We asked Jazzy, the Founder of First Hustle, Then Brunch, how we can make a budget that aligns with the things that bring us happiness and joy.
Here’s her incredible four-step process.
Build a Budget That Brings You Joy
Tax Prep Q&A with Accountants of Color
The tax filing deadline was extended to May 17th this year which has given us more time to procrastinate doing our taxes. Hooray! But the deadline is still coming. If you feel annoyed and confused about filing your taxes, I’m with you. I always feel like I’m making a mistake or doing something wrong.
I am excited to share a Q&A with some brilliant CPAs to answer all of your questions, but first I want to tell you why your taxes are so complicated to begin with. Tax prep companies like TurboTax (owned by Intuit) and H&R Block lobby millions of dollars each year to keep our taxes complicated. What?!
Set up your system for 2021 taxes
When we’re preparing to file our taxes for this year, it’s the perfect time to create a system to make the process easier next year. Why? You might be thinking, “Ashley, why add to my torture? I could finally celebrate being done!?”
Taking the time to create systems while everything is fresh in our minds is far easier than trying to remember what was important and what we needed. Taking the time to set up a system for our 2021 taxes will save us lots of stress, time, and (perhaps) money.
Improve Your Relationship with Money
It might sound funny, but you have a relationship with money just like you have a relationship with anything else. It’s how you interact with and relate to money.
Our relationship with money is created over time and can be influenced by many factors. We are guided by how our parents interacted with money. We’re also shaped by mentors, teachers, friends, our experiences, and society as a whole.
6 Steps to Create and Achieve Your Financial Goals
One of the most important parts of your financial plan is your goals. In order to find clarity and reduce our guilt around our spending, we have to have clear goals. That means knowing how much we need for each goal, by when we will achieve it, as well as which goal comes first.
Is it more important to me to pay off ALL of my student loans before saving for my future home? Do I want to aggressively save for retirement (and retire early!) or take an extra vacation each year?
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
Throughout centuries of history - over and over again - the Black community has been stripped of wealth through policies, massacres, theft and destruction.
According to the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, the median white household has a net worth of $117,000 - 10 times the median Black household net worth of $17,100.
It would take 228 years for Black families to amass as much wealth as white families if our current policies stay in place.
Mitigate Spending Toxins
When it comes to our financial lives, we often focus on ourselves, but our environment and those around us play a big part in our actions - and often not for the better.
Environmental toxins are the people, places, and things that get the best of your spending. Maybe it’s a friend that you shop with that always encourages you to “treat yourself” or the store you tend to impulse shop online. It's not personal - it just means your spending gets off track when you’re together.
How and Why to Create Your 2021 Financial Plan
With a very unpredictable 2020 finally behind us, it might seem futile to attempt to draft a 2021 financial plan. How can we possibly predict what’s going to happen? Isn’t this a waste of time?
While plans can and will change, starting the year with a vision for what we want to happen in our financial lives can make all the difference. It’s also always worthwhile to gain awareness of and clarity on how we’re spending and allocating our money.
How and Why to Keep a Money Journal (+ a Template)
If we’re being honest, most of us have no idea where our money is going.
Many of us don’t want to look because we’re afraid of what we might find. When I first started keeping a money journal, I found out that I spent $200 per month on frozen yogurt. I was shocked. That was $200 per month and $2,400 per year that I’d much rather be allocating somewhere else.
5 Simple Ways to Reset Your Spending
Most of us know the feeling - we make a purchase we regret and it sends our spending in a tailspin for a week, month, or even years. Next thing we know, we don’t want to look at our credit card statements, our account balances are decreasing, and our stress is on the rise. How do we stop the bleeding?
One of the most effective ways to get our spending back on track is with a regroup. We need to give ourselves a chance to get our money mindset back where we want it.