I had such an amazing time at the PUSH Money Matters Event this past Saturday!!! Even though I consider myself well versed in the area of personal finances, I still picked up a few nuggets and insights at this event.

Here are just a few of the nuggets that I learned from each of the featured speakers.

Dominique Broadway is a personal finance expert and money therapist. Dominique talked to the audience about the importance of budgeting. Even though I’ve talked extensively about budgeting here on the site, one nugget that I picked up from Dominique was this: It’s great to create a budget, but it’s more important to stick with it.

Doesn’t that make sense?

I know that in the culture of being #TeamGoalGetter or #TeamLifeGoals, it’s equally as important to create benchmarks to meet those goals.

Are you writing your goals down and taking daily actions toward them? If not, here’s an exercise for you.

[bctt tweet=”Write down one thing that you can do before 5pm tomorrow to help you reach one of your goals” username=”frugalfeminista”]

Mr. William Cheeks is the king of credit card knowledge and President of ABBA Associates Inc. This man blew me away. One thing that you know about me is that I have great credit but don’t sit around and figure out why. The key to my credit is paying my bills on time and keeping my debt-to-credit ratio low by paying in full on most months.

Well those two actions alone will get any of us closer to the 800-club.

And here’s some more: Did you know that your credit score could drop 90-100 points with just one late payment? So don’t miss one. Automate it if you have too much on your plate.

Jessica Brown is a financial aid counselor at Howard University and CEO of the The College Gurl. Her presentation was also insightful. I’m out of college and Baby Girl won’t be in college for eighteen years, but there were nuggets that she shared that I wish I knew when I was applying in the 90as. But now I have time to prep for my baby’s college fund.

• Nearly $100 million dollars in scholarship go unclaimed every year.
• When speaking to any financial aid rep, always be kind and courteous. You never really know with whom you are speaking on the other line. There are times that the Director of Financial Aid will answer the phone because staff is on vacation or a call is transferred by mistake. So, in instances where you are frustrated about an issue for your child, it’s still important to keep your cool. The person that you are yelling at on the line may be the person that could solve all of your financial aid problems with access and hook-ups to resources.

Gail Perry-Mason co-author of my financial bible, Girl, Get Your Money Straight and Senior Director of Investments, Oppenheimer & Co. was really an inspiration. One of the biggest takeaways I learned from her was this:

Invest in everything you buy, drink, and drive. Don’t spend so much of your life being a consumer and not a producer or investor. 

Boom!!

I want you to jot down all of the items that you own in your house and then I want you to ask yourself, “Do I own any stock in this company?” If not, there’s something that you could start to work on. Reach out to your network and ask for referrals for financial advisors.

Valeisha Butterfield-Jones is the CEO of Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network (WEEN) and Head of Black Community Engagement at Google. I learned sooo much about her personal journey to self-discovery and the role that perseverance played in her landing an internship with Russell Simmons. I think the underlining theme of her story was this: When thinking about your dreams and how plan to reach them, you have to think about VALUE.

How will you add value to the people that you lead and value to the people that you serve? Concretely, this means that if you are going to reach out to someone for mentorship or support, think about how you could impact their bottom line, not just yours. They are human, with feelings and ambitions just like you, and it shows a lot about your character when you can think about win-win situations.

I could go on and on about how well organized the event was and well versed these speakers were, but I honestly think that it is something that you should experience for yourself. You could even check the recorded live stream here, too.

They are taking the PUSH Money Matters Events to Detroit next. And they will be headed to DC, Atlanta, and Oakland before the end of the year.

Make sure you register for it! The place was packed (on a beautiful Saturday morning, at that) in NYC, so consider yourself warned!

• Detroit, MI – October 1 at Wayne County Community College (Frank Hayden Room, 801 W. Fort Street, Detroit, MI 48226)
• Atlanta, GA – October 22 at Morehouse College
• Washington D.C. – November 12 at Howard University
• Oakland, CA – December 3 at Abyssinian Baptist Church

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Chevy . The opinions and text are all mine.