{"id":364414,"date":"2025-11-08T11:34:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/364414\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T11:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:34:17","slug":"credit-karmas-courtney-alevs-career-advice-budgeting-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/364414\/","title":{"rendered":"Credit Karma\u2019s Courtney Alev’s Career Advice & Budgeting Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bustle\u2019s Quick Question<\/a>, we ask women leaders all about career advice, from the best guidance they\u2019ve ever gotten to what they\u2019re still figuring out. Here, Courtney Alev, the senior director of product management at Intuit Credit Karma<\/a>, talks about holiday spending, her career journey, and why she refuses to have \u201csad desk lunches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtney Alev may have a busy schedule as the senior director of product management at Credit Karma, but you won\u2019t catch her having a \u201csad desk lunch.\u201d<\/a> Quickly grabbing bites of food while hovering over your keyboard? She\u2019s not a fan. Instead, she makes it a point to get up and moving during her lunch break.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important for me to reset, so if I\u2019m in the office, I\u2019ll go to the coffee bar or have a nice hallway chat with a co-worker, just as a way to get away from my laptop,\u201d Alev tells Bustle. \u201cWhen I\u2019m working from home, I\u2019ll walk my dog. It\u2019s a nice break from technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

After working in fintech for 15 years, Alev knows how to keep herself grounded, and she\u2019s also brimming with financial tips, including some for navigating the upcoming holiday season. New data from Intuit Credit Karma<\/a> found that half of Americans surveyed are worried about affording the holidays this year, and 40% are entering the season with existing debt.<\/p>\n

Intuit Credit Karma<\/p>\n

Instead of skipping all of your usual traditions, Alev recommends setting a realistic budget<\/a> for yourself. \u201cThe \u2018B word\u2019 can be very scary, but it’s just about looking at how much money you have coming in, figuring out how much you have to spend on things \u2014 like your necessities, bills, rent, groceries, and gas to get to work \u2014 and then you can take a look at what’s left over.\u201d <\/p>\n

From there, she recommends \u201cloud budgeting<\/a>,\u201d which involves transparently telling the people in your life what you can afford this season, and perhaps offering a few alternatives, too. Maybe each family member gets assigned one other person to buy a gift for, or you focus on sharing experiences versus tangible items. <\/p>\n

Here, Alev talks about her career path, getting ready for big meetings, and how she turns off her brain at the end of a long day.<\/p>\n

How do you get ready for a busy day?<\/p>\n

I cuddle my golden retriever, who\u2019s usually in bed next to me. If I\u2019m working from home, I\u2019ll make oatmeal or some eggs, then I\u2019ll do a morning workout, like a run around San Francisco or a Solidcore class<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also read that long commutes are correlated with higher stress<\/a> and lower quality of life, so I make the most of mine by getting in the right headspace. I do that by listening to work-related podcasts, like Pivot<\/a>. I\u2019m all about using my commute strategically.<\/p>\n

Do you ever get nervous before big meetings?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be lying if I said I didn\u2019t. To get ready, I love a good posture reset, so I\u2019ll sit up straight and stare off into the middle distance for 20 seconds. I also keep a running to-do list so I know what I\u2019m facilitating. Even just for day-to-day, I write a \u201ctop three\u201d list of things I need to focus on. Taking that thoughtful, intentional moment to re-prioritize my goals really helps.<\/p>\n

Have you ever doubted yourself?<\/p>\n

I doubt myself every day at some point. I\u2019ve had so many career hiccups, plenty of products that didn\u2019t work, and promotions I didn\u2019t get. We like to think of progress as a straight line, but I remind myself that it actually goes up and down.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite thing about your job?<\/p>\n

Helping people. Credit Karma serves well over 100 million members, and they come to us for so many things, like building their credit score or figuring out how to get out of debt. Even when the days are long, it makes me really excited that I can actually see the impact of my work.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your best career advice?<\/p>\n

For people in stressful or overwhelming periods of their lives, you have to find that resilience within you and recognize that it\u2019s also a great opportunity to grow. You can flip the mental script from \u201cthings are so crazy\u201d to \u201cwhat can I learn?\u201d It\u2019s a mindset that helps me show up in my career \u2014 and something I wish I had learned a little bit earlier.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

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From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person who\u2019s on TikTok, even if you aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Bustle\u2019s Quick Question, we ask women leaders all about career advice, from the best guidance they\u2019ve ever…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":364415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[8058,64,2563,176508,12730,5510,2252,1165,6459,255,176509,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-364414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-artwork","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-career","11":"tag-career-inspo","12":"tag-homepage","13":"tag-latest","14":"tag-life","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-money","17":"tag-personal-finance","18":"tag-quick-question","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115513869123867937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}