Around here we celebrate your money wins - big and small - each and every week. 🥳 Because taking steps, no matter how small, leads to more steps and our progress snowballs. It’s a beautiful thing! 

And now we’re diving into a money win of your choice each month so you can get all the juicy deets. 

This month we’re talking to Jule who paid off all of her credit card debt after 7 years. 

Here’s how I decorated my new office in 3 months for $1,600. When we moved into our new apartment a few months ago, I was so excited to decorate my office. It’s a space where I will spend a lot of time, and I also get to make it my own. While I had the freedom to choose, there was also a restraint. I wanted to spend as little as reasonably possible. 

Each year we proudly highlight incredible women-owned businesses to support while doing your holiday shopping (and all year round) in our Holiday Gift Guide. Why? Because what we buy matters! How we spend money is a way to vote for more of what we want to see in the world.

We’ve compiled a list of your (and our) favorite brands. Thank you for sending in all of your new favorites this year.

At the Fiscal Femme we talk about our financial fails each week. Why? When we share our money mishaps, we realize we’re not alone. We’re all figuring this out together. We also can learn from one another’s mistakes.

One common trend I see in our financial fails each week is that we often avoid awkward or uncomfortable money conversations at the expense of our own financial well-being. If this is happening to so many of us (myself included!), I thought it would be helpful to dive into a specific awkward money convo and help a community member navigate it.

First up… Betty! I coached her through an awkward money convo with her roomie and this is what happened

Around here we celebrate your money wins - big and small - each and every week. 🥳 Because taking steps, no matter how small, leads to more steps and our progress snowballs. It’s a beautiful thing! 

And now we’re diving into a money win of your choice each month so you can get all the juicy deets. 

This week we’re talking to Lily who reduced her spending by $2K per month by keeping a money journal and having Money Parties. Here’s our conversation.

I’m a huge proponent of online savings accounts (also called high yield or high interest savings accounts) as part of our overall financial strategy. My clients and I have used them again and again to finally start saving and keep our savings safe from ourselves. Wonderful bonus - they also earn a bit of interest!  

The next question I get is which banks do you recommend. So, naturally, I went on a mission to find you the best online savings accounts. 

Frugal joys are free or inexpensive things and experiences that make us happy. The best part about them is that we can add more of them to our lives without increasing our expenses. We can also use them to replace more expensive things to reduce our spending (without losing the joy in our lives). 

Spring and summer are my favorite frugal joy seasons because there are so many great options when the weather is warm.

I polled you, the Fiscal Femme community, to come up with a list of the best warm weather frugal joys and you all delivered!

Frugal joys are free or inexpensive things that make us really happy. They are great for:

1. Adding joy to our lives without increasing how much we spend 

2. Swapping out more expensive activities with free or inexpensive ones to save money (without losing the joy). Win, win.

Many frugal joys are seasonal, so I gathered a list of all of your favorite winter-time frugal joys here.

At the Fiscal Femme we believe that financial mistakes or missteps are all part of the process of getting better with money. Why? We’re not born knowing ‘how to money’ 🤑 and very few of us learn money skills until well into adulthood.

At the same time, whether we’re budgeting, investing or making a plan to pay down debt, it’s much better to get started than to wait until we know everything. Enter #FinancialFailFridays.

I’m a big fan and user of online savings accounts (also called high-yield savings accounts or HYSAs) as part of my overall financial strategy.

Once we decide whether or not we want to incorporate online savings accounts into our financial picture, it’s time to choose an account. Here’s what to look for.

It’s easier than ever to split a meal or a vacation with a friend using apps like Venmo and Zelle. But with that ease comes a whole new microcosm of navigating money with friends and colleagues.

What’s worth requesting? When is it time to follow-up when a friend doesn’t pay you? We asked the Fiscal Femme community to share their cash app etiquette so we could learn from each other! 💵📱

Tax season is coming to a close, which means many will soon have refunds, if not already. We talk a lot about taxes -- how to file them, how to minimize them and how to plan for them, but another really important part of tax planning is making the best use of your refund. 

If you’ve filed and know exactly how much you’re getting back, here’s a step-by-step recommendation for making the most of your tax refund. 

Whether you file your taxes on your own or work with an accountant, we’ve got you covered. Here are 3 things you can do now to make filing your taxes a breeze. Stay tuned for ways to make it even easier to file next year.

Those that know me know that I hate the word budget. And I’m not shy about it. Hearing the word actually makes me cringe and conjures up images of my favorite expenses being ripped from my hands while I’m holding on to them for dear life. It’s a word full of restriction.

Many believe that sticking with a budget means that they’ll have to limit their fun but I’ve found the opposite to be true. That’s why I decided to swap the term budget for happiness allocation.

A few summers ago, we took our son on his first overseas trip to England. We decided to go because one of my best friends had just moved to London and as part of our nanny share arrangement (2 kids, 1 nanny) we coordinated vacation time with our wonderful share family so the nanny got some time off. 

But with new child expenses (our son starting preschool in the fall) and investing in my business, I was torn about whether or not to take the trip. I had “YOLO” on one shoulder and our savings goals on the other shoulder and they were saying very conflicting things!

There are a lot of similarities between saving and giving. The biggest one? We wait to get started because we assume it will be easier once we earn more.

We get the promotion and the raise, prioritize paying everyone else first, and then there’s still no money leftover for us to save or give.

Or maybe we feel like our twenty dollars a month won’t do much. But much like with saving, it’s about using the muscle. When we start, we begin to view ourselves as someone who gives. We get the ball rolling, momentum builds.

One of the jargon phrases that often gets thrown around in the personal finance world is net worth. Sometimes it’s not mentioned explicitly but when someone says the word “millionaire” or “billionaire,” they are referring to someone’s net worth.

So how do we calculate our net worth? What does net worth mean? It’s actually a very simple equation - it’s a total of what we own minus a total of what we owe. I’ve put together a Net Worth Tracker to make it as easy as possible for you to calculate your net worth and keep track of it going forward. You can also create your own spreadsheet or just write it down - whatever is easiest for you.

Regardless of how much or how little money we have, we only get to use each dollar once. I know… bummer.

Once we realize that, it becomes easier to navigate our spending. We understand that every time we use a dollar, we miss out on the opportunity to use it somewhere else. That’s called opportunity cost.

We deal with opportunity costs all day every day. When I choose a restaurant for dinner, I don’t get to eat at all the other restaurants I didn’t choose. When I say yes to a project, I don’t have the opportunity to use that time for something else.

Cleanses are a great way to hit reset on certain areas of your life. They help you break bad habits, flush toxins, and set yourself up with a powerful plan for the future. I’ve done technology cleanses, sugar cleanses, and closet cleanses that have had these effects.

A 30-Day Money Cleanse is no different than any other cleanse - except that it hits reset on your money.

Maybe you already know you are in need of a Money Cleanse and are ready to take one one. Maybe you know you could improve your financial habits, but you aren’t quite sure that a Money Cleanse is right for you.

With the New Year fast approaching, it’s a great time to look back on the year to see what worked for us and what we hope to improve in the year to come. Whether you’ve made great headway in your financial life or feel like your financial wellness is in dire need of some love, adopting these ten habits will transform your financial health in 2020. 

In January, I love to outline my financial goals for the year. Once I know what I want to accomplish for the year, I can then break my goals down by quarter, by month, and by week to help keep me on track. 

Things always change and my goals have to adjust, but this initial mapping out of my goals serves as a guide for my goals for the rest of the year. It’s also really fun and exciting to dream about what I want. 

During times of uncertainty, having a clear picture of what’s happening with our money is more important than ever. Why? Many of us are trying to adjust to life with a lower income, our expenses are changing, and we’re reprioritizing our goals to ensure we have enough cash on hand. I’m going to take you through seven steps to simplify your banking, Marie Kondo style. These steps will make your life easier and will also increase your cash on hand. Win-win. 

Almost everyone I know wants to save more money. Make saving into a game to make the process a whole lot easier and more fun.

Here’s how to play the money game.

We tend to spend more money than usual around the holidays, and this year with inflation it’s going to be even more expensive. If you are feeling stressed about your holiday budget, we have you covered.

The good news? You can add some extra holiday cheer to your life without spending more with frugal joys.

Frugal joys are free or inexpensive things that make us really happy. If you are looking for some festive free or inexpensive treats, here are our favorite holiday frugal joys.

Many of us were hopeful that our spending was going to decrease due to stay-at-home orders, but we’ve been surprised to see that’s not always the case. Many of us are now spending more.

How can this be? Yes, we’re spending much more on groceries - stockpiling shelf-stabilized goods or paying extreme markups for toilet paper, but the main culprit for most is online shopping.

Have you ever walked into a store just to “look around” and ended up needing something you didn’t know existed five minutes earlier? Or opened up your email to get some work done and got completely side-tracked by a sales email from one of your favorite brands? Yeah, me too. Companies are getting better and better at separating us from our money, and sales are one of their favorite tactics because they combine two great marketing strategies - scarcity (time is running out!) and a great deal.

So how do we decide what to do? How do we evaluate a purchase to make sure it’s worth it? With the holidays and the biggest shopping weekend upon us, it’s the perfect time to arm ourselves with a checklist to consult before buying something on sale.

Curious how inflation (rising prices) are impacting other people’s money habits?

Prices are way up and it’s definitely impacting the wallets of most. Want tips to rescue your wallet? Want to hear how others are adjusting? We’ve got your covered. Let’s get into it.

Each year we showcase incredible BIPOC and women-owned businesses to support while doing your holiday shopping (and all year round). Why? Because what we buy matters! How we spend money is a way to vote for more of what we want to see in the world.

Plus, the pandemic, inflation and supply-chain issues have made the last few years really challenging for small businesses. Our support can make a big difference. We’ve compiled a list of your (and our) favorite brands. Thank you for sending in all of your new favorites this year. This list just gets better and better. And we plan to continue to add to it!

Credit cards can make our spending feel really murky. It’s hard to know if we’re spending more than we have because we don’t feel the pain of spending more (or the reward of spending less) until it’s time to make our credit card payment at the end of a cycle. This can make it hard to pay off our credit card each month, and it can also make us feel really guilty in our everyday spending since we’re not quite sure whether or not we can afford the things we’re purchasing. How can we make sure we’re using our credit cards in the most responsible way?

We don’t typically associate money with parties but I’m telling you, it’s a worthwhile association to make. 

One of the reasons we don’t make the progress we want in our financial lives is because our financial to-do list continues to get put on the back burner. We have busy lives so when we don’t create the time for something (like dealing with our finances), the calendar fills up and we continue to not have time. It’s a vicious cycle.