Becoming a “Rich Bitch” with my Finances

Hello my loyal readers!

I am so excited to finally be able to tell you about the book that helped me turn my whole financial world, and overall life around.

In my first post of this year I discussed how focusing on my financial health was my biggest goal going into 2020.
I had made horrible financial choices in the five years after graduate school, like getting involved in a Multi Level Marketing (MLM) company, and completely drained what tiny bit I had in my savings after a car accident. Going into 2020 I was staring at around $30,000 dollars in debt between my student loans and credit cards.

My credit card debt had become so unbearable with my little single person income that I ended up transferring over half of it to another credit card that advertised zero interest for eighteen months. This also tacked on another $500.00 to my credit card debt. It was a good, temporary solution at the time as I tried to get my debt under control. However, none of it would be worth it if I did not learn to control my actual spending habits.

It was 2019 and I was six months into my eighteen months of zero interest grace period, and I had made zero changes to my financial health. Besides adding a second credit card to my wallet, and tacking on more credit card debt, nothing was that different about my finances overall.

Enter the book Rich Bitch by Nicole Lapin.

How I discovered Rich Bitch:

I was listening to the Almost 30 podcast and the guest speaker for the episode was Nicole Lapin.
She was advertising her new book, Becoming Super Woman, which I am currently reading as we speak.
I loved the knowledge and energy Nicole brought to the podcast. She was fun, knowledgeable, and had a great personality.
When they mentioned her other books, I cracked up at the names of them to be honest, but I was also very intrigued with the one about money.
After a quick google search and reading about the book Rich Bitch I decided to purchase it on Amazon.

I had never read a finance book before, and figured this book would be a good place to start with turning my finances around. It also sounded like it would be fun, at least as fun as you can make finances sound.

When I got the book in the mail I let it sit on my bookshelf for three months.

During those three months I really thought about what brought me to this point. A big factor was getting involved with the MLM company, so I canceled my subscription to that. Another reason was shopping with money I did not have, so I took my credit cards off of all my shopping accounts.

“I had to confront my debt first and acknowledge what brought me to this point before I could ever change my financial future.”

When I finally picked up the book at the end of 2019, I was ready for it, and I read it intensely and quickly.
By February of 2020 I was on my way to becoming a “Rich Bitch”, or at least richer than what I was at the start of the year.

The Top 3 Things I took away from Rich Bitch

The book was easy and entertaining to read and it gave good and actionable steps.

What I appreciated the most was how Nicole encouraged you to not read the book in order, and to jump around to what was most relevant to you and your journey.
I read the book in order my first time through, but I refer to individual chapters now when I am wanting to review, or get an extra nudge in a certain area of life.

Here were the top three steps from Rich Bitch I focused on with turning my finances around.

1) Create a Spending Plan that works for YOU

Before you start changing your finances around, you have to get the overall picture of where your money is going.
What I really appreciated was that Nicole referred to a budget as a “Spending Plan” in her book.

“To me budget sounds depriving and restricted, whereas spending plan sounds optimistic and empowering.”

– Jodie Waldroup

What I really loved about this step was how Nicole went into depth about the major categories you need to account for in your spending plan, and the percentage of your money you should allocate.

Housing (35%)

Transportation (10%)

Household bills/Insurance (15%)

Food (10%)

Savings (15%)

Fun (15%)

-Nicole Lapin, Rich Bitch

Not only did she explain how she operates her own spending within the criteria, but she also discussed how you can adjust and customize it for yourself. For example, if you have to factor in debt like yours truly.

Thus, creating your own spending plan and “Little Budget Diary” that fits YOU and your needs.

I got out my calculator and got to work in figuring out where my money was going and what percentage of my take home pay that accounted for.

2) Get that Debt Monkey Off your back

This was the step I was most excited to read about because it was my main goal with reading the book in the first place.
It was funny and entertaining to read about how debt was a monkey, but to also learn about the different types of debt.

To me, debt was just debt. However, Nicole talked about the Short Term Debt like credit cards, and long-term debt like student loans and mortgages.
She stressed the importance of focusing on the credit card debt first over student loans because of the differences in interest rates.

The approach Nicole encouraged is also known as the Avalanche Method, if you were to compare it to another common debt repayment method known as the Snowball Method.

To me the Avalanche Method was in alignment with my goals, and when I played with calculators I found online it held true that was the best approach for me.

Therefore the first monkey I was going to tackle in my debt repayment was my high interest credit card.

3) Sinking Funds for the Win

Saving was something I knew I needed to do if I wanted to stay out of debt.

In the book I learned about “sinking funds” and “sub-savings” which can be just as important as an emergency fund.

A sinking fund is money you allocate to a specific category or expense. Can be anything from saving for a new cell phone, gifts for the holidays, or something like car maintenance and repairs.
The idea of a sinking fund is that you allocate to to it every month, so that when you need the money it is there for you.

What is helpful with these funds is having sub-savings accounts. Which is having a saving account dedicated to that specific sinking fund and having automatic savings set up for it.
In the book Nicole mainly talked about online banks that allowed you to open up more than one savings accounts, and rename them to what you want.
I already had an account through Capital One with my credit card, so figured that would be the online bank to go with.

I ended up opening up multiple sub-savings accounts for the categories below:

• Emergency Fund (Emergency Money)
• Yearly Expenses (Subscriptions like Amazon or yearly doctor appointments)
• Car Maintenance and Repairs (as well as my yearly tag expense)
• Christmas and Gifts
• Travel
• Upgrades (Home and Technology)

Having these sub-savings accounts was the real life changer for me!

Seeing the money allocated to the certain categories each month was empowering and motivating because I wanted to see if I could save more for them.
Watching the money grow throughout the year left me feeling proud, because I actually had money to my name, and it was the good kind of money.

This past year was the first time I have not gone into debt for Christmas Gifts, or stretch my money so thin I could not afford groceries by the end of the month of December. I also have had ongoing car issues this past year with slow leaking tires, so it was relieving when I already had money saved up and it did not throw off my entire month financially or add on to my debt when I had to visit my local tire shop.

“Rich Bitch is one of the best books I have ever read. “

Money is such a huge part of living, and our financial health impacts our lives and overall health.
Getting the inspiration and motivation from this book really helped me figure out this part of my life and overall wellness in it. It helped me have a plan and feel empowered by the choices I was making for it.

Instead of surviving I finally feel like I am thriving in this area of my life and health.

I hope you hop onto Amazon, visit your local library or bookstore and pick up this book.
It will no doubt change you life and finances for the better!

If you have read Rich Bitch what was your favorite step? Have there been any other financial books you have read that you would recommend?

Until next time,