Purchase that daily latte, advises financial expert Nicole Lapin. Surprised? That’s not her only unusual advice.
“It’s not your momma’s finance lesson,” Lapin says in describing her new book, Rich Bitch: A Simple 12-Step Plan for Getting Your Financial Life Together... Finally. Throughout the book, she shares personal anecdotes and examples, such as how she painlessly eliminated a $5,000 credit-card balance.
Lapin wants to take the mystery out of finance. She avoids off-putting conventional terms and empowers women to take control of their financial affairs. Lapin says that the word Bitch in her new book’s title shouldn’t be considered bad and that it really just means a woman who stands up for herself, while Rich alludes to a fulfilling life. A former CNBC and CNN news anchor who has been called a “money guru for millennials,” Lapin, 31, reported at the forefront of the Great Recession.
Related: 16 Rich Habits
“There is a new normal. It’s not the American Dream anymore. This is
your dream and your destiny. It’s about taking it into your own hands,”
Lapin says. “You don’t need a man or the right schooling or to be born
with a silver spoon in your mouth.” You do need a plan, though—and here
are six tips from her 12-step plan:1. Go ahead and buy coffee from a barista.
2. Ask for a raise and get it.
Find out what people with your experience earn in your industry by going to websites such as Salary.com and Payscale.com to come up with a raise request that’s on the high end, Lapin advises in her book. Arm yourself with key examples of your great performance, including how you’ve helped the company. Timing is everything, so she suggests asking for a raise after a fantastic job review or a client sings your praises.3. Write down your goals and turn them into an elevator pitch.
To live the life you want, you need to know what it is. Distill them into a few seconds of spoken words you’ll remember. Studies show that women who can clearly craft a narrative for themselves—and mentally embrace it—have a better chance of reaching those goals, Lapin says. Create three lists: one for family, another for finances and another for fun. State your goal for the current year, in the near future (years three and five), and further out (years seven and 10). Example: Lapin’s current fun list includes going out for drinks with girlfriends every week. In year five, she hopes to get new furniture and move into a bigger apartment. In year 10, she wants to take a first-class vacation. So it’s about creating your own story and speaking your goals aloud, which makes it much easier to stay focused on them. “Becoming a Rich Bitch is not about deprivation. It’s not about clipping coupons. It’s not about nickel-and-diming yourself or buying stale bread,” Lapin tells SUCCESS. You can enjoy small indulgences and still reach your money goals, but the first step is to have goals. “While some people think they do have goals, they’ll be very surprised when they sit down to actually put pen to paper.”4. Negotiate your bills and purchases, and find extra money by making your social network work for you.
Lapin likes to negotiate and once bought a floor-model couch for about 70 percent off. Department stores typically will discount 10 to 15 percent for a fabric snag or other minor imperfection, she says. Lapin makes it a habit to negotiate with cable and phone companies. “When you remember that everything is negotiable and it’s ultimately your money, it becomes not only empowering but really fun at the same time to see how much you can get off.”5. Behold the new LBD.
Instead of a little black dress, it’s a “little budget diary.” Yes, you can indulge in little luxuries that make you happy, but you still need to track them. Keep tabs on small expenditures throughout your day so you can see where the money goes. You can use a notepad or diary, but Lapin minds her spending via her CASH Smartwatch, a wearable device she invented to track every toll and snack, just like other gadgets count steps or monitor sleep.6. Get rid of a $5,000 credit card balance.
Aghast when she owed $5,000, Lapin acknowledged the problem by affixing a sticky note that read “$5,000” to the top of her computer screen. She gave herself two years to pay it off, $208 each month (almost $7 a day). She set up a monthly automatic payment of $208 from her checking account. “Because I didn’t ever see that money, I found that I didn’t really miss it.”“I have many confessions throughout the book to show other women that they’re not alone,” Lapin says. Even though she reported for business news networks, “I was once clueless. I never learned about personal finance in school. And we don’t really like talking about it with friends, as women. I figured it out through the school of hard knocks, which is the best school, in my opinion.”