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Cash Stuffing: Have you heard of it?

It’s a Thing term savings. Taylor and her follow- student loan debt and wipe out her
Jasmine Taylor was once afflicted ers “stuff” the appropriate propor- medical debt and credit card bal-
with something that ails a lot of tion of cash inside individual ance. In spring of 2021, Taylor, who
Americans: Not having enough envelopes, or in labeled binders or has 628,000 followers on TikTok,
money. And being saddled with debt cash wallets. used her $1,200 stimulus check to
certainly didn't help. If this seemingly old school purchase a Shopify account, ship-
She had roughly $60,000 in stu- method of financial organization ping supplies, material for cash-
dent loan debt as well as another sounds familiar, it’s because it is. stuffing wallets, and a Cricut
$9,000 in medical and credit card The act of budgeting with envelopes machine to print labels for envelopes
debt on top of her regular expenses. But Taylor’s next move was a has been around for decades and and wallet covers.
That can make it awfully hard—if game changer: She turned cash stuff- grew quite popular in the days be- In 2022, her business pulled in
not impossible—to make ends meet. ing into an actual business, which fore debit cards and online pay- about $850,000. This year, it’s pro-
“I just remember wondering how she named Baddies and Budgets. ments. jected to clear $1 million.
I was going to make it through the The businesses is now the vehicle “I’ve had older women reach out,” Turning a TikTok presence into a
next month,” Taylor, 31, of Amarillo, she uses to sell money courses, adds Taylor. “They come across my full-time business doesn’t have to be
Texas, remembers telling CNBC budgeting supplies, and other acces- content, and they’re like, ‘My grand- your plan to make cash stuffing
Make It. sories. mother used to do that!’” work for you—or your bottom line.
Then things went from bad to And that has translated into lots After a few months of cash stuff- Starting modestly with a concerted
worse when she lost her full-time job of dollars for Taylor. ing, Taylor had saved $1,000. It was effort to save a certain amount of
and had to resort to side hustles like More on that in a second. First, the first time in her life she had ac- money—no matter how small—can
delivering prescriptions for pharma- let’s take a closer look at cash stuff- cess to that much cash. produce a sizable stash in the long
cies and food for DoorDash. ing. She says, “It’s a really surreal feel- run.
Taylor wasn’t quite sure what to When Taylor started cash stuffing, ing when you’re a person who has “The same stuff I teach my audi-
do next, but she knew this: She had she operated on a zero-based budget, mismanaged money all their life, ence, I still use in my everyday life,”
to adjust her mindset around money. which is the most common option when you finally get to the point Taylor says.
Enter the resource many people among cash stuffers, Taylor says. where it’s like, ‘OK, I can do this.’” Courtney Conover is wife, mom,
consult now when they don’t know This means you start your budget Taylor is doing it. yoga instructor, and Chicken Soup
what to do: YouTube. That’s how Tay- with whatever your paycheck num- After one year of cash stuffing, for the Soul contributor who has
lor discovered something called cash ber is, and then you give every dollar Taylor was able to pay off $23,000 in called Wayne home since 1995.
stuffing, a money management strat- a place to go, down to zero. Next,
egy that would soon change her life. Taylor divvies up her money in the
Says Taylor, “I literally stuck to it. form of physical cash.
I would only spend what I had in “I put aside money for bills in en-
cash.” velopes. I put money aside for vari-
And she had a plan to hold her- able expenses, which is weekly
self accountable, too. spending,” she says. “Then you also
She would post her spending on put money aside for ‘sinking funds,’
TikTok, a social media platform that which are like little short-term or
was then basically known for quick long-term savings accounts.” Those
and catchy dance routines. can include an emergency fund,
The rest, as they say, is history. money for car maintenance or
Taylor’s cash stuffing posts soon money earmarked for the holidays.
went viral, which is akin to striking Whatever is left over is then put
gold in the forms of views and recog- aside for the future, goes toward pay-
nition. ing down debt or building up long-

10 · September 2023 · The Wayne Dispatch