80: Tiffany "The Budgetnista" Aliche

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
SoMoney Episode 80, Tiffany Aliche.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
You're listening to SoMoney with award-winning money guru, Farnoosh Karabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself.
Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:31)
Good day to all of you. Welcome back to So Money. I'm your host, Farnoosh Tarabi. Thanks for joining me. Now, many of my guests on the show have told me how important it is to begin talking with your children about money early and often. And one of my recent guests, New York Times columnist Ron Lieber, who recently published a bestselling book, The Opposite of Spoiled, he took it a step further. Now, he suggests that we actually help children learn how to associate money with a work activity that is ideally above and beyond their regular household chores, like don't give them an allowance for free, have them earn it. And today's guest is a great case in point. She grew up in a family where money was a frequent topic on the family agenda and every moment was used as an opportunity to help kids acquire good money habits, starting with the kids in the family.
Her name is Tiffany Aliche. She is a rising star in the personal finance world and the founder and CEO of thebudgetnista.com. This is a financial education firm. It provides seminars, workshops, and more importantly, financial empowerment to thousands of women across the globe. I met Tiffany at the Financial Bloggers Conference last fall. We were conveniently and fortunately seated next to each other at a dinner. I had the pleasure of getting to know her and really learning about her mission, her voice. She is so charming, this woman. But more importantly, her message is so important. And she has a following and it's growing. And you got to watch out, Susie Orman.
Tiffany is the bestselling author of the book, The One Week Budget. It's been featured on NBC, PBS, The New York Times, and Essence Magazine, among others.
Her outstanding client list includes such leading institutions as American Express, Princeton University, The New York Public Library and The United Way. Woo, very, very impressive. Three takeaways from our time with Tiffany. How growing up in her family where money was the norm helped her build stellar financial skills, including a credit score of, get this, 802 by the time she was 26
How venturing into the investment world led to a $25,000 credit card debt load. Whoops, and Tiffany's strategy for setting and achieving goals. Here is Tiffany Aliche, also known as The Budgetnista.
Tiffany, welcome to So Money. Wonderful to have you. The Budgetnista, I'm so money. I'm so, I'm so money because I have you on the show. Thank you.

**Tiffany Aliche** (3:07)
Thank you, Farnoosh. I'm excited to be here.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:09)
You are a financial rock star and you entered this space as a voice for so many women and a coach for so many people. You came to this world from an education background, a teaching background. You were a school teacher.
What was that transition like? I would imagine it was quite a nice transition being that you were already somebody who was looked upon for guidance and support. You really know how to help people.

**Tiffany Aliche** (3:37)
Yeah, honestly, it was a really smooth transition because I had taught preschool, which seemed so random at the time. I thought, oh, this is a random switch, but truthfully, while I was teaching preschool, I was showing my staff, I was showing parents, maintenance people used to come in. I was showing everyone how to budget and save money during my break. It got to be so popular that during nap time, because the kids would sleep for about an hour and a half a day, I would have parent university and the parents would come in and I would teach them how to budget.
So it was a natural transition.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (4:10)
Why were you teaching them? Why did they know to come to you for that? Were you like, what was going on? Were you public about your passion for budgeting everywhere you went?

**Tiffany Aliche** (4:23)
Yeah, I was. Honestly, I grew up in a house where money was taught all the time. My father was a CFO and an accountant and my mom was just really frugal. They had five girls and so they taught us about money just all the time and I became the go-to person for all of my friends when it came to, well, how do you save this and how do you budget that? Because I grew up in a house where that was just the norm.