Tiffany Aliche, 'Budgetnista' is most known for her book, Get Good With Money released in 2021. It became a New York Times bestseller the week it was published. She also promotes financial wellness, literacy, generational wealth practices, and 'noodle budgets' to primarily the Black community. In 2021, Aliche was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and was the first Black woman to be featured solo on the cover of MONEY Magazine.
These days she works as a finance media personality and co-hosts the Brown Ambition Podcast with Mandi Woodruff-Santos, a personal finance journalist. Aliche's second book, 'Made Whole' was released in November of 2023.
Tiffany Aliche talks with Rosemarie Miller about budgeting, her personal journey with building community, and her future endeavors.
These days she works as a finance media personality and co-hosts the Brown Ambition Podcast with Mandi Woodruff-Santos, a personal finance journalist. Aliche's second book, 'Made Whole' was released in November of 2023.
Tiffany Aliche talks with Rosemarie Miller about budgeting, her personal journey with building community, and her future endeavors.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hi everyone and welcome to New Money where we talk to movers and shakers about how they
00:07 made it.
00:08 I'm your host Rosemary Miller and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Tiffany
00:13 Aliche, financial educator and founder of The Budgetnista.
00:18 Thank you so much for joining me today, Tiffany.
00:19 Thank you for having me.
00:21 Absolutely.
00:22 So Tiffany, tell us what inspired The Budgetnista.
00:25 Honestly, Rosemary, all of my own financial mistakes.
00:29 So the recession happened in 2009-10 and by then I was a school teacher.
00:34 I'd been teaching for 10 years and in my 20s I was financially perfect.
00:40 My father was a CFO and an accountant.
00:43 He taught my four sisters and I how to manage our money.
00:46 So I had savings.
00:47 I had a great credit score.
00:49 I just finished my master's in education and I purchased a condo.
00:53 Then the recession hit and I found myself the victim of a credit card scam that left
00:57 me $35,000 in debt.
01:00 So for the first time I had credit card debt.
01:02 I had this new master's that was $52,000 that I now owe and then I had this condo for $220,000
01:09 and then I lost my job because of the recession.
01:11 So many people were losing their jobs during that time.
01:14 Oh my goodness.
01:15 And it was rebuilding from a place of like utter financial destruction that made me think
01:20 I don't want other people to have to do this alone.
01:23 And so I tapped into really my passion for education and teaching and started teaching
01:29 especially other women how to get and stay on financial track.
01:33 So before we dive into many of those challenges, could you tell me what exactly is The Budget
01:38 Nista?
01:40 The Budget Nista is a financial education firm where I teach personal finance through
01:45 books.
01:46 I have a New York Times bestseller, Get Good With Money, and a new book, Made Whole, that's
01:50 coming out.
01:51 Through my online school, The Liberture Challenge, The Liberture Academy rather, I have a podcast,
01:57 Brown Ambition.
01:59 And so any avenue that I can reach people, we teach them how to budget, how to save,
02:05 how to invest, how to fix their credit, how to earn more money.
02:09 So there are 10 components that we really lean into when it comes to teaching financial
02:12 education and we do all of that through The Budget Nista.
02:16 So going back, I love to hear stories about how people overcame adversity and the recession
02:22 hit you and many others pretty hard.
02:26 What was going through your head at that time that made you realize, "Okay, I got to get
02:30 up.
02:31 I got to figure this out."
02:32 It was really hard, honestly, because I had never made mistakes that deep before.
02:39 You're just starting to come into adulthood in your 20s and the choices that you make
02:43 now affect you in real life.
02:46 How are you able to navigate?
02:48 Where are you able to sleep?
02:49 What are you able to eat?
02:51 And so I was making choices and they weren't the greatest choices.
02:55 I was limited in what I knew and so I made big choices that paid off in a way that left
03:03 me really challenged financially.
03:05 And I can remember distinctly, I was fortunate that after losing my job, I was able to move
03:09 back home with my parents, which is not ideal when you're 29, especially if they're Nigerian
03:15 immigrants and very strict.
03:19 But I remember I was sleeping in my middle school bed thinking, "The last time I slept
03:23 in this bed when I was in eighth grade, I had more money as 13-year-old Tiffany in eighth
03:28 grade than I do as 29 going on 30-year-old Tiffany now," because I was babysitting, I
03:33 was tutoring, I used to deliver papers.
03:38 And it made me really sad and it made me really frustrated with myself.
03:43 And I verbally basically mistreated myself like, "Wow, Tiffany, you should be doing better.
03:49 You're a loser," all these things that were really unkind.
03:53 So yeah, it just felt really bad.
03:55 And I know that the financial challenges people are going through now, that there are people
03:59 who might be feeling that same way, not giving themselves the grace and the space to grow
04:05 into the lesson.
04:06 And I certainly was at that place at one point.
04:07 Not giving yourself the grace and the space to grow into the lesson.
04:11 So at what point did you find it?
04:12 How long do you feel like you were down on your luck before you started pulling it back
04:17 together?
04:18 It was a long time.
04:19 So I lost everything financially at like 29, and it didn't take until about 33, almost
04:27 34, that I started to say, "Okay, I got back to pre-recession, like where I was as a preschool
04:35 teacher."
04:36 So not even exceeding, but just like, "I'm finally where I was before I lost everything."
04:41 And so because it's not a quick turnaround, we'd love for it to be, but it's not a quick
04:46 turnaround for many people.
04:47 So it took that long.
04:49 It took that long.
04:51 Give us some steps.
04:52 Like what was that journey like to turning things around?
04:54 Well, first things first, it wasn't these concrete financial steps.
04:59 There were some emotional recalibrations that I had to do.
05:03 So one, I had to find a safe space to share what was happening to me.
05:08 Because when you are struggling, especially with money, there's a lot of shame attached
05:12 to that struggle.
05:14 And shame shields solutions.
05:17 You cannot see, "You know what?
05:18 I can budget.
05:19 I am able to save."
05:20 You're not able to see that.
05:22 And so the only way to shed shame though, is to give voice to it.
05:26 You have to find a safe space to say, "Here's where I am.
05:30 Here's what's happening to me."
05:31 And so for me, it was my best friend, Linda, that she had been reaching out.
05:35 I'd been ignoring her.
05:36 I'd been ignoring all my friends because of the shame.
05:38 The shame wants you to be by yourself.
05:41 Linda finally broke through and I just cried on the phone to her and just shared like,
05:46 "I don't have any savings.
05:48 I lost my job.
05:49 I'm going to lose my condo to foreclosure.
05:52 I have this credit card debt because of a scam."
05:55 And it was really cathartic to let all of that go because I'd been carrying that burden
06:00 by myself, not realizing that there were people in my life that cared about me, that wanted
06:05 to share in that with me.
06:07 And once I told her everything, she said, "That's it?"
06:09 I was like, "Well, what more else could there be?"
06:12 She said, "Well, I'm calling you from my mother's couch right now.
06:15 Like have you taken a look around?
06:16 We're in a global recession.
06:18 So many of us are struggling."
06:20 And it made me realize that one, I wasn't alone, like just globally, but also I wasn't
06:25 alone personally because Linda was right there with me.
06:28 And so when I started to let go of that shame because it was no longer a secret, then I
06:32 started to realize there are some solutions out there.
06:35 Now I can start to put them into place.
06:37 And first things first was just to get a snapshot of where do I stand.
06:41 So getting everything down on paper.
06:43 Who do I owe?
06:45 How much?
06:46 What are my bills?
06:47 What am I making?
06:48 Just a snapshot of my whole financial life down on paper is where I started from, from
06:52 the concrete steps.
06:53 And where did that lead?
06:55 And first, I do want to, I want to acknowledge what you said because it really was like you
07:00 couldn't see the forest where the trees kind of situation.
07:04 And Linda did that for you.
07:06 But did your parents not do that for you since you were there with them?
07:09 No, because I didn't want to tell them because of the shame I had.
07:13 Here I had this father who had a master's in economics and a bachelor's in finance.
07:19 And I didn't, I made choices that I didn't share with him.
07:22 So I was ashamed to say, "I didn't come to you to ask for help.
07:26 Now I'm so far gone."
07:28 And I was not that, I mean, like, I don't know what I thought would have happened.
07:32 I just thought that they were going to be really disappointed in me.
07:34 And I didn't want, you know, I didn't want that disappointment, you know.
07:38 And so, because shame tells you that the thing is bigger than it is.
07:43 You know, that the people that care about you are going to think less of you.
07:46 This is what shame says, you know.
07:48 And so I needed what's called a corrective experience that will tell someone you trust.
07:53 And I did.
07:54 And the corrective experience said, it's not true that you tell someone about a mistake
07:58 that you make and they love you less.
08:00 Or they care about you less.
08:02 Or they respect you less.
08:03 So that was, I told Linda first and then eventually it led me to, you know, telling my parents
08:08 and other people.
08:09 And then eventually the whole world because I started a business based upon my mistakes,
08:12 you know.
08:13 Right.
08:14 Tiffany, I will remember that for the rest of my life.
08:16 Shame shields solutions.
08:18 I will remember that.
08:20 But you wrote everything down and you had, you could see, okay, exactly where you are
08:24 in life.
08:26 What did you gain from that?
08:27 What happened after that moment?
08:29 It made me feel really bad at first because it seemed insurmountable.
08:31 Yeah.
08:32 You know, it can feel like this is a mountain that I'll never be able to climb.
08:36 But at least it gave me a context of where am I.
08:39 And then on the other side, I said, well, where do you want to be, Tiffany?
08:43 Where do you want to be five years from now?
08:45 How would you like this picture to look different?
08:48 Because we have to walk toward something.
08:50 So then I thought, okay, you're here and you want to be here.
08:54 Now the difference between here and here are just steps.
08:58 So what do those steps look like?
09:00 In the beginning, it was like, do you have a working budget?
09:03 You know, like what does that look like for you?
09:05 I was on unemployment, so I wasn't making a whole lot of money.
09:09 My budget said I couldn't even afford all of my bills.
09:11 But what bills can you afford?
09:13 Can you lean in there?
09:15 You know, and then I remember thinking I would love to start saving.
09:18 It took like two years before I could save five bucks a month.
09:21 But I put a plan in place.
09:22 It was like when I am making more than what my life is costing me, I can start to set
09:27 aside.
09:28 I started to aggressively pay down my debt because I knew that that credit card debt
09:34 was cancerous.
09:35 And if I didn't do something to it, it was going to continue to grow and grow and grow
09:39 and really like choke my financial dreams.
09:43 So I started to manage debt better.
09:45 I started to manage credit better.
09:47 And ultimately, I had to learn to earn more money.
09:50 I said, OK, you're on unemployment because your school closed, but there has to be other
09:55 ways that you can make money while you're looking for another job.
09:58 So I started to tutor again.
09:59 I started to babysit again, you know, and then even I started to help people with their
10:03 budget.
10:04 I was always really good at budgeting.
10:05 I'm like, well, maybe I can do that on the side.
10:07 You know, I can charge $100 to sit down and create a budget for you.
10:11 So I started to look for ways to empower myself on the journey.
10:15 And so that's how it all started.
10:16 And honestly, from there, the budget needs to just started to grow because I didn't realize
10:21 how many people were sitting in their own financial shame, how many people needed a
10:26 Linda.
10:27 So I became the Linda to now over two million women worldwide.
10:31 You know, how many people needed guidance and support?
10:35 How many people needed solutions that shame was shielding from them?
10:38 In those early days, when you're getting your first few clients or customers, how did you
10:45 get how did you even find these people, people who were willing to open up and kind of be
10:50 that Linda or you be that Linda for them?
10:53 So I was fortunate because just when I was starting the budget, social media was going
10:57 from you follow people that you know from college to like a broader reach.
11:04 And so I leaned into using social media to post like I'm teaching.
11:10 I did a lot of volunteer work at first.
11:12 So I spoke at churches, people's basements, where I was just teaching basic financial
11:16 education.
11:17 I would share those pictures and posts on social media to say, you know, just volunteer
11:22 to speak at this church.
11:24 And I taught financial education to 10 women, you know, just volunteered at my alma mater,
11:29 where I spoke to the students about budgeting.
11:32 And people started to ask me, can you show me?
11:34 And I thought, oh, wait, I'm posting because it was still very much social media.
11:39 It was about the people that you knew.
11:41 They followed you.
11:42 And my friends were like, I didn't know you did that.
11:44 Can you help me?
11:45 So I started to help them.
11:47 And then they started to tell their friends.
11:48 Tiffany helped to get my finances together.
11:51 And somebody asked me, how much did I cost?
11:53 I remember and I thought, wait, can I charge for this?
11:56 Because in the beginning, I was just helping friends.
11:58 That was like the aha moment.
11:59 Like, okay, when I post what I'm doing, people realize that like, this is what I do.
12:06 And then friends reach out, I help them.
12:08 And then that leads to other business.
12:10 And so that was the first initial business model, this kind of one on ones that I would
12:14 do with people.
12:15 Yeah.
12:16 And when you were doing that in the early days, did you have this feeling like, I think
12:20 this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?
12:23 Well, I knew early on that I was called to be a teacher.
12:28 And I just assumed that it was literally a teacher in the classroom.
12:33 And I lit up teaching like students in my classroom.
12:36 And I thought after my school closed, that maybe that chapter of my life had been closed
12:40 as well.
12:41 I didn't understand that like, no, I am still and will always be a teacher.
12:46 And so helping people to see someone and you meet them.
12:50 And I was uniquely qualified because I taught preschool.
12:54 So there is just the softness and a love that I bring to the table.
12:58 And teaching so many people cried, so many, because you sit with them, they look at their
13:03 numbers, their numbers don't look great.
13:05 They feel ashamed, they feel afraid.
13:07 And so we cry together sometimes.
13:09 And then I would share my story of like all the struggle that I've been through, and how
13:13 step by step I was working my way out and that they could too.
13:16 And so I don't believe that me being a preschool teacher first was coincidental.
13:22 It's like I had to learn to teach from the super like empathetic place, first and foremost,
13:28 before I can go out into the world to help people with their money.
13:31 So you knew you were born to be a teacher.
13:34 Who taught you how to be a businesswoman as the budget needs to start growing?
13:39 So nothing teaches you about business like being in business.
13:42 Although I did go to school, my bachelor's degree is in business with a concentration
13:46 in marketing.
13:47 So I certainly had a foundation there.
13:50 But all the things I learned just super foundational.
13:53 Really it's being in business that you learn how to navigate business.
13:56 Every day I'm still learning 15 years later, the business every single day teaches me something
14:01 new.
14:02 It's exciting, it's challenging.
14:05 It's hard, it's frustrating.
14:08 But it's honestly really wonderful.
14:09 I can't imagine myself not doing anything else, but being in business for myself.
14:13 And what are some of the biggest challenges you've had in business that you've now overcome?
14:17 Just this year alone was a was a really tough financial year.
14:20 So during the pandemic, I had an incredible year in business.
14:25 We hit our first eight figure year in business, we made just over $10 million, which was like,
14:31 oh my gosh, that's amazing.
14:33 And then a few years later, we had a low year, we barely made three, which on the surface
14:38 sounds like a lot of money, but to go from this to this, you know, because it meant letting
14:43 people go and meant reducing some of the services that we that we that we provided.
14:50 And so the challenge of figuring out how do you navigate on so much less was not easy.
14:57 How do you get your team motivated to do work when they know that the numbers are looking
15:02 like not as good as they used to look?
15:04 You know that you can't provide raises like you did before?
15:08 You know, like, personnel is always an issue, you know, like, I've been really fortunate.
15:13 I've always had an amazing team.
15:15 But I remember one year, especially the year that we had our biggest financial year, we
15:20 were bloated.
15:21 We had, I had 30 people working for me, it didn't make sense.
15:24 Because there wasn't actually enough work to go around.
15:27 So how do you navigate that, that you've over inflated how many people work here?
15:31 And now how do you contract in a way that is fair and equitable and kind because you
15:36 have to let people go.
15:38 So there's just so many challenges in business.
15:41 And also to where do you decide to put your energy?
15:44 We are in a place in business now where I have such an amazing team, that anything we
15:48 decide to do, we will likely find success in it.
15:51 But we can't do all the things.
15:54 I get pitched all the time, all of these partnerships, all of these ideas, and I have to decide,
16:00 where's the best return on investment for time, for energy, for peace, not just money.
16:06 And so it's just been a really interesting like just this morning, I was, I have an I
16:10 have a potential business partnership that I have to decide, is the juice worth the squeeze?
16:19 You know, like there's because I'm like, I know we can make money, but we can make money
16:22 so many ways.
16:24 But for the work that this is going to require, is the return on investment worth it?
16:29 Not just the money part, but for the stress to the team and myself, you know, like I as
16:35 I get older, you know, I want I'm thinking about what does it look like to wind down?
16:39 And will this opportunity mean that I have to work longer?
16:43 So these are the types of questions I ask myself as a business owner regularly.
16:48 So what moment in your career did you feel like I made it?
16:53 I don't know that I've ever felt like I've made it.
16:55 There have been a few moments when I'm like, okay, I remember when I was nominated for
16:59 the NWCP award, which is pretty awesome.
17:02 When my book, Get Good With Money made the New York Times Best Sellers list.
17:06 That was incredible.
17:07 Oh, stop there.
17:10 Stop right there.
17:11 Did you ever expect your book to make a New York Times Best Seller list?
17:15 No, it just feels even surreal.
17:17 Yeah, it's been out for two years.
17:20 And so just for context, the average book typically never sells over 1000 copies in
17:24 a lifetime.
17:25 Okay, right.
17:26 So this book has sold nearly 300,000 copies in two years.
17:30 Go ahead, Tiffany.
17:31 So it's just like, I mean, it has surprised me.
17:34 It surprised my, my publisher, not surprised me in that I knew it was going to do well,
17:40 because the the work that my team and I put in to make sure that people knew that the
17:44 book was here and available and here to help.
17:47 So I'm not surprised by that it's doing well, but how much it's touched people.
17:52 How much like, you know, people are really leaning in so much so that I created the workbook
17:57 that we have here made whole.
17:58 Okay, you know, because people are like, I love the textbook of Get Good With Money.
18:03 But now I want to do work alongside the lessons that you're teaching, you know, and so so
18:07 it spawned the second book made whole.
18:09 And so, yeah, that was a huge, like, mama, I made it.
18:14 And then lastly, there was Netflix, I got a Netflix special called Get Smart With Money.
18:21 And so it didn't really click to me until my niece's Amelia is six.
18:26 And she like loves to watch whatever shows on Netflix.
18:29 And she went to open up Netflix at my house.
18:31 And then the trailer for my for my show, Get Smart With Money came up and it was me.
18:35 And she looked at it and looked at me and looked at me.
18:40 She said, Auntie, you're on Netflix.
18:42 I said, I am.
18:43 She said, I want to be on Netflix.
18:44 And it made me think to myself, she can be on Netflix one day, you know, like where her
18:50 favorite shows are, her aunties on there too.
18:53 And it just gave her this thought that like, oh, I didn't even know that real people could
18:57 do something like this.
18:58 So that was a big mama, I made it moment.
19:03 So if you could give one piece of advice, one piece of financial advice, and one piece
19:08 of separate business advice, what would those be?
19:13 So the piece of financial advice that I would give is to start imperfectly.
19:20 You know that I know you're wanting to clear your debt, fix your credit, make more money,
19:26 invest, invest, invest, get your insurance, you have all those things, but you have to
19:31 start somewhere.
19:32 So you want to start imperfectly, even if it just means telling your Linda, here's where
19:37 I stand, writing down all your finances on paper, even if you don't know what to do next,
19:42 just starting imperfectly means that at least you have a starting place because you cannot
19:47 get to the end of this journey unless you put one foot in front of the other and start.
19:53 And so many people never get to where they want to with their finances because they have
19:57 not started.
19:58 And the business advice.
20:00 So business advice, build relationships because there is no way that you are going to navigate
20:07 the business landscape by yourself.
20:09 I tell my team all the time when they ask me like a question, I don't know that just
20:14 like you, I just got here today too.
20:17 This is a new day in business.
20:18 That's a new challenge.
20:20 But because I built relationships, I have mentors that I can reach out to.
20:24 I have peers that I can reach out to.
20:26 I even have mentees that I can tap into.
20:29 And so I'm never alone in the process.
20:31 It makes the process fun.
20:33 It makes the process possible.
20:36 And you get to be a resource as well as tapping into other resources.
20:40 Relationships are going to be everything in business.
20:43 So what's next for you, Tiffany?
20:45 So what's next is that hopefully Made Whole will do just as well as Get Good With Money.
20:52 And honestly, I don't know.
20:55 I am in a space now where I am transitioning into what does it look like to be what I call
21:02 less Jay-Z and more Sean Carter, right?
21:06 So less on the front end of like the performer, you know, and more really the back end.
21:11 Of course, I still do the business on the back end, but I want to kind of retreat from
21:14 public life and really maybe help other businesses.
21:17 I do a lot of mentorship, you know, so help other businesses get to where they want to
21:22 go to.
21:23 So I'd love to do that to be still really active, still really engaged, but more on
21:27 the back end and less on the front end, I think.
21:29 You truly are a teacher at heart.
21:32 Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Tiffany.
21:34 Thank you for having me.
21:35 Absolutely.
21:36 you
21:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]