Speaker 1: What's up? B a Fam? It's Friday, which means you
Speaker 1: know what time it is. It's time for the b
Speaker 1: a qa A the b a qa? What to say?
Speaker 1: The v a qa with manday, the v a qa
Speaker 1: the ba qaa? What's up? B a fam? If you
Speaker 1: couldn't tell, I am not in my usual playroom slash office.
Speaker 1: Mommy has her own space this week. I'm feeling very fancy,
Speaker 1: very cute. I'm actually in Houston. I don't know when
Speaker 1: this show is going to air, but I'm here for Afrotech,
Speaker 1: so very excited. I haven't been to afro Tech. I
Speaker 1: was trying to figure this out. Have I been to Afrotech?
Speaker 1: Have I not been to afro Tech? If I have
Speaker 1: been to Protech. It has been many years, but I
Speaker 1: have known Morgan Devon, the founder of lavity, for over
Speaker 1: a decade or known of her. I actually interviewed her
Speaker 1: for a story when I was at Yahoo Finance a
Speaker 1: gajillion years ago. But anyway, it's a great little full
Speaker 1: circle moment. And if you can't tell by my Airbnb,
Speaker 1: I'm trying really hard to hide it, but I am.
Speaker 1: Actually you guys can see it on YouTube if I
Speaker 1: pan the camera just the slightest amount. Wait for it,
Speaker 1: wait for it. Listen, listen, listen, listen, Linda. Some things
Speaker 1: you know, some air and some airbnb hosts just don't.
Speaker 1: They don't photograph the entire place. They they just photographed
Speaker 1: the three the three walls that or I guess, most
Speaker 1: appealing to the average viewer on the Internet. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you just got to kick a gamble on what that
Speaker 1: fourth wall is gonna hold. And I gambled, y'all, And
Speaker 1: some may say I won, and about what how much
Speaker 1: did we lose? By? Forty six percent of us may
Speaker 1: say that I lost. It doesn't matter. I'm here, it's fine,
Speaker 1: I'm safe, and we're gonna do b AQA. So let's
Speaker 1: get into our first question. Oh wait, wait, wait, God,
Speaker 1: without Tiffany here, I like, I forget our disclaimer all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm gonna get my ass sued on myself,
Speaker 1: but at least I remember this time. Be a fan.
Speaker 1: Please don't sue me. Okay, please, No, this is b
Speaker 1: a qa. We have I have God, this is so
Speaker 1: awkward when I say we instead of I. Man, this
Speaker 1: is b a QA, And I am not sure a
Speaker 1: financial planner. I'm not your career coach. I am not
Speaker 1: your investment advisor. I am just some lady on the
Speaker 1: internet that, for some reason is so blessed to have
Speaker 1: this platform. So take this for funzies, get your salt
Speaker 1: shakers out, shake them on up, and let's go. Our
Speaker 1: first question comes from a listener who wants to remain anonymous,
Speaker 1: so I'm just going to call her Carrie. Carrie says,
Speaker 1: I am thirty eight and I recently found out I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1: I'm living in Washington, DC with my husband. We make
Speaker 1: about three hundred thousand dollars per year. We have six
Speaker 1: months of emergency savings and own a few rental properties.
Speaker 1: We don't actually use that income. Okay, Carrie, come through. However,
Speaker 1: I do not have any maternity leave at my job.
Speaker 1: And there's the other. There's the foot dropping. My question
Speaker 1: is what is your advice on how I should prepare
Speaker 1: financially for baby? How much should I set aside for
Speaker 1: my three months maternity leave while I don't have any income?
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that we should consider financially? Thank you? Okay, Stacey. Wait,
Speaker 1: that's not the name I gave you, Carrie. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: forgot my own fake names. Carrie, Carrie, Carrie. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: having just done this myself, I'm gonna take a guess
Speaker 1: here and say that you probably work for yourself because
Speaker 1: even you know, well, I'm just gonna say you work
Speaker 1: for yourself. If you do work for an employer, they
Speaker 1: are at least mandated to offer twelve weeks of leave,
Speaker 1: just not paid. So maybe you are getting that twelve
Speaker 1: weeks of leave, but you've got to pay your own way.
Speaker 1: So regardless of the reason, that is tough. But I
Speaker 1: fully identify with it because I've of course had my
Speaker 1: son a little over a year ago, my second baby,
Speaker 1: and at the time I was an entrepreneur, so it
Speaker 1: was my first time bankrolling my own maternity leave, and
Speaker 1: ah man, it's way more stressful because you just don't
Speaker 1: have to calculate the finances as much into having a
Speaker 1: baby when you, of course are working for an employer
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, I'm just going to get my
Speaker 1: same paycheck, you know, or close to it. So the
Speaker 1: first challenge is to understand what your monthly your monthly
Speaker 1: expenses are going to be and how much of that
Speaker 1: needs to be contributed from you. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: you and your husbands have a healthy savings account, you're
Speaker 1: going to need at least three months of that savings
Speaker 1: right to cover your essentials over the next few months.
Speaker 1: But I would also take a look at your insurance policy.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you've got really good benefits, family benefits,
Speaker 1: especially for those post natal care visits that you're going
Speaker 1: to have baby well visits now because of Obamacare, Thank
Speaker 1: the Lord, protected at all costs. There are really generally
Speaker 1: good benefits for baby and moms. Let's see. But the
Speaker 1: early expenses of having a baby is not the baby
Speaker 1: stuff like for at least in my experience, the early
Speaker 1: expenses is how much of the smart, fiscally responsible things
Speaker 1: that you would do when you're not going on zero
Speaker 1: hours of sleep, when your partner is not also going
Speaker 1: on zero hours of sleep. You guys have the benefit.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you this is your first baby, so
Speaker 1: you don't also have another little one to chase around,
Speaker 1: which can elevate the exhaustion and stress to a higher degree.
Speaker 1: But still you're not going to be your best version
Speaker 1: of yourself. I mean, you're going to be this brand new,
Speaker 1: incredible mother, which is of course an amazing version of yourself.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like the same choices that you
Speaker 1: would have made pre baby. You'll find out on your own,
Speaker 1: but they tend to change. We all think we know
Speaker 1: everything and then you have a baby and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what I really would like to order? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Taco Bell at ten thirty in the evening,
Speaker 1: even though it's like thirty dollars with fees going to
Speaker 1: be to Tacos, Like, we just make these choices, right,
Speaker 1: So I would leave whatever room and the budget you
Speaker 1: have right now for like groceries, you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of like even the types of groceries that you're buying,
Speaker 1: just factor in more delivery. You can also go ahead
Speaker 1: and ask friends and family instead of baby gifts, you know,
Speaker 1: give you gift cards to Uber Eats or door Dash
Speaker 1: or any of those services. Another thing to consider, not
Speaker 1: even like, especially if you're an entrepreneur, is that three
Speaker 1: months is not enough for like a proper give. It's
Speaker 1: not just about bonding with the baby. Three months is
Speaker 1: just simply not enough for us as women to get
Speaker 1: back to our base level. It's hard to under it's
Speaker 1: hard to understate the massive amounts of changes your body
Speaker 1: is going through to create this human life, and then
Speaker 1: when that human life leaves your body and goes out
Speaker 1: into the world, your body has to recover. It is
Speaker 1: a trauma, Okay, it is a beautiful trauma, and we
Speaker 1: love it, right, we love it. However, you are going
Speaker 1: to need lots of time to recrup rate. And I
Speaker 1: just don't I don't just mean physically, although that is
Speaker 1: true if it's your first baby, you're still relatively young,
Speaker 1: like you might bounce back quote unquote faster, but the
Speaker 1: mental toll, the psychological toll, trying to juggle, even if
Speaker 1: you don't run your own business, but just trying to
Speaker 1: juggle a nine to five with motherhood. Childcare expenses are wild.
Speaker 1: You live in Washington, d C. So I know that.
Speaker 1: You know that, So I hope you have a childcare plan.
Speaker 1: So I would say, whatever you think you need for
Speaker 1: three months of income, I would just do fifty percent more.
Speaker 1: So if that is fifteen thousand dollars, then make it
Speaker 1: twenty two five hundred. And that for me, is just
Speaker 1: giving you extra wiggle room for the what if. It's
Speaker 1: also giving you some wiggle room for what if you
Speaker 1: don't want to get back at it after just three months?
Speaker 1: What if you want more flexibility. What if you decide
Speaker 1: you're not ready to send the kid to daycare or
Speaker 1: whatever childcare you have planned. I mean to be honest,
Speaker 1: in an ideal world, as a new mom, I would
Speaker 1: this may sound insane, but have a year's worth of
Speaker 1: income banked. It's completely unrealistic for so many parents out there.
Speaker 1: I get it. But in an ideal world, and you
Speaker 1: are a woman of means, I see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You have this great income, you guys are saving, You've
Speaker 1: got your rental property income that you haven't been touching.
Speaker 1: If at least you know you've got it there, you
Speaker 1: have some security and safety when it comes to making
Speaker 1: the best choices for you where you're at psychologically, and
Speaker 1: then also for your baby and spending time with them.
Speaker 1: And you know myself, I think I've talked about it
Speaker 1: on the show. How I prepared financially for my three
Speaker 1: months of leave. I set aside three months three and
Speaker 1: a half months basically of income. However, it wasn't even
Speaker 1: the baby that caused some issues, but I had a
Speaker 1: lot of health crises in my family and was doing
Speaker 1: a lot more traveling, and also underestimated the mental toll
Speaker 1: of that postpartum period, combined with having another child to
Speaker 1: look after who I of course, you know, love deeply
Speaker 1: combined with try and write a book, combined with trying
Speaker 1: to run a business, combined with family drama. And I
Speaker 1: just wasn't able to produce at the level that I
Speaker 1: had anticipated. So I say all that to say, more
Speaker 1: is more, Okay, So if you have more, I would
Speaker 1: be setting aside at least enough to cover you while
Speaker 1: you're gone. Oh and this is the other thing I
Speaker 1: forgot to say, but if you're someone who's running your
Speaker 1: own business, I would double I know that again it
Speaker 1: sounds a little aggressive, but getting back to work after
Speaker 1: three months off for an entrepreneur some depending on what
Speaker 1: your business is like. It's not just like turning on
Speaker 1: a switch and all of a sudden money may start
Speaker 1: coming back in. You may need to get back out there,
Speaker 1: start warming up clients and running sales funnels or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you're selling, and you know, getting back
Speaker 1: out there to get to where and you may not
Speaker 1: be working full time, So be real with yourself in
Speaker 1: terms of how long it will take you to ramp
Speaker 1: back up to earning what you need minimum to support
Speaker 1: your lifestyle. And then you may decide, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to have a little bit more set aside. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I think that's all I got, Carrie. I wish you
Speaker 1: so much luck and enjoy, enjoy and enjoy. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like there's nothing like there's first few months as a mama,
Speaker 1: and it just it gets different. I mean, I will
Speaker 1: say it gets better in a lot of ways. Less challenge.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's always challenging, but I mean it's never
Speaker 1: going to be the way it is when they're just
Speaker 1: a little bean and you can just they just lay
Speaker 1: in your chest like a little loaf of warm bread
Speaker 1: and it's just like the best feeling. And I hope
Speaker 1: that you have a healthy delivery. I hope that you
Speaker 1: are well cared for, be you know, get that husband
Speaker 1: advocating for you, and make sure that the doctors are
Speaker 1: listening to you and paying attention. Unfortunately, in this country,
Speaker 1: being a black woman in labor is a risk factor,
Speaker 1: and I just wish, I wish the most for you
Speaker 1: and that little baby and your growing family. And thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sending in a question. All Right,
Speaker 1: I will be right back with one more question. Stay tuned,
Speaker 1: ba fam. All Right, VAFAM. I am back and I've
Speaker 1: got a question from email brand a Vision podcast at
Speaker 1: gmail if you want to get your answer your questions answered.
Speaker 1: This question came from Crystal, who says, Mandy, thank you
Speaker 1: for the episode Not America. To me. It helped me
Speaker 1: with my ongoing anxiety since November fifth. You're welcome, Crystal
Speaker 1: helped me with my anxiety to being able to come
Speaker 1: here and just pour out my heart to y'all and
Speaker 1: let you know what I was feeling in the moment.
Speaker 1: Crystal says, sometimes I feel like so many of us
Speaker 1: have our heads in the sand about what's to come.
Speaker 1: It will not be like twenty sixteen. It will be
Speaker 1: so much worse. For the sake of my and my
Speaker 1: family's sanity, I really want to leave this country. You're
Speaker 1: not alone, Crystal, so many people have been feeling the same.
Speaker 1: Can you guys do an episode explaining what could happen
Speaker 1: with our money and investments. I remember what my great
Speaker 1: grandmother said about life during the depression. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: depression for black folks. She said, we were used to
Speaker 1: not having anything. Part of that not having was also
Speaker 1: not having money in banks and stocks because we weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to during that time. However we do now. Many
Speaker 1: of us have our lives tied up in iras, mutual funds, banks,
Speaker 1: and stocks. If those things were to crash or something similar,
Speaker 1: how do we ever recover in a system that is
Speaker 1: against us? What do we do? Also? I can't help
Speaker 1: but think about the Handmaid's Tale and how women weren't
Speaker 1: able to access their money in banks. Can you guys
Speaker 1: help with any guidance? Thanks for all you do, Okay,
Speaker 1: Crystal Baby? What I love about this email is that
Speaker 1: our email inbox. You know what I'm going to give you, guys,
Speaker 1: free rein because sometimes we need a place to deposit
Speaker 1: all of our worst fears when our partners are sick
Speaker 1: of hearing this doom scroll and dooms you know, ID
Speaker 1: eight And that's really what anxiety is about. It's about
Speaker 1: anticipating an outcome that we can't really predict and often
Speaker 1: can't control. But I think it's useful sometimes to just
Speaker 1: purge all of the what ifs. Okay, But then I
Speaker 1: need you to just leave them over there because it's
Speaker 1: not going to serve you, Crystal. And like I know,
Speaker 1: so many of us are feeling the same thing. And
Speaker 1: when you wrote this email that was only a couple
Speaker 1: of days from when I'm recording my answer. And I
Speaker 1: can feel the ache, I can feel the desperation, I
Speaker 1: can feel the fear really behind what you're talking about here,
Speaker 1: the handsmade tale Handmaid's Tale reference, like those memes are
Speaker 1: going crazy. They have been ever since, you know, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: maybe even before. I can also feel like you're focusing
Speaker 1: or trying to focus on something that you actually can control,
Speaker 1: which is your finances to a certain extent, right And
Speaker 1: I think the best thing I can offer you right
Speaker 1: now is a reminder of the safety the one am
Speaker 1: I looking for the guardrails that are in place so
Speaker 1: that your investments and your savings and your earnings arecatively safe,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on what happens in the economy. So
Speaker 1: let me just start with the banks. So I can't
Speaker 1: imagine any of you guys are saving your money anywhere
Speaker 1: besides an FDIC insured bank account. If you are saving
Speaker 1: your money anywhere except for if FDIC insured bank account,
Speaker 1: listen up right now. With FDIC insurance, your money is
Speaker 1: federally protected up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per individual per account. Okay, So let's say you and
Speaker 1: your partner have you each have a separate bank account
Speaker 1: you're at, you know, at a institution like you both
Speaker 1: get that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of coverage.
Speaker 1: I'm going to post a link just to remind y'all
Speaker 1: of FDIC insurance how it works, how to make sure
Speaker 1: your bank is FDIC insured. But that should give some
Speaker 1: peace of mind now it is federally insured and at
Speaker 1: a time when crystal for sure you ain't trust in
Speaker 1: this government. I will note that the cap on that
Speaker 1: federal deposit insurance that ount has risen under democratically elected
Speaker 1: or democrat. They've all been democratic. What am I trying
Speaker 1: to say? Democratic presidents of Democrats. I think it was
Speaker 1: Obama who pushed it to two hundred and fifty max.
Speaker 1: And that's where it's been. So is there a chance
Speaker 1: that the Department of Treasury under a Trump reign may
Speaker 1: lower that? I would say so, I don't. I would
Speaker 1: hope not, because all those Litley economy voters who voted
Speaker 1: for him, they did it for the economy right. And
Speaker 1: FDIC insurance was specifically introduced to prevent another bank crisis,
Speaker 1: and it absolutely came in handy during the two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight crisis. I think it was at that time
Speaker 1: that the insurance level was raised under Obama to the
Speaker 1: two fifty, so you have that. So your investment should
Speaker 1: be covered or likely are covered under Security Investment Protection cover,
Speaker 1: which is going to protect any funds that are held
Speaker 1: within a brokerage that suddenly fails. And what I want
Speaker 1: to distinguish here is that no investing always comes with risk.
Speaker 1: And the reason they say that is because even SIPC
Speaker 1: coverage does not protect you from losses that you might
Speaker 1: incur from swings in the market or downturns in the market.
Speaker 1: Downturns in the market, however, come with the territory of investing,
Speaker 1: and that's why having an investing strategy is so so
Speaker 1: important and it's why here at Brand Ambition, we are
Speaker 1: big on y'all finding a financial advisor who can at
Speaker 1: least even if it's a one time sit down, based
Speaker 1: on your time horizon, based on your tolerance for risk,
Speaker 1: based on any goals that you have, short, medium, long
Speaker 1: term goals. They will help you develop an investing strategy
Speaker 1: where you're going to make sure that you're not over
Speaker 1: leveraging yourself. You're not getting in a situation where market's
Speaker 1: downturned and all of a sudden your shirtless and have
Speaker 1: nowhere to live now. I highly if you're someone who
Speaker 1: has an IRA for a one k, you know you're
Speaker 1: just investing, maybe in a wroth on the side or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's very unlikely that even with a market downturn, you
Speaker 1: would have all your money tied up in that account.
Speaker 1: But a financial advisor can make sure. It can make
Speaker 1: sure again put in place some guardrails that you can
Speaker 1: control that will at least give you peace of mind
Speaker 1: that Okay, let's say you're really worried about the stock market,
Speaker 1: so you want to You're really not tolerant of any losses.
Speaker 1: They will keep you up at night. You will go
Speaker 1: into an anxiety spiral. You can't cope, so you want
Speaker 1: to have more of your money in cash. This is
Speaker 1: also a strategy that the older you get, the more
Speaker 1: the more it makes sense to have less money tied
Speaker 1: up in the market and more money in cash reserves.
Speaker 1: CDs like those types of deposit accounts that have that
Speaker 1: fall under that FDIC insurance guideline and are going to
Speaker 1: be solid. So anyhow, the point is you'll develop a
Speaker 1: strategy that is in line with your risk tolerance and
Speaker 1: how much time you want to be investing for. But
Speaker 1: let's if you're doing it on your own, then I
Speaker 1: would double check your investments and just make sure that
Speaker 1: you're not too over indexed in stocks. The goal rule
Speaker 1: of thumb is to take the number one hundred and
Speaker 1: subtract your age from it, and that will give you
Speaker 1: your stock to bonds ratio. So I'm thirty seven, so
Speaker 1: ostensibly that means I should have sixty three percent of
Speaker 1: my portfolio in stocks and thirty seven percent in bonds.
Speaker 1: And I personally am invested in some growth funds, like
Speaker 1: some passive passive investment funds that are automatically shifting my
Speaker 1: investments over time. And then I do have some accounts
Speaker 1: that are just held in a Vanguard brokerage account. And
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I have a pretty high tolerance
Speaker 1: for risk, especially because I'm on the I'm younger, I
Speaker 1: have what thirty something years of investing before traditional retirement age,
Speaker 1: and so I am completely invested in stock index funds ETFs.
Speaker 1: Things like that. About the market in general, no matter
Speaker 1: what president has been in power. The research is clear,
Speaker 1: the data is clear that the stock market tends to
Speaker 1: bounce back and on the whole even with different even
Speaker 1: with wars and different presidents at different presidencies and you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of natural disasters and all of that. The
Speaker 1: market does have these times when it goes down, but
Speaker 1: it tends to go back up, down and up, down
Speaker 1: and up, down and up. And it's really hard unless
Speaker 1: it's like, if you're looking at the stock for X,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm sure that has gone up and down
Speaker 1: since Elon Musk has infiltrated the Republican Party and the
Speaker 1: White House. Now you'll also see, you know, the stock
Speaker 1: market I think surged after Trump came into office. And
Speaker 1: like it's no question that Wall Street businesses, business owners,
Speaker 1: big billionaires, big money, they wanted Trump to win because
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they anticipate he's going to make
Speaker 1: taxes lower for them, that he's going to make it
Speaker 1: easier for them to remove regulations and barriers that stop
Speaker 1: them from doing the business things that they want to do,
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk building his rockets in random desert land
Speaker 1: and national wildlife reserves in Texas and not wanting to
Speaker 1: have to deal with regulations that say you can't knock
Speaker 1: down that poor bird nest and other you know, So
Speaker 1: a base of Jeff Bezos, for example, like this is
Speaker 1: just an example. He may say, like, oh, under Biden's
Speaker 1: Biden's administration, we paid this crazy tax on cardboard because
Speaker 1: of how much card were we put into the world.
Speaker 1: So under Trump, maybe like Trump will reduce that cardboard tax.
Speaker 1: That's not a real example, it's completely made up. And
Speaker 1: so maybe the Amazon stock will surge because they anticipate
Speaker 1: that Trump is going to make things juicier, make the
Speaker 1: profits for Amazon higher, and so they're reacting to that.
Speaker 1: Markets are very emotionally reactive because they are not just
Speaker 1: driven by robots. They're driven by human beings and our behavior,
Speaker 1: and that can go up and down and swing and swing.
Speaker 1: So I want you to worry a little bit less
Speaker 1: about how the market's reacting in these small windows of time,
Speaker 1: these pockets of time where a big event has happened,
Speaker 1: like an election, like I said, a natural disaster, any
Speaker 1: kind of like regulatory changes that may happen at the
Speaker 1: federal level that can impact businesses or impact goods and
Speaker 1: things like that, Like I want that to sway your
Speaker 1: investing strategy less because you have to assume shit's always
Speaker 1: going to be hit in the fan at some point
Speaker 1: in America, right like, it's just how the world works.
Speaker 1: Shit gon't hit the fan, and that will impact markets
Speaker 1: in a negative way. However, you also have to think
Speaker 1: about the other reality, which is that the data. This
Speaker 1: is not just me making it up. The data shows
Speaker 1: the stock market bounces back. When we are investing, we
Speaker 1: are making a bet and we are taking the risk
Speaker 1: that on the long term we're going to come out ahead. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can't sit here and guarantee that you're going to
Speaker 1: come out ahead. I at this point in time, have
Speaker 1: chosen to stick with the data shows, and the data
Speaker 1: has shown that long term investors win. That when you
Speaker 1: put your money in the market and you just park
Speaker 1: it and you let it rock for a few decades,
Speaker 1: you will tend to come out on top. And that
Speaker 1: is what we need right now. Inflation, even though it's down,
Speaker 1: is still higher than it has been. We have to
Speaker 1: hedge against the rising cost of goods. We have to
Speaker 1: hedge against how expensive life is going to be thirty
Speaker 1: to forty years from now, when we're retiring, because that's
Speaker 1: when we're going to be taking We're going to be
Speaker 1: taking withdrawals from our investment account and our money needs
Speaker 1: to stretch. Okay, especially for women longer, because we're amazing,
Speaker 1: right and we have longer to support ourselves on those
Speaker 1: investment incomes, So longevity and stretching those dollars. That's why
Speaker 1: people are obsessed with, you know, hedging against inflation, because
Speaker 1: at least if I'm going to guarantee that my money
Speaker 1: is going to grow at a faster rate than the
Speaker 1: cost of everything grows, then there's a good idea. There's
Speaker 1: a good chance that I will have enough to sustain
Speaker 1: my lifestyle in retirement and I won't have to go
Speaker 1: and cut back and you know, end up relying solely
Speaker 1: on like Social Security checks, which are usually super small
Speaker 1: and underwhelming. Okay, Crystal, I first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: for being so candid, and thank you for your really
Speaker 1: kind words about last week's episode in the wake of
Speaker 1: the election. Thank you for putting words to I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the fears, and I think your email
Speaker 1: is not the only one that I got with a
Speaker 1: similar type of question, But yeah, it really encapsulates like
Speaker 1: our fear, and I just want to remind y'all that
Speaker 1: the fundamentals of stock market investing have not changed. We
Speaker 1: have done multiple episodes about strategies around like being an
Speaker 1: everyday investor in investing for retirement, so hopefully you can
Speaker 1: check them with those out, I'll probably do some future
Speaker 1: episodes just about the market post twenty twenty five, because
Speaker 1: of course we're heading into a new year and I'm
Speaker 1: heading into a new season of my life. Like even
Speaker 1: here sitting talking about my investments, I'm like, well, shit,
Speaker 1: I made these choices when I was twenty four. This
Speaker 1: is over a decade later. Maybe I should be making
Speaker 1: some changes. So these are really good questions to have, Crystal,
Speaker 1: thank you for sending them to me. And if you
Speaker 1: guys want your questions answered on the podcast, feel free
Speaker 1: to hit me up Brand Ambition Podcast at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com or you can email, or you can DM me
Speaker 1: at Brand Ambition Podcast on ig All. Right, BA fan,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a review. This comes from listener
Speaker 1: Maria three Borha, Mandy and Tiffany I App. We love y'all.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to BA for about two years and
Speaker 1: I love all the education, laughs, community encouragement and love
Speaker 1: that you ladies bring to the table. I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to Mandy's latest episode, and I want to say
Speaker 1: that you, my dear, have put in Oh. I haven't
Speaker 1: read this yet. Oh. I just want to say that, you,
Speaker 1: my dear, have put into words all of my feelings.
Speaker 1: I am grateful that this is a safe space not
Speaker 1: only for you, but for all of us, and that
Speaker 1: you are able to articulate our sentiments. Thank you, ladies
Speaker 1: for the work you both do. But more than anything,
Speaker 1: thank you for just being there on my happy days,
Speaker 1: but more importantly on my emotional days. God, thank you, Maria.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to say. I got a couple more I'll read just
Speaker 1: people who've responded to last week's episode, because I just
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you because I'm literally I'm
Speaker 1: doing the show for y'all, so to hear that it
Speaker 1: matters is just keeps me going. Thank you you. C
Speaker 1: KH says, thank you so much for your encouragement. Today's
Speaker 1: podcast was much needed. You ladies always show up for us.
Speaker 1: Aliyah Medici says, you're the best. Mandy, thank you for
Speaker 1: your latest episode and for your bravery and dedication and grit.
Speaker 1: Love you love you all to b A Fam. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll see you next week. Coming to you three times.
Speaker 1: We have a juicy interview with Can I say yet?
Speaker 1: Who Are? I'll give you a hint now, if I
Speaker 1: sing a song, you're gonna think it's one of the girls.
Speaker 1: It's not one of the artists, okay, but it's someone
Speaker 1: related to them. I'm a survive I ain't gonna live up,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna stop. I'm all survive it. Yeah, yeah, bye,
Speaker 1: b A Fam.