Supporting People of Color with the Happy Hour Ladies
Supporting People of Color with the Happy Hour Ladies
Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics.
In honor of Black History Month, and leaning into Women’s History month that begins next month, we’re going to share some of our favorite businesses, bloggers, podcasters, and resources where you can support women and people of color. We discuss a truly epic group of individuals that I hope you enjoy learning about as much as I did. Joining us again this month is Kassandra, while Liz is on sabbatical, and I truly appreciate your support and encouragement of Kassandra, while wishing Liz the best.
What are we drinking?
Melanie from Dear Debt, Lola Retreat, and MentalHealthandWealth.com — Blueberry Hibiscus Mocktail from The Mocktail Club
Tonya from Tonya-Stumphauzer.com — Sheperd’s P’Nutty Whiskey
Kassandra from kassandradasent.com — Bartenura White Wine
Shannon — Pinot Noir
Podcast Notes
Kassandra recently lost her mom, Baby, to COVID. Her drink would be rum and Coke. She is someone who gave Kassandra grace, strength, wisdom, and although not a woman of financial means, she gave Kassandra wealth in other ways that has helped her build wealth.
Kassandra had the opportunity and honor to be with her mother at the end. She was 83 years old. Cheers to Baby!
Melanie has worked with Tonya Rapley, from myfabfinance.com, and she is doing extraordinary things these days. She also has a foundation for maternal health and education.
Melanie is also a fan of Carmen from makerealcents.com, and Dasha Kennedy from The Broke Black Girl also has great content. Melanie has been following The Budgetnista for a long time, who was the first black woman on Money magazine.
Patrice Washington, Kiersten from Rich and Regular, Bola from Clever Girl Finance, and Terri Huggins are others that Melanie follows.
Tonya is also a fan of the women Melanie mentioned. In addition, Michelle from Michelle is Money Hungry has great topics on her podcasts, and she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Tonya is very happy she discovered Amanda Gorman and the work she is doing.
Kassandra knows Michelle personally and likes the way she goes about topics. She also supports the women that have already been mentioned.
Black History Month often emphasizes the perils and struggles of black people. However, Kassandra wants to highlight the fact that Maggie Lena Walker was the first African American to charter a bank and serve as its president. There are so many unknown greats we have yet to discover.
Kassandra enjoys discovering these people. It is called the black renaissance. They’ve been scholars, artists, astronomers, scientists, etc. Because of the history of America, the black community is still going through the “firsts”. On the world’s stage, there have already been a lot of firsts.
Vice President Andrew Johnson was not legally married, but he took a slave, Julia Chinn, as his wife. She has been lost to history and is only now coming to the surface.
Kassandra follows Naja Hall, @vipstepmom, on Instagram. Kassandra is a stepmom, and blended families are a challenge and a joy. Naja has built a great community for stepmothers across all color lines.
Kassandra also follows her trademark attorney and creator of The Creator’s Law Firm, Ticora Davis. As an business owner, you may not realize the value of what you are building. As a singer/songwriter, Kassandra realized the importance of trademarking her work. Ticora just won the BeyGOOD award for her work.
In the money community, sisters Marie Coleman-Johns and Stephanie Stockwell created Winenance. Kenisha Wright is a great writer to watch.
Bisa Butler is an art quilter and she has been featured for her art in Time, The New York Times, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sandy Smith from Yes I am Cheap, the Hustle Crew, and the Elevate conference has done amazing work of gathering personal finance bloggers, writers, and influencers. She also works full time as an HR manager.
Shannon has been intentional over the last few years about who she follows, and she has curated her social media to be a very positive place. Malyia from Made by Malyia makes jewelry and she has been a Gym client for over two years.
Another client, Kathy, who created Urban Kettle, had a bad experience at The Gym. Shannon reached out to her and they talked for two hours. Her beauty supply company is now taking off.
Auzerais from Blondery was recently on the podcast and her star is on the rise. Twanna Toliver is a business coach and Shannon spent a lot of time with her when she was a Gym client.
Shannon loves following @bigmamaofficial on Instagram. She reviews TikTok videos of people.
Shannon has been following Ash Cash on Instagram (@iamashcash) for a long time as well as Tayo Rockson (@tayorockson). James Kinney did an event with Shannon at The Gym and now has a much larger platform as the global head of diversity and inclusion at Ogilvy.
Kevin Matthews from Building Bread produces wonderful content. Ambus Hunter was recently on The Mental Health and Wealth Show with Melanie talking about gambling addiction.
Julien from Rich and Regular is the other half of an amazing couple, positioning FIRE to the black community in a way that is not only accessible, but very real. Dr. Brad Klontz is a financial psychologist and is very relatable.
The Nap Ministry is another one Kassandra follows that grounds her. We are in a hustle culture and you get to a point where if you don’t sleep you won’t be productive.
Tonya has a short film coming out about taking the space in order to get creative. If you aren’t living the life, you won’t have ideas.
There are so many hurdles to women who are not white. It is all a juggle, particularly with business owners. The biggest hurdle is lack of access to capital.
Non-white women are almost 50% of those who start businesses, due to economic necessity. Venture capital money doesn’t go to service companies, but to software and biotech companies.
There is a new venture capital fund by Arlan Hamilton that is more geared toward non-technical companies. There is so much work to be done on that part.
The next chapter for Shannon, after she sells The Gym, is to start the Golden Girls Fund to fund early stage female founders.
Support comes through money, sharing on social media, talking about these companies, and leaving positive reviews.
TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is that supporting other people doesn’t have to take much time or money, but the support you give can be truly life changing to the person receiving it.
This pandemic has impacted all of us in a number of ways, and if your finances were something that stressed you out in 2020, I hope you’ll break the cycle in 2021 and start fresh with The Financial Gym. We’ve literally seen it all and we’ve literally fixed it all, so I hope you will leave your financial stresses in the past, like 2020, and head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com.
If you have any topics you would like for us to talk about during happy hour, please feel free to email me at shannon@fingyms.com or tweet to me at blonde_finance or join the private martinis and your money Facebook group and let us know. Until next time, take care!!