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Tiffany Aliche went from being the victim of a $30,000 credit card scam to one of America’s foremost financial educators and authors.

As a former teacher, she saw a gap in the way women learned and spoke about finances — so she built a platform with education at the heart.

During the episode, we touch on some big topics like the racial wealth gap and the appraisal crisis for minorities.

Tiffany also sheds light on the unique forms of shame that minority communities feel around money, and why it’s so important to celebrate Black Joy instead of focusing on Black Trauma.

Tiffany has so many great stories and stats to share, but the last 30 minutes of this episode are absolute FIRE — especially if you’re striving to be a better ally to the BIPOC community.

There is a LOT of information in this episode, so we’ve created a lengthy list of resources for you below to help you better engage with topics like the racial pay and wealth gap, as well as keeping up with current legislative efforts to remove bias from the home appraisal industry.

Tiffany’s Links: 

The Budgetnista Website

Book – Get Good with Money

Brown Ambition Podcast

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Not sure where to start with your finances? Take the free Money Personality Quiz to get tailored resources for your financial journey!

Timestamps

8:10 –  Why it’s important for women to talk about money.

11:58 – The beginnings of The Budgetnista.

15:47 – The story of the $30,000 credit card scam (and how to avoid it).

31:02 – Working through shame around money.

37:00 – Closing the racial wealth gap through knowledge, access, and community.

39:09 – What is the appraisal gap, and how does it influence the racial wealth gap?

45:30 – The bill aiming to make appraisal discrimination illegal, and why massive change hinges on policy change.

51:24 – The financial challenges facing BIPOC in managing their money and building wealth.

1:07:22 – More on Tiffany’s book, Get Good with Money.

1:08:30 – Celebrating Black Joy.

1:12:29 – Three ways white people can be better allies:

1. Mentoring Black and brown people, especially in corporate settings

2. Speak about them positively when they’re not in the room

3. Listening and recognizing your own unconscious bias

Other Resources

Our HYSA recommendation

Sandy Smith’s Hustle Crew

Dr. Hans – The Investing Tutor

Stephanie O’Connell

Farnoosh Torabi

Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals

Present-Day Racial Discrimination in Home Buying and Home Appraisals

Examining the Black-White wealth gap

9 Charts About Wealth Inequality in America

Families of Color-Covid 

Black Wealth Matters-Farnoosh Torabi

8 Black Women Changing the Face of Money

The Cost of Undervaluing Black Homes: 156 Billion

Depleting Capital? Race Wealth and Informal Financial Assistance

Black-White Student Loan Debt more than triples after Graduation

Chance of Becoming a Millionaire by Race

NBER Ban the Box Results

Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys

⅓ Lifetime Likelihood of Imprisonment Black Men

There is no upward mobility amongst black men

Women Fighting the Racial Wealth Gap

Why Can’t We Close the Racial Wealth Gap? Bloomberg

Transcript

Tori Dunlap:

Hello team. Welcome back. Welcome back to Financial Feminist. I am Tori Dunlap, money speaker and educator, founder of Her First $100K, and that girl who has no original thoughts, because they’re all John Mulaney quotes. Today’s guest … Gosh guys. I’m so excited for this. Today’s guest is Tiffany Aliche, AKA the Budgetnista. She’ll introduce herself way better than I can, but I knew she had to be a guest on the show when we were launching the podcast.

Tori Dunlap:

I mean, she has a fucking law named after her, focusing on financial literacy for kids in Jersey. This is something we’ll discuss when we get into the episode but I mean, how dope is that? We talk about the racial wealth gap, how her work as a teacher led her to educating others about money, and that one time she lost $30,000 on an investing scam.

Tori Dunlap:

You all know
I love grifters, but this is one of those stories that you need to hear in order for you to not fall victim as well. This episode is going to make you laugh and cry. I cry yet again, in this episode. You’re going to realize that I cry in almost every episode of the season. The conversations are just that good. She’s been one of those people, one of those women in the personal finance space that I’ve looked up to for years, and I absolutely loved our conversation.

Tori Dunlap:

So as always, if you love this show, rate and review, subscribe, tell your friends. We appreciate your support of our mission and this movement that we’re building here at Her First $100K here at the Financial Feminist Podcast. So enough of me, let’s dive in, let’s do this.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s so good to see you. It’s so good to finally meet… I realize we haven’t actually met before.

Tiffany Aliche:

I know, I was thinking that. I was like, “How haven’t I met Tori?” You know what, the social media streets is just, you feel so familiar, because you’re like, “Oh, hey. Yeah. Oh congrats.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tiffany Aliche:

Then you’re like, “Wait, I’ve never met her. We haven’t even spoken.” So this is awesome.

Tori Dunlap:

I know. You look great in yellow, by the way. That is your color.

Tiffany Aliche:

Thank you.

Tori Dunlap:

You look fantastic.

Tiffany Aliche:

Thank you. With my book dropping, I have so many interviews, so I was like… I’m not usually a makeup girl, but I had to learn quickly in quarantine.

Tori Dunlap:

We’re not using the video other than promotional purposes, but you’ll see… if somebody follows either of us on Instagram, you’ll see that she’s beautifully made up, and I am in a sweatshirt and no makeup because that’s my life now.

Tiffany Aliche:

This is a sweatshirt straight from Target. I think it’s actually a pajama top, but it looks so cute. Yes, from Target.

Tori Dunlap:

It does.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. I know you would never know and I’m almost positive, it’s a pajama top, but it doesn’t look like it.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s very smart. I will often do business top, party on the bottom.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

So I’ll do leggings or sweats on the bottom and then I’ll just put a sweater on, which is professional enough, but it’s still comfortable.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes, I do too, like literally, I’m wearing my husband’s sweatpants at the bottom, and every once in a while, if I’m recording something like the news or whatever and they’re like, “Oh, can you adjust the window in the back?” I’m like, “You’re going to see my bottoms.”

Tori Dunlap:

Just temporarily.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

You’re going to see what’s going on down below. That’s so funny. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for joining us. I don’t have to tell you that I admire you and your work so much, a shit ton and I am so honored just to have you on the show and to be able to chat with you. Tell us who you are and tell us about your kind of financial journey, because it’s very unique, I think, amongst us financial experts. You kind of had a winding non-linear past, so talk to me about that.

Tiffany Aliche:

Well, I am Tiffany Aliche, but much better known as The Budgetnista, financial educator, and I didn’t think I was going to become… I think like most of us, didn’t think we were going to become financial educators.

Tori Dunlap:

Nope.

Tiffany Aliche:

I did know I was going to be an educator. So before I started as the Budgetnista, I actually was a teacher. I got my master’s in education, and I thought maybe I’d be a principal. The finance stuff really just was stuff I learned at home. My father was a CFO and an accountant. So normally… I’m born and raised here in America, but my parents were raised in Nigeria. It’s a very male dominated culture.

Tiffany Aliche:

So normally, if we would’ve had a brother, it would’ve been, I teach the brother, “Oh, the financial man things,” and then brother will take care of sisters. But after one girl, two girls, three girls, five girls, my mom was like, “There’s no more babies coming. We’re not having anymore of this.” I’m one of five girls.

Tori Dunlap:

So it sounds like you need to teach all of our daughters about money.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes, right. Isn’t that so awesome though? I think about that all the time. I promise you, if I would’ve had just one brother, I wouldn’t have known anything. So my dad was like, “Well, then just come on down.” So, he taught us like… It was intentional, literally, Thursday nights, we would have our family meetings. We would play board games and things like that, but we would also be like, “This is how you budget. This is how you save.”

Tiffany Aliche:

You got your first job, you would bring your paycheck to my dad and he would show you like how to separate your money and what things that… what did you buy and what category would that go in? When I went off to college and tried to understand credit cards, my dad helped me navigate through. It was the best thing ever.

Tiffany Aliche:

Then, I also learned how to mow the lawn. Literally, I was like, “I don’t want to learn.” He’s like, “You’re going to learn.” I learne
d how to change my own oil, because he was like, “You have to know all the things,” and he’s since come around and realized that, “I’m glad that I had all girls,” and I’m glad that I realized the value and the benefit and kind of like the culture that I grew up, and I understand why it was so, but he said it doesn’t make sense, women have to learn how to take care of themselves as well.

Tiffany Aliche:

I remember him telling me like, “I’m glad you guys are so well prepared because I want that if you decide to ever get married, it’s a choice rather than you feeling like you must for someone to take care of you.” So that was like the best.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s amazing.

Tiffany Aliche:

That’s what I grew up with, and it was just something that I shared with my friends all the time, especially, when I went to college. My college roommate had debt collectors calling the dorm room, and I never even heard of that before. We thought it was hilarious because you’re like 17, 18. We’re like, “Oh, perfect time for prank calls.” We’d pick up with different voices or like-

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 00:06:22] “Would you like to order a pizza?”

Tiffany Aliche:

Nobody lives here. I went home to tell my dad like, “Oh my God, let me tell you what happened this weekend. The debt collector is calling the room.” He’s like, “Tiffany, that’s serious.” I’m like, “Is it?” And he was like, “This is what you tell her.” So that was the first time that I took what I learned and shared it with someone, and I was like, “Okay,” so I was counseling her directly like, “My dad said, you should do this. My dad said…” and then it became the things that I learned, that I just retained and knew like, “No girl, you should do that.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Then what happened is, you know how news spreads, especially on college campus, sometimes it’s like, “Oh, she’s really great at relationship advice, like oh my gosh, she’s really good,” like if you need someone to read over your paper and check for grammar, I became, “You have a money issue, go see Tiffany.”

Tori Dunlap:

It’s Tiffany.

Tiffany Aliche:

I loved it. So what it did was, it made me take more classes and learn more because people had questions that I didn’t have answers to. I was like, “Credit? Never thought about it. Let me learn more,” and then I was already in school, at first, my initial major was finance, so I took all my finance classes and realized it seemed like a pretty boring afterlife after college. I was like-

Tori Dunlap:

Afterlife.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, “I don’t want it,” but I had taken all those classes. Then once I graduated, for me, in particular, I just remember thinking, “How do you want to live life, Tiffany?” I’m still big on that now, that money is cool and everything, but how do you actually want to live your life?

Tiffany Aliche:

You had some internships in corporate America, and you felt like dying on the inside. Is that what we want to do for the money, to die on the inside every day? I’m so dramatic. I was like, “Do you want to die on the inside, Tiffany?”

Tori Dunlap:

That’s how I felt too, but it’s really funny you bring that up because I had a very similar financial education where it was like, my parents taught me how to money, don’t over spend on credit cards, budget, learn how to negotiate. I saw my dad negotiate our cable bill on the phone, once every other month. My mom would balance a checkbook and I thought that was normal, and the same thing, I got to college and I was like, “Oh, no one… this is not normal.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Especially not normal for women, and I was the friend, all of my friends were coming to for advice and guidance. So, it was like… so we have very similar stories, which I don’t know.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, so it was very much the realization that, “Oh, this is not normal, and it’s not normal for most women. If you would’ve had a brother, he would’ve been educated and you wouldn’t have.” We both hear these stories all the time of, “Yeah, my husband manages the finances and I don’t,” or, “Yeah, my dad taught my brother, but he didn’t teach me.” That’s why I think it’s so important that we talk about money as women.

Tiffany Aliche:

No, absolutely, because, two, it gives you freedom and you get to choose how you want to navigate. What it did too, was it wasn’t just freedom of choosing like a mate, but it was really like once I graduated college, I remember thinking like, “Okay, so you had these internships in corporate. You hated it. Now what?”

Tiffany Aliche:

I felt pretty solid and I can choose something where I’m going to make less and be okay, but that’s huge to be able to say, “Do I choose a job…” I think like the corporate job, it was like, I was working… so ShopRite is a big supermarket chain here in the East Coast. So, Wakefern is their parent company and I was working in Corporate Wakefern, fun, and they offered me like-

Tori Dunlap:

It sounds thrilling.

Tiffany Aliche:

I know, it was… Not. And so they offered me a position, it was going to start at $50,000 a year, which 2021-

Tori Dunlap:

You’ve never seen that amount of money.

Tiffany Aliche:

What?

Tori Dunlap:

Same thing with me I was like… my first job out of school was 55, and I was like-

Tiffany Aliche:

That’s a lot of money.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s a lot of money.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s more money than I’ve ever seen in my life.

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly, and it’s not like you have a ton of bills, but then I remember the thing I really enjoyed was, I really love teaching. In the summertime, a friend of mine worked as a teacher and I would go to her classroom, sometimes help out, and read to the kids, and I taught Sunday school, and I just really loved teaching, but I was afraid to say, “I want to be a teacher,” because I know it doesn’t pay as much.

Tiffany Aliche:

I secretly found a teaching job and it paid 39,000. The part I was worried about was more so disappointing my parents, and not taking a more “prestigious job.” I wasn’t worried about the finances because I knew how to manage on the 39. So knowing about money and understanding money, allows you to make choices that are in your best interest, not just like who you’re going to be with, but like what you do with your life.

Tiffany Aliche:

So, I chose to teach, and when I tell you Tori, I loved it because I taught preschool. I’m like, is there anything cuter than a three and four year old?

Tori Dunlap:

No. They’re the cutest. They just line up and they’re like, “Hi, you want to play in the sandbox and be best friends?” They’re like, “Yes.” That’s how you make friends when you’re four. It’s just like, “Would you like to be my friend?” “Yes, I would.” I wish we would do that now.

Tiffany Aliche:

They’re just learning, because they have just enough language to express themselves and be hilarious without knowing it.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

Just knowing not enough that they haven’t picked up on like all the bad habits that we have as adults. So they’re just like delightful and I loved it, like literally my friends would call me, and I’d be like, “Oh girl, I got to go, I’m next on the swings.” They’re like, “Wait, what?” My friends who worked in corporate.

Tori Dunlap:

They’re on their lunch and you’re like, “Yeah, I’m taking care of human beings. No big deal.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. So, like I said, I didn’t in comparison to my friends who went to law school or who were lawyers or who worked in corporate, I was making a good chunk less, but what I noticed was, I had more saved. I didn’t have credit card debt, and I was in a better financial situation than my friends. So they started to lean on me again and said, “How? Because you make less than us and you seem to be doing better financially?”

Tiffany Aliche:

Then, when I found, because I worked in a school… I worked in a place in town that was like… they were just people who were really struggling financially, so parents sometimes would ask to borrow money, and I’d be like, “Well, I can’t do that, but during that time, when the kids go to sleep, you can come in and I can help you with your budget. I can help you show you how to save.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I remember because my dad taught me when I was a teenager, how to do my own taxes, and I remember especially in this neighborhood… people were spending hundreds of dollars on going to like the local tax… like H&R block or whatever.

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, I bought TurboTax for my computer, and I remember one day, I’m doing my tax on my computer, and my fellow teachers were like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m doing my taxes.” They were like, “Wait, you know how to do taxes?” I’m like, “Well, TurboTax, just basically just walk through.” They’re like, “Can you do mine?” I’m like, “No,” because the teacher in me is always like, “I can show you, sit next to me.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Because I wanted to be able to empower you to do it. TurboTax cost me like 80 bucks, I think it was like my sisters and I used to split, like 20 from you, 20 from you and we would use it.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

So then the teacher-

Tori Dunlap:

I’m going to teach you how to fish, instead of having them-

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

Giving them fish, let me teach you how to fish. Yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

And I didn’t think like that. Okay, this is the start of the Budgetnista. I enjoyed it so much that the parents would come during nap time, the teachers would come, the handy men would come, who were like helping to clean up, and like literally… so, I remember thinking, because I really do believe that the purpose of life is to live a life of service. So I remember thinking, “I like this. I want to do more of this for volunteer work.” So, that’s how, and originally, when I started the Budgetnista, it was going to be a nonprofit.

Tiffany Aliche:

I asked my baby sister, what should I call myself? because I was going to donate my time to boys and girls clubs and YMCAs and schools and things, and Lisa at the time was… I think she was in college or high school. She was like, “You know the fashionista and how well she dresses.” I was like, “Yeah,” she’s like, “That’s not you,” because baby sisters were born to be shady.

Tori Dunlap:

They’re honest.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, “What?” She was like, “You’re pretty cheap. I would call you The Budgetnista.” I was like, “I actually like that name, you shady, shady McBaby.”

Tori Dunlap:

The branding expertise. My goodness.

Tiffany Aliche:

So, The Budgetnista was, it was originally the name that I was just going to use when I went into school systems, so it wouldn’t seem so scary for the kids to hear about money. So that was in 2008, and then 2009… the recession hit in 2008, but it did
not affect me and I wasn’t worried, because I thought teachers didn’t lose their jobs. The 2009, I was wrong because we were nonprofit based, so I lost my job three days before the new school year, and it was devastating-

Tori Dunlap:

Oh gosh.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah. So if you’re a teacher, you know that usually you save your money for the summer, and by the end of the summer, you’re depleted your savings because you lived off your savings from not working. So some school systems will pay you through the school year, and some will only pay you for 10 months, and they say, “Save your money,” and you have to live off that, or maybe you work during the summer to make extra money.

Tiffany Aliche:

So I always saved a chunk to live off, during the summer so I didn’t have to work. So, I was depleted basically, my saving like, “That’s okay. We’re about to start school,” and we got the call, and they were like, “We weren’t able to get our funding from our corporate sponsors, so school is closed indefinitely.” I remember being like… Because there were a series of misfortunate events that happened prior to that, in that like I was victim of credit card scam that left me $35,000 in debt. So I was coming-

Tori Dunlap:

Tell me about that.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

How did that happen? How do you recommend people avoid that?

Tiffany Aliche:

Listen to that voice that’s screaming inside you, “Don’t do it!”

Tori Dunlap:

I know. Trust your gut. Always..

Tiffany Aliche:

I wrote about it actually in my new book, “Get Good with Money.” So I called this guy, Jake, the thief. So Jake, not his real name. I had met him on spring break, like I don’t know, maybe when I was like 22 or whatever, we became friends and I just remember we’d probably been friends by the time the scam happened, five years. So he wasn’t a new person.

Tiffany Aliche:

We used talk all the time and he… when you’re young, because something looks like money, you think that people actually have money. I’m old enough now to know anybody can pretend. He had a really nice apartment, penthouse apartment. One of these really fancy cars. He always had some amazing watch on. I thought Jake was wealthy, and I remember asking Jake like, “Jake, how do you make your money? Because I want to learn how to invest.”

Tiffany Aliche:

He was like… because he told me like, “Oh I invest, and that’s how I make money. I’m like, “Perfect.” Instead of asking my seasoned father who could have like… I was like, “Why ask my father? Let me ask Jake the thief?” So, Jake was like-

Tori Dunlap:

You dad is index funds in this perspective and Jake is like-

Tiffany Aliche:

Like the hot stuff, he’s GameStop.

Tori Dunlap:

GameStop. Yeah, exactly.

Tiffany Aliche:

Because I honestly, my dad that… you’re exactly right Tori, my dad was slow and steady. That was his favorite phrase is, “Slow and steady wins the race.” And I was like, “Not interested in that. I want to get in the race fast.” Honestly, because here’s really what I wanted to do. My dad and mom worked so hard. They immigrated here from Nigeria, that secretly, I wanted to retire them.

Tiffany Aliche:

So I wanted to learn how to invest so I could make a lot of money, so I could save, because my mom was a nurse and it’s hard on the body being a nurse and I just wanted them not to have to work anymore. So Jake told me… He gave me a bunch of options. I can’t remember like what specifically they were, but the option that I chose to invest, he said, “Well, he’s originally from Paris, France, and he has a number of stores there, and they love Levi’s and Converse,” like how we like French perfume, and it’s more money here, but you get into France, it’s cheaper.

Tiffany Aliche:

So these American goods, authentic American goods can be sold for more in his stores. It was if I invested… how much did he say? It was $20,000, that we would buy $20,000 worth of goods, and then he would sell it and it would yield me, $2,000 a week for two years. I don’t even know how the math worked out, but it sounded like good to me. I was like, “Bet.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I had one little tiny credit card with like a $500 limit that my dad told me to get when I was in college that I paid off every month in full. You do the math.

Tori Dunlap:

I’m literally doing the math.

Tiffany Aliche:

How much is that? 2000. So, what is that 2000 * 52.

Tori Dunlap:

2000 * 52 * two.

Tiffany Aliche:

How much is that?

Tori Dunlap:

That’s 208 bucks. So you invested like 10%, right?

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. So that’s because … me I was like, “Well clearly Jake, can’t be lying. He’s my friend.

Tori Dunlap:

The math works.

Tiffany Aliche:

I’ve known him for five whole years and look at his watch. I mean he’s-

Tori Dunlap:

Great, and the math works. The math works, great. I love this math.

Tiffany Aliche:

Right, and honestly in the back of my head, there was like, “Hmm, it seems like a lot.”

Tori Dunlap:

Too good to be true. Seems too good to be true.

Tiffany Aliche:

He’s my friend. He wouldn’t do that. I’ve known him for too long, and then, I could have at least like run it by my father and say, “Hey daddy, here’s a proposition that a friend of mine made. What do you think?” He’d have been like, “Girl, it’s a lie. These numbers don’t even make sense. Nobody invests…” not to say it’s impossible, but it’s very unlikely to invest $20,000 and get back 200,000+.”

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and the risk you have to take on too.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s what I tell all these people with the GameStop and all of that shit is like, “Okay, you may have won big, but how much did you have to risk in order to do that or how much did you lose in order to get that amount of money?”

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

So is Jake doing this on purpose?

Tiffany Aliche:

Well, I think that he was doing this to multiple people. That’s how he had all the stuff, now that I could step back.

Tori Dunlap:

He wasn’t like an innocent person where he was like, “I’ll recruit you.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Oh, no, no. He was a thief.

Tori Dunlap:

Okay, so he knew.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Got it.

Tiffany Aliche:

He said, Tiffany… I said, “Well I don’t have $20,000,” because I didn’t. I was not saved up. He said, “That’s okay. You can open up additional credit cards.” Tori [crosstalk 00:20:20]. “You can open up additional credit cards and do what’s called a cash advance,” which you might as well just jump out the window. So I was like, “Oh, sounds good to me.”

Tiffany Aliche:

It’s like, warning, warning, warning and when I tell you I ignored, I remember in particular, I went to a bank with one of my credit cards and I went and I said, “Hey…” I think this bank I was taking out $10,000 from that particular, because I had to open up multiple cards to get the full 20.

Tiffany Aliche:

Literally, the bank people kept me there for an hour. They were like, “Are you okay? Are you being threatened?” You think Tori, I would’ve been like, “Why would they ask that?” I was like, “No,” because I looked so young to be taking out $10,000 with a card that I just opened up. They were running-

Tori Dunlap:

You’re also young and you don’t know any better.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

You don’t know banks usually don’t ask this question to me.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. So I was like, “No, I’m fine,” and they were just like, “Are you sure? Is someone forcing you to do this?” I was like, “No.” I mean, I can’t believe it, literally I was just sitting there and it’s so crazy, when I used to teach preschool, they used to make us wear nursing scrubs. So I’m wearing my nursing scrub with the teddy bears on top and picking the buses. It’s just like… So they probably-

Tori Dunlap:

So you probably look like this, completely innocent [crosstalk 00:21:36]

Tiffany Aliche:

So they gave me the money in cash. I was like, “Thanks guys,” because they did every-

Tori Dunlap:

I appreciate it.

Tiffany Aliche:

I know because everything we did-

Tori Dunlap:

I’ll be back in two weeks, depositing $2,000.

Tiffany Aliche:

The thing is, I was like, “I’m not a fool. Me and Jake signed a contract.” So we did sign a contract, but a contract that’s not enforceable, we can’t find the person. As soon as I gave him the money, he’s like, “Give me a couple weeks. I’m going to sell the goods. We’ll be good to go.” I said, “Okay.” In the meantime, I was like, “You know what? I never really had a credit card before, like one that I could use.”

Tiffany Aliche:

It was like burning a hole in my hand and I was like, “You know what, I’m about to have all this new money. I should learn how… maybe I’ll start a business.” So there was… I won’t say the financial guru’s name, because he’s still active.

Tiffany Aliche:

There was a financial guru who had this an online course before online courses are all the rage right now, and you could take this course. It was like a one year, two year course, and they would like walk you through starting and launching your business.

Tori Dunlap:

Does his name happen to sound like Rave Dampsey?

Tiffany Aliche:

No.

Tori Dunlap:

We can cut this out.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah. He’s the worst. No, you don’t have to cut that out girl, please. Me and Mandy went in on him on my podcast. Brown Ambition.

Tori Dunlap:

So I have been publicly, for like years, we can talk about that if you want to. We’ll talk about the racial wealth capital [crosstalk 00:22:57].

Tiffany Aliche:

We will. This is why it’s so important because so many of us black and brown folks are not privy to financial education, so you are vulnerable to things like this, so it all ties in. Anyway, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I really want to learn how to start a business,” so I bought his program for the tune of $15,000.

Tiffany Aliche:

So all of a sudden I went from no credit card debt to, in like one week, $35,000 in credit card debt. I was feeling good.

Tori Dunlap:

You had lifestyle inflation before your lifestyle had even inflated.

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. So, it took me like a couple weeks. I was like, “I have not heard from Jake the thief.” So I’m calling him, calling him, calling him. Frantic, frantic, frantic, and what’s so bad, for six months, he strung me along. “You didn’t get it? It’s coming. Check your inbox. What? Let me call.” So, I wasn’t-

Tori Dunlap:

I’m obsessed with con people. I love reading the con stories and that is the classic thing.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

They either cut and run or they just say like, “Oh, you didn’t get the transfer. Let me do it again.”

Tiffany Aliche:

And I was like, so I wasn’t feeling scared. I was like, “Jake, it didn’t come through.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tiffany Aliche:

“Oh no, call the bank,” all of this. Then he tried to get more money out of me. He was like, “Oh, while I’m waiting for this, do you think you can lend me something for this?” I was like, “Well, Jake, I haven’t gotten my initial money yet.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Anyway, it took me honestly, I would say a full year for it to sink in that I was not going to get my money because then he stopped answering my calls.

Tori Dunlap:

I’m so sorry.

Tiffany Aliche:

No, honestly, I’m grateful for it because up until then I was basically financially perfect. Credit score was like 802. I had savings. My retirement account, I was maxing it out every year. I was doing everything right, but I was just doing what I was told. So I stepped out at my own, and made this mistake, and it forced me to learn for myself, how to fix myself, and in turn, that’s what I used to help other people.

Tiffany Aliche:

It wasn’t like I couldn’t go to the credit card company, I did and said, this is what happened. They’re like, “Yes, but you participated unfortunately, in your own scamming.” So, I owed the $35,000 and it was hard because it…

Tiffany Aliche:

Normally, I didn’t want to take responsibility, honestly. I said, “No, I’m going to find Jake. He’s going to pay me.” So for a year, I just paid the minimums, and had I buckled down, I could have least shaved, maybe $10,000 off because by then maybe I was making like $50,000 as a teacher or 60,000 as a teacher-

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and it’s also tanking your credit score while this is happening most likely-

Tiffany Aliche:

I had no idea like, “Well, whatever that means.” Because what had prior to that had happened is, I bought a condo for $220,000, so now I have a mortgage. My undergrad, I commuted, so I was able to pay off the little bit of student loan debt that I did have, because my parents helped pay for undergrad, but I got my masters, so now I have $52,000 in student loan debt for the first time, and then there’s $35,000 in credit card debt.

Tiffany Aliche:

So I went from like no debt to being like $300,000 in debt. Then, like I said, I didn’t want to take responsibility for that debt, the credit card debt to shave it down. Then 2009 when I finally was like, “Okay, Tiffany, we’re going to buckle down. We have to get rid of this credit card debt.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I know you feel wronged by Jake, but you have to get rid of it and then, to find out, “Oh, by the way, there’s no job to go back to.” I was like, “Does it get worse than this?” Scammed, all this money owed, no money coming in. There was no person that came to save me, I had to step by step, pay off. I lost my house to foreclosure. All that money that I had put into the house, gone. I had to move back home with my parents.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was fortunate that I could sleep, and back in my middle school bed for a year. Then I slept on my sister’s couch for a year. I dug my way out. I paid off the credit card debt. I considered filing for bankruptcy, but I decided not to because I just didn’t want that stain. I’m like, “You already have foreclosure girl. We can’t be long and strong.” Student loan debt, I was just a deferment queen.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, thank God they were federal student loans. I was like, “For parents, see you in two years.” I just kept doing it [crosstalk 00:27:17]. As I was like cleaning myself up and fixing myself. It took a moment because it was about a year and a half where I just fell into a deep depression, and I did nothing. Except everything was kind of automated, like the credit card debt, I was paying, like just the minimums with the unemployment that I was receiving, and then, a friend of mine kind of like shook me up, because I was deep in shame.

Tiffany Aliche:

Like me, Tiffany, “Good with her money Tiffany” was deep in shame. Then, a friend basically let me know that I don’t have anything to be ashamed about, that so many people were struggling, and that I made a mistake. I had not kicked a puppy. Girl, you messed up with your money. It happens. So, that’s what it took to kind of shake me up-

Tori Dunlap:

It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make-

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. You and I we’re on the same page. I don’t believe in that shame financial education, like what are we doing?

Tori Dunlap:

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Tori Dunlap:

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. That’s all one word Better H-E-L-P. So last time you heard from me and Sophia, we had just gotten paired with our new therapist through BetterHelp. And I think I speak for both of us when I say we are so impressed.

Sophia:

Very, very impressed within hours of being paired, my therapist sent over incredibly thorough forms, explaining different training techniques and anxiety and depression analysis form, and my personal favorite, a goal setting form.

Tori Dunlap:

Same, my biggest goal for therapy is setting better boundaries around my work. Something that I’ve struggled with since I began Her First $100K, and honestly before that too. So I made sure to note that I wanted to focus on that in my paperwork, and as soon as my first session was booked, I had a boundaries worksheet in my inbox.

Sophia:

Your therapist was helping you before you even had your meeting.

Tori Dunlap:

Exactly.

Sophia:

And speaking of meetings, when I was ready to schedule my first meeting with the therapist, her calendar was full, so I used BetterHelp’s chat feature to shoot her message and she opened up a time for me.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s amazing, especially when you’re like us and our schedules can be really unpredictable.

Sophia:

I honestly can’t wait for our next session and I cannot recommend BetterHelp highly enough.

Tori Dunlap:

I’m so glad I want everyone to have that feeling. As a special offer for Financial Feminist listeners, get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/ffpodcast. That’s 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/ffpodcast.

Tori Dunlap:

I’m realizing you’re my second recording and I’m realizing already that I think the unfortunate theme of this podcast is just going to be shame is bullshit, right?

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

And there’s so much shame entrenched in money and personal finance. I spoke to Jane Marie, who’s the host of The Dream, which is the podcast, all about MLMs.

Tiffany Aliche:

Okay.

Tori Dunlap:

So your take on the fact that you felt like, “Okay, he’s going to pay me. He’s going to pay me. He’s going to pay me,” and you held out.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

We saw a similar thread talking about MLMs, if people get in and they immediately realize, or they realized over time, “Oh, this is a shit show. I’m not going to and make the money that was promised me.” It is a scam, right?

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

But they stay in it because they don’t want to admit to themselves that they made the wrong decision, and they feel shame and failure, and then they also don’t want to talk about it, so all of these other people end up joining MLMs because we feel so much personal shame and personal failure that we won’t remove ourselves from the situation. We won’t get honest with ourselves. And we also won’t tell other people, which is-

Tiffany Aliche:

Because of that shame.

Tori Dunlap:

Right, I don’t blame anybody for it. It’s just, yeah, the nature-

Tiffany Aliche:

It’s the cycle, because shame actually loves when you are by yourself. Shame is like, “Yes, just me and you, girl.”

Tori Dunlap:

I know, I love saying shame lives in shadow. Shame lives in-

Tiffany Aliche:

[crosstalk 00:32:27] in silence. Silence is like, “Oh, you keeping it a secret. Good.” So it wasn’t until… because I have a personal coach. Her name is Dr. Green, she’s a therapist, and I was asking her. I’m like, “Why? What is it about…” because I was working through some shame that I was holding onto, she said, “Here’s the thing, shame is a liar. That’s what makes it so dangerous. Shame, doesn’t say, “You made a mistake.” Shame says, “You are a mistake.””

Tiffany Aliche:

So, I was like, ” Oh, exactly.” I was like, “Girl you work your money.” Then, she said something that was so [crosstalk 00:33:01].

Tori Dunlap:

You’re like, “Embroider it in on a pillow.”

Tiffany Aliche:

The
n she said, the only antidote to shame, is voice.

Tori Dunlap:

Yes.

Tiffany Aliche:

She said, “When you give voice to the thing, it literally… Instantly shame is gone.” So when my best friend, Linda was like, “Girl, tell me what’s going on.” I broken down into tears and I told her, I instantly gave voice to my shame, and diminished its power. When I said it again, diminished it more, and I said it again and again and again. As I started to help other people with their stuff, giving them permission to hand over that shame to me via voice, people like…

Tiffany Aliche:

So really that’s what I’m on a mission to do, share it so we can get to the solutions because shame also shields solutions, and I realized that the thing that I love doing the most, teaching, I could bring that into this arena, because so many people, especially women, especially women of color, were needing this information.

Tiffany Aliche:

So like that’s how the budget needs to turn from what was going to be a nonprofit, me just going into the schools and volunteering my time, into this business, because one, I didn’t have any money coming in, and my best friend was like, “Girl, why don’t you make this into a business, you’re helping everybody with their budget anyway.” I was like, “Can you do that?”

Tori Dunlap:

Might as well get paid for it.

Tiffany Aliche:

It took even some finagling, because I felt bad about do I charge people who need help? So I navigated that space, but also too, I wanted to give women a place to voice their shame, so we can get to the financial solutions needed, because this is… The black and brown communities, and I’ll speak specifically of black communities because I am myself, an African American and black. Financial education is rarely taught and often, whether through benign neglect or on purpose, hidden from this community.

Tiffany Aliche:

People will come in to our black churches. We talked about DR period, and basically tell you, you ain’t ish, and thank you for your money, honey, and I’m just like, I literally would like… Me and Mandy, we had this whole episode where we talked about, why you let people talk to you crazy? You let this person come into your church to tell you, “Look at you. You’re so terrible.” And take your money, while he makes $400 million a year and tells you, “How dare you get a stimulus check?” And I’m just like-

Tori Dunlap:

He profits off of your self hatred. He makes you hate yourself.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

And then sells his products as a solution. I call him the diet pill of personal things.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

He tells you you’re fat.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Right, he tells you, you need to lose weight and then he goes, “Oh, here’s this magic diet pill that I make a bunch of money off of.”

Tiffany Aliche:

It is egregious at best and honestly, it’s evil at worst, because there are people who really need help and you can tell. So, I think it’s important… this is what I love, that we are the new face of financial education, the new face of financial education, it’s women, people of color, LGBTQI+, right?

Tori Dunlap:

QIA+. Yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah. Right. This is the new face of financial education because people deserve to see themselves in other people. They deserve to say, “Oh my gosh, Tori is like me. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh. Tiffany is like me. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” plus too, I don’t believe in the financial guru bullshit. I always say I’m more your financial girlfriend than your financial guru, because if you make someone your guru, and they are really good at one thing but they’re not too great at the others, you follow them in all things then, you don’t learn to how to discern when it comes to, “Is this good financial advice?” I want you to have a collection of people that you lean into, that you listen to.

Tiffany Aliche:

I think that is one of the ways to close the racial wealth gap, is one, it’s through education. Knowledge is critical. My three components are knowledge, access and community. Knowledge because when you know better, you do better. That’s why I wrote… this is a little plug, shameless plug. That’s what I wrote, “Get Good With Money.”

Tori Dunlap:

Get Good With Money. By the time this comes out, it will be on shelves, so it [crosstalk 00:37:15].

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes, but so knowledge because I truly believe if you give people access to knowledge, they can change their lives. Then access. This part is critically important. Access comes to people, there are literally some doors, there is no doorknob on the outside. Someone on the inside has to pull you in. How could I know how to invest, just like I can’t spontaneously learn that. Someone who’s an insider who knows this, has to pull me in.

Tiffany Aliche:

This is why I partner with people. This is why I’m on podcasts like yours, Tori, that like it’s important that you have to connect with people who know to pull you into spaces that you normally would not have access to. Last but not the least, but super important, community.

Tiffany Aliche:

I find that we work best, especially women, in community, because women are like, “So what did you learn?” “Well, this is what I did.” “Well, what about you?” “Oh, this is what I did.” I mean, we swap everything from how to raise babies, how to do hair, what to wear. Now, let’s talk about money the same way. That’s only part of what’s going to help close the racial wealth gap, because there are other components; we’re not paid equitably at work. So something there has to change.

Tiffany Aliche:

Equal pay then, it will be coming up. So, we find that women are paid less than men, we know that, but sometimes they don’t dig throu
gh the stats deeper. It’s not just women are paid less than men. Black women are paid even less. Latina women are paid even less. Native women are paid even less. It’s worse than like what the initial women are paid less than men. No, let’s really dig deep, so you’re paid less-

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 00:38:47] sense to a man’s dollar on average, but then it’s even less for every single-

Tiffany Aliche:

Everybody else.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s so much worse than the 82 cents [crosstalk 00:38:57] that gets pushed.

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. Then, so you’re like, “Okay, so one, I make less. Okay, great.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tiffany Aliche:

And then on top of that, the things that you own are devalued. I’ll give you an example. There is an appraisal crisis that has been here for so long.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that. Talk to us all about that, please.

Tiffany Aliche:

I’ll give you an example. My house was… I bought this house. It was foreclosure. I bought it for 180, renovated it fully, moved in… Five months within moving in, it was right when pandemic hit. We had only lived here five months.

Tiffany Aliche:

When I talk about renovated it fully, I’m talking about every hinge is new. Re-did floors, opened up the ceilings and gutted it, right? It’s a beautiful 1920s house. We kept all the original features. I love older homes, so I just was like, “Okay.”

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, me too.

Tiffany Aliche:

We put in all this work into this house, we’d only live here five months, meaning it’s a brand new house basically. I told my husband, “The house is paid off. The market is looking a little bit crazy. There’s going to be a dip. What if we pulled out some equity from the and invested it? Because we don’t currently have a mortgage.” And he’s like, “Okay, let’s do it.” We spoke with our certified financial planner, Angeline, she was like, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I forgot that when you go through an appraisal, when you’re doing what’s called a cash-out refi, that you have to… It’s almost like buying a house again. You have to have the house appraised. My stomach sunk as a person of color because I already knew the stats and how our houses are appraised, sometimes up to 30%, less on average than homes not owned by black and brown people, and I was like, “Oh, man,” because-

Tori Dunlap:

Is your husband black as well?

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. So, I thought to myself, “Damn.” Because my idea was always, “Okay, one of my really great friends, Catherine, she’s white. If I ever have to…” and I always used to tease her like, “Catherine, if I ever have to sell my house, you know you’re going to be here, right?” She was like, “Girl, I got you,” but then it was literally quarantine the beginning, and I remember being like, “Ah, Catherine, can’t be me.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, you know what? I took all the black, all of our pictures off the wall, I turned everything around, I took all of our art down, but the end of the day, you see this face. I mean, there’s no denying it. The guys came in, he was really nice. “Oh, beautiful house. Oh my gosh. I could tell your guys put so much into the renovation.” I said, “Yup, we’ve only lived here for five months.” It was a seven-month renovation, all new plumbing, all new electric because these houses in 1920, they didn’t have any updates.

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Tiffany Aliche:

Totally insulated the place. I mean, everything is new. So he commented on-

Tori Dunlap:

Well, in this conversation, what code switching are you doing just to have this conversation?

Tiffany Aliche:

Honestly, I’m just like… because I’m trying to set it up like this is a new house, all the things. So the code-switching probably would be that I turned around my pictures even though I’m like… Because I thought to myself, “Maybe he’s not the one that actually decides at the end of the day.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I knew that they were going to take pictures of the home, so I thought, “Well, maybe the person who looks at the pictures, if they don’t see black faces in the pictures, maybe they can be fooled into thinking that maybe this is…” Can you imagine?

Tori Dunlap:

I can’t. I can’t imagine.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah. So he came in super nice, new. Came back, the number came back low and I said… because this is what it is to be black. You think to yourself, “Am I making this a race thing where it’s not a race thing, Tiffany. Maybe it’s not.” Because you’re like, “Wait, even though internally, I’m like, I know this house is worth more than this, but are you making it a thing?” No. So I asked a friend of mine who was a realtor to do an assessment and she was like, “Well honestly, Tiffany, the house should be worth about 30 or $40,000 more than what he said.”

Tiffany Aliche:

She’s like, “If I do like the comps in the area and things like that,” and I was just like, “Well maybe because she’s my friend, she’s saying it.” I’d mentioned it on social and then the New York Times reached out to me. They were doing an article about appraisals. Look at that. So I didn’t end up making the article, but the gift that they gave me, she said, “Can we see your appraisal? We want an independent appraiser to appraise it.” I was like, “Yes. Finally. I know.” I was like, “Yes.”

Tori Dunlap:

New York Times coming through.

Tiffany Aliche:

I know. I didn’t make the article-

Tori Dunlap:

Now I’m going to be a subscriber.< /p>

Tiffany Aliche:

I didn’t make the article, because there were people who had way more egregious happenings, but still at least. So the independent appraiser came back and was like, two things that stood out to him. Two, this can’t be possibly an accident things, that stood out to him. He said one, “I thought you said your house was newly renovated.” I said, “Yeah, it’s not even five months old.” He was like, “The comparables that he’s chosen, none of these homes are renovated.” That’s a huge difference.

Tori Dunlap:

Huge.

Tiffany Aliche:

So if you guys don’t understand, a comparable means that the other house has to be similar to yours. That’s how they decide. If my house is five bedrooms, three full baths, you can’t compare it to a one bedroom, one bath house. They don’t compare. So they compared old rundown houses to my new house on the inside. That’s intentional, that’s not accidental. The one that’s even more egregious, this is the one that made me honestly, clutch my pearls.

Tiffany Aliche:

So houses get letters like C1, C2, C3, I believe it is. It’s C1 or H1, H2, H3. It’s one of those letters and one of them represents, it’s the level of wear and tear on your house. He gave us a level three, meaning that this house has been through a lot of wear and tear. When we had just renovated and just moved in within five months. That’s a lie.

Tiffany Aliche:

Even he said, “Wow, I can tell you guys just moved in. I can tell it’s just been renovated.” One of the C2 is newly renovated home. So he chose on purpose to label our home in a way that said that this house has not been renovated. As a matter of fact, it has wear and tear when there is no such thing.

Tiffany Aliche:

So there’s no accident to that. And I just remember being so disgusted. I honestly didn’t know. I had Google and what do you do? There’s not much to do. I said, “I’m not going to go through the process of pulling money out.” We decided not to do that and I remember like-

Tori Dunlap:

Which has financial consequences for you.

Tiffany Aliche:

For me.

Tori Dunlap:

Because you could be making X amount of money-

Tiffany Aliche:

Maybe we would’ve pulled out 200,000 from that house and that money by now, we’ve all seen in the market has rebounded 60%. Imagine that could have been extra $120,000 for my husband and I. I just was like [inaudible 00:45:15]. So I posted it on social and a friend of mine… I wrote this law called The Budgetnista Law. It went into effect. Well, I wrote a bill with a friend of mine that turned into The Budgetnista Law.

Tori Dunlap:

Either on podcast or later, that is a goal of mine-

Tiffany Aliche:

Okay.

Tori Dunlap:

To get financial literacy and I want chat with you, so please explain what it is because it’s one of my favorite parts of your story.

Tiffany Aliche:

It makes financial education mandatory for middle school students in New Jersey. The original write out was for elementary and middle school, but they pushed back. It was like, “Oh those kids are too young,” because New Jersey already has a law in place high school. I know, but we’re going back for elementary now, that the middle school is doing well.

Tori Dunlap:

Cool.

Tiffany Aliche:

So Angela V. McKnight, assemblywoman, Angela McKnight called me and she was like, “I saw your post about your house. I’m so sorry.” I said, “Yeah.” I was like, “What can I do? It’s not like I can write a law.” She’s like, “We can.” I was like, “Wait, what?” She said, “Tiffany. Hello. We did The Budgetnista Law.”

Tori Dunlap:

You just wrote a law. What do you mean?

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like, “Wait. Angela, we can write a law?” So now there is a bill that’s been proposed making it illegal, yes in the state of New Jersey, because that’s where we are, to make it illegal to assess or appraise someone’s house based upon their race, their gender and their religion, because I told her, “It’s not just that,” because I told her, “I want in this bill that we’re writing up that yes, it’s illegal, there’s clear consequences, you can lose your license and then there’s a fine,” but I said, “Bigger than that, I want inside the bill that it’s mandatory that your realtor and the appraiser, when they give you your appraisal have in there like a checklist of what to look for.”

Tiffany Aliche:

So there’s educational component and something that says to the effect of, “If you think that this appraisal has been done unfairly, here is what you can do. Here is where you can call.” Because I want the appraiser to be on notice, “I have just handed this homeowner…” It’s almost like on a cigarette pack where it says “Warning, this may come…”

Tiffany Aliche:

I want the appraiser, because I want them to be on notice and I also want the homeowner to be like, “Wait a minute. I’m looking at, we’re C2. This house was renovated. No. The comps?” Because most homeowners don’t fully understand it. I know I didn’t, so I said, I wanted that to be included.

Tiffany Aliche:

There has to be some educational pamphlet or component that your realtor goes over with you and that’s inside your appraisal, that the appraisal must give you as well to make sure that you can do a checklist for yourself to make sure that you have not received an unfair appraisal, and if you do you, here is who you call, and this is what can happen to the appraiser if found guilty. And she was like, “Got you.” So we wrote that bill. It’s waiting to be basically put before committee. It has to be voted on three or four different times, but-

Tori Dunlap:

How do we support it? How do I support it? [inaudible 00:48:02].

Tiffany Aliche:

It has not come before committee, yet. Usually they have to choose the committee, like for example, The Budgetnista Law, it was the educa
tion committee. They had to say, “Yes, we’re going to back it. Let’s bring it to the house.” The house votes. If it passes, “Let’s bring it to the Senate,” the Senate votes of the state, and then if it passes the Senate, then, “Let’s sit it in front of the governor,” and the governor has to give it the final go see.

Tiffany Aliche:

So we’re in the pre stages where it’s kind of in line, because there’s hundreds, if not thousands of laws suggested every year, so it’s kind of in line, and she told me when it gets close to be seen by committee she’s going to let me know and I’ll blast on social media places where we can call and email to let them know, “This is a law that we want.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I’ve also seen that our current president has acknowledged that homes are… He’s the first one to ever acknowledge, because I don’t think people understand. It’s like, “Oh, $30,000 from Tiffany’s home.”

Tiffany Aliche:

No. 30,000 from my home, the home next door, the home next door, that is literally hundreds of millions of dollars taken from black and brown communities. That is the wealth gap. So you make less at work and then the thing that you own, your biggest generator of wealth, typically your home is devalued. How do you catch up in those situations and circumstances?

Tori Dunlap:

And you can’t invest the money that you would’ve gotten

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

Through that. Through [crosstalk 00:49:20].

Tiffany Aliche:

That’s the wealth gap. And so it’s really disheartening. So I make less and the thing that I own is devalued. I mean, you can just see. Look what happened when Brooklyn, it was mostly black and brown people that lived in Brooklyn.

Tiffany Aliche:

It was like, “Oh, this is how much things are worth.” You push them out and then you renovate to make it better and not making it so that none of the original people were there could benefit from that renovation. People will always say, “What’s so bad about gentrification? Don’t you want their community to be better?” I do, but the people who live there-

Tori Dunlap:

Well, what is better?

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. But meaning like, “Yes, I would love to see a reduction in crime. I would love to see cleaner streets while I live here as well.” You don’t out and then clean it up and say, “But Brooklyn is so much better.” So when I own Brooklyn-

Tori Dunlap:

And does better mean whiter?

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

Is better whiter?

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. So when a black person owns this [inaudible 00:50:19] Brooklyn, it’s worth $10,000 but then when a white person owns this [inaudible 00:50:23] Brooklyn, it’s worth 3 million.

Tiffany Aliche:

Do you see how it has to be law? And no matter how much financial education you and I do, it does not supersede what happens. There has to be that component as well. Yes, education, yes, community, yes, access, but there has to be law to help to change and uphold what is right and fair.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah, to your point, there’s only so much that we can do as educators to help combat systemic oppression. This starts with the system itself. It doesn’t start with educators trying to work within the system. It comes from legal change.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. Honestly, I love the work that we get to do. I mean, definitely there are days where you’re like-

Tori Dunlap:

Me too, but it’s also… It’s a lot.

Tiffany Aliche:

It is a lot.

Tori Dunlap:

So you’ve answered this in many ways. I want to more formalize the question. How do you think that members of the black community have to either manage their money differently or think about money differently?

Tiffany Aliche:

What we have to think about, you have to become more creative in the ways that you earn money, ways that race does not play a role, so there are more and more people that are getting into investing because whoever’s on the other side, doesn’t get to see what you look like.

Tiffany Aliche:

And so I’m loving that there’s a shift to learning about in investing, leaning, into investing. I’m talking about the market, so yes, investing in business for sure, investing in real estate, for sure, but really specifically investing in the market because you get to navigate just like everyone else.

Tiffany Aliche:

Your dollar doesn’t look differently out there in the market. So that is one of the ways that you have to navigate differently. It has to be more of a priority for you than any other type of person to learn to invest, because there are other aspects of your life that are devalued and you don’t have a say in them, so you have to make up that value in aspects of your life, where you do have a say.

Tiffany Aliche:

So that’s, that’s one and two it’s really, each one teach one. That when you learn a thing, show a thing, teach a thing. The beauty about teaching is that when you teach, you learn twice. So even like, “Well, I don’t even know what…” but do you know what a stock is? You know, tell your sister.

Tiffany Aliche:

The fact that you know that a stock is a piece of a company. Now you have ownership in a company, that’s more than most. And then she might trade and be like, “Well girl, that’s so great, because you know, I just learned what a bond is. Okay. Now what? “Well, you know, my girlfriend knows what the ETF is and my other girlfriend knows how to open up a brokerage account.”

Tori Dunlap:

What asset allocation is.

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly.

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 00:52:56] yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

And then in community, you trade information, you learn and you build and grow together. So you have to get more creative in how you make money, you have to learn how to invest and you can’t put your head in the sand. You have to understand that, yes the chips are stacked against you and you are going to have to do a little side hustle here or bending this way, but it is possible and when you get there to bring other people along.

Tiffany Aliche:

That the knowledge, access and community, that access component is you. Now, once you’re in those rooms, you need to open the door and put your foot in the door so more people can come in and join you. So it really has to be a group effort and I’m seeing it more and more. I’ve never ever in my 10 years of teaching financial education, seen more black and brown people talk about investing now more than ever before.

Tiffany Aliche:

Sometimes it’s a little worrisome because certainly the conversation, some of them they’re taking more risk on than they ought to, but at least the conversation is being had. It’s being had. Certainly, there there’ll be corrections along the way, but people didn’t want to talk about that before. I saw a stat on Dr. Hans he’s the real estate invest… No, I forget what his name is.

Tori Dunlap:

The investing tutor.

Tiffany Aliche:

Investing tutor.

Tori Dunlap:

He’s great.

Tiffany Aliche:

And I was like, “Oh man, he said only 3% of black women own stocks.” And I was like, “Wow, 3%.” You know?

Tori Dunlap:

I didn’t know it was that.

Tiffany Aliche:

And I said, “So imagine if you just pushed that to 10%, how that could change the wealth gap.” I read somewhere, which is so disheartening-

Tori Dunlap:

You don’t have to buy individual stocks, right? There’s ETFs or [crosstalk 00:54:36].

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Because I’m really not an individual stock girl, for me.

Tori Dunlap:

Me either.

Tiffany Aliche:

My sister, she actually loves it. She loves to do the research, she loves… I mean, she bought Tesla when it was 30 dollars. Okay. Yeah, she’s an engineer and she loves-

Tori Dunlap:

She’s doing all right now.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. I remember she told me. She was like, “Oh my gosh, there’s this new car company. I’m so excited,” because like I said, she’s an engineer. “It’s called Tesla.” I’m like, “What? Fleshla?” She’s like, “Tesla. I’m going to buy $2,000 worth of shares. You should jump in.” I was like, “Mm-mm (negative),” And then when it got to $100, she’s like, “I made three times my money. You should jump in.” I was like, “No.” Now I’m like, [inaudible 00:55:12].

Tori Dunlap:

Right. I just bought my first individual stock last month.

Tiffany Aliche:

I saw. I love it. That you bought from Bumble.

Tori Dunlap:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tiffany Aliche:

Yep.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. I was like, “All right.” Because I only wanted to specifically invest in companies that I was like-

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. I love that.

Tori Dunlap:

I actually want to succeed.

Tiffany Aliche:

I mean, she sold Tesla some time ago, but still I want that statue change because the stats that they share about my community is that by 2050, it’s going be bankrupt. The black community would be bankrupt. And I just hate seeing stats like that, because I feel like only share those negative stats about black and brown communities when it comes to finance. When it comes to anything. Sandy Smith has this great organization called Elevate and we have a-

Tori Dunlap:

She’s amazing.

Tiffany Aliche:

We have a Facebook group filled with basically other. Black and brown, Asian and we are always talking about, “What can we do to make that stat a lie?” How can we work together? What does your audience need? I love partnering. I’m always having different people speak to my audience because I want them, one, I want to model good behavior that I am not the router and the tutor.

Tiffany Aliche:

I need you to understand that there are other people who know more than me in specific subject matters and that you should listen some to me some to that, so that way, even if I get it wrong, you can discern and say, “Eh, no. Not that.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Because also too, what if I’m not here? If I’m the only person you listen to, and then I retire, then what happens? I think that’s what it’s going to take. I think it’s going to take knowledge, it’s going to take access and it’s going to take community but I’m excited for it.

Tiffany Aliche:

I don’t feel helpless or hopeless about it. I see the change is coming and shift is coming and people are waking up and that’s why you see such an attack on these communities because there’s a fear that like, “Wait, these folks who…”

Tori Dunlap:

Scarcity.

Tiffany Aliche:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). These folks who we have counted on them, staying ignorant are no longer doing so. So now what?

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. I was at a conference a couple years ago and there was this whole activity with the center for financial services, which I think has a different name now. They’re a non-profit about financial literacy and education, but it was basically for an hour, you worked as a team and it was, you were going on your lunch break and you had to go and try to cash a check, being unbanked you had to try to get one of those prepaid debit cards, you had to inquire about what a payday loan would cost.

Tori Dunlap:

As someone, again, who grew up with a financial education, I had never set foot in a money tree or pay day loan place. I had never considered where I would cash a check if I didn’t have a bank account. I had never considered going and getting a debit card or a prepaid debit card, because I didn’t have access to a debit card through a bank or to a credit card.

Tori Dunlap:

The more research I started doing around under or unbanked people, but more of course I realized that it’s a significant number of black and brown people who are disfranchised and disadvantaged when it comes to being un or underbanked. When I was doing research for this episode, it’s 30% of black communities are either under or unbanked.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yep.

Tori Dunlap:

Why do you think that is?

Tiffany Aliche:

Because there’s not access. I taught in Newark, New Jersey, which is by and large Latino, and black folks, mostly black and the neighborhood where I taught was struggling financially and there were very few resources there. I mean, there were a ton of corner stores with ATMs, with high fees, there were a ton of… They didn’t even have fresh fruit available. Literally most people were getting, if you had to get fruits and vegetables, you would get it from the local bodega, which that’s not fresh fruit and vegetables.

Tiffany Aliche:

Kids would come in eating honey buns. I remember one mother, she was 19 and she had her daughter Maya, and I was like, “Girl, you cannot give Maya, a honey bun first thing in the morning. She’s going to off the wall.” She’s like, “It’s honey.” Because there was no access to how do I… In her mind, she really thought, “Of all the things I can give my daughter, a honey bun, if there’s honey here, and I’ve heard that honey is good.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I remember being like, “Oh man.” So it’s a resource desert in many of these neighborhoods. How do you get access to, without having to take a bus an hour or so away? I know so many people… I remember when it came time when refund checks came or your tax refund came, people would go to the cash.

Tiffany Aliche:

I used to literally tell the parents, “Do not go to check cashing.” “You have a $5,000 refund check and you’re going to lose hundreds of dollars. You should just open up a bank account.” “Well, there’s no banks around here.” And I just would think to myself, “Wow.” It was a lack of access, you know? Yeah. So when I first started-

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 01:00:39] trust of banks and the financial institutions as well.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yeah. That too, honestly.

Tori Dunlap:

[crosstalk 01:00:43] to black communities.

Tiffany Aliche:

And also too, it was just a lack of access and lack of education. Being taught, “Well, this is how you do.” So one of the things, when I first started The Budgetnista and I was doing the volunteer work, I partnered with this non-profit. I used to go to every single project building and I’ve been to every single one in Newark and at least two or three times in the community room, we would have all this food and people come in and I would teach basic financial education just to interject.

Tiffany Aliche:

I mean, people would be like, “Really? What?” I’m like, “Yes. If you put your money in the bank, they’re not going to take, $200, $300 to deposit your, or to get your refund check.” “Oh, I didn’t know.” You’re not born just knowing money. Someone has to tell you, and so that’s really what it’s going to take.

Tori Dunlap:

But we think we should be, which is the crazy part.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

We don’t pop out of the womb fluent in French and knowing how to play the cello and yet, for some reason we expect ourselves to know money and personal finance.

Tiffany Aliche:

I always think, if you were to fall and break your leg right now, you wouldn’t be like, “Oh man. Damn. How come I don’t know how to set my own bone? Something must be wrong with me.” You wouldn’t be mad at yourself. You’d be like, “Well, I didn’t go to medical school. Why would I know that?” But when it comes to money, you’re like, “Wow, how come I don’t know how to invest and trade and budget and save and fix my credit.” Well, it’s the same. If you didn’t receive education in it, you wouldn’t know.

Tori Dunlap:

And of course you don’t and that’s okay.

Tiffany Aliche:

But that’s why it’s important for the face of financial education to change. I’m actually ashamed to say, but at first, when I wrote Get Good with Money, I remember Penguin and my agent wanted me to be on the cover and I didn’t want to be on the cover. I was like, “No, one’s going to-“

Tori Dunlap:

Of your own book.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. And you know why? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because I said, “If it’s going to sit on the shelves at Barnes and Nobles, people are going to look and see a black woman on the cover of a finance book and say, “I’m not getting it.” You know what I mean? I really fought for it. I was like, “No, maybe we’ll just put some grass on the cover. No.” And they were like, “Tiffany.”

Tori Dunlap:

I literally have tears in my eyes. No woman should feel tha
t way.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was just-

Tori Dunlap:

No woman should get a fucking book deal-

Tiffany Aliche:

I know.

Tori Dunlap:

And then think to themselves, “If I…” I’m literally crying. No one should have to think that way, that, “If I put my face on the cover of my book that I work so hard to write and to get a book deal for, that people will be less likely to buy it if my face is on it because of my race.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Because I’ve seen in the finance community. I’ve literally seen when, I’ve gone to that conference that we shall not name and I remember at the time I had done this online challenge called the Live Richer Challenge and I’d signed up 2,500 women and I was super excited and a friend of mine, I can’t remember who, I don’t know if it was Stefanie, somebody but she was white, and she had her…

Tiffany Aliche:

And maybe I signed up 10,000 women by then and her audience size was 1500, 2000 and I was sharing with her because I was like, “Oh my God, I got 10,000 women signed up for the challenge.” She was like, “Tiffany, okay.” She had gotten all these brand deals and she was like, “We’re going to the conference. I’m going to introduce you to all those people. So excited.” I was like, “Woohoo,” because she was like-

Tori Dunlap:

That sounds. It’s probably Stef O’Connell.

Tiffany Aliche:

You know? I’m almost positive it was her. And so I was like, “Okay.”

Tori Dunlap:

And she’s supporting. It sounds like Stef.

Tiffany Aliche:

And so I made this media kit and I asked some of the women who did the challenge to send me their picture, so all you see is this beautiful array of different shades of brown faces on the front of the kit and says, “Live Richer Challenge,” and, “Media kit.” And so she took me to table and table. “Hi Jonathan, this is my friend, Tiffany. She’s awesome. She’s a Budgetnista. I’ve got 2,500 followers. Tiffany has 10,000 people that signed up for her challenge,” and they were like, eyes split up. “10,000 people?”

Tiffany Aliche:

I give them media kit with brown faces and I see the light go down. “Oh, are these the people who are in it? Oh, okay. Yeah. We’ll take a look.” And I was like, “Okay.” One brand, two brands, three brands, four and I remember thinking, “What?” You know what I mean? It was so disheartening that you don’t want to help black and brown women? Honestly, the reason why I started The Budgetnista really, and went so hard was out of defiance because I was like, “Well, I’m going to show you.”

Tiffany Aliche:

And now that we’re out here rocking a million women strong, those very same brands, kiss my ass every single day. “Hey Tiffany. Love to-” “Oh, I bet you would love to partner. We’re busy right now.” I partner very infrequently. You’re not going to see my page with a whole bunch of spokesperson. I don’t need it. We’re good. I’ve told banks time and time again, some of the biggest and the baddest banks who wanted to spend plenty money, and I was like, “Yeah, I don’t like the way you treat my community.”

Tiffany Aliche:

“Oh, well-” “No.” “Well, you know, we could pay you.” “There’s no amount of money can pay-” I remember I told one bank in particular. I said, “What are you going to pay me? $10,000? We made that today. You’re going to pay 50? We made that this week.? You going to pay 100,000? We made that this month. A million, we made that this year. There’s literally nothing that you can pay me. I’m in service to my audience.”

Tori Dunlap:

And sacrifice the trust of your community.

Tiffany Aliche:

Exactly. But I wanted to show them that I purposefully made it that I have created a business that’s in service to my community and that’s all I have to be. That’s all I have to honor. I make my money by making sure I treat my community right. Why would I step outside of that for you? Because he who pays the piper, determines the tune. So if all of my money came from outside sources, that’s the piper. They pay me, I’d be the piper.

Tiffany Aliche:

Then I would have to be like, “Ooh. In order for me to make money, I have to make sure the brands like me.” But because my money comes directly from my audience, they’re the only ones I ever have to concern myself with. They’re the only ones. One bank told me, “Wouldn’t your audience, they would be so impressed if you partnered with us.” I said, “No, my audience would be-“

Tori Dunlap:

You should be impressed you’re partnering with me.

Tiffany Aliche:

That’s exactly what I said. “My audience would be impressed that you got to partner with me. It’s the opposite.” And I turn them now. I love to see the direction that things are going in. Like I said, I’m proud of my new book, Get Good with Money. I wanted to write a guide specifically for women to help them along the path, to what I call financial wholeness, because I feel like financial freedom has been a lie that’s been sold, especially to black and brown communities and I believe in a more holistic pro-

Tori Dunlap:

Feels like the American dream. It feels like the American dream rebranded sometimes.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. And it’s bullshit. The average person is not going to have a lumpsum of money that you no longer have to work anymore. Now some people will, but the teacher in me doesn’t teach to some people. I’m here to teach that all people can have access to financial wholeness which is really these 10 components that build your financial foundation.

Tiffany Aliche:

If you can do that, then you can build upon those 10 components, these 10 financial wholeness components, you can build whatever you want on there. Even though I no longer teach preschool, I still am the teacher of the fundamentals of your life, whether it’s ABCs, 123s or budget, credit, debt of your personal financial life. So it’s been a long journey and an awesome one and I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years looks like.

Tori Dunlap:

I mean, in this conversation, it’s very easy for us to talk a lot about black trauma and so much of the public narrative focuses on black trauma. Can we just talk about black joy? What do you love about being black? How can we support your joy in being aware of color?

Tiffany Aliche:

Someone told me, what’s my favorite part about being a black woman, and I said, “Hands down, other black women.” We have this… I could be walking down the street and a black woman was like, “Girl, your hair is beautiful.” “No girl, your eyes are beautiful.” “No, sis. This lipstick…”

Tiffany Aliche:

It is this love works best with black women and the way we are so overly protective of each other. If I’m out and I see another woman, especially black women in particular, she might seem to be in trouble, you should see the flock of people, we don’t have to know you, the flock of people that come to your aid, because we know the danger is greater for you.

Tiffany Aliche:

My favorite part about being a black woman is other black women. I have four sisters and they are amazing. My sister in love instead of my sister-in-law, I love her. She is amazing. My mom is this amazing woman as well. I’m married to an amazing black man who supports me. He’s an amazing father, he is kind. I always tell him that one of the reasons why I hired a coach, because I know everybody always thinks that I have my together all the time. I’m like, “I don’t,”

Tiffany Aliche:

Sometimes I suffer from people-pleasing and that can lead to bullying where I tend to shrink. Yep. And he always tells me, “You tell me who,” because my husband is 6’6″. I’m like, “No, babe, I need to learn to do it my own.” He like, You can do it on your own. I’ll just behind you like, “Yeah, tell him Tiffany.””

Tiffany Aliche:

I also love black love. My husband honestly is amazing. I love that he said it because he was like, “Uh-uh (negative). Mm-mm (negative). I’ll stand behind you with my arms folded like, “Tiffany has something to say. Go ahead babe. Tell them how they’re not taking advantage you no more.”

Tiffany Aliche:

So that is just an amazing aspect of being black. I love that we’re not a monolith, that there’s so many ways that you can show up. I love that when you feel seen by other sisters, just how we make space for each other because we know that oftentimes space is not made other places. Honestly, I love the way my skin looks. It’s popping. I was just on with [inaudible 01:10:14] the other day and-

Tori Dunlap:

You look amazing. Yeah.

Tiffany Aliche:

She was saying something. She was like, “Oh, something, something because Tiffany, because you’re younger than me.: I’m like, “No [inaudible 01:10:22]. We’re the same age.” At the same time she was like, “I’m 41,” and we said at the same time, she was like, “How are you 41 with the skin?” I was like, “Sis. Melanin.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I love the way my skin shows up and shows out without… You told me that this yellow is my color. I’m like, “Yes.” I can honestly say that despite all that comes with it, I would not choose otherwise. I wouldn’t. It is a beautiful place to be and I’ll take the good and it does come with some bad that’s just how life goes.

Tiffany Aliche:

Honestly, I love being a black woman who’s in service to other women, but especially in service to other black women. Honestly, Tori, when I go out, women come up and hug me and just start crying. Black women. They’re just like, “I just [inaudible 01:11:14] so much.” Sometimes it’s just for you being visible and sometimes because they’re like, “I bought a house,” or you know how many women who’ve hit me up saying, “I was homeless and I took one of your challenges and two years later, I’m now homeowner.” So that right there-

Tori Dunlap:

Aren’t those the best. They’re the best.

Tiffany Aliche:

I mean, it’s why we do what we do. It keeps you motivated. Even if you’re having a bad day, you realize that you’re in it for the bigger transformation. I don’t feel sorry for, for black and brown people. There is so much joy that’s being had here. We can acknowledge the pain and say we’re going to work to make this better, but best believe there is a of joy being had and I’m certainly enjoying my joy.

Tori Dunlap:

Last question for you. How can us white folks support that joy? How can we show up? What’s a couple ways that are super actionable that we can make sure to show up as the best allies possible?

Tiffany Aliche:

If you could be coach, sponsor, mentor. So if you’re working in corporate, taking on people who don’t look like you under your wing to say, “Let me coach you in some of the ways of what it’s going to look like for you to elevate and to take your career to the next level.” That is critically important,

Tiffany Aliche:

Two, when black and brown people are not around, speaking positively of someone that you’re working with. Like, “Oh my God. Did you see Tiffany? She killed that presentation.” Because your peers are more likely to listen to you, like, “You know what? She did kill that.”

Tori Dunlap:

She did.

Tiffany Aliche:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So when you know your black and brown peers are not around, speak positively about them to normalize that. Purposely create space. I had a friend that worked for a big, huge financial international company and her mentor was an older white man and right before he retired, he elevated her to the next level. He created space because he had mentored her, so he was like, “You are ready to have this position.”

Tiffany Aliche:

And it was a huge position. So if you’re in positions of power and you’ve cultivated relationships with folks and you see that they’re more than ready, create space, for people, not because she’s black and not performative, because I definitely had financial brands and when everything was happening, when… I remember literally I had to tell one brand that, “I’m not your black bandaid.” They were like, “What?” I said, “I’m not your black bandaid.”

Tiffany Aliche:

I asked them, they said, “We’d love for you to do an Instagram takeover.” And I was like, “Okay, well how many black employees do you have?” “Well…”

Tori Dunlap:

How many women do you have?

Tiffany Aliche:

No black employees. No black contractors, no black… I said, “Hmm really? Because at our little company we’ve been able to manage to find 25, and your big company, you have not to find one?” And they have the audacity to say, “Oh wait. We have hired black models and actors for some of our ads.” I said, “Oh, so you recognize that you want to take black money, but you don’t want to put money in black pockets. Got it. I’ll move on.” They were like-

Tori Dunlap:

You want to be publicly…

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

Supportive, but privately-

Tiffany Aliche:

No, there’s nothing there for you. But doing that, if you are someone who owns a company, cast a wide net for talent. Make that intentional. Because it has shown-

Tori Dunlap:

We’re doing that right now as a company. We’re are trying to figure out how do we make sure that the women that we hire are not just all white women? And it’s something that you have to be intentional about.

Tiffany Aliche:

You have to.

Tori Dunlap:

We’re very much thinking through that as a company of like, “As we grow and we need more people, how do we make sure that we’re supporting and amplifying women of color first?”

Tiffany Aliche:

And I’m telling you, because when you do that… I mean, studies have shown time and time again that the more diverse your work environment is, it leads to more success for your company. I’m like, “Everybody wins.” So leaning into that. And also too, I mean, normalize black people in spaces where maybe we weren’t before.

Tiffany Aliche:

I can remember speaking for large organizations and I walked up to the mic and I saw it was just a room full of white faces and I remember I was so nervous and I saw these two women in the front row. They were like, “She’s not the speaker. Oh, she’s just checking the mic.” That’s what I heard her mouth.

Tiffany Aliche:

And I remember my heart sunk. So I would say to listen and recognize her or unconscious bias. It’s not to say that you’re a bad person, because I just was telling somebody today that they had some unconscious bias. They said, “No, I don’t.” I’m like, “It’s unconscious. That’s why they call it unconscious bias.”

Tori Dunlap:

That’s why you don’t know.

Tiffany Aliche:

I was like “Bruh, it’s here.” It’s okay to ackn… Because I have unconscious bias. It’s okay to acknowledge-

Tori Dunlap:

We all do.

Tiffany Aliche:

“Oh, I didn’t think about it that way. You’re right.” So to acknowledge that you have unconscious bias and to work to thwart that. “Am I looking at, Get Good with Money at Barnes and Nobles and saying, “Oh no, it’s not for me.”” Why? If all the other aspects in it are something like, “This aligns with what I want to learn.”

Tiffany Aliche:

Is it because there’s a black face on the cover? It’s okay to acknowledge that and say, “I’m going to try something different.” So those are some of the clearcut ways that non-black and brown people can do to create safe spaces for everyone to thrive.

Tori Dunlap:

I love it. Anything else you want to add? Anything I should have asked, but didn’t?

Tiffany Aliche:

No. I just would say that I love connecting with folks. I’m The Budgetnista on all the social platforms. Well, not TikTok.

Tori Dunlap:

I was going to give it to you in a second. You beat me to it. Go ahead. Go girl.

Tiffany Aliche:

No, I’m like-

Tori Dunlap:

Shameless plug. Let’s do it.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. I’m not on TikTok. Well, I am on TikTok, but my 14 year-old stepdaughter refuses to teach me, and I’m just like, “I don’t know.” With all I have going on I’m like-

Tori Dunlap:

I could teach you if you wanted, but it’s, I mean…

Tiffany Aliche:

I know. I said that. I was like, “Is that something I want to venture?” I said, “Do I want to take that on?” I don’t think so. I’m like, “You know, Tiffany, you are killing it.”

Tori Dunlap:

It’s a huge commitment.

Tiffany Aliche:

Yes. You are smashing it on TikTok. So I was just like, “I don’t know if I want to do all that.” But yes, I am The Budgetnista on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube so certainly find me there and The Budgetnista.com. Please, it’s already out, Get Good With Money. 10 simple steps to becoming financially whole.

Tiffany Aliche:

This is the prerequisite to the rest of your financial life. It will help you to build the strongest financial foundation possible So you can build whatever financial house that you want. It is available wherever books are sold, but certainly you can go to getgoodwithmoney.com because we highlight black own businesses, small bookstores that you can purchase from so we can support them. So yeah, getgoodwithmoney.com but thank you, Tori. Honestly, this has been awesome.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you. Y’all would great conversation. You can connect with Tiffany at The Budgetnista and please buy her book, Get Good with Money, preferably from a non-Amazon bookstore. It is so worth a read team and if you want information about what we discussed in this episode, more information about Tiffany or myself or the show, please check out our detailed sho
w notes at financialfeministpodcast.com. Can’t wait to see you back here next week, financial feminists. Talk to you soon.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists. Financial feminist is produced and hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, theme song and audio production by Jonah Cohen Sound, administration and marketing by Olivia Kolkana, Sophia Cohen and Kristen Fields, research by Ariel Johnson, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton and photography by Sarah Wolf. A huge thanks to the entire, Her First $ 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $ 100K, our guests and our sponsors, go to financialfeministpodcast.com.