There are some dark days when I do receive some racist mail or emails. But overall the response to me has been very positive. Readers relate to me not just as an African-American, but as an American trying to make sense of her personal finance, just like them.

My grandmother's grandparents were slaves. My grandmother Big Mama would tell me about the stories she heard as a child growing up in the shadows of a North Carolina plantation. It's only been in my lifetime that blacks have had the right to vote, live in certain areas or hold certain jobs. It is with this black history that I write about the financial challenges African-Americans still have.

My writing is definitely influenced by and speaks to African-Americans because that is who I am. I'm black. I'm a black woman. I'm a black mother, wife, churchgoer, etc. I am the legacy of slavery.

There are some dark days when I do receive some racist mail or emails. But overall the response to me has been very positive. Readers relate to me not just as an African-American, but as an American trying to make sense of her personal finance, just like them.

So many people joke that life with me - a professed lifelong penny pincher - must be tough. But [my husband] is a great money manager. And he helps me let go of my fear of spending while still being frugal.

My Big Mama is my No. 1 financial role model. Much of my advice stems from what she taught me. She never made more than $13,000 a year, yet she paid off her home before she retired. She saved money from every paycheck. She taught me to be skeptical. It makes me cry to think that I'm a nationally syndicated personal finance columnist for one of the world's best newspapers and my core advice comes from my black grandmother who was a nurse's aide with just a high school education.

I love teaching people how to handle their money and I've built a brand on that skill.