The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Become Financially Whole with Tiffany Aliche (The Budgetnista!)

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Starting point is 00:00:47 In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now. That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday. On this episode of the personal finance podcast, we're going to talk to Tiffany, the budget Nista Aliche, about how to get smart with money. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.com.

Starting point is 00:01:33 And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking to Tiffany, the budgetista Aliche, about how to get smart with money. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on. Instagram or TikTok and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you are listening to this podcast on right now. And if you are getting value out of this show, share it with a friend and leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This means the world to us when you do this. I cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star ratings and reviews. It really does help other people see the show as well. It is absolutely amazing for each

Starting point is 00:02:12 and every one of you that does that. I read every single review. I cannot thank you. you guys enough and if you guys are interested in more content check us out on youtube as well we are master money on youtube we are putting out one to two videos every single week and we're doing all sorts of different deep dives as well on there and if you want to watch the podcast you can watch it on the personal finance podcast on youtube as well now today we are going to be talking to tiffany about how to get smart with money we're going to go through a bunch of things in this episode but tiffany has some of the most amazing systems when it comes to your personal finance. Now, Tiffany, if you've never heard of Tiffany, she's well known

Starting point is 00:02:46 as the Budget Nista, she's a New York Times bestselling author. She has an amazing community of women who she teaches about personal finance, and she calls those women dream catchers. And that's what she does. She helps people learn how they can actually follow their dreams and do that with their money. In addition, she has a Netflix documentary that just came out called Get Smart with Money as well that she's very, very heavily involved in. And it is one of the best documentaries I've seen in a very long time. I've had people even who live in my neighborhood who have come over to me and said, hey, have you seen that documentary about Get Smart with Money? It is one of the best documentaries I've seen in a long time. It is absolutely fantastic. So we're going to go through all

Starting point is 00:03:21 of this stuff. We're going to talk about Get Smart with Money and go through her documentary and why it's so amazing. In addition, we're going to talk about Get Good with Money, which is her New York Times best selling book. And we're going to go through step by step exactly some of the things that she does with her money. Now, we're going to talk about budgeting in this episode. We're going to talk about how you can become financially whole. A lot of people can become financially free, but how do you become financially whole and find financial wholeness? In addition, we're going to go through a bunch of different other things when it comes to your personal finance that you can implement today, including her system on how she helped Ariana, who is in the Netflix documentary, pay off $40,000 of debt

Starting point is 00:03:59 in one year. So this is an incredible episode. There's so much value packed into this episode. And Tiffany is one of my favorite people in the personal finance space. So if you are have you not checked her out yet. You absolutely have to. Without further ado, I want to welcome Tiffany to the personal finance podcast. So Tiffany, welcome to the personal finance podcast. Thanks for having me, Andrew. I'm super excited to be here. This is my jam. You know, personal finances like my love. Exactly. And this is the most fun thing to talk about for me too. So we are really, really incredibly excited to have you here. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff today. But before we dive in, if people don't know who you are, tell them a little bit about yourself. Well, I am better

Starting point is 00:04:35 known as the budgetista for the last 15 years. I've been teaching financial education, especially to women, although more men are listening, which I love. And so I am a New York Times best selling author of Gake it with Money. I have a podcast, Brown Ambition. Before all this, I actually used to be a school teacher. That's where it kind of all started. And so, yeah, I'm just a teacher of money. And you have an incredible story. And I kind of want to go into that story a little bit because early on, you struggled with money. And you've kind of talked about that a number of times you talk about it in your book and you talk about it on the documentary as well. So can you tell us why you struggled with money and kind of some of the things that you went

Starting point is 00:05:12 through when you first started to put together your finances? Sure. So you would think I wouldn't have struggled because my dad was a CFO and an accountant and I had four sisters. So he taught my sisters and I about money early on. And I want to say until the age of 25, I was financially perfect because I just did what he told me to do. But usually like in your 20s, that's when you're like, I can do myself, you know? And so I started to make every mistake possible. One of the things I did was I trusted a friend who I thought was wealthy because when you're in your early 20s, you think if people have nice cars and things that they have money.

Starting point is 00:05:47 But he was a scam artist. And I ended up investing what I thought was investing, but he ended up stealing, it was about $15,000 from me. And the debt tumbled to become about $35,000 in credit card debt. It was a really, really hard time. and I didn't want to tell anyone. I didn't tell my dad. I didn't tell anyone. Then the recession happened, and I lost my teaching job. I was a school teacher and my school closed. So here I was with this credit card debt, $35,000. I had just got my master's in education, $50,000. I bought a condo

Starting point is 00:06:21 when I was 25 because I thought I was grown, $220,000. And now I have no job. So it's a really difficult financial time for me. My credit score tanked from like $800 to, I think the lowest it went It was like a 530 or something like that. I ended up moving back home with my parents. I slept on my sister's couch for like a year. And I really just tried to figure out how I was going to rebuild my life because I didn't think I would be able to, honestly. But because I am my father's child and I had all those lessons growing up about money,

Starting point is 00:06:51 I said, let's start with the basics, Tiffany. And I just started with, can you get your budget together? Can you start to earn a little more? Can you save something? And I built from there and I built my credit back up. And I started the budget needs to help others who had found themselves in hard financial times. And yeah, 15 years later, you know, I can't believe what I've been able to do for myself, but really more importantly, what I've been able to do for other people.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And that's so incredible to start from the bottom, basically. You had to completely start over. And Jake the Thief, I think, was the original name that you had in there. I think you talked about in the book, too, where you have that situation where I think some people have to go through that. Nobody really talks about that. So it's really cool that you kind of had that experience because now you can kind of talk through and help so many more people as you went through this process. What do you think some of

Starting point is 00:07:37 the major things you did as you went forward were in terms of, you know, getting your finances together. I know you talk about the budget. You're the budget master when it comes to all this stuff. Is there anything else that you think that you did over that time frame? Because now you have a multi-million dollar net worth and you've got this thriving business and you're doing all these amazing things. So are there things that you think you did along the way to kind of take yourself to the next step? Absolutely. In the beginning, the biggest thing wasn't actually financial. I was so hard on myself. Because I was just like, how could you make this mistake? Like, Tiffany, you grew up learning about this. Are you dumb? Like, I was talking to myself crazy in a way that I would never let anyone

Starting point is 00:08:13 else talk to me. And if you are struggling with your finances, you might be talking to yourself in a way that you would never let anyone speak to you. And so I actually had to learn to forgive myself first and foremost. I had to say, you didn't kick anybody's puppy, Tiffany. Like, you didn't rob and steal and, you know, you didn't do those things. You messed up with your money. It happens. What really would help with that is I told my best friend Linda, and I thought that she was going to be like, not Tiffany with the perfect financial record. And she was like, girl, me too. I'm at my mom's house right now. Because what Linda did for me was to show that, one, I wasn't alone in the struggle. And so it gave me the permission I needed to let go of some of the shame and focus on solutions because shame really does shield solutions.

Starting point is 00:08:59 So that was the first thing that I did. And then I had to just really get my whole financial life on paper. Who do I own? How much? What am I making? What are the interest rates on the debt that I had? I had to get it down on paper so I could start to create a plan that made sense. And the plan really is the same plan for everyone, which is you have to make money.

Starting point is 00:09:19 You don't have to make multiple six figures or whatever, but you have to be making money. So I had to get that solidified first, because I was on unemployment during that time. I said, you have to figure out how you're going to make money. And then when I figured out how to make money, I have to figure out how to get my bills below what I make every month. You know, like there has to be something left over. In the beginning, it was literally $5 a month. I didn't care. It was just about, this is the practice.

Starting point is 00:09:41 If you could do five, one day you'll do 50. If you could do 50, one day you'll do 500. So I was like, okay, I'm making a little money. I'm living below my means. I'm saving a little something. And then I massage that equation until I made a little more and I got my spending underway. Then I started to really look at my debt and start. to restructure it. And I said, okay, who do I owe? And can I make deals? Can I see if I can get

Starting point is 00:10:05 some of this interest down? And so I started to restructure my debt. I didn't even think about credit at that time. I restructured my debt to lower what my monthly payments would be. And then I set it and semi-forget it. And so that was really helpful. And then from there, I was like, all right, you know, I learned to make even more. I mean, in the beginning, it was babysitting. It was tutoring. I used to do one-on-one financial education, like meetups with people. And so, like, slowly but surely, you know, I was figuring out ways to increase my income. And then I was able to save even more. And once I had enough save and my debt was automated, then I said, now you can start to look into investing, Tiffany. Because if you're going to grow wealth, it can't just be you working.

Starting point is 00:10:44 That's really the key. It's you have to make money. You have to somehow get your bills under what you're making. You have to be able to save some until you have enough for emergencies. Then you have to start thinking about what does it look like to grow your money outside of your own hands. and going to work, and then working that system over and over, tightening up different parts of it. Not ignoring your debt. Put yourself on a plan. Because when I did all those things, my credit score automatically started to go up. And then slowly but surely, like I got back on my feet.

Starting point is 00:11:14 And then I really got good at making money. Like, good, good at making money. Right. And so, yeah, so that's why I am now. I still live those same principles. Like, I get better at making money. I don't have to save anymore. I already have a year's worth of emergency savings save.

Starting point is 00:11:27 I get better at investing. and I invest largely in my own company. I mean, I invest in the market, certainly in some real estate, but largely into my own companies. And so once I focused on that, I don't have any more debt. I mean, I own two properties. I don't have a mortgage. I own a car. I don't have a car. No, I'm debt free like a seven-year-old. You know, so I managed that debt. My credit score is back in the 800s. And so it's the same process, whether it's broke Tiffany or wealthy Tiffany, I'm still living that same process. This is some incredibly powerful stuff to talk about here because what happened early on is you forgave yourself. You gave yourself permission to actually make these mistakes, which is a really

Starting point is 00:12:00 powerful thing to do with our money. Nobody ever has a perfect month with their money or a perfect year with their money. We're all going to make mistakes when it comes to that. And that's where you started first. And I think a lot of people get stuck in that point. They think I'm never going to be good with money because I keep making these mistakes over and over again. I make mistakes every single month. There's probably 12 Amazon boxes at my door right now. But at the same time, there's things that you can do and you took the basic steps to move forward. And it's so interesting because every time we talk to different millionaires on this podcast, every single person who has done that always takes the basic steps first and they build from there. And taking those basic steps first is so

Starting point is 00:12:34 incredibly powerful. And that's what you did. And then you learned to grow your income. And then you learned how to budget your money. And you did all of these different things so that you could get to that next point, which is extremely powerful. And now you help other people do that as well, which is a really cool thing that the documentary that you just put out called Get Smart with Money also did. So you're actually helping people through some of these processes. So you have this amazing documentary. How long did this process take for you to kind of create this documentary on Netflix? And how did this idea come about? So a production company reached out to me a year before, about a year and a half before the documentary came out. And I didn't know that it was a Netflix

Starting point is 00:13:08 documentary. So I was this close to saying no, which I would have been mad at later. And so they reached out and said, we're doing this financial documentary where we're helping regular everyday people. And we'd like to see you be interested. And I said, um, okay. And well, really, I shared with my sister. I'm like, have you ever heard of this documentary company? She loves to watch documentaries. And she's like, oh, I love this production company. They've done some of my favorite documentaries. And I said, okay, that's why I said yes, honestly, because she said they did good work. It wasn't sleazy because people reach out to me all the time and it's not always on the up and up. So we started taping and maybe like a few months in, they were kind of like, it's for Netflix. And I was

Starting point is 00:13:45 like, wait, what? Which I thought was awesome. They're like, but you can't say anything until you're under NDA until it comes out. And I said, okay. So I had. So I have. I had. have an audience of about two million plus women that I've helped on their financial journey. And so I call my audience dream catchers. And so they paired me with a young woman, Ariana, who's a dream catcher. She lives in Jersey just like me, super dope and nice. A wife, she's had two little kids. But she reminded me of where I was when I first started my financial journey, full of shame and anguish, talking to herself crazy because of the choices that she'd made and the mistakes that she made. And so I saw that in her. And there was just

Starting point is 00:14:24 so much sadness that I saw because she was just like, she felt like she was a burden and a disappointment to her family because of she was struggling with her finances. And so we worked on the forgiveness part first. It took a lot. You know, we worked on them. Everyone makes mistakes. You didn't kick anybody's puppy, you know? And then we put things into place about she had a lot of credit card debt. She did a lot of overspending. But she overspent really from an emotional place because she felt bad about herself, about her overspending. So it was like this vicious cycle. And so slowly but surely, we put just a budgeting plan in place for her, a savings plan in place. We automated things for her and it really transformed her life. She was able to play off over $40,000 in credit card debt by the

Starting point is 00:15:08 end. I work with her for a year. So that's a lot, you know, in one year. It's incredible. She was able to make more money because we talked about that. She got a new job that was making her even more money than where she was working before. And better than that, she stopped treating herself badly because of the choices that she made. So, yeah, she's still doing dope. We still text back and forth and she's still rocking out me. What I love now is that she will say, oh, I made a mistake, Tiffany, and, you know, I use my card when I ought not to have, but it's not the same language that she uses about

Starting point is 00:15:37 herself. She's kind of like, but that's okay, because what I'm going to do to pay it off is this, this, this, and this. When she said that, I was like, that's the point. Because I still make mistakes. Right. That's not the point. The point is not to be mistake-free.

Starting point is 00:15:48 It's like I have the tools and the mindset. in place that I can remedy anything that I've done with my finances. And that's the most powerful thing that you unlock there because you're proven that right now is because the mindset shift is so incredibly powerful. I would say mindset is 90% of personal finance and having the head knowledge and know-how would be 10%. And so you kind of unlock that throughout the documentary. It's so interesting to watch the process as they go through that. What I love about it is that there are very practical struggles that a lot of people go

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Starting point is 00:19:07 I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the same. Center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. What are some of the other struggles that some of the other coaches actually teach people throughout in the documentary? So Ross Mack, he's awesome. He had a professional athlete Tees who had gotten a ton of money, a seven-figure, you know, a contract, but, and I wouldn't even say that he just blew it because it's not like he had a ton of like jewelry and

Starting point is 00:19:43 things. He purchased a home for his family and a home for his mother. In the United States, when it comes to homes, doesn't go that far. Right. So Ross was teaching him really about investing. So that was one of the things because he was afraid to invest. So he was spending more than he ought to have instead of setting aside money to grow his wealth. And so that was one of the things. Mr. Money Mustache, he had this couple that was high earning, but they just were living too big of a life. And like my dad would say that you cut your coat according to your size, right?

Starting point is 00:20:14 Meaning that whatever your budget is, that's what your life should look like. But they were wearing a coat that was too small because they had lived too fully. So even though they're making a ton of money, they were spending even more. And so Mr. Money Mustache really taught them about identifying the life that they could have if they live within their means. And if they did so, which they did, you know, they sold their house. They like travel for three months. I forget what country they went to.

Starting point is 00:20:39 But it just was amazing to see their transformation. And then last Paula Pant, she's awesome. She was an artist. And so she taught her how to lean. into her creative juices and to use her art to make more income because she was a bartender, wasn't making much money. And so she really taught her like, okay, her issue was she wasn't making enough. So Paula really taught her how to tap into the skill set she already possessed that she loved

Starting point is 00:21:03 doing to make more. So it was just such a great well-rounded group of people who needed help. What I love most about the documentary, I was worried that we were going to have like a Simon Cowell. Like one of the coaches was going to be mean and rude. Right. But everyone was really generous and kind and helpful. And so if you haven't watched Get Smart with Money, not to be confused with my New York Times bestseller,

Starting point is 00:21:26 get good with money. You ought to on Netflix. It's really just a great documentary. It truly is. And I remember even the weekend that it came out, I had neighbors that live in my neighborhood that came to me because they know I have this podcast and they know that we talk about money

Starting point is 00:21:37 in personal finance all the time. And they said, have you seen that documentary? It was amazing. So I had even so many people just coming and talking to me the weekend it came out. So it really has impacted a lot of people. And I think the impact is major. So if you haven't seen it, I highly, highly recommend it because it talks about so many different situations.

Starting point is 00:21:52 And you can probably unlock for a certain thing in your situation as well that can really help you as you go forward. Now, in Get Smart with Money, you talk about very cool ways to think about spending. And I really loved the way that you kind of frame this where you ask four questions before you spend money on something. Can you talk about those four questions and why they're significant? Yes. So those four questions are, do I need it, do I love it? Do I like it? Do I want it?

Starting point is 00:22:17 And those are your financial priorities in order. So your needs come first, right? So that's the things you have to have to be healthy and to be able to take care of yourself, right? So things like food, shelter, medicine, transportation. And so you take care of your needs first because if not, you won't be here. So next really are things that people tend to skip over. Those are your loves. And to me, a love is something that a year from now or more, it will still bring you joy.

Starting point is 00:22:45 So if you spend money, say like, for me, I love to travel. I just got back from Kenya a few days ago. I love it. I'm going to Egypt in a month. Before that, I was in Dubai. Before that, Bali, I love to travel. And places that I had been 20 years ago, I still remember fondly. So for me, travel is a love because it brings its lasting joy.

Starting point is 00:23:06 And so, but people skip over those love because sometimes it costs them more money. So they jump right to likes and wants. Likes six months from now, you won't even remember that thing. Maybe it's a dress, maybe it's a, you know, like a pair of boots. You know, first six months, the first few months, you love them, and then they're in the back of your closet. And so it doesn't mean you don't get likes. It just means you're conscious that this is a temporary piece of joy and wants. There's no joy whatsoever.

Starting point is 00:23:30 It's just an instant satisfaction. I have like an addiction to like Bert's Bees lip gloss. I buy this stuff all the time, but I don't buy it and I'm not like, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful for this bird's piece. No, I just get it and I throw it in my bag and I lose it. you know, and so those are your wants. So the key is to live as much as possible in the need, love section of the equation. Because the more you spend on likes and wants, the less you have available to your needs and loves. So I'll give an example. One of my friends, she likes to buy random clothes and things from Target or whatever, which is fine, but she always says she wants to go

Starting point is 00:24:05 on vacation with me and that she can't afford it. So every time, like, she would make a target one and I would ask, oh, what did you get? And she would go, I spent like 100 bucks. I was I'm planning on it. So I started to write down, because I am the budgetista, every time she told me that. And the next time I was going on vacation and she said I couldn't go, she couldn't go because she didn't have it. I was like, so don't be mad. But every time you went to Target, even if you didn't tell me how much you spent, I assumed at least it was $100. And I added it up. You could be on vacation with me. If you know, this is like, there's like $1,500 worth of spending. She was like, what? She was like, you're so nosy, first of all, Tiffany. How are you adding up my target runs? But because I said, those are your likes.

Starting point is 00:24:44 I said, do you remember what you bought a Target six months ago? She's like, no. I said, but I remember my trip from six months ago. And so I don't believe in depriving yourself, you know, because this is not deprivation. I'm saying I want you to have the thing that means the most by letting go all the things that don't mean that much to you. And so, yeah, that has been transformative for me. Need it, love it, like it, want it. And this is one of the most powerful things that people can do. Think about how conscious you would be if you actually ask yourself those four questions before you spent money on certain things. And Tiffany, we talk about this all the time on this podcast as well. We want you to spend lavishly on the things that bring you value and cut mercilessly on the things that don't bring you value. And it's exactly what these four questions do. They actually create the life that you want. What is your dream life? How can you create that life? And how can you change your spending and use your budget so that you can actually steer it towards that dream life? And these questions actually craft that. And you and I are on the

Starting point is 00:25:39 exactly in the same page on that as well. So I absolutely loved this. That's why I loved it. When you said that, it almost just kind of unlocked it when I was watching the documentary. Like, that's an amazing way to kind of think through this process so that you can see exactly where your dollars need to go and prioritize those dollars towards the things that you actually want in life. So I love that part of it as well. So as you went through this process with Arianna, you showed her, she paid off that $40,000 worth of debt, but you put together an automated system. And automation is one of the most powerful things I think that you can do with your money. it is the best thing that we teach people very early on to start to automate everything.

Starting point is 00:26:12 So can you kind of talk about that automation system? And I'm sure this is going to help all different sorts of people out there. But that automation system is a really cool way to kind of get yourself out of deck. Can you kind of talk through that a little bit? Sure, Andrew. So I call it split it before you get it. I love that. If you can tell, I used to be a preschool teacher with all my sayings that. Exactly. And so I call a split it before you get it because it's basically budget without budgeting. Because not everyone, like, I like a spreadsheet, you know, like give me a spreadsheet. It's a good time. But not everyone likes that. And that's okay. And so the teacher in me is like, okay, let me make sure every student is able to succeed. So the way split it before you get it works is that I had Ariana open five accounts. But at the bare minimum, there's four different accounts for this method, two checking, two savings. So checking account number one is your deposit account. You know, this is where you get direct deposit. Some of your money is going to land. But also this is where I like to say,

Starting point is 00:27:06 you're going to keep your cash spending, like your allowance. So if you get a hair come, if you are buying clothes, groceries, anything that you would normally swipe your debit card for or pay cash with, that's what's going to stay in this initial checking account number one. Checking account number two at that same bank is going to be your bills account. So this is an account where you are going to calculate how much your bills are monthly. If you get paid twice a month, make sure that that money is going into their bills account, and then your bills account will automatically pay your bills for you, ideally.

Starting point is 00:27:38 If you don't think you're going to have enough, then you can manually pay your bills yourself whenever you need to. Now, the key with your bills account is do not get a debit card with that checking. So they're always going to offer you a debit card with your checking account. And you think, like, I have to have a debit card. You don't. You can literally say, I don't want a debit card. So when I get to swiping with my debit card, I know I'm never spending bill money.

Starting point is 00:28:00 I'm only ever spending the money that's in my deposit slash allowance. account. So those are your two checking at your regular brick and mortar bank. Then you're going to have two savings that's not going to be at that bank because savings should never be saved at these big banks because they give you 0.000, 0,000, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.1%. So you're going to have your two savings at an online-only bank, right? And a high yield savings account. Right now, I think one of the highs I've seen is like 3.7%. Before was as that low as low as 1%. When I remember, it was like years go, it was something crazy, like four or five percent, you know, when I first opened up my first high-yield savings. But you're going to put savings account number one. This is going to be your

Starting point is 00:28:41 emergency savings account. Now, a lot of people who are like, you know, love personal finance. Sometimes they're like, but it's not making any money. The purpose of emergency savings is not to make you money. It is to be a safety net in case something happens. That's like saying, I don't want to wear my seatbelt. It's not cute like my Gucci belt. It's like, that's what the point of seatbelt. It's to protect you. Like, you can get a Gucci belt separately from this, you know? And so, like, this is your seatbelt account, your emergency savings. You want to do at least three months of what I like to call your noodle budget. So your ramen noodle budget is if you took out the bells and whistles from your budget, so let's just say your life costs you $5,000 a month with haircuts,

Starting point is 00:29:23 nails, whatever. But if you took out everything except for the essentials and you could get your budget down to $3,500, let's say, $3,500 times of three months. That's your noodle budget. That's what you're going to aim for in your savings account at minimum. Then you're going to look at your life and say, based upon the industry that I'm in, how quickly could I replace my income if I would have lose my job? If you're a nurse, for example, my mom used to be a nurse before she retired. Three months of emergency noodle budget save, it's plenty because she doesn't even need three months,

Starting point is 00:29:54 honestly. Right? Because I remember one time her hospital was closing and she must have gotten 50 calls a day. because nurses then and now in high demand. But my sister, who's an engineer, it took her almost two years to find her first job, you know, for the police and mechanical engineer. So she might want to have six to 12 months worth of emergency savings. So that's savings account number one, emergency savings.

Starting point is 00:30:15 And the last savings account is your goal savings. I want to buy a car. I want to buy a house. So something that you're saving for in the next like six months to a year, anything beyond that you might want to put it into like a CD or you might want to invest so that way you can grow. but if you're buying something within the next six months to a year, you want to have it pretty liquid and available to you. And so that's your gold savings account. So deposit account

Starting point is 00:30:38 slash emergency checking, deposit account slash allowance checking, bills checking, same bank, savings for emergencies, savings for goals, different high yield interest savings bank. If you have those four things set up, then you go to HR and payroll and say, hey, you know how you normally put all of my money in one account, stop that. I want you to split it before I get it. So you're going to say here are the amounts. And here's the thing. I, the budget needs to my company, it's not some huge company. We are able to split up to four ways. So the average company should typically be able to do this. If you can't, you can still do the transfers yourself. So they'll put that money in those four accounts for you. So you don't have to ask yourself, Andrew, like, oh, gosh,

Starting point is 00:31:23 do I have the money to pay my bills? Oh, it already landed. And my savings, it already landed. Oh, I'm swiping my card. Do I have the money? Well, whatever's in your deposit account, that's the money you can spend on whatever it is, your target run, because you know it's not your savings. You know it's not bills. And so you're like, this is the money that's designated. That is life-changing, split it before you get it, because it just allows you the freedom

Starting point is 00:31:46 and the autonomy with the money that you're allowed to use however you like, knowing everything else is taken care of. If for whatever reason your job says, we won't split, have everything land in your deposit account, and then. automate the splits, like if you get paid on the first and the 15th, automated on the second and the 16th and have your deposit account split for you. That's what Ariana did and it changed her life, she said. It's absolutely incredible that system because a lot of people don't want to budget. And a lot of times you and I obviously love budgeting. I budget every single day. I'm in my

Starting point is 00:32:16 budget every single day, but some people don't love it. And so if we use human psychology here and we kind of think through that process, this is a way to budget without having to actually budget. So I love this system because you can break it up before you even touch it, like you said, and just have it in the right spots, then you know how much money that you can spend. So this is really, really powerful for a lot of people. I think a lot of people can really benefit from this as well. We kind of talk about this when we talk about the reverse budget, too, and it's just one of those things. Get those dollars out of your hands, make sure they're in the right spots. Then you know how much you can spend and it helps you keep track of everything.

Starting point is 00:32:46 As long as you're tracking in some way, shape, or form, you're going to be winning with your money in the future, and especially with a system like this. So I absolutely love that. So you also have an amazing book called Get Good With Money. And Get Good With Money was one of my favorite books that I've read in the last couple of years because it really lays out so many different systems that people can really implement today when you read that book. So it's always in our top personal finance list when we talk about this stuff because it has so many actionable items in there. And I love the way that you talk about some of these systems and some of the money systems that you've actually put together. So you've talked about money as a team sport. We kind of need to normalize talking about it.

Starting point is 00:33:22 And this is a powerful thing that we try to do here in the personal finance podcast is to kind of teach people to do this. So what are some of the ways that you think we could teach people to talk about money more, so it's not such a taboo topic? When I wrote Get Good with Money, the teacher of me was like, there has to be actionable things to actually do. And I made this 10-step plan so everyone could know how quickly they were approaching what I call financial wholeness. And one of the components of financial wholeness is having financial help, whatever that looks like. So to start, you know, you want to identify some accountability partners, people that you can start to practice is having candid money conversations, whether it's your bestie, maybe you have a work husband,

Starting point is 00:34:00 whether it's your work mom, your sister, your cousin, your dad. You want to start to have these normalized conversations. You could start with the good things if you want, like, oh, I'm saving for vacation. You know, like saving for a vacation, everyone says, yay. Saving for a house, everyone says, yay. And then you might elevate the conversation and say, I want to pay down my debt. Do you want to do it alongside me? let's make it like a thing that we do together.

Starting point is 00:34:26 So we could check in regularly to see how are we doing. They don't have to be a financial expert. They're just someone who also wants to get on financial track. So those conversations you start to have. But then also having conversations about how much are you making, right? So if you're wanting to get a job someplace and you have to start to have that conversation because you want to make sure that what they're offering you for pay is what's equitable, what they're offering everyone else.

Starting point is 00:34:51 So starting to have those candid conversations, it doesn't have to be with people at your job, but it could be colleagues at a company that's similar size to say, so what are they paying over there? Asking those things before you even need to know. So you want to integrate normalized talk about money, but it's your tone. I grew up in a house where we talked about many all the time. I didn't have money shame until I got into my 20s and I made my own mistakes. Because my dad talked about money, it was like easy, breezy. Even though I grow up now, I'm like, wait, we were pretty broke.

Starting point is 00:35:20 Now, I think back on it, but that was never the energy that he brought to the table. So even as you're speaking about money with the people in your life, the energy that you bring to the table, that's how they're going to receive it. Because you cannot go through the loan. You need an accountability partner. Depending on, like, where you are, you might want to have a certified financial planner. Not everyone necessarily needs one. Certainly when I got to a certain level of wealth, I had taken myself as far as I could take

Starting point is 00:35:46 myself. So I hired a certified financial planner. that was also a wealth planner because I was just like, I have all this money. And I know basic investing and I bought real estate, but it's getting beyond even what I'm capable of managing. And so she helped. I have an accountant. You know, you may or may not need. My dad was an accountant. And so I did my taxes for the first 30 years of my life. And then when TurboTex came out, everyone could do their own taxes. But if you have a business or maybe you have multiple properties or things like that, then you might want to have accountant. I have an attorney because I'm

Starting point is 00:36:18 have businesses. And so she's not on retainer, but it's someone who I know I can tap into the same, hey, here are some contracts. I need you to look at financial contracts. I'm taking one of my businesses, my online school, the Leverature Academy, from an S-corp to a C-corp. But that's something I had to tell to my attorney about and the accountant about. Like, what's the tax ramifications from going an S-cork to a C-corp? And the attorney was like, well, here's what I think. And then my financial planner was like, here's what's going to mean for your bottom line, Tiffany. So that whole team came together to help me make the right choice. And so you don't have to have those people, but at the very least, having an accountability

Starting point is 00:36:54 partner. And as your finances grow, not being afraid to ask for help for people that this is what they do. So you can reach out and make sure you're making the right choices. I absolutely love that. And I think the coolest part about this is your father planted the seed early on. And he kind of talked about money with you. And you kind of went through this whole process where he planted that seed. And then look how many people's lives you're impacting now.

Starting point is 00:37:15 just from him talking about money all the time. And then once you got to that point where your wealth started to grow, then you put that team together around you, which is one of the most powerful things. I think, for example, my accountant, my tax strategist is one of the best investments I make every single year because they save me so much money when it comes to tax strategy and accounting. It's just incredible. So just kind of doing these things is one of the most powerful things that you can do and just kind of normalizing talking about money. There's a lesson here on what your dad did because what he did was he talked to his kids about money. So if you're a parent out there, this is one of the best things that you can do. I've already started to do this with my four-year-old, for example,

Starting point is 00:37:47 where we're talking about money. I was just telling Andy Hill this the other day. My favorite party trick is that with my son, I like to have him, you know, tell the whole party what an asset is, what a liability is and kind of go through that whole thing at four years old. So it's one of those things where it's just learning to kind of talk through this, normalizing it with your children as well can be very, very powerful. So I absolutely love that. And your program surrounding financial wholeness is one of my favorite things. And when I read the book, I really love the way that you kind of lay this out. And you talk about a lot. lot of things in the financial wholeness program that a lot of other people don't talk about,

Starting point is 00:38:17 which I like as well. Can you kind of talk about the components of financial wholeness? No, absolutely. So I used to always like kind of preach financial freedom, financial freedom, but honestly, Andrew, I started to realize not everyone's going to have enough money to not have to work anymore. You know what I mean? And I just like, I love the fire movement. I mean, I'm fire. I don't have to work anymore. So I'm not anti that. It's just the teacher in me is always, I want to be able to teach a lesson that every student can master. And so I was like, there's plenty of fire people, there's plenty of financial freedom people. But are there enough people that say, if you don't reach those things, can you still be okay financially?

Starting point is 00:38:54 Can you still go on vacation? Can you still make sure you're okay? Your family's okay. And so financial homeless is this 10-step system that says if you master these 10 steps, that even if you don't get your lump sum of money at the end of the rainbow, you will still be okay. you will still be able to take care of yourself, your family, and to enjoy life and use your finances as a tool. And so these 10 steps are first, it's budgeting, because that's super important, then saving, then debt, then mastering your credit, then learning to earn. It's all about your income. Then it's investing

Starting point is 00:39:25 for both retirement and wealth. Then it's insurance, because a lot of people neglect that. Then it's your net worth and increasing it. Then your financial professionals picking your money team, and then estate planning leaving a legacy. So those are the 10 components. And so to your point, a lot of people talk about personal finance. They leave out insurance. They leave out estate planning. We all focus on the budgeting and credit.

Starting point is 00:39:48 But there's a more holistic view to your personal finances. Like at one point, like it's possible to be wealthy and not financially whole. You know, that's why I got my financial planner, Anjali, because I had grown wealth and I was not financially whole. I did not know I was severely underinsured. She was like, Tiffany, you have like next to no insurance. I'm like, no, I do. She said, yeah, but you bought this when you were 26. At the time, I was like 38.

Starting point is 00:40:14 She's like, now you're 30. Like, this is not enough. That was for preschool teacher, Tiffany. You are now a millionaire, business owner, Tiffany. If someone were to sue you, girl, it's a rap for you. And so I was like, okay, so what do I do? So we increased my insurance. Estate planning.

Starting point is 00:40:27 I didn't have an estate plan. I was like, oh, I'm young. I don't need a will. I don't need a, no, now I have a will. Now I have a trust. because as my wealth has grown, it's like if something happens to me, I don't want my family scrambling because I have multiple businesses. You know, I don't want them scrambling to try to figure out what do I want, what are my wishes? And so my trust, a will really helps people to understand what you want as soon as you're not here.

Starting point is 00:40:48 And a trust allows you to say into the future, here's what I want to happen with my assets and my estate. You know, like I have in my trust. I have nieces and nephews that are really young. No one's over the age of seven. So I'm like, a seven-year-old, Roma does not need $200,000 right now, you know. But when he's 18, here's a payout. When he's 25, there's a payout. When he's 30, there's the final payout.

Starting point is 00:41:11 So a trust allows you to do that. So, yeah, I really work so hard on get good with money because I wanted to answer the core questions that people have when it comes to their finances. Like, what do I do to be okay? And I hope that it answers that question and then some. It absolutely does. And what it really does is like you're right. A lot of people can be okay with money.

Starting point is 00:41:32 They can get to financial freedom even, but they're not financially whole. And that's the part that kind of is the lightball moment for a lot of people because having financial wholeness is having all of these components in place and understanding that things can happen to you, especially like with the insurance and estate planning parts, things can happen to you that you don't expect. And if you don't have some of these things in place,

Starting point is 00:41:50 it can really unravel your financial independence essentially. So having this in place, having all the protection in place as well, but then having the core basics of personal finance, all wrapped into one book is absolutely amazing. That's what I loved about some of these principles as well. Say somebody's just starting out. Do you think there's an order they should focus on early on? And then do you kind of build from there? What is your perspective on that? Is there like a specific order of operations when you look at financial wholeness? Yeah. So I wrote it in that way. So the teacher in me was very conscious that I said, I want the beginner to know, start here, move through.

Starting point is 00:42:23 But then I want someone who's more in advance who doesn't need that stuff to be able to jump to what they needed and to be able to to not need the prior chapters to get this chapter. So I wrote each chapter almost like it was an individual book, but then they build upon each other if that's what you need. So first things, first, just like we talked about earlier, Andrew, is financial wholeness, we start with mindset in the book. It's not one of the specific steps, but it's like the, we do a little primer in the beginning. But yeah, absolutely, it's the first five steps.

Starting point is 00:42:51 It's budgeting, it's savings, it's debt, it's credit, it's learning to earn. Just like we talked about, how did I get on my feet. those same five principles in order, that's where I would suggest people start. And then once you have those things, or if you already have those things, then yes, you can jump into investing, looking at your insurance, net worth. Now, here's the thing that's what's so great is that as you do the core things, the other things will raise. It's like a rising tide lifts all boats.

Starting point is 00:43:17 So it's not like, oh, I'm budgeting, so I'm not going to look at investing. No, as you budget, you're releasing money so that way you can maybe max out at your 401K. As you're saving, you're like, okay, I have enough because I'm saving, my net worth is increasing. And so by the time you get to the second half of the book and the second five steps in financial wholeness, you have already kind of worked through so many of them just by default. Exactly. That's what I love, too, is that when you go through the book and you kind of look through each and every chapter, you can kind of see, you can read, say I'm struggling with a specific part of this.

Starting point is 00:43:49 You can read that chapter in and of itself, and you can learn and take away so much from it. Like you don't have to go through the entire thing in order, and you can kind of figure out exactly what you need there as well. So I love that part of it that people can kind of reference it and go back and reference through it and kind of understanding. You almost use it like a manual as well. So that part is really, really cool. And so I'd be remiss without asking you, since you are so incredible when it comes to budgets, you have some really cool systems in place when it comes to budgets as well. But you have these things called control categories. Can you talk about those control categories and why they're powerful in your budget? So yeah. So that was my favorite chapter because, you know, I'm the

Starting point is 00:44:22 budget least. So the control categories for your budget. So I tell people, when you start to budget, create what I call a money list, which is just a list of all of your expenses and everything that you make. So you can kind of see, this is what I make, this is what I spend, and you want to have it within a month time period. So that way, you can say, this is what I make in a month. This is what I spend in a month. And then next to everything that you're spending, then there are letters that you put next to everything. So first, I like people to start with the obvious thing, your B's bills. So you put a B next to all of your bills.

Starting point is 00:44:54 These are basically like, for the most part, fixed expenses month after month. You're probably going to have more bees than anything else. So your car, no insurance policies, maybe mortgage, rent, whatever, you're going to put bees next to those. There are bills that are not always fixed. So things that kind of fluctuate based upon your usage. And so any B that is not always fixed, you're going to put a U next to that B. So I like to call that U stands for usage or up and down. These bills fluctuate or based upon your usage.

Starting point is 00:45:26 So these are your UBs. And then anything else left over, you put a C next to. Those are your cash expenses. These are not things that you necessarily use cash for, but these are things where you have the most amount of control. You know, that's what that C stands for as well. So Bs are always first, you put those Bs, then your UBs, then whatever's left over are your Cs.

Starting point is 00:45:47 Well, first of all, I tell people, based upon your money list and your Bs or UBs and your Cs, I can tell you what kind of issue you have if you don't have enough money. I can tell you if you have a don't make enough issue or spend too much issue. If you add up all your Cs and they are more than your Bs and UBs, you have a spend too much issue because those are all these cash expenses. So it's like you are overspending, good to know. If you add up all your Bs and UBs and it's more than your cash expenses, then you

Starting point is 00:46:16 likely have a don't make enough issue. So it's like now we got to start thinking about how we can bring an income. The reason why this is so important, Andrew, is that without fail, everyone does the opposite of what they should do when they need to make more money or save money. If I'm like, okay, Andrew, you need to save more money and you are already frugal. You have like three Cs because you're frugal, if I tell you you don't have enough money at the end of the month, you need to get more money at the end of the month, the instant thing you're going to do is to try to save even more because that's what you know best. And that's not the issue. The issue is you need to make more. You have way more bees and new bees. So looking at that, I can say, no, no, no, no, don't focus on being more frugal. Focus on making more. But if you're someone who is like, you have a ton of Cs and I'm like, okay, Andrew, you need to have more money at the end of the month. And you're like, you know, I'll just going to make some more money. That's not going to actually fix it because you're just going to add more Cs. I'm going to add more cash expenses. And so that activity really helps see, if I don't have enough money at the end of the month, where should I be focusing my energy?

Starting point is 00:47:19 And if you do that, then you're going to be way more likely to stick to it and to see success. Really, most people don't know what they need to do next. And a lot of times it will show them exactly what you need to do next. It's almost like a personality test for personal finance, where you can kind of go through this whole process, list everything out. You see your priorities and you see, well, I need to make a higher income. I can't cut back anymore. I've cut back as much as I possibly can. I've got to increase my income so that I can make more and live the life that I want. So there's just so many cool things. about doing that exercise. And I love that exercise and kind of thinking through that as well. So that's

Starting point is 00:47:48 a major cool part about the book as well. So Tiffany, I want to shift gears here because we have some questions and they get a little deeper than this that we ask a lot of our guests. And we get some really cool answers out of these as well. So the first one is what part of your worker life makes you come alive? Teaching. I love teaching. I don't care what it is. I can teach you how to clip of toenails. I was a preschool teacher because I love teaching. I started the budget because I love teaching. I could teach to an empty room. It's the thing that makes me come alive. And I will always teach whether it's this or something else. But yeah, I love sharing knowledge. And that comes completely through because you make really complex situations become very, very simple. So I absolutely

Starting point is 00:48:23 love that. The second one is what is your biggest fear when it comes to money? My biggest fear when it comes to money is I'm going to squander. I'm such a hoarder. Like I'm gotten better. My financial advisor is like, you don't spend enough, Tiffany. Even in business. My CFO was like, Tiffany, we are 80% profit. I'm like, that's good. She's like, it's not good. It's not good. It's too much profit because you're literally giving half to the federal government.

Starting point is 00:48:49 Hire more people, spend more on the business. Tiffany, like, because I am so good at budgeting, because really it's from a place of fear I call post-traumatic broke syndrome. And so, yeah, that's one of my biggest fears. Although I'm working through it and I'm better than I used to, we're not 80% profit anymore. We're 50, which is good. But yeah, so definitely my fear is like going back to being broke because that was a really hard time. And I think a lot of us, like I started with $0 as well, like when I first, I lived paycheck to paycheck.

Starting point is 00:49:18 And I think a lot of people that started from that point, they kind of feel that. So it kind of tighten up sometimes, which I have the same exact thing. So what is your biggest plan to level up your finances this year? Well, I'm purchasing another property. Hopefully I close in about a month. So fingers crossed. And honestly, I want to enjoy the wealth that I've created more. So it's actually not about making more because the business.

Starting point is 00:49:39 are doing better than ever. And so that's already on track. I'm like, you know how to make money to have yada, yada, yada. But do you know how to use the money in service? Like to my family, they are more than got paid off my parents' house. I got a house for my sister. Everyone is good. So it's just like I want to give more, like I'm looking for more philanthropic ways to give back, but I also want to lean into all the hard work that I had put out there. So it's actually not to level up to have more financially, but to use it to enhance my life. And that's incredible. And that's what money is there to do. That's what wealth can do is kind of build that life out for you and you can give more to other people and do all these other amazing things. So I absolutely love that answer.

Starting point is 00:50:19 What is the best money advice you've ever received? The best money advice I ever received, probably this is my dad. Spend less than you make. And spend less than you make can mean you have to make more or you have to cut back. But at the end of the day, you can't do anything if you're overspending. Simple as that. Exactly. I love that as well. It's a timeless advice that most people need to understand. And then the last one, and this is my favorite one, what does wealth mean to you? To me, wealth means security, stability, the ability to look after yourself, your family and friends of need be, the ability to live your life on your own terms, the way you desire to and not to be hindered by how much that costs. And so to me, wealth means to live well now. Absolutely. And that's one of the most powerful things that we can. do, and that's what you and I are trying to teach everyone, and you teach it through your book and the documentary and everything else that you are doing here as well. Tiffany, this has been absolutely

Starting point is 00:51:12 amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find out more about you, the documentary? Where's the best place that buy the book, your website, everything else? Thank you so much, Andrew. So yeah, the documentaries on Netflix, Get Smart with Money. I'm the Budgetneista everywhere, social, TikTok, Instagram, thebudgetnista.com. And my book, Get Good With Money.com. Perfect. And we'll link all of those up down below as well, including all of Tiffany's socials and everything else. Tiffany, thank you so much again. This was amazing. Thank you. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play Ojo, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games.

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The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Become Financially Whole with Tiffany Aliche (The Budgetnista!)

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