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Tiffany ‘The Budgetnista’ Aliche’s new book Get Good with Money is geared at helping women to feel financially whole. And after the year that was, it's the book we all need to read. We meet this inspiring woman to find out more about her approach to financial wellness.

“I’m not saying no to brunch, I'm saying yes to Morocco” - this is Tiffany ‘The Budgetnista’ Aliche’s approach to saving and budgeting. And it's an approach that was honed at home, as a child.

“My father took a more academic approach (this is how you budget, this is how you save, this is how you invest) and my mother would take us shopping for food and clothes. I’d watch her navigate these trips with the budget that she had. It was a real-world application of what my father was teaching us at the dining room table.” That might explain why she’s so passionate about helping people to learn the basics of financial fundamentals. Because, as she puts it, “an uneducated investor is just gambling”.

The bestselling author has turned her financial expertise into bestelling books, an award-winning podcast, and a global movement of women - they call themselves the Dream Catchers - who have collectively saved over $200 million and paid off over $100 million in debt. And two years ago, Tiffany left her mark on the American legal system, with the Budgetnista Law making it mandatory for financial education to be integrated into all middle schools in New Jersey. Yes, this is finance like you’ve never seen it.

But while she’s busy changing the world, Tiffany’s philosophy is simple at heart: she categorises spending into four groups: likes, wants, loves, and needs. “Most of us spend too much money on likes and wants because they tend to be less expensive”, she explains. “Our needs and loves we neglect, especially our loves, because it might take a little time to save for them, but love expenditures really lead to a more joyful life. I would love for people to live within their needs and their loves, and spend less on likes and wants, so they have more time for joyful spending.”

Joyful spending? Oh, now that’s something we’re very familiar with. Read on to find out how Tiffany rebounded from financial ruin, saved $40k in two years on a $39k salary, and turned the tables on debt collectors. Prepare to be inspired.

"Whether it's a notebook, a piece of paper, a spreadsheet, your budget has to be a physical picture."

Tiffany Aliche, Founder of The Budgetnista

In my new book Get Good with Money I explore Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole…

Financial wholeness is when these 10 simple steps come together to create a strong financial foundation that the rest of your financial life can be built on. So altogether the steps are budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn, investing, insurance, net worth, your money team (financial professionals), and estate planning.

There are two ways you can dig out of debt…

You can use what's called the snowball method. This is when you pay off a debt with the smallest balance first. Or the avalanche method. This is when you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, because it's the most expensive debt. I like to start off with the snowball method, start off with a low balance debt. And then as the balances go higher, go to the more expensive debt. The balance with the higher interest first.

Learning to earn is probably one of my favorite chapters. It's chapter six…

Here I really walk you through how do you extract additional money from your current job? One of the folders that I suggest people have is called your Go Me! folder. This is whenever you've done a good job at work, you make a folder, almost like you're encouraging yourself, go me, and you put it down inside your folder. Ideally, if you can quantify the job that you've done that's so good, so meaning I saved the company this much money or made the company this much money as a result, that's even better. Because when you have time to go for a review or ask for a raise, now you've got this folder full of all of your excellence and how you have helped the company financially.

I also teach in the learn to earn chapter how to make extra money on the side by tapping into your current skillset. The best thing to do with a side hustle is to, one, look at your lifestyle to see what you're physically able to do and not do, two, look at what you went to school for or what you're currently doing at work because if you can tap in what you have a certificate in or what you have education in, you are likely to make more, and if you can tap into whatever you're currently doing at your job, you don't have to learn a new skillset.

If you're looking to invest for the first time, I would invest in education…

Honestly, the little secret I tell people is look for a free investment class online geared toward children because they tend to explain fully what a stock, what a bond, what a mutual fund is. Sometimes with adults, we over assume that you know. A smart, wealthy investor is an educated investor. Education first so that way you're not just throwing money because an uneducated investor is just gambling. An educated investor is truly investing.

One piece of advice my father gave me that I still live to this day is that money is a blessing…

And with every blessing there's excess. From that excess, you're supposed to give. That money is not just here to enrich you. It's a tool that you can use to help make the world better, and you ought to do so.

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