Mykail James landed her first “big-girl job” — which Gen Z considers to include a competitive salary, great benefits and a bonus — at age 22. It also came with something she didn’t want: financial stress.
After blowing through her $5,000 bonus James decided to learn more about money and create a place where people her age could go for financial advice she felt was missing for young people.
“I wanted to create a safe space for people that look like me and were going through similar life struggles to have a unique place for financial education online and across social media,” James told Reckon.
James quickly grew a community of 70,000 TikTok followers as the Boujie Budgeter for people seeking tips and tricks — from navigating a high-yield savings account to offering advice on negotiating your salary.
Reckon spoke with James about how she became the Boujie Budgeter and why money tips are better coming from a TikTok influencer.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you think it is about social media that makes receiving money advice easy to understand and relatable?
The best part about social media and learning financial education on Instagram or TikTok is you can connect with people who look like you, have similar backgrounds and are going through similar life transitions.
One thing that my audience loves about me is that I not only talk about the high points of my financial wins but also about things that I’ve messed up. I don’t pretend that I’m perfect.
A lot of people can see someone who looks like them – a Black woman – talking about money, which is not what we often see. It’s always been one specific person or one specific look that had a platform to discuss finances and money, and now I think that has shifted and it’s making people a lot more comfortable.
Can you talk a little bit about the big life and financial decisions that are often pushed on younger generations and how that, mixed with a lack of financial literacy, can be a recipe for disaster?
I think this answer is reflected across my whole platform and socials because I don’t want to have children and it’s not a goal of mine to buy a house.
We’re often told that we need to aspire to have these major life milestones like graduating from college, having children, getting married and buying a house.
While decisions and desires like that have looked differently for past generations, statistically people my age are waiting a lot later to have children and buy homes or choosing not to make those decisions at all for several different reasons. Money or a lack thereof is considered as a big factor.
I even think that how we define generational wealth can be slightly misguided because for my nieces and nephews – as you know, I don’t want children – how they understand money matters to me. I think about how the job market will change or how we make money will change in the future.
My idea of generational wealth is not giving them a business or a home, for me it looks like giving them the freedom, space and access to figure out how they want to make money and what impact they want to make on the world. And money and opportunity can do that, not pressure.
What’s the worst financial advice that you feel people give young folks?
The worst financial advice people try to give young folks is telling us to buy a house.
People act like buying a house is going to solve all the issues or they act like it’s the most effective thing to do with your money. I think that real estate is wonderful, but it’s only if you have a desire to understand it and have a strategy behind it. But simply telling young people to buy a house or that homeownership is infinitely better than renting is just completely incorrect. I just really hate that false narrative.
It’s also not the only asset that a person can own. There are so many more opportunities with assets than owning a home that young people should know about.
How did your parents’ relationship with money affect your relationship with money?
It is the center of why I interact with money the way I do, but my story is not unique. Our parents are our first teachers for almost everything in life, and they set the tone for how we interact with money or how we think of money. I grew up in a household where my mother was the purse holder, she made a lot of the financial decisions and is the one that is good with money.
That taught me very early on that as a woman, I can be in control of my finances, whether I have a husband and kids or if it’s just me by myself. It also taught me how to think about money and who or what I want to spend money on.
For instance, my family would go on vacations and I remember my parents would always invite my aunts and uncles for free – that taught me that money means generosity. It means taking care of the people that you love and helping to make life a little bit sweeter for everyone.