Episode 107 – Tiffany Aliche: The Budgetnista – Bet On Yourself

Casanova Brooks:
What’s up Dream Nation. We are back again. And today we have a phenomenal episode for you. If you do not know who the budget needs to is, you will, after this episode. So I’m excited. We actually had to reschedule this one. Because we wanted to make sure that all of the value was there. And so without further ado, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to the Budgetnista Miss Tiffany Aliche.

Do you want to say what’s up to DreamNation?

Tiffany Aliche:
Hey DreamNation. I love DreamNation because I call my tribe Dream Catchers. So, you know, the dreams link up!

Casanova Brooks:
Link up. I love it. And we gonna make sure that we get those dreams into motion after this episode. So I always like to make sure that we give the proper introduction and you’ve been featured across the biggest publications across the world. You’ve been doing this for 10 years now, so you’re not new to this game,

Tiffany Aliche:
I’m not new to this, but I’m true to this,

Casanova Brooks:
to this. I love it. And so I always like to think of entrepreneurs as superheroes. Why is because we’re constantly flying around the world, we’re putting on a Cape and we’re trying to solve problems, whether they’re ours or other peoples.

And so before you became this superhero, before you became this entrepreneur, Featured everywhere and helping thousands of other people take it back to when you were just a young girl. And tell me who is Tiffany Aliche.

Tiffany Aliche:
So when I was little, I was always someone who liked to be helpful. I was, I was a bit of a, I’m a busy body and a nosy rosy and, and bossy.

And, because I was like, no, this is the better way. And I realized that that translated into being a teacher. And so, I knew as a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher and I actually ended up. Before The Budgetnista being a teacher for 10 years. And so, but you know, what’s so strange. I think about this from time to time.

I remember distinctly riding my bike and I lived in Roselle, New Jersey at the time. And I can like literally see it. It’s like as soon as the smallest was, I was a very small town, like two square miles. And I just remember at the end of the street used to be like these big, huge, I don’t know if they were maple trees, but they would turn yellow during the fall that just remember, like on my bike, my banana or banana seat bike with the big old handlebar sitting under that tree and something coming to me and saying that people, people worldwide are gonna know your name.

Isn’t that crazy?

Casanova Brooks:
Crazy.

Tiffany Aliche:
I had to be younger than because we moved from Roselle when I was nine. So I had to be like maybe six, seven, eight years old. But I remember distinctly feeling that fully, people worldwide are going to know your name. And I was just like, okay, like, you know, Yes. And then too, when I was younger, every time that I would go and hang out with my friend, that they had a grandparent, it, especially one year in particular, it kept happening over and over that somebody grandma would come up to me and say, baby, you going to be a rich woman one day.

Yes. And I remember being like, okay. And so, yeah, but that would happen over and over and over. And so sometimes those things come back to me. And so, yeah, so I think Tiffany Aliche is a teacher is a giver, is a share. and Is a learner,

Casanova Brooks:
Got it. I love it. And so what I love the most about that is it sounded like not only you, but those around you, were always planting seeds inside of you, that you could be whatever it is that you want it to be.

Right. And that’s very, very big because in, especially the black community, you feel like you’re an outcast. A lot of the times, if you’ve got big dreams or be thinking crazy thoughts, people are like, listen, no, you just need to work on going to school, getting your, getting your GED.

Tiffany Aliche:
Right. Getting up, getting a basic job, you know, like, that’s it.

That is like, you can, you know, go ahead. You could dream big, but dream big means working for somebody else.

Casanova Brooks:
Absolutely. So where did that, I guess, where did it come from for you that you had the audacity to say I’m not going to work for somebody else? Was that where your parents business owners or what did that look like?

Tiffany Aliche:
So my dad was an accountant and a CFO of a small nonprofit, and my mom was a nurse, since they’re both since retired. And so I would see my dad do small business ventures on the side with his friends and my mom and my dad had an investment group with their friends. This was before everybody was kind of doing it just, but they met up once a month.

My, my aunts and uncles would come to the house. They would, drink, eat food, talk about finances, you know? but it wasn’t entrepreneurship. Was it? I’m African. I was born in New Jersey, but my parents were both born and raised in Nigeria. So entrepreneurship wasn’t. although Africans are very entrepreneurial meaning like if you go to anybody’s market, you see six year old selling their plants, selling their vegetables, you know, but it wasn’t, it was entrepreneurial by necessity.

Not by design, not by dream. It was just like, yeah, I sell things because I got to eat, you know, Exactly. so it wasn’t, honestly, I didn’t, I actually don’t consider myself I’m very risk adverse. You would not think so because of entrepreneurship, right? Cause I’m an entrepreneur, but what happened was the 2008, 2009.

Recession had me rethink what risk was because I graduated college. I had my bachelor’s in business and I figured I just worked for some boring corporate America job. and then. Afterwards after graduating, I realized I really hated all my internships and I really wanted to do something where I felt fulfilled.

So I became a teacher. Nothing safer than a teacher, right. Recession hits, right? I’m like, Oh, recession hits. I’m not worried about it because teachers don’t lose their jobs. So that’s all, y’all 2008. I’m good. 2009 at the end of 2009, they tell us that our school is closing. And I was like, wait, what? And everyone, unfortunately has to get, let go.

And in literally the span of a few weeks, I lost everything. I lost my job. I was in basically pre-foreclosure I was in a relationship for like six, seven years. I thought we were going to get married. We broke up, I lost all, I lost everything. And that’s when the, the, a switch flipped about what does safety really mean?

Cause I’m risk adverse. Right. And I said, you know what sounds risky having my whole future in the Palm of someone else’s hands. I’m not going back to work for nobody else. That’s what. Made me an entrepreneur is because it actually seemed less risky to bet on Tiffany then depend on somebody else to look after me.

And so that’s why I started my business.

Casanova Brooks:
I love it now for a lot of people, they’re in that exact situation right now. Right? They’ve lost their job. Maybe they’re getting a little bit on unemployment, but they know that that’s going to stop one day, but they don’t know how to take that action step because they don’t feel like they have the resources.

So my question to you is, was there a resource that you can remember reading a book, reading, a blog, catching a YouTube channel? What was that for you? Or maybe it was another friend who had just went off and started their business. What was it for you that allowed you to say, look. If they could do it, I can do it.

Tiffany Aliche:
So the first book that I read that really made me say was Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris. Every entrepreneur needs to read the four hour work week. Yeah. and he just really broke down. How do you maximize your time and your energy? So minimal energy for maximum return, right? And I remember I was actually reading Four Hour Work Week when the kids were sleeping during nap time, I used, I was a preschool teacher.

So I was reading that book because I knew there was something in me. There was like there’s more, you know, although I love teaching, you know, but I was like, there’s something else. I was reading that book. I remember being like, huh, taking notes. And so. That book kind of expanded, like there’s something beyond what I currently know.

nevermind.

And so, but will Smith, if you go to YouTube and type in will Smith wisdom.

Some, when people have collected, like will Smith will do interviews about his movies or whatever, and there’ll be two minutes where he gives you your entire life. You’re like what? And so when things, especially in the beginning, when I didn’t know which way to go, which way to term I would type in “Will Smith wisdom” and listen, and just listen, that man would be dropping bombs over Baghdad.

Okay. It was just amazing. So that was another. another, resource that I really leaned into and another resource I leaned into them too. It’s this book called the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, an amazing book. Although it’s a fiction story, I feel like anyone chasing a dream should read it. It’s just a story about a young boy who kind of is like figuring out his purpose and his, and his, what his true dream is and how, and, and the way that he comes to find it is so indicative of what it truly looks like to live out.

You know, what your purpose and dreams are. It’s just like, it’s just, the book is such a great reset. I read it every year just to reset. So, yeah. Those are the three resources in the beginning as I was scrambling around because honestly, I didn’t know how to do anything. I didn’t, although I had gone to school for business, I went, I remember, my, my undergrad, my, concentration was marketing.

And so I didn’t really, I specifically remember there was a class that, where it was like a class about how to write a business plan and I dropped out cause it was hard. I’m like I ain’t doing all that. So I didn’t, I didn’t bring with me. Yes. And so. All I knew for sure is I knew how to teach. That’s the one thing, a hundred thousand percent.

I said, you’ve been a teacher for 10 years. Cause I started teaching when I was like 21. So by the time I started my business at like 30, I was like, okay, you’ve been a teacher basically for. For 10 years, you know, how to teach. And so that was the foundation that I built everything else on, because I was like, okay, you have this strong foundation of teaching.

So in the beginning of business, I said, okay, I’m going to teach individuals. So one-on-one, if you can just give me 50 bucks, you could just give me 75 bucks, if you could just give me a hundred bucks. So that was the initial, like teaching financial education, because it was post recession. Everyone was struggling and I was struggling with less.

Because of this financial foundation. I, my father, as a CFO taught my four sisters and I about finances at home, right. How to budget, how to save, how to get your credit. So I had that financial education knowledge, but I also had the ability to teach.

Scaling your business

And so the beginning, it was this one-on-one like so many entrepreneurs went hand in hand one-on-one and I remember literally I used to Google and read everything I could find about marketing and growth.

And I remember reading an article about scaling. I’m like, well, what’s that they were like, well, that’s how you take your, your business or whatever, from one level to the next. And I was like, okay, well, I want to make at least $2,000 a month. If I’m charging a hundred dollars, a person that’s 20 people a month, then can I really do that?

That doesn’t what scale? Hmm. Well, how do I scale? I want to be a thousand dollars a month. So instead of one to one, what about one to few? So then. My mentor at the time said, I should look for contracts. And so I emailed everyone I could think of, cause I did a lot of volunteer work. I emailed all the people I volunteered for said, Hey, it’s me, Tiffany.

I volunteered at your organization in some capacity teaching financial education, or sometimes just feeding the homeless, but I teach financial education. I would love to do so for your organization, someone from the United way, reach back out. I ended up writing curriculum for them because when I was 26, I got my master’s in education.

I thought I was going to become a principal. Hated it. So I wasn’t, but I did learn how to write curriculum. And so I leaned into the skills that I had, right. So I wrote the curriculum for the United way and taught the six week course. So now we’re one-to-few, I’m a teacher in the classroom. Once again, the United way paid me.

I want to say they started with $300 a class. So all of a sudden, you know what I used to have to work three people with, I can make it with within that same two hours I can make with these people who are sitting here. I was like, okay, now we cooking with grease and I convinced United way to let me do a six week series.

I was like, Oh, I have a six week series who had a six week series. I made it up Hill. It was like, I can make one up. Right. So I was like, Ooh, six weeks series six times three is 18, $1,800. Boom, bam. Okay. Now one of the few, then I convinced them, how about I do my series on Tuesdays and Thursdays? So now all of a sudden I make a $600 a week.

I’m like, boom, bam. Okay. But, so that was one of the few, and I thought about scale again. How many of these series do I have to do to make $10,000 in a month? Every, so Jim Carrey has this great story about how he wrote himself a check.

Casanova Brooks:
Yeah,

Tiffany Aliche:
when he was like dead broke. Right. And he, and he would take that checkout and look at it.

I think it was like a $10 million check or something to that effect. And so I wrote myself a $10,000 check, like I’m gonna make $10,000 in one month. That was so setting goals is so critically important. I have, I keep notebooks where I set goals about them. How much I need to make or what I want to, especially my financial goals.

Right. And so I set this goal of like, I want to make $10,000 in a month. So I was like, well, dang, how many United way series do I have to do to get to $10,000 a month? That don’t scale. Right. You know, so then I started thinking, okay, one to one doesn’t scale, but it’s a good place to start because it helped me hone my skills.

One to few. Doesn’t scale, but it was a good place to start because it helped me hone my skills for a wider audience. It’s one thing to tailor something for individual person. But like if I’m teaching a classroom, I had to learn how to teach what the general public could understand. So I learned that there, but still didn’t scale.

I said, what about one to many? What’s one to many. I started reaching out to my friends who had, sisters and brothers in college, it was like, how does that speak to that contact? Do they speak one of the gentlemen? He went to, my friend, dude, his brother was actually president of the, junior or something class at King university.

And he’s like, Oh, we get speakers. Basically we choose. I said, well, how do y’all choose? He’s like, we just find ’em. I said, well, find me, you know, he was like, that was, it was, I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, wait. He said, the way it works is that. colleges, they work out the finances ahead of time and it trickles down to the kids and then the kids make the decision.

So I was like, well, let me start going to school to school, to school because I remember King university, they pay me $1,700 to speak. So now my Oh one to many. Right. So I don’t have to work. You know, like three or six weeks for the United way to make the, I can do this with one. Okay. So I started to do more colleges and universities and things like that.

So I was like, okay. One to many, you can it’s it’s way more people. Same time, tax on me, but way more money back. I said, okay. Okay. So now, and then I made my first 10, $10,000 in a month. I was like, yes. I did it. And then I started thinking, well, huh? I wonder, well, how do people make like a million dollars?

What does that look like? So I was like, okay, it’s not one to one. It’s not one to few. It’s not even one to many, although there are some speakers who make a million dollars speaking, but honestly, I had friends who were making like half a million and they were speaking 300 days out of the 365 year. And I was like, yeah, I’m not interested in that.

Right. So then what does one to infinite look like? Tiffany infinite, infinite. And, and, but then I had launched my first Live Richer challenge was a free online resource that I still launch every single year. And my goal was to sign up 10,000 women for that challenge. And. We signed up 10,000 women. It took me a full year convinced 10,000 people to join, but by the end of that, of the year, so we had 10,000 do the original Live Richer challenge.

It’s an email course. It’s a month long email course. And by the end of that month on email course, people had told their friends and I automated it. And by the end of that year, we had 20,000 people signed up. And then next year when I launched the, savings version of that Live Richer challenge, we had 50,000 people by that.

So it was like, okay, so. By the time. So it was like a light bulb went on. I was like, huh? These Live Richer challenges are digital. That’s like an infinite number of people. Like whatever, you know, meaning like, you know, the second billion people we’re, but that’s basically theater, like, you know, not technically an infinite number of people, but basically there’s no limit to how many people I can reach if I’m using the internet, if I’m using online.

Huh? What does that look like? So. I asked my audience what they wanted and it, after really extracting what they wanted, it really sounded like they wanted an online school. So I built an online school. And, after that was, I want to say like six years in to The Budgetnista, six or seven years into the Budgetnista.

And when it’s first within its first year, it made a million dollars in a year, the first year and a half. And now just two months ago, we made our first million dollars in a month. That’s one to infinite. And so now we’re eight figure your business, but do you see how the one on one, but you can give me $50.

Tell me what this

Casanova Brooks:
budget, so where you are with what you have.

Tiffany Aliche:
So one to few, but also the key is that I think, especially for women too, is that you have to be intentional about the growth. I could have just said. I wish somebody would come on and get me and see how talented I am. No, I was like, wonder one, I’m doing this, but how do I scale, how do I actively participate in my growth?

Okay, well, I can do this one to few. Okay. Well, how do I actively participate in the next level? It’s not just going to fall into your lap because I have a business like so many women’s businesses that are. That’s service centric. Right? We do a lot of good, we give a lot away for free. And so a lot of women and you know, are in that zone where they’re like, service, service, service, give, give, give.

And I believe in that, you know, I would say the majority of what we do, honestly, we don’t get paid for, but so many women and new entrepreneurs get stuck there. Those who want to be of service as if you can’t help good people do good work and make good money. Right. And so I have to have a service plan, which we do, but I also have to have a business financial plan, which we do, so that, that is equally as important.

And by then I, when I finished by the time I feel it’s really going through it, I had lost my job already. I was sleeping like on my sister’s couch and, for a year, and I remember writing down, he has this, he has this, activity that you do that you have to write down the life that you really want lifestyle design.

And then you have to ask yourself how much I think each component of my life would like to get this done will cost. I remember one of the things things I want to do is I want it to give to my parents. I’m going to retire, then there’s all these things I wanted. So I wrote that everything. And then I wrote them how much I thought each of those things would cost.

And it said they had to make $300,000 a year. That’s what I added up to me while I’m sleeping on my sister’s couch. My house has already been foreclosed upon. I don’t have any income. I’m scraping just to get people, to give me $50 to sit down with them for two hours for a budget. And me, while my dreams on paper say it’s $300,000 a year.

I remember looking at it like, okay,

but I was just like, I kind of put it to the side and I was just like, okay. I mean, but I mean, it was discouraging, but I was just like, I mean, this is what you said that you want. I put it to the side, you know, but now I mean, me as Tiffany personally, I make six figures a month. You know, which is so crazy.

Cause me writing that was probably was like, it was maybe seven, eight years ago, seven years. I went from sister’s couch to, I hope this person got my 50 when I see them too. I’m not talking about something bigger than six figures in a month. I’m not talking about as a business. I’m about me as tip. I need my take home.

Scaling your business

You know,

Casanova Brooks:
I got, I got a couple of… man. You just dropped so much value there and thank you for being so transparent and I’m inspired already. Right. And that makes me think that I haven’t been writing down my goals. Defined enough, right? Cause I mean, I’m doing well, but when you talk about the manifestation of just putting it out there of, you know, a million dollars in a month or even a million dollars in a year, you’re like, man, I can do that.

I want to do that, but what’s the plan on it. But the first thing that I want to know is what was your biggest struggle throughout all of this time? Cause you’ve talked about the last seven, eight years where you really had it.

Tiffany Aliche:
My biggest was.

I would say my biggest struggle honestly, was believing in believing in myself when there was no, like right now, you know, folks know like a lot of people know the brand and like, Oh yeah, go Budgetnista go. But that wasn’t. So in the beginning, I remember going to networking events where people would be talking to me, but being like, you know, looking beyond me to the next important person, because obviously I wasn’t it.

And it was, how do you keep that motivation? When there are other people, like my parents were like, “what are you doing? Budgetnista, get a job”. my parents are Nigerian. So they were like, what is happening? Right. So I’m like, I’ll go business, sleeping on the couch. Meanwhile, you know, I have a business. I, after I moved from the Capitol renting a room I had in my, in my twenties, I bought a whole condo by myself and now I’m renting a room at 30.

You know, and so like, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a blow to your ego and your self confidence, but there was just something in me that said that I’m not going back. Like, I mean, I would, I would feel overwhelmed with, I used to call it being on the edge on me and my, my, my best friend. We would talk, we’ve talked about like, you know, girl, I need you to talk me off the edge because it was like basically jumping and saying, I can’t do this, you know?

But the thing that brought me back time and time again, is that as much as I feel like I can’t do this, I can’t do that. Right. I cannot do. It was the thing. I was like, I’m not going back to nobody’s classroom. Nobody’s school, the safest place in the world. And for you to tell me one day, despite all the work.

The education, how many kids I taught to read no, one’s going to tell me it’s done for you, Tiffany. I was like, so that’s what really, it was like a fire in my belly that was like, girl, this is hard, but there’s nothing harder than that. You want, you want the sour feeling in the pit of your stomach, that at any time someone could come and take away your hopes and dreams that it could all be washed away, girl.

No. So this room, it might be hard living in this room. It might be hard living on his couch and might be hard. Some people don’t have your money, but it’s even harder to, to participate in a dream that’s fake, you know, at least you could bet on you at least, you know what it is, you know? And so, yeah, believing in myself in, in, and keeping the motivation.

If I didn’t always have it, honestly, I, I didn’t. But, time and time again, I’d be like, well, what is the alternative? The alternative is to live less than a, a less than life. What is the alternative is to go back to what’s seemingly safe for it to be snatched. Like, imagine if I had gone back and now here we are again.

Right in a silver city. I don’t ever like, Oh my goodness. I knew I should have made a different move. I’m not backing down. It’s a recession now, but guess what? It’s a different, Tiffany. The recession met me different, like, Oh, you, you picked on me when, when I was 30. Oh, that’s cute. Now that I’m important. I got these scans for you.

I’m all the way. Good, good. Right. I have debt free. This house I live in. Oh, you got to use going to take it like last time now paid off this house was paid off. We ain’t got no mortgage on this house. Right? You know, like, so yeah, that’s, that was the hardest part keeping motivated. when there was nothing to motivate me, not, not if you’re only chasing the profit, because there’s going to be a long time before you make any money.

So you have to figure out what’s going to motivate you to keep going when the money is not there. And it was the service for me. And it was also, it was the, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

Casanova Brooks:
I love it. And you said, so a couple of things that my takeaways out of that is, is really successes hard.

Failure’s hard. You got to choose your hard, right? That’s what it really comes down to. And something else that buddies of mine and, and, and I always say is failure weighs ounces, but regret weighs tons. Right? And so you didn’t want to just, like you said, going to this other one and say, I wish that I would have, because that’s so much harder to come back from because you know, that time is your most valuable asset and that’s the one thing you can’t get back.

You can go back and get that $10,000. You can go back and get the condo, but you can’t go back and get that time where you’re like, man, I spent these last three years knowing that I was meant for bigger. Which is something that you said earlier as well. So I love to hear you say that.

Believing in yourself & paying debt

For somebody out there that’s listening right now.

They got a lot of debt. And for a while, a lot of people come to you. Not for somebody for a lot of people. They got a lot of debt. They got student loan debt, they got card that they got mortgage debt. They’re got a lot of debt while a lot of people come to you is because you’ve been the budget expert.

You’ve shown people how they can really get their finances in order and then start to go after their business or whatever else. But I heard a video where you were talking specifically about, should you be paying off debt first or should you be investing first? And so for a lot of people, that’s a question.

What’s your answer to that?

Tiffany Aliche:
So my answer is that it depends on the kind of debt. So I have this motto, the debt free doesn’t equal wealth. Right. because it just doesn’t, you can be debt free. You can, owe no one, you know, I, I always like for Roman, who is my nephew, he’s four. And so I’d just be putting his business out there in the street.

I’m like, Roman is debt, free. and Roman is broke. He was just over here yesterday. Broke, just eat my food, playing with the toys I bought him. Roman is broke. He don’t bring no finances table. And yet Roman doesn’t have a car though. Student loans or mortgage moment is debt free. So then why is he not rolling the dough?

Cause debt free don’t equal wealth. Right. And so, so what that means is this, I don’t want you to misconstrue that. I don’t think you should pay down that. Absolutely. I am completely debt free. I own two homes. I have no student loan debt. My husband and I each have our own cars. They’re paid off. We paid off my parents’ house last year.

So we are debt free on top of debt free on top of debt free. So I believe in debt freedom, but I believe in debt freedom as a result of growing wealth, right? Not as the goal itself, it is a goal. It’s not the goal. Right. And so, so, but here’s what I mean. So the first thing I did was I paid off my, I was aggressive.

So I started building a bunch of new stuff, kind of like with like, with little money as possible, but I was aggressive in paying off my credit card that that’s important because credit card debt is expensive debt. It’s usually double digit. Interest rate. That’s why, that’s why it’s expensive debt. So 20, 28%, 16%, 10%.

Meaning that the reason why you want to pay off your high interest rate that aggressively before you start investing in wealth, is that. It’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to make more than that debt costs you. So if my credit card debt is 30, 28% in order for me to offset the cost of my credit card debt, I have to make 28% in business or investing.

It’s not as likely. Right. But if my student loan debt is 5%, it is very likely that in the market or my business or whatever, that I can get a 5% return. So it means that I would be paying the minimum to my student loan debt. Like still pay it, set it automated, but I’m going to be putting most of my energy into mine, into my business or the market, because I could out earn the loss of what that debt’s costing me.

So I would say typically it’s around the 7% Mark. So because on average, the market yields seven to 8% a year. right. So any debt that costs you more than seven to 8%, you might want to be a little bit more aggressive on any debt that’s going to cost you less than 7%. So 6% or less. Then I would be paying it, but I would be giving it its minimum maybe plus a little bit, and then putting my energy elsewhere.

To put money toward that debt in a concrete way. I’ll give an example. So I, I paid off my car. I had $35,000 worth of credit card debt because of some scam. so I was really aggressive with paying that off. And then I was going to get aggressive with paying off my student loan debt, but a light bulb went on.

I said, Tiffany, it took you almost four years to pay off this $35,000. Yeah, this is when I was like, you know, living hand to mouth, starting The Budgetnista, you know, something like that took a long time. Your student loan, your student loan debt is $50,000. So 35,000 for took you four years almost. So am I not going to get to the budget needs to for another, what?

Five, six years. Oh, heck no. And my student loan debt was, I’m like 5% interest. And I said, you know what? I didn’t pay the minimum because the minimum was a few hundred dollars a month. And I was like, you know what, I’m going to put it back in forbearance. This Is not for everybody, but this is what I did. I’m going to put it back in forbearance.

And I’m going to put my energy toward and my money toward growing The Budgetnista because my, the debt is not accumulating. The, the interest is not accumulated on my debt super rapidly because the interest rate is so low and my student loan debt. So for two years, Everything I had into The Budgetnista.

I mean, everything as far as like my time, my energy to grow in this business. And at the end of two years, I was able to not only pay off my student loan debt with one check then a year after that. Well, yeah, you have, after that, I was able to buy this house with one check, renovate this house, six figures, one check, pay off my parents’ house.

One check, purchase my car. One, check my husband purchase his car was one check. And some people are like, well, that’s easy because you married. Be clear. What I make in one month is double what he makes in a year. Okay. So it’s not, cause people will tell you like it’s because, Oh, that’s because you had no, no, no.

I mean, my, I created a financial life for myself long before I met him. We’re actually newly married. I got married in my late thirties. So it’s not, it was, I was able to, you’re able to do this. On your own. Is it harder if you have children? Yes. Cause people always be like, sometimes what’s what, what worries me when I share my story is that people will use it to say, Oh, that’s why.

Cause I can’t do that. And you’re right. You’re right, because you have already told yourself that there’s nothing I can do for you. What I listened to will Smith. I am not a Hollywood movie star. I am not. I don’t live in, in wherever he lived and yet I can listen to will Smith’s wisdom and take the components that are for me and to use them to grow myself.

That’s why I challenge people to do that. When people are telling their story, it’s their story, but it doesn’t mean it’s not something in there for you. You can use their story. So to discourage yourself, or you can use their story to encourage them. Well, did you have kids? What do you? Well, my parents had five and yet, somehow they came here from Africa with nothing and college educated, five girls and live in a beautiful home.

So what, Oh, you’re looking for an excuse as to why. I mean, you can, you can find every excuse in the world or you can find excuse for the, yes. I don’t want to live my life full of nos. I don’t look. I don’t because it doesn’t benefit anyone. Okay. You, you win the, you win the I can’t Olympics. Yay. You can’t, your life is less like what, what does the parade you try to throw for yourself?

I want you to have. Don’t look for the, like, can’t be me. Look for that. Ooh. Although this part of her life is different. This part, I see myself in that I can do it too.

You get to keep them right? You argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. And so that was something to me. And I was like, Oh man. And the reality of it is, is just like The Four Minute Mile by Benjamin Banister, right. Where he broke that four minute mile. But it was because at the end of the day, he didn’t put any limitations on himself.

And I think that kids are the greatest. Like we, I got my daughter right now. She’s two and a half and everything she can do, she can do it all. I mean, she could cook spaghetti, obviously. She can’t.

But I can do, I can do and just gotta go through it. And then she ha s no problem with saying, can you help me? Like, you know, but because we get these emotions that all of a sudden we’re like, Oh man, I’m going to look bad, but we had to try it ourselves first.

And then you ask for help because at the end of the day, people don’t ever care, but we let these, these. These small beliefs in our head tell us that we’re not capable of something.

And at the end of the day, it’s the people just like, while we say Dream Nation, those of us who dare to dream while the rest of the world settles, because at the end of the day, we’re the ones who stand to be trailblazers and Changemakers.

Believing in yourself & paying debt

And I think over your last seven, eight years, you’ve clearly proven that.

And just because you had that mindset, so I love that for you. How much has real estate been a factor in your wealth building? Like, do you focus on real estate or is for you, are you still a big advocate of making sure that you’re heavy into the stock market or what’s that look like for you? And how would you, how would you specifically advise other people who are brand new to this thing?

They’re not trying to be an expert, but they’re just like, okay, I got a little bit of money. I need to invest here. What do you say?

Tiffany Aliche:
So I, I say, well, one, you want to put your, when it comes to investing, investing in the thing that you’re willing to put the energy into learning about. Hmm. So when I first started, I was like, anybody interested in stocks by I’m not, it seems boring.

I don’t know. Right. And then real estate takes, took more money than I was willing. I was like, I don’t have money for real estate, but business. Huh? There was just something about. Business that I really took to, and I was willing to put the time and the energy and the funds toward business. So that’s where I grew my base, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be that.

I know plenty of people who made money with real estate, plenty of people who made money with stocks, you have to figure out where does your interests lie? Because that’s where you’re going to put the work into. It’s not going to feel forced, you know, and it’s going to keep you interested. And so. The large part of my wealth that I’ve grown has been in business.

And it’s only just recently that I’m like, so when it came to like stocks, I was like, Oh, okay. You know, as it relates to like retirement and things like that. So it was very like, you know, just like, like, you know, let me get the, the bare foundation of my retirement account is, is it’s funded, but now I’m getting into it just a little bit more because I’m like, okay, I have a little bit more.

A lot more passive income to kind of play with. So I’ve been taking courses on my own. Like one of my friends Tila has a course called trade your nine to five that I really like. And then real estate has really been in the last, I want to say two or three years. I was, my husband is a super for the city where we live and.

I was like, well, all of our friends call you to come check out their new real estate that they bought to see if it’s a goodbye to see why are we not doing that for ourselves? You know, he’s going to retire fairly early. The good thing about, there’s something to be said. I, you know, people always, I believe in entrepreneurship, but there’s also something to be said, Four for having a job, you know, a regular job.

So his job is great. Cause the insurance is like, you can’t purchase this level of insure you can’t, but it was gonna be very pricey. Right. And he’s fortunate in that because he works for the state. He’s one of the few people left that still has a pension. Right. So, and to me, the pension part is not what we care about.

Cause we, we make plenty, but it’s the insurance that he gets to take with him. After 25 years of service. And for him, that’s age 46. So that’s incredible that we can be ensured, right? The rest of our lives. You understand like what that means at 80 years old. And I have to come out of pocket for insurance.

It’s worth its weight in gold. Right? So, so for him, yeah, we we’re, we’re, we’re investing in real estate because that’s something after he, after moving beyond where he works now, that’s where he wants to lean into. And so we bought our first investment property recently.

Casanova Brooks:
I got it. I love it. And so start with where you are, start with what you feel like you can put the most energy into because it’s going to be tough.

Right? Everything’s hard. Stacks are hard and there’s no get rich quick, but if you know that you’ve got the energy and you can put in the effort, that’s where you’ll come out ahead. And then you can always diversify and go into one of the other two or three or whatever else afterwards. One question though, that I have, and this is a question that comes up to me often.

Is it sounds, were you already pretty successful before you and your husband got together?

Yes. Okay.

And the reason why I asked that is because. You, you talked about in the beginning security, right? You can’t put your security into a job. You got to bet on you, but then your husband works on the other side, right.

Where he really has that security for whatever reasons that he’s comfortable with. So for a lot of people that want that entrepreneurship, For you, was it easy? Do you feel like it was a lot easier because you were already a successful entrepreneur than if you would have been just trying to get your business off the ground and he’s working a nine to five and yet you’re trying to figure it all out because for a lot of people, them and their spouses already had these nine to five and they want to create a program like Budgetnista, but then they’re like, well, I don’t think my spouse will approve of this.

What’s your thoughts on that?

Tiffany Aliche:
So I think that. My husband and I talk a lot about our dreams to figure out what is it that we’re both wanting. And, it was important to me that because I’ve had partners before, like that, you know, that, that I’m not guys that were, I didn’t, we didn’t get married, but I had partners before that weren’t with it.

They were not interested in me growing, like my first like, boyfriend in college, I just knew we were going to get married, but there was like this pit in my stomach because I didn’t even know I was building something, but I just knew that there was something in me. So I used to work on a night or going in the morning and I found myself sneaking to work on stuff because he would be like, you know, you’re making dinner? Like, you know what I mean?

I’m like, Oh wait, like literally, like I was cheating. I was cheating on my drink with my dream, you know? And that’s what I was like in my twenties. I was like, Oh hell no girl. That’s saying that this is not it. so, but like really, because you’re already married. Sometimes you think that person might not be on board, but sharing what your goals and dreams are and asking what their goals and dreams are and how do we actively work on them together.

You know, that’s one of these, like I said, we bought that investment property. Cause my husband’s like, you know, I’ve always wanted to look into real estate because quite honestly, I’m not that interested in real estate, but it’s something that he was like, I’ve always wanted to look. I was like, okay. So I put my energy toward like, like, let’s talk about like, what does that look like?

You know, you know, what kind of house should we look for? Like, you know, so like giving him the, the, the support that he needs for his goals. And so now he’s offered running. He, now we have a, a friend of ours, who’s a, a project manager. So. We bought a tax deed property from the city for $10,000. And so, but it’s, it’s, it needs to be totally gutted and renovated.

And so in the beginning I could tell my husband’s a little unsure about like, Oh, okay. So us looking and navigating together. And then once we got to a certain point, I could see, he was like, I was like, Bobby I’m out. Cause like I said, I have no interest in. So now he works with our friend and they they’ve been renovating the house and getting it together and getting the contractors and go to.

I couldn’t tell you what, not that I couldn’t tell you what’s happening, but I know what’s going good. And I look at it like, Oh, that’s good. But you know, sometimes just giving your spouse the support, they need to have the confidence to move forward. So, so he supports me of what I need, which is just like, you know, I don’t need anything other than you have the space and the freedom to be Tiffany, because I work a lot.

And then to the support of like, you’re good. Like when like yesterday I did a, CBS had a documentary that they, they like CBS news and that they hired me to be the host for about insurance fraud. And so he’s over there with his phone, locked in, like videotaping it. That’s what I need, you know?

Casanova Brooks:
And so like, somebody was just in my corner.

Tiffany Aliche:
Exactly. So identifying what it is that you need for support, but also identifying what is it your spouse needs for support and having those conversations so you can support each other. You’d be surprised in doing so how they might be more open to trying something new,

Casanova Brooks:
man. I love it. That’s a nugget right there in itself.

Balance vs. Harmony

Let me ask how do you keep the balance? Because you said I work a lot, your husband’s obviously he’s got a set schedule. Maybe it sounds like he’s got a set schedule. How do you keep balanced? Cause for a lot of people, especially right now, if they’re now in a new environment where now they’re having to work from home and their kids can just come into the room, especially if they’re a woman, like they, everyone needs mom, my mom, my mom.

So how do you keep the balance? Do you think that there is a such thing as balance now?

Tiffany Aliche:
Yes. I don’t believe in balance. I believe in harmony. And so balance is when things are, are in equal measure, right? Ain’t no such thing. Like everything is weighed in equal measure. Oh, same as fat. No harmony is when things collectively work together for the greater good. So there are moments when I don’t have to like it, like, so I keep, like, for example, I don’t work on Fridays.

Okay. I keep my Wednesdays light and I keep my Monday semi lightish, but really Wednesdays and Fridays, I keep super light. And then typically I don’t have to work on the weekends. And especially now we’re not because we guys would be for like travel if I was speaking somewhere or whatever, but that’s not happening now.

So during those moments or when. I lean in. So I lean in heavily when I don’t have to be The Budgetnista, because I know I have to lean in heavily when I do have to be The Budgetnista. Like just yesterday I called my sister, she’s got two little ones. Amelia who’s three enrollment, four going on five, going on a hundred.

And she was like, I was like, Oh, I haven’t seen the kids in wash. She said, what time you want to drop them off? Because he was like, I’m tired. What else? Oh, hour, six hours later. I’m like you ain’t coming to get these kids, but it was like yesterday I was Auntie Tiffany. That’s it. Right because you already know if you have little ones, you have done you open that computer.

It’s our computer. Now my niece took my phone properly, put in my code and type YouTube kids was like, girl, this belongs to me now.

I saw her a text came in. She had the nerve to swipe it up, like girl, bye.

yeah. So that’s really the key is that that’s what I found for me is that. When I tell this to my team too, I was like, if we’re not launching stop being in launch mode. So meaning that when we’re launching a new product or service, it’s all hands on deck. It’s weekends. It’s like, duh, usually it’s a few weeks of that.

And then afterwards really teaching them, like, we don’t have to continue that same energy. We’re not launching pull back Woosah. So when I’m not The Budgetnista, why am I in The Budgetnista mode? Like if I’m, if it’s niece and nephew time, his niece and nephew time. Right. I need to put all those other things away and just be full fledged in here because I get a lot to The Budgetnista, I ought to give a lot to the things to also mean more to me there.

So working in things in harmony, I’m not, you know, I try my best. I mean, I’m always, and also checking in with the people around you, like, you know, am I being a good friend? Like, I’ll ask my husband, like, is there, you know, like, I’m like sometimes I feel guilty. I’m like, I know I haven’t been a good wife this week.

He’s like, no, I’ll pay by not even busy. I’m like, no, well, let’s, let’s, let’s do something on Friday. Let’s make it Friday is moving. You know what I mean? Because yeah. I want you having those conversations about like checking in, like, you know, when’s the last time I talked to my parents, let me make sure that they’re good.

And even asking my best friend, have I been a good friend? Have I been here? Is it something you need? So like, you know, and try not to be so hard on yourself. Sometimes I can be hard on myself, but. Try not to be so hard on yourself instead of being hard on myself, how can I okay. Be better? How can I show up?

Cause also I want to teach my team that work is not the most important thing. I always tell them that the most important thing is family. The second most important thing is family. The third, most important thing is family. So if anything, like my admin call today, she’s on the phone, like, hello. And I’m like, cause we have a call every morning.

I’m like, are you all right? She was like, Oh ha. I’m like, ma’am why are you on this call? The emails? I said, I click and I said, check your Slack. I’m going to give you, cause my mom was a nurse. I’m going to give you a list of the things that your husband needs to get for you. You need clear broth soup, you need this, you this, that.

And I was like, I don’t want to hear from you today. I don’t want to hear you even tomorrow because, but like as a, as a CEO, I have to enforce that. I’m not just talking about family and your, and your health and your happiness is most important. I have to be about it too. It’s not that serious. Right. You know,

Casanova Brooks:
The harmony. I gotta definitely, definitely use that and remember that. Right. There’s no such thing as balanced, but when things work in harmony together, because we look at it, even when you have a spouse and they’re like, man, you guys are so opposite. Right. But opposites attract, as we all know, sometimes it’s, that’s what a lot of people say, but how do you make that marriage work?

How do you make that relationship work? It’s probably not because the balance, because two different mindsets, two different sets of emotions. But if you could figure out a way to work together and work in harmony, that’s everything. And I think with business, a lot of the times that’s as well. Once you, if you’re not the analytical person.

Right. If you’re not that person, but you hire a CFO who only wants to talk numbers. It’s very hard to balance that out. It’s gotta be harmony of there’s give and takes and everything.

Balance vs. Harmony

So thank you for dropping that knowledge bomb. The last thing that I want to know is for you, as you’ve built this business, how much of this has been that you’ve been proactive as opposed to reactive?

And what do I mean by that?

Marketing Yourself

So in proactive in the world that we live in today, a lot of people want to build businesses. They want to get their brand out there. They want to get their name out there and it’s become a pay to play world. Are you somebody who you are pro pay-to-play as in Facebook ads and doing all these things that, where you going to be proactive on it, or are you somebody that you’ve just put in more of the organic work and you’ve let it all come to you like CBS or Forbes, entrepreneur, whatever it is.

And then you’ve just taken on that.

Tiffany Aliche:
So I would say. Right now we’re 50, 50 proactive, reactive. but in the very beginning, I would say the first five years was totally reactive. Like I didn’t, I didn’t even know what ads were. I didn’t even know if they were thinking back then when I first started, you know, I didn’t know.

I didn’t, I knew how to organically market, you know, doing like posts and engaging folks and things like that. But like the live richer challenge, the 10,000 people that signed up that first year was 2015. It was all organic. It was just social posts. Me telling a friend to tell a friend to tell a friend, I didn’t even know.

Like I said, I didn’t know anything about affiliate links. I didn’t know anything about any of those things. It was just, I was a hundred percent organic business. And then my business partner came on and he was, he’s a digital marketing genius. So he started to bring in that component that I had no idea about.

And he was like, tell me, you don’t worry about, I will do this. You continue to have this organic connection with people. And you do that. My job is to amplify, who you already are, is to say, Hey, if you only knew Tiffany, you would love her. So my job is to make sure more people see you, not for you to be different in any way.

So we it’s literally such a great marriage in that. I am the same, Tiffany from 10 years ago, someone was just telling me that they’re like, are you in the same bag? I’ll tip him 10 years ago. I’m like, well, who else would I be? Right. But I, you know, but cause I, I, myself and his role is to make sure more people see who I already am.

You know, so I don’t, I don’t, I haven’t changed the messaging. I haven’t taken the way that really I speak, except maybe I’m actually probably like more loose now because I probably was more nervous in the beginning, but like, I, I get to be fully me, someone who, who deeply cares someone who’s here. To help women live better lives.

Someone who’s here to effect change positively. I am a teacher. I’m the same, Tiffany. It’s just that my voice is amplified more. so I think that they both play a huge role. I think that you, you can’t amplify a dead message. You know, and so if I wasn’t me, you know, if I wasn’t showing up the way I show up, then all the marketing into where he was successfully market a bad product.

You don’t want that because he’s an amazing marketer. He would be amazing at marketing something that doesn’t work. You ever see people, the comments on other people’s posts. And then like, you know, it’s like, I never got my, my dress or such and such does a work. Oh my God, you don’t want that. Like, if you look under our posts, we don’t really get that.

We don’t get that negative feedback because we are successfully marketing something that is good. No, I put my name behind everything.

Casanova Brooks:
I love it. No, there’s somebody out there. That’s wondering girl, where can I find one to him?

Tiffany Aliche:
What would you say?

Casanova Brooks:
How, how, how would someone find that person? If they feel like, listen, I don’t know anything about ads, but I have a great message.

How can I find that person that can help me amplify my voice? My message, and who I am, but not change who I am. So,

Tiffany Aliche:
well, first and foremost, you, before you even find yourself a Jabrill and you need to find yourself, you know, so meaning that, are you, are you clear about your messaging? You know, like, so you have to learn to market yourself.

Every business owner knows to know how to market. You have to meaning that. So I want you to get good at organically marketing because when he came on board, it was like, Oh Tiffany, you already, write great copy. You know, your audience, you know, your messaging. It’s just, I’m putting money behind there. And then we tweak to get better.

So it’s almost like when people say they want to hire a publicist, I’m like, You don’t need no publicist it, you should be able to pitch yourself because then it’s just so much more easier later when you are ready for a publicist to be able to have someone come in and to, just to amplify more what you’re already doing.

So, because people are wanting to like, I get it when people ask for that, like, Oh, I wish I had it too, bro. No, what you’re saying is I wish I had an easy way out. So what happens if something happens to your then what happens to the business? If that’s the only way that people have come to know and see me and I don’t, I don’t attract people in any other way.

You don’t want to lean on this is the only way there is a strong organic component to what we do as well. You know, you want to make sure that’s happening there. So before you look for that marketing person, Make sure that you are mastering your messaging and your, and your organic marketing. And then, I mean, there are marketing companies that are, honestly I would probably look on, Facebook has amazing, like affinity groups basically.

Right? So joining like digital marketing groups and. And vetting for that. Or even if you’re are, if you are in like there’s, there are groups for like black women entrepreneurs, black men, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs in general teacher entrepreneurs. So joining those groups and asking who are you guys using?

And then, and then as a result, people know them. But what happens when CNN ain’t messing with you? No more. What happened with CBS is onto the next one. And your name was no longer spoken on that. So I remember when I was building my business, I wanted a business that no one could take from me because I was like, I didn’t want to go back to preschool teacher, Tiffany.

Right, right. I said, we’re not doing that. So instead my business is built on, on Tamra, Karen, Logan, meaning each individual woman. So every, so it’s like 10,000 to 20. That’s like now we’ve got well over a million women that follow the brand. And so there’s not one entity that can take away. What’s been built, you know, there’s something strong in that, in that.

So if a brand like right now, I’m not working with it. Like I typically don’t work with a ton of brands. Cause most of them are crap crowd, honestly. And so there’s no brand, there’s no TV show. There’s no media outlet that can say like, Oh, we’re not working with Tiffany anymore. My business stands the same.

We’re still eight figure a year business. We don’t need them. And I, I work with next to none. I know friends of mine who worked. He makes seven figures working with brands, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the worry is what if the brand doesn’t want to work with you? I’m not worried about it because my income comes directly from the people that we serve.

There is no middleman. And so like just being mindful of. Not being in such a rush to grow that you grow in a way that’s not, that’s not stable for you. So creating a foundation that no one can take from you because it’s the foundation you’ve built with your direct audience. I think that’s critically important.

Casanova Brooks:
Oh, absolutely. And would you say another critical component of it is the email list like for you? Did you, would you say that that was a critical component of building such a massive list to where. Then you were able to put out your offers and, or, or was it not? That was it really just the connection.

Tiffany Aliche:
So in the beginning, I mean, I used to collect email, but I didn’t know what to do with them.

I was like, I heard people saying, talking about email lists. I’m like, I guess, right. So it wasn’t until maybe like six years in that started to lead into the list. So yes, the email list is definitely important, but who cares about your email list? That no, one’s opening your emails. Right. So like you can have a million people on your email list.

We are email list. Open rate is three times the industry standards for finance. Our click through rate is four times the industry standard for finance. Why? Because we built a connection out here. So when you see my email, you’re like, Oh, that’s my girl Tifanny!. You see what I mean? So it all works at harmony, so people want to lean into, so if you’re looking for the.

I called the gotcha. Gotcha. The gimmicky schema. Ooh. Okay. I got to get my email and I got to, you know, you’re going to get what you get, which is not much. So like, but if you are looking at a cohesive, way to connect with your audience, it all works congruently together. Like the email, the social posts mean that you’re going to open the email.

The email list means that you’re going to use the practice service. I suggest the products and service are so good. It means that when I suggest that someone else’s product and service, you’re going to use that as well. Do you see what I mean? I have done things with the team. Where other companies have come to me, like, so there are other like, brands that come to me.

Maybe they have like a stock course or whatever, like my friend, right. And we have done. I’m like, okay. My audience trusts me so much because I only in 10 years I have really vetted to make sure I only give what’s what’s a value in that I can do a live, a few emails and a closing line. In the three days we have made 200, $250,000 in three days.

Literally built somebody a six figure business in a weekend. Right. So that doesn’t just come from. Oh, that’s her email. No, no, no. That comes from relationship that comes from years of pouring

Marketing Yourself

in. I was telling my, I, so I have chapter, so DreamCatchers are my tribe. It’s like a million women. It’s a worldwide, we have Dreamcatcher chapters in different States.

Right? And so the chapter leaders, we had our first national leadership conference meeting, yesterday. And I was telling them I was asking them because I believe in servant leadership, what do you want? What do you need? I said, I have this unique ability to connect with people in a way. That’s real that when I asked for something, I have yet to receive a no when it’s on behalf of y’all, meaning I have asked people who have $10,000 programs.

You know, $1,500 or whatever to do something specifically for Dream Catchers, either for free or at like next to no cost. And I had yet to receive a no. And it’s easy to say, well that’s because you’re The Budgetnista no, no, no, no.

Servant Leadership

From the very beginning. So now I’m talking about when I first started and I was trying to ask myself, why is that?

Like I asked a friend of mine who has this huge black girl. Therapy brand. If she could come and teach a free class to my audience, I actually asked two of my friends and I thought to myself, why these women, like they have since then built audiences huge. And you know, and I’m like, she was like, Oh, I’ll do it.

Cause I was like, do you know anybody? She’s like, no, I’m me, Tiffany, I’m going to do this for you. And that was like, and I was talking about, so why would she do this for me? And then I remember six years ago when she was first starting and she had her first, in-person kind of like mini conference and she asked me to speak and I showed up.

I showed up. I stayed late. I came early and I thought about my other friends, same thing before I even knew her, she asked me to come. It was like six people in the room. And I was one of the six speaking. This is when like, you know, The Budgetnista was kind of bumped. And then, but I showed up and I think to myself over and over and over again, how many seeds like that, that I have planted?

You know what I mean, people I’ve hit behind the scenes or they’ve hit me behind the scenes and I’m like, girl, just call me. I don’t even know them. And I will pour, you know, before we got on this phone right now, every, every day. Every once a week, I have like a, I have two leadership calls with my lead team, but on Mondays we do something called our mental health check in where we check in with each other.

And a friend of mine is struggling with her team. And she was like, you know, I’d love to pick your brain. And as you know, I’ll do even better join our, our, our leadership calls. So you can see how we interact. And all of those other team leads our COO, our CFO, our managers. And so you can hear from dip from different folks, how they work through leadership.

That’s why I don’t get no nos because like, and also too, people want to be of service to people as well. Sometimes people don’t have an outlet for that. So when I asked her to come in, in service to my community, they were like, yes. And then I’ll try to run and be like, Oh, by the way, I can also, you know, you want six figures this month.

Boom. Because you have an excellent people ask all the time like, Oh Tiffany, I would, I would love to partner with you. Well, what are you bringing to the table? Right? Like partner, are you saying you want to partner with me or, Hey, Tiffany, can you make me some money? Cause I’m not foolish. Come on now. Right now, if you want to really be of service girl, serve.

Oh, that’s not what you want. Okay. Now I don’t do that. People ask all the time and here’s the thing, you know, we get a commission so I could be, I could be doing it every weekend and I’m like, no, not a fit, not a fit, not a fit. Are you going to treat Dream Catchers the way I would treat Dream Catchers? Are you going to pour into them and love on them and make sure they are good?

Are you going to over, over. compensate. Are you going to give them 10 times what they paid for anyone who I partner with? We have that talk ahead of time. Like, so if you think you’re going to do this version for dream catchers and get them a small snippet of what you do for everybody else. Think again.

So what I need you to do is bring it all. Yeah. But I have this other product. You know, that’s $2,000. Okay. But you said you wanted to connect, so I need you to bring it all. And I promise you, many of those dream catchers are going to buy that 2000 out a problem. And that’s exactly what happens. They pay the 25, $30, whatever to have this like Dream Catcher version of a product or service.

And then they go on to invest deeply. I said, why? Because when you pour into people, they pour back the law of reciprocity, States that like. You know, you holding back, people are people, they can feel you, they can feel you cheating them. Right? So like, I just wish more people. I said, I’m going to write a book one day, and call it, Do Good.

How do you do good work? How do you help good people? And how do you make good money? And I said, I wasn’t going to write that book until I got eight figures. Right. And I was making, I had an eight figure year business because people would be like, Oh girl, A hundred Google. Oh, that’s cute. Cause you make a hundred thousand dollars a year.

No, it’s like, okay, well what happens when you make a $20 million a year? Can I speak on it now that it is possible to do good work? It certainly is. So now I’m just really passionate about that. If you’re going to be about the people that you serve, serve, and then figure out how to monetize that service, it’s not your audience’s problem to figure out how to pay you.

That’s not on them serve and then you and your team figure out how to mine. You’re not going to be able to monetize everything and that’s okay. You know, love on that. Be transparent. Be kind of, my audience goes up to you for me. If someone says something negative about me in the comments or in the, or under my, when I tell you it’s like the beehive, they’re like

Casanova Brooks:
what I was thinking of.

Tiffany Aliche:
They’re like not The Budgetnista, that’s what you call it. I’m telling you. But that’s what happens when you love the person? Oh, I didn’t know. I just, I just, I wasn’t really sure. I just, I never heard of her before, but clearly I’m going to look at her and stuff. You build an audience like that. That’s what happens when you love on them?

Someone said that to me the other day, they’re like, yo, Tiffany, I know if you say it’s real, is this a good service or a product? Whatever. I know, if you tell me you’re not going to lie to me, these are people. Yes. So, I mean, I feel like if I own the bank, I would have a million people who, who deposit the money into my bank.

If I owned a record, I would have a million people that deposit money. And into my, into my music, because when you build a level of trust with your audience, it’s nothing that you can’t bring to them, but you want to be mindful and be a good steward of that trust. Yeah. Being a good steward of that trust it is, it is your, to me.

Yeah. I just don’t like when I see people take advantage of the people they serve and, you know, trying to, you know, do that. Gotcha. Gotcha. Let me just get my money and be out. You know, you’re going to be exposed and a lot of people are going to lose, including you, you won’t be here five, 10, 20 years from now.

I’m not worried about. You know, where are we going to be 20 years from now, whether I have a show or have this or that I’m going to be good. Cause Dream Catchers are good

.Servant Leadership

Casanova Brooks:
I love it. I love it. There there’s somebody out there that wants to know you’ve given so much wisdom already. There’s somebody out there though, including myself that wants to know if you could look back on these last 10 years and you could give yourself if you had to build it all over again, knowing what you know now with just your wisdom.

Start with leadership

What’s the one piece of advice that you would give yourself to be able to scale even faster than what you have, which is an amazing amount of time. Being able to do all of this. And really just seven or eight years,

Tiffany Aliche:
I would have learned to lead. I would’ve learned to lead faster. So in the beginning it was just me, me, me, me, me.

Right. And I should have practiced leadership with interns with help. Cause I was doing everything myself and it took me. Some time to learn how to be a leader. I was not a good leader in the beginning because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had to get at first it’s a mix between I was giving away too much power and then I was keeping too much.

Right. I didn’t know how to lead and I didn’t, I didn’t start practicing leadership until I actually was basically paying people. And it’s like, so I would have practiced leadership with interns and. And mentees and practice that first to one, identify my leadership style, identify what worked, what didn’t work, because you have to work and navigate through that.

Now I’m a beast that leadership, you always just have my lead team call. And I was listening to them like, cause listening to them a mentor, my friend who needed the help with her leadership, just to hear my team and how like. Confident and strong. They were in how, how much they felt like listened to and autonomous on the team.

And I was like, Tiffany, you did a damn good job girl, listen to these women on the call, feeling themselves like you don’t no one felt like, well, you know, it was no, it was like, yup. Tiffany lets me do what I want to do. And I’m here to, I’m here to be a support to them and to, I might interject here and there and be like, well, let’s see if we could tweak it this way.

But ultimately I hired you to know our high. Did you hired you to figure it out? And I’m always like, look, I’m making it up. Just like you who’ve been here before. Not me.

I’m like your guess is as good as everyone to be like, Oh, okay. Tiffany, I don’t know either. You know, all I know is our mission and here’s the thing. And we also have to jump to on our team is that, I remember an intern. One time she made a mistake. I like with the emails he had like the wrong date or time or something.

And she was like crying. She was like, Oh yeah. And I called her and she was like, sorry. I was like, Oh my God, girl, who did you kill? She’s was like, what? I was like, who did you kill? You can’t stay here. Murdering folks. He was like, what? I was like, girl, you send out an email. Did you kill somebody? It’s not that serious.

On my team, they just don’t have an expectation of excellence, which means you bring your best, your best might be a C plus. I’m okay with that. I am. It just might be your, I might not have you working in your genius zone, so you might be a C plus here, but A Plus here I have an expectation of excellence and you can expect that if you do right by me, I do better by you.

So leadership is the number one thing that I wish I could have because very little I would change about the journey because I couldn’t be here without the lessons, but I definitely wish I would have, Practice my leadership skills earlier on, on, you know, like, just so I can, I could get a sense of, of who it would just, it would have been a lot less work cause I was doing too much.

I was overwhelming myself. I, there was times when I was highly stressed because I was taking on all the things. And if I had practiced leadership, I would know that I could relinquish those things to the people that work for me and work with me. Absolutely.

Casanova Brooks:
Was there, is there one thing that you would credit to being able to.

Get better at your leadership skills. Like a lot of people read book. Good to great things. Like, like what would you credit? Was it just a mentor?

I’m, I’m your boss too. That was like,

what does she have me scared of my own company?

What I was scared to show up. I was scared to push back. I was scared to be like, I don’t even know people’s names on the team. I didn’t. So I remember I was so scared and then she made these like, incredible demands. Like, I want this, I want this, I want your company. I want, like, it was crazy her demands.

And I was like, Okay, you’re fired. She was like, wait, what? I was like, yeah, you can’t stay here. And it was basically, it was like, I had see what you’re going to do without me. And it was like, when are we going to do, I didn’t even know how to log into certain things, but you know what it’s. So for the first six months we were like scrambling.

I was listening to, there was a podcast with what’s it Tim Ferris about it was a podcast about audacious goals. I don’t know if he was interviewed. On that podcast, because it was a podcast that I listened to that where someone was talking about audacious goals, those were the words. And I remember being like, okay.

And I remember that the one thing I am good at, and I think every leader should be good at is that even when it’s coming from a source that you don’t like or trust or respect finding the lesson in all the things, the teacher in me can find the lesson in all the things. So it could be someone terrible.

And so when. When that my right hand, when I fired her, there was some things that she said that was like, it’d be easy to be like, well, everything she says is a lie, because look, what kind of person she turned out to be. But it wasn’t, there was some things that she said that I was like, Tiffany, this is true.

Despite all of this, these three things are true. She felt there wasn’t transparency in pay. She didn’t know I was paying her more than me, but how would she know that? Cause I never, I never kind of showed her the trajectory of her income. So she thought that she was being cheated even though I was paying her more than me.

So once I showed her that she was like, Oh, so it was not enough transparency. And how am I being paid there? Wasn’t she felt overworked. There was never this sense of like, I can shut off. I was like, okay, I can acknowledge that this is right. Cause it was just me and her. We were overworking ourselves unnecessarily and there was a third thing.

It was, she didn’t feel appreciated. So transparency, work, balance and appreciation. And I said, okay, even though I did appreciate her, but it doesn’t matter what I did. That’s not how she felt.

Casanova Brooks:
Right.

Tiffany Aliche:
So those three things I remember, I was like, I pulled those three things out and I started listening to podcasts.

I listened to that one about audacious goals. I started listening to podcasts. I listened to Simon Sineck he’s got this great Start With Why actually have his book in my bag. I’m reading it again right now. It’s a great TEDx. Talk about. So I was like, okay, now that she’s gone it’s cause, cause you know, there are people, not everyone on the team hated her.

There were people who loved her. So I’m like, now she’s gone. What do I do? Because now people are like, there are people who loved her, who barely knew me. Right. You’re like, you know, so I was like, how do I, so we started with why, like, why did we, why did I start this company? The core mission of helping women.

Especially women of color and how are we doing that through education and the what? Here are some components of what that, how it manifests itself. But also two I created to, to us, to, address the transparency. I created this, this color grid with the CFO at the time, about what color, if I wanted it to be transparent, that everyone could kind of see what they should be making, but not know what everybody else was making.

So we made a color grid. You knew your color. And so if you were pink and you knew pink was intern and interns were making, you know, 12 bucks an hour and that’s the low tier, but so it’s the color that you’re on. And then it’s also, B you’re either at the beginning of the tier middle tier at the end of this year.

So you can quickly identify, Oh, I’m blue. And you knew exactly what blue meant blue mat might mean that you’re working on one project on one team, but green is, multiple projects or multiple teams. So you’re like, Oh, if I want to go from blue to green, this is what I have to do. And I also know that if I go to green, I’m going to start in the beginning part of green, which may be, say $30,000 a year, but then six months later, cause we give raises at least once a year, typically every six months I could potentially get in the mid group.

But do you see like the way people? The sense of like, Oh, but she was right. Of all the other stuff I was like, okay. So one, we created that chart. It helps significantly then too, about this balance. I was like, okay. So we really created like shut off times and. Really leaning into like, you know, like, you know, making sure you spend time with your family and doing that.

So really like creating, like these are our times that we’re closed. These are constant, we’re open and also giving people the autonomy. What are they wanting to work together versus? Cause there are people, some people who are night owls and prefer not to work during the day. So giving people that space and leeway and then finally appreciation.

So I started, I would say the first year after she left, I would do a spotlight. We have Slack, which is our internal messaging system. I would do it. A spotlight on someone and to say how, why they were so great once a week, like when, after she left, because I wanted them to feel now they feel the appreciation, but they didn’t know me know me.

So I wanted them to feel that appreciation. And now we do that spotlight actually out in the open. What we do, I call my, Team. I named them too. I call them unicorns. Cause I tell them they make magic happen every day. The unicorn squad, I got the new Accords for our tee shirts. We took them on a amazing retreat.

This was our second one. Last year was our second one. We pay for everything, flight, hotel, food reflect. Cause everybody on my team works digitally all over around the country who them in. But you see that for appreciation and real life. And when we’re working there, you have to have been with the company.

At least a year. So when we’re working there, there’s no work. We’re not just not working. We’re going to the pool where we’re hanging out, where we have a private chef come in and put, cook all the food. So it is not about work. I mean, they might talk about work a little bit, but that’s not what we’re here to show your appreciation for this weekend about why, how amazing you are.

But do you see how, like it started from like, I have money, but we could do a spotlight and Slack right now. We have the money to fly folks out. And I even now do a unicorn spotlight on my social pages because a lot of people on the team have their own personal businesses. And it sounds counterintuitive to showcase a business, even though they work for my business, they go even harder.

Like I’ve had people make thousands of dollars, like, Hey, jollies has a, it’s a realtor. And it’s a course creator. Hey, she’s amazing. Here’s her picture. Here’s where you can locate her. Here’s her email and see, and then, so now when I talked to John Lee, she’s all like, girl, what you need from me,

Casanova Brooks:
you know?

So giving so much value to her, helped her establish her own foundation.

Tiffany Aliche:
Exactly. I always say I can’t want from me and not want for you. You can’t as a CEO and a founder say, I want wealth. I want founder of a financial foundation. I want happiness. I want time. I can’t want that for me. It’d be like, Oh no, but that’s true.

Y’all out here are here to support me to make, so we don’t work that way and people don’t work that way. People are not going to go hard for you. If it’s your dream, your company, this company belongs to everyone who works here. Nobody works for me. They work with me. No. And so the dream is all of ours and everyone should feel like they have a piece of that dream and they benefit financially.

And otherwise from that dream, because if they’re not, why should they be here? They should take their gifts and talents elsewhere. I truly believe that. It is my role to earn the right, to be worthy, to work with the people who work with me to be worthy, to work with, to, to have the audience that I have. I have to earn that right to where people don’t owe it to you to pay you anything.

I have to earn the right to serve Dream Catchers. And if I don’t earn the right to do so, they should leave, they should, they should go and be with someone who’s going to take care of them. And you folks who are consumers of things, that’s how you should look at people. Are they earning me, they over here, talk to me while the crazy like, Oh, this is raggedy email.

Like you don’t clearly care. It’s only by my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing. Then you’re not, you’re not, they stay not to me. Are you pouring into me? I chase my dream catchers. If someone’s not pouring into you, don’t pour into them. Right? No point to them, people get mad. Oh, well, other other business owners that do right by people and you wouldn’t have to worry.

Back, you know, you wouldn’t have to worry. And so, yeah. So you could tell I’m passionate.

Leadership

Casanova Brooks:
Yeah, absolutely. And I love it. I’m sure anybody that’s listening or watching right now, dream catcher. I need to get in there. I love it. It’s so dope.

Let me one thing that came up while you’ve been talking, and especially when you talked about what your mission statement is, and there is a video, that I seen at as coincidentally, you brought up will Smith, cause I’m such a huge fan of will Smith as well.

And that’s the whole reason why I say like, I’m going to get him on this podcast, Dream Nation, and then. I’m going to connect you with him. If you haven’t already connected before Martin, my words, right? I’ll say also those seeds, right? He, he can’t be doing movies still. He’s 70. At some point he got to slim down a little bit and he going to be looking to do some shows

and I need my, I need my name right in there. So. One thing. You talked about your mission, you talked about empowering women, right?

Generalist vs Specialist

For a lot of people, they have a mission. They have a lot of talents, but they struggle with, and it’s coincidental that you brought up Tim Ferris as well. Cause I seen a Tim Ferriss video just about a week ago. And he talks about, should you be a generalist or should you be a specialist

For you? The Budgetnista and you just really trying to empower women to go after business. Right. But then also talking finances, they can be looked at as kind of having their own lanes. Right. Talk to me about, what is your thoughts on a generalist or a specialist, and more specifically, do you feel when somebody starts out to create their tribe,

do they have to focus really honing in on a niche or can they know that I want to empower women or men or entrepreneurs? Is that good enough?

Tiffany Aliche:
I say, it’s the difference between being a Bush business or tree business, right? So here’s the Bush business. Soon as you out the gate, I do this women, men, kids money, this book business, right? So here you are. and you, you stunt your growth. Because you’re doing all things for all people all the time.

Your growth is stunted. So is there some growth? Yes, but you don’t grow paths, you know, bushes going to go, but so high, I say, be a tree business, a tree starts with one trunk. This is a specialist. So mine, when I first started all, literally I’m The Budgetnista to cause that’s all I did was budgeting.

That’s it budgeting for women that was literally in. And so I grew this tree trunk so strong. So thoroughly that eventually from that tree trunk. So this is my tree trunk. Now I can branch off to different things. Sky’s the limit. So now I can talk about credit. I can talk about debt. I can talk about businesses.

I could talk about all these different things because I can branch off from the strongest trunk that I could build. So I believe that you should be a mix of the both, but start off being a specialist. Building that tree trunk building that trust building that, that, that core tribe, my core tribe are black women.

And now, do we have other women that follow? Yes, we have men that follow. Yes. I always say, as a teacher, it’s not possible for me to want to teach and turn folks away. I don’t turn anyone away. You know, anyone is welcome to come in, but I’m going to say SIS, someone said, sit like it was a dude who was like SIS, SIS, because that is my core tribe.

Now you are free to listen and learn. And I welcome you. Like I said, I do, but I know who I’m speaking to my core tribe. And so that is my tree trunk. So yeah, starting off as a specialist. And then you can end up being more general. I always think of Nike. Nike was a sneaker. Now there’s Nike water, Nike watches like either because they built that tree trunk and you can branch off into anything.

Once you build the tree trunk. And when you told me you had a two year old and I just wrote, I wrote my first children’s book, I’m going to send you for your address. And so I wrote this little book cause I was like, I want a little Brown girl sat and looked like a light. So super chocolaty. Well, hello.

And it teaches what I call pre financial lessons for our kids. It’s called happy birthday, Molly Moore. And it’s her birthday. She gets all this presents and she has to decide what’s most important stuff or family and friends. And so she’s going to love it your two year old.

Casanova Brooks:
Absolutely.

Tiffany Aliche:
And so, but do you see how, how The Budgetnista has a children’s book and yet, and still we’ve sold in the last, like two months, 5,000 copies?

Wow. Why? Because it’s one of the branches on my tree. I couldn’t have done that 10 years ago. I could branch out. I can be like Budgetnistas got some mortar y’all maybe not right now, but give me five years. I could probably have water. I could probably have lamps. I could probably have you see what I mean?

Casanova Brooks:
So, Because it’s a big enough brand and foundation now.

Tiffany Aliche:
So build that tree trunk, cause be a specialist at first and then you can branch off and be a little bit more general.

Generalist vs Specialist

Casanova Brooks:
I love it.

The Headlight StrategyThere’s somebody out there right now that is inspired by you. There’s, I’m sure hundreds of not thousands of people that will find this at some point in their life and become a Dream Catcher and a part of your tribe.

But right now maybe they have that little voice in their head that says they’re not smart enough. They’re not strong enough. Or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. What’s the one thing that you say to that person to get them to just take action.

Tiffany Aliche:
I say you don’t have to figure out the whole way I live in New Jersey.

And I always think to myself, like if I had to drive to California and I was waiting for my headlights to shine the whole way, you would just never get started because headlights don’t shine the whole way, headlights understand that all they have to worry about and your car knows it’s the next best step, that’s it.

So the way headlights work is that you’re in a car and it shines. Like what. 60 feet ahead of you. And then when you close that gap, the next 60 feet is revealed. And that’s how it works is that you’re feeling like I don’t know all the things you’re not meant to. I don’t have, or you’re not, you’re not supposed to, what do you know what I mean?

I can Google Will Smith wisdom”. Boom. That’s it. That’s the next best step. Once you Google “Will Smith wisdom” and watch you’re the next step we will build the next 60 feet in your car will be revealed because he’s going to say, say something, that’s going to spark a thing. Like, why don’t you go get that book?

You’re gonna read that book. And then something in that book is going to spark a thing and make, make you say, you know what, I’m going to, we talked to my friend who says something when you’re going to reach out to that friend. And that friend is going to get Nick, give you the key. It’s like, literally, like it’s like playing a video game where you’re collecting the things along the way.

You know, you don’t need to know all the stuff. You’re not even supposed to know all the steps you’re supposed to just know the next best step. Sometimes it’s a Google search. Sometimes it’s watching a YouTube channel. Sometimes it’s listen to a podcast. Sometimes it’s reading a book. Sometimes it’s speaking to a friend, sometimes it just thinking sometimes it’s making a list.

So you don’t have to know that the whole way. You’re not meant to have all the resources. Now. You wouldn’t know what to do with Oprah called you right now. What’d you go and do, do you have a ring light? So you don’t look crazy on TV. I gotta bring light, but you know what? I learned how to get that ring light.

I got this ring like four years ago. I wasn’t ready. 10 years ago. I used to like, not know how to I’m like I have, I have, so I didn’t know how to retain my own edges. I just did own, I did, this new show on own coffee or not with Aiyana box. Yeah. Right. And like, imagine doing ever forced me to learn how to do my own hair, because I was like, Oh my goodness.

Like, I don’t have no money to get my hair done. But guess what? My head was laid on fear, not with Aiyana. Like, do you want to know why? Because 10 years ago I unlocked the cheat code for learning how to do my own locks. But do you see that so many people want to go from door one to 10, but the key you need to open door 10 is that door three and the map you need for it to, for the journey endorsement is that door forum.

And the person that’s going to give you the passcode is that door six, you try to skip all the steps you want to get to the door 10 for nothing, because you’re not able to navigate. When you get there, you need to go through the steps. So you can collect the tools, the resources, and the lessons that you’re going to need to be able to maintain the dream that you seek.

The work is in the reaping, not the sewing. When someone told me that, I was like, okay, wait a minute. What do you mean? She’d say everybody thinks I’m. I do the hardware who I’m sowing the seeds. I’m sowing the seeds. It’s so much hard work. She said, girl, what’s harder putting a seed in the ground. Or when that corn actually grows cutting the corn down, cleaning the, cleaning, the corn off, taking the corn back out, you know, like what’s harder.

You know what I mean? The work is in the reaping, not the sewing. You know, so, so you’re thinking like, okay, it’s so hard now, but it’s not like, you’re like, you need these lessons in order to maintain the dream that you seek. The reaping is where the real gangster the gangster work is. And so, yeah, just, just keeping that in mind, what is the next best step, a phone call, a list being made in an email, a podcast, and the next step will be revealed after that.

I promise that every step shows you the next step of the way.

The Headlight Strategy

Casanova Brooks:
I love it. There it is right there. People, if you have not gotten the inspiration out of this one to just take action. I don’t know what else to tell you. This has been everything for anybody who wants to stay connected with you. We will definitely have links in the show notes, but where can they find you at.

Tiffany Aliche:
So I am The Budgetnista on all platforms. Thebudgetnista.com. I also have, on The Budgetnista on Instagram, on Facebook, on, Twitter, even a tick tock, tick tock, but you might say one day. Right. but, yeah. And so if you’re interested, I have, I do have that online school where. Is other finance and finance adjacent experts.

When we take it to the next level, all my basic stuff is free, right? So like how to budget, how to save, but you might want to learn how to start a business, or you might want to learn how to start a nonprofit or how to get press, or just really how to invest retirement estate planning. And so I started my Live Richer Academy to, to teach you how to do so.

And actually I have a 40% off link for y’all.

Casanova Brooks:
Yes, absolutely. We definitely will have that in there. Yeah, that’s phenomenal. yeah. So The Budgetnista, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. This has been, not only inspirational for me but like I said, I’m sure thousands of other people and you’ve inspired me to really go out there and make sure that I’m living at my best at my core.

And to make sure that I have servant leadership. And to make sure that, that I have a plan and to make sure that I’m still dreaming bigger. So then I can make sure that I can catch those dreams one day.

So thank you again and remember dreamnation and the dream we trust, but we must take action. Otherwise, it’ll only merely be a fantasy. We’ll catch you on the next one.