Alyssa Davies - Financial First Aid: Essential Tools for Confident, Secure Money Management

THE HUMILITAINMENT ERA WAS a time in which all you had to do was find a person who wanted to yell at people and use that to create a television show concept about pretty much anything: cooking, singing, and even dealing with personal finance. People would tune in every week to watch regular people get berated, called names, and shamed about the choices theyd made or the situations they found themselves in. This genre of reality television in the mid-to-late 2000s was wildly popular. Luckily, those tropes are dying off.

What we crave now are real people, not caricatures, who take the time to understand and support people. Leaders are those who can create safe spaces in which everyone benefits from sharing different lived experiences together, as a collective. Unified. Having each others backs.

Alyssa Davies is one of those leaders. A real person. A confidante. A friend. If youre reading this, you likely already know her. But I dont just mean you know her in the sense that youve seen her name or face on an Instagram reel. While you may never have had the pleasure of sharing a coffee, meal, or drink with her, you likely feel that you have a deep connection with this person who seems to psychically know what you are thinking about money. And not just the financial worries like How much money is supposed to go where? The really deep stuff, like, How do I tell my partner that I had an emergency that led to carrying $15,000 in credit card debt before we got serious, and now Im worried its been too long to bring it up? Or, How do I find a way to sleep at night when Im riddled with anxiety about what would happen if the company I work for decided to make cuts in response to the pandemic because sales have been down for a year? and What do I do when Im in my probation period at a new job and my boss is sending sexual text messages?

Not only does she provide a collective support group (Mixed Up Money) that lifts up its members, she has practical, actionable blueprints you can put into practice. Like this book, which focuses on financial first aid. They say great minds think alike, and Ive always been an advocate of focusing on what can go wrong (as well as thinking about reaching your financial potential). My number-one rule for people is to disaster-proof their lives. But if I could slot a rule before that, it might be encapsulated by this books core message, which is how to treat the many financial wounds that so many of us have already experienced, or are currently experiencing, before we can get to a position where we can worry less about money. And these wounds can happen even after weve achieved escape velocity with our personal financial situation. Maybe youre earning good money, budgeting a healthy monthly surplus, and investing, and youve got your will and powers of attorney all set up. Then you lose your job. Or a natural disaster strikes your community. Life can change in a heartbeat. No one is infallible.

Alyssa, from MixedUpMoney.com, is the next generation of personal finance experts, even though she keeps referring to personal finance experts as some other group of people. I would say she is a rising star, but the truth is her star has risen already. We may just not have noticed because shes been lifting us all up alongside her.

Preet Banerjee

Personal Finance Expert

Author of Stop Over-Thinking Your Money!

Host of Million Dollar Neighbourhood

WHEN YOURE A KID, people are always trying to prepare you for potential emergencies. From fire escape plans to carrying Band-Aids in case of an accidentwere ready for nearly any surprise. The only thing missing? Our money.

When you think back to your childhood, something I encourage every person to reflect on is their first money memory. Mine wasnt anything special. In fact, nothing about my childhood was eternally memorable. And in many ways, thats a beautiful thing more than it is sad. It means there werent any traumatic moments that clouded the way I grew as a woman.

Instead, my siblings and I had full bellies, more clothes than we needed, a home that had space for each of us, and fun family road tripsalthough my sister may disagree with that last one. Some people will read these words and think: spoiled, privileged, upper-middle-class. Others will think my upbringing sounds average and similar to theirs. None are wrong.

These days, instead of feeling fortunate for my upbringing and my familys successes, parts of me feel shame. It makes you wonderhow can the ultra-wealthy walk through their days, in their designer shoes, with their glowing skin never having missed a facial, and not feel like they, too, should be ashamed for having too much. But I guess that used to be me.

Growing up with money means never knowing a life without it.

So, for that reason, it can be hard to understand what might happen or, worse, what does happen, to people who struggle financiallyparticularly if that person ends up being you.

When I was young and naive, I didnt care to learn about others perspectives or upbringings. I didnt think to accept that not everyone had what I had or received the same opportunities that I did. It took me a while to realize that life wasnt as seamless and effortless for some people as it was for others. To recognize that some people couldnt call their parents for help with an unexpected emergency. To hear that some people would never live their lives without some form of debt circulating in their minds, making them feel endless amounts of stress.