.
1. Pay Off all Debt and Philanthropy
I know, I know, you’ve heard this from every single adult in your life, but before we get to spending, I am paying off all my college loans and giving back to my community! Looking at other musically legends, we can see how quickly empires can fall, so let’s make sure we’re not even deeper in debt when Coachella doesn’t pay us 8 million dollars to perform. While we’re paying off our own debts, we might as well give back to our own communities. Hailing from Minnesota, I would give money to the Minnesota Historical Society as Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, has suggested cutting this Historical Society’s budget by 4 million dollars and then join Pope Francis in donating 500,000 dollars to migrants at the US boarder. Once we’ve served others, in our hypothetical Ariana paycheck daydreams, it’s time to spend some cash.
2. Buy a Car You only need to see Ariana Grande dancing in front of a pink car at the Billboard Music Awards once to know that every big spender needs a hecking cool car. Every person in different, but in my case this car looks a lot like the 2019 FIAT 500e, or any car that I can ride around town letting of zero emissions. This car is actually the cutest, and I could drive around with my friends guilt free as I scope out jewelry stores to buy us all matching rings.
3. Get All the Dresses at Target. Like All of Them. And then Lulu’s. I don’t know if you’ve been on the Target website recently, but all the dresses are literally the best. I live for a floral dress, and luckily Target is full of them! Like eleven pages full. And then Lulu’s? Sigh…every day dream in my head where I am strolling down the streets of France always features me wearing a dress from Lulu’s as a clutch my lover’s hand. Like this or this or this. I already own this! One step closer to being as badass as Arianna Grande!
4. Take a Trip! Or Many Many Trips. You may have already read about my date at Kwik Trip but once I’m as big of a spender as Ariana Grande, all my trips are going to be very long and mostly across seas! To make good use of my Spanish skills, I want to return to Barcelona and see the completion of La Sagrada Familia and eat some more tapas. While in Europe, I would jump on over to Rome and the Vatican City to see some historic ruins or—on my bucket list!—the tall painted ceilings of The Sistine Chapel. I would also love to learn how to sail a boat, scuba dive, and go on a hot air balloon and will do so wearing my various Lulu’s dresses.
5. Build a Library in my Mansion If you’ve been on Instagram or Pinterest you’ve seen all the impractical manor houses of our dreams filled with libraries so tall you need a sliding ladder to reach the top shelf. This artistic impracticality is exactly what I want. Surrounded by my own beloved pets—my own versions of Taylor Swift’s Olivia Benson, Meredith Grey and Benjamin Button and Ariana Grande’s Toulouse. Surrounded by my beautiful house, I will always be ready to offer up my property for my best friends whenever they need to shoot their next multi-million music videos.
At the end of the day, we don’t need money to thrive. Paying off my debts, collecting my own library of my favorite books, and taking a trip every once in a blue moon is all I need to live a happy balanced life. However, as women, we should talk about what we’re making and demand raises when our male counterparts make more. Ariana Grande is an example of a female artist celebrating her power as an earner and a spender, something we can all celebrate on a much more minor scale.
Yes, Ariana, I do like your hair.