FOUND FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Overwhelmed with credit card debt, student loans, and personal bankruptcy, these three women mastered their money woes and walked away feeling nancially healthy, wealthy, and wise.

BY JENNY COMITA

LISSETTE WAS IN deep denial about the state of her finances for much of her 20s. “I wasn’t buying luxury items, but I was traveling, eating out, and spending money on fast fashion, thinking, ‘This shirt is on sale, so it’s fine,’” she says. Earning less than $45,000 a year in an entry-level public relations job in Miami, Lissette was living way beyond her means—she just wasn’t conscious of it, she says.

The gulf between her income and spending was so easy to ignore because, even though she owed about $40,000 in student loans, her credit cards each carried a balance of a couple thousand dollars.

“I never saw a single credit card bill with a giant number on it, so I didn’t stop to think about how all those amounts added up,” she says. It wasn’t until she landed a job in New York City that the magnitude of her debt hit her. “My sister asked me, ‘How are you going to aford this move?’ That’s when I realized the grand total on my credit cards was $10,000.”

Determined to pursue her Big Apple dreams, Lissette got serious about her spending. She found an apartment for well below market value on Craigslist and cut her travel down to only work trips. Rather than shopping, she did the opposite: “I sold my clothes on Poshmark and then started dog sitting, using all the money I brought in to pay of my cards.”

Soon she landed on a more lucrative source of additional income: monetizing her Instagram account (@lissettecalv) with sponsored content. Her approach was simple: She reached out to brands she liked and secured partnerships that helped her earn money, eventually growing her following from 10,000 to more than 80,000.

Over the course of 18 months, she paid of her credit cards, and with her sponsored-post gig growing, she made her final school loan payment about a year after that.

Looking back, Lissette says that the most important step in defeating her debt was looking it in the eye. “I got into a bad place because I didn’t see the big picture financially,” she says. Once she became conscious of her spending, she started tracking it using apps like Mint, which detailed where her money was going. Wanting to holistically assess her entire net worth, she made a spreadsheet to log money in, money out, and recurring payments. “Every other week on payday, I’d sit down with my spreadsheet and almost gamify how I was eliminating debt,” she says. Six years later, she still uses the same document—and has shared the template with friends.

When it comes to money, Lissette believes that what you don’t know can, in fact, hurt you. “You have to set aside time to focus on your finances,” she says.

TAKE IT FROM ME “Side hustles are great, but it’s important to be proactive with your salary,” Lissette says. “I went to my boss with a list of accomplishments and was able to negotiate a raise within six months of starting my job. If you don’t ask for what you deserve, you won’t get it.”

AS AN ADMINISTRATIVE law judge and assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, Tifany was living the good (albeit busy) life. “I had my home in the burbs, I was driving a new Lexus— I was doing it,” she says. “Never in a million years did I think I’d have to rely on social services.” But after being laid of twice due to budget cuts, Tifany found herself “walking through the grocery store with a food-assistance card in my pocket, pulling items out of my shopping cart as I determined what I wanted to eat versus what I needed to eat.”

After her second layof, in 2015, Tifany applied for job after job, only to be told she was overqualified. “Once you’ve been a judge, no one wants to hire you as a lawyer,” she says. “My experience worked against me.” Unable to find employment, she lost her home, her car, and eventually had to declare personal bankruptcy. Through all of that, Tifany kept her troubles mostly to herself. “I’m not one to ask for help, so I sufered in silence,” she says of shielding her family from her financial struggles.

Ultimately, though, it was her family who helped her turn things around—not with a loan but with some inspiration. Tifany’s brother,

Art, runs a nonprofit called Global Empowerment, which teaches business development skills to underserved communities in Detroit. One day, while listening to Art speak on a radio show, she heard him encouraging listeners to become entrepreneurs.

“He said, ‘Those inventions you’ve been sitting on, those concoctions you’ve been mixing in your kitchen, that’s a business,’” Tifany recalls. Her mind immediately went to the DIY skin-care products she’d come up with decades before, when her now adult daughter, Taylor, was born with eczema. Wary of treating her baby with steroids and harsh chemicals, she’d blended her own remedies from natural oils and plant butters, and her homemade salves worked

With guidance from Art, she formed an LLC and focused on production, certification, and packaging—a process that took three long years. “I applied for every small-business grant I could find until I was awarded some money to get things up and run- ning,” she says. She also took on hourly work reviewing legal documents to make ends meet. Finally, in 2018, she pitched G.L.A.M., her line of body scrubs, at a Walmart open call—and, she says, they loved it. Today, Tifany’s products are also sold at Target, Stop & Shop, and other stores.

Despite her business success, Tifany says her finances are still a work in progress. “It takes time to rebuild,” she says. But she’s steadily making money moves. In fact, after returning to the bench fulltime in 2020, she was able to resign from that job last March. “My G.L.A.M. business has grown to the point where it needs full-time attention and then some,” she says. “This time around, I was the one to walk away and pursue my dream.”

TAKE IT FROM ME “No matter how much you love your job, you should consider what you would do if it were taken away from you,” Tifany says. “Everyone needs a plan B, which is why I’m such a strong believer in entrepreneurship. So many people have great ideas or passions that are taking up space on their mental back burner. You owe it to yourself to go for it.”

WHEN CINDY GRADUATED from law school in 2015, the New York City native was saddled with massive student loan debt—“In the back of my mind, I was aware of my loans totaling $150,000”—but thrilled to have landed a great position with a top firm. Making six figures, she wasn’t focused on her mounting debt. “My minimum payment was $2,000 a month, and initially I was OK with paying that,” she says

A year into her job, Cindy received a tax form detailing what she’d paid in interest for the previous year. She hadn’t realized that, due to the structure of her loans, “the interest on my debt had been accruingevenwhileIwasstill accruing even while I was still sitting in a classroom.” This left her with a new balance at graduation that totaled nearly $180,000.

“That form showed me that of the $24,000 I’d paid, $20,000 went to the interest and only $4,000 went to the principal,” she says After grappling with feelings of “disgust and defeat,” Cindy was determined to do away with her debt as quickly as possible.

“I literally googled, ‘How do I get out of debt?’ because I’m a millennial, and that’s what we do,” she says, laughing.

A year after chipping further away at her loans, her first step was refinancing everything she owed, which, factoring in some undergrad loans, came to around $160,000. Refinancing cut her interest rate in about half.

Next, she zeroed in on her budget, reducing her spending to the bare minimum. “I was making a nice salary as a corporate lawyer that’s an advantage I’m transparent about—but I lived a more lawstudent lifestyle,” she says. “I got a studio apartment in Harlem, my only transportation expense was my subway card, and I brought lunch to work.” She also put her tax refunds, bonuses, and annual raises toward additional payments on the principal r gradua-

In 2019, four years afte bt-free tion, Cindy was finally de king about but she wasn’t done think educated personal finance. “I had e ubject myself so much on the s at infor- that I wanted to share tha says. She mation with others,” she s arned a points out that she had ea er learned doctorate degree yet nev cy fund how to build an emergen d she sus- or manage her credit, an relatives pected that many of her r and friends hadn’t either. bout “I became passionate a for financial literacy, not just commu- myself but for my Latino Zero- nity,” she says of starting and finan- Based Budget, a website a ast year, cial coaching platform. L self to she left law to devote her ness full- the rapidly growing busi debt was, time. As daunting as her nd a book it led her to a purpose—an deal. Cindy’s g Debt, Overcomin dom: Achieving Financial Free 8 Pillars to Build Wealth comes out in November.

TAKE IT FROM ME free “I love ors, like debt-repayment calculat ” Cindy the one on Credit Karma, up what, says. “They let you look nt can say, an extra $100 payme mpressive. achieve—and it’s really i with When I do this exercise w , they clients, family, or friends an make realize how much they ca y’re just a dent in their debt if the gygslightly more strategic.”

FIRST PERSON FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn saw her frugality as an asset— until it started taking a toll on her marriage.

IBLEW MY NOSE AGAIN, my eyes watering as I tried to plaster on a smile. “Honestly, I’m fine,” I told my friends, my voice competing with the loud background chatter in the London restaurant where we’d met up for lunch. Truthfully, I wasn’t fine. I was battling hay fever without the aid of the antihistamine I routinely took in the morning. My friends tried to persuade me to buy a new bottle from the drugstore across the road, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me

“Why would I spend extra cash on something I have at home?” was my rebuttal, as I reached for my table napkin and dabbed my itchy eye. My friends sighed and simply said, “Oh, Lizzie.”

As a self-proclaimed frugal person, I like to be economical with money. I never want to let anything go to waste and am always on the lookout for deals. I believe I got this trait from my parents, who were working-class Nigerian immigrants living in a public-housing apartment in South London with six mouths to feed between them and the four of us kids. As a child, I picked up on how resourceful they were when they handled money, and sometimes, how restrained they could be

“Guess how much this cost?” my dad would say after he returned home from shopping. And he would dig his hand into a large plastic bag and reveal his latest bargain, such as a giant crate of canned chopped tomatoes or what looked like a lifetime supply of toilet paper. Without giving me any time to answer, he would yell, “One pound!” and flail his arms, cackling happily. He would then explain how and where he got the purchase, and how much he would have spent if he had bought it elsewhere, while I helped him unpack the rest of the discount groceries

This was a regular Saturday for me growing up. If I wasn’t hearing tales from my dad about his thrifty ways, I was out accompanying him food shopping, witnessing them firsthand, as we ricocheted from low-budget stores to bustling street markets to hunt for the best deal. Even when it came to my school uniform, my parents bought my blazer two sizes too big so I could eventually grow into it. My old black shoes became worn to the point where the soles detached from the uppers, but my plan to get new shoes went out the window when I showed them to my mum.

“We will take them to the cobbler tomorrow,” she said.

You would think I might have gone in the opposite direction as an adult—you know, spending lavishly as an act of rebellion. Funnily enough, I didn’t. Whenever I enter a clothing store, I beeline to the clearance rack; if I ever do a bit of online retail therapy, usually for a special event, I only click “check out” after scouring the internet for coupons, or after reluctantly signing up for the website’s endless newsletters in return for a mere 10 percent discount.

Adopting a thrifty lifestyle has had its benefits. Thanks to habits like bringing my lunch to work nearly every day for over four years, my husband, Martin, and I were able to buy a beautiful flat outside of London in a good school district. Plus, thrifty doesn’t have to mean unfashionable. My home boasts a range of stylish decor that no one would guess came from a thrift shop. The glazed brown ceramic urn that sits in the hallway, for example, garners a lot of compliments whenever we have guests over. It cost 10 pounds, the same as two drinks at a cofee shop. A guest’s shocked expression when I say how much I paid for it? That’s priceless.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As with most things, there are some downsides to my money habits. Sometimes I can be too frugal, going without things I actually need and being more concerned with price than quality. My previous laptop had a defunct letter p, took half an hour to boot up, and took even longer to load my book manuscript—not an ideal situation when you’re on deadline. Despite having the funds to purchase a new one, I refused to upgrade, because in my head, my laptop was technically still working.

But when my frugal tendencies began to afect things besides just me—namely, Martin and our marriage—I knew it was time for some self-reflection. What was supposed to be a fun newlywed activity—picking out electrical appliances for our home—ended up being an exhausting, tense outing

“But this one is cheaper!” was my go-to refrain, whenever he reached for a brand-name toaster, microwave, kettle, or anything else

“But will it last?” was his response. “This brand is a wellknown manufacturer!” Eventually, andwith a huf, he tapped away on his phone and handed it to me. “See!” he said, as I scrolled down a long trail of four- and five-star reviews

Still, it didn’t feel worth it to me to spend more. We left py the store empty-handed.

Later that evening, after the tension cooled, Martin asked me an interesting question about spending money. “What are you scared of, Lizzie?” evening with my counterargument at Having spent the e—“But are we not standing in the very the tip of my tongue le in part by my penny-pinching?!”—I home made possibl loss for words. was genuinely at a as fearful of not having money readily The truth is, I wa eeded it. There have been times in my available when I ne to be frugal not because I wanted to, life when I’ve had y. I’ve gone through periods where I but out of necessit th restaurant meals while my friends drank tap water wi cocktails. I’ve sewed the tears in my ordered expensive t when I couldn’t aford a new one. On tattered winter coat g this way has crippled me with fear, the one hand, living w hard life can be, and how it feels to because I know how you don’t have enough money. But on go without, when y ing frugally has also given me a sense the other hand, livi en though I’m more financially stable of reassurance. Ev f that somehow suddenly changed, I now, I know that i y. could always get b ow from Martin and my friends, it’s all As I’m learning no nce. It’s OK to have a disciplined and about finding balan money…and it’s also OK to treat your- careful approach to me. self from time to tim n care, aren’t you?” Martin wondered “You’re into skin why not occasionally invest in that?” aloud one day. “So w stion, and I’m loving my monthly spa I took that sugges e wrong: It’s been an ongoing journey facials. Don’t get m relationship to money. After all, it’s to reckon with my habit you were raised with to such an diicult to break a h like an inheritance. I’m working hard extent that it feels te out of fear when making decisions to no longer opera d that’s felt liberating. about spending, an hopping with Martin easier. The next It’s also made s king for a toaster, we actually bought time we went loo oe.tupce! one. At full price!