February 21, 2023 • 41 mins
Michelle and Raquel Curtis (aka The Boujee Banker) are holding you accountable for your money management. The Boujee Banker tells us her story of the struggle that led her to become a financial advisor. She also gives us tips to change our spending habits and take steps towards financial freedom. CHECK IN to this episode if you want to get your money right this year!
For access to the Boujee Banker’s classes, visit: https://www.beboujee.com/
Follow The Boujee Banker on Instagram: @theboujeebanker_
Subscribe to her YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVQHPFYH5BIm0CMbqPyXwuw
Make sure you’re following Michelle on social media!
Instagram: @MichelleWilliams
Twitter: @RealMichelleW
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
My Heart Radio and The Black Effect. Hey, family, you
know I love you and I got a question for you,
(00:21):
maybe two questions. Do you feel like you're working just
to pay off your credit cards? You feel like you're
live in paycheck to paycheck? Or have you wanted to invest?
But it all sounds very confusing. Well, my next guest
has all those answers for you coming up next on
Checking In. Okay, y'all, I'm so excited about today's guests.
(00:45):
We had been deeming each other on Instagram for a
while saying when you're gonna come on checking In or
I've got to meet you. She is a sought after
financial consultant and expert for shows like The Table, Bloomberg Radio,
and Business Insider. She's also an author, podcaster, educator, and
yes she's a mama of three. Please welcome Raquel Curtis
(01:09):
to Checking In. Hey, Michelle, oh Man, that intro I
was like, who's that honey? Listen and y'all she you
might really know her as the Boogie Banker, which was
definitely a catchy name on Instagram. I followed her immediately
because there was something that she posted that was on
the Explorer page, and it seems like we follow some
(01:31):
of the same mutual good people. So I was like, Okay,
I know she We're gonna be in great company with
each other. Yes, I'm so excited to be here. When
you followed me, I had to check out Slate. Wait
a minute, hold on, Michelle. So I'm just so excited.
I called my mama immediately. Please, hey, Mama. We started
(01:52):
following each other because during the pandemic, the whole crypto
and four X thing became something very popular, and I
began following you because you were so educational. And there's
a disclaimer, ladies and gentlemen, Yes she is a financial consultant,
but you must speak with your own advisor because what
(02:13):
she's gonna say to you our suggestions and not necessarily advice.
So what I liked on your Instagram page, UM Raquel
was that you had great suggestions about banking, investment, UM
and crypto and at that time, for ex can be
considered an investment. So I began following you for some
(02:33):
education and all that good stuff, and I'm glad I did.
So how did you get started in the field of
UM consulting in the area of financing. This is a
very long story of being broke. So originally, you know,
I went to school, which Sebenetic State University, graduated with
(02:56):
a degree in criminal justice, and I went on to
become a rectional officer. Now this entire time, I was like,
that's my field. We had to take one semester of
mad I'm good And that's exactly where I stayed up
until I was pregnant with my now ten year old
and the fight that broke out between two inmates, and
(03:17):
in that moment, I was thinking about doing my job
and I ran to go break up the fight. One
of the inmates fell on my stomach. I was placed
on bed rest for the duration of that pregnancy, and
then when she was born, you know, we didn't have
a lot of money, and so I became a stay
at home mom. And during that time, you know, obviously
(03:41):
I love my children, obviously, you know, I love that
whole dynamic, but I really felt like I worked too
hard not to feel myself grow as an individual anymore. So,
since we couldn't afford to send my daughter to childcare,
I just got a job at the local daycare. I
was making seven dollars in twenty five cents an hour,
and with a degree that was kind of hard to
(04:02):
swallow over. But you do what you have to do.
And I started paying attention to what management was doing,
what the owners were doing, and I was like, you
know what, you can figure this out. You're smart enough.
So I started taking um c d A classes, so
just childhood certification classes on the weekend. And then I
started watching people's children, which eventually bled into it being
(04:22):
its own in home daycare. Now this point, I'm like,
oh wow, I'm like doing the entrepreneur thing. This is great.
But I was learning business and a few things transpired
just with my family, and so I ended up closing
down my daycare. A few years later. My youngest was born,
and you know, I'm five nine. I have an athletic build,
(04:45):
so I thought she was born. People are asking me,
how did you snap back so quick? Says this year?
My daughter was burned on July one, My brothday's lacked fifteen.
How did you snap back so quick? And I have
all of this experience from being a collegiate athlete, played basketball,
ran track my whole life, you know, so like I
can train them to help them get into shape. You know,
I could do this. So I started helping people, and
(05:07):
I realized that I enjoyed it and I was doing
very well at it. So I got my certification to
be a personal trainer a few months after that. About
six months after that, I opened the first women's only
gym with childcare in my city, and so everything was gone, great,
wait wait wait, wait, wait, the first gym with childcare
in your city. And what city is this? This is
(05:27):
coming to Georgia, in the country, in the six so
you know, I had seven employees, seven square foot building.
And then unfortunately, one day I was headed home and
this older gentleman ran a red light. He t on
my vehicle. I was putting the neck brace for about
six months. I had over sixteen spinal injections. At that point.
I could not work or work out for a year.
(05:50):
So all of the hard work, all of the funds
that I put into that space, I watched my accounts
drain completely into the negative, most of the closed out
in the red. And so I was in a season
to where you know, we had two income earner expenses
on a one source of income. We needed food stamps,
(06:10):
couldn't qualify for them. You know, we were having conversations
with each other like did you eat, And he'd be
like yeah, and he didn't eat, and he'd asked me
and I didn't eat. But we madtionally that food. And
you know, maybe there was places where we could have
reached out to, but there's a certain level of pride
and ego that really came into that at the time,
and you just didn't want people to know what was
going on, you know, and so um, eventually I was
(06:35):
able to go back to work, and what I realized
I was doing. I was working at FedEx overnight, I
was working at the front desk of a hotel during
the day, and I was selling life insurance. And so
I'm doing all this hustling and grinding and getting it
and I'm realizing the entire time, I'm working this hard
and nothing is coming out of it because I'm continuing
(06:56):
to chase what that lifestyle looks like from being a
business owner opposed to actually building wealth or even starting
to build what or what building wealth looked like. So
how I ended up becoming a banker was, you know,
I had to have a hard look at myself because
we were still living paycheck to paycheck, even though we
both were working, and things just were going south fast.
(07:18):
So eventually it was just myself and my girls, and
I had to have a hard look at my life
and say, you know, it's just the life that I
want for my daughters, and it wasn't. So I started
watching YouTube videos, downloading templates, you know, trying to do
everything that YouTube said I should do, and a budget works.
(07:39):
The templates works for about two weeks, and about two weeks,
and as soon as life would happen, I would go
right back to the same habits and behaviors that caused
me to be broke the first time. You know. So
I looked at my babies and I said, something's gotta change.
I started asking myself some really hard questions around money
(08:01):
that had to do with my relationship and not the numbers.
That point when I changed with that conversation looked like
with myself. When I started checking in with myself, come on,
come on, checking with myself, I was really able to
change that. I started to build learn study about financial literacy.
(08:22):
I started to study investments. I started to get around people,
places and things that spoke like it, and I was
able to change from having closed out bank accounts to
having you know, multiple five figure investment portfolios, multiple five
figures Satan's accounts. And at this point in time, I'm
still hustling, I'm still getting I'm working these multiple jobs.
(08:42):
And my best friend was a banker. She said, you know,
you you've gotten really good with money. Have you thought
about taking this on as a career? Thanks? Friends? What's
your friends? Lisa? Thank your girl? Thankfully. So I became
a banker, and it was literally the best thing that
could have ever happened to me. At this point in time,
I had gone through so many up and down swings
(09:04):
with money, and I'd finally gotten it together. So when
people were sitting with me, I wasn't just opening accounts,
I wasn't just getting credit cards for them. I was
looking at the red in their account and I saw myself.
So I started helping them build budgets that was holding
them accountable to their budget, and I thought that this
is my like, this is where I'm supposed to be,
(09:26):
you know, And I wanted to climb that corporate ladder.
But unfortunately, or fortunately, December three, I walked into work.
My manager let me know that due to the pandemic.
They had to make some decisions and they had to
let me go, and they let go three bankers in
my branch. They let go of thousands of bankers company wide,
(09:47):
and I felt myself in that same position again, like
I don't want to lose everything I just built. I
worked so hard for it. So I leaned on my
experiences from the past and being entrepreneur with my newfound
knowledge of money management, and I said, you know what,
I just want to help people. That's all I want
to do is just continue to help people. So between
(10:09):
December three and today, my book has sold. I wrote
a book. I'm my first time author. My book has
sold in seven countries and it's dealing with their relationship
with money. Yes, it is called Living Bougie and Balanced,
Mastering your Money Mindset, And um, you know, it's almost
(10:29):
sold in in every state in the US, and I'm
really grateful for that. You know, my brand operates in
over thirty countries now and I really give it to
the grace of God. Now, do you think had you
not been let go from your job, would you have
done the book? No, I don't. I don't think so.
(10:52):
The pandemic birth millionaires entrepreneurs because it pushed people out
of comfort zones. Yeah, I I cried, not knows like friends,
like cried all the way home. And then the next
day I woke up and I was like, it's time
to get to it. You have, it's Christmas time, it's
(11:13):
time to go. Yeah. And by the way, what you
did is actually recommended, where you give yourself, depending on
the situation, twenty four to forty eight hours to mourn
something and then after that you gotta get up and
start looking at solutions. Now, it's not to say after
(11:35):
that seventy second hour or beyond that you still won't
feel sad, But I'm so glad within those forty eight
hours you was like, all right, I'm gonna wipe these tears. Yes,
I'm sad. It's something called feeling your feelings, right, And
I'm so glad that you literally got up. You got up,
(11:56):
So yeah, I am so happy for you. Now in
your book, you dive into healing, uh, the underlying relationship
with money that we tend to ignore it before focusing
on the numbers. So where do most of the underlying
issues come from? So I'm a firm believer that our
(12:19):
thoughts behaviors, actions. All of those things are shaped from
our childhood and our environments that we grew up in.
And what I love about Checking In is that in
chapter four you talk about that, you talk about your childhood.
And this is such a good book, by the way,
I love it. Thank you, welcome, and um I have
(12:39):
it here highlighting you said. So when I reflect, I
have to start with the relationships I had with my
mom and my dad, and I have to ask myself
some tough questions. You know, there's something that we are
told is that be careful how you raise your children
because they will grow up dating someone just like you.
You've heard that before. Yeah, and so the same thing
(13:02):
happens with your relationship with money. So if you grew
up in an abusive household right where let's just say
it's verbally abusive, and you're constantly told you're stupid and
that you know you're ugly or what have you? Just
all these derogatory things, demeaning things that you're told. When
you start dating the person that you date, if they
call you stupid, you're not gonna recognize that as a
(13:23):
red flag. You're just gonna be like you're familiar with trauma.
You're familiar with abuse, so it looks like I belong
here absolutely. And where that difference is if you're a
child who grew up in a loving and supportive household
where they say, you know, you're intelligent, you can do anything,
you're so beautiful. Then when you grow up, if you
come across that type of person that calls you stupid
(13:44):
or they don't speak life into you, you were a
hold up, Hold up that that's that's not me, because
you recognize that as a red flag. The same thing
happens with your relationship with money. If you grew up
and all you saw was your parents work super hard
for that money and all they did was spend it,
or they argued about money all the time, or they
were constantly tired because they were working all the time
(14:06):
and just never had any space to live and breathe,
chances are that you grew up reflecting some of those
same habits with your relationship with money. Wow, so how
you saw your parents handle money is possibly how you
will handle money. Your parents or your environment or some
people grow up with their grandparents. How the people they
(14:27):
look up to may not have been their mom and dad,
maybe have been you know an anti your uncle. It's
it's your environment and shapes you, your habits, your behaviors,
your triggers and shapes you. You are so right. I
remember growing up my mother wanted us to make sure
that we had good credit, and she would always say,
you don't want to not be able to get a
(14:48):
lollipop on credit. She would always stress to us about
good credit. And so to this day I have probably
got every alert possible to credit. Or when you pay
your credit card balances at a certain time, you know
it can positively or negatively affect credit because of certain
(15:09):
cycles with credit. And trust me, I remember that. I
also remember seeing investment envelopes come to the house like
my mother was investing, and that was so good to see.
But at the same time, a lot of the arguments
stemmed across money. That's really a relationship killer if compromise
(15:38):
or resolution around finances is not quickly figured out. And
there's another one too. You have you heard as long
as you have a roof over their head, closing your
back and putting your stomach, don't worry about it. Stay
in the child's place, yep. So I just think it's
so interesting that growing up we're taught the Golden rule
about how to treat others, but we're not taught the
golden rule about how to treat money when that's literally
(16:00):
what we need to survive. And so for most of us,
our first relationship with money was when we were already
in debt because we went to college got financial aid.
And then now we're an adults who has a negative
relationship with money out the gate because now we're trying
to swim up stream. Y'all. If y'all are in college
and you're on the yard, do not. I don't know it,
(16:24):
but back in the day, every credit card company was
on the yard, honey, and they after you fill out
the application, you get a free bag of peanut Eminem's
or a calculator. Stuff you stuff you need, don't you
do it? They had to shut them down from doing that.
That was like predatory lending practices, really, so they did. So.
(16:45):
This was between the years seven and nine when I
was in college. So it's good to know that they
don't do that anymore. If I'm here, you know, they
find their ways. I was eighteen with the credit scores
seven twenty and didn't know it. You know, I grew
up in an environment where my mom worked extremely hard
and I had the benefit of being a spoiled bread
(17:09):
but I had zero value attachment to money. And my
grandfather he you know, did what he did, and by
the time I was eighteen, I had a credit of course,
I didn't know what credit was. Wow. I got my
first credit card in maxic out on my boyfriend. Good.
That's a whole other episode. You as being sugar Mama.
I was like, sugar Mama, Lord Jesus God blessed. We
(17:33):
won't hold it against you. We've all done some I
won't say stupid unwise. I've done some unwise things. As
it relates to love, relationships and money. Now, because you
talked about the underlying issues, sometimes those underlying issues can
create certain triggers as it relates to money. What's one
(17:55):
of the steps that you would suggest so that folks
can start feeling more positive about money. Yeah, the the
first thing you need to do to start feeling more
positive about your relationship with money is to definitely have
the hard conversation first, and then when you identify what
your triggers are, you'll be able to start developing healthy
(18:18):
boundaries around those triggers. So identifying what your triggers are
is key. We all have a reason why we impulsively
spend our money, whether it's a positive reason or a
negative reason. And it could be argued if your friends
and family members are a positive reason or if they're
a negative reason. But there's still reasons why we do it.
And so you could say that I'm gonna take some
(18:42):
time and I'm gonna write down every positive reason as
to why I impulsively spend my money and then draw
a line down the paper and on the opposite side,
you're gonna write every negative emotion that's attached to why
you spend your money imposible. So maybe you're you know,
stress that work or exhausted. You know, those are reasons why.
(19:06):
Now how you get into a happier place with this
is everything that's in the positive column, you need to
factor it into your money management plan because you're gonna
do it anyways. It makes you feel good. Everything that
falls up in the negative column you should write if
then statements around if I am stressed, then my response
is instead of I'm gonna go and shop on Amazon
(19:30):
and Fashion nov and have these temporary moments of joy
and then feel guilty about spending the money anyway, right,
facts you're gonna say, if I feel stressed, then I'm
gonna run a nice hot bath and play some relaxing music,
or that's free. It's free, or you know, I'm I'm
gonna get on the phone and just gossip with my
girlfriends or what what have you. But change it from
(19:50):
you spending the money to you're doing an activity that
will change the emotional attachment to why you're spending the money. Okay, y'all.
When I do these podcasts, they just don't be for y'all.
It's for me too, you know. And these are great notes.
I have accounting in business management, but I love when
they can tell a difference in a spending habit. Or
(20:13):
you ain't use this credit card. Let me tell you something.
There are certain emails that you get from your credit
card company. If you haven't used it in like a
week or two, they start sending you stuff to make
sure you're still there, you're still alive, what's going on.
I love when I get there I can look at
a certain email and know, oh, it's because I haven't
touched it, you know, And so that does make me
(20:37):
feel good. So y'all. When I've got people on here,
trust me, I'm listening for me too. So those were
some great steps that you gave us. Have you found
that it's true that if you stress about money or
feel that you don't have money, that somehow it manifests
into you not having money. Come on, you have to
(20:58):
change the conversation. And to be quite frank, the conversation
didn't change for me until I changed my environment. You
have to change your thought process because words are things,
thoughts are things, and you will eventually speak into your
life what you have or what you don't have. And
so I started learning that concept really when I became
(21:18):
a part of a company and they focused on personal development.
And then I was encouraged to go out to a
Bob Proctor event, and then I was going to Believe
Nation events and I was like, wait a minute, Oh,
wait a minute, and flip the whole script. So, yes,
you can definitely speak wealth or So we both are
familiar with the leader of Believe Nation and how he
(21:39):
would break down the word future right, and how we
we discovered that the word future means the time or
period of time following the moment of speaking or writing.
We ain't got, but we show got a hand a
small pinky to do with our future by what we said,
(22:00):
and that includes money. So what do you have to
say to the person that's like Raquel ms boogie banker?
I hear you, but I've been struggling with money all
my life. I can never make I'm barely making ends meet.
Y'all always talking about this positive speaking and what you
say matters, but I'm broke. Baby daddy ain't coming through
(22:26):
with the child support. Listen, because that was me once
upon a time. UM, I would definitely say this. You
either have an income issue or you have an effort
for issue. It's one of the other. And so if
you have an income issue, then it can be fixed
because it's just the activity has to change, which also
equates to the effort that you put into your situation.
(22:48):
The only person who has power over where you currently
are and where you will or will not be six
months to a year from now is you. So if
you're constantly complaining about not how mean, then that activity
is not going to match for you to have the
things that you desire to have, even if it's not wealth.
Maybe you just want to look comfortably. Maybe you just
want to be happy. But if the activity is not
(23:11):
adding up to you getting there, you're never gonna achieve it.
So the question really becomes, are you more complacent with
complaining than you are for being in the search of growth?
That's that's really the question. It's type, but it's right,
y'all don't want to hear that good preaching today the
walls just say they amen, because y'all, I'm not hearing
(23:32):
nobody say Amen out as they say. If you can't
say amen, say out. Pastor Daniel say, y're not hearing me, okay,
as he said, did you hear what I just said? Y'all?
Did y'all hear with us? All? But just said that?
(23:53):
That stings, especially if you know that as you and
the point of checking in is to have rate testimonials
of this episode changed my life. It snapped me back
into a positive mindset or help me evaluate my mindset
when it comes to money, because a lot of people
also think you have to already come from a thirty
(24:15):
seven percent tax bracket to have wealth, or you can't
have made as many mistakes as um. I made so
many mistakes, Michelle. I've done this, I've done that. God
there's no possible way that I can get myself out
of this. And I'm telling you some of the worst
of the worst have made complete changes in their life,
(24:36):
not only in their mindset and their relationships, but with money.
And you are right. Maybe your goal is to make
sixty thousand a year, because you know in your demographic
sixty thousand a year is amazing those of y'all that
live in New York. Sixty thousand my not got it.
So it is okay to set certain financial goals for yourself,
(24:57):
just like you said, as long as that effort is matching.
I want folks that are listening to this episode to
have like breakthrough with their mindset as it pertains to
money and freedom. That a budget gives you, freedom, that
good credit gives you freedom, that is savings account gives
(25:18):
you to where you know if something should happen. I
got a couple of months of income set aside, and listen.
I have compassion for those that are like Michelle. I
can't do a couple of months of income right now
because I do have children, or or I take care
of my entire household. You got twenty year olds that
are the bread winners. So my heart goes out to you.
(25:39):
But I'm telling you, at the end of the day,
if life goes the way it's supposed to go, you
will be left standing after your loved ones that are
in that house go on to heaven. So you gotta
have a place where you can dip back into and
love on yourself financially. You know that journey is hard.
(26:00):
What I don't want to do is to make it
seem like, well, I'm gonna pick myself up by the
bootstraps and here we go. Like you know, it's it's
a very hard journey. There are a lot of conversations
that you have to have with yourself, and sometimes you're
gonna be the only person who believes in yourself. Sometimes
you're going to cry yourself to sleep at night. Because
the thing is is that dealing with changing your financial
(26:21):
picture is dealing with changing you, and so that's a
whole personal development journey that you have to go through.
And there's conversations that current you need to change so
future you can appear right. And so if you're saying, like, Okay,
I'm struggling, I'm living paycheck to paycheck, change the conversation
(26:43):
and say why am I struggling. Why am I living
to paycheck? What decisions have I made or have not
made that are keeping me in this current financial situation?
And what is it costing me to stay here? Especially
if you have children? So good checking in is gonna
(27:05):
be about breakthrough. Yes, we have fun conversations as it
relates to mental health, and we have heavy conversations about
mental health. But I love to talk about finances because
mental health and finance do play. There is a psychology
as it relates to how you view money. Now let's
talk about another part of stress and money and how
(27:26):
do you find that women and men deal with stress
about money differently. I think there's dynamics to it. So
when you're talking about a household like a married couple, right, Um,
there's a certain support system that they give each other
where if the husband is the bread the breadwinner, then
(27:48):
he feels the brunt of the stress because the wife
is there too, you know, kind of make things easier
or help with the conversation. Um. I've seen the dynamic
kind of go back and forth because that's seen where
the husband will complain about how much money the wife
is spending because he doesn't understand the dynamic of the
household because he's always working, right, And I've seen it
(28:09):
vice versa as well, where the woman is the head,
she's the one that's bringing the money, who's paying the bills,
and you know, the focus is a little different. I
feel like men tend to focus on career more where
women tend to focus on future, trying to focus on
their their kids and what their kids need is transparent
in the future. When you're talking about individually, I can't
(28:30):
say that I've noticed too much of a difference when
you're just talking about two single individual people, because they're
focused on career development, advancement, you know, their financial picture.
I don't really see too much for a difference there. Okay, okay,
you are amazing. You are amazing. Now you talked about
at one particular time being a banker that has helped
(28:51):
women all over the world stop living paycheck to paycheck.
We found through lending Tree they published a study that
nearly eleven million homes ten point seven million homes are
owned by single women, while single men on approximately eight
(29:11):
point twelve million homes in the country. This comes despite
American women making less than men in median earnings. For
there's been studies that came out to say that women
do a better job with saving, we do a better
job with planning for the future and executing that. There
have been studies that, honey, we do a better job
(29:32):
at planning for the future, honey, and we ain't waiting
on you to buy the house. You give a woman,
she will supply, okay, she bears the children, okay, for
that reason, to bring multiplication. My mom would always tell
she she hates when I buy a house, why don't
(29:53):
you wait for the man to do it? But that's
that generation she was born in the fifties where the
man did buy the house. As far as I'm concerned,
I can buy this house. You just buy the other
ones buy our beach house. You know what I'm saying.
So you know I'm okay with that. What it is
we are in the winter months leading up to tax season.
(30:18):
Tax season is here chat what What are some of
the mistakes that people make when filing on their own?
Filing on their own, that's the mistakes. There are people
who are tax professionals for a reason, you guys, Okay,
there are simple mistakes that you can make in your taxes,
(30:39):
such as just not putting information incorrectly, not marking your
deductions correctly, that can really hurt you. Just stop being cheap, Okay,
just pay for what we'll keep you out of the
I R S is callogue. I used to e file.
I used to do my own my very first job
in like the mid nineties, I was working at at
(31:02):
a retail spot, and I used to do my own taxes.
When you only make an tens a year, what's you're claiming?
What you're claiming? Yeah, well, so you're saying to get
a tax expert to help you. What's another one? The
common mistake that people make when filing their own is
maybe you do in your own and you know what
(31:23):
about maybe another just mistake period as it relates to taxes. Yeah,
you're just not setting up your withholdings correctly. Okay. Marking
down the way that you do your deductions is key
because there's so many people that mess out on thousands
of dollars every year because they're not properly marking out
their deductions. Making sure that even something simple like people
(31:44):
will have their old address on their tax filings and
so now when they when they mail you or issue
your check, if you're not doing direct deposit. It can
cause all sorts of delays or you possibly um you know,
having to resubmit for your tax returns. So it's just
the small things that we tend not to pay at
tension to, especially if we're in the process of moving
and you haven't done your boarding address and all of
those things that can cause so many either delays or
(32:07):
errors on your reports. So if you are stressing about
following your tax returns, sit down with the professional. Let
them do their job, let them properly educate you. Make
sure that your information is correct, come through your stuff,
make sure it's right, make sure you have everything filed properly,
that your deductions are clear, and that they're correct. And
I think those are the main things that people mess
(32:29):
up on for sure. M that's so good. Now, ladies
and gentlemen, you're probably thinking, man, that's so good. I
cannot afford a financial advisors. Some advisors you don't have
to necessarily pay a flat fee. Some you just pay
maybe a percentage to. But when you go on the
Boogie Banker, it's the boogie b o U j E
(32:50):
E banker underscore. She has amazing tips and guess what
there are ten tax filing tips on there. She is
a well of information. What's one step that people can
do to start getting out from under that credit card debt? Yes,
so you have a couple of options. I have people
(33:13):
come to me and they ask if they should consolidate
their debt. Right, so they're like, I should just get
a personal loan and consolidate the debt if you decide
to go that route. My suggestion for that, if you
want to consolidate, is that you go look at a
credit union first, and then you also ask for the
maximum amount of months that you have to pay off
(33:35):
that balance transfer. Essentially, what you'll be doing You'll get
a personal loan with the credit bank and they'll do
a balance transfer of all of your credit cards onto
that one loan, which will now drop the balances to
all of your credit cards down to zero. And now
instead of being responsible for seven different credit card payments
that may equate to you know, seven or eight hundred dollars,
now you have one loan to pay off, where the
(33:57):
loan payments maybe three or four hundred dollars. Now you
can apply you know, six hundred dollars towards that and
get it paid off. Sooner, and the interest typically is
lower as well, opposed to having you know, seven or
eight credit cards. Now you just have this one responsibility
to take care of um. The caution there, though, is
that now that you have all this available credits, you
have to be responsible enough not to go back and
(34:20):
use the credit cards and then have all the credit
card that and right, honey, I am so guilty. And
you pay that credit card down to zero and it
says available credit limit thousand, and you're like, well, I
do need a new dresser, but do it got to
(34:42):
be thousand? Now? The great thing about your keel is
that you are a self professed travel junkie. Yes, so
we can talk about buying things on a budget, maybe
a dresser on a budget. There are uh certain things
that are online where you get a west elm or
(35:03):
restoration hardware dress her for a hundred dollars that somebody
just wants to get rid of. So you teach people
on an average budget how they can say for a vacation. Now,
if someone has debt or doesn't have a savings, should
they go on vacation? Yeah? I don't think you should.
I don't think you should stop doing the things that
(35:25):
make you happy, because there's a certain there's there's making
a decision, and there's also like disregarding your peace of mind. Right,
And if you're doing something that is taking away from
your happiness or from your peace of mind, chances are
you're not gonna stay in that lane. So if I
come on a budget and I take away their ability
(35:46):
to travel, or I take away their ability to go
out to eat everyone once in a while, they're not
gonna stick to the budget. They're like, I'm not I
can't live. What I always say is a budget gives
you control. So if you don't have a savings account
and you're still in debt, what you can do is
you can say, you know what I do like to travel? Well,
instead of traveling every single quarter, let me just plan
(36:09):
for this one trip once a year until I get
my financial picture together. But then you'll go through and
factor in how much a typical trip will cost you.
You'll take that number divided by twelve, and so now
every month you may have fifty fifty bucks that's going
towards it, or a hundred bucks that's going towards your
annual trip. So now you have something to look forward
(36:32):
to where you're essentially rewarding yourself for staying on a
financial plan. Now, all this money that you're saving because
you're not going on four trips a year, you're planning
for this one trip. Now, now you can take some
of that money, have it budgeted to pay down debt,
and take another portion and have it budgeted so that
you have your emergency savings piled up. I want people
to feel suffocated with their finances. It's all about living bougie,
(36:57):
and balance is all about doing the things that you enjoy,
but also having control to where it's financially makes sense.
That's so good. You have been absolutely brilliant today, y'all.
She's got lots of classes that teach about financial health.
But you also offer a freebe vault of material and
resources on your website. The website is b bougie dot com.
(37:23):
But let me not speak for you. Tell us maybe
one of the freebees that's on your website. Yeah, they're
spending trackers, um savings in there. There's three PDFs that
I've just found over time through to do different resources,
whether it's on money management, investing, what that looks like
for you. I definitely encourage you guys, to go grab
your free bees, because oftentimes it's just like exposing yourself
(37:47):
to something new, you know, and that can really be
helpful for you. And if I can say this, Michelle,
you can't mention. It's something called the Breakthrough. I'm actually
I'm actually having a financial literacy and business development conference
at the end of the un and it's called the
Breakthrough Experience. So it's all about breaking through the limiting
beers that you place on yourself, breaking into your financial success.
(38:08):
So it's a financial literacy and business development conference. We
have phenomenal speakers lined up. I'll be there, Ellie talks Money,
will be there, and countless other speakers and people in
the finance and business space that you may already know.
So please come, y'all. I cultivated this space so that
we cannot only talk about money management. We could also
(38:29):
talk about how to build our wealth and most importantly,
protecting it. I feel like so often we have these
events where we're always talking about it's the money, get
to the bag, do this. We have to protect generational
wealth and we have to learn how to create it first,
you know, And so I really want to bring everyone
to a space to have that conversation. I would love
(38:51):
for you guys to come. The website is Breakthrough e
XP dot com. All right, were in there like swimwear.
And I think one of the reasons why I'm so
engaged is because you've been through not having you've been
through the Okay, I gotta get myself up. Okay, I
can do this, and we are here today. Your book
(39:14):
is translated into various countries and you are just helping,
and you're freeing people to get out of debt and
to be great investors. Please, wherever you are, clap your hands,
give love, give her a follow again. She's on Instagram
at the Boogie Banker Underscore. Show her some love for
(39:36):
Quel Curtis. Thank you for checking in. Thank you so much, Michelle.
This was amazing. You are welcome, You are welcome. M hmm. Listen,
this was so informative. Raquel a k a. The Boogie
Banker just came with so much knowledge. She was just
(39:59):
a well oh wanting to pour poor poor everything that
she has in her and I'm truly truly thankful for her. Again,
She's got many classes and books, stuff that is at
no cost to you. At b boogie dot com. It's
the word b b E b o u j e
(40:20):
e dot com forward slash the Boogie Banker follow her
on Instagram again. Her Instagram handle is the Boogie Banker
Underscore the b o u j e E b A
n k E R Underscore. She's gonna help you budget, save, invest,
and help you continue to you know, change your mindset
(40:42):
as it relates to money, if that's what you desire. Okay,
I'm so excited for folks that are on their way
to um a different type of freedom, and that freedom
is financial freedom. Guess what you deserve it? Your family
deserves it, your legacy deserves it. Listen. Please know that
(41:03):
you're loved, and guess what you loved by me, and
there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Checking In
(41:41):
with Michelle Williams is a production of I Heart Radio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
My Heart Radio and The Black Effect. Hey, family, you
know I love you and I got a question for you,
(00:21):
maybe two questions. Do you feel like you're working just
to pay off your credit cards? You feel like you're
live in paycheck to paycheck? Or have you wanted to invest?
But it all sounds very confusing. Well, my next guest
has all those answers for you coming up next on
Checking In. Okay, y'all, I'm so excited about today's guests.
(00:45):
We had been deeming each other on Instagram for a
while saying when you're gonna come on checking In or
I've got to meet you. She is a sought after
financial consultant and expert for shows like The Table, Bloomberg Radio,
and Business Insider. She's also an author, podcaster, educator, and
yes she's a mama of three. Please welcome Raquel Curtis
(01:09):
to Checking In. Hey, Michelle, oh Man, that intro I
was like, who's that honey? Listen and y'all she you
might really know her as the Boogie Banker, which was
definitely a catchy name on Instagram. I followed her immediately
because there was something that she posted that was on
the Explorer page, and it seems like we follow some
(01:31):
of the same mutual good people. So I was like, Okay,
I know she We're gonna be in great company with
each other. Yes, I'm so excited to be here. When
you followed me, I had to check out Slate. Wait
a minute, hold on, Michelle. So I'm just so excited.
I called my mama immediately. Please, hey, Mama. We started
(01:52):
following each other because during the pandemic, the whole crypto
and four X thing became something very popular, and I
began following you because you were so educational. And there's
a disclaimer, ladies and gentlemen, Yes she is a financial consultant,
but you must speak with your own advisor because what
(02:13):
she's gonna say to you our suggestions and not necessarily advice.
So what I liked on your Instagram page, UM Raquel
was that you had great suggestions about banking, investment, UM
and crypto and at that time, for ex can be
considered an investment. So I began following you for some
(02:33):
education and all that good stuff, and I'm glad I did.
So how did you get started in the field of
UM consulting in the area of financing. This is a
very long story of being broke. So originally, you know,
I went to school, which Sebenetic State University, graduated with
(02:56):
a degree in criminal justice, and I went on to
become a rectional officer. Now this entire time, I was like,
that's my field. We had to take one semester of
mad I'm good And that's exactly where I stayed up
until I was pregnant with my now ten year old
and the fight that broke out between two inmates, and
(03:17):
in that moment, I was thinking about doing my job
and I ran to go break up the fight. One
of the inmates fell on my stomach. I was placed
on bed rest for the duration of that pregnancy, and
then when she was born, you know, we didn't have
a lot of money, and so I became a stay
at home mom. And during that time, you know, obviously
(03:41):
I love my children, obviously, you know, I love that
whole dynamic, but I really felt like I worked too
hard not to feel myself grow as an individual anymore. So,
since we couldn't afford to send my daughter to childcare,
I just got a job at the local daycare. I
was making seven dollars in twenty five cents an hour,
and with a degree that was kind of hard to
(04:02):
swallow over. But you do what you have to do.
And I started paying attention to what management was doing,
what the owners were doing, and I was like, you
know what, you can figure this out. You're smart enough.
So I started taking um c d A classes, so
just childhood certification classes on the weekend. And then I
started watching people's children, which eventually bled into it being
(04:22):
its own in home daycare. Now this point, I'm like,
oh wow, I'm like doing the entrepreneur thing. This is great.
But I was learning business and a few things transpired
just with my family, and so I ended up closing
down my daycare. A few years later. My youngest was born,
and you know, I'm five nine. I have an athletic build,
(04:45):
so I thought she was born. People are asking me,
how did you snap back so quick? Says this year?
My daughter was burned on July one, My brothday's lacked fifteen.
How did you snap back so quick? And I have
all of this experience from being a collegiate athlete, played basketball,
ran track my whole life, you know, so like I
can train them to help them get into shape. You know,
I could do this. So I started helping people, and
(05:07):
I realized that I enjoyed it and I was doing
very well at it. So I got my certification to
be a personal trainer a few months after that. About
six months after that, I opened the first women's only
gym with childcare in my city, and so everything was gone, great,
wait wait wait, wait, wait, the first gym with childcare
in your city. And what city is this? This is
(05:27):
coming to Georgia, in the country, in the six so
you know, I had seven employees, seven square foot building.
And then unfortunately, one day I was headed home and
this older gentleman ran a red light. He t on
my vehicle. I was putting the neck brace for about
six months. I had over sixteen spinal injections. At that point.
I could not work or work out for a year.
(05:50):
So all of the hard work, all of the funds
that I put into that space, I watched my accounts
drain completely into the negative, most of the closed out
in the red. And so I was in a season
to where you know, we had two income earner expenses
on a one source of income. We needed food stamps,
(06:10):
couldn't qualify for them. You know, we were having conversations
with each other like did you eat, And he'd be
like yeah, and he didn't eat, and he'd asked me
and I didn't eat. But we madtionally that food. And
you know, maybe there was places where we could have
reached out to, but there's a certain level of pride
and ego that really came into that at the time,
and you just didn't want people to know what was
going on, you know, and so um, eventually I was
(06:35):
able to go back to work, and what I realized
I was doing. I was working at FedEx overnight, I
was working at the front desk of a hotel during
the day, and I was selling life insurance. And so
I'm doing all this hustling and grinding and getting it
and I'm realizing the entire time, I'm working this hard
and nothing is coming out of it because I'm continuing
(06:56):
to chase what that lifestyle looks like from being a
business owner opposed to actually building wealth or even starting
to build what or what building wealth looked like. So
how I ended up becoming a banker was, you know,
I had to have a hard look at myself because
we were still living paycheck to paycheck, even though we
both were working, and things just were going south fast.
(07:18):
So eventually it was just myself and my girls, and
I had to have a hard look at my life
and say, you know, it's just the life that I
want for my daughters, and it wasn't. So I started
watching YouTube videos, downloading templates, you know, trying to do
everything that YouTube said I should do, and a budget works.
(07:39):
The templates works for about two weeks, and about two weeks,
and as soon as life would happen, I would go
right back to the same habits and behaviors that caused
me to be broke the first time. You know. So
I looked at my babies and I said, something's gotta change.
I started asking myself some really hard questions around money
(08:01):
that had to do with my relationship and not the numbers.
That point when I changed with that conversation looked like
with myself. When I started checking in with myself, come on,
come on, checking with myself, I was really able to
change that. I started to build learn study about financial literacy.
(08:22):
I started to study investments. I started to get around people,
places and things that spoke like it, and I was
able to change from having closed out bank accounts to
having you know, multiple five figure investment portfolios, multiple five
figures Satan's accounts. And at this point in time, I'm
still hustling, I'm still getting I'm working these multiple jobs.
(08:42):
And my best friend was a banker. She said, you know,
you you've gotten really good with money. Have you thought
about taking this on as a career? Thanks? Friends? What's
your friends? Lisa? Thank your girl? Thankfully. So I became
a banker, and it was literally the best thing that
could have ever happened to me. At this point in time,
I had gone through so many up and down swings
(09:04):
with money, and I'd finally gotten it together. So when
people were sitting with me, I wasn't just opening accounts,
I wasn't just getting credit cards for them. I was
looking at the red in their account and I saw myself.
So I started helping them build budgets that was holding
them accountable to their budget, and I thought that this
is my like, this is where I'm supposed to be,
(09:26):
you know, And I wanted to climb that corporate ladder.
But unfortunately, or fortunately, December three, I walked into work.
My manager let me know that due to the pandemic.
They had to make some decisions and they had to
let me go, and they let go three bankers in
my branch. They let go of thousands of bankers company wide,
(09:47):
and I felt myself in that same position again, like
I don't want to lose everything I just built. I
worked so hard for it. So I leaned on my
experiences from the past and being entrepreneur with my newfound
knowledge of money management, and I said, you know what,
I just want to help people. That's all I want
to do is just continue to help people. So between
(10:09):
December three and today, my book has sold. I wrote
a book. I'm my first time author. My book has
sold in seven countries and it's dealing with their relationship
with money. Yes, it is called Living Bougie and Balanced,
Mastering your Money Mindset, And um, you know, it's almost
(10:29):
sold in in every state in the US, and I'm
really grateful for that. You know, my brand operates in
over thirty countries now and I really give it to
the grace of God. Now, do you think had you
not been let go from your job, would you have
done the book? No, I don't. I don't think so.
(10:52):
The pandemic birth millionaires entrepreneurs because it pushed people out
of comfort zones. Yeah, I I cried, not knows like friends,
like cried all the way home. And then the next
day I woke up and I was like, it's time
to get to it. You have, it's Christmas time, it's
(11:13):
time to go. Yeah. And by the way, what you
did is actually recommended, where you give yourself, depending on
the situation, twenty four to forty eight hours to mourn
something and then after that you gotta get up and
start looking at solutions. Now, it's not to say after
(11:35):
that seventy second hour or beyond that you still won't
feel sad, But I'm so glad within those forty eight
hours you was like, all right, I'm gonna wipe these tears. Yes,
I'm sad. It's something called feeling your feelings, right, And
I'm so glad that you literally got up. You got up,
(11:56):
So yeah, I am so happy for you. Now in
your book, you dive into healing, uh, the underlying relationship
with money that we tend to ignore it before focusing
on the numbers. So where do most of the underlying
issues come from? So I'm a firm believer that our
(12:19):
thoughts behaviors, actions. All of those things are shaped from
our childhood and our environments that we grew up in.
And what I love about Checking In is that in
chapter four you talk about that, you talk about your childhood.
And this is such a good book, by the way,
I love it. Thank you, welcome, and um I have
(12:39):
it here highlighting you said. So when I reflect, I
have to start with the relationships I had with my
mom and my dad, and I have to ask myself
some tough questions. You know, there's something that we are
told is that be careful how you raise your children
because they will grow up dating someone just like you.
You've heard that before. Yeah, and so the same thing
(13:02):
happens with your relationship with money. So if you grew
up in an abusive household right where let's just say
it's verbally abusive, and you're constantly told you're stupid and
that you know you're ugly or what have you? Just
all these derogatory things, demeaning things that you're told. When
you start dating the person that you date, if they
call you stupid, you're not gonna recognize that as a
(13:23):
red flag. You're just gonna be like you're familiar with trauma.
You're familiar with abuse, so it looks like I belong
here absolutely. And where that difference is if you're a
child who grew up in a loving and supportive household
where they say, you know, you're intelligent, you can do anything,
you're so beautiful. Then when you grow up, if you
come across that type of person that calls you stupid
(13:44):
or they don't speak life into you, you were a
hold up, Hold up that that's that's not me, because
you recognize that as a red flag. The same thing
happens with your relationship with money. If you grew up
and all you saw was your parents work super hard
for that money and all they did was spend it,
or they argued about money all the time, or they
were constantly tired because they were working all the time
(14:06):
and just never had any space to live and breathe,
chances are that you grew up reflecting some of those
same habits with your relationship with money. Wow, so how
you saw your parents handle money is possibly how you
will handle money. Your parents or your environment or some
people grow up with their grandparents. How the people they
(14:27):
look up to may not have been their mom and dad,
maybe have been you know an anti your uncle. It's
it's your environment and shapes you, your habits, your behaviors,
your triggers and shapes you. You are so right. I
remember growing up my mother wanted us to make sure
that we had good credit, and she would always say,
you don't want to not be able to get a
(14:48):
lollipop on credit. She would always stress to us about
good credit. And so to this day I have probably
got every alert possible to credit. Or when you pay
your credit card balances at a certain time, you know
it can positively or negatively affect credit because of certain
(15:09):
cycles with credit. And trust me, I remember that. I
also remember seeing investment envelopes come to the house like
my mother was investing, and that was so good to see.
But at the same time, a lot of the arguments
stemmed across money. That's really a relationship killer if compromise
(15:38):
or resolution around finances is not quickly figured out. And
there's another one too. You have you heard as long
as you have a roof over their head, closing your
back and putting your stomach, don't worry about it. Stay
in the child's place, yep. So I just think it's
so interesting that growing up we're taught the Golden rule
about how to treat others, but we're not taught the
golden rule about how to treat money when that's literally
(16:00):
what we need to survive. And so for most of us,
our first relationship with money was when we were already
in debt because we went to college got financial aid.
And then now we're an adults who has a negative
relationship with money out the gate because now we're trying
to swim up stream. Y'all. If y'all are in college
and you're on the yard, do not. I don't know it,
(16:24):
but back in the day, every credit card company was
on the yard, honey, and they after you fill out
the application, you get a free bag of peanut Eminem's
or a calculator. Stuff you stuff you need, don't you
do it? They had to shut them down from doing that.
That was like predatory lending practices, really, so they did. So.
(16:45):
This was between the years seven and nine when I
was in college. So it's good to know that they
don't do that anymore. If I'm here, you know, they
find their ways. I was eighteen with the credit scores
seven twenty and didn't know it. You know, I grew
up in an environment where my mom worked extremely hard
and I had the benefit of being a spoiled bread
(17:09):
but I had zero value attachment to money. And my
grandfather he you know, did what he did, and by
the time I was eighteen, I had a credit of course,
I didn't know what credit was. Wow. I got my
first credit card in maxic out on my boyfriend. Good.
That's a whole other episode. You as being sugar Mama.
I was like, sugar Mama, Lord Jesus God blessed. We
(17:33):
won't hold it against you. We've all done some I
won't say stupid unwise. I've done some unwise things. As
it relates to love, relationships and money. Now, because you
talked about the underlying issues, sometimes those underlying issues can
create certain triggers as it relates to money. What's one
(17:55):
of the steps that you would suggest so that folks
can start feeling more positive about money. Yeah, the the
first thing you need to do to start feeling more
positive about your relationship with money is to definitely have
the hard conversation first, and then when you identify what
your triggers are, you'll be able to start developing healthy
(18:18):
boundaries around those triggers. So identifying what your triggers are
is key. We all have a reason why we impulsively
spend our money, whether it's a positive reason or a
negative reason. And it could be argued if your friends
and family members are a positive reason or if they're
a negative reason. But there's still reasons why we do it.
And so you could say that I'm gonna take some
(18:42):
time and I'm gonna write down every positive reason as
to why I impulsively spend my money and then draw
a line down the paper and on the opposite side,
you're gonna write every negative emotion that's attached to why
you spend your money imposible. So maybe you're you know,
stress that work or exhausted. You know, those are reasons why.
(19:06):
Now how you get into a happier place with this
is everything that's in the positive column, you need to
factor it into your money management plan because you're gonna
do it anyways. It makes you feel good. Everything that
falls up in the negative column you should write if
then statements around if I am stressed, then my response
is instead of I'm gonna go and shop on Amazon
(19:30):
and Fashion nov and have these temporary moments of joy
and then feel guilty about spending the money anyway, right,
facts you're gonna say, if I feel stressed, then I'm
gonna run a nice hot bath and play some relaxing music,
or that's free. It's free, or you know, I'm I'm
gonna get on the phone and just gossip with my
girlfriends or what what have you. But change it from
(19:50):
you spending the money to you're doing an activity that
will change the emotional attachment to why you're spending the money. Okay, y'all.
When I do these podcasts, they just don't be for y'all.
It's for me too, you know. And these are great notes.
I have accounting in business management, but I love when
they can tell a difference in a spending habit. Or
(20:13):
you ain't use this credit card. Let me tell you something.
There are certain emails that you get from your credit
card company. If you haven't used it in like a
week or two, they start sending you stuff to make
sure you're still there, you're still alive, what's going on.
I love when I get there I can look at
a certain email and know, oh, it's because I haven't
touched it, you know, And so that does make me
(20:37):
feel good. So y'all. When I've got people on here,
trust me, I'm listening for me too. So those were
some great steps that you gave us. Have you found
that it's true that if you stress about money or
feel that you don't have money, that somehow it manifests
into you not having money. Come on, you have to
(20:58):
change the conversation. And to be quite frank, the conversation
didn't change for me until I changed my environment. You
have to change your thought process because words are things,
thoughts are things, and you will eventually speak into your
life what you have or what you don't have. And
so I started learning that concept really when I became
(21:18):
a part of a company and they focused on personal development.
And then I was encouraged to go out to a
Bob Proctor event, and then I was going to Believe
Nation events and I was like, wait a minute, Oh,
wait a minute, and flip the whole script. So, yes,
you can definitely speak wealth or So we both are
familiar with the leader of Believe Nation and how he
(21:39):
would break down the word future right, and how we
we discovered that the word future means the time or
period of time following the moment of speaking or writing.
We ain't got, but we show got a hand a
small pinky to do with our future by what we said,
(22:00):
and that includes money. So what do you have to
say to the person that's like Raquel ms boogie banker?
I hear you, but I've been struggling with money all
my life. I can never make I'm barely making ends meet.
Y'all always talking about this positive speaking and what you
say matters, but I'm broke. Baby daddy ain't coming through
(22:26):
with the child support. Listen, because that was me once
upon a time. UM, I would definitely say this. You
either have an income issue or you have an effort
for issue. It's one of the other. And so if
you have an income issue, then it can be fixed
because it's just the activity has to change, which also
equates to the effort that you put into your situation.
(22:48):
The only person who has power over where you currently
are and where you will or will not be six
months to a year from now is you. So if
you're constantly complaining about not how mean, then that activity
is not going to match for you to have the
things that you desire to have, even if it's not wealth.
Maybe you just want to look comfortably. Maybe you just
want to be happy. But if the activity is not
(23:11):
adding up to you getting there, you're never gonna achieve it.
So the question really becomes, are you more complacent with
complaining than you are for being in the search of growth?
That's that's really the question. It's type, but it's right,
y'all don't want to hear that good preaching today the
walls just say they amen, because y'all, I'm not hearing
(23:32):
nobody say Amen out as they say. If you can't
say amen, say out. Pastor Daniel say, y're not hearing me, okay,
as he said, did you hear what I just said? Y'all?
Did y'all hear with us? All? But just said that?
(23:53):
That stings, especially if you know that as you and
the point of checking in is to have rate testimonials
of this episode changed my life. It snapped me back
into a positive mindset or help me evaluate my mindset
when it comes to money, because a lot of people
also think you have to already come from a thirty
(24:15):
seven percent tax bracket to have wealth, or you can't
have made as many mistakes as um. I made so
many mistakes, Michelle. I've done this, I've done that. God
there's no possible way that I can get myself out
of this. And I'm telling you some of the worst
of the worst have made complete changes in their life,
(24:36):
not only in their mindset and their relationships, but with money.
And you are right. Maybe your goal is to make
sixty thousand a year, because you know in your demographic
sixty thousand a year is amazing those of y'all that
live in New York. Sixty thousand my not got it.
So it is okay to set certain financial goals for yourself,
(24:57):
just like you said, as long as that effort is matching.
I want folks that are listening to this episode to
have like breakthrough with their mindset as it pertains to
money and freedom. That a budget gives you, freedom, that
good credit gives you freedom, that is savings account gives
(25:18):
you to where you know if something should happen. I
got a couple of months of income set aside, and listen.
I have compassion for those that are like Michelle. I
can't do a couple of months of income right now
because I do have children, or or I take care
of my entire household. You got twenty year olds that
are the bread winners. So my heart goes out to you.
(25:39):
But I'm telling you, at the end of the day,
if life goes the way it's supposed to go, you
will be left standing after your loved ones that are
in that house go on to heaven. So you gotta
have a place where you can dip back into and
love on yourself financially. You know that journey is hard.
(26:00):
What I don't want to do is to make it
seem like, well, I'm gonna pick myself up by the
bootstraps and here we go. Like you know, it's it's
a very hard journey. There are a lot of conversations
that you have to have with yourself, and sometimes you're
gonna be the only person who believes in yourself. Sometimes
you're going to cry yourself to sleep at night. Because
the thing is is that dealing with changing your financial
(26:21):
picture is dealing with changing you, and so that's a
whole personal development journey that you have to go through.
And there's conversations that current you need to change so
future you can appear right. And so if you're saying, like, Okay,
I'm struggling, I'm living paycheck to paycheck, change the conversation
(26:43):
and say why am I struggling. Why am I living
to paycheck? What decisions have I made or have not
made that are keeping me in this current financial situation?
And what is it costing me to stay here? Especially
if you have children? So good checking in is gonna
(27:05):
be about breakthrough. Yes, we have fun conversations as it
relates to mental health, and we have heavy conversations about
mental health. But I love to talk about finances because
mental health and finance do play. There is a psychology
as it relates to how you view money. Now let's
talk about another part of stress and money and how
(27:26):
do you find that women and men deal with stress
about money differently. I think there's dynamics to it. So
when you're talking about a household like a married couple, right, Um,
there's a certain support system that they give each other
where if the husband is the bread the breadwinner, then
(27:48):
he feels the brunt of the stress because the wife
is there too, you know, kind of make things easier
or help with the conversation. Um. I've seen the dynamic
kind of go back and forth because that's seen where
the husband will complain about how much money the wife
is spending because he doesn't understand the dynamic of the
household because he's always working, right, And I've seen it
(28:09):
vice versa as well, where the woman is the head,
she's the one that's bringing the money, who's paying the bills,
and you know, the focus is a little different. I
feel like men tend to focus on career more where
women tend to focus on future, trying to focus on
their their kids and what their kids need is transparent
in the future. When you're talking about individually, I can't
(28:30):
say that I've noticed too much of a difference when
you're just talking about two single individual people, because they're
focused on career development, advancement, you know, their financial picture.
I don't really see too much for a difference there. Okay, okay,
you are amazing. You are amazing. Now you talked about
at one particular time being a banker that has helped
(28:51):
women all over the world stop living paycheck to paycheck.
We found through lending Tree they published a study that
nearly eleven million homes ten point seven million homes are
owned by single women, while single men on approximately eight
(29:11):
point twelve million homes in the country. This comes despite
American women making less than men in median earnings. For
there's been studies that came out to say that women
do a better job with saving, we do a better
job with planning for the future and executing that. There
have been studies that, honey, we do a better job
(29:32):
at planning for the future, honey, and we ain't waiting
on you to buy the house. You give a woman,
she will supply, okay, she bears the children, okay, for
that reason, to bring multiplication. My mom would always tell
she she hates when I buy a house, why don't
(29:53):
you wait for the man to do it? But that's
that generation she was born in the fifties where the
man did buy the house. As far as I'm concerned,
I can buy this house. You just buy the other
ones buy our beach house. You know what I'm saying.
So you know I'm okay with that. What it is
we are in the winter months leading up to tax season.
(30:18):
Tax season is here chat what What are some of
the mistakes that people make when filing on their own?
Filing on their own, that's the mistakes. There are people
who are tax professionals for a reason, you guys, Okay,
there are simple mistakes that you can make in your taxes,
(30:39):
such as just not putting information incorrectly, not marking your
deductions correctly, that can really hurt you. Just stop being cheap, Okay,
just pay for what we'll keep you out of the
I R S is callogue. I used to e file.
I used to do my own my very first job
in like the mid nineties, I was working at at
(31:02):
a retail spot, and I used to do my own taxes.
When you only make an tens a year, what's you're claiming?
What you're claiming? Yeah, well, so you're saying to get
a tax expert to help you. What's another one? The
common mistake that people make when filing their own is
maybe you do in your own and you know what
(31:23):
about maybe another just mistake period as it relates to taxes. Yeah,
you're just not setting up your withholdings correctly. Okay. Marking
down the way that you do your deductions is key
because there's so many people that mess out on thousands
of dollars every year because they're not properly marking out
their deductions. Making sure that even something simple like people
(31:44):
will have their old address on their tax filings and
so now when they when they mail you or issue
your check, if you're not doing direct deposit. It can
cause all sorts of delays or you possibly um you know,
having to resubmit for your tax returns. So it's just
the small things that we tend not to pay at
tension to, especially if we're in the process of moving
and you haven't done your boarding address and all of
those things that can cause so many either delays or
(32:07):
errors on your reports. So if you are stressing about
following your tax returns, sit down with the professional. Let
them do their job, let them properly educate you. Make
sure that your information is correct, come through your stuff,
make sure it's right, make sure you have everything filed properly,
that your deductions are clear, and that they're correct. And
I think those are the main things that people mess
(32:29):
up on for sure. M that's so good. Now, ladies
and gentlemen, you're probably thinking, man, that's so good. I
cannot afford a financial advisors. Some advisors you don't have
to necessarily pay a flat fee. Some you just pay
maybe a percentage to. But when you go on the
Boogie Banker, it's the boogie b o U j E
(32:50):
E banker underscore. She has amazing tips and guess what
there are ten tax filing tips on there. She is
a well of information. What's one step that people can
do to start getting out from under that credit card debt? Yes,
so you have a couple of options. I have people
(33:13):
come to me and they ask if they should consolidate
their debt. Right, so they're like, I should just get
a personal loan and consolidate the debt if you decide
to go that route. My suggestion for that, if you
want to consolidate, is that you go look at a
credit union first, and then you also ask for the
maximum amount of months that you have to pay off
(33:35):
that balance transfer. Essentially, what you'll be doing You'll get
a personal loan with the credit bank and they'll do
a balance transfer of all of your credit cards onto
that one loan, which will now drop the balances to
all of your credit cards down to zero. And now
instead of being responsible for seven different credit card payments
that may equate to you know, seven or eight hundred dollars,
now you have one loan to pay off, where the
(33:57):
loan payments maybe three or four hundred dollars. Now you
can apply you know, six hundred dollars towards that and
get it paid off. Sooner, and the interest typically is
lower as well, opposed to having you know, seven or
eight credit cards. Now you just have this one responsibility
to take care of um. The caution there, though, is
that now that you have all this available credits, you
have to be responsible enough not to go back and
(34:20):
use the credit cards and then have all the credit
card that and right, honey, I am so guilty. And
you pay that credit card down to zero and it
says available credit limit thousand, and you're like, well, I
do need a new dresser, but do it got to
(34:42):
be thousand? Now? The great thing about your keel is
that you are a self professed travel junkie. Yes, so
we can talk about buying things on a budget, maybe
a dresser on a budget. There are uh certain things
that are online where you get a west elm or
(35:03):
restoration hardware dress her for a hundred dollars that somebody
just wants to get rid of. So you teach people
on an average budget how they can say for a vacation. Now,
if someone has debt or doesn't have a savings, should
they go on vacation? Yeah? I don't think you should.
I don't think you should stop doing the things that
(35:25):
make you happy, because there's a certain there's there's making
a decision, and there's also like disregarding your peace of mind. Right,
And if you're doing something that is taking away from
your happiness or from your peace of mind, chances are
you're not gonna stay in that lane. So if I
come on a budget and I take away their ability
(35:46):
to travel, or I take away their ability to go
out to eat everyone once in a while, they're not
gonna stick to the budget. They're like, I'm not I
can't live. What I always say is a budget gives
you control. So if you don't have a savings account
and you're still in debt, what you can do is
you can say, you know what I do like to travel? Well,
instead of traveling every single quarter, let me just plan
(36:09):
for this one trip once a year until I get
my financial picture together. But then you'll go through and
factor in how much a typical trip will cost you.
You'll take that number divided by twelve, and so now
every month you may have fifty fifty bucks that's going
towards it, or a hundred bucks that's going towards your
annual trip. So now you have something to look forward
(36:32):
to where you're essentially rewarding yourself for staying on a
financial plan. Now, all this money that you're saving because
you're not going on four trips a year, you're planning
for this one trip. Now, now you can take some
of that money, have it budgeted to pay down debt,
and take another portion and have it budgeted so that
you have your emergency savings piled up. I want people
to feel suffocated with their finances. It's all about living bougie,
(36:57):
and balance is all about doing the things that you enjoy,
but also having control to where it's financially makes sense.
That's so good. You have been absolutely brilliant today, y'all.
She's got lots of classes that teach about financial health.
But you also offer a freebe vault of material and
resources on your website. The website is b bougie dot com.
(37:23):
But let me not speak for you. Tell us maybe
one of the freebees that's on your website. Yeah, they're
spending trackers, um savings in there. There's three PDFs that
I've just found over time through to do different resources,
whether it's on money management, investing, what that looks like
for you. I definitely encourage you guys, to go grab
your free bees, because oftentimes it's just like exposing yourself
(37:47):
to something new, you know, and that can really be
helpful for you. And if I can say this, Michelle,
you can't mention. It's something called the Breakthrough. I'm actually
I'm actually having a financial literacy and business development conference
at the end of the un and it's called the
Breakthrough Experience. So it's all about breaking through the limiting
beers that you place on yourself, breaking into your financial success.
(38:08):
So it's a financial literacy and business development conference. We
have phenomenal speakers lined up. I'll be there, Ellie talks Money,
will be there, and countless other speakers and people in
the finance and business space that you may already know.
So please come, y'all. I cultivated this space so that
we cannot only talk about money management. We could also
(38:29):
talk about how to build our wealth and most importantly,
protecting it. I feel like so often we have these
events where we're always talking about it's the money, get
to the bag, do this. We have to protect generational
wealth and we have to learn how to create it first,
you know, And so I really want to bring everyone
to a space to have that conversation. I would love
(38:51):
for you guys to come. The website is Breakthrough e
XP dot com. All right, were in there like swimwear.
And I think one of the reasons why I'm so
engaged is because you've been through not having you've been
through the Okay, I gotta get myself up. Okay, I
can do this, and we are here today. Your book
(39:14):
is translated into various countries and you are just helping,
and you're freeing people to get out of debt and
to be great investors. Please, wherever you are, clap your hands,
give love, give her a follow again. She's on Instagram
at the Boogie Banker Underscore. Show her some love for
(39:36):
Quel Curtis. Thank you for checking in. Thank you so much, Michelle.
This was amazing. You are welcome, You are welcome. M hmm. Listen,
this was so informative. Raquel a k a. The Boogie
Banker just came with so much knowledge. She was just
(39:59):
a well oh wanting to pour poor poor everything that
she has in her and I'm truly truly thankful for her. Again,
She's got many classes and books, stuff that is at
no cost to you. At b boogie dot com. It's
the word b b E b o u j e
(40:20):
e dot com forward slash the Boogie Banker follow her
on Instagram again. Her Instagram handle is the Boogie Banker
Underscore the b o u j e E b A
n k E R Underscore. She's gonna help you budget, save, invest,
and help you continue to you know, change your mindset
(40:42):
as it relates to money, if that's what you desire. Okay,
I'm so excited for folks that are on their way
to um a different type of freedom, and that freedom
is financial freedom. Guess what you deserve it? Your family
deserves it, your legacy deserves it. Listen. Please know that
(41:03):
you're loved, and guess what you loved by me, and
there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Checking In
(41:41):
with Michelle Williams is a production of I Heart Radio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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