If you want to run a successful company, you need to have a strong understanding of finances. This means getting disciplined about your investing and finding strategies that make saving more fun. Tori Dunlap dedicated her career to financial literacy after her first experience with entrepreneurship.
At just nine years old, Tori invested in a local vending machine and later sold the business to pay for college. After graduating, she took on a full-time marketing job to save up $100,000 to invest in her next company.
Her savings journey caught the attention of major publications and inspired her to launch the brand Her First $100K to help others achieve the same. Today, Tori is a New York Times bestselling author and a podcast host. Plus, her company educates more than five million women yearly on financial literacy and business building.
4 key money management principles entrepreneurs should follow
Want to learn from Tori’s success? Follow her advice for saving and managing money to boost your financial literacy so you can run your business efficiently.
1. Clarify your needs
The key to managing and saving your money is understanding why you need that money in the first place. If you have a clear vision or goal you’re working toward, it will make building wealth much easier. Making money for the sake of having it won’t keep you motivated, and it won’t help you make informed decisions about where to invest your money.
“Start by having therapy with your money. Understanding where your financial hang ups are, what’s going on in your brain and body, when you try to spend money or when you are trying to ask for more money is key,” Tori says.
2. Have a positive money mindset
Accept the fact that you’re going to have to learn—and unlearn—some negative ideas you have about money. “Money is a learned skill, just like anything else, and you’re going to be bad at it. It’s going to be uncomfortable and feel very vulnerable to get better at, but give yourself grace and understand that you’re learning this skill, and like anything else, it takes time,” Tori says.
While you save money over time, it’s important to maintain a positive outlook and remember what you’re working toward.
Taking on a positive mindset will help you build wealth faster while maintaining an upbeat attitude about yourself. Consider the beliefs you have surrounding money, and make it less intimidating or taboo.
3. Save slowly, but consistently
Before launching her brand, Tori was saving approximately 27% of her take home pay. “That money was either going immediately to savings or to investments,” Tori says. Tori also put away any extra money she was making from side-gig work as well.
Throughout her 20s, Tori continued to put away a consistent amount of money each month. Today, she has automatic payments set up to move money from her daily account into her savings so she doesn’t even have to think twice about it.
“Diets don’t work both for physical health, but also for financial health. If you tell me I can’t have fried chicken, all I’m going to want is fried chicken. So when it comes to money, finding that balance is important to achieving your goals, saving, investing, paying off your debt, but also finding ways to spend your money on things that you love,” Tori says.
4. Choose strategic investments
As you save up your money, it’s important to choose investment accounts that will work for you. Managing your money is easier when the accounts are growing on their own.
“I invested as soon as I could, I started maxing out my Roth IRA. Any business owner or want-to-be business owner out there should take advantage of those tax advantaged accounts—things like your 401k, your IRA, and your SEP IRA,” Tori says. To make the most of your money, you’ll want to find the best places to invest your money so it multiplies all on its own.
Having money will give you the freedom to explore new ideas, jump on business opportunities, or follow your dream career. Saving money doesn’t have to feel impossible, and it can start with a small percentage of your take home pay and a smart investment account.
Discover investment accounts for entrepreneurs and some of the best money decisions Tori ever made by tuning in to the full Shopify Masters episode.
