Michela Allocca left the corporate world to found personal finance brand Break Your Budget.
She grew her audience on TikTok and Instagram, which led to brand deals and digital product sales.
Aloka invested her increased income, achieving a seven-figure net worth through disciplined savings.
When Michela Allocca started working in the corporate world, she quickly became disillusioned.
The finance major, who graduated in 2017, began her career as a business analyst at John Hancock. Two years later, she switched careers to work at an investment consulting firm.
“This is my proverbial dream job,” the 30-year-old told Business Insider. “I thought this was going to be my job, and once I got into it, I realized, not only did I hate this, but I hated this industry. I couldn’t see a path forward that made sense for me.”
For “analytical people,” as Alloka himself describes it, content creation isn’t exactly for paper. “I went to school for finance. I work in finance. I don’t have an eye for design.”
However, with the encouragement of a friend who had built a social media following in the health and fitness space, Aloka began posting about personal finance, and her friends increasingly asked her about the topic.
“I was like, ‘Okay, she’s making money talking about health and fitness online. Why don’t I give it a try and see if I can eventually turn it into anything?'” Allocca launched her brand on Instagram in 2019. “For the first year or so, nothing really came of it. I used it as a creative outlet to find fulfillment outside of work.”
Allocca’s side project “Break Your Budget” gained momentum after expanding to TikTok, where it has surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She benefited from timing. In 2020, discoverability is higher because there are fewer creators on the platform, she said.
Also, “There aren’t a lot of women talking about personal finance online, especially women in their twenties, so I don’t have a lot of competition. But I think the other layer is delivery— What I’m talking about and how I’ve talked about this. “
She focuses on creating content that she personally wanted as a 20-something woman to manage money: easy-to-understand, actionable advice.
“It’s just so, so simple and straightforward,” she said. “I do think it’s really resonating with people.”
Aloka began her career in Boston and currently resides in Chicago.Contributed by Michaela Alloka
Her followers grew from a few hundred followers in 2019 to about 1,000 in 2020, and by 2021, her follower count snowballed to over 200,000. Since then, brands have sought partnerships.
In the early days, brands offered about $1,000 for a TikTok video and profile link. If she books a collaboration once a week, “it basically matches what my company makes,” Alloka said. She also launched a budget template, which she sells through a link in her bio.
As sales and brand deals increase, the additional revenue starts to become significant.
This momentum continues until the end of 2021. That year, she said she made about $100,000 from “breaking the budget.” That was more money than she made at her day job, giving her the confidence to leave corporate America. In April 2022, she joined Break Your Budget full-time. Since then, her company’s revenue has quadrupled.
Today, Allocca’s revenue is roughly evenly split between two main revenue streams: About 50% comes from brand and financial partnerships, which tend to pay more but are less predictable. The other 50% comes from digital products, including her expense tracker and financial independence calculator, which provide monthly recurring revenue.
Recently, she added affiliate marketing revenue and YouTube AdSense, which accounted for about 10% of her revenue last year.
Despite the increase in income, Aloka says she hasn’t made any changes to her lifestyle, which is the key to her growing wealth: “No matter how much your income increases, you have to avoid lifestyle changes or you’re not actually going to make progress.”
While working for the company and working on a “break budget” on the side, she didn’t use any of her business income to cover her daily expenses. Instead, she invested: “If I make $4,000 a month from brand trading and set aside $1,000 for taxes, the other $3,000 will go into my Roth IRA and brokerage account. I don’t touch it.”
When she quits her job in 2022 and quadruples her income, her expenses remain essentially the same, even though she has the ability to spend more.
Alloka published her book Own Your Money in 2023.Contributed by Michaela Alloka
Her investing strategy is simple: She first focuses on maximizing her retirement accounts, which are invested in target-date funds. She invests the extra income in a taxable brokerage account using broad market index funds and ETFs.
“I don’t have anything trendy in my portfolio,” she said. “I don’t own any crypto, I don’t own real estate, and I don’t plan on doing that in the near future. I just want to get as much money in the market as possible and diversify as much as possible.”
She also keeps about six months’ worth of expenses in a high-yield savings account as an emergency fund, as well as a small amount of cash earmarked for purchasing potential real estate when the right opportunity arises. Beyond that, she invests almost all her money.
According to screenshots seen by Business Insider, she has more than seven figures invested between her retirement and brokerage accounts.
Ultimately, she attributes her net worth growth to focusing on making more income.
“I was able to reach these big numbers because I increased my income outside of my corporate job,” she said. “It’s not the sexiest thing — not everyone wants a side hustle or a startup — but that’s the biggest motivator.”
