Money management can be complicated, but Tiffany Aliche has offered thousands of women the financial education and support they need to succeed.

Aliche, aka The Budgetnista, has helped women save more than $250 million and reduce more than $200 million in debt over almost two decades, as of 2021.

Also in 2021, Aliche released Get Good with Money: 10 Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole, a New York Times bestseller that encapsulates her holistic approach to financial literacy. Read on for more about Aliche’s books and her journey to becoming the internet’s favorite “financial girlfriend.”

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Aliche was a preschool teacher who lost everything

Before Aliche shared her financial insights to her hundreds of thousands of followers, the author was a preschool teacher who lost everything in 2009 during the recession. Per Get Good with Money, a bad investment put Aliche into financial ruin, and she was forced to rebuild. The process of her monetary recovery is the foundation for the 10-step formula outlined in the book.

“I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. And what I’m realizing is that … when you’re teaching preschool, it is about providing the fundamental foundation for education,” Aliche told Because of Them We Can, “I’m still providing the fundamental foundation. But for financial education, I’m not teaching people how to trade options or how to invest in real estate. Those things are great. But I’m here to say here are the fundamentals so you can do those other things solidly. [I am] creating resources that help people who are wanting those fundamentals.” 

The book offers a holistic approach to money

Inspired by the needs of her “Dream Catchers,” a name coined to describe her devoted followers, Get Good with Money offers readers a holistic approach to money management, presenting an accessible way for people to figure out how to sustain and maintain their wealth.

“I realized there were 10 core components, and I call it financial wholeness because I wanted to see my Dream Catchers succeed holistically,” she said. “Not just, ‘Oh, my credit score!’ ‘Oh, my savings!’ I wanted them to have all of the components of financial wholeness, not just one or two. So, it was seeing Dream Catchers starting to struggle during quarantine and the pandemic, and watching people succeed but not holistically, financially.”

Part of Aliche’s approach is using stories from her own life as a teaching tool.

“One of the things growing up in a [Nigerian] household was that you learn a lot through storytelling. And I recognize even being a preschool teacher how powerful storytelling is as an educator. I continue telling my story of all that I’ve been through and the stories of the people I’ve helped. It’s helped me get folks to understand that there is light at the other side of the tunnel,” she told Because of Them We Can. “I grew up in a household where these types of lessons were taught. I had this underlying story that I get to illustrate from that. People might not remember all the facts and figures, but they remember stories. I use story a lot to help illustrate the lesson because it drives it home.”

In the book, Aliche shared a personal story about how she realized weekly brunches with a girlfriend was eating away at her cash flow. She opened up about that lightbulb moment to NPR in 2022.

“Friends of mine would go to brunch every Sunday and it was maybe, say, 30 to 50 bucks every time,” she told the outlet. “And one day I realized I wanted to go on vacation, but I didn’t have any money.”

She recounted a phone call with that friend, during which the friend invited her to another brunch outing. Aliche said it was in that moment that she realized it was her friend who loved brunch, not her.

“Now, it’s not her fault because she was doing what she was supposed to do, spend her money on her love. But she was convincing me to do so as well,” she told NPR. “So I stopped going and I almost made it like a drinking game. Every time somebody said “brunch,” I put that money in my savings account.”

Other work by Aliche

Prior to releasing Get Good with Money, Aliche released her children’s book, Happy Birthday Mali More, in 2019 to help children with financial literacy, Because of Them We Can reported. The book is about a young Black girl named Mali who is celebrating her 6th birthday and has to figure out what gifts matter to her as they start to overwhelm her guests. 

“When I was younger I didn’t see little girls with my skin tone and hair texture on the cover of books. Now that I have a bonus daughter, aka Super Girl, I wanted to make sure that wasn’t her reality. I used her as a model to ensure that her chocolate skin and beautiful hair was reflected in a book she’s reading,” Aliche told Because of Them We Can in 2020.

The author published a follow-up to Get Good with Money in 2023 titled Made Whole: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals. The book aims to help readers take the next step and achieve their financial dreams.