 you need to take away from this video, please don't. Movies, I was, I hate to break it to you. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. My name is Nika, and this is Hi Black Girl, a channel where we live life at our absolute highest potential both financially, spiritually, physically, and honestly, any E you wanna go ahead and throw in there because we are an inspiration station, my love, all about wellness and taking care of ourselves. So if that sounds like something that you're interested in, make sure you go ahead and subscribe, right, right? It's not into it. So you can probably tell from the title of this video that it's gonna be about some habits that might keep you new broke. Now, don't come at me. I know how y'all like to tussle on the internet. I'm not calling you broke. I believe in an abundance of mindset. I'm not broke either. We're just maybe a little financially challenged at the moment. But money is in abundance and money is everywhere. And I just wanted to share some things that I learned throughout my 27 years on this planet that kept money coming out of my bank account and not so much coming in. And just some easy tips that can help you save money in little ways you might not know as possible. So before we get into it, first, coffee. Now let's go. Well, this is gonna be hard for me to say, but reason number one, you're broke. It's because you're shopping at Forever 21, Fashion Nova, H&M, you know, you know. She in, don't fight me, don't fight me, don't fight me. Used to be my girls too. I used to be there once a week. Hi, what's new at Forever 21? You know, Forever 21 is really cute when you're under 21. But once you're over 21, it gets back fast. But I'm getting sidetracked. The reason why I was shopping at these fast fashion stores so often is because their clothes don't last. When you buy low quality fast fashion items that literally fall apart in your washing machine, your clothes don't last. So you end up having to spend more money just on basic everyday items. I know, it's a really tough pill to swallow. But swallow it, girl. So if you're looking to save money, I would suggest shopping at high quality stores. My number one go-tos, Bloomingdale's. I know, I know, I know. Bloomingdale's sounds so bougie, so expensive, but you can actually get really good deals if you shop their sale section and then order that shit from low to high. I gotten jeans for like $30 there. And I still have them today. So before you knock it, try it. Another tip I have to save money and buy better quality things is to shop Etsy stores. I love Etsy stores. And I get like my jewelry from there, my headbands, my scarves, my sleeping bonnets, everything from Etsy. And it's literally the most high quality items that I've ever purchased. So if you are looking for something very particular like a bonnet, I would suggest shopping at Etsy because one of the quality is really great. They last a really long time. And because there's so many different people selling things on Etsy, you can usually get a really good bargain as well. And then last but not least, if you are shopping and looking for ways to save, I would suggest going to specialty store. Don't knock it till you try it. I have some jewelry from Pandora. I'm literally wearing it right now. And this is from a street vendor. And they have lasted me like longer than my fancy, smancy, majority jewelry. Come on girl, there's a reason why they're still selling jewelry like five years later. There's a reason why the street vendor still on the street selling her jewelry. Like it's usually very high quality. I'm not gonna lie. Better than what you'll get at Forever 21. That's for sure. My last tip, if you're looking to save money on like items and clothing items in particular, I would highly recommend shopping or some rack, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, all those things. They have really good designer brands at really affordable prices. And yes, they will be from like last season or two seasons ago, but it's a lot better to pay $80 for a pair of designer sunglasses than to pay $400 for the pair of designer sunglasses that just came out this year. The sun is the same. The UV protection is the same just by last year's stuff at Nordstrom's Rack or another discount department store. Stop buying fast fashion. Save your money. Let's go to tip number two. Tip number two for why you are always broke, my love. You are ordering everything online. It's so easy, I know. I'm so comfortable just to stay in bed and be able to get everything you need online, but get out the house, girl. When you order stuff online, especially food, nine times out of 10, you're paying a convenience fee. You know what that means? You're paying a delivery fee, tip, tax, all the miscellaneous fees when if you would have gotten yourself off the house and walked to the store, you would have saved so much money and honestly burned some calories along the way. How do I know this? I live this life. This is how I know this, okay? Not gonna lie, I'm gonna tell you a little story. Two stories actually. The first one, my good old tried and true Bloomingdale's. I ordered these shoes online at Bloomingdale's. So cute, right? I mean, I absolutely love them. Don't regret them. They're one of my favorite pairs of shoes. But when they came in to my apartment delivered directly from Bloomingdale's, they had a sticker on them. You won't believe what that sticker was. First, first, first, first, first. Before we get into it. These shoes were originally $128. I got them on sale for 89. When they came in the mail, the box, the sticker on the shoe box said $71. $71, I had paid more money because I bought them online. And I was pissed about them. But, God is good. I was able to eventually get a price match and that worked out, but I'm just saying ladies, when you order things online, you're paying a convenience fee. In fact, I can tell you about another time this happened to me. Okay, this time maybe it's not as bad, but typically when it's that time of the month, I like to order cookies online. And not just any cookies, I love Levain Bakery. It's so good, so yummy, ooey gooey, mm, mm, mm. I love it, right? So I usually order these cookies online. I get two of them and it comes to $20. That's $10 a cookie. That's a bit steep. If I get up and leave my apartment and buy the cookies directly from the bakery, it's $5 a cookie. So $10. But let me tell you about the time I left my apartment, went to my corner store, and got Tate's cookies. So about 10 or 12 cookies for $5.99. If this doesn't convince you to leave your apartment, I don't know what else well. You will save so much money by simply leaving your apartment and buying things and the real world out there than if you order everything online. It's just, they really, they be taxing, girl. I hate to break it to you. I really hate to be the one to have to do this, but another reason why you might be broke right now is because you have major phone out and you say yes to every single thing someone asks you. I mean, we love to celebrate our friends. We love to hang out with our friends. And if I had unlimited monies, I would hang out all day every day too, but girl, I live in New York. A drink here, a coffee there. It adds up real quick. I go outside, I breathe, I spend $100. So you have to start being really particular about the things you do. I mean, I'm not even a popular person. I don't think I have that many friends, but I swear to you, it's like birthdays, concert, movies, dinner, drinks, coffee, concert, birthday. It just like, it literally will never, ever, ever stop. So you have to be able to discern what is really important to you. And this is like, you know, just sharing some of my own personal tips and advice. When it comes to hanging out with friends, I always prioritize birthdays. Even if I don't have it in my budget right now to do the full dinner, drink, dancing, I at least wanna show up, say hi, maybe give them a present. I really love baking things for people's birthdays because it's a really easy and affordable way to say, like, I love you and give you something without having to shell out hundreds of dollars. But yeah, I have prioritized my friends' birthdays. Number one, anything else, girl? It's a no for me. I like to take advantage of free events in the city, especially free events that have an open bar. And a lot of corporate events do this. If you are black like me, there's a lot of like Instagrams for black people in tech that typically have like really great like company sponsored free like networking events. You can go get a drink, have a bite to eat, and then maybe even get a job after a girl. I'm telling you, there's a lot of resources in New York. If you're not a major metropolitan city, you can always look up free things to do online, maybe do a walking tour, go to a park, and then even like random companies have promotions. Like I just went out with my girlfriends a couple weekends ago because AMC had like $3 movie tickets for National Stone in my day. Keep your eyes and ears peeled. They're way so fun and not spend a lot of money. I almost forgot. One of the things I have especially been doing now that I have this wonderful, beautiful apartment space is entertaining. Like I love having my friends over, I'll cook something, they'll maybe bring something and we'll have like a movie or a wine night. So that's really something that's easy and affordable that you can do and just like hosting your friends in your home and having a nice little dinner party. If you haven't seen my apartment tour, I'm gonna link it here because I did get a luxury one bedroom rent control department in Brooklyn, New York and now I know it's hard to believe. But if you haven't seen it, check it out and let's keep the ball rolling here guys. Let's talk about the next reason why your wallet might not be your friend right now. Okay, this is my last tip for you guys. One of the reasons why you might be financially challenged right now is because you're consistently paying the minimum on your credit cards. Don't accumulate that. I mean, honestly, if you can avoid it at all costs, avoid it at all costs. I know it's hard, even me right now, I'm in a situation, I went from making $100,000 a year to now making negative $60,000, $7,000 a year. I wonder, I wonder how that happened. And it's easy to really accumulate credit card debt really quickly, especially when you're used to making a lot of money or living a certain lifestyle or if you wanna have things like ordered in all the time or you like to shop online or you like to hang out with your friends or you know, basically all the reasons I just listed in this video. It's super easy to fall into debt. Credit card companies in America are predatory, they literally will give you $10,000 knowing you're like 15 years old and they truly just don't care. But my advice to you is this, if you're not able to play your entire balance and full every month, pay the absolute maximum that you can. That way you'll be saving on interest. You should also look into getting a balance transfer credit card or maybe even a personal loan to consolidate all your debt as much as possible and to pay a lower interest rate. I actually have an entire YouTube video all about credit card debt. I'll put in the cards here, but I did pay off about $7,000 in credit card debt and I have somehow gotten into more credit card debt. So you know, it's a cyclical, it's a cycle. You know, life is a cycle. Don't beat yourself up over it. I've also saved $20,000. Like it's money, abs and flows. It's everywhere. Do not beat yourself up if you're not in the financial situation that you want to be in right now. It gets better. Just have to keep making good choices and making them consistently. Okay, now I'm rambling. Let's wrap this video up. All right, well, if you're still watching, thank you so much for watching the entire video. Again, my name is Nathan. This is Hype Black Girl. And if you're not following me and you're not subscribed, please subscribe. I am a baby YouTuber and my goal is to get to 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year. I'm at 350s. I lose up to three pounds. I have new videos every Friday. And stay tuned. I'll have more fun finance videos, fun Columbia University videos, fun apartment tour videos, and New York City vlogs on this channel shortly. I will see you guys next time. Bye.