Nicole Azizah Newman

No Need to Compare — We're All In This Together

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:00:55 -0700

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. — Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa wasn't talking about a bank account. She was talking about the ache of feeling like you're the only one carrying what you're carrying. And that ache is exactly why comparison is such a trap — it convinces you that everyone else's path was easier, that your struggle is somehow proof of your failure, instead of proof of what you were up against.

I want to pull back the curtain on what a lot of us were actually up against.

The Weight Before the Wallet

Long before any of us make a single financial decision, many of us are already carrying something. Researchers at Child Trends have documented that economic hardship and parental divorce or separation are the most common adverse childhood experiences reported across the country — and they don't land evenly. Their data shows Black and Hispanic children experience at least one of these adverse experiences at meaningfully higher rates than white or Asian children. That's not a coincidence. That's a pattern with roots.

Add to that the reality of family structure. Analysis from the Center for American Progress shows roughly one in five mothers in this country is raising children alone, and that number climbs sharply for Black and Hispanic mothers compared to white and Asian mothers. Single...Read More

Victim Mentality or Wealth Building: The Choice Is Yours

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:48:37 -0700

One of the habits I love most about my faith is that it keeps me a student. Islam has never let me get comfortable in what I already know — it keeps pulling me back toward learning, toward growth, toward staying teachable. That love of learning is exactly why Tuesdays matter to me.
For about five years now, I've spent my Tuesdays with Ramit Sethi's Money for Couples podcast. Ramit introduces a new couple every week, and I've listened to roughly 90% of the episodes. Last Tuesday was no different — until it was.
The Couple Who Chose Blame
This particular couple said something that stopped me in my tracks: "We have ADHD, so we function differently about money." Fair enough — different doesn't mean wrong. But then the husband said, in the feedback portion, that Ramit "should have done his homework" on ADHD.
That's not a diagnosis talking. That's the blame game talking.
According to Verywell Mind, people play the blame game when they try to detach themselves from responsibility as their position feels threatened, shifting fault onto someone or something else instead of owning it. Sometimes it looks like finger-pointing. Sometimes it looks like denial. Sometimes it looks like quietly excluding or scapegoating whoever's easiest to blame. In this couple's case, it looked like handing their financial coach the responsibility for understanding a condition they hadn't even led with — and then holding him accountable for not reading their minds.
Locus of Control: The Real Diagnosis
Ramit noticed something before the feedback even...Read More

$1.6 Trillion in Buying Power only 4.7% of the Net Worth

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 02:59:08 -0700

The Selig Center for Economic Growth estimated that African American buying power reached $1.6 trillion in 2024 — about 9% of the nation's total buying power.
And yet, according to Census Bureau data on wealth by race, Black households make up 13.6% of all U.S. households but hold only 4.7% of the nation's total wealth — while White households, at 65.3% of all households, hold 80% of it. The median wealth gap between the two groups isn't close: Black median household wealth sits at roughly one-tenth of White median household wealth.
Sit with that for a second. We have the spending power. We do not have the net worth. That gap is not an accident, and it is not a mystery. It is erosion, happening in a few very specific, very human ways.
From Single Motherhood to Short-Term Thinking
I've already written about how single motherhood, on its own, becomes a wealth-erosion event — not because a mother fails, but because a household built around one income and one set of hands has to prioritize survival over strategy. Children have needs. Food, shelter, clothing, education — these aren't optional line items. They become the entire budget, whether or not there's anything left over to build with.
I know this because I had to make those hard choices myself. I watched my own mother give up her dreams to raise a child. And I chose to defer my own dreams while raising my children, because the education system had already failed them once, and stepping in myself was the best decision I could make for our future.
Single motherhood forces a parent into survival mode. But investing in my children's education was my version of the long-term "buy and hold" move. It cost me the most — in time and in money — of anything I've ever invested in. It also carries the highest...Read More

Tax Planning Is Not Just for the Wealthy

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:34:55 -0700

The U.S. tax code is progressive by design — lower brackets pay less, higher brackets pay more. The intent behind that structure is redistribution: take a little more from those who have more, and let it flow back to the people who need it. But here's the problem. Too many people who need that benefit never receive it, because they don't even file.
The IRS routinely sits on billions of dollars in unclaimed refunds simply because people assume they don't owe anything, don't earn "enough" to bother, or don't know a refund is waiting for them. For tax year 2021, more than a billion dollars went unclaimed by roughly 1.1 million taxpayers. For tax year 2022, the IRS estimated over a billion dollars remained unclaimed by more than 1.3 million taxpayers. These aren't wealthy people missing out on a loophole. These are everyday people leaving money on the table because they never filed.
That's the whole point of this post: tax planning is not a wealthy-person's game. It's for everyone. Especially those of us who feel like we can't afford to think about it.
Peter, Paul, and My Son's Tuition
Let me tell you about the year Paul lost.
My son's tuition at Green Street Friends School was $14,650. I had a $2,600 scholarship from the Children's Scholarship Fund, which still left a serious gap. That year, I took my entire tax refund — $5,500 — and put it straight toward the balance. Every dollar.
That was the year Paul stopped getting paid on time. Paul was the mortgage. Paul was the gas bill, the water bill, the electric bill. Paul got robbed to pay Peter — and Peter was my son's tuition.
If I had to do it all over again? I would make...Read More

Credit counseling does not work without CHANGE

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 07:33:59 -0700

In my experience, I concur with David Bach's assessment that credit counseling does not work effectively through non-profit organizations. Not all problems are actually credit problems. 6 years ago, I found out from the PHFA housing program that I was broke. To me, this came as a complete surprise. The agency said I had too many expenses for my income. Namely, the issue was my student loan DEBT. At the time, I owed just over $74,600 of student loan DEBT in a deferred student loan payment plan. According to the PHFA mortgage underwriting criteria $746 or 1% of my loan is factored into the DEBT to Income calculation. I said to the loan officer, "But I am not paying the loan. I'm in an IDR program". The loan officer stated "But you are responsible for the loan."
According to Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/money/unbanked-and-underbanked , Underbanked means "a person maintains an FDIC-insured checking or savings account but regularly uses alternative financial services such as payday lending. People who are underbanked may be obligated to frequently use costly financial services like check cashing, payday lending, and money transfer services because they have limited access to better banking options." At that time, I was the definition of underbanked. I had a bank account but no access to loans, home equity, credit cards and other financial...Read More

Education: The healthcare inequity

Wed, 12 May 2021 20:23:25 -0700

Health care costs especially in the age of COVID-19, continue to rise. The Peterson foundation , https://www.pgpf.org/.../why-are-americans-paying-more..., wrote "The United States spends significantly more on healthcare compared to other nations and such spending is expected to continue growing. That trend will exacerbate the nation’s growing debt and is particularly problematic because it does not result in better health outcomes. High costs of healthcare can also hinder the efforts to thwart public health crises like the COVID-19 outbreak as people are unable to pay for tests or treatments. In 2018, the United States spent about $3.6 trillion on healthcare, which averages to about $11,000 per person. Relative to the size of the economy, healthcare costs have increased over the past few decades, from 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1960 to 18 percent in 2018. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) project that by 2028, such costs will climb to $6.2 trillion, or about $18,000 per person, and will represent about 20 percent of GDP. However, those projections do not take into account the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; while the extent of the effect is still uncertain, testing and treatment costs are expected to be high and can potentially drive the cost of healthcare up."
Even before COVID-19, which glaringly showcased the racial disparities in health care, black professionals routinely noted unequal outcomes in the richest country on earth. In 2015, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/.../05/healthcare-black-latino-poor/, reported "The U.S. ranks dead last in life expectancy for men and second to last for women among the 17 wealthiest nations. Infant mortality in the U.S. ranks last among the most advanced countries in the world. And worse, among the 34 most developed countries, U.S. health care outcomes fell from 20th to 27th from 1990 to 2010. The world’s richest economy scores dismally no matter which health care measures we...Read More

Education: The Rotten Tree

Sat, 01 May 2021 03:03:02 -0700

I'm taking a moment to write about the profound, heartfelt commentary from Trevor Noah on the painful, double standard treatment of American policing regarding black people. If you haven't had a chance to watch the video, before reading anymore of my opinion here, please watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhhBocZnkoQ&feature=emb_logo. Trevor asks the question, "Where are the good apples?" in the police force to protect citizens from the "bad apples" who must be rooted out of the police system. He makes mention of the Dereck Chauvin trial where Dereck is on trial but there were actually 4 cops allowing the Dereck Chauvin to kill George Floyd. Those cops also allowed the death of Mr. Floyd to be recorded without any regard to human life. The end of Trevor's commentary is marked with a profound statement "It's not broken, it's working the way it's designed to work... We're not dealing with bad apples, we're dealing with a rotten tree..."
The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/what-police-departments-do-whistle-blowers/613687/, wrote "Police officers in the United States engage in all manner of bad behavior, such as excessive force, sexual misconduct, financial impropriety, and the manipulation of evidence. Holding them to account criminally, civilly, or professionally is extremely difficult, even in cases involving blatant malpractice and misconduct. Yet, even as bad cops evade punishment for wrongdoing, those who stand up to corruption, report negligence or abuse, or decline to comply with bad orders are frequently marginalized, demoted, or outright fired.
In my new reading of Atomic Habits by James Clear, page 33 wrote "Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs." The page goes on to say, "There are a set of beliefs and assumptions that shape the system, an identity behind the...Read More

Community Banking Solutions

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 07:26:58 -0700

My 2nd company taught me that business is feast or famine. Smart businesses use banks as financial partners to survive the famine cycle of business. Unfortunately, during my 14 years of owning Newman Networks, I didn't have the process of putting myself on payroll. I assumed that I needed to make $250,000 before I could implement a payroll system. My latest company, Innovative Capital and Consulting Group LLC started with an independent agreement contact with LYFT and the business expenses of a "company" vehicle. This time, I am determined to improve business processes with payroll in the beginning. I know the success of this company is dependent on the owners' financial discipline. On my wealth building journey, I stumbled across the book, "Profit First" by Mike Michalowicz . Mike simplified business in financial terms that are easily understood. "Profit First" is the same wealth building concept as "Pay Yourself FIRST". In this company, I EXPECT that the business, even in start up mode, should sustain the business owner. In the 2 years since I started the company, profiting first has not always been the case. Systems and processes should be in place anyway so the company CAN pay the business owner, set aside profit and still reinvest income in marketing strategies. The book STRONGLY suggests finding two local banking partners to implement the "Profit First" system. Well, that is easier said than done! I have been looking for banking partners for 5 weeks now.
This is what I learned about the community banks called credit unions:
1) Philadelphia Federal Credit Union - advertises free checking but charges a $10.00 monthly account fee on balances less than $100.00
2) American Heritage Federal Credit Union - no minimum fee for business accounts. This credit union can set up multiple sub accounts as per the profit first system and...Read More

Education: What comes after COVID-19?

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 03:16:35 -0800

The United States is trying, desperately, to get back to pre-COVID-19 economy with students in school. From an information technology perspective, it is quite disappointing that we have not shifted our thinking. COVID-19 asked us to integrate technology so more students can experience distance learning, and the cost savings associated, but the leadership does not have the foresight to ask "What's next?". COVID-19 is not a hoax, as the president suggested, nor will it "just go away". Because we are trying to "live with it" and get back to "normal", so far, 239,842 (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html) Americans have died from it. This is a difference of almost 9,000 since I started writing this article on Monday. Right now, Europe is bracing for a 2nd lockdown, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-europe-second-wave-lockdowns/, where the coronavirus caseload had previously been "under control". We have yet to learn 1) without a vaccine, the virus is in control 2) COVID-19 caused a disruption so we must ADJUST to new needs for working families.
Urban education was not fine before COVID-19 and is not fine during COVID-19. We have the opportunity to make it better post COVID-19 with visionary leadership. The question remains "What's next?" According to the NIH (National Institutes of Health), SARS, MERS and Coronavirus are linked. The website, https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/covid-19, states "COVID-19 research efforts build on earlier research on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which also are caused by coronaviruses. MERS is a viral respiratory disease that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in September 2012 and has since spread to 27 countries, according to the World Health Organization. Some people infected with MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) develop severe...Read More

Social Distancing: The new economy is HERE (and its not all bad either)....

Wed, 27 May 2020 10:42:37 -0700

Remember the good ole days? You know, when Governor Wolf announced a short 2 week social distancing shut down to get over the Coronavirus hump. As I recall, the distancing began March 13th with a scheduled end of March 26th. At that time, public school teachers and government employees "deserved" a paid break, while everyone else scrambled. In Pennsylvania, those 2 weeks turned into the rest of the school year as COVID-19 infections rapidly increased. At day 60 of social distancing, we are still far from a steady decline not strong enough to "get back to normal".
The purpose of technology, to me, is to make the world more efficient. Efficiency increases productivity and decreases waste. From a technology perspective, WHY go back to "normal" aka inefficient? Let's just ask for the sake of mother earth and our precious ozone, the very oxygen that keeps us alive, is it better to pollute our air, streams, rivers and kill the trees through de-forestation? What necessities have we been able to live without? What new appreciation have we gained? For the socialist that I am, can we FINALLY admit that internet access, the connection necessary for students to learn online, is a public good?
As a former Lyft driver (yeah, that model went out the window when people began working at home), I drove many passengers very close and very far to fill their prescriptions. In the new economy, prescriptions are delivered rather than picked up. I saw that trend as Instacart suddenly had daily Black Friday-like spikes in demand. It is way more efficient for drivers to deliver prescriptions, like just Amazon.com increased profitability by blowing the brick and mortar department stores into bankruptcy. The...Read More