Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Tiffany "The Budgetnista" Aliche: Financial Wholeness, The Financial Freedom That's Accessible For Everyone | E259
Episode Date: November 27, 2023As a preschool teacher in her twenties, Tiffany Aliche was off to a good start in her career. Then, she was the victim of a scam that left her deep in debt, and she got laid off from her teaching job ...during the recession. Tiffany moved in with her parents and started over, learned from her financial mistakes, and then helped friends and family learn from them as well. Now she has inspired and educated millions through her financial wisdom as the “Budgetnista.” In this episode, Tiffany shares her “Budgetnista” story, a preview of her new book Made Whole, and some practical ways to succeed financially. Tiffany Aliche is an award-winning teacher of financial education and America's favorite personal financial educator. She co-hosts the financial podcast, Brown Ambition, and is the author of the bestselling book Get Good with Money. In this episode, Hala and Tiffany will discuss: - How her world was turned upside down by a scam - How she dug herself out of a $300,000 hole - Growing her profile on Facebook - Her tips on achieving financial wholeness - Putting together your “baby budget” - How to smartly reduce your expenses - How to save like a squirrel - The benefits of having a “noodle budget” - What types of insurance are right for you - And other topics… Tiffany Aliche, founder of “The Budgetnista”, is an award-winning teacher of financial education and America's favorite personal financial educator. She co-hosts the financial podcast, Brown Ambition. Her financial advice has been featured on Good Morning America, the TODAY show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, FORBES, and other media outlets. Tiffany is also the author of the bestselling book Get Good with Money, and her newest book is called Made Whole: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals. Resources Mentioned: Tiffany’s Website: https://thebudgetnista.com Tiffany’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebudgetnista/ Tiffany’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheBudgetnista Tiffany’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebudgetnista/ Tiffany’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBudgetnista Tiffany’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/budgetnista Tiffany’s Podcast (Brown Ambition): https://brownambitionpodcast.com Tiffany’s best-selling book Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Good-Money-Becoming-Financially/dp/0593232747/ Tiffany’s newest book Made Whole: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals: https://thebudgetnista.com/order-made-whole/ Hala on Brown Ambition, Episode No. 382: Podcast Princess, Business Baddie ft.Hala Taha: https://podcasts.apple.com/lc/podcast/podcast-princess-business-baddie-ft-hala-taha-ep-382/id1039708229?i=1000632525549 LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Use code ‘podcast’ for 30% off at yapmedia.io/course. Sponsored By: Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify MasterClass - Right now you can get Two Memberships for the Price of One at youngandprofiting.co/masterclass Relay - Sign up for FREE! Go to relayfi.com/profiting **Relay is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services and FDIC insurance provided through Evolve Bank & Trust and Thread Bank; Members FDIC. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted. More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I hear a lot about financial freedom and that's the goal for so many of us. Well, what happens if you don't reach financial freedom?
I thought about preschool teacher Tiffany, who might work until she was 60, 70, whatever,
and not quite ever get that pile of money to never have to work again. To me, financial freedom, it felt like not as inclusive. So I thought, well, what
is a concept that everyone can achieve? And I thought financial wholeness. That's what
I want for everyone to be able to figure out the life that they're wanting to live, how
they want to live it, and to align their finances to help make that life happen.
What most people do, Harlem, is they say,
I want all this money,
and they try to force their life into that financial space.
And I'm here to say that it's never ending if you do that.
I want you to holistically design your life,
and then say, hey, money, get along and play along,
because you might not need as much as you think. you're listening to YAP, Young & Profiting podcasts where we interview the brightest minds in the world, and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life.
I'm your host, Hallitaha.
Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen,
learn and profit.
Young and profitors, when it comes to your finances, are you feeling overwhelmed? Maybe a little disorganized or perhaps discouraged at times?
Well, my guest today is here to help ease your mind and put your finances on firmer
ground.
Tiffany Leachay, better known as the Buccanesta, is a financial expert educator and entrepreneur.
Her financial advice has been featured everywhere from good morning America to the New York Times, and she co-hosts the popular financial podcast
Brown Ambition, which I actually had the pleasure of being on recently.
Tiffany is also the author of the best-selling book Get Good With Money, and her new book
Made Whole, The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals, is out now.
It's a super-practical guide to getting your financial house in order and achieve what
Tiffany calls financial wholeness. And today the Buccineastah is going to give us
a mini masterclass herself on getting smarter with your money when it comes to everything
from budgeting to saving to investing in a state planning. Tiffany, welcome to Young
and Profiting Podcast.
Thanks for having me, Hala. I can't wait to get into all your financial advice you are
the Buccanista.
So you know everything when it comes to finances.
But first I wanted to get a little bit of background
in terms of your growing up and your mindset
around money when you were growing up.
So I found out that your parents were immigrants.
They came here to America from Nigeria
and they taught you a lot about money early on.
So talk to us about that.
Absolutely.
So my dad in particular, he has two degrees.
One in economics is Masters in his Bachelor's in Finance.
And my mom was raising the five of us.
Well, both of them together, but she took on a lot of the roles when it came to food
shopping and clothing shopping and budgeting the family's finances.
So together, my dad would teach my sisters an eye about the actual mechanics of money.
It was like class.
Literally on Thursdays, we would sit down.
He taught us how to budget, how to save, how to open a bank account, even business.
But I'd always had a little side hustle going.
Then my mom would show us in real time,
let's go clothing shopping or school
shopping or food shopping and how to navigate a family of seven when it came to that. So I had
this really awesome upbringing where I got to learn the academic side of money but also the practical
side of money. And I didn't realize how special that was until I went to college and realized so
many of my friends didn't get that. And, you know, shout out to all the immigrant parents
out there that work so hard.
And look at your parents.
They're awesome because they produce somebody like you
and Tiffany, you are truly a role model
to all the brown girls out there.
So thank you for all that you do
and shout out to your parents for working so hard.
They taught you how to be smart with your money
at a young age.
And I actually found out that you were able to save for down payment for a house,
by the time you were 26 years old.
So talk just about some of the savings tactics that they taught you and
how you were able to basically learn from them to achieve such a big milestone at such a young age.
So I was really frugal very early on because I just grew up in a frugal household.
The family of seven is not an easy thing to raise five kids no matter how much money
you have.
And my parents, although my dad was an accountant and a CFO, it was of a very small nonprofit.
My mom was a nurse.
And although they both made good living still, money was almost always kind of tight in
my household.
So they really taught us how to make a dollar stretch.
And I went to school for business,
hated my internships, decided that I wanted to be a teacher,
although I acknowledged that teachers didn't make much.
And I want to say my first job, I was making $39,000 a year,
which, depending on where you live,
that might sound like a lot,
but I'll assure you on the East Coast.
And that was not enough to move out.
Yes. But because I was always a hustler
because that's what I just learned
from watching my parents, my uncles, and my aunts,
almost all my cousins and stuff in Nigeria,
they have a side job.
I started babysitting and tutoring on the side,
so it helped us supplement my income.
And so I live really well below my means.
My sister and I moved out.
We had an apartment together really well below my means. My sister and I moved out. We had an
apartment together so that lowered my expenses. I stayed home for a year before I moved
down, saved up until I could buy a car. My dad said, do not get a new car because they
depreciate and value very quickly that save and get yourself a used car. Now remember,
it was a 1999 Nissan Ultima. It was like a two or three year old car.
So not really old, but in good condition.
And I paid, I want to save 5,500 for it.
So I saved that up when I stayed home.
That one year after college, I didn't move out right away.
And then I also saved it for furniture and things like that.
Then my sister and I were able to move out
of a stronger financial foot.
Because now I had a car, no car note. I had furniture that was paid off. I
didn't have to finance it. Although I wasn't making a ton of money as a teacher
because I had a roommate, my overhead was fairly low. So rent low, no car
note, car insurance reasonable because I didn't have a car note. And I didn't
carry credit card debt because my dad taught me early on to pay off your debt
in full. So as a result of that, in about three years, I was able to save nearly $30,000 for that down payment for a condo
because my overhead was so low. So for example, at the time the rent for the place we were living, the apartment we were living was $1200 a month,
which was low even then, but it was we found a woman, I researched for a year,
I found a woman who was renting out a really small house next to her business, which was a daycare.
And she was less concerned about the rent amount and more concerned about who was going to be living
next to her business with small children. And so she kind of held out and she was like, oh, I love
you and your sister. We lived like two towns over. So we were able to get that place really inexpensively.
$1200 divided by two is $600 a month, which was awesome.
And so the lessons I learned from all of that is I had to be patient because ideally, I
wanted to move out of my parents house sooner.
But staying home allowed me to save, and then I was able to move out purchasing things that
I could save for because I didn't have to pay overhead.
Finding the apartment took patience.
I could have moved out sooner and found
someplace for 1,800, whatever,
$19,2,000 a month,
but because I said I'm going to wait and be patient,
I was able to do a little more research
to find the perfect place.
And I have taken that lesson of
financial patience with me and my new book made
whole. I kind of walk you through what you need to do step by step to get to where you
want to be with your finances. But it does take patience to get there.
I love that financial patience. It's something I've never heard of before. So I also found
out when doing my research on you that at age 30, things really took a turn for the
worse. You basically lost everything.
So talk to us about the lowest point in your life and then how you ended up crawling out
of it.
Madehole is really the workbook version of Get Good With Money where I describe, it's
a new time for that seller and I describe the scam from I call him JTT, Jake the Thief.
And so he was supposed to be a friend of mine. And in my 20s, I believe that if it looked like you had money, you had money.
Like so many of us did when we were young.
And JT T. Jake the thief, he had, I remember, it was some exotic card, I don't know if it's
a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, some exotic card, which he was likely renting or borrowed from
a friend.
He had like this fancy apartment in New York City.
It was like nearly a penthouse, which my or mayor may not have been his,
who knows now.
And so I knew him for a number of years
and I said, you know, it's clear that you're rich
and I'm starting to save and I have money left over
and I'm trying to figure out how to why invest.
And instead of going to my father
who has a master's in finance and a master's in economics, I was like, let me ask my friend.
And he promptly scammed me because I had no concept.
That was in my mid-twenties.
And I had no real concept of return.
And so now when I hear people say, like, oh, I'm going to take your $1 and make it a
million, obviously, that sounds crazy.
But honestly, Jake, that's what he basically said.
He said, if you invest, I wanna say,
I think it was $20,000 with him.
That for the next two years,
it would generate $2,000 a month for me.
No, not even $2,000 a month.
That's more reasonable, $2,000 a week,
which sounds crazy.
Oh my God.
And so he told me, he said,
do you have any credit cards?
I did, but it had a loan limit.
And he was like, open up to new ones, pull money off,
which I didn't even know you could do.
It's called the cash advance, and it's the worst
because the interest rates on cash advance are astronomical.
You should just borrow money from someplace else if you can.
Anyway, he had me pull money off the credit cards.
So I had excellent credit,
because I paid off anything off and full.
And then I signed a contract with him
that the premise was that he owned a number of stores.
He was, oh, where was he from? Senegal, but he was French.
See, he was born in France, but I think his background was Senegalese.
In any way, he had a number of stores in Paris where he was like,
American items sell really well.
How we'll invest the money as I will purchase
a number of like American like Levi's, Converse,
things that we can buy cheap here and then sell there,
which I was like, oh, that sounds good
because it's your tangible items.
But of course, he got my $20,000, he ran away with it.
It took me like a year to really understand
that he was gone.
Oh, no.
But because the mistake, I just made every mistake possible after that.
Because the mistake I made after that was I invested in one of those courses that we
see so crazy now, where, you know, high ticket item courses are not unique to this period
of time that we're in now.
I invested in a high ticket course about how to start a business with someone who's still
well known in the financial industry.
I'm not going to drag you, sir, but anyways, $15,000, I didn't get anything from it.
So now I had $20,000 in credit card debt.
Two days later, I swiped $15,000 on my card because I thought money's going to be coming in.
Because I have this new business venture with my new business partner.
And I'm like, well, I want to learn more about what to do with the money coming in.
So now I'm $35,000 in debt and JTT,
Jake the thief is gone.
The business course is now working out.
I was a really good budgeter and saver.
And I was like, you know what?
It was the summertime I remember.
When school starts back up, I'm going to hunker down
and in about two years, I'll be able to pay this down.
But that was the year there was session hit.
It was 2009 and I found out three days
before the new school year that my school was closing.
So now no income, $35,000 in debt.
And I just got my master's in education.
And so $52,000 in student loan debt.
And I just bought that condo in my mid-20s.
So $220,000.
I was drowning.
Yeah. Yeah.
I know every little mistake you could think of,
it was like the worst time.
I don't even know how survived it,
but how I survived it.
And that's why honestly, I wrote Made Whole
because there are some step by step
by step things you can do 10 steps in particular
to get yourself what I call financially whole.
It doesn't mean you're gonna be rich,
it doesn't mean you're gonna make a million dollars,
that's possible, but it will get you to a place
of holistically being able to navigate
your personal finances.
And that's why I started the budget in East up
because as I dug my way out of that big hole,
I realized there are other people
who are struggling to do the same.
And I'm grateful I was able to do so.
I followed the same steps that I shared. In my book is the same steps And, you know, I'm grateful I was able to do so. I followed the same steps
that I shared in my book as the same steps that took me out of that place. And now I can say,
I mean, I have been broke broke. That was what basically $300,000 negative. You know, I have been
medium broke where it's like, oh, we're about net net. I don't have nothing, but I don't own nothing.
You know, I've been like broke plus. That was when I was a preschool teacher, not making much money, but I could afford my bills.
I have been, okay, this is kind of like
when I first started my business.
And I have now, I don't know if I'd say I'm wealthy,
but rich, you know, because I mean,
I feel like the needle keeps moving,
where, you know, I have a multi-seven figure net worth.
And in business, since I started my business,
really in the last five or six years, I've had a number of businesses made over $50 million in business. Wow, congrats.
So I have seen, this is always at a 15-year span,
you know, from like broke broke to where I am now.
And so it is not my aim to teach people how to become rich and wealthy,
because to me there are so many nuances that I had to do
that you're not likely, I could not recreate what I did
during those times. I'm not going to be able to do that. I aim to teach people how to become rich and wealthy, because to me, there are so many nuances
that I had to do that you're not likely,
I could not recreate what I did during those times,
but what I can recreate are these basic step-by-step things
you can do to holistically have a healthy financial life.
And that's the position, that's why I started the budget,
Nista, and that's why I wrote Made Hole.
This is so inspirational, like wow, $50 million. Over, yeah. That's amazing, that's why I wrote Made Hole. This is so inspirational, like wow, $50 million.
Over here.
That's amazing, that's incredible.
So let's talk about, back to this lowest point.
A friend actually helped you get out of this terrible mindset
that you're in and helped you sort of see the light
at the end of the tunnel so that you could be clear
ahead enough to start the Bajanista.
Talk to us about that.
So Linda was my best friend, our parents, our friends.
And I don't remember not knowing her.
I felt we just born into friendship.
And as I was struggling with all of that then,
the loss of my job, not knowing what to do,
I was also avoiding people that I cared about
because I didn't, I felt ashamed.
And shame really shield solutions.
I didn't understand that then.
But thankfully, Linda picked up on,
like Tiffany's not answering her phone.
She's not accessible.
She finally kind of like cornered me.
It was like, what's happening?
And I was just like, I told her everything about the scam,
about losing everything, about how I felt about myself.
I remember distinctly,
because it was a number of years
of those mistakes compiling.
And by 29, it reached, like,
because in 2009, I was 29,
that's why I'd lost the job.
It reached a fever pitch.
And I remember distinctly on my 30th birthday,
I had to move back home
and I was sleeping in my middle school bed.
And I remember when I was in middle school,
I used to like,
dogs and like,
do paper routes, whatever. And I remember thinking, the last time I slept in middle school, I used to like, walk dogs and like, do paper routes, whatever.
And I remember thinking,
the last time I slept in this bed,
if I was like 12, maybe 13,
I had more money than I do at 30.
And when I tell you the water works,
the tears just start streaming.
Like, Tiffany, you had more money at 13
than you do now this on your 30th birthday.
And it was a really miserable time.
And Linda, when I told her everything, she was like,
that's it.
I was like, girl, did you hear me?
I'm broke.
She's like, you know, we're in a global recession.
She was like, everybody's broke.
Like, we're all struggling.
That is what's happening in the current economy.
She's like, I'm calling you from my mother's couch as we speak.
Like, this is my life now.
And it was like the first time I kind of looked around and realized that I wasn't the only one struggling.
And because Linda helped me to shake some of that shame,
because the only way to really release shame I've learned this through therapy is to give voice to it.
Shame, love, silence. It's like just me and you, don't tell anybody, you know?
But what you tell somebody about what's happening
and help me to release it,
and once I release some of that shame,
I was able to see some of the solutions.
I was like, well, Tiffany,
you're a really good at budgeting and saving.
It's not that you have a ton of money coming in,
I had unemployment.
It took a long time for my house to be foreclosed upon.
Like, certain states,
it can happen within days. For New Jersey, it was years for many people. So I was like, in the
meantime, I was able to rent it out and that rental money was income. I'm like, so you have
unemployment, you have this rental income, you know, and these little side jobs you're doing,
you can still budget within this. And so I started to do so. And as I was building my way back up,
my friends started asking me to help them do the same,
then friends of friends and friends of friends.
And I realized maybe this could be a business.
So I started a bunch of Nista.
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So the Buccaneastah, this brand is like huge now, but you had humble beginnings,
and I did learn that you were actually volunteering your financial coaching at first.
And a lot of people are hesitant to do that. I'm a big fan of working for free
before you can get paid for it.
Talk to us about how that helped your career,
actually volunteering for free.
Honestly, it was so helpful.
I know I hear a lot of business coaches say that you should
and I'm not here to tell people what to do,
but I'll say that for me,
I told myself for the first year in business,
which was about 2010,
I am going to do as much free stuff
as possible to hone my skillset and to network.
You know, so, and that's what I did.
I was like, I mean, people were like,
oh, it's me and my grandma and the basement.
Can you teach us how to budget? I'll be there.
I probably spoke at two or three different places
from like the smallest, medium, anywhere,
because I wanted to one, there was a system of managing your personal finances
that I was trying to figure out, can I systemize what I'm doing for myself? So the teacher in
me was looking for the syllabus or the lesson plan, if you will, that I know I used to navigate
my life, but it could it could it be systemized to help the masses. I wasn't sure. And the only way to be sure is to take it to the streets, put it to the test.
And so I literally had a notebook where I was writing down like the same 10 steps that
I had made home, the same 10 steps, and get go with money.
I was literally writing these things down and saying, does it work for you?
And I mean, I help grandmas who were 90 something years old, I help 19 year olds, I help 35 year olds with kids,
I help doctors, attorneys.
And so I wanted to see what was the most systematic approach
I could create to help people on their financial journey.
And one of the easiest ways to get access to be able
to do that was to give my time away for free.
But in so doing, I networked like crazy.
Like my first paid speaking gig was with the United Way.
And it's because I had been volunteering.
And then I heard that they were looking for a financial education teacher.
And so I was like, oh, you know, I could do that.
And they were like, well, do you have a curriculum?
And I was like, sure, I didn't.
But I knew I could write one.
I had my master's in education.
And so I did. I wrote the curriculum., I didn't, but I knew I could write one. I had my master's in education. And so I did.
I wrote the curriculum and I taught there for three years.
And it was like the first time I went from living off unemployment to like, okay, I was
making not much.
I want to say maybe 1500 to $2,000 a month.
By then I moved out of my parents house and a friend of mine was renting a room.
If you live in a college town, oftentimes people will have a house
and they'll rent it by the room.
And so because it was like post or like mid recession,
there were a lot of young, like late 20s, early 30s,
really struggling.
And so in the college town where I live,
grown people were like renting rooms.
And so a friend of mine was like, oh my gosh,
this is beautiful house.
There's three of us, one of us is a teacher,
the other one is a, she was like a photographer.
And so I rented this room for 500 bucks a month.
So again, I learned living under my means,
and it was really in that house, in that room,
that I started to build the Bajanista
because I lowered my expenses dramatically.
So me making $2,000 a month ish,
it wasn't really enough to pay all my bills, but it was
enough to lay the foundation.
And then from there, social media started to take a turn from, you use it to say, hey
to your grandma, to you can, no one was really promoting themselves, but I quickly, I have
my business degrees in marketing.
And I was like, hmm, there's so many people on here.
Why am I just talking to my friends from college
in high school?
So I literally changed my name.
My Facebook, there was no Instagram back then.
Twitter was just barely coming out.
And I changed my name on Facebook.
There wasn't even Facebook groups.
There wasn't Facebook business pages, nothing.
Just your regular Facebook page.
So I decided to turn my Facebook page into a business page.
And I named myself Tiffany, the budget needs to Alice.
That was my name.
And I remember distinctly every single week
one of my home works was to friend at least a hundred new friends.
Right?
So I would, if I was friends with you in real life, Hala,
I would go through your friends list
to see if anybody had any professional pictures
as like their profile picture
because I'm like, maybe they work someplace
a company or whatever that might hire me to speak.
So I would send friend requests all throughout,
like just like rating your friends,
and maybe, you know, 10 of them would say, okay,
and then I would repeat that.
And then I would, on my page,
this is before the algorithm algorithmed,
on my page, every time I spoke at a free speaking event
or whatever, I would post it.
I didn't say free, I would say,
just had a great time,
you know, speaking at the boys and girls club teaching them
about blah, blah, blah, blah.
If you'd like me to speak at your organization,
contact me here.
And when I tell you almost every single time
that I posted one of that, somebody would contact me.
Now, it didn't always work out to be a paid speaking engagement,
but that's how I started the machine going of like, I didn't have any money, but I had social media, I had consistency, I had
the audacity to start like, friending folks. And before you know it, I started to really
grow a name for myself about being like a financial educator and speaker. But yeah,
so to me, speaking for free was the best way, because well, here's what I said.
You might not always be paid financially,
but you need to always be compensated.
And so I would say to myself, if I do this,
what does compensation look like?
Is it money?
Am I able to post this speaking engagement on social media?
Sometimes I would ask them, can I call you my client
when I post?
There has to be something I'm receiving in exchange for me giving of myself. Is it photos? Is it video?
What is it? And so I made sure that every time I did a free thing that I received some
sort of compensation. So yeah, that was like the best thing ever.
It's really cool that you bring this up. It's an awesome story. And actually your Facebook
journey wasn't in my notes, but I was going gonna bring it up because I'm from New Jersey and I knew you from Facebook
I knew Tiffany the bunch and you said from Facebook
I met you like two years ago. I already knew who you were because you were like famous in New Jersey
From Facebook. Yeah, and I was gonna ask you like how did you start your Facebook journey?
I'm really big on LinkedIn and you know LinkedIn came out years later
And I started years later promoting my podcast,
but it was the same thing.
It was like, I saw a platform.
I leaned into that platform.
I branded myself.
I had a clear goal.
And then I just took grassroots approaches.
I just kept inviting people who I thought
would fit my target market and like my podcast.
And it sounds like you did something super similar.
So, was there any sort of tipping point
where you're like, wow,
all of a sudden I have this community. What was the tipping point for you where you're like, wow,
I made it. I'm really Tiffany the budget needs to know, you know? I want to say, I want to say, it was
probably like three or four years in. I launched my very first live richer challenge. When I was
teaching at the United Way, people were like asking me questions, they would email me and it got to be overwhelming because we would have cohort.
So it was six a six week program that I wrote for them.
And what I didn't realize is I was prepping like those same steps that I was teaching
at the United Way is what I put into made hole.
And so I got to test again to make sure, do these steps really make sense?
And so I wrote the six week course.
Every cohort I did it for three years, people kept pinging me via email,
asking me the same questions.
And then then Facebook came out with Facebook groups.
And I remember being like,
Hey, I'm no longer taking questions via email,
you have to ask it in the Facebook group.
So I created just the private group
just for a United Way cohort people past present future.
And I made that way when you ask here,
everyone gets the benefit of my response.
And so, they was like, okay, great.
And so, then I remember distinctly,
I had posted, like, oh, the United Way,
I used them to learn how to market on social media as well.
Because they would pay me, not based
about how many people were in class,
but I wanted to keep the money going.
And I remember my first cohort,
they did the advertising. It was five people.
I was like, they're not gonna pay me to do five people.
So I advertised the next one, 20,
then 50, then 100, then 200.
Someone wrote me and said,
hey, I live in Florida,
but I would love to come to this class
at the United Way, this free class.
And I was like, well,
if we only do it here in Newark, New Jersey,
I don't know what to tell you.
And then a light bulb went on,
and I thought, what if I could take these steps I was like, well, if we only do it here in Newark, New Jersey, I don't know what to tell you. And then a light bulb went on.
I thought, what if I could take these steps
and then put it into this kind of free online course?
And then of a United Way or Prudential,
whatever could sponsor it,
it could be the same thing, but digitally online.
And so that's what I did.
I took this course that I wrote,
put it in this online format,
which I'm not super techy.
So really, I just put it on my blog.
Like a daily, so you would get an email every day
to say, hey, holla, today is the first day
of the Leverature Challenge.
Today we're sending goals in your emails.
Let's say click here to do today's task.
And then the here would take you to a blog post
where I did the lesson for you.
Sometimes the lesson was a video written out.
Sometimes it was a downloadable that you could fill out.
Whatever it was, it was 21 days of lessons.
And so what happened was, which was odd,
was that I don't know how,
but the people who signed up for the challenge,
my goal was 10,000 people to sign up for the first challenge.
It took me eight months to convince 10,000 people.
The challenge, long time to say, 2014,
in January, we had 10,000 people the challenge a lot launch. I want to say 2014 in
Of January we had 10,000 people signed up and I noticed the first week
People were requesting to join that United Way Facebook group and I remember being like no no no I don't know where you guys coming from. This is just for the United Way for
And then it was like oh wait, maybe I should let them in they flooded
Into the Facebook group and it was kind of like the first time to see the impact.
I mean, I remember that first challenge,
2,500 people opened up bank accounts.
Thousands of people saved thousands of thousands of dollars.
And it was in that group, I could see it all in one place
where I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
All this because of what I'm teaching?
One of the number one tips that I get people
when starting a business, especially if the business
is based upon you, is to build a community around it.
You know, but you have to give your community a place
to hang out, whether it's in person,
whether it's online, in some place,
because the community comes for you,
but stays for each other.
That part is critical, because if they come for you and stay for you, but stays for each other. That part is critical,
because if they come for you and stay for you,
the moment that you're busy or whatever, if all's apart.
So you have to create a place
where they can communicate with each other
and high five each other and support each other.
So, it was then, I would say, 2014,
when I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
There's something happening here.
I remember distinctly, someone in the community
said something like,
Cole's is having a sale on pillows.
Like instead of $10, whatever, they're like $2.99.
And I was like, okay, whatever.
The Dreamcatchers, that's what I call my community,
bought out those pillows nationwide.
Oh wow.
People were going to Cole's and being like,
wait, are you a Dreamcatcher?
Yeah.
Me too.
What do you do in here? Do you saw the polls? I mean, there were none of these two 99 panels anywhere and I was like wait, what is happening here?
I mean, I would share something they would bite up. We would literally if I did a partnership with the brand, they used to break their website.
It was a crazy time and that was my, uh- aha, the community piece is so critical.
But do you see how I had to do it?
First it was kind of like these one-on-ones and then it was like the smaller group at the
United Way and then creating a safe space digitally for people to connect.
And now I can talk to them holistically in one place.
So it yeah, that was my aha moment.
It's really cool to hear your journey because you took
the right steps. You didn't just go start a community without earning your stripes first. You earned
your stripes. You volunteered for free. You honed your craft. You were really good at what you did.
You taught hundreds of students. Then you created this community. And you were of service because a lot
of things that you did weren't even paid, right? So you were just like being of service, being so helpful and then everybody was sort of giving back to you for giving so much to them.
I had Harley Finkelstein on the show and he was talking about this concept of creator first entrepreneurship and it sounds like you did that right?
So creating your community first and then figuring out what they want.
And then you have automatic product market fit instead of creating some sort of solution and then hoping out what they want. And then you have automatic product market fit,
instead of creating some sort of solution,
and then hoping crossing your fingers,
people are gonna like it,
you build the community first, then you ask them
what they want from you, and you listen to them,
just like you did.
So let's talk about your new book.
You have a book called Get Good with Money.
That was your book, Previous to this one,
and you say that this new book made
whole is a follow up. So talk to us about these two books. What is the first book about
who's it for? And then how about the second book?
So get go with money was to your point, Holly. It was literally the accumulation of all
the knowledge for the last 15 years that I put together to say, what are the steps
to go from where you are financially to where you want to be?
And there's 10 steps. This is why I go over in both books. It is budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn.
Those are the first five fundamental steps. And then there's investing for both wealth and retirement.
It is insurance. It is net worth. It is building your financial team and a state planning. Those are the next
five building blocks of your financial life. And so as I have been collecting all of the information
from my audience and feedback, and I launched an online school called the Liberture Academy,
where I got even more feedback. And then the podcast, so I had just been collecting all this knowledge base and then
pouring into my community, building a safe space for them to ask questions. And so finally,
because I had been asked to write a book and I had self-published books before, each of the
challenges had their own self-published book. So I also got to learn how to book market through
those times. So finally, when it all came together, I said, I'm ready to finally put all of this information,
all this feedback into one place,
and I wrote Get Good with My Name,
and I'm not gonna lie, it blew the publishers
out of the water, because I'm not famous.
My audience certainly knows me,
but in two years, it's still nearly 300,000 copies,
which is like unheard of.
Just so we're clear, the average book never sells
over 2,000 in a lifetime.
So 300,000 in two years is like, yes.
So they're like, wait, who the hell are you?
I don't know.
So it just, it taught me this lesson of like,
because people are like, oh,
everything you touch turns to gold, Tiffany.
And I'm like, that's not true.
I just learned to touch gold.
I didn't just throw this book out there.
It was like, this is feedback from the audience.
And so I wrote Gicka with Money,
which is really like this really chunky textbook
that walks you step by step.
It's a New York Times best seller,
eight weeks on the list.
The average New York Times best seller
stays on the list for one week and falls off.
We were all there for eight weeks consecutively.
And then the feedback after that was,
Tiffany, I love Get Go With Money.
I really would like a workbook to do the work alongside the lessons.
I want something to companion Get Go With Money, and so I wrote Made Whole.
So, these are both of these books really are the ten simple steps to achieving financial wholeness,
which I described before as the ten core steps.
If you master them, you will be secure
and safe in your financial life.
It's really like me dipping back into my teacher tith
and the past, well, current,
from still a teacher and walking you through,
not just telling you about the step,
but also showing you how to do it,
giving you a space to do the step in the moment.
So it's not just me telling you about the step.
So of course, there's the education piece where it's like,
here's what the step is, here's how to do it.
Here's an example of what that looks like,
because I also in May hold,
really wanted you to see real life people
taking action with that step.
So I put their stories in each of these steps.
And then lastly, there is a space for you in the moment to do the work. One of the things that like makes what I do
so amazing, like myself and my team, is that we create meaningful transformation. And so
the teacher in me knows how to take a student from a place of no knowledge or low knowledge
to knowledge. And so that's what made Holis all about.
So I like to think of Gicka with money as the textbook
and made Holis the workbook.
So if you're wanting step-by-step guidance,
if you wanting to practice in the moment,
then get to the work sooner rather than later,
then made Holis gonna walk you through those 10 steps.
And each of those 10 steps is worth 10%.
So by the end, have reached a hundred percent
wholeness and that is the aim and why I call the book made home. I'm just really proud of it.
I'm really proud about how many people we've been able to reach and teach. I mean we have over like
5,000 with forget your money 5,000 five star reviews on Amazon. It's of what they call a
perennial bestseller because typically books do well for the first three to six months and then kind of go away, but it's still going strong.
Two years later, this is the original book that get go with money.
We sell about a thousand copies a week, two years later.
Like I said, people don't do a thousand copies on lifetime.
So I know made hole is going to find its audience
for those people who are like, honestly, I get distracted easily.
I want to get to the work now.
I want to focus. and I want the opportunity
to work alongside you Tiffany as you guide me
as a cheerleader, but also as a teacher
along this path to financial wholeness.
Yeah, and it makes sense that they're such best sellers
because as somebody who has a community like you,
I get approached all the time,
Penguin Random House is approaching me to write a book.
I get approached by agents and I've even like sort of entertained them.
But then I end up being like, let me hold off.
I gotta work on my business.
I don't even know what I want to write about.
I don't want to write a book for nothing.
But you've been doing this for 10 years.
You have curriculums.
You have material that you've accumulated and tested.
That's why your book did well.
And so that's a lesson for everybody who's out there
thinking about writing a book,
do you have the material to write a book?
That's actually meaningful and different,
and will help people's lives.
So I would highly recommend anybody,
if you have somebody in your life
who's in their 20s, 30s, 40s,
buy them both these books for Christmas,
like what a great Christmas gift,
made whole and get good with money.
I feel like that's such a good pair.
Okay. So let's talk about some of the key concepts in your book.
Financial wholeness is a key topic that you talk about in your book,
made whole, the new book. What is financial wholeness exactly?
In my profession, in my field, I hear a lot about financial freedom.
And that's the goal for so many of us. But I started to think about, well, what happens if you don't reach financial freedom?
So I thought about preschool teacher Tiffany, who might work until she was 60, 70, whatever,
and not quite ever get that pile of money to never have to work again.
I don't know.
And so I didn't want to focus on something that I felt almost everyone could achieve.
You know, it's like with a classroom,
if I'm teaching kids, I'm teaching in a way
that the vast majority of the kids
are gonna be able to get it.
You know, I'm not gonna teach algebra to kindergartners
because maybe one kid gets it
because they're like a genius,
but the rest of the kids are not.
So to me, financial freedom,
it felt like not as inclusive.
So I thought, well, what is a concept
that almost everyone can achieve? So I thought, well, what is a concept that almost
everyone can achieve? And I thought financial honours. So not to say I don't want you to
achieve financial freedom, but first and foremost, if you achieve financial honours, it greatly
increases your chances of achieving financial freedom. So that means if you learn how to budget
and basically semi-automate or automated, if you learn how to save and do the same automated,
if you learn how to manage your debt responsibly,
you don't have to be debt free,
although I am debt free.
I own two properties, no more gages.
I just bought a condo for half a million dollars cash
because I just was like, I want this place.
But that might not be the case, but that's okay.
You know, but still managing your debt in a way that's responsible.
If you learn how to manage your credit to where you can get
what they call perfect credit.
So if we're talking FICO scores, you're looking at like a 750,
760, you know, like you don't have to have a 850.
That's great.
But you'll still get basically the same interest rates
with the high 7.
So that's for credit.
And for learning to earn, learning to earn inside your current job, if you have
a job, and externally always knowing how to make additional money if you need to.
For some people that's a side hustle, for some people that's a whole separate business,
you know, I believe that even preschool teacher, I call it the bank, right?
So when I taught preschool, I made my 39,000.
Sometimes I need to go to the bank and get money.
And so to me, the bank was, I can tutor, I can babysit.
And so it's like everyone should know,
what is their internal bank?
Like are you, you know, maybe you're a maintenance man
at a building and you could do handyman work on the side
when you need to.
So I teach that in that chapter.
And then investing, investing for retirement,
which comes first, which means just you will be able to maintain your current lifestyle and investing for wealth, which means you'll be able to increase your lifestyle now.
And leave a legacy, a financial legacy for your ears. Then there's insurance. So many people neglect insurance. I did when I finally got a financial advisor a few years ago. She was like, girl, you are under insured.
You have this property, you have this, you have that, you have these businesses. Where's your insurance?
And not that, you know, the purpose of insurance is to protect your assets. So the things that you own,
so your life insurance, your health insurance, your pet insurance, but also, too, do you have business
insurance, if you have a business, do you have property insurance? I got an umbrella policy to cover anything that is not covered.
So insurance that chapter, I really dive deep
because that's mostly left out of most financial books.
Then there's net worth.
Your net worth is just what you own minus what you owe.
Your net worth is kind of like your checkup number.
I can kind of basically gauge where you are financially and how healthy your finances are by your net worth. Is it positive? Is it negative?
What does that look like? And then second to last is your financial team. Money is a team sport
and inside made hole. I show you potential people on your team. Everyone needs a financial
accountability partner. Your mom, your sister, your work husband, your bestie, whoever. You might need a financial accountability partner. Your mom, your sister, your work husband, your bestie, whoever.
You might need an accountant, a CPA.
You might need a financial advisor.
I show you what you would likely pay them, how you would pay them, how to vet them.
You might need an insurance agent, depending.
You might need a CFO, depending.
So these are things that I explained in that chapter.
And lastly, it's a state planning. So that's
the 10th and final one. And that is your beneficiaries, a will, potentially a trust. Like, what
are the difference between those things? And what do you need to do to make sure that
all this amazing work that you've created is passed down in a way that you deem necessary.
So things happen all the time, and you wanna make sure
that if something happens to you,
whatever your wishes are, your family doesn't have to guess.
And so those are the 10 steps I walk you through.
They sound really heavy, but truthfully,
I walk you through in a way that's fun,
that's engaging, and that's doable.
I love when people hit me, and they say,
oh my gosh, Tiffany, I'm 10% whole, you know,
but I started off as 10% whole, Tiffany, I'm 10% whole, you know, but I started off as 10%
whole and now I'm 40% whole. And I just love you get to kind of track your progress. And so, yeah,
that's what you're going to get in made hole. Yeah. And I agree. It's really entertaining. I hate
finances. So I'm not like you or I'm all into it. I actually hate it, but I really enjoyed reading
your book. So let's dig into some of these 10 topics that you just talked about. Let's start with budgeting. You talk about a baby budget,
and that's really your first step. So what is a baby budget? We love action, we'll advise
how can we do that today? So if you do that today, go to HR and say, hey, HR, well first,
you have to do a little homework in that you're going to figure out how much money do you want
to go into your bills account every month. You should have a separate checking account for bills,
how much money do you want to allocate for spending?
So that's just like your allowance, maybe it's groceries,
grooming, going out.
So that's a separate checking account.
So two checking that you want to have a savings account for emergencies.
So ideally three months or more depending on how quickly you could replace
your income if you would lose your job.
And then final savings account is for long term savings. So that's saving to invest later.
Maybe you're going to buy a property this year. Maybe you're going to purchase a car or whatever.
So two savings to checking.
The savings are at a separate bank and an online only bank that's going to generate higher interest.
So you're going to look at what interest rates they're offering.
Don't choose your bank that way.
And then to checking it, whatever your bank account is now.
She's saying two different banks.
You're checking in one bank, you're safe.
Why?
Yeah.
Because if you're anything like me and everybody else in this country,
when you go to Target and your checking says,
there's no money here, Hala,
you're going to look at your savings and say,
I know I'm supposed to be saving for that house,
but I'm going to make the transfer from saving to checking.
And if it's at the same bank,
you're going to spend that money in two seconds.
If it's had two separate banks,
you are going to have to wait 24 hours
and get you a sleeping bag to sleep at Target
and to wait for that money to transfer over
so you can spend it at your checking account.
Plus, traditional banks pay nothing
when it comes to interest.
And an online only bank
right now, as I'm recording interest rates for online only banks, some of them are near 5% versus
a 0.1,1,1,1,1,1% that you get like a regular bank. So those are the two reasons why you're
going to have separate accounts. So once you figure out for yourself, this is how much I want to
go monthly to my two savings and to my two checking.
Then you're going to go to HR and ask them to split it before you get it.
That is your baby budget.
You just have to do that little bit of work ahead of time.
Then they will put that money based upon what you tell them into your accounts for you.
So no longer should your money all land in that one checking account.
It should be split.
So that way you know when you get your money
and you look at,
because you're gonna make sure that your bills account
is not tied to any debit card,
because you can call them and say, unhook it.
People don't realize that you can do that.
So when you swipe your debit card,
you know I'm not spending my bill money,
because it's not attached.
I'm not spending my emergency savings
and I'm not spending my long term savings.
The only thing attached to this debit card
is the money I've set aside for cash expenses.
So that is a baby budget because you don't have to be as disciplined because the money
has been split.
And then take it a little further, have your bills account.
If you have the money, pay your bills for you automatically.
So it's like your life is just totally automated when it comes to your finances.
It's a great way to start a baby budget that you can do and like literally less than an
hour.
This is so smart.
And this reminds me of Prophet I with Michael McCallis.
Are you familiar with this?
So I actually met him.
Oh yeah?
Yeah, I went to a conference.
Oh, he's great.
We had one on the show a bunch of times.
And basically with Prophet I it means you pay yourself first and then you've got all these
different accounts for everything you can think of like operational expenses, saving up
for taxes, saving up for a big goal or marketing budget or whatever it is.
And actually, Relay is a bank that offers up to 20 different accounts with no fees and
they're the profit first bank of choice.
And I feel like Relay is such a good strategy for you because you say you should have a
bills check and account, a spending check and account.
You could even split up your spending account based on different things
and have multiple accounts so that you just can automatically siphon off a
percentage every time you get a paycheck. So super smart, you can go to relayfi.com
slash profiting if you want to use Tiffany's approach for your accounts. And let's talk
about reducing expenses because I know that's really important.
You say that we should reduce expenses that we have the most control over first.
So talk to us about the steps we can take to reduce our expenses.
So it made how I gave you this worksheet that I call your money list because people don't like the word budget, but it's just a budget.
You would just list everything you spend money on, how much it cost you a month.
Now here is one of my favorite parts
about figuring out what my budget should be.
So once you get your money list,
you put the name of the expense,
how much it cost you monthly,
and then you're going to look at each expense
and start to label them.
If any of them is a bill,
you're gonna put a B next to it.
So you know, okay, this is a bill,
and a bill really is just,
if I don't pay it, someone's gonna be mad at me
You owe this to someone whether it's your
Mortgage PSE or G maybe a grandma whoever this is a bill and then you're gonna put a
You in front of bills that fluctuate so the you stands for utility
Up and down usage so any bill that changes based upon your usage, you're gonna put a U.
So you're gonna have BB, BB, BB, BB, BB,
and some of them will have UB, UB, UB.
And then anything leftover harla is gonna be a C.
Because those are your cash expenses.
The C stands for cash or choice.
These are the expenses where you have the greatest amount
of choice about where your money goes.
But it's important you do in that order,
because if you start with C's, you're gonna get confused.
So B's first, then UB's, then C's,
and then when it's time to make changes to your budget,
you're going to look at your C's first
if you were someone who has what I call a spend too much issue.
Meaning like, if I add up on my C's
and I add up on my B's and UB's, what number is higher?
If most of my money is spent on my C's, I have to spend too much problem.
If most of my money is on my B's, I have a don't make enough issue.
This is for people who don't have enough money at the end of the month, not if you're
fine.
So, the problem that I find is that frugal people like me will be like, all their money
is going to B's and they're still trying to reduce those seas.
You don't have a spend too much issue.
You're focused on the wrong thing.
You have a don't make enough issue.
You need to figure out how to make more money on the like, what's the bank you can hit up?
Is it teaching?
Is it tutoring?
Is it dog walking?
Is it helping people move?
What is that?
And then if you have someone, if you're someone who is spending too much and that's where
most of your money is going to your seas, then you're going to go line item by line
item and on paper, ask yourself what you can do to reduce some of these expenses. Sometimes
they're expensive. You don't remember. You're like, I'm still paying for Spotify or something.
Yeah. And I'm like, my mom has that, yeah, exactly. Or sometimes what I do is when I
realize I'm using a subscription and I enjoy it,
I'm like, is there an annual membership?
So I can save that 25, 30%.
I'll do that.
I'll upgrade to that.
So that's a deeper budget.
In the beginning, the split it before you get it,
that's a good baby budget to start with
because you could do that in an hour,
call HR get it set up.
And then this is a little deeper
when you really wanna see where is my money going
and how can I have more control.
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Young M-Profitters, as you may know, I work out a lot.
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Hmm, this is so good.
I feel like I want to do that this for myself.
Like, hey, so I have so good.
So let's talk about saving you say we need to save like a squirrel.
So first of all, why the analogy and then what's your best advice for saving?
Saving super easy, honestly, separate.
So you can see, have your separate savings account,
someplace separate at the very least,
a place where you can get the highest interest rate.
And I say like a squirrel,
because squirrels are great savers.
During the winter time,
squirrels are living off of what they saved in fall and spring.
Human beings are so strange, right?
Fall and spring, we're like, oh my gosh, it's a windfall.
You know, financial spring and fall and summer,
we spend up all of our money,
we're like, oh my gosh, times are always gonna be good.
And you know, I got a hundred eight corns,
I'm eating a hundred eight corns.
And then the winter comes and we're like,
what am I gonna eat?
Squirrels are like, we already know how this goes.
We understand that life is cyclical
in that financial winter comes for everyone.
So fall, spring, summer,
when the financial acorns are abundant,
I live off some, I put aside some.
So if you're in the abundant season right now, great.
But it's not meant for you to live off of it 100%.
It's meant for you to live off some and save some like a squirrel
because financial winter comes for everyone.
I remember reading like during the pandemic
and inspired me to like increase what my companies
emergency savings look like from three months to six months
because I read that Microsoft had one year's worth of savings
of organizational savings.
One year that meant for a four year they could wait it all out.
They're like, I don't know about job. Well, I don't know how long this pandemic's going to be,
but we can see ourselves through. And I'm so glad. I was like, I told my CFO, I want to do that.
We made the goal six months and we got to six months worth of savings. And I'm so glad because
this was a rough financial year. And we had to tap into three months of the six months.
So imagine I only had three months, we'd have no more emergency savings. Even in business, you want to save like a squirrel.
I love that. And then what's a noodle budget? I love all the little names that you have.
You're so good at the names. So I like to do that because it helps people to remember and it feels
less intimidating. You can tell it used to be a preschool teacher. So a noodle budget is your
baseline budget. You got to drop down and get your new to wrong from time to time. That just means when things are really rough,
maybe you lost your job or your business
is not doing as well,
you should know already what things on your budget,
on your money list, that you can reduce or get rid of,
like basically if you are college student
and you have to eat ramen noodles.
Because so many people lose their house
and their cable is still on. It's like, you know, they're like, oh, what's the extra 80 bucks a month?
I'm like, you're not going to say that when you're like, what are we going to eat next
month? So I know instantly, if I were to like, I don't have a job now since I have my
businesses, but if I were to, I know exactly the places where I can be like, turn this
off, turn this off, reduce this, reduce this, reduce this. So you don't live at your noodle
budget if you don't have to, but you should know what that number is and what
things you can activate off when you need to. And that is your, you basically your ramen
noodle budget that you temporarily live at until you're back up again.
That makes a lot of sense. So I know we're getting close to time. And guys, this is a meaty
book. I literally have maybe 20 more questions to go through, but I'm not gonna ask you one more.
And if you guys wanna get more information,
get made whole, it's excellent, I highly recommend it.
So one more question, and this one's gonna be about insurance,
because I interview a lot of financial experts
and nobody ever talks about insurance.
So what are the types of insurance we should get
and at what age, what's your tips and advice around that? So when it comes to insurance, obviously you have to have insurance for wherever you're
living, even if you're renting, renters insurance get it because it's so nominal, like
nine, ten bucks a month, oftentimes, obviously you get a one homeowner's insurance and you're
like, well, you have to have it. No, I own two properties straight out and I actually
don't have to have a homeowner's insurance. I had to remember to add that because when you have a
mortgage for most states you have to, but for New Jersey,
without a mortgage, I'm like, girl, I saw you if your house
burns down, you don't own nobody.
So, so I had to make sure to get my homeowner's insurance.
But also, there's disability insurance, especially if you
are a small business owner, right, or a business owner, it's something where it happened to you, especially if you are a small business owner, right? Or a business owner, it's something where it happened to you,
especially if you are the center of the world
for your business, it's something where it happened to you
then how would you or your business be able to continue
to make money?
So I have insurance on myself for the business.
If something happens to me, that money will allow the business
to continue to run.
Also, too, I have, oh, I forget what it's called, errors and emissions insurance.
Because I teach financial information, I have insurance to protect me.
In case someone says, oh, you know, I tried to budget, and I don't know, it didn't work.
And so you're wanting insurance to protect you.
That's why part of your money team might be an insurance agent if you are that small business owner
because understanding like all the ways that there are liabilities you know because I could just
totally knock you out. But also too you want to think about things like because disability in short
there's like this gap insurance between even if you have a job disability insurance sometimes
doesn't kick in for months after I've had people their disability from their job didn't kick in until they're already
back at work.
So, having short-term disability insurance on your own might be something that makes sense,
depending what you do for a living.
Life insurance, so I'm not a proponent of whole life insurance.
I know people will tell you otherwise, I'm like, whatever.
The people who use a push, whole life insurance are insurance sellers, and whole life insurance are insurance sellers and whole life insurance is significantly more
expensive than term.
And the misinformation, I believe, is that whole life insurance is a way to grow wealth.
Now, if you are super duper duper duper duper duper duper duper duper duper wealthy and you
have already maxed out all other areas of maximizing your wealth, then whole life might make sense, right?
But the average person, unless you're like Beyonce or Oprah or whatever,
doesn't need whole life insurance. Insurance in every other area of our life is not a money
making endeavor. But when it comes to life insurance, all of a sudden you will hear people say,
oh, we can help make you money. Since when does car insurance make you money? Does pet insurance make you money?
There's like a scam kind of thing.
Yeah, so it's not only a scam, it's just misleading because they're like,
all this is cash value.
On average, the cash value generates less than 1%.
You might as well just put that money into a savings account.
The real benefit to whole life is to the person that sold it to you.
Because if you are a,
let's find my check, I want wanna say a 40 year old woman,
non-smoker, a million dollar whole life policy
was about $740 a month.
A million dollar term, 30 year term policy,
was about $40 a month.
There's a $700 monthly difference.
You know, Harlem, as a business owner,
what you can do with $700 monthly difference. You know, Harlem, as a business owner, what you could do with $700.
Oh, yeah.
So $700, and that's why 60% of whole life insurance policies
laps, meaning people at some point can't afford it.
So it's just like a waste of money
because you just want it last.
Yes.
So people are like, oh, but term expires.
Yes, because you're supposed to get life insurance
for your money making years.
Typically, if you have debt or you have dependent. So if you get your first policy when you have your
first kid, the thought process is by the time they're 30, they're independent adults. That is to cover
that mom is not here. So I made a hundred thousand dollars a year. On the average, you want to get ten times
what your your income is. So my child will get a million dollars when I'm not here. Now it's nice
that if you can leave money, you know, like for a grown child or whatever, but that's not the
original purpose of life insurance. It's really to say I have this debt. It will be covered. If I'm
not here, this home or whatever. And then I will be able to look after my child financially, even though I'm not here.
And so life insurance is like a critical component.
But I'm not a certified financial planner, so that is not advice.
That is just like how I navigate my life.
And so having a certified a CFP, the gold standard of financial planners,
fee only, do not do fee based,
because fee based means not only do you pay,
but they also get back in money for what they sell to you.
Feet only means they only get paid by you.
That's it, there's no back end,
they're not upselling you anything.
Yeah, they have no incentive to sell you.
Yes.
Specific.
They're doing your fiduciary, yeah.
Exactly, their fiduciary.
So all of these kind of things, like the insurance,
things you're wanting to sit down
with a certified financial planner.
And you can pay for one off, you can pay hourly,
you can pay monthly, you can pay for annually.
But yeah, those are the insurances,
because remember, insurances there to protect your assets.
So lastly, I'll just give you an example of how
Anjali, who's my financial advisor,
when she was like, you are underinsured,
so I increased my life insurance policies,
I'd bought a home and she was like,
this is not enough to cover.
And also, too, she's like, at the time,
I had the third home, which I sold not too long ago.
And she was like, I think we should get an umbrella policy,
a million dollar umbrella policy.
I was like, that sounds expensive.
And she was like, no, because you have these other policies
and the umbrella policy is to catch just in case,
there's just a little bit more left over
that the insurance won't cover.
And I was like, okay.
So it was $400 for a year for this umbrella policy.
And I was like, oh, a million dollar umbrella policy
for a year, that's excellent.
So I talked all throughout a made hole.
I really go into depth about the different types
of insurances that you can have,
what they should look like, what you should look for,
and where you can find them.
Because I want to be really well versed
in protecting their assets with insurances.
I'm going straight to that chapter.
You can really put up a light bulb in my head.
I was like, I need disability insurance like yesterday because I'm like the center of
my business and responsible for like 60 people's livelihood.
So I need disability insurance like yesterday.
One more question about insurance.
Is there anything else for business owners to think about when it comes to insurance?
Absolutely.
I was just looking at my insurance, like, you know, like so one, you want to make sure
that depending what kind of business you're in, what are you likely to be sued for?
This is why having an insurance agent who's independent of your financial advisor, you
will basically, you sit with this insurance agent.
I have a great one.
Yeah.
Please introduce me.
Yeah.
Well, and so, like, I would say annually, we kind of sit down and he just asked me questions
like, so what's going on business?
What are you doing now?
Like he'll pick up,
because his ears are listening for,
oh you have a book, hold on, oh you have an online school,
okay, because he's looking for liability gaps to say,
okay, this is where you could potentially be sued.
Let's cover you for that.
So if this comes up, you are covered.
So that is critical.
So I can't tell you what specific insurance you might need.
It's really based upon what kind of business you're in.
And so you and your insurance agent will kind of go through all the things that you do.
And then he will suggest here are some things that you can do to like plug those holes.
You, Hailey, you want to consider, I did this for my business, is that there's insurance on me
for the business. If something happens to Tiffany, it will continue to be able to run itself.
In my trust, I have specific instructions to my heirs about what to do with my businesses,
if I'm not here, but that might take a little while. So I want my businesses to still have the
money they need to run while my heirs are navigating the next six months to a year about what I want
with my business, what I want to happen. So you might want to have insurance on you for the business that if something were to
happen to you based upon what you want to happen or what you want.
Whoever it is, it's going to inherit wherever, you know, whatever you have when you're
not here, what happened to that mean time, what money will keep them flowing when you're
no longer able to bring in that money.
What's so important with all of this, I hope you understand, that's why it's holistic, right?
Because as you talk about insurance,
you start to realize,
hum, I need to talk to maybe in a state attorney
because they get blended.
And then you might think to yourself,
well, I'm not really sure.
So my certified financial planner
is gonna help guide me with some of the things
I need there like the center.
To be like, you know what,
you should ask your state attorney this
or I can ask them or you should ask your state attorney this, or I can ask them,
or you should ask your insurance person this.
That's why I also have that chapter
and made whole about your financial team,
because I am not an expert in all of these things.
I'm not meant to be.
I am here to gather a team of experts to help guide me.
And you might think, like,
I don't have all the money for all that.
I didn't start off with this wide team of experts
in business and personally, I started off with just a bookkeeper literally.
And then I had like a money manager for the business.
I always had an accountant, a friend of mine was an accountant.
And that wasn't terribly expensive because I just saw him once a year back then, you know?
And so your money team will grow as you grow.
And it's critical to have assistance and help because they're going to help you
make decisions like, should I be an LLC? Should I be an LLC that's an S Corp? Should I
be a sole proprietor? Should I be a C Corp? When I made a decision for one of my businesses
to go from S Corp to C Corp on the phone was my CFP, my certified financial planner, my
big accountant Angie who we see in quarterly, my CFO,
Georgia, who's the CFO of my businesses,
my attorney, my business attorney.
So it was these four brilliant women on the call
discussing what are the best choices.
So Angelie, my CFP is like, well, for Tiffany personally,
this is what I see.
And Georgia is like, well, for the businesses, this is what I see. And George A is like, well, for the businesses, this is what I see what's best.
Tony, as the business attorney is saying, legally, here's what I'm seeing shifting.
And then the account is like, well, tax wise, this is, but do you see, how can I get me
to expert on all those things?
Yeah.
It was this amazing roundtable where I was like, it was, honestly, it was so awesome.
And we made the decision based upon this collective amazing group of people
So you just start really
You know starting with an accountant and accountability partner and then slowly acquiring people from there
But yeah, so doing that like I'm in a position now where I am financially free where
My overhead for my life because I don't have a mortgage. I don't have a car note. I'm literally debt-free like a topper
I have no debt whatsoever. You know people are like oh like I have no debt, but I've have a mortgage, I don't have a car note. I'm literally debt-free like a toddler. I have no debt whatsoever. You know people are like, oh, I have no debt,
but I've got a mortgage.
Now, now the credit card, dad, nothing.
So my overhead for my life,
despite what I make, is super duper low,
even though I live well, it's just that I've just decided.
And everyone doesn't have to be debt-free like I am.
This is just how I've decided to navigate,
because I knew that I wanted to get to a place
sooner rather than later, I'm 44, where if I didn that I wanted to get to a place sooner rather than later.
I'm 44 where if I didn't want to work anymore, I don't want to work.
And so I am in a place now with the assets that I have accumulated because my overhead is
low.
If I don't want to work anymore, I don't have to work anymore.
Now, I'm not on a private island.
Certainly, I'm continuing to work, but I'm in a space now where all the things I own right now can be managed with the money I've already set aside, I've got
invested.
And so that was intentional.
And so that's what I want for everyone to be able to figure out the life that they're
wanting to live, how they want to live in, family, friends, closeness, time, whatever
that looks like mission purpose, and to align
their finances to help make that life happen.
What most people do, Harlem, is they say, I want all this money, and they try to force
their life into that financial space.
And I'm here to say that it's never ending if you do that.
That I want you to holistically design your life and then say, hey, money, get along
and play along,
because you might not need as much as you think.
And that's why I'm excited for y'all to have made whole
because it will help you on that journey
to reaching financial wholeness.
I can't wait to read made whole more deeply,
especially like the last chapters about insurance
and estate planning and building a trust
and all that stuff I like know nothing about.
And you've broken it down in a way
that's entertaining, easy to adjust.
So thank you for making this book.
We end our show with two questions.
The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today to become
more profitable tomorrow.
Take one step to build or own your audience.
So if you already have an audience, this is
critical. I own access to my audience on multiple platforms, social media being the worst
of them. But I also own access via email, which is a good one. I also own access is I have
I use mighty networks, which is a community group that you can build like a set of Facebook
groups. Mighty networks is like the answer to that where every time you post everyone will see it.
And then one of my favorite ways is text messaging.
So I own access in four ways, three of them being really strong.
And so either start to build your community now and figure out where you're going to hang
out or if you already have a community, increase your access ownership to them in one way.
It's going to be text messaging.
Are you super phone?
Do you have your email list?
Do you have a place for them to hang out digitally online?
And social media is a decent place to start,
but you don't wanna end there
because you don't own that platform.
So that would be the number one thing I say people start,
build your community, own access.
Super smart.
And then our last question is,
what is your secret to profiting in life?
And this can go beyond today's topic.
It can go beyond just financial.
My secret to profiting in life is relationships.
I am really good at building and cultivating relationships,
not from a transactional standpoint.
Like, Hala, I'm here because our friend Terry Ejama,
she had a tour and I met
Hala at the tour and she just seemed really nice.
I was like, oh, hey, you know, and we just got to chatting and now here I am on your amazing
podcast.
It wasn't transactional.
I didn't know all that you had built, you know, and I just was like, oh, that's great,
but you just seem like a nice person.
And so building relationships from a non-transactional space, there's a book, a great book called, um,
Delivering Happenies by the late Tony Shay.
He talks about how about a year into a real relationship,
synergy start to emerge like, oh, I didn't know that you work for such a such.
My daughter's looking for internship there.
Do you know XYZ?
And so like, yeah, that for me, like I build really great relationships.
I check in on people. I offer my services or my knowledge, I have a lot of mentors and mentees, especially, that I lean into.
So build relationships, build relationships for me.
Plus, too, it's just great to know great people.
I'm never alone on this journey.
There's never a question that I can't get an answer to because of the relationships
that I built.
Yeah, I agree.
When it comes to succeeding in business, strong relationships, I think matter more than
almost anything else.
So I totally agree.
And where can our listeners learn more about you?
Follow you.
Get your new book, Madehole.
I am the budget Nista on all the platforms, the budgetnista.com.
If you're wanting to get made hole, it will be available everywhere to Barnes and Nobles,
Target, Amazon, obviously.
But if you're like me, I love to frequent small bookstores or at least support them online.
So, if you go to madeholdworkbook.com, you will see all the places where you can purchase the book,
including indie bookstores that need your support. So, that is madeholdworkbook.com.
Awesome. I'll stick that link in the show notes.
I highly recommend that everybody go grab that book.
Tiffany, thank you so much for joining us on Young & Profiting Podcast.
Thank you for having me, Hollywood.
This has been awesome.
Young & Profitors, I loved having Tiffany on the show.
Tiffany Elite J, aka the Budgeonista is a true inspiration. She's so
knowledgeable, she's so smart, and I really enjoyed her being on my podcast, but I also really
enjoyed my time on her podcast with her co-host Mandy called Brown Ambition. And we just take
such different approaches to podcasting. I'm so buttoned up. I do so much research. I have every single question planned. I read the book. And I don't even think Tiffany and her co-host read my bio
before I came on the show. But we still had such a great conversation. It was just so fun,
so natural. And we actually talk about the Israel and Palestine conflict. I'm Palestinian.
And I talked about some things that are really on my chest that I won't talk about on this podcast because we're really a business show
It's not what we talk about we don't talk about politics
But if you want to check out my opinion on the conflict and how I feel about it
You can check me out on brown ambition and we'll stick that link in the show notes
I went on the show about a month ago. So I hope you guys check that out and back to Tiffany
She's so inspiring and I feel like to Tiffany, she's so inspiring.
And I feel like the reason why she's so inspiring
is that she's been there before.
She's been broke before.
She's struggled financially.
She found herself in an incredibly big financial hole
at a young age, $300,000 in debt.
That is so much debt she was broke plus as she called it.
And she managed from that low starting point
to create a business that helps millions.
And she's made millions of dollars in the process.
But surprisingly, it's not her aim
to actually teach people how to become uber,
rich, and wealthy.
Rather, she wants to help others feel financially secure
and she lays out some great tips on how to move towards
100% financial wholeness, a step-by-step strategy
to get yourself on more solid ground. She also has some great insights and some creative
terms that I absolutely love, like creating a newdo budget or a money list. Tiffany has not
only taken a step-by-step approach with finances, she also used a step-by-step approach to build
her own audience and following. And I really admire the following in community that she's built.
She's really earned her stripes.
She volunteered for free like we talked about.
She honed her craft piece by piece.
She started a community on Facebook back when it wasn't popular to do that.
And then garnered a community from that that she was able to learn even more from
about what they wanted and needed and develop offers that help even more people,
not a bad way to do business.
Thanks for digging into this episode of Young and Profiting.
If you listen, learn, and profited from this conversation with the inspiring Tiffany
Elite, then please share this episode with your friends and family or anyone who using
could use some good financial advice or who might be struggling with money.
And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something new, then drop us a 5 star review
on Apple Podcast and tell us what you liked about the show.
Your reviews make a huge difference to us and the number of people we can reach.
You can also find me on Instagram at Yapathala or LinkedIn by searching my name, it's
Halataha.
And you'll never find an episode where I don't think my production team because they
are the best.
Thank you guys so much for all that you do behind the scenes.
This is your host, Halataha, aka the podcast Princess, signing off.
you