Imagine how much easier life could be if only you had a blueprint on how to navigate tough financial decisions. How great would it be knowing what moves to make before you were faced with them all because someone had been there and done that? I’m here to say you might be in luck, as author Paris Woods details her advice that has proven successful in her book, The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom: Build Wealth, Retire Early, and Live the Life of Your Dreams.
The further you progress through the text, you can’t help but wish you had stumbled across this book way earlier in your life (I’d give anything to have this back in 2009 before entering college, but unfortunately, it wasn’t released until 2021). Regardless how it finds you, there are so many chapters that can easily apply to every stage of your journey to being debt-free and living your best life. Woods breaks down many key components of being more selective when it comes to how you distribute your hard earned coins.
One thing she does exceptionally well is making it a point to explain terminology that might be foreign to someone that is new to the world of finances. While the tips and tricks she details are very achievable, one in particular is definitely an acquired taste: the choice to not own a vehicle. While it sounds like a hard pass right off the bat, make no mistake that it can definitely work for some depending on your geographical location. This is just one of that many things she details how to achieve through smarter choices and budgeting. Let’s dive into some of the best takeaways from The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom.
The FIRE Movement
If you’re anything like me, then you may not have heard of the FIRE movement until hearing about it in this book (I must’ve been living under a rock). Financial Independence, Retire Early is a movement in which you essentially make wiser choices with your funds now to afford the luxury of retiring at an early age later. It requires quite a bit of sacrifices such as putting away a decent chunk of your money into your retirement savings. Woods outlines the 4% rule, where you plan out how much you put away now to be able to comfortably live off of 4% of your retirement savings per year. For example, if you retire with $900,000 in your savings, you’d start by living off of $36,000 your first year, then adjust as necessary based on inflation as the years go on. This has been a proven method for 30 years, but Woods deserves her flowers for including this in her book to educate Black women that may not have been familiar (much like myself, as previously mentioned).
Education
Before getting into this topic, let me say that everyone’s path looks different and by no means is the incoming message meant to deter women from seeking a degree. Woods brings valuable points to the forefront, with one of them being do you really need a degree for the career you’re interested in. This is a valid question, as we spoke earlier about how making smarter decisions with your pockets today is essential to retiring early. After all, college can cost thousands and thousands of dollars so it’s imperative that you make sure it’s worth possibly going into temporary debt for.
Woods talks about how there are many options for securing some financial assistance with paying for tuition including grants that are in place specifically for minorities and people who come from lower income households. The message Woods harps on is that there are a plethora of resources available to assist Black women on the path to success. What it ultimately comes down to is these avenues of assistance often require a deep dive, as they aren’t always surface level. Listening to how she pursued her degrees is rather inspirational, and any woman who is considering attending college should definitely read what works for her as it breaks down some key ways of taking advantage of the grants and other options available to us.
Credit
While the information Woods goes into detail about is common knowledge, she puts it in an optimistic perspective that makes the task seem an easy feat. She suggests taking out a credit card but not using more than 10% of the limit to assist with boosting your credit score. One thing she points out is that we shouldn’t take on every credit application that is thrown at us, especially the ones that try to get you on college campuses. They scout out desperate college students that are barely getting by financially and lure them in with a free T-shirt or water bottle for running a credit application. This part of the book highlights self-control and living within your means as she breaks down how your credit score is another aspect of your identity. Good credit can take you a long way and save you from a massive headache when unexpected expenses arise. She doesn’t offer much new advice, but making it a point to inform Black women about taking their credit seriously is a win for Woods.
I give The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom: Build Wealth, Retire Early, and Live the Life of Your Dreams a 4/5 as it’s a great read for those of us who want some financial guidance from someone other than a white male. Woods shines as she gives Black women advice to help us avoid making the mistakes she did all while detailing the wins she discovered along the way. This is a book filled with great information I wish was available to me when I was trying to navigate what I wanted to do with my life. It’s so helpful that it would not be a bad idea to have this as a required read in course curriculums in high school as it would absolutely set up young Black women for success through financial literacy.
The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom: Build Wealth, Retire Early, and Live the Life of Your Dreams is available where most books are sold as well as on Audible and Kindle.