3 Annual Financial Resolutions from Budgetnista Tiffany Aliche
Tiffany Aliche is a popular personal finance podcaster, educator, and motivational expert, but like everyone else, she always makes a few mistakes with her New Year’s resolutions.
Known as a Budgetnista, she planned to start the year fresh and eat right with vegetables, fruit and plenty of water. “But she had pizza and ribs last night,” she admits.
As a personal finance expert with a new book, “Made Whole,” and a big following for the podcast she co-hosts, Brown Ambition, she’s getting a little better at meeting her money goals. But it still takes time, and you’re already behind on some things, like estate planning.
And one day her bank account was overdrafted. “I paid the bill from the wrong account,” says Aliche.
Forgiving yourself is the first step to solving a problem, and then talking to someone else about it. Thus, they learn that she exists to help her solve her own problems. It’s not meant to be judgmental.
“I know life is hard enough and you already judge yourself enough. I’m just here to make resources. So when you’re ready, you can use it to make decisions about the life you want to live,” she tells MarketWatch.
To help you achieve your money goals, whether at the beginning of the new year or at any time, Aliche developed some motivational tips inspired by her time as a kindergarten teacher that she can now use with unruly adults. They just can’t manage their money.
give yourself some space
The first rule is that everything takes time and retirement is a particularly long goal, so give yourself some space. Aliche started teaching more than 20 years ago, at age 22, and had to learn patience with her students’ different learning speeds. Some people fall behind in reading, and some people just don’t get out of the blocks to try something new. “I met them on the carpet. So if they just want to play with blocks, I teach them colors and numbers,” she says.
Aliche was laid off from her teaching job in 2009 and ended up in debt on her sister’s couch. She rebounded by starting her own financial education company. At this point in her life, she runs a multi-million dollar business, and the 44-year-old is probably her own best student.
“We all need to understand that we can’t become perfect overnight,” she says. “You might think that if you get this book, everything will change. Just get a gym membership or eat a salad. But life just piles up piece by piece.”
“Made Whole” describes a 10-step program for reaching a fully functioning financial life, but this part of her philosophy is closer to a 70-30 portfolio. “Even if you make bad choices, like 70% good and 30% bad, you will see amazing changes in the end,” says Aliche.
share your shame
An important part of bad choices is confessing them to someone you trust and dealing with them yourself.
“You can’t overcome shame,” says Aliche. “Just because you messed up doesn’t make you a bad person. That doesn’t mean you’re antagonizing your puppy. “You made bad choices, but you can make new ones.”
Aliche says talking about your bad choices is like a muscle you can train, and by now you can lift about 1,000 pounds. She details her story regularly through her blog and podcast, and her first book, the best-selling ‘Get Good With Money’, delved into her debt story (which led to the 2022 Netflix documentary ‘Get Good With Money’). Smart’). “With money”). “Now I’m the Queen of Help,” she says. “I can see a problem happening two miles away and ask for help before it happens.”
She listens too. One of her followers told me that she read a message in Alice’s book the other day saying that if she had no one to share her shame with, Alice would be there. “So she explained the financial embarrassment and I said, ‘Well, can I first tell you that I’m really proud of you?’” And they found some possible solutions there. .
Choose a team
Once you’ve given yourself space and shared your shame, Aliche’s advice is to get your entire team on your side. Managing your finances “is not something you can do alone,” she says.
You may also need an accountant, financial planner, real estate attorney, insurance broker, or other professional. The most important thing is that you have an accountability partner. This may be the same person you tell your darkest money secrets to, or it may be another person in your life who keeps you in good stead. “They don’t need any financial background. That’s not why they exist,” says Aliche. “They’re there to be kind. They are there to encourage. They are there to maintain consistency.”
For example, if you’re trying to save money and suggest going out to dinner with your best friend, who is also your accountability partner, they might suggest that you stay home and watch a movie to avoid overspending.
Aliche’s current accountability partner is a friend who runs a business, and since he too is struggling with the same issues, we can discuss strategies in more detail with him.
“If you’re lucky, you can form tribes and have different people doing different things,” says Aliche. And if that fails, there will always be Miss Tiffany, as her students once called her. Just know that you will get some tough love along with the support we all need, of course.
“What I’ve learned is that I’m not actually here to change you,” says Aliche. “My job as a teacher is to provide tools and resources. You have to change yourself.”
