Marketing Happy Hour - Your Guide to Personal Finance | Melissa Jean-Baptiste of Millennial in Debt

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

This week, Erica and Cassie chat with Melissa Jean-Baptiste of Millennial in Debt, the self-described "Beyonce of Personal Finance," to learn all about managing money as a young professional. Melissa shares her best tips for getting out of debt, what we can do early in our careers to set our future selves up for success, and how to make your money work for you. Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:03:39] - Melissa explains how she went from being $100K in debt to now educating others around personal finance and gives a word of encouragement to anyone struggling to figure out their financials as a young professional. [00:09:22] - Melissa shares common mistakes she sees young professionals make in their personal finances, things we can do to set us up for success, and tips for figuring out what budget works for your needs. [00:14:44] - Melissa gives her best advice around where we should be investing and uncovers how a HYSA (High Yield Savings Account) can help grow your wealth. [00:22:58] - Melissa shares her best tips for getting out of debt, the differences between the "avalanche" and "snowball" methods, and how to find and monetize a side hustle to help you get over debt hurdles. [00:30:47] - Melissa tells us how to prepare financially for a career change, and gives us a peek at her new book: So...This Is Why I'm Broke. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Melissa's episode: How to Build a 6-Figure Online Business on Your Own | Hannah Pobar of Home Studio List Productivity 101: How to Hustle Sanely | Jess Massey of Hustle Sanely Career Resentment? Let's Get Into It | Capri DeBiccari of ButcherBox ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you! NEW: Download the Dream Career Game Plan! NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Connect with Melissa: Instagram | TikTok | Twitter | LinkedIn Grab a copy of Melissa's book, So...This Is Why I'm Broke Follow MHH on Social: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | TikTok Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/

you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners,

we've got an exciting episode for you today. Melissa Jean-Baptiste of Millennial in Debt joins us to share her best tips for managing your personal finances. So many of us have looming questions around getting out of debt, what we can do early on in our careers to set our future selves up for success, what budget is right for our needs, where we should be investing, and how to make our money generally work for us. And Melissa's here to give us all of the best answers and more. So let's dive in, grab your favorite drink, and let's talk money. Melissa, thank you for being on Marketing Happy Hour with us today. How are you doing? I am good. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited for

our talk today. Yes, us too. And you just launched a book. Congratulations, which we'll talk about more here in a little, but yes, very excited to hear all about that. But before we get started, Melissa, we have to ask you a very marketing happy hour question. What is in your glass right now? Or what's just your favorite current happy hour beverage that you're sipping on? Yeah. So my favorite, it's a little early right now, but my favorite go-to happy hour is definitely an old fashioned. I feel like it makes me look cool

at the bar. And I also like how it tastes, you know, not too sweet, not too bitter. So perfect mix for me. Oh, delicious. Yeah. We are big fans of old fashions as well. I'm currently sipping on something and nothing sent us these Yuzu seltzers. They're non-alcoholic. So perfect for midday. Cause you're right. It's a little bit early right now. So no alcohol quite yet, but I also have a water on my desk as always. But what about you, Erica? What do you have? Uh, nothing fun today. Unfortunately I do love, okay. I feel like old fashioned and what I love a Negroni. I feel like they're like sister drinks or like something like that. I wish I had one of those today, but I just had some Earl gray tea. I'm just feeling a little bit under the weather.

So figured I'd, I'd do some tea today. Some hot tea. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Well, Melissa, we're super excited to have you on here. I feel like the topic of finances and like how to manage your finances, especially as a young professional is just something that's not talked about often. It's something you don't really learn in school. So you kind of have to figure it out yourself and it can be really tricky. So we're really excited to have you today to just give your best advice. But before we dive into that, let's hear about your journey with finances. How did you go from $100,000 in debt? That is a wild number to now educating people about personal finance. Yes, yes. So I am first generation Haitian American, and I'm also the oldest daughter. So any eldest daughters or first gen people listening, you already know that we have to get everything right the first go around,

right? Because we have to do something to make our parents proud and also leading the way for our siblings. So I was the first step at college. I was the first up to do pretty much everything. And so when I graduated, I had my bachelor's and master's in English and adolescent education. I was like, okay, I'm going to be a teacher. And then I'm just like, all right, well, I've done all the things I'm supposed to do as an adult. Now is the time to buy a house. And so at 25 in 2013, with no savings account, might I add, I was like, okay, I think it's time for me to buy a house. And so I reached out to a real estate agent. And so we're going through the pre-approval process. And in New York, I get approved for a hundred thousand dollars, which is nothing. You really can get maybe a Barbie house in New York with that. And so I'm asking him all these questions. It's just like, well, I've always paid my bills on time. I don't have bad credit. I don't understand why I'm not being approved for more. And so he brings up this

concept that I've never heard of before, where he says, well, your debt to income ratio is too high. So I'm just like, I don't, I don't even understand what you're talking about, sir. And he's just like, well, you have a lot of student loans. You need to reach out to your loan provider to talk about how you can maybe accelerate payoff or bring that balance down a little bit to, you know, make you more accessible to the banks. They're not going to want to give you money now because you're a liability. And so I reach out to my loan provider. And although I only borrowed 50,000 in 2013, after three years of on-time payments, I actually had a balance of $80,000. And I was

shocked and confused and obviously really, really upset. And so I'm asking again, more questions. Well, if I've never missed a payment, how could I have a bigger balance than what I actually borrowed? And that's when the loan provider tells me, well, you're on an interest only payment plan. And that interest only payment plan, the monthly payments that I was making was not even covering the interest I was being charged on a monthly basis. So if my monthly payment was 300, I was racking up $400 in interest every month. So every month I was making payments and my balance was increasing. And so she says, you know, well, on this payment plan that you're

on, you will have payoff in 30 years. And I'm just like, wow, years at 25 years old. I'm just like, I can't live at my parents' house for another 30 years. I don't want to have student loans for another 30 years. And so after a ton of crying and it's okay to, you know, have your moment and think about, okay, well, how did I get here? I started coming up with a plan and how I was going to tackle this debt. And I started researching and learning all about money. And that's really what brought me into this area of speaking openly about money because it was more so while I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, I was confused. And when I started asking the questions and learning more, that's when I realized like, oh, none of us actually really know what we're doing. And we all need to talk more about money and learn more about money. And that is how

millennial in debt came to be. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. It really is cool to see we've, we've spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs who their businesses have really been bred out of just this personal story, this struggle that they went through, and now they just want to share that overcoming with everyone else. And so you get it. It's a very relatable thing. And so I think that's, that's such a cool aspect to your business, but I'm curious too, before we really get into the, the meat of the tips and everything that you have for us, you know, imposter syndrome, especially in, in our twenties, like we want to have it all. We see our friends who are buying homes, who are buying luxury cars and all of these things. What just

word of encouragement or advice would you give just overall in that situation for someone who thinks they need to have more, but it's not quite financially the time to do so. And just putting our heads down, working harder, you know, what would you say to that kind of situation? My favorite advice is though, it's like a coupling of two things. It's always stay in your lane and mind the business that pays you. And in your twenties, that could be really hard. I think in our thirties, it's a lot easier. You're like, Oh yeah. But in my twenties, I think I struggled with that a lot. And I wanted to prove that I was a success. And I wanted to prove that, you know, I did, I did go to school. I did all the right things. I have to be a success story,

but it's just like, well, how are you gauging success? Right. Whose story are you looking at that you're saying, this is what I have to be. And if I just stayed in my lane, which I ended up staying in my own lane, stay in your lane and mind the business that's paying me, you know, learning about passive income streams, learning about ways to make extra money side hustle. That's what helped me get out of debt. That's what helped me build my business. So it wasn't comparing myself to who I saw on Instagram. That was actually preventing me from moving forward because it just had me in a choke hold. I was just like, I have to have a hundred thousand followers. I have to make a hundred thousand dollars. And it's like, girl, you're doing what you need to do in your own way,

at your own pace, just stay the course, stay in your lane and mind, like keep those blinders on and mind your business. Yeah. Oh, so good. Thank you for that. Well, with that would love to hear a common mistake or two or three, however many you want to share, uh, that you see most millennials making when it comes to finances, just things that a lot of us do that you have advice on or things that simple fixes that we can make in our lives to just set us up for success in the future. I know a lot of things that we're doing now really builds towards retirement when we're in our fifties, sixties. And so what, what would you just say to that common mistakes and things that we can do instead? Yeah. So I have so many, so we we're gonna stick to like two or three.

The favorite one of mine is people who, and my dad did the same thing, were focusing and pushing a lot on saving and saving money is so important and so crucial, but it's not the only stop in our finances. And I think I spent a lot of time like hoarding all this cash in a savings account and it wasn't even a high yield savings account, right?

I didn't even know how to properly save to capitalize and get that extra interest on my money. And so learning that, yes, you want to have a three to six month emergency savings is so crucial. It's so important for financial survival, especially with all the chaos in the economy. But once you have that secured, you do want to pivot and lean into investing, investing in index funds or ETFs to secure, you know, that 55, 60 year old retirement, 45, whatever age you want to retire, but retiring comfortably and retiring with dignity and retiring with a standard of living that you want. And not one that's kind of forced upon you because we have like social security, which is a great program that we don't know if we're going to get to use in our 60s. So I think

absolutely moving forward from saving into investing and understanding what it means to invest to build your wealth is a huge mistake that I spent a lot of time just putting money, earning like 3 cents in interest where I could have been investing in it and putting money in a high yield saving. So that's definitely first big thing. Make sure you know where your money is being saved and make sure you, that you can invest and put that money elsewhere as well. Yeah. So good. I, um, I learned that the hard way as well. I was just a little squirrel saving my nuts for the winter and it just, it wasn't, I learned it wasn't as effective as it could be. So thank you for that. And we'll talk about investing here in a

few minutes, which I'm excited to learn about, but how do you balance living or enjoying life per se, again, without comparing too much, what others want to do or the standard that people set in place for us with saving for your future, making those wise decisions. How do you go about making those decisions for yourself? Yeah. So this is a two-part thing for me, and I think it made it super simple and it highlighted things that are really important to me. One, and I'm going to say the B word and people are like, it's all boring. You have to budget and you don't have to use a specific type of budget. I think a lot of times we get caught up. Well, I want to use the budget that my favorite finance influencers

using. You should use the budget that works best for you. And so for example, at 25 years old, I started off with the 50, 30, 20 budget. It worked for me. I was learning about money. I didn't really have the time, patience, or the desire to do any of the more intensive budgeting styles or formats. I was just like, okay, 50% of my money is going towards the things I absolutely have to pay for. So my bills, my student loans, things like that. 30% is going into the things that I am going to save or invest for. And then 20% is going to go into things that I want. And because I wanted to pay debt off so fast, I started throwing even that 20% towards debt. But now a little older with a little more responsibilities, I use the zero-based

budget. And I think it's really important that you shift your budgeting styles and techniques as your life evolves, right? Because what you need in your 20s is not going to be what you need in your 30s. And so with the zero-based budget, what I learned to do to give myself that soft life or that glam life that matters to me is I put aside self-care money. And when I put aside that self-care money, I really had to stop and think about, well, what do I value? What is it that I want this self-care money to go towards? And it shouldn't be what the latest thing on TikTok is, which sometimes it is. Sometimes I fall into TikTok made me buy it, but really thinking about value spending. And I think it's really

important, especially as a woman, we're always told to pinch our pennies and do all these things and make these like $2 meals. That's cute. But if I want to go to Sephora because I like getting dressed up, I like doing my makeup. That is something I value. Then I'm going to put money aside for that. So I don't have to feel that I'm not handling my responsibilities, which I still am. I'm investing, I'm saving, I'm budgeting, but I can go buy the latest Fenty if I want, or if I want to buy Beyonce tickets, that is valuable to me. That's an experience that I want. I'm going to put that into my budget. And I think putting yourself in your budget and understanding what you value and what's important to you will help shift the narrative to yourself on what you spend your money on. Yeah, absolutely. I love hearing that. And that's

kind of how I have evolved my budget as well. I'm just thinking back to like when I first started in the corporate space, like I had no idea what I was doing with my money. I was just putting every single cent into my savings that I could other than like rent and all of that. Because I was like, Oh my gosh, I, what if something happens and I need a buffer, a rainy day fund or whatever. Okay. A big question is where should we be investing right now? Is it like stocks or doing that high yield savings account? I know something that a lot of people learn too late is if you're getting your like 401k money put into your account, you have to go in and then invest that money. And a lot of times people don't realize that. So what would you say is your best advice around that kind of investing? Yes. That's such a good question. So it's not even

just 401ks. And these are things that I wish people such a good question. So it's not even just 401ks. And these are things that I wish people taught us in school. So when people talk about 401k and IRA, these are just like the buckets, right? That's what I like to say. It's like, this is where you're putting in all the money, but the money is not invested yet, right? You have to choose and decide

where that money is going to be invested in. So one of my first big mistakes when I opened an IRA was the same thing. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna transfer $500 a month into my IRA. And I'm like, well, what are you investing in? What are you buying? I'm like, my IRA, what are you talking about, right? So you definitely wanna look into

when you go into your account and I always tell people if they're just starting investing, look at your account and you will see something called a settlement fund. The settlement fund is not your investment. It's just where your money is sitting, right? So if you see that $500 or that $1,000, however amount of money you put in that you thought

you invested, and you see that sitting in your settlement fund, it's not invested, right? And so when it comes to what should you invest in, I am very low risk and lazy. That's what I like to say. I like to just automate, put things in where I don't have to check too often or worry too often or be like on CNN all day trying to see what's happening in the market. So I'm an index fund and ETF girly. I just invest in index funds and ETFs that give me diversification. So I get a little bit of everything in my portfolio. And so what that looks like, as opposed to where people are like, oh, I want to buy like

Tesla or I want to buy Apple, I'll buy an index fund that's going to give me Tesla, Apple, Google, Microsoft, all of those things, and a ton more companies that I might not even know about or an industry that I might not even understand. But I know, okay, over the course of 10 years, over the course of 15 years, this index fund performs well. This index fund is going to give me a certain amount of money in return, right? There's no guarantees, but historically what it's done, I'm like, that's a better investment to me than investing in one company. And I don't know, they could go bankrupt tomorrow. They could do well. So it's just, I like to lean into more things that I know historically do well. So index fund and ETF all day.

Yeah, I actually made that mistake too. I put a majority of my money into one individual stock and then it like tanked because I bought, I was so excited about it. It's one of my favorite companies. So I bought it. It wasn't the initial IPO, but it was like a week later or something, whenever it became more publicly available. I don't really know the whole terminology, but I like put a majority of my money

and that was in my Roth IRA into that stock. And then like a month later, it like totally tanked, but I'm someone that like puts money in and just lets it sit forever. So I'm counting on the fact that that will probably rise again. But yeah, I love that advice there for sure. I did the same thing. I used to, when I first started investing, I'm like, I love this company. I love this company. And I'll never forget where I bought, I don't want to like name this, but I bought a specific

company that was doing really well at the time. And shares were doing really well. And then Apple released like a direct competitor to the company and the company just like dropped. And I was like, I didn't see that coming. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So we've all done it. It's all right. It's just like something we do. We learn and we do better. It happens. What is your best advice though around those like high yield savings accounts? Because we hear that term like thrown around

and I have like researched a little bit. There's some articles out there that tell you like some of the best, but then I'm like, are they getting like sponsored? So what is actually the best? What is your general advice around that? Like what's a good percentage maybe? Maybe that's the best way to phrase the question. What is your general advice around that? Like what's a good percentage? Maybe, maybe that's the best way to phrase the question. Perfect question. High yield savings. I think the

misunderstanding is that people try to like, Oh my God, I need to figure out who's going to give me the best rate. And that's not really always the best way to approach it because what happens is high yield savings rates actually fluctuate. They go up or down depending on what, you know, the F the federal rates are. So at the beginning of the pandemic, when federal rates were super, super, super low, high yield savings were giving like 0.6% interest. It wasn't really high. And whereas now they're giving four to 5% because the rates have gone up. So what I think is really, really important is you want to make sure that it's a bank that's FDIC insured, right? You want to make sure that it is a bank that you can access your money because the last thing you need is for your emergency savings

to be in a bank and you can't get to that money, right? So you want to make sure it's accessible to get your money. And you also want to make sure that the fees are minimal, if not zero. I prefer zero fees. That's just me because I like to keep my money for myself. And so you want to make sure that there's no like minimum deposit that you have to keep in, or they're going to charge you a monthly $5 fee. When I first bought a car, I used a bank where I'm like, Oh, it's a high yield savings. And once my car payment was done with the bank, they started charging me $10 a month in that account. And I was just like, what is going on? So you definitely want to lean into those three aspects instead of focusing on because you're going to get similar rates in

most of them, right? They're most giving between 3.7 to 5%, where mine right now, I think it's 3.7. And people were like, oh, you can get one that's four or 4.5. And I'm just like, yeah, but I trust this bank. I like this bank. It's FDIC insured. I can get my money really quickly. And those are the things I like to focus on. And I think it's really important. Yeah, that's awesome. And in terms of like where to put your money, right. How much do you recommend putting in a high yield savings account versus like a regular shmegular savings account? What would you recommend there? The split be. So that's our, so this is just personally for me. I keep a majority of my sinking funds, which we can talk about in a second,

a majority of my sinking funds in high yield savings. And I keep my emergency savings in my high yield savings. So that would be three to six months of your expenses, whatever that would look like. I would keep that in a high yield savings. I do have one regular shmegular savings and that's the one that's attached to my checking. And I keep like a buffer.

It's really not that much. It might be like one or 2% of the money in my checking, just in case there's an emergency where I need to transfer money to my checking immediately, right? Like if there's a bill, an unexpected thing that popped up, I'm just like, oh crap, I need to move some money over.

Whereas my high yield savings, it would take like a day or two to get into my checking account. That's the only reason that I have a regular traditional savings. And that's the only reason that I would even recommend them is if they're directly linked to your checking account, that's it just for like safety measures. And I would not keep more than like one or 2% of the money you need in your checking. So for example, if your bills are like $2,000, I would keep maybe a hundred, $200 in that savings just to cover in case something happens. Oh, so good. So good. Yeah. The, the tips about the high yield savings is really good. I actually

just transferred my money to a new one because I was given advice that, Oh, the percentages are down. This one's better. And so I love the advice of more just making sure it has the aspects that you need because those percentages will go up and down and just don't get discouraged by that, right? Is that kind of what you're saying? Exactly, basically. Because when the pandemic came,

everyone was like, high yield savings sucks. I was like, no, it's just... And honestly, it was still more money, more interest than the traditional banks that were giving like 0.001. Right. I'm like, okay, well, we, we have to like, you know, pick and choose. And that's why I'm like saving and investing will get you the results you want because

sometimes those rates are just going to fluctuate. Oh, so good. Yeah. And it's also a kind of a pain to just move your money around all the time. So I don't want to do that anytime soon again. So good. So good. So I want to go back to just paying off debt and talking about all of those tips around that. What advice would you give someone? So someone listening, they're like, I have a mortgage or a car payment or student loans. Like what can they do now to start

hopefully paying all of that off? And then just think about your younger self, you know, looking back at you when you had that mortgage that you were trying to pay off, like what, what are some of those things that you did and you'd still recommend to this day to people? Absolutely. So the first thing I always say is go on a money date with yourself. It could be at home. It could be at Starbucks. It could be wherever you want it to be, but you want to be comfortable because you're about to money date with yourself. It could be at home. It could be at Starbucks. It could be wherever you want it to be, but you want to be comfortable because you're about to be vulnerable

with yourself financially. And so the first money date I went on where I calculated my net worth, which will be your first step on that money date, I was floored because my net worth was negative and I didn't know that was even possible, like was a possibility, but it was. My net worth was negative $50,000. And I was just like, oh, I am a possibility, but it was, my net worth was negative $50,000. And that was

like, oh, I am a failure, right? And so anyone listening, you're not, it is definitely possible for our net worth to be negative. It doesn't mean it stays there. My net worth now is almost half a million dollars. So it's just like, it can change, right? But at 25, I had no idea. So you're going to start off with that money date. You're going to start off by calculating your net worth. And how you do that is you're going to add up all your liabilities, which I know is uncomfortable, but any debts you have, whether that's your mortgage, student loans, your car, no personal loans, anything like that, you're going to add them all up. And you're just going to hold that number right there. Then you're going to add up all your assets. So that's anything that you own outright. So if you don't have a mortgage, you would add that to your home.

You would add it to your home, to your home. You would add it to your home, to your numbers. You would add in your car, anything that has value that you own, you would add that. And then you would subtract your liabilities, which is why it is pot. I had no assets at 25. And so when I subtracted my student loans, I subtracted my car note. I was like, Oh my God, like this is horrible. Right. But it at least gave me a picture of what my financial landscape was. And the next step is to decide whether you're going to tackle that debt

using the debt snowball method or the debt avalanche method. I chose avalanche because I had rates that were at 16, 17% for student loans. I had private student loans and 16% was just, it was just too high for me to even fathom. I was getting charged so much interest.

I was just like, yes, the snowball method, which is like quicker wins could be beneficial. But I was like, I'm tired of paying these high interest rates. And so after I decided to do the debt avalanche method, that's when you decide on a plan, right? So those are the three steps. You go on that date, you choose a method on how you want to tackle that debt. And then you come up with your game plan. My game plan was to use sinking funds.

When I found out what sinking funds were at 25, I was like, yes, I will use them all the time. And I still do. And so a sinking fund really is just a savings account. You start off just as a savings account and you work your way backwards, right? So you know that end goal, that total number, and then you figure out what is the timeline you want, then how much money you can put into paying

off this debt in that timeline. So every year, every January, it was a process for me. I would say, okay, I'm going to pay off this one loan in December. So I'm giving myself 12 months to pay off this one loan, which means all my other loans, I'm going to make the same minimum monthly payments. I'm going to continue paying my bills every month. But in December, I will have saved over these 12 months, this exact amount of money that I need. And I'm going to pay off this loan completely. I'm going to pay off the principal and the loan is going to be closed. And then in the next January, I would start over and say, okay, this is the next loan I'm tackling. This is the loan with the next highest interest rate. I'm gonna save for 12 months.

And so depending on the amount, so if it was 12,000, I would need to save $1,000 a month to go towards that debt in December. That gave me the game plan on, okay, well, you're a teacher. You don't make a lot of money. How are you going to put aside $1,000?

And that led me into passive income streams, side hustling to make sure that that thousand dollars went into that savings account every month. And then in December, I would have the money to cover it. And so when you come up with that plan, when you come up with that savings and that, that side hustle, you want to figure out exactly what's your return on investment. And so for anyone listening, who's like, I don't know what side hustle to pick. I don't know what side hustle to pick. I don't know what passive incomes to choose. You want to start off with what your skillset is.

What are your assets that you have to yourself? What do you already know? What do you understand? What do you like to do? And how can you monetize that? For me, I started selling my lesson plans and unit plans. I was already making them. I was already teaching them.

And so I went on to teachers pay teachers because I know my teachers always like what platform did you use? I went on to teachers pay teachers and I started uploading the lesson plans and unit plans that I was using for the year. And then I was able to make about $10,000 annually from selling my lesson plans and unit plans. So it all started off with that money date and then ended up with our sinking fund plan and my passive income. That is so awesome. I feel like that's just information that no one really knows when they're in debt. It can just feel super overwhelming and they don't know where to start. So thank you so much for sharing that. You said that that was like the debt avalanche method. What's the snowball method? Yeah. So the debt snowball method, you would start off with the loan

or the debt that is the smallest, right? So if you have a debt that is $1,000, that is where you would focus on paying off. And then whatever your monthly leftover, cause that debt is gone, you would throw it into your next smallest loan. And so people really, really like that method. And I also really like it

because you get those quick wins, right? So instead of trying to tackle the $10,000 loan or the $20,000 loan, you're starting off small so you can see your progress and continue to feel motivated to continue to pay off the debt. The only thing that made me choose that avalanche was because my interest rates were astronomical. Like I was like, I cannot continue to pay 16% interest on a student loan. I'm like, you guys could take the diploma back. I don't even care. You're like, I don't even need it anymore.

Thank you. I'm good. Thanks. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. Cause I was like, I've heard those terms, but I was like, I don't know exactly what

they mean. So, um, one other thing, and there's a, there's a really big, like our parents probably know about this creator and he's always recommending, like, you can't go anywhere. You can't go out to eat. You can't get your coffee. You can't do that. If you're trying to pay off debt, what do you have to say about like that? No. Thank you for that. And the thing is what's interesting is I think for a majority, which is so unfortunate, but for a majority of us, this person was like the first person we, you know, made into or learned about for finances. And we all kind of clinged to or took certain pieces from that because I know at 25, I certainly felt like I failed and

that I didn't deserve to go out to brunch or that I didn't deserve to go get my nails done. Because like, how could you end up in this situation? Right. And when I tell you, I was just sad and alone all the time. And just was like, wow, like, you really didn't, you know, learn, you didn't study, you didn't understand. And I don't think that's a healthy way to live at all in any respect, especially when it comes to finances, because people's lives are different. There are so many circumstances that happen that, you know, prevent financial literacy from being accessible that it's just, it's not right. And so I'm really glad that a lot of different personal finance creators are in this space

now sharing their experiences and talking about how to approach money from a way that's not traumatizing and not just really just so it feels like a punishment right because I have debt I have to be punished or I'm just morally reprehensible it's not that's not the case um so a big no and there are just multiple ways to implement self-care in your routine and still tackle off debt. Right. It's all about smart choices and balance and all of that. I totally agree. So shifting gears just a little bit, some of our listeners are in the corporate space and they're looking to kind of build their own business in the future. I know you have done that going from teaching to building your own business. How do you prepare financially for that sort of jump?

Yes. So I have done so many jumps. I shifted from education into corporate, into the tech space, and then just into my own entrepreneur space. And in all of those jumps and shifts, cash is king. Cash is king at all jumps because you want to be prepared for things that you never even thought about. So for example, all of my people who are in corporate, who want to shift into entrepreneurship

insurance, health insurance is crazy. It's wild. It's so insane. And you never even think about that because if you're in the corporate world, they're there, your company or whatever is usually paying for it or it's coming out of your paycheck or whatever. You don't see that money's coming out of your paycheck or whatever, you don't see that money. But when you are hit every single month on the first of the month with having to pay your own health insurance, you're like, oh my gosh. Yes. So that was,

yes, that was like the first day where I'm like, oh, entrepreneurship is crazy. Like health insurance. So you are going to want to have a buffer of cash that is not your emergency savings. And it's really important to differentiate that because if you have a life emergency, that emergency savings is going to be your buffer to help you stay afloat, not take on new debt and continue to manage and tackle your business. However, if you're dipping in for emergencies and dipping in for your business, that money is going to go really quickly. And it's just going to fill you with a lot of anxiety and unneeded stress, especially when you're trying to build your baby, right? Because when we're building our businesses and entrepreneurship and things like that,

that company is our baby in those first, you know, few months in that first year, those two years. So you want to create a buffer and that's going to be different depending on the type of business you're implementing or going into, but creating a cash buffer for yourself. That's going to include insurance and check out and see what insurance is going to cause. That's going to include operating expenses. And it doesn't have to be thousands of dollars in operating expenses. When I first started my blog in like 2013, I think my operating expenses were like $400 for the year because it was like, yeah, I needed a domain.

I needed a website, something like a theme for the website. And it was just super low. And so it's not a problem or not a bad idea to start with really low operating expenses until you start bringing in that revenue to scale up. And I think, especially for my digital people who want to create content, you don't need to start off with a $5,000 camera,

right? You don't need to start off with the craziest and most expensive software or equipment to edit and do things like that. You can start off with your iPhone and you can start off with, you know, I think iMovie comes free with like a Mac or something like that, but it's just start off with the operating expenses low and keep as much cash in reserve as you can, because life just always lives and business life will also life and you don't want them to life at the same time. So keep as much cash on hand as we can. Yeah, such good advice. We, um, we did kind of something similar. And I think this goes back to that imposter syndrome, like not paying attention too much to how other people are growing their podcast or growing their product based business. Um, like not paying attention too much to how other people are growing their podcast

or growing their product-based business. Um, like for us, for example, when we started this, it was like talking through the iPhone into a free podcast app, no website, like we had nothing. And now it's like, all right, you buy the, the mic and you get the website and all this stuff. So, um, it's good to have that reminder of scale slowly, give yourself time and have patience for that. Absolutely. Can I tell you my first YouTube video? I was just talking about it as the first YouTube video I ever made was on my computer. It was so grainy and it was so bad, but it was, it was a start, right? We started, we did it. We put something out there and now it's like,

okay, well now I can buy like the Canon or whatever, but starting is what's crucial and what's important and keep going and not let yourself get sidetracked or try to keep up with whatever anyone else is doing because you're, you're the secret sauce is what I always say to entrepreneurs. No one can do what you do, how you do it. And that does not have to cost thousands of dollars, right? It just costs you like you have to be the one to put the content out there. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. Well, Melissa, I want to talk about your book.

So can you tell us all the things, tell us about it, where we can find it? What was the passion or purpose behind writing this book? And just we're excited to hear more about it. Thank you. I love that question. So you can find it on. So this is why I'm broke.com. That is the title of the book. So this is why I'm broke. And I wrote it. The real passion was I, like I said, I'm first gen Haitian American parents, you know, came when they were super young and they were just trying to do the best that they could for their families, but they didn't have all the answers and didn't have all the tools.

And I wanted this to be a support for people who were first gen for people who had great, you know, parents or great family or great, you know, surroundings or great friends, and still just needed that extra support and that extra information to take them from point A to point B. And so I share very candidly all the mistakes and horrible things I did with money because it's like, you're not alone in that, right?

I will never forget my first month in college. My parents were like, okay, you're on academic scholarship and we still have like a balance that you want to make. Keep your academic scholarship. I almost lost my academic scholarship. And I was terrified. I'm like, well, I don't know where I'm going to find $12,000, but like, I need to get it together. Or when I also spent extra $60 on coach sneakers and ended up bringing my account into negatives and having to call my dad like dad can I have 120 dollars right so it's like you're not alone in these experiences and just learning how to navigate and move from that point where you're just filled with like shame and not knowing where to go where to do

and really becoming a champion of your money and moving money using money as a tool that is that was the passion for it where it's just like oh, Oh, I see myself in her. Oh, I've had these experiences. I have, you know, done all these things and I can do so much more. My current situation is not my final destination. It's like my favorite thing to say. And so that was really the passion behind the book. Amazing. Amazing. And I am very excited to get my hands on this book and read it. And we'll definitely be sharing that with our audience. So thank you for speaking to that. And did you feel like you always wanted to write a book? Like what was that spark that prompted you to do that? You guys have great questions, by the way. No, I did. Since I was really, really young, I was like, I want to write a book. So I, which I guess I'm a little bit of a hoarder, but I've had a diary since I was in fourth grade. And I have all of those diaries

tucked in the attic in my parents' house. And I like, since fourth grade, I'm like, I'm going to write a book and people are going to read it. And I had no idea what I was going to write about. I was just like, I'm going to write about my life. So definitely always wanted to be an author. And last year I was just like, oh my God, I wish like a publisher would reach out to me. And so manifestation y'all like literally like two months after this, my publisher reached out and then we went back and forth on ideas. And just like this book came from, you know, a really great creative collaborative table, sharing my thoughts and ideas and them sharing their thoughts and ideas. And so I'm really excited and proud for the work that we did and for the book to come out. So I can't wait. I

can't wait for you to get it. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. We, Cassie and I are both huge readers and we love all things like we love fiction, but we also really love the nonfiction kind of like self-help ish books. So we're very, very excited to read it and, um, and give you our feedback on that too. So thanks again for joining us here today. We are wrapping up this interview here. We love to ask this question on the show. Uh, and that is, what do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? I mean, I feel like we talked about that the whole time, but if there's one thing that you could say to that question. One thing, love these questions.

One thing I wish I knew early on was that you never stop learning or evolving. And so I think very early, especially in teaching, it can be a little competitive. You want to be the favorite teacher. You want to be the teacher that does the best or like gets the grades back the fastest. And I think it's just like, well, don't stop learning, right? Don't stop evolving and figuring things out because when you do stop, you get stuck. And I think that also happens for a lot of teachers and just people in corporate in general, you you're like, okay, well, I know what I know. I've had this position for this long. This is what I'm going to do. And you just really stop

being passionate and having that driving force behind you. So never stop learning, evolving, never be afraid to learn a new skill, a new craft shift pivot. I w like I said, I went from teaching to tech, like completely different industries. Right. And so you just always want to keep learning and being a sponge and just, you know, move whenever you feel the need to move. Oh, so good. Thank you for that. And thank you for just all of your knowledge and advice that you presented today. We were talking at the top of this episode that this is one of our first instances where we've discussed finances and we could not have asked for a better person to come share on. So thank you so much, but we want, I want everyone to just follow along

with you and keep up with you. We'll put your book link in the show notes. So make sure to go get Melissa's book, but Melissa share with us a little bit about where we can find you online and just stay up to date with everything you're building over at your business. Yes. So I am millennial in debt everywhere, mill on debt on Twitter. Cause you know, character limits, but millennial in debt everywhere. You can find me on Instagram, Tik TOK. It it is a chaotic fun time that's how I describe myself like it's not gonna always

be polished but you will learn something and you will laugh so that's you know come come through follow on I'm happy to have you we love it we love it we love an educational slash humorous girly it's it makes for a better experience. So thank you for that. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on again, Melissa. It really means a lot to us and we're excited for everyone to hear this conversation. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much again for tuning in and I hope you were able to learn something that will help you in your own financial journey. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite listening platform. And for more from Marketing Happy Hour, head to our website at

marketinghappyhr.com or follow us on Instagram at marketinghappyhr. See you next week. at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where you're at, and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry.

Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way. So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.