In January 2021, Jasmine Taylor knew she needed to adjust her mindset around money.
The 31-year-old from Amarillo, Texas had barely made it through the holiday shopping season the previous month. “I just remember wondering how I was going to spend the next month,” she told CNBC Make It.
Taylor had recently lost her full-time job and was fending for herself, delivering prescriptions for pharmacies and food for DoorDash. She had about $60,000 in college debt and another $9,000 in medical and credit card debt.
So, like just about everyone finally trying to figure something out, she took to YouTube, where she discovered cash stuffing, a money management strategy that changed her life. “I discovered cash budgeting and I literally stuck with it,” Taylor says. “I would only spend what I had in cash. »
She decided to hold herself accountable by posting on TikTok, which at the time was “mostly kids dancing,” Taylor recalled.
Posts of her managing her finances by putting money in envelopes quickly went viral.
In the first year she got her money in order, Taylor was able to pay off $23,000 in student loan debt and clear her medical debt and credit card balance. Once she established a big following (she currently has 628,000 followers on TikTok), she turned the cash stuffing into a business – Villains and Budgets — through which she sells money courses, budgeting supplies, and other paraphernalia.
In 2022, the business made around $850,000. This year, he’s on track to clear $1 million.
Old-school budgeting: “My grandma used to do that!” »
When Taylor first started cash stuffing, she was operating on a zero-based budget, which is the most common option among cash stuffers, she says. “That means you start your budget with your paycheck number, and you give every dollar a place to go, down to zero. »
Once she has a plan in place for the month, she shares her money in the form of physical silver. “I put money aside for bills in envelopes. I put money aside for variable expenses, i.e. weekly expenses,” she says. “Then you also set money aside for ‘sinking funds,’ which are like little short-term or long-term savings accounts. These can include an emergency fund, money for car maintenance, or money set aside for vacations.
What’s left goes into the future, either to pay down debt or to build up long-term savings. Taylor and his supporters “provide” the appropriate proportion of cash in individual envelopes, or in labeled binders or purses.
Jasmine Taylor uses cash stuffing to budget her income.
Lucas Mullikin pour CNBC Make It
If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is. THE ” The “envelope method” of budgeting has been around for decades and was a popular way to manage household finances in the days before debit cards and online payments.
“I’ve had older women contact me. They came across my content and thought, “My grandma used to do that! ‘” Taylor said.
It didn’t take Taylor long to revise his financial habits. A few months later, after diligently tracking where all her money was going, she had saved $1,000. It was the first time in her life that she had access to so much money.
“I looked in the envelope, and it had been there for a while, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I didn’t need it,'” she said. “It’s a really surreal feeling when you’re a person who’s mismanaged money all your life, when you finally get to the point where it’s like, ‘OK, I can do this.’ »
Turning a TikTok presence into a full-time business
After Taylor’s early videos went viral, she wanted to capitalize on the large following she had built. Looking around the market, she noticed two things. First, in the area of monetary content, which Taylor says she generally finds boring, she had found something people really wanted to engage with.
Second, she realized there was a market for people like her who found stuffing cash appealing but found plain old envelopes dull. “I looked around and didn’t find a bunch of stores that sold the items you needed to cash in stuff,” she says.
In the spring of 2021, Taylor used her $1,200 stimulus check to form Baddies and Budgets, buy a Shopify account, ship supplies, materials for cash wallets, and a Cricut machine to print labels for envelopes and mail. portfolio covers.
Taylor, who had tried and failed at a few entrepreneurial ventures in the past — experiences she says she learned from — kept her expectations low. “I started out hoping to get my money back,” she says.
Budgets and Villains grossed around $850,000 in 2022.
Lucas Mullikin pour CNBC Make It
She did it, and more: from April to the end of 2021, the company brought in nearly $250,000.
Growth was rapid from there. His product line expanded beyond basic necessities as more and more fans began to identify with his brand.
“A lot of people who buy from us are thrifty and save people, but there are also people who buy from us because our stuff is really cute,” she says. “They were the ones who wanted mugs and keychains. »
Even though the company is on track to raise over $1 million this year, Taylor pays herself just $1,200 a week and reinvests heavily in the business. She still sorts through her cash finances each week, setting aside some for her expenses and some for retirement accounts and other savings challenges.
“The same things that I teach my audience, I still use in my day-to-day life,” she says.
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