Last week I cried tears of joy when Raphael Warnock, the first Black senator elected in Georgia (he will be the 11th Black senator of 2,000 senators who have served), and Jon Ossoff, the first Jewish senator elected in Georgia (he will be the 37th Jewish senator), flipped the state and turned the senate blue.

Shortly thereafter, I cried in sadness and disgust as I watched our US Capitol stormed by a mob of rioters. It was an image I had only seen on the news reporting in other countries - countries without democracy.

It’s officially 2021. Woohoo! 🥳 We ended the year with two (very COVID-conscious) 3-day drives - first to Florida and then back to New Jersey. Yes… with a baby, toddler and dog 🤪. One of my favorite things to do at the start of each year is create a financial plan for the next twelve months. I know… I’m unique. 😂

Happy New Year! 🥳 I hope you are doing something fun to celebrate! 🎊 I am so excited to join you on your money journey in 2021, whatever that may look like. Tomorrow is the last official day of my maternity leave. I cannot wait to get back to work helping you get you wealthy.

If there are ways I can better support you in your goals or things you’d like to see from the Fiscal Femme in the coming year, I’m listening. Just hit reply and let me know.

Have you heard the story about Tiffany Haddish’s $4,000 Alexander McQueen dress?

She first wore it to a movie premier in 2017 and went on to wear it five more times at high profile events - as a presenter for the Oscars, the MTV movie awards and when she hosted Saturday Night Live. The scandal!

My first job in NYC was near the flagship Bloomingdale’s. It was probably the biggest department store I’d ever step foot in – it’s 9 stories high! The first time I went in and bought some clothes I was offered a store credit card that would save me 20% on my purchase.

20% off probably meant $50 in savings, and I felt like such an adult getting my very own credit card. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. I went back to work and forgot all about it. Although I made a login to see my credit card statements, I rarely checked it. I thought I signed up for alerts and linked my credit card to my account, but I must have done it wrong.

It might be time to break up with your bank. If your bank pays you little or no interest, charges you fees and doesn’t align with your values (i.e. funds fossil fuels or private prisons), you can do better.

Find a better bank (I promise, there are other fish in the sea), open an account, and test the waters. If it feels scary, drastic or like too much work to drop your current bank completely, that’s okay. You can slowly phase them out.
As you build a relationship with your new bank (and they treat you better), you’ll want to use your old bank less and less.

As we close out 2020 this month (good riddance - ✌️!), it’s a natural time to think about the coming year. You might have seen the meme - “the stupidest thing I bought in 2020 was a planner.” Yep - 💯.

I think we can all agree that if we looked at our original 2020 plans, they’d be unrecognizable. I’m talking plans for our money, plans for travel, plans for our careers, all of it.

It’s that time of year again where absolutely everything is on sale.

Things that are good for us should go on sale too, so we’re offering a 40% discount on all Fiscal Femme Courses through midnight December 2nd. 🥳🥳🥳 How it works. When you click to enroll in any course, you will see the 40% discount reflected on the checkout page.

In honor of Thanksgiving next week, I want to talk about gratitude. 🙏 Gratitude is a powerful practice to cultivate abundance. What is abundance? Abundance is having more than enough.

The opposite of abundance is scarcity or not enough. Many of us operate in the space of “not enough” for most of the day. Ads try to cultivate scarcity so that we are more likely to buy 🛍 things. Because when we don’t have enough, we need more. 🎰

This past week has been an emotional rollercoaster - to say the least. I was cautiously optimistic going into Election Day, sad when I saw the initial results rolling in, and then felt hopeful again.

Even after Biden and Harris were announced the winners, I was scared to get too excited because it’s 2020 after all. 🤪 But when Kamala and Joe gave their acceptance speeches on Saturday night, it became real for me. It was a big moment.

As part of my job, I negotiate a lot. I have set rates for my book, courses and coaching but all the other parts of my business are a lot murkier. I negotiate speaking engagements, financial wellness consulting projects and brand partnerships.

Now that the Fiscal Femme is seven years old (WOAH), you’d think this would get easier. Maybe it has a little bit but I still depend on a team of support to get me through any negotiation. It’s hard for me to sell myself!

Every year, J and I rewatch The West Wing on Netflix. Have you seen it?!

If not, I highly recommend it. It’s amazing - it reminds me of what the government and our leaders can and should be.

As huge fans of the show, you can imagine how excited we were when the original West Wing cast came together for a reunion special to raise awareness and support for the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization When We All Vote.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to my money but one in particular really changed my life. Back in 2010, one of my male colleagues said he had a “brilliant” 💡 investment idea. He sounded so confident and threw around a lot of words and phrases I didn’t understand. I thought - he must know what he’s talking about. And I sat there feeling bad about myself for not knowing more.

I purchased the investment he recommended and waited eagerly for it to go up. 📈 It ended up doing the opposite and I lost thousands of dollars. 📉 I realized that confident sounding man actually had no idea what he was talking about, and as a result, I lost a large portion of my savings.

When I left my investment banking job for a job that would give me a better lifestyle (mostly fewer, more predictable hours), I took a big pay cut. At first, I had no idea how I was going to manage the switch - I had never made a budget and knew nothing about personal finance. It was worth it to me to figure it out so I could spend more time with my friends and family and have time to take care of myself.

Then a few years later, when I was planning to leave my corporate finance job to run the Fiscal Femme full time, I socked away cash into savings like crazy so I could invest in my business (and really pay myself while my business wasn’t earning enough money). And that was so worth it to me because I was going to get to do work that I was passionate about.

One of the shifts I see in my clients is that they switch from a fixed to a growth mindset around money. What does that mean? Instead of believing their abilities with money are fixed (saying and thinking things like “I am just terrible with money. This is not something I can do.”), they start to believe that they can improve and get better at it with practice. And of course, they can! 🙋‍♀️

This makes our money failures seem less like fatal flaws and more like learning experiences.

I’m sure you are all very aware that November 3rd is Election Day. It’s almost time to cast our votes! 📫

Voting is how we make sure our values are reflected in the way our government is run. And regardless of what the polls are saying, we need to show up for this most important civic duty. PLEASE please please - vote!

Why am I messaging you about this a month early? The deadline to register is fast approaching. If you have not yet registered to vote, it’s time to get on it. Here are the deadlines for each state.

The original Money Musing for this week talked about my quest to enjoy things more (and the lack of diversity on the Supreme Court). But first, I’d like to acknowledge the pain and sadness that comes with the loss of a true heroine and icon.

On Friday night, we lost Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after a long battle with cancer. RBG fought tirelessly until the end for justice and brought her perspective on women’s rights to the Supreme Court.

You might not know this, but the Fiscal Femme started out as a blog. At the time, I was figuring out my own finances (which were pretty much a hot mess 😂) and felt compelled to share what I was learning with others - because it was really working!

The only problem? I was absolutely terrified of having a voice 🗣 on the internet. What if I say something stupid? Will I look back at what I wrote and cringe? Will people think I’m crazy?

Access is a very important piece of the racial and gender gaps in personal finance. In the past and still today, BIPOC and womxn haven’t had access to the same financial products and resources that white men use and benefit from.

Racial discrimination is still common at banks and there is limited legal recourse because the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not include financial institutions.

I’ve been hiding something from you… I know, I know. We’re supposed to have a completely open and honest relationship, so I’m coming clean.

At the Fiscal Femme we have four incredible courses. What?! 🤯 You’ve been reading along each week, maybe even part of our Fiscal Femme Slack Community and had no idea? It’s my fault.