Tiffany Aliche - Educator & Author | How to Get Good With Money

When you're in your mid-twenties, people who look like they have money, even they actually have money. When if you are a personality brand, before you get sick of being a personality brand, you have to pivot, but it will use just the physical picture of money in, money out. If you're in a business, that's called profit and loss. That you need to know the profit and loss of your personal life. And if you don't, it can easily get away from you. Your passion is going to pay you before the profits will. Money's a tool like a hammer. You can build your financial life with money, or you can destroy your financial life and your life in general with money. Don't sacrifice what's really important just to keep more score with money. Because what you'll find secretly is the better you are, the easier the money gets to me. Money is kind of like an indication of maturity. If you watch on TV, it's almost like I'm wealthy because I did the right thing. That means if you're not wealthy, then you must have done the wrong things. And it makes you feel bad and so people don't want to talk about that. But the truth is that's not true. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. Now, HubSpot is the resource that you need to tap into if you are an entrepreneur. It's no secret that starting a business is hard. Even if you have an amazing idea, bringing it to life can feel overwhelming. With HubSpot's new entrepreneurship kit, you can go from idea to IPO with the help of a company that knows a thing or two about growing better. This all-inclusive kit gives you step-by-step guidance and frameworks to help you crush every stage of starting a business with tools tailored to help all steps of the entrepreneurial journey is packed with templates for project management, emails, skill development templates. There's also a solo-preneur guide. It's got freelancing, pricing worksheets, and lots more that you can use to get up and running immediately. And best of all, it's free. With expert guidance and frameworks from HubSpot, starting a business doesn't have to be hard, so don't wait to start yours. Go to HubSpot.com slash ENT to download the guide right now. Teat up to wherever you want to start. You know, you go back to high school, college early, early early, or you can go a bit later, whatever you want. So, it's all yours. Go for it. Well, hey, hey, hey, Scott. Thank you for having me. My name is Tiffany Elyce, but I'm much better known as the Budget Nista. And I guess the most interesting thing about me is somehow, in the last 10 years, I went from an ex preschool teacher who was $300,000 in debt to a multi-business hype in it that made $10 million last year. And it's graduation. It's thank you. All while teaching financial education to women. And so, yeah, it's been a wild and crazy ride, so I can't wait to share how we got here. Nice. And let's go back to the teacher, the teacher days. So walking through what led you to getting into $300,000 in debt because that's a lot of debt for a teacher. I'm assuming that's not a mortgage. Well, some of it was, but some of it wasn't. So at first, I was actually really good with my money. My father was a CFO, a small nonprofit. And he had just NBA and economics and his bachelor's in finance. So I learned about money at home, be a he and my mom. So I was actually pretty good with my money until my mid 20s. I didn't have a name debt. I did have this little credit card that he slowly paid off every month and full. So I was doing all the things right. I moved out when I graduated college. My sister was my roommate. And so I kept my expenses really low. And then about at about 25, as I said, you know what, I feel like I should buy a house. That's like the next step, right? In adulthood, you should buy a house to be so I said, okay, I'm in my house. And that put me $220,000 in debt. But even that wasn't so bad because it was at least for something reasonable like a house. Then I decided that I was going to go back to school to get my masters in education. And even that's not necessarily so bad, but that left me $52,000 in debt, you know, to add on to the lot at once. And it was like back to back. And then I made the biggest mistake, which is trusting an ear quotes friend who was going to teach me how to invest because I thought that he was wealthy. You know, when you're in your mid 20s, people who look like they have money, even they actually have money, he did not. The only way he had money, obviously, was stealing it from other people. And I was this next victim. And it left me $35,000 in credit card debt. We're previously, I'd never had credit card debt. I used to pay my, you know, it'd be $50 or $100 bill off every single month. So by the time that was 29, I was just about $300,000 in debt and drowning. And then the great recession, the not so great recession hit. And I lost my job like so many people lost their job. So I was 29, the school where I was working, closed down, by then I was a preschool teacher. Then the school where I was working, it was non-profit based. And no one had access money to pay employees, let alone give to nonprofits. And so I had all this debt and none this income. And I just remember thinking like, well, I guess that's it. You know, like life is just going to be hard and moving forward. And I ended up moving back home with my parents and sleeping in my middle school bed. And then I know, especially in 30. That's tough. Yeah. Well, I can't, I can't imagine a tumbling is. It is. It was. Because literally, you know, it was so shameful. I was, I don't want to say shameful, but just I felt ashamed at the time. But I remember like, fleeting my middle school bed because I'm one of five daughters. And Lisa, who's the baby, was still in school. So she had my old high school kind of like apartment. We had like, my parents had like a mother lost sweet in the basement. So I had like a kitchen, a bathroom, living room, and, and bedroom. But Lisa was like, I don't care that your back. This is my room. You're relegated upstairs to the middle school. Yeah, you gave up. You, you moved, you moved, I like, I claimed this territory. But also like, it's because you tried to do everything right too. That's the thing. You tried house at 25 is like damn impressive. Most people don't have a home. They're not buying property at 25. You got a house. You invested in education. Okay. Cool. That, you know, checks, checks the box. And then you got, you got screwed by, by someone. And, and that's the, that's the worst part because that kind of that, like I'm assuming you just by, just hearing what you just said. So they made you, or he made you invest off credit cards. Yeah. Which is like not, that's horrible. And that's huge, super, super, super high interest debt as well. And that they're not as forgiving as like a educational institution would be in terms of your repayment. So that's hard to get out. Okay. So I don't interrupt your story. Keep going. No, it was like, it was terrible. And I just remember thinking, I remember when it was the worst because it was like, the night of me turning back the night before I turned 30. And I just remember thinking like looking up at the ceiling in my middle school bed. And I remember thinking like, Oh my God, the last time I slept in this bed, I think I was like 12. And I had more money at 12. Because at 12, I used to like babysit. I cat sit. I like, I used to deliver newspapers. So I had all these. So I had like, you know, maybe a couple thousand dollars that like, like, I like I saved up and my dad, you know, opened up one of those joint like, you know, accounts for kids. And so every time I made money, he maybe put some away. And so by then, I'm probably maybe had like $1,500, but I didn't have to $1,500 at 29. I had nothing. I had negative 300. That's it. And I remember thinking like, you know, like 12 year old self was wealthier than I am right now. You know, there's a stat, right? There's like a stat that if you have like five cents in your pocket, like your wealthier than something like 75% of the United States, there's some incredible stat like that just because most people aren't dead. Yeah. It was just really humbling. And I got a lot tears were flowing. I was like, my life sucks. I'm supposed to be like 30 and like, you know, living it up. And instead Lisa's living it up in my bedroom. And I'm in the middle school bed, which by then was like my mom's like closet. So she would come in whatever she felt like it. I'm like, I'm in here now. She's like, yeah, but I keep my clothes here now. So it took me like a couple of years, kind of like the shake out the funk of shame. It wasn't till I like spoke to my best friend Linda. And I was like, oh, man, you know, my life sucks every I'm like, I have no money. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I had to move back home. And I don't want to tell anyone. And she was like, what Tiffany, have you looked around? She's like, I'm calling you for my mother's couch right now. We're all broke. The recession is like, you know, we're all just barely out of our 20s. Every wish is like, well, one in our 20s, we were all broke. You were the only one that seemed reasonably responsible. But now we're all really broke because the recession has affected us more than almost any other population. This kind of age group. And because we were the first to really start to get into our career. So we were the first to let go to be let go. And so she helped me to realize that although I was going through a hard time, it wasn't just me. And I started to map out what I did now. So that's always like one of the core things like that I do now that I learned from that period is that when things are really hard, I asked myself, what do you know? You know, I was like, well, you know, you grew up learning how to budget, how to save, you know, how to manage credit and debt. So you know those things. So why not you just do what you do now? It's so you hit a wall. And then hopefully then maybe new information will be revealed. So that's what I started to do. I got back to the financial fundamentals of my life. Got out like, you know, like the composition notebook and created a budget for myself and looked at how much unemployment I was getting. One good thing I did with those credit cards is that I hadn't stopped paying my mortgage just yet because when I moved out of my condo that bought when I was 25. I had a tenant. And so, you know, I was able to kind of keep up with the mortgage. And I'm like, okay, your credit scores still really good. Why not roll over these credit cards to credit cards where you don't have to pay interest for the next. I was able to get credit to credit cards. Why didn't have to pay interest for two years because my credit score was so good. So I was like, okay, now when you do pay off these cards, at least all your money will be going to the principal. So you're not battling against interest and principal. So I started to do these these small steps that made a huge difference in my friend's size and take notice. And they were like, well Tiffany, can you show me what you're doing? I'm like, well, I'm not, I'm not doing, you know, I'm not, it's not surgery. I'm not doing anything amazing. If you're thinking that there's a magic wand, I don't have it. And they're like, well, you're doing better than me. So they started to come to me, my friends and then their friends. And before you knew it on weekends, I'd be like, who sang you? It'd be like a stranger that showed up at my house. And like, well, how did you really get it? Helping people get back on their feet financially. And it just really took off from there. And I, a friend of mine told me what my unemployment was running out. And I was like, how know what I'm going to do? And she said, well, why don't you turn that budget and think you do with folks and turn it into a business. And I was like, think you can do that now. I'd gone to school for business. I just hated my internships. And that's why they came a teacher. And I was like, well, I don't have anything else to lose. And so I started the, the budget needs to started with one on ones that sucked because no one had any money. And if they did have any money, I felt bad because of course, they're a budget. They really didn't have any money. So that didn't last longer than a few months. And then I thought, well, how do I go from one on one to one to few? And I found this nonprofit called the United Way that paid me to teach financial education to the community. And that was awesome because I was like, oh, I get to be back in the classroom again. This time with adults, I don't have to have this kind of like moral burden of taking money from people who are struggling because I'm taking money from the nonprofit. They've got plenty. And I get to offer my services per free to the community. And that's when social media just started to come out. So I used social media to get more and more people into class. And it really just like the budget needs to and the business really just grew from that helping one on one and helping, you know, teaching in the classroom again. And so I just found it to be just like such an alignment with the way I wanted to show up. I truly believe that the purpose of life is to live a life of service. But that doesn't mean you have to be broke because I'm not broke. That's amazing. So that's how that's how the whole brand was built out. And obviously, obviously, it's gone through a lot of a lot of versions since then, a lot of iterations since then. So as the budget needs to has grown, what do you for people that don't know you? You have like a sheet. I would leave before we were just riffing on like how like boil and incredible your following is I just join one of your one of your lives and like to like 500 people just like, you know, like getting and getting lit and like Instagram live. Just awesome because I love when you see the communities that are built around people and not everybody even if they have a huge following have like active communities. That's that's incredible. But do you build this up? But so what is the current version of budget needs to what do you do for people outside of just that you have a book podcast you have a whole bunch of stuff going on? I would actually just let me play that I was just working on something called a a synergy map. And I encourage everyone to create a synergy map for their business. And a synergy map really is just you whatever your core deliverable is in the begin in the middle. That's in the middle. So for me, it's financial education for women. And then all of the other ways, all the other iterations of how I do that. You know, so I've got an online school called the Leverature Academy. I've got a podcast called Brown Ambition. I have books like most recent book Get Go With Money is a New York Times bestseller. It just came out. I do speaking engagements. I do spokesperson work with different brands. I do joint ventures. So sometimes people who are like me will come to me and say, hey, Tiffany, I've got this awesome tool resource. Let's partner together and you take 40% I take 60%. You know, I do literally I was looking at the looking at it. I was like, wow, if you have a lot on this list, they do a lot. Yeah, it was like, but it's it's not just me. Like I have like a really great team about 30 people, you know, like 70 or 18 or I think 19, which are full time employees. And so we have all these iterations of like basically what I do is teach financial education and like 20 different ways. You know, and then we monetize it. So, you know, it's got just before we were just talking. I was like, you know, I don't save my lives. Anymore, I used to save my lives, but then it became like a whole thing like I love teaching. So I let going live teaching and you're jumping off. And then if I have to save it, then I have to think about cabs and yeah, I didn't want to do that. But everyone when I go live. So I started going live regularly. Maybe like, I don't know, I'm a month or two ago and maybe on average 50 people would show up and stay. And then it got to 150 and then 200. And now we're at about 450 400 to 500 people. If I were to go live right now without telling anyone I'm going live, we will keep it about an average about 4 to 450 people. That will consistently stay for the whole thing. And my life can last an hour. And what I see in the comments is people will say, please, please save it. And I like on when on for me. And I'm like, oh, another iteration of financial education. I'm going to start a Patreon. Yeah. Yeah. You got all these ideas. And you just keep trying. You're just entrepreneurial as hell. Like you just keep breaking out everywhere. Yes. But we're all see the problem is that most people have what I call a bus business, right? So a bus business is when you have all these great ideas and you sprout your branches too soon. Instead of a tree business where you have like the solid trunk of I deliver this. So I deliver a financial education for women in this particular way. For me, my initial tree trunk were my literature challenges. These were these free online courses that I would launch a new one every January because January is when everyone wants to get on financial track. So it was a free three day course that was live. It was an email course. So every day I would give you one small task to do to get on financial track. And then we would meet up in my private Facebook group when we talk about it. But that was the tree trunk that built the community. And then once my community was solid after a few years, then I was able to branch out to oh and I also do and I also do and I also have a book and I also have a podcast and I also have the online school. But too many people sprout so quickly that you start your growth when you're a bus business. When you're a tree business, think about like one of the most incredible tree businesses out there is Disney, right? So they built their tree trunk with their with their movies, right? So you go to see this Disney movie. It's amazing. Then all of a sudden you go to see a movie and you're like, oh man, I would love to experience that in real life Disney world. Oh man, I love the music for the movie. They have a movie. They have a music arm. Oh man, I would love to be able to watch it day to day. They have TV shows. You know, you see how Disney, oh man, I would love to experience it further. They have merch. And so Disney is the most amazing tree business that you know, you can find because when you think about how long a bush will live, right? So maybe a year. Not as long as a tree. Exactly. Like a little there are trees that live longer than human beings, you know? And so like I'm always conscious of one patience in business. You don't want to move so fast that you're actually starting your own growth. And two, you know, consistency, transparency and kindness. So those are like some of the tenants of what I bring to the table. So as a result, I can start all of these new things as long as it relates back to that tree trunk, which is financial education. And my audience comes along with me. So. one has to reinvent the wheel. We're all in this together learning and growing. And here's my ask, if you love this show, it's made a difference for you, please share it with somebody who needs it. Hella friend, host on social, whatever works, it's the best way to keep this thing going strong, bring on even better guests and share more life changing wisdom. And you can find us on all the spots. So you can go to successstorypodcast.com if you like listening to podcasts. If you like video, you can go to YouTube. It's youtube.com slash C slash Scott DeClaire or the newsletter newsletter. Dot Scott DeClaire.com just spread the word. I'm eternally grateful for each and every one of you. Let's keep learning. Let's keep growing. And let's keep making this world a little bit better together. All right, let's get back to the show. That is the best interpretation definition of not of chasing the shiny object, but in the right way. Because you've just solved for what every entrepreneur always screws up, which is just they launch one thing. And then they're like, oh, I should try that. And oh, I should try that. And then they just like death by a thousand cuts and nothing gets done. And everything screws up. And they're just like maxed out and stressed out. And like just the nothing is like getting the attention to deserve. So this is the best way I've ever heard of somebody describing how to build out all these different parts of their business. God asked people to figure out how they do. And they don't really give a solution. They're just like, well, I tried like 10 things and like some of them worked and some of them didn't. But you've done this purposely. You've done this. This is very, very smart. So you built that community first. So that's your tree. That's your tree. You built that community and you brought that community. You leverage that community. And community is not just like social media community. Community is like these are people that have not just had like this like high level cursory view of your content. They've been in your courses. You're talking to them in classes. You're talking to them in a closed off Facebook group. That's really smart. Because not enough people want to not enough people. Because I would say the first five years of this. I didn't make much money because it was community building time. And so on the surface, it looked like, oh, well, it's simply doing that great. But what I was doing was I was laying good roots. So so I for example, so my mentor told me this. And she was saying how this this new up and coming financial person, you know, didn't want to work with her because she said like, oh, well, my social media founds way bigger than you are. Basically, I'm bigger than you now. So on the surface, it looked like that new young financial guru had a had a higher tree. And it looked like my mentor, her tree was there. But it wasn't as high as visible, you know, and then the storm comes. AKA the pandemic quarantine. And then the heavy winds knocked down this tree. And my mentor is still there. And she said, Tiffany, because I had deeper roots. And so not enough people do root work. You know, because they're so interested in the fame, but they don't understand that, truthfully, if you want to have a solid business, if you are going for the fame, the fame should always be a function of the fortune. Like how are you using your visibility to then transform it into getting people on board? Because if not, then then what are you doing? Because you're not always going to be known. And that's always going to be seen. So if you're familiar with like on Jay Z, the rapper, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, if he's going to be some familiar with Jay Z. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get that one up. Right. So like Sean Carter is his real name. So for like 20 years, Jay Z was like number one rapper in the game, right? So and I remember Jay Z thing of himself. He was like, I realized at some point, I needed to be less Jay Z and more Sean Carter. Meaning that like, I could be the hottest guy in the game, newest song out top of the billboard, or I could be the businessman Sean Carter that has built deep roots. So he used Jay Z as a function to create an avenue for Sean Carter to continue to win long after Jay Z is no longer the hottest guy in the game. So you have to be thinking like that. That'll like, if you're just trying to be the next Charlie Demilio and the housing on TikTok, that's cool. But what are you building that when you're no longer the hottest thing that you had this thing behind the scenes where you can be you can be Jay Z for a limited period of time, but you can be Sean Carter forever with longs your life. Very smart. Very, very smart. So, so now, you know, but there's still something to be said for like having a personality attached to a brand because even though you do have a community, you're still Tiffany the budget Nista. So Sean Carter is doing something a little bit different. He's even saying like, I want to make it so that I don't even have to have Jay Z to make a lot of money. So how are you making your own name? How are you how are you making and future proofing your own name? So that's actually a really great question, right? Because I thought about that. And here's a key to when if you are a personality brand, before you get sick of being a personality brand, you have to pivot. So six years ago, I want to say, oh, this budget is the thing is so fun. Then it will like hit me like most of the time. So as soon as you get that small little, I was like, it's time to pivot. So I'm still the budget Nista, but I created my first, it doesn't need me business. And so that was my online school. And so my online school was like, so I said, okay, for the online school, I will use the budget Nista brand to leverage to launch it. But the people who are teaching the classes 99% of them are not me. So about 50 instructors and I teach maybe one class out of the hundreds that we have. And even now, so right now we use my face still to like run ads to so people sign up for the academy. But now we are adding other people to be influencers for the literature academy. And by 2022, people likely not even know that the literature academy is mine. So I started that pivot five years ago, like, and that that literature academy makes millions of dollars a year. But very little let lift for me has its own team. So it's like I said, it still leverages budget Nista cash A to get people signed up. But we're just on the cusp of finally turning the corner where I'm pulled away. And something else I created, I haven't I have a, um, a children's brand that teaches financial education and a little girl her name is Molly Moore. And so if you're watching the video, so you this is her right here, right? And so it teaches financial education to kids and at the only brand, a whole new brand. And nobody cares like these kids don't care about the budget Nista. Now she's a character that never gets old, never gets signed doesn't get an attitude. And so I've already been offered like, um, production companies have already offered to turn her into a show. So I've decided not to that. I want to do it myself. But that is another offshoot where there won't be the budget Nista's name will help to started. But it really be Molly Moore that will help to continue and flow it through. But so I have businesses behind the scenes like that that no one knows, you know, belong to me that I'm building from the ground up. And I use the budget Nista to offer some cash A to it. Um, but not to make myself the face of it. Because to your point, I don't want to be the budget Nista forever. No, that's, that's the smartest thing I've ever, you're, you're dropping like these, but I, I try and go down these paths as other people and they never have good answers for it. Cause I know a lot of creators, just their names out there and their money, the money side of the name. And even when I think about like, I try and do stuff that isn't just my name because, yeah, maybe the podcast is fun. But like, I don't know what am I going to do in 40 years? Like, you know, anyway, no, that's really, that's really good. Okay, so we got, got some entrepreneurial lessons. Um, so also some, uh, some branding lessons. Um, I want to pull out some finance lessons too. I want to talk, I want to talk about what I want to talk about. And we got to talk about it. Okay, so, okay, why, why do people have such an issue? Why do have people such an issue talking about finance? Why is it something that people are uncomfortable with? Why are people, and I think that's actually the reason why so many people struggle because they don't think they talk about it enough. What's your take? So my take is that unfortunately, it's, it's been in grain and culture that you ought to know, at least in Western culture, that like, money is kind of like an indication of maturity that like, once you get to a certain age, you ought to be able to, it's like having a job or taking care of yourself physically or your, your, your, your, your physical, um, um, grooming that like, this is something that as an adult that you ought to know, and if you don't, it's a condemnation of your character if you don't, and that's just not true. You know, it's unfortunate that people feel that way, but it's just not true. It's just said, that's what, like, if you watch on TV, it's almost like, um, you know, like, I'm wealthy because I did the right things. And so what, what does that mean? That means if you're not wealthy, that you must have done the wrong things, and it makes you feel bad. And so people don't want to talk about that. But the truth is, that's not true. You know, that you can do nothing and be born into wealth. What did you do? Except for you were born into parents that have, you know, that have wealth or you can, I mean, I know folks who, you know, randomly were like, yeah, I guess I'm getting to this Bitcoin thing and they bought some and they're like, oh, I'm rich. I'm like, yeah, that was a lucky guess for you. You don't even invest in any other way. You know, that, and, and outside of Bitcoin, you have not proven any sort of savvy, you know, so sometimes, but now you're worth your worth the eight figures on piss seven figures, eight figures on paper, seven figures on paper. Yes. Yeah. And so it's just like, so I just say that that's why to me, I don't teach, um, financial freedom per se, you know, I teach something that I like to call financial wholeness because financial freedom is something that some people will achieve. Like you said, you mentioned earlier, if you have five cents in your pocket, you're richer than like 75% of people in this country. So the vast majority of people are not going to get some lump sum and be like, I don't have to work anymore. You know, um, be before like typical retirement age, but everyone can achieve financial wholeness. And what that is to me is these 10 components of your financial life, budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn, investing, insurance, your financial team, your, um, your, um, estate planning, and I'm beginning like the last one, estate plan, uh, I'll have to get the last one. Um, but these 10 components of your financial life that come together to create like what I call, um, financial wholeness. And if you have that, now you have a foundation, that's your root work. Then you can build other things on it. That's why I wrote my book, Gaker with money because I wanted to teach people these 10 step by step, like things that you can do to create such a strong foundation that no matter what, what hit you financially, you'd be okay. I just want to take a second and think of the HubSpot podcast network for supporting success story. The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like the product boss hosted by Jacqueline Snyder and Mina Kuhnlo Sithep. If you want to take your physical product sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life, you need to listen to the product boss. They sit down for an hour. They do a workshop style podcast. They're going to talk about everything that you need to know to up level yourself, social media, marketing if you're a consumer package goods. If you have any sort of physical widget, you need to tune into the product boss wherever you get your podcasts. Because everybody gets lives the majority of people that don't have a handout or there's a small majority of people that make a lot of money, but not the majority don't. They live paycheck to paycheck and then they get screwed over with bank fees, overdraft fees, interest payments. They can never purchase anything. They can never have any equity and anything. It's just this system that is, they always say capitalism is the best of the worst, but there's a lot of negatives in a capitalist society. I don't know if any other system is going to be any better per se, but it still is difficult. I think there's a lot more, I think, is education that would help people just thrive in a system where there's so many ways for you to succeed, but there's also so many ways for you to fail. What are the main things that people struggle with when it comes to, let's say, let's pick an average income. I don't know what the average income in depends on the city, but I say 50 to 60,000, I'm assuming would be like a very average income. What are the things that people screw up when it comes to spending credit debt, all this stuff? People screw by not having the basic foundation, which is a budget. No one wants to hear that, but I'm like, you need it. Unless, and even if, let's just say you have the wealth of someone who you feel like you don't need a budget, we've heard of like some of the celebrities that have access to millions of dollars or entertainment folks that have made millions of dollars in there in their lifetime going broke. A budget really is just a physical picture of money in, money out. If you're in a business, that's called profit and loss. In fact, you need to know the profit and loss of your personal life. If you don't, it can easily get away from you. You're making $2,000 a month, and if you continue to spend $2,100 a month, then you're going to eventually go broke. In a way, that's going to be really hard to get out of. People make mistakes with the foundational things. Everyone, everyone, everyone always asks me, I want to learn how to invest and I always ask you, do you have a budget? No. Do you have savings? No. With what money are you going to invest? Because what's an obvious question? You're going to get that money because what they're really saying is that they're going to pay something late in order to take this money to invest, hoping that the investment will pay off, to pay back the thing that they're wanting. You know, one of the best things to do is actually, if you found the money in your budget, then you wouldn't have to worry about being late. So the function of a budget is this. So you budget, so you have excess money to save. You save one for the security, but so you have excess money for your goals and one of those goals should be investing. You cannot get to investing without the budget so you can save without the savings. So you have money to invest, you know, and one of the greatest ways to get the money to invest is to look to see the debt that you owe and pay off the high interest rate debt aggressively. So because if, let's just say you have a credit card and it's costing you 25%. So you want to get into the market and I mean, if we erase the last year or so, you know, the market genuinely, generally, will be with yielding like seven to 10%. You know, let's just say eight percent on average, right? So you're investing in the stock market and you're getting eight percent. You have this credit card and it's costing you 25%. You will actually make more money paying off the 25% debt. Nobody wants to hear that like that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. Because if you don't, then you're trying to, you're trying to basically say you're going to make more than 25% return on whatever investment you're making, which is like if you have somebody that can get that for you, good for you. Yeah. That's the hell I've ever done it do. Yeah. It's what, especially a hell of a turn to maintain. Of course, we have seasons where, you know, where we see that to be true. But so I always tell people, one, get aggressive with paying off that double digit interest rate debt and then chill out when it comes to the debt that is under the double digit digit interest rate debt because debt freedom doesn't equal well. I know there's some financial folks who will tell you like, tell do anything until you get debt free. I don't believe that because if debt freedom equals wealth, yes, it was my nephew's birthday. He doesn't have credit card debt. He doesn't have to the loan debt. He doesn't have a mortgage. You know, he doesn't have any debt. And he's broke because he turned six yesterday. Right? Because if debt freedom equal well, wouldn't these kids all be wealthy? It doesn't. Yeah. And so if all you focus on is debt freedom, then you will be a six year old basically with like, yes, I'm debt free, but I don't have any real money. So I tell people get aggressive with that double digit debt. If your debt isn't the single digits, pay it, but then get aggressive with growing well, get aggressive with getting your budget down to a place where you can save, getting your savings to a place where you have at least three months, ideally six months, it may be more depending on your industry where you have that saved up. Don't save more than that because you're wasting money beyond that and then get aggressive with investing because now you can make more and investing than what your debt is actually costing you. It's just that simple. That's the loop. For me, I invest in the market, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a trader. I'm not a instead where I invest heavily is myself in my business. Because I have seen for me that I can put like I just got my business evaluated. And if I make some tweaks, there's a potential for me to sell it for nine figures because it does so well. But there's just some tweaks then, you know, so you said you're hitting like eight figures already right now in revenue. And so about $10 million a year are net profit. So net profit meaning what we make gross minus what we're spending to run the company is about 45%, which is great. You know, the only thing that's missing, well, it's the only thing, it's not a small thing, is that we need to, our customer needs to come in a more organic way. Right now we're really good at running ads, but people who buy your business, they're not interested in running ads. So we're really beefing up our SEO. So that way, if we can over the next year beef of our SEO, people will naturally come into the business. Now someone who wants to buy it says, huh, you've got a great business here. You've got 40,000 students. It's making $10 million. You're probably more by then. You've got a really great profit margin. And I don't have to worry about where am I going to get the new students from because they're coming in and your churn churn is how many people leave or how much money you're losing for, I look at churn as how many people are leaving monthly. Your churn is really low. So you're losing a small amount of people and then regaining naturally so because of SEO, like an amazing amount of people. And so once we get there, then we can start looking around and saying, hey, because with the, in the finance space, it's really 10 times the multiple usage. So you're looking at 50 to a hundred million dollars, potentially, you know. And so that, to me, I'm not going to make that a stock market. You know, you know, no, no, that's, that's the Bitcoin money right there. You're not going to get another chance at that. Yeah, that's, you know, but for me, business is, is where I heavily invest because that's one where I'm willing to put the work into learn. And where honestly, I enjoy the most, like, you know, I enjoy being in business. And, and the way it relates to personal finances, you can't get there. If you don't have the foundation, that's why I teach the foundation work is people think sometimes like, I guess because I used to be a preschool teacher, but it's like, oh, you can't get to, to, to 12th grade. If you don't know how to read, you know, like you have to lend your letters or shapes your numbers or nobody wants to learn the stuff from preschool. But like, how do you get into college without the basics? And so before you can play with the big boys and girls, you've got to get the financial foundation down and then grow from there. So, so that's it. First of all, great, great advice and a lot of lessons to pull out of that. But would you recommend, so say somebody does, you know, somebody does clear out their bad debt. So we're talking like 20, 25% debt. And now the options are, okay, so I can go invest some money or maybe I can even start my own thing and build a business or a side hustle. Do you recommend that people do something more risky earlier on? Is there a point where somebody should try and build an income stream for themselves outside of their nine to five, or do you just say, because after you're obviously, that's, you know, that's where you're investing your money. Or should they just invest in the stock market and, and play it safe? I say you should, you should invest where you are willing to do the work. So example, like I, I tried TikTok. I hate it. I hate it. How's it? We went to TikTok. I hate TikTok. And I'm like, so I told myself, I'm going to do myself a 30-day challenge where I'm going to do at least one TikTok, you know, every day for 30 days. I lasted one day's got one day. And I'm like, Tiffany, why are you trying to force yourself to do TikTok? Because you know, you have to have a social media presence for most businesses. And I'm like, why not instead put your energy where you actually want to do the work because it's going to be better, you know, and so it's the same thing when it comes to investing. You want to invest your energy where you're willing to do the investment because it's a lot of work to run a business, but it's also a lot of work. I have a friend who trades. It's a lot of work to trade. So I took her trading class and I started and I was like, this is boring. I hate it. You know, and so I thought, well, why am I doing this when I actually really enjoy business? And I can multiply my ability to grow wealth because I'm willing to spend the time, the energy and the money here. So that's what I said. There's, to me, there's no right or wrong way to invest. If real estate is your thing, you love homes, your father was a contractor when you were a kid and you're so good at it. And you're like, I'm not interested in the market and I'm not interested in starting a business, but I love homes. Then that's where you should put your energy into. You know, so figuring out like where you are willing to do the work. And that's what you should invest in because that's your passion is going to pay you before the profit. Well, really smart. So, okay. So I love that. Okay. So I also want to unpack everything that you're teaching over. It's great that you're teaching it. But why don't we do a better job of teaching this in school? Why is it? Why is education? You know, I think education is very broken. How do we fix this stuff? How do we teach this other? One of the names I was fortunate. And then so I worked with my assembly woman. Her name is Angela D. McNeigh. And in 2019, I got the law pass called the budget east of law. And it makes financial education mandatory for middle school students. So you got a lot passed. Yes. I didn't know that. I thought you were killing me. I was like, oh, he did his research. No, I didn't get that. No, no, no. I wasn't killing you up at all. That's no. I just think I always think education is broken when it comes to what we're focused on and what we teach and financial literacy is just a huge gap. Yes. And so for me, I thought the same. And I said, you know what? I used to teach financial education just on my own to my preschoolers. Like, you know, because when you're little financial education looks like service, giving, it looks like math. It looks like this is a dollar, you know. And so like so I know what age appropriate financial education looks like. And so my assembly woman I told her I was just so frustrated that like these kids are not learning it. And she said, well, thankfully in New Jersey, we're really early adapters for high school students. So there was already a law in place for high school students. And I'm like, that's awesome. But it should be sooner. And so I initially far for elementary and middle school. And there was a lot of pushback. So they allowed the elementary component. But we're going back for element for they allowed the middle school component. But we're going to go back for elementary school because I want at least in the state of New Jersey to start that as soon as you start kindergarten, you're running about money. So by the time you get to middle school, you're like, Oh, okay, I understand a dollar. And I understand savings. I understand, you know, I'm giving. And then middle school, oh, I understand where credit is. And then high school, oh, I understand what earning is. I understand what profit is and losses. So by the time you get to college and you're offered all these credit cards, you're like, Oh, no, no, I learned about that. And fifth grade, I know exactly what's happening here. And so if we could make that work in New Jersey, it's much harder, obviously, to get a national law passed. But if we can work make that work in New Jersey, what happens is oftentimes, and I've gotten this that people will hit me up from other states and say, how'd you do it? And I'll share with them, you know, now connect them to Angela. So I'm like, you know, because this legislator can then talk to your legislator and walk them through what she had to do as far as like the law was concerned. And so, um, yeah, I just think I don't know why it's not taught. Well, here's why at first, education was a function of creating a working class. Think about it this way. It's almost like the matrix. Remember in the matrix, which she realized that like human beings were being bred to be, um, batteries. And so I think that all the time that like sometimes the way education is set up is for you to be a battery to the bigger system. And I'm like, no, let me be neo. We're breaking out. We're breaking out. I love that. I love that. That's so, that's, I love that analogy. That's really smart. So, you know, I just thinking about like my experience and I swear to anyone who's listening, actually did not meet the cure for that. It's awesome. But so I said, honestly, it's just like, it's something I wanted to bring up with you because I thought, yeah, and depending on it, most people that dabble in financial education do. But the reason I bring it up is because I'm pretty sure like the first time that I ever had exposure to anything financial was like somebody pitching me a credit card on a college campus. Yep. That's it. That's about as close as financial education came to actual education. But okay, so we got, we got, we got the whole, the whole premise of education, I think it comes from you right. This, this is, we're creating people to make them hit a standard, but that's it. We don't need to create people that are creating generational wealth. We just need to contribute to society. And contribution to society means a month, a month is fine for contribution to society. But for the average person, that's a pretty city life. Exactly. If you like look at it, look at what's happening now. The other day I went to stop and shop. That's a big supermarket chain here in New Jersey in the Northeast. And they, it's, think about whatever your biggest supermarket is. That's what stop and shop is. There were two cash years. I mean, the longer I was like, what's that unemployment more? The people are making more staying home. Then they are at the stop and shop. That's why they don't want you to make so much money. Because who will work the stop and shop? And maybe employees should just pay more. Exactly. You're out how to do business better. That's a whole other conversation. Exactly. You know, but honestly, that's why the reason. And then I went to the wall grains around the corner and same thing. I was like, wow. So when people have access to more money, they're like, no, I'm not showing up unless you can pay me a livable ways because staying home right now is more of a livable, livable age. And even like the way I, I developed a budgetista, I only grow to the capacity that we can pay well. You know, like in the beginning, it was really hard. I didn't have much money. I remember like the most I could pay, I was like, look, all I could do is $9 an hour. But we're transparent with our numbers. Like everybody gets to see our numbers. And no matter whether your customers, customer support or the CLL here are numbers. Here is for company, our size, we really, you really don't want to have more than 33% of your of say your, your, your income going toward payroll because then you get a little shaky as far as like how solid your company is. So we're at 33%. And so as we do better, we increase. Now what's so great about it is that I don't final traditional rules where it's like, oh, you know, once a year, we're like, no, if we're doing better and it's like a consistent do better. And it's, it's, I see that this is where we are now. And it's three months later, we're increasing. You know, like I've had, I've given, I remember like I call them my lead team. I've given $20,000 raises. Like, you know what? You know, we like, we, we've really banded together six months since the new year. We have taken the business to the next level. So we're going from 60 to 80 now. And they're like, wait, what? And they're like, are we allowed to do that? See, I never worked in corporate America other than like, you know, one on two internships as a team. It's going to screw someone up who's so's worked from the big company. That's not how we do. And I'm like, well, let's check with the CFO. Like, do we have our schizek we do? But people don't usually do that. I'm like, well, is it illegal? She's like, no, I'm like, well, then let's bump them up. And now on the team, the literally there are people on the team that started me three years ago making $9,000 an hour. And make six figures now within three years, because I believe that you pay people well. You might not always be able to in the beginning, but let it not be because you're trying to hold on to all the money for yourself. But we pay people really well. We don't have turn around really at the Bajanista. We pay people well. We treat people well. We operate from a space of integrity and transparency. And as a result, that's why we're able to give so, so much to our audience. That's why you see such an amazing community because they feel taken care of because the team has been taken care of amazing. So these are just all best best practices for building a business. I'm trying to think what else or some other interesting things. We spoke a little bit about financial education, entrepreneurial lessons. Let me check my notes and see if anything else that I wanted to want to go into. Was there anything else that while I'm looking at this, was there anything else that's top of mind for you that financial education, how we pay people, employment, anything else that you stop in mind? Well, this is not like as much financial education as like the lesson that I've been learning lately is to really ask yourself, not so much what do you want, but how do you want? Like how do you want to live? Because I have been broke, broke like 30 year old Tiffany, you know, had less money than 12 year old Tiffany broke. I have been like, you know, just a step above broke preschool teacher, Tiffany making, you know, 39,000 dollars a year, but really that's like next to nothing especially in New Jersey. I had been somewhere in the middle where my business was making six figures and I had been where I am now where my personal network is seven figures of my business makes eight figures a year. So I had been not every stage because I have not been, you know, a hundred million dollars, but it's kind. So the thing that I have realized and observed is that past a certain amount of money, the money doesn't enhance anything. Once I was able like the house that I live in now, my husband now were able to participate cash and I was able to in that same year to pay off my parents mortgage and we send them money every month. I was able to also pay off my student loan debt. You know, we were able to get a rental property and pay for a cash. We were able to purchase our cars and paid for a cash. So my husband and I are debt-free like my nephew Roman. Like we have, we're debt-free like a toddler, although he's unfodler, debt-free like a big boy, that's what we told him. You're a big boy now, debt-free like right now, but the more money that comes in once I got the stability part down, the more money that came in, it did not really affect my day-to-day life. You know, so I really had to ask myself, what is it, how do I really want to live? So I want, you should be considering that now. I want you to assume that you will grow wealth, especially if you're a business owner, assume that eventually with time and effort and personal investment that your business is going to grow and yet you're going to grow wealth, but how will it meet you? I wanted to meet you healthy, happy, whole and wealthy because I myself almost lost sight of that. I just recently came back from a six-week hiatus just to recenter and say, Tiffany, where are we headed? Are we just working to work and to work and to work? Like where are we headed? I think not enough business people talk about that because so many of my friends who have businesses are miserable. You've literally left corporate America because you say it was miserable there only to recreate the misery in your own business. And so I'm just here to kind of like give you like a forecast for, like I am, you know, for those of you who are just starting out, see me as what potentially can be in your future and say, how do I want to meet myself there and make sure to keep that in mind with how you grow your business? I think that's not set enough because everybody wants to talk about profit and loss and money and this and that, but you know, you don't want to have all those things and then have a heart attack and then what? You know? And then what? Yeah, no. One of the points that I thought was interesting that I want you to just, you know, touch on. You're speaking with Lisa Billy and you spoke about money, money just being a mere tool, something you can use to build and or destroy. So walk me through what that means and why people have the wrong perception of what money is. So when I was a kid, my father used to always remind us that like, you know, because he would want money, he'd like, well, money's a tool like a hammer, right? So it's not the money itself. The hammer can be used to build a house. A hammer can be used to destroy a house. So money is a function in that way as well that you can build your financial life with money, you know, or you can destroy your your financial life and your life in general with money, you know, by either overdoing it or underdoing it. And so once you understand that it's not money itself, it's, it's the how you want your life to go. You might realize, I don't need as much as I think. So so vision again, yeah, I don't believe in over sacrifice because it's like, okay, I can make, let's just say your business, the difference between your business making $5 million a year and say $8 million a year is going to your kids basketball game. You need to mean because it could be just that like I could put an extra work and we could get to eight, but is the house paid off? Yes, is the car paid off? Yes, braces are paid for, parents are good, siblings are good. So that extra three, that three million means what? It doesn't change the score of key hits like you're keeping score at what cost it's like, so you don't go to any of your kids basketball games. So you make that extra three life doesn't really change, but it does really change because you've lost the opportunity to build a connection with your kid in a way that's meaningful. And so that's what I'm wanting that like, I want you to assume success, but I want you to plan in advance for how you want it, how you want to meet it. I'm always thinking about that like, so before I took my six weeks off, I used to work darn years, seven days a week, you know, and like my husband gets off at five and I'm gets home by five, 30, but sometimes I would work till like nine, 10 o'clock at night. All these things and I'm like, to be why you are rich already, like not just like, you know, I would say by the time I was 37, I was maybe like assets like seven, a seven figure, you know, network, right? So meaning like if I added up all my assets, including cash, but then yes, you are a millionaire. But now I am a millionaire, not just assets, but like capital, a capital millionaire where I can see millions of dollars by look at my accounts, right? So what are we, what am I chasing? Everyone is good. No one is starving. We're better than not starving. There's there's almost nothing that I can afford that nothing that I can't afford that I would really want. I mean, like I can't afford like a private jet or whatever, but I don't necessarily want a private jet, you know, but so why am I working till 10 if my husband gets off at five? Do I not want a relationship? You know, like a healthy one. So I stopped. I said, I don't work past five, 30. I take Wednesday's light, meaning like no phone calls, though interviews, no nothing. And I take Fridays off and I don't work the weekends and my business is still thriving. But now my relationships are also thriving as well. So I'm just in the beginning now, it's not going to look like that. It looks like a lot more work. But I want you to work toward that and to keep that in mind. Don't sacrifice what's really important just to keep more score with money because what you'll find secretly is the better you are, the easier the money gets to make. Like, now that I have like all this time where I'm like not doing as much as I used to, I have these amazing ideas now. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's worth a hundred million dollars. That one's worth $250,000. That wasn't coming to me before because I was so busy doing I could not be. And so you'd be surprised that you don't have to go as hard as you probably think, at least at this stage of the game. When you're first starting, certainly like the work is required. But have a point, have something in your future where you're saying, this is the, I want to put five years in, 10 years in, 20 years in. But after I hit that, I'm either going to be okay with where I'm at. Or, or I'm, I think that's it. You just have to be okay with where you're at. I think to, like, to almost like put a pin in it because if not, then when you hit that point, if you don't have that foresight, you're just going to, you're going to work yourself until you die. Yeah. And all for what? Like kids that don't know you, you know, spout theft is associated, you know, siblings that like haven't seen you in how many years, you know, and I'm just like, I don't, I don't want that. I have to look, I look at my life now and I'm like, it's really good and not because of anything financial. You know, like, I asked my nephew, what did he want for, for his birthday? And he was like, I want a birthday party at your house because every year for their birthday, we decorate the dining room. And like, well, literally just like dollar store streamers, he's really into dinosaurs now. So everything was green and balloons and that birthday probably cost us $35. And it was the best, you know, like it, I didn't have to spend $3,000 in order to rent out the place. And, and I thought to myself, this is what the function of wealth is to create space for this. Not to buy stuff, but to create space to live the life you actually want to live. Amazing advice. Very good advice. Okay. I want to do, I want to do rapid fire, we're coming up on an hour now. So I want to some rapid fire question. Most importantly, before, before I pivot, I like to ask two things. So what would be one question that I didn't ask you that you would have asked yourself about finance, entrepreneurship? Well, maybe is it hard, because it's really hard to get to the space? And I would say that it can be that it's a lot of work, but it's rewarding work. And oftentimes things are hard because they're meant to prepare you. And that if door one is super easy, then you don't really pick up the key that you're going to need for when you get to door 10. And so that to to reframe what challenges, like I'm excited by challenges because it means that I'm growing, you know, it means that, okay, I'm levelling, I'm literally going from one level to the next. And so that's probably the question, like, is it hard? And I would say yes, but it's meant to be. And although it gets harder, you get better, you know, and it won't feel as hard as you think. Like the things I have to do now are way harder, but I'm way less stressed. And when I first started, because I'm like, I did that year three. And I messed that up year four. Oh, I figured out your five. And so yeah, that's part of the question. Amazing. That's good. That's very good. Okay. And where other other other question is, where do people connect with you? What your socials, your website, all that. So my socials are, and this is what I said to successful, all you business people, it's the budget needs to everywhere. Don't be the budget mama here, the budget queen here, the budget princess on this, but I mean, if you can, it's hard, but really try your best. I did, I did the same. I, I, I, I totally get it. It's easy. It's easy when you got one name for everything. Yeah. So I'm the budgetist on Instagram. I told you I'm on TikTok, but I barely do TikTok Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, um, and the budgetista.com. And if you are interested in learning how to achieve financial homeless and 10 simple steps, you can get my new book get good with money at get good with money.com. Amazing. All right. Okay. So let's do some rapid fire. Okay. So, uh, pick one person in your life that was very impactful. And who was that person? What did they teach you? Um, probably the most impactful person, my father, and they taught me that, um, with hard work, you can overcome just about anything. Good. Good advice. What would be the single biggest challenge you've had in your either personal or professional? You pick one your life. Uh, what was that challenge had you overcome it? Um, this challenge in my life was, um, getting past the fact that it had that imposter syndrome. Um, and because I, I've only done two things, budgetista and preschool teacher. And I still struggle with imposter syndrome now. And the way that I have semi gotten past imposter syndrome is to remind myself of all the things I've been able to accomplish. And so this is not a one hit wonder, you know, like you've got this. This has done what this has done. Well, literally, I was just talking to my coach today. And I was like, Oh, I just feel like maybe, maybe it's all a lot. He's like, really? All of this is locked in. I felt that's how like one coaching and then two, just reminding myself that, um, that the skills that I bring to the table are just as valuable at the skills as the skills that I don't bring to the table. I'm a very soft skills person. And sometimes I feel back if I'm not an engineer and all that stuff. And I can hire out for that. So yeah, that's how imposter syndrome. So be a coaching. And just reminding myself that like, I am capable and I am able what I don't know I can learn or I can hire for. Amazing. Um, a podcast or a book you'd recommend people check out that obviously isn't your own that you've learned from. Um, podcasts. Uh, I would say I really love, um, um, how I built this guy. And uh, a book that was really good. I read a lot. I read like about one to two books a week. Um, a book that was really helpful. Most recently was Shudog by Phil Knight. No light. Yeah. It's a piece of a book. I suggest you get the audible version. Oh, when I tell you, you will. I'm here. Just double world. First of all, I had that little red book of up and, and the marketing. I was like, Oh, I got that book. I see on you. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I have, I think I have an audible version of Shudog. I love that book. It is such a good book because if you're an entrepreneur, Phil made, you almost think to yourself, well, this is not going to work. You have to remind yourself, oh, that's why it's Nike now because he made every conceivable mistake. And yet here we are. Yes. Yes. Yes. He was like several times like just not able to pay people or like very close and not to be able to pay you. Yo, the FBI was called. I mean, I just had to say to you, like, this is Nike. It was so I was I was feeling with anxiety. Like, it was a mystery. I'm like, Tiffany, this is Nike. It works out. This is Nike. It works out. Hey, that's so. Read two dogs of you think that you're making messing up police. Read two dog. That's amazing. All right. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? I would tell her that how she is is exactly how she ought to be. She doesn't have to be a little nerdy, less geeky, less like interested in caring about people that, you know, the how she is is exactly how she's meant to be. Amazing. And then last question, what does success mean to you? Success means to live your life on the terms that you decide. Not that's decided for you externally, family friends, social media, but you choosing how you want your life to go and actually living your life that way.