31-year-old used her $1,200 stimulus check to start a ‘cash stuffing’ business—it’s on track to bring in $1 million this year

By January 2021, Jasmine Taylor knew she needed to adjust her mindset around money.

The now 31-year-old from Amarillo, Texas, had barely made it through the holiday shopping season the month before. “I just remember wondering how I was going to make it through the next month,” she tells CNBC Make It.

Taylor had recently lost her full-time job and was getting by on side hustles, delivering prescriptions for pharmacies and food for DoorDash. She held about $60,000 in student debt and another $9,000 in medical and credit card debt.

So, like just about everyone else looking to finally figure something out, she went to YouTube, where she discovered “cash stuffing,” a money management strategy that changed her life. “I found cash budgeting and I literally stuck to it,” Taylor says. “I would only spend what I had in cash.”

She decided to hold herself accountable by posting on TikTok, which at the time was “mostly kids dancing,” Taylor remembers.

Posts of her managing her finances by stuffing cash into envelopes soon went viral.

In the first year of getting her money in order, Taylor was able to pay off $23,000 in student loan debt and wipe out her medical debt and credit card balance. Once she established a big following (she currently has 628,000 followers in TikTok), she turned cash stuffing into a business — Baddies and Budgets — through which she sells money courses, budgeting supplies and other accessories.

In 2022, the business pulled in about $850,000. This year, it’s on track to clear $1 million.

Old-school budgeting: ‘My grandmother used to do that!’
When Taylor began cash stuffing, she operated on a zero-based budget, which is the most common option among cash stuffers, she says. “That means you start your budget with whatever your paycheck number is, and you give every dollar a place to go, down to zero.”

Once she has a plan in place for the month, she divvies up her money in the form of physical cash. “I put aside money for bills in envelopes. I put money aside for variable expenses, which is weekly spending,” she says. “Then you also put money aside for ‘sinking funds,’ which are like little short-term or long-term savings accounts.” Those can include an emergency fund, money for car maintenance or money earmarked for the holidays.

What’s left over goes toward the future, either paying down debt or building up long-term savings. Taylor and her followers “stuff” the appropriate proportion of cash inside individual envelopes, or in labeled binders or cash wallets