Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity: Real Women, Real Talk for Personal and Professional Development
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Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity: Real Women, Real Talk for Personal and Professional Development
Financial Fundamentals for Women: Budgeting, Saving, and Managing Debt w/Nikki Tucker Part 1
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SHOW DESCRIPTION
How can women take control of their finances? On this episode, I talk with my guest Nikki Tucker about the importance of budgeting, creating emergency funds, and understanding productive vs unproductive debt. Emphasis is placed on starting from wherever you are financially and moving forward with intentionality and mindfulness. This episode covers tools and techniques for budgeting, saving, and debt management, providing practical advice to help women protect their financial future.
TL;DR
This podcast episode with Nikki Tucker focuses on helping women take control of their finances. It emphasizes budgeting, building emergency funds, and understanding good vs. bad debt. The key takeaway is to start where you are and move forward intentionally, using practical tools and techniques for budgeting, saving, and debt management to secure your financial future.
Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction to Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity
00:31 The Importance of Financial Planning for Women
02:02 Meet Nikki Tucker: Financial Expert
04:31 Foundations of Budgeting
12:53 Choosing the Right Budgeting Tools
17:03 Building an Emergency Fund
23:24 Understanding Different Financial Scenarios
24:00 Breaking Down Financial Goals
24:22 Types of Financial Problems
25:03 Cultural Perspectives on Money
25:55 The Importance of Personal Emergency Funds
26:38 Introduction to Debt Management
26:57 Understanding Liquidity and Debt
27:39 Productive vs. Unproductive Debt
32:42 Impact of Debt on Credit Scores and Net Worth
33:19 Financial Advice for Women of Color
35:33 The Importance of Financial Transparency
37:05 Managing Impulse Spending and Debt
39:33 Overcoming Financial Challenges
40:16 Final Thoughts and Next Steps
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Credits
Guest: Nikki Taylor
Podcast Editor: Payton Cross Product
Coming up next on Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.
Nikki:It is fundamentally about having a plan and knowing how your money is growing and where your money is going. The best budgeting tool is the one that you will use consistently. Not everything that's free is great.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Every woman should have their own cushion, their own kind of emergency fund. Start where you are today and then move forward.
Nikki:The goal is not about being perfect.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Take the time to identify where you are financially. You know, one of the things that we as women often struggle with are finances. Let's just be real. We may have been raised in a home where we had to make ends meet. Some of us didn't learn how to budget till we got older. If you're like me and you have ADHD, budgeting is a real problem for you. Always trying to stick to it. And then there are situations where perhaps you're in a relationship, and the relationship looks like it's coming to an end and you haven't quite protected yourself the way that you thought, you didn't have your cushion, things like that. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to start off by talking about finance fundamentals that we as women should have with our special guest. And then our next episode is going to talk about how to protect yourself financially, especially when you're in relationships, stay tuned. You are not going to want to miss these two episodes.
I'm so happy you're here. My name is Shai Boston, and it's a privilege to welcome you to Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity: Real Women, Real Talk. It's a safe space created for women like us who want to have authentic conversation around everything that impacts our life, careers, and relationships. Go ahead, grab your favorite beverage and get comfy. Now, let's have a chat.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Thank you so much for being with us today. I have a very special guest with me. Her name is Nikki Tucker. She is the founder and owner of The FIIRM Approach, a company that helps women, female breadwinners particularly, pre- and post- divorce, so they can gain clarity about their financial life through strategic education. She works with women financially. She's been doing this for over 20 years. And, basically, what she wants to do is to make sure that you are prepared in case your"financial" life is ever threatened, becomes stressed or overwhelmed. So everyone help me welcome to the show. Nikki Tucker. Yay. How are you today?
Nikki:Well, thanks for having me. I'm very happy to be here and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Shai Boston, CPTD:I am looking forward to it, too. Ever since you and I first met, I have been thinking about this because I have known quite a few women who found themselves in some pretty harsh financial situations. So I'm thinking from those of us that are in relationships, those of us who might even be single and might be thinking about getting into relationship or just need to be prepared period to care for ourselves in the future. And then even just as a business perspective, for those of us that are entrepreneurs, you know, thinking forward of what we might need to do to protect ourselves financially, especially from relationships. But before we dive into all of that custom here is to tell us what we're having as a beverage today, if you're having one. Today for me, I am having some blueberry lemonade I wanted something cool and refreshing to go with my money green, since we're talking about money. And are you having a beverage today?
Nikki:I have a latte, but it's not coffee. I am caffeine free or heavily, heavily reduced on caffeine, but I love coffee. So I found a coffee alternative and essentially have to brew it and make it the same way I would make an iced latte, but there's no caffeine.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Well, aren't you fancy. I
Nikki:I also have water as a backup.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Yeah, I have my water to the side. I always have my water with me too. I actually do decaf Cafe Bustelo because I don't do coffee either. Can't really do the caffeine, but that decaf Cafe Bustelo just hits the sweet spot sometimes. So I have to ask you later about that coffee that you have there or coffee alternative. But let's kind of get into a little bit. I gave a brief introduction about you and who you are. But why don't you tell the audience a little bit more about who you are and your background and how you founded The FIIRM Approach?
Nikki:Again, thanks for having me here. I am probably like a lot of Black women. When I say that, I mean that my family isn't necessarily the traditional nuclear family. And I've had some amazing opportunities in my life and also had some challenges. And, one of the things that made me start The FIIRM Approach is because I knew that there was a gap in the market, particularly with women. And trying to make sure that women had an understanding of what was necessary to protect their finances and improve the way that they manage their money. So I am born and raised Chicago, always representing my city. But I lived in a household where we didn't necessarily talk about money a lot and primarily was raised by my grandparents. Had obvious connections with my parents. But my grandparents had a lot of influence over me. As well as my aunts and uncles. And they would stress certain things about, you need to be able to take care of yourself. You need to make sure you go to college and they reinforce those messages a lot. But that was kind of it. There wasn't a lot of detail around how I should go about doing that and just being connected to other women and friends and even family members. We all felt like we were in the same boat that we knew what the end goal was, but we didn't have a lot of direction on exactly how to get there. And we definitely did not talk about, like, the specifics of money. Well, how much is it going to cost me to take care of myself? And what does that look like? And what's a reasonable salary and all of those things. So, I've had a genuine interest in financial literacy since I was pretty much in high school. I taught personal financial literacy, not only with my business, but also partnering with nonprofits since I was in college. And, whether it's on the business side or the individual personal side, that's kind of been been my thing for years. I majored in finance in college I have an MBA, like I can't get away from numbers even if I wanted to.
Shai Boston, CPTD:I heard that. In other words, she educated y'all. But no, I appreciate that because what's so interesting that you said, I just jotted down a couple of quick things. You're right in a lot of our households, we really didn't talk about money. I know in mine, for most of my life, my mom was a single parent, but it was always don't come to me on the first of the month to ask me about going to games and this, this, and that, when I was in high school, and things like that. Around the 15th of the month, that's when we went shopping. That's when we did the fun stuff or whatever the case may be. And so I just grew up understanding in the first of the month, everything is due. Don't do anything till the 15th. And then like you said, when it came to direction, as far as when we got older and the different things we're going to do, I didn't know what type of salary I should be looking for when I started working. Right. I mean, I knew how to write out a check, you know, back when we were writing checks, I knew that money just didn't come out the ATM machine. And I was taught you're supposed to have a budget and kind of like shown, but it was, I was never sat down on a regular basis once I became a young adult to say,"Okay, let's sit down and make sure you're doing your finances right, and you're managing your finances right." It was like, here's how you do a budget. Okay, now go and do. That was a skill, and then now that I know that I'm ADHD, that's a skill that just never really stuck with me. So, everything you said, I'm sure a lot of women have dealt with, and especially if they grew up in a household where, perhaps, there was one parent, if they had both parents, but if there was a parent that handled the money, but it wasn't discussed necessarily openly between the two. And also too, we get uncomfortable talking about money. Quite frankly. I find a lot of my sistafriends, we weren't really comfortable talking about money. So that's one reason why we wanted to have this conversation today and also with our next episode. So thank you so much for being here and being willing to share your expertise. Let's go ahead and dive into this and talk about first of all, what's the foundation that we should have? Let's talk about the building blocks So what are some basic budgeting type things that we should be thinking about or know about?
Nikki:I think some of the basics are around setting up the goals based on how much money you are actually making. So sometimes people are making a budget or spending plan, because money is intended to be spent and I think that's another thing that people get caught up in when they hear the word budget they think it's about restrictions and it's really not. I want you to spend the money, right. I do want you to save money, but I want you to spend the money. And so the foundation of a budget is about being very mindful and intentional of the plan for the money that you're earning. And so there are lots of different budget techniques out there, and I encourage people not to get caught up in figuring out what all of them are, but picking one and determining if that works for them. And if it doesn't, then you always have the ability to massage things. And that's another thing that people get caught up when you listen to money experts or professionals giving guidance or advice. You think that there's one way because they said to do it this way. That's just a high level framework of how you can attack your money. What I mean by that is maybe you've heard of 50, 30, 20. And so that's how you're setting up the plan for your money to say, well, 50% of my expenses are fixed and my money is going to be dedicated to that. And then 30% is discretionary or what I call flexible. And my income is going to be dedicated to that. And then 20% will go to savings. Then instantly, for people that can't save 20% of their income, they're already stifled and they're thinking, I can't save 20% of my income, so I can't use a 50, 30, 20. Well, that's true. You can't. But you could do like 60, 40 or 60, 30, some other combination where you're trying to figure out what's realistic for you. To say like,"Oh, I could do a 60, 30, 10, or I could do say 15 percent and then back into the rest." So that's always my general guidance is don't get so caught up on the technical nuances of a budget. It is fundamentally about having a plan and knowing how your money is growing and where your money is going. That's essentially the purpose of a budget.
Shai Boston, CPTD:You know, I really appreciate you saying that because, I've read a lot of different budget books. I've followed different ones like, you know, the Dave Ramsey's and all that kind of stuff and different techniques and, I'll be honest for me sometimes I was overwhelming. I was like, I looked at it and I'm like, okay, this is too much. What do you mean? Spend down to zero? What do you mean do this? One thing you said, I really appreciated though is that when it comes to a budget, it isn't about restriction. In my mind, budgets were about restriction. This is how much you're supposed to have, how much you're supposed to save. This is all you can spend. Like you said, there's all these different techniques when you read about a lot of them, it really wasn't about: Here's how you spend your money wisely.""Here's how you have a plan so you're spending your money wisely." It's always about, you need to check these boxes of, you know you have your rent, and you know you have the debt, and that means you can't go outside of that. At least that's how it comes across sometimes to different ones like me. So I appreciate you saying that it's about being mindful and intentional and having a plan on how you want to use and spend your money like you said to watch it grow as well as watching it flow. How is it going out and how is it coming back in? So thank you very much for sharing that because I think a lot of people don't necessarily get that. Would you say that using different types of apps might be good? There's so many different ones out there now to help doing tracking. Is that something that can be beneficial to people, who let's say, might be averse to using like an Excel spreadsheet or something like that?
Nikki:Absolutely, absolutely. So, you have individuals that are not comfortable using the internet. I think about my father-in-law and my mother is great examples. Okay. Pen and paper. That's what works for them. That's what's always worked for them. And I'm never going to be able to get them to do any budgeting and spreadsheet or online. Do what works for you. There are others that hate spreadsheets. I, by the way, am a spreadsheet girl, but I get it. There are people that hate spreadsheets and they don't want to have anything to do with a spreadsheet. Great. My guidance to them, don't use a spreadsheet. The great thing about where we are in modern day society is that there is no shortage of apps and websites to help you track your money. And so I absolutely encourage the use of the tool that, quite frankly, works for you and your personality. The best budgeting tool is the one that you will use consistently. So if that means pen and paper, if that means a spreadsheet, or if that means you're putting everything into the cloud and you're integrating all of your accounts and all your passwords, because that is your comfort level, that is the one that you should use. And there are plenty of them out there. There are some that are free and there are some that have fees. What I want to caution people about is not everything that's free is great. And so from a user experience perspective, it may work for you. But the question I would ask is"Why is it free?" maybe because they're running ads all the time and you're okay with that experience, but want you to think about the information that you're putting online. If you're entering account information or anything that requires a deeper level of security, that comes at a cost to the company providing you that service. So how are they funding the business in order to be able to make sure your information is protected? And so I know again, some people are apprehensive or not in favor of paying for budgeting tools, but I just want you to think about if paying$50 a year or$100 a year gets you added level security, like bank level security, then it's probably worth it. That's my opinion.
Shai Boston, CPTD:You know, that had never crossed my mind. Especially when you are being budget conscious, because again, you just explained that budgeting is about spending your money, not so much being restricted. Right? So one of the things we would think about if we're talking about budgeting is that,"Oh, I can't spend money on an app or a tool that's going to help me. Let me do the free resource because now I'm saving money," which is the goal. And so, no, we're reframing that. And we're changing that mindset into, like you said, if it's going to add more protection to you, which it should because you're paying for it, then it makes sense to go ahead and pay for it. Then you budget out for that payment.
Nikki:Exactly. Exactly.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad that you mentioned that because I have a lot of friends that do use different apps and many of them probably are not paying for them. And it does make sense that it's worth going that extra mile, so to speak, to pay for it just because of the added level of security, plus any additional benefits that might come from that, as well. A deeper dive, perhaps even into the finances. That makes a whole lot of sense. Just kind of quickly to recap, the foundation is find a tool that works for you. My mom still uses pen and paper, but find a tool that works for you. Use that tool and also adjust if you need to adjust, as necessary, and finding something that works, whether it's an app, a spreadsheet, whatever the case may be, build out your budget based on how much money you're making now. And figure out how you want to divide your money out as far as what your expenses are, what your discretionary spending is, and what you want to save going forward. So speaking of savings, one of the things that's always a huge challenge for everyone, but especially for women, is having an emergency fund. Now, I'm not talking about the little fund on the side that we dip into on occasion to have a little fun with to get our nails done. That's important too, but really having general emergency type funds or, funds that we can use for any situation. Can you talk to us a little bit more about what type of funds we might want to set aside? Even thinking about what kind of dollars and cents should we be looking at when it comes to building an emergency fund?
Nikki:Yes. So let me, let me connect the dots and I love how you said like, not the fun account. We're talking fund with the"D" here. So if we take the example that I mentioned about the 50, 30, 20, or some other variation, if you're working through that scenario and you just from a mathematical perspective, are saying:"I don't have any money" to save, I could say 1%, 2%. I can't save 5, 10, 15, 20%. Then you either have one of three problems. You have an income problem where you've cut everything you can possibly cut and you just are not making enough money. You have an expense problem. Where it doesn't matter how much money you make, you're 6 figures and you are still outspending your income or you have a behavior-habit-mindset issue. It could be one of those things or it could be a combination of the three. All right. And the reason that I'm saying that is because when it comes to an emergency fund it's about, one putting yourself first. When you hear about people saying, pay yourself first, that's part of paying yourself first. You're putting money away to protect yourself or make sure that you can handle things that may come up in your life in the event of an emergency. At the same time, it needs to be made a priority. And so if you find yourself in a situation where you cannot save because you have that income problem or because you have that expense problem, that's the first thing we need to tackle. Cause I know that there's a population of women that struggle to save just because they are cashflow negative, meaning they don't have enough money to put away because it's all accounted for somewhere else. Even if I say put yourself first, you can't put yourself first, because maybe that means you can't pay rent. Or maybe that means you can't put food on the table. That's a different scenario here. So we're talking about the people that are cashflow positive, meaning you have discretionary income available to you to be allocated to emergencies. Now, when you're trying to figure out how much, your not going to like this answer. Most people don't. It depends on a number of things right? Here's why it depends. I'll cover off on a few different scenarios and why it depends. If you have a lot of credit available to you, let's say your credit score is 750 or 800, and you are really responsible with paying off your credit card bills and that credit card debt is not an issue for you, and you have high availability on your cards, then your emergency fund doesn't necessarily need to be as high or as well funded as someone who has no savings and no access to credit. What I mean by that is if you needed to put something on a card, you could. If you are in a situation where your income is volatile, and so maybe you're in a sales or a commission job and one month you're knocking it out of the park and another month wasn't so great. So the volatility of your income just depends on how things are going. Then your emergency fund probably needs to be higher than someone who has consistent income. Because you don't know if you're going to have two bad months or bad quarter or something like that. Or maybe there's a higher probability that you might be laid off because you haven't hit sales goals in a couple of months. So your emergency fund needs to be bigger. Another example that I'll give is if you don't have high education and highly transferable skills. That may mean that if you were laid off, it may take longer for you to find a new job, especially at the same income level. So now your emergency fund needs to be higher than someone who's maybe a software engineer or really skilled in AI and tech, and that's a high demand job and a high paying job. So it's easy, or relatively easy to replace their income if they get laid off. So that's what I mean by it depends. Now, if you want me to quantify it, here's where I always start. You always often hear you need three to six months of expenses. Where if you're that first person who has negative cashflow, you don't have discretionary income, then three to six months of expenses sounds outrageous and it sounds like it's unachievable for you. And you're not even going to try, because it's too high. Then to that person, I say, start off with a$1,000. A$1,000 generally covers a deductible. It covers most emergencies that you might have with like a car or, you know, something within your household or something unexpected that comes up. Generally not in all cases. Like if your furnace goes out,$1,000 won't cut it. But a$1,000 can cover a lot of things. Especially if you have insurance. So that's why I mentioned deductibles. However, if$1,000 is easy and you're like,"Oh, I got$1,000 in the bank already." Great. Then your next milestone is a month worth of expenses. If you have a month worth, then three months worth of expenses. And then after three months, everything else is based on some of those factors and more that I mentioned. If you're in a single income household, meaning the sole source of all money is coming into the house is you and you don't have a partner or you don't have other income streams, then you need a higher emergency fund than someone who's married and has another income stream to rely on. So those are the things that I think people miss or we try to oversimplify when we have the emergency fund conversation. It truly depends.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Thank you so much for breaking that down because, you're right, I know people in each one of those scenarios and that reality is different. I've been in that scenario where I'm like,"I can't remotely get to three months worth of a salary." So I'm doing good if I can even get to$500 at this point. And then there's other times where I'm like,"Oh no, I'm, I'm flush with cash. I got a 401k. I got this, I got that. I'm good. I don't have to worry. I've got money I can lean on if I need to." So I think breaking it down into those different scenarios, and helping us to see where we are and start from there. And I like the progression you gave. If nothing else, start with trying to get to$1,000, then get to the one month, then get to the three. And then once you get there, look at the rest of your situation and see how much further you can get. That breaks it down and makes it so much easier and relatable, especially for those of us where I tell people I do money, I don't do math, but when I have to start mathing with my money, it can get overwhelming. And the other thing I wanted to tap into just briefly, when you went back to, and you said there's three different types of problems, one can have: an income problem, an expense problem or behavior-mindset-habit issue, or a combination there of, and that is most certainly true that we can have any of those combinations of things. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, I feel like the Fugees you sitting up here"playing my song." You know, but it really is giving us the opportunity to think about various mindsets. And it's also helping us to really be honest about where we are financially, not only where we are, but how we view money to begin with. And I think that's also a big challenge for women sometimes too, depending on how we grew up, how we were raised, that sort of a thing, some of us were not necessarily raised, I don't want to say to value money, but money may not have been deemed as important in the house in regards to you have to save or that you should be putting things on the side. You should be calculating out potential, you know, risks or situations. It was you earned it and you gotta send it right back out because you gotta pay these bills, right? So money wasn't valued in that sense of once we get it, we have to hold on to it. I think that changes once some people get older, which is one reason why you have a lot of people that grew up maybe not having quite as much now they hold on to their money or they go the opposite. They constantly spend their money, right? And so if I'm hearing you correctly, we're saying we need to find a way to be in the middle, where you're spending and you're saving, and look at where you are right now so you can start moving towards the point where you really can save and have that emergency fund, that cushion, that we all need. And I know in our next segment, we'll talk about women before, during, and after marriage. But one of the things that I was always advised is every woman should have their own cushion, their own kind of emergency fund. That also is going to take some planning as well when we're talking about how are we dividing out the money. So I just wanted to point that out. We've talked about having a budget. We've talked about having that financial foundation there and building that emergency fund. But, there are those of us that are in debt or have debt. So let's talk about the different types of debt, like liquid debt, or liquidity versus debt. Let's talk about good debt versus bad debt. So let, let's, let's get that hard-hitting conversation going too.
Nikki:Alright, let's do it.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Bring it on go ahead.
Nikki:So, liquidity is, it's relatively simple, right? It's just about what you have available to you that is cash or cash equivalent. So something that can be turned into cash relatively quickly. A good example is money in your wallet, cash in your wallet, that's a liquid asset. Your retirement account, for example, your 401k is not necessarily a liquid asset. You can convert it into cash, but you can't easily convert it into cash. Generally you can't convert it into cash without penalties unless you're at retirement age. Very simple example of what it means to be liquid. Debt. I, I like debt. And I'm not necessarily a subscriber of good and bad debt versus productive and unproductive debt. Okay. So it's a bit of a nuance difference here and let me explain what I mean by that. When I can make a purchase and I pay 0% interest on it, technically it's debt because I owe someone. I owe a company. I owe a creditor for that purchase. So that's debt, but if I'm spreading those payments out over three months or six months or whatever it might be, and that money is sitting in a high yield savings account, I'm not opposed to having that debt. Because now my money is still earning interest as opposed to me shelling out a thousand or$2,000 at one time. Now I've spread out the$2,000 payment or purchase over a few months with no interest added to it. And that money is now being used somewhere else productively. Okay. When you think about school debt, school debt and school loans can be productive or unproductive, depending on what happens when you graduate or what happens when you're done taking on debt for your education and your earning potential. So individuals who take out student loan debt, a significant amount, as an example, let's say a$100,000,$150, 000 in student loan debt, not picking on anyone. I'm just using high numbers here. But you end up working in a field and maybe this was your plan, but you end up working in a field where$35-,$45-,$55- thousand is your starting salary. But your not expected to have significant raises and your earning potential isn't that high because of the industry you're in. It's going to take you a really long time to pay off a$100,000 or$150,000 in debt. So, is that really the most productive use of your money to take on that debt? As opposed to you have a$150,000 you come out of school making$200,000 and your earning potential continues to rise where 300, 400, 500 hundred thousand dollars, then I would make the argument that the$150,000 could be worth it. Because your earning potential is so high. So I think it depends on the use of the funds and the opportunity costs, which just means what else could those same dollars be doing if you allocated them to something else, what else could those dollars do and how much are you losing or how much are you gaining? So a lot of people say, or follow a guy, who I won't name, that always talks about paying off a mortgage. Well, if your mortgage or interest rate is 9, 10%, it might be a good idea to pay it off. If you put your money in the bank to save, even a high yield savings account is not going to pay that much, and there's the tax consequence that goes with having mortgages, interest payments, write offs all that. We're simplifying things here, people. But, if your interest rate is 2 or 3 percent because you were able to take advantage of what was happening in the market a few years ago, then do I really want to take a couple hundred thousand dollars, and pay off debt that's only charging me 2 to 3 percent that I'm also receiving tax benefits on when I could take that same amount, if I had it again liquid ready and available for me to pay off if I could take that same amount and invest it into the market and earn 5 or 6 or 7% on it? So now the 2% that I'm paying on the debt and the 7% that I'm earning off the investment, now that's a 5% differential that's to my benefit. Why would I want to give that up? It depends on the type of debt that you have, what you're using it for, and kind of the long term implications or strategies associated with that. Now that said, high interest rate debt, generally speaking, is not going to be productive debt, unless you're like borrowing from somebody and you're making an investment into something that is guaranteed to pay off for you. And so that risk is worth it. You see a lot of it with business owners and entrepreneurs. Generally is not guaranteed that the company will be successful, but sometimes the strategy, the numbers, everything makes sense and it pays off. So you owe a lot of people, but you end up being a multimillionaire. Cool. That's worth it. But for the average everyday person that has 20% credit card interest rates on their credit cards or 20% on their car loans? That's generally not going to be productive debt. And I encourage people to work on the underlying issues, that caused you to have to pay those rates. And it's generally because you have too much debt, you don't have enough income and your credit score is poor. So work on those things so that you can get out of that position where you can get the rates that people with good credit have. I remember I used to teach my clients with like the first program I started and I would tell them about the rates that I had and they would tell me about the rates that they had. And they're like,"Well, I don't get those kind of offers." And I'm like,"That's because our credit score isn't the same." The same company, same bank. But we don't get the same kind of offers.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Right. You know, and it's the education today, folks, it's the education today. And the reason why I say that too is, and I mean this with the utmost of respect, because I'm sitting here listening to you and I go, you know, my husband and I have these conversations all the time, and even though my audience is pretty diverse, for the most part, we as women of color come from households where we are not taught how to build wealth. What you just described was just the just the foundation of building wealth. And how to go about doing it. This is how people play with their money. You know, it's not just always real estate, which a lot of us grew up hearing. Okay, you go to school, you get a job, you buy a house. And that was kind of like the end all be all of that, right? Whereas others at some point in time, like yourself, you got more education and more knowledge and it was like, no, there's more to these layers than just that. That's information that is often passed down in other communities that are not necessarily passed down in ours. And, particularly, I would say like in Black and Latino households. I would venture to say that in some of our Asian households, one of the things that I observed growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area is that they would all get into one house, live together as a family, put each other through school. And as they became successful, they moved out, part of the family moved in into that house. They stayed there until others were able to go out and they kept branching out. So then eventually, by the time everyone kind of have their own homes. They have their education, they have their cars, they had money already in the bank that they were already building because they have more of a sense of community within their culture. And so they build together, they build community together. So you often see that. And unfortunately, I would say probably more in the Black and Hispanic communities, We're together in our community, but we're not together in our community.
Nikki:Oh, yeah, I completely, completely agree with you. And we, we very often have the every man or every person for themselves,
Shai Boston, CPTD:Yes.
Nikki:mentality in our community. And so I think that's a great point. And I also want to point out to your listeners that I am not sharing this information from a pedestal or some high horse. I have had significant credit card debt. I have had significant student loan debt. So I am telling you this, not only from my expertise and my education, but from personal experience. And once I got a handle on my credit card debt and other like personal loans and things like that. When we're in school, we have our GPA. Okay. And when you're an adult, you still have a metric or a couple of metrics that are important to you as an adult, the same way you had GPAs when you were young. Those metrics translate to your credit score and it translates to your net worth. And so after paying down my personal debt, as an example, the impact it had to my credit score was significant. And the impact it had to my net worth over time was significant. So when you talk about building wealth, and these ideas or principles being foundational, that's exactly what we mean. Just because you were never taught it, no one in your family has ever been able to achieve wealth, does not mean that you cannot. But it does require a commitment and discipline, and you constantly having like a pulse on the right and wrong things to do to help you get there.
Shai Boston, CPTD:I agree. The one thing that I want to point out, just for my fellow sistafriends out there that are also Neurodivergent and might be challenged when it comes to impulses, impulse spending, and things like that, I would tell you from personal experience, in a two year period, I went from paying off all of my debt, credit score going up and rising, to hitting a year where there was so much going on, and this was again, before I was diagnosed with ADHD. My ADHD was spiraling, my mental health was spiraling, everything was spiraling, and I ended up right back in the same hole that I was in that I had just crawled myself out of. And so we know those repercussions can last for a long time. It's a matter of now working to get back out of those things. So, I don't want anyone to feel bad if they have found themselves in those situations, or if they recognize themselves, like I recognize myself, in some of these situations. It happens. We know right now it's tough out there. A lot of us have been laid off from jobs. Some of us were laid off or let go. You know, I know several that were out on maternity leave and was let go. Now, whether or not that's legal, that's a whole nother situation. Many of us ended up having health situations and so that led to debt or that led to medical expenses, which we now know medical expenses cannot be put on credit reports, but it still impacts you because you still have to pay that. Cause too many people were going bankrupt just behind medical bills. I had surgery in 2021. I had to two surgeries in a one month period. One of those surgeries was like$200,000, almost$300,000. It was crazy. And I'm like, I wasn't even there overnight. What in the world? Of course you're paying for the doctors and expertise and that thing, and I'm not knocking that whatsoever. But you're also paying for every time they gave you a Tylenol and every time they gave you an IV drip and all this, we don't necessarily realize those things until you get an actual bill. We don't often realize how these things add up. And it's the same thing like you said, even when it comes to our cars and all these kinds of things, we don't realize that, yes, you might be getting that car loan and you might be getting it, you know, at certain price a month. Now they're doing things five, six, seven years and adding interest on to that. So if anybody out there is in a situation that we're talking about where we have challenges with our debt, we're going to overcome those challenges because now we're more informed. Now we have more knowledge than what we had before. Now we know some of the things that we can do to start eliminating that debt, to start managing our money better. We're going to start where we are today. That's all it comes down to, start where you are today and then move forward. Do not punish yourself. Do not go and say I should have enough. No, we're reframing all of that and changing all of that. That's in the past. What did we learn and how is that going to move us forward? So as we get ready to wrap up this particular episode. One thing that I do want to ask you about Nikki, because everything you have said has been so invaluable I know it's definitely got my mind and my wheels going and I feel like we need to have more segments. I just there's so much. Like for real, for real. But my question to you is because many women often feel overwhelmed at times when it comes to talking about money and finances and all that kind of a thing. If you had to narrow your advice down to one single important step that someone can take right now to improve their financial situation, what would be that one thing that you would tell them to do?
Nikki:You actually just kind of made the point. You have to know where you are right now. And I've been in this situation to where we want to turn a blind eye to it or pull the blanket over our head when it comes to our money, because it ain't pretty and we just rather not deal with it. And so this works for everyone, whether you have a whole lot of money or just a little bit of money. You need to uncover and look at all of the details associated with your financial life. That's the starting point for everyone. And the point that you made about comparing yourself to other people. If one of your best friends has an amazing credit score and you don't, so what you can get there. Maybe that person has been doing a lot of work consistently over a long period of time to get there. So the goal is not about being perfect. It is not about being shameful about decisions that you've made or things that you could have done better or differently. It's really about making sure that you have a pulse and understanding about what is going on in your financial life right now. How much debt do you have? Not roundabout. To the dollar. How much debt do you have? What is your income? Are you cashflow positive or cashflow negative? Everybody can do this. And if you're listening to this and you're saying, Well, I don't know if I'm cashflow positive or cashflow negative", That's the first homework assignment that you have. That means cashflow positive, simple math. How much income do you have? How much expenses on a monthly basis do you have? And subtract the numbers. If there's money left over your cash flow positive, if there's no money left over your cashflow negative. If you're cashflow negative, you need to figure out why.
Shai Boston, CPTD:Yep. I agree. And one of the things that I encourage my listeners, because I'm pretty transparent as much as I possibly can be while protecting the dignity and respect of those around me. One of the things that we talk about on this show is being authentic, being transparent and putting things full on out there. And this is one of those situations. I want my sistafriends that are listening. Ladies, take the time to identify where you are financially. Is it going to be painful? I'm not going to sit up here and lie to you and act like it's not. It is. Few years ago. I literally had a girlfriend of mine come in, I said,"I need you to sit down and help me to figure out how to write a budget." Not that I hadn't done one before. Because like I said, I have certain things that don't allow me to think in the way that everyone else tends to think about doing things. I was like, no, I'm sitting here and doing it. It was the most helpful thing, number one. Number two, like, for instance, I saw how much I was spending on eating out. I'm not going to even put out there the numbers, but let's just say, I definitely could have used that and put that on a vacation or somewhere else. And I'm not even talking about in a period of months. That's all I'm gonna say. Sit down and really realistically look at what you're spending. I'm not knocking certain things because if you want to eat out, that's fine, then that means we budget for it. I prefer to have my food delivered just for health reasons and some other reasons, so I get Instacart and that kind of a thing, but I have to budget in the costs of what is it going to be when I'm tipping? What is it going to cost when I pay a yearly fee so that it cuts down on some of the costs that are associated with having that privilege. There are times when I go,"No, I don't want to pay those fees. So I'm going to go ahead and I'll buy from the store, but I'll go pick it up myself." So those are the different types of things to think about. I'm telling you right now, these streaming services, they done got out of hand. Like, for real, for real, cause Netflix finna go up again, and I'm like, Boo?! Netflix been my dog from day one. Between them, Prime, this, this, this. I was like, why did I cut out cable? Like... Those are the types of things to think about. And, honestly, we may have to make some of these sacrifices. I've cut a number of things, even in my business, I'm a solopreneur. I've had to think about where do I cut expenses? What do I need to let go for right now? So that I can make sure that I'm running other things and doing other things that need to get done. All of this to say, this episode is not about making you feel bad. This episode is let's be transparent with ourselves. Let's be honest with ourselves. You can do this in a matter of months. It may take a year. It may take a couple of years, but the point is to move forward. We're about progress. We're about consistency. We're about being honest with ourselves. With that being said, I would like to thank you all for joining us for this first part of the interview with Nikki Tucker. We're going to be back next week with part two, and I got all my notes right here for part two because part two, you definitely don't want to miss. It's about protecting your money Before, during, and after a marriage. Join us for that next episode. Thank you, Nikki, for being here for this one. And I look forward to joining you with the next one.
Nikki:Thanks for having me.
So... what did you think about today's episode and topic? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Or you can tell me how you're going to use today's information in your day to day life. You can do that by leaving me a message on my fan page at Fanlist.com/CoffeeCocktailsClarity. In the meantime, may you and yours be safe and well until we meet again for more Coffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.
