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Award Winning Southeast Queens Financial Consultant Kara Stevens Shares Valuable Insights To Economically Survive The COVID-19 Crisis
Exclusive Interview With Kara Stevens And Kamau Austin
Kara Stevens is a speaker, author, and Founder of the award-winning website, The Frugal Feminista. She is the author of three financial self-care books, and creator of the 60 Days to Slay Sallie Mae course.
Kara is also a Money And Career columnist for ESSENCE magazine. Ms. Stevens has been featured in some of the leading magazines and media outlets in the country including Essence, Black Enterprise, USA Today, The Huffington Post, and many more.
Ms. Stevens has an upcoming online seminar May 7th. She was nice enough to make time to share timely insights with us about essential financial issues within these economically challenging times related to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Kamau: Can you tell us a little about your background and life growing up in Southeast Queens.
Kara's Answer: I grew up with my mom and brother in Queens. My mom immigrated to the US from Antigua. She was a registered nurse, but she sometimes worked two or three extra side hustles to ensure that we had a comfortable upbringing and access to the best education. Even though she tried to keep a strong facade, I knew that things weren’t always easy for her or for us, by default.
But her sacrifices made it possible for me to dream big and have the skills to actually go after them. I’m truly grateful to her because of this.
Kamau: What inspired you to go into your present business? When did you decide that helping women become financially successful was of utmost importance?
Kara's Answer: I think necessity inspired me! I had graduated from college and had no clue about how I could repay my student loans or the credit card bills I had racked up along the way.
I remember getting a credit card bill in the mail and getting upset with the credit card companies for sending it to me. I had honestly thought that if I had ignored them, they would get the hint and buzz off. So when I opened the bill to see that my balance had gone up because of late fees, I was confused.
My mother was there in the background and giving me major sideeye. When I shared with her that I didn’t think I had to repay the credit card bill (or my student loans—because I was also ignoring the statements), she set me straight really quick.
The one thing that I was confident about was my ability to learn. So I ended up taking a “dollar cab” on Jamaica Ave to the Central Library and asking the librarian to show if there were books about money.
I found the book "Girl, Get Your Money Straight," and it changed my life. Before then, I never knew that there was a section on money or understood the impact debt (education or consumer) had on my future. I eventually devoured any and all personal finance books that I could find and shared my feelings and thoughts about the process of “adulting” when it came to money on a blogspot, which eventually evolved into The Frugal Feminista.
Initially, I didn’t think anybody would listen to me or my thoughts about money, but they did. I would get emails first from my friends when I missed sending out a blog post asking for when it would be coming out. Then, I started to get feedback from perfect strangers about how they loved the content on the site because it was real and relatable. Next, the companies and brands reached out to get in front of my audience or to get my input on their developments.
I’ve always been a fierce advocate of women’s equality and knew the role that education, and education about money, played in mine so I knew that anything I’d do around money would have to support women that loved like me to shine and thrive.
