Julia Rothman Illustrates Financial Stories in a Fun Way

By
Chris L
-

Julia Rothman is an illustrator whose art is a part of a new column in The New York Times that launched last fall. It’s called Scratch and it features the illustrations Rothman creates in collaboration with writer Shaina Feinberg. The two of them work together to make financial stories more relatable and more fun for the readers.

Rothman’s illustrations shine a new light on some of the typical financial topics we deal with during life. For example, she illustrated the cost of having a baby through IVF, being a drag queen in NYC, and opening a coffee shop in the city. You can see her previous works on her Instagram page and if you want to keep up, make sure to follow her.

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New Year’s resolutions got us thinking about money managing. Most Americans are in a lot of debt. It was a huge exciting thing when I finally paid off my student loan a couple years ago. @shainafeinberg and I wanted to talk to people about their debt for our latest Scratch column so we went to the streets. But it wasn’t so easy. Nobody wanted to talk to us! We stood in the cold for a long time waving and asking people to talk to us. So many heard the topic and said they were sorry, that it wasn’t something they wanted to talk about. Thankfully we got nine people to share their debt with us and what they are doing to get through it. And I made it look like they were on a fun game show. Link in bio! Do you have debt? Let’s share and get rid of the shame 🤑💗🤑💗🤑

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✨The Butcher! ✨The Baker! ✨The Candlestick Makers! ✨A couple weeks ago, @shainafeinberg and I went to visit three family-run businesses to see what it was like to prepare for the holidays. For our latest NYT Scratch column, we met a butcher and his son on Arthur Ave in the Bronx who told us you gotta eat pork on the New Year, a family run Mexican bakery in Sunset Park who bought 30,000 plastic baby Jesuses to hide in their Rosca de Reyes sweetbreads, and two Jewish brothers at their factory in Bayonne, NJ who showed us how their beautiful Hanukkah candles get hand-dipped. I love this job so much and all the interesting people we get to meet and learn stuff from. Check out the article online- link in bio- and in the paper this Sunday!! (Huge thanks/credit to @jacob_curtz_violins for the suggested title/idea for this holiday column) (and thanks to the best editors @nicksummers and @alexandragrambell )

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Shaina and I did the night shift -8pm-4am- at a bodega and wrote down everything that happened for this week’s NYT Scratch column. Some bodega shoppers included a professional wrestler, a party motivator, a drug dealer, two arguing cops, and a contender of America’s Next Top Model. A lot of stuff was purchased throughout the evening, including 34 bags of chips, 25 beers, 21 snack cakes, 1 stick of beef jerky, 1 box of condoms (“someone’s getting laid tonight!”)…and so much more. (I was the weirdo standing by the counter keeping track.) Akhil works the night shift seven days a week. He has to watch the surveillance cameras all night because people steal so much. We drank teas and ate Cup Noodles while observing. Check out the full story- link in bio. Thank you @shainafeinberg for being the best partner in crime. We had so much fun!!!! And our editor @nicksummers for letting us do all our crazy ideas! In the paper on Sunday!

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