Ep. 10: Don’t Shrink Your Way to Wealth

All right, welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Fly. I'm your girl, Tenisha Nicole. And I'm Tashaunda Dixon. And today we're going to be talking about shrinking your way to wealth and really have that terrible misconception on how to become, you know, wealthy in this life. Yeah. So you will notice that all of the Gurus of personal finance, tell you lower your expenses, lower everything, don't do anything. And to me when I really got into it, I was gung ho, I was like, I'm gonna lower my expenses, everything. And then I realized it was like a diet. Yes. And you know how we do on diet. It's temporary. We I could maybe go a good three weeks. It's not a lifestyle change.

Yeah, yeah. And so a part of our philosophy and really, it It really comes through from our own experiences. I will tell you that when I really got into so Suzy Orman was my girl, yes, girl. So I literally went out and I read one of her books. And then I read like all I think she had like seven at the time. And they were all different perspectives have for different views. So I had like, young to see how the young broken fabulous. I were that one. And, and all of them talked about how I was supposed to figure out how to lower my expenses. Now let me tell you that me being 22 just out of college, when I told you guys I got the two cars. I have two new car notes. And I was making my offer was $41,000 I still have rent. I had student loans. I had credit cards, and I was like so I gotta shrink my budget. I'll eat ramen noodles. And no literally when I was between the ages of 22 to 25 I lived off ramen noodles and I call them omelets. But it was a eggs and cheese and salsa. I was trying to shrink Yes Who said shrink shrink I had a similar story though mines was with mine was with Dave Ramsey and I had a lot of student loans I think I graduated with like 70,000 from my undergrad and my grad combined I had about 70,000 majority of those from my grad which don't make sense to me. I did the same thing. But I was being starting to get real irresponsible with money. And his whole thing was like you know, rice and beans and rice and beans until you can get this debt cleared away. No more healthy. Well, these are nutritious but, but I literally would eat rice and beans like I took him very easily, but I love rice. Rice, right. So I was I was fine with it, you know, but it was that same mentality. Like if you can get So small, like you can tackle this debt or you can eliminate everything. Yeah. So So I do want to tell you, so I don't think anything's wrong with eliminating debt. But I think it sets the wrong mindset. So what I've grown to now is, by the way, I'm still pretty cheap. real cheap see real, real cheap. You realize like, people are paying more for their apartments than you do your whole house, which houses like 20 back. But yeah, so so I am with it. And I understand that. But what I realized is that shrinking mentality, it made me think about my income in that same way. It made me think about how I provide in that same way I actually read this quote yesterday, and it talked it said that wealthy people add income sources, whereas the poor they replace income sources. And so going going back to that is when I was thinking about shrinking out I was like, Oh, I only have one income. So I got to make it work off that one income. I was never taught in any of those segments to go get some more income. Yeah. And and even more recently, when I was thinking about this transition to entrepreneurship full time, I was going, Well, I could leave this shop and go to another job that'll pay me more a replacement of income. Right? It doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't. It doesn't. And it embeds this idea of a finite resource in money. Yeah. And that's not true. It's not true at all. I mean, if there's anything that I've learned from the wealthiest that you can, number one, you can create value for people, which is the driver of money, but use your talents to create value for people and you can create more than one income stream. Yeah, and I mean, I've read books like the four hour workweek, and like I've been trying to crack this nut for quite a while. I'm just like, there's so many different ways to tackle To You know, tackle life other than trying to fit within this one income stream. Yeah. And so with that, though, the principles that are there so so in all of the philosophies Tony Hsieh spoke about Dave Ramsey, as well about Suzy Orman, they all at the end, though, said that you were supposed to get to this point where you can give more to those other places. And what better way to give more to your investment to your, your college funds to your entrepreneurial dreams than to make more, more when you have more you can give more. Yes, I mean, that's so true. I'm like, but for me, the I guess my biggest takeaway from like this, I call it the miser mentality. The shrinkage mentality is like, I actually really started to embrace the idea of minimalism. And so while I was thinking about like, just eating rice, like I was like, you know, I eventually got sick of rice. But there's gotta be a way to do this in a way that is not like reckless or irresponsible. And so I started to delve into minimalism. And the idea behind minimalism is really about like living with less waste, right? Things that you don't use things that you don't love, like, you should not be holding on to that. And honestly, when I would look at stuff that I you know, has said on the show for months and years at this point, I'm like, I would saw $1 sign. Like, I literally have thousands of dollars just sitting there just sitting there not have no use to me, right? Yeah. And because I'm not using it, it literally has zero value to me, but to someone else, it actually has a monetary value. So what So did you transition from a minimalist view to something else? Yes. So I started to you know, hate on the minimalist movement for the same reason because it was about like shrinking and like You know, I think the principle is sound like it wants you to get rid of waste. But it falls short again of like, you only have to be this small in like the world. But so I started to look into what I actually started to call it myself essentialism. And then I just googled it one day, I was like, Oh my god, somebody else has already discovered this. But that's what it was. For me. It's like what is essential to me in my life, literally, what do I need every day that I wake up out of my bed? Like, what are the things that I reach for naturally? What are the things that I love to wear put on that make me feel amazing? And that is what essentialism is it's like keeping those things and getting rid of everything. Yeah, I do have to tell you though, in this journey, for me, it comes back to two things. It's risk, making sure that you can cover the things that you need to cover that you have it there, but also and that's kind of a diet philosophy. And then there's also the fulfillment portion. It's all One of the things that I love, like you just said, it's, it's how do i do the things that were that I can sustain? Because I have a balance in life. Right? And I think that that's, that's key and something that we don't talk about. And let me tell y'all, your girl loves the four seasons. You know, when I travel, I want to travel and comfort. Yeah. And so from you're done with the hospital, right? I used to do hostels in my young 20s. But I'm like, now I like to feel at home in the place that I'm staying because money so it needs to be you know, within these two principles, I need to have a financially sound background where I can actually afford that. And it has to be something that I love. Yeah, and I really do think that this philosophy though, it goes across so many different lines. For me, I think back to when I was younger, I had friends and I had very one sided relationships where I felt like I was always pouring in pouring in pouring in. And then when it came to my knees are being In the place of need, I had no one that was like pouring into me. And that's what same principle, right? You have to have a balance of what you do. And so in life, make sure that you you know, you cover your bases, but that you're enjoying it too. Yeah, you have to, cuz I'm like, I will always tell Tashaunda is like, if you are not full and overflowing over and over and over again, like you are going to deplete yourself. Yeah. And I and I don't know, is that what happened? I was depleted man. I was I was empty. Right? Like I was empty. And I would say that to that. And I think it's true in both those cases we talked about with your finances in life, is that you can only go so long on that diet. Yeah, you can only go so long not being fed. Yeah. Before you crash and burn. Yeah, my pastor, my pastor used to say like, you have to think about your life as a bank account and the people People that you have around you, they're making deposits or they're making withdrawals from your bank account. And you know, when they're pouring into you feeding you take care of you or whatever it is things that make you feel good. That's a deposit. No, but when they need something, and they're like draining your energy, that's a withdrawal. And if you got too many people taking withdrawals, you're gonna be in the red. Okay? You have no one pouring back in. Yep. You're not gonna make it. The bank is gonna shut you down. Yeah. So, you know, it's the same concept. I just like to think of it like that sometimes. Yeah, that's cool. I'll use that. Like, like, it always comes back to the finances in some way, shape or form. It is. But But overall, it's not just that it's about understanding that drinking your way to wealth. ain't gonna work. It's not gonna work. It's not sustainable is really the problem with it. Like you're not gonna be able to do it forever. You're gonna be miserable doing it and you just, it's not going to be a good outcome. Yeah, I actually had a quote on this one. It was from Peter Lynch. And he says, know what you own and know why you own it. And I think it's essential essentialism mentalism know what you own and know why you own it. Amen to that. Amen. All right, yeah. So we're signing off for now. Until next time. I'm Tenisha Nicole. And I'm Tashaunda Dixon and we are Black Girl Fly.