Special Edition: Secret Money Tips, Part 3—The Magic of a Budget That Fits Your Life

investing financial empowerment one oh one. Now we're bringing that advice to every young woman through this series. I'm happy to welcome Berna Annatt, a financial educator who calls herself the financial hype Woman. Berna is also the author of a new book coming out this month called Money Out Loud. Berna, it is so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Kim, tell us briefly about your money journey. What was your relationship to

money growing up? I would say my relationship to money growing up was a lot like my relationship to anything taboo, sort of like it's there, but we don't look directly at it. It's sort of like just the like kind of gross chair in the corner that mom hasn't gotten rid of or something. It's there. It's kind of festering, but we don't acknowledge it. I grew up as a

Filipino American daughter of immigrants, first gen. Both of my parents are from the Philippines, and this is very common in Filipino American families that we don't talk about money directly. We definitely don't talk about our money problems to anybody

outside the family. We don't talk about it inside the family either, And so witnessing my family go through some struggles we were lower middle income, knowing that we had problems paying our mortgage, knowing that we've eventually filed for bankruptcy and got caught up in the two thousand and eight housing crisis, all of these things were happening, but there were no conversations about money. It was just like

implicit shame, that feeling of tension. So growing up, it was a lot of silence, a lot of shame, and also a lot of behaviors with money that didn't make sense for what was happening in my home. Some purchasing things that it felt like to me we couldn't afford or flexing about our money in front of other family or friends when I knew we were struggling. So it was confusing. The word I would use is confusing. And after you started working, how did your relationship with money change?

Or did it change? My relationship with money, I think didn't even really start until I started to examine it, which was five or six years ago when I started working as a team. To me, money was this thing that it was almost like when you're holding a feather in your hands and it just blows in and out like it's there for a second and then gone with the wind basically, and that's the nature of money. Money to me also was this tool that I could use

to get what I wanted. But I did not understand that when you're using a tool like debt, you got to pay that back, and paying it back is not as easy as some of these institutions will sell to you. For example, you know, getting my very first credit card. I won't say the name of the bank, but they did have a table on our campus in college and they were offering free sweaters, and so I was like, I've never had a credit card before. Great, what's this about?

APR and interest don't care. I want a sweater and I got a free sweater. I got a free That's really what I wanted was a sweater. And then you're telling me it's a five hundred dollars credit limit. I get five hundred dollars to do whatever I want. Yay. That on top of the eventually forty thousand dollars a

student loan debt that I accrued. I got to my mid twenties and I was like, oh my gosh, I've really dug myself into a hole, because at that point I had like twelve thousand dollars of credit card debt, and so my relationship with money was again carrying lots

of shame, never talking about it. And it really only started to change when I got into personal finance, And it changed the most when I started to share my journey about getting out of debt, because I just learned so much about the fact that we're sharing this shame. A lot of us have the same issues, the same sort of negative voices in our minds, and that's when things started to really change. So what was the one

big takeaway? What did you learn about money from those younger experiences, and what could you tell others who are maybe just getting started, I would say what I learned about money when I was younger. I'm not saying this as like this is a lesson you should learn, but what I did learn was that, you know, money, I thought was something to be ashamed about. Money is something that's kind of out of your control. Money is elusive.

Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. Money is not to be discussed, and your money problems mean that you are dumb and bad at money. That's what I quote unquote learned. When I started to unpack specifically how we develop our money habits and the stories we tell ourselves, I realized, you know, those stories and those quote unquote lessons were not working for me. But I did learn

them through very real, lived experiences. I learned them through seeing my family struggle, really being taught not to talk about it, seeing that none of my friends or family or anyone around me was talking about it. And so in my twenties, I then had to sort of manually turn the bus around and understand that, Okay, these might be the lessons that I learned, but they're not the lessons that I want to bring further into my life.

I want to learn new lessons that are going to help me take down my debt, help me make me feel good about money, help me use my money to achieve my goals. And that took a lot. I took a lot of work, both emotionally and financially. And what did you take from that? I mean, what is the thing that you felt turned the bus around? Ultimately the thing that turned the bus around? And I really beat this drum in my book money out loud. But the thing that always turns the bus around for me is

community sharing. I learned that, you know, there's a lot we can do by ourselves, but we can go so much further when we share our struggles with each other, when we share knowledge, when we share experiences. Once I was sharing my budgeting journey and my debt journey, first on Instagram and then on YouTube, I found other people who looked like me, who talked like me, and who wanted the same help as me, And so I got to learn out loud. My takeaway from that was everything

is better in community, including money. You know, I learned everything we learned about money and shame and secrecy. That was a lie that was meant to keep us down. That was meant to keep us ignorant. And so now everything I do is loud, everything I do is in community, because when we help each other, we go so much further. So you, through this process developed pretty amazing philosophy about budgeting. Tell us a little bit about the magic of budgeting. Oh, budgeting.

As I say in my book and everywhere every single day, is that budgeting is an unfortunate word, sounds sort of like a burp of a word, but it's a beautiful thing. Budgeting, to me, is almost this game that I play with myself, and the way that I play it is I pretend I am the CEO of my life. The company is called my life, and all of my dollars are my employees, and budgeting means giving every single one of my employees,

every single one of my dollars, a specific job. No dollar can be roaming around my life the building of the office without a job or else you know, suddenly I can't pay my bills, or I don't know how to afford certain things. The jobs that I tried to give them, at least, the very first jobs that you should give your dollars are needs, wants and dreams, needs being you needed to survive, adulting bills, wants being you don't need it to survive, but it makes you happy

and it makes your life better. And then dreams future stuff, maybe you're trying to pay down debt or buy something or go on a trip. And to me, understanding budgeting as a game that I can play as a tactile thing where you know, it's so satisfying to give every single one of those dollars a job, put those dollars in my needs, wants and dreams, bank accounts. It gives me this sense of control that I never felt about

money before. I felt very out of control, and budgeting makes me feel not just control, but like it's kind of a fun game. I get to reset the game every time I get a paycheck. I get to make as many jobs as I want to get to name those jobs anything that I want. So my philosophy around budgeting is lots of fun, lots of control, and lots of creativity. That's a really interesting way to think about it. And I love this idea of being the CEO of

a company called your Life. You have a book coming out on April twenty fifth called Money Out Loud, which I think speaks to your philosophy that sharing and talking about money and going through the money journey together is really important. What is this book about? Oh, this book goes into budgeting and all the things I can tell you. Specifically Chapter two is about budgeting, but it's seven chapters of everything we just did not learn in school about money.

And I start off actually not with budgeting our money tips, but talking about our money story. What did we learn as kids, as young people about money? How does that add up to how we feel about money now? How is that standing in our way of our money life

and our money philosophy. Once we break that down, then we go into budgeting, aiving, debt, bank accounts, investing, and honestly, my biggest point of pride in this book is that I end with the idea of financial activism, which means that you can move your dollars and even other people's dollars in a way to change the world how you see fit. If you have a cause that you care about, I guarantee you it needs your dollars in some way, and I talk a little bit about how to do that.

So it goes from like, m let me examine myself and my money habits too. How can I literally change the world with my dollars? It's very exciting. Oh my gosh, I love it. I love First of all, it was fantastic to be together at the New York Stock Exchange and hear you talk about some of these tips and your philosophy. But I'm really looking forward to your book

coming out on April twenty fifth, Money Out Loud. We really appreciate you being on the show, and honestly, we appreciate everything that you're doing to help us all develop better money habits. Thank you so much, Kim. I'm so honored to have this opportunity and to partner with Secret and Seneca, and I can't wait to see what other loud financial magic we make. Thanks for being with us.

So let me recap some of what we learned today. First, creating a budget is probably the most valuable tool any young woman can use to get control of her finances. As Bernah says, budgeting is a beautiful thing. It can be empowering and even fun. Second, Burnah wants every young woman to imagine that she is the CEO of a company, and that company is called your life. As CEO, it's your responsibility to give a specific job to every dollar

that comes your way. Your dollars, above all, need to cover three key categories your needs, that is, the things you need to survive, your wants, and of course, your dreams. Finally, Burnah wants us to think about money as a real game changer for ourselves and for others. We can each ask ourselves, how can I literally change the world with

my dollars for myself and for others? Join me next week for more money tips for young women on our next episode of Seneca's Conversation, Secret Money Tips in partnership with Secret Deodorant. Thank you for listening, and please share today's podcast episode with others in your life. This is Kim Azzarelli, co author of Fast Forward and co founder of Seneca Women. Seneca's Conversations is a production of the

Seneca Women podcast network and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.