Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, ba fan, Please follow us on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts and keep our audience growing. If your iPhone recently
Speaker 1: updated to iOS fourteen point five, head to Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: search for brown Ambition and click on the plus button
Speaker 1: in the upper right hand corner. Do that and you'll
Speaker 1: be following our show Loop Loop. You can also follow
Speaker 1: us on Spotify, on Stitcher, or on the Amazon Music app.
Speaker 1: You will not do all that, you know, if you
Speaker 1: had to Android, but you know Apple, that's fine. It's fine,
Speaker 1: and now onto our show.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, hey, it is Mandra and I am joined
Speaker 2: this week very special. This is the kickoff of our
Speaker 2: summer co host series, and our first suber co host
Speaker 2: is Chris Browning from Popcorn Finance.
Speaker 3: Hey, Chris, Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to be joining you.
Speaker 2: I'm excited too. I feel like we have had these
Speaker 2: tandem podcasting journeys and it wasn't until not that long
Speaker 2: ago that we actually connected one on one to get
Speaker 2: to know each other a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the pandemic made a lot of zoom
Speaker 3: meetings possible because we're all at.
Speaker 2: Home anyways, it did, and remember how our first call.
Speaker 2: I think it was maybe three like I set up
Speaker 2: a call with you, and then it was back before
Speaker 2: I had childcare, and I think you had to endure
Speaker 2: maybe fifteen minutes of a screaming child before I finally
Speaker 2: gave up and put you out of your misery and myself,
Speaker 2: and I was like, let's do this again. And then
Speaker 2: maybe three months went by and I was like, I
Speaker 2: finally have childcare, let's talk, let's do it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, no, I understood it. I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: you can put me on hold and call me back later.
Speaker 3: It's fine. I understood.
Speaker 2: Such a gentleman. Well, let's talk about popcorn Finance for
Speaker 2: the folks who don't know. Popcorn Finance, which is your podcast.
Speaker 2: It's been around for four years now, right. You also
Speaker 2: have another podcast. Note, because one is not enough. I
Speaker 2: don't know how you do two. Your other podcast is
Speaker 2: called this is Awkward. Talk to the folks and tell
Speaker 2: them why they should listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you for the introduction there. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: Popcorn Finance it'll be four years at the end of June,
Speaker 3: which is crazy. I never would have thought it would
Speaker 3: be going on this long. But it is a short
Speaker 3: form podcast where I talk about finance, and about the
Speaker 3: time it takes make popcorns. That's where the name of
Speaker 3: the show comes from. It's like short form. I try
Speaker 3: to keep the episodes under ten minutes and just talk
Speaker 3: about all things finance, investing, saving money issues, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: It's just a place to kind of quickly get into
Speaker 3: these topics and make it less scary. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: because I apparently don't like the sleep, I started another
Speaker 3: podcast with the friend of buying Alison from Inspired Budget.
Speaker 3: We have a show called This Is Awkward, and that
Speaker 3: one is a little more fun. It's a little more lighthearted.
Speaker 3: We have people call in and they share with us
Speaker 3: awkward money situations that they've dealt with, and then we
Speaker 3: kind of talked through the situation and gave our advice
Speaker 3: on how we would have dealt with it or how
Speaker 3: we've dealt with similar things in the past. So that's
Speaker 3: the other show I have going on.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that. Have you ever had I think
Speaker 2: we might have a mutual friend broke Millennial Aaron Lowry,
Speaker 2: Have you ever had it on the show?
Speaker 3: I have multiple times.
Speaker 2: She wrote a whole book on awkward money conversations. Y'all
Speaker 2: got to check out the broke Millennial series, just a
Speaker 2: little plug for a pal, but oh god, that I
Speaker 2: mean you guys must have endless, endless material because everything
Speaker 2: about money is awkward.
Speaker 3: It really is. It really opened my eyes to how
Speaker 3: many of us deal with these situations. And I think
Speaker 3: sometimes we think it's like just us, like, oh, we're
Speaker 3: the only ones with weird family or friends are asking
Speaker 3: for money, But it's like no, everybody. Everybody's dealing with
Speaker 3: this stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, damn, like my family, I'm trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: We're supposed to have a family reunion in Atlanta this
Speaker 2: coming weekend, so it's my first trip with Husban and
Speaker 2: the baby. He's I'm like, let's at least so if
Speaker 2: we're vaccinated, now things are safer, let's get on the plane.
Speaker 2: He only rides free for another six months, so I
Speaker 2: got to take advantage of his free He's still considered
Speaker 2: an infant even though he's huge, so he's gonna ride
Speaker 2: for free. We're gonna go to Atlanta and it's a
Speaker 2: family reunion and that's the only details I was given.
Speaker 2: But now it's like my dad is on the outs
Speaker 2: with my aunt and no one will tell me what
Speaker 2: I'm like what do I need to bring. I need
Speaker 2: to figure out who to give money to. I don't
Speaker 2: know how much, and it's it's already becoming a delightful
Speaker 2: dramatic situation. But whatever, I'm just there to eat.
Speaker 3: So that he had to go into the family situation
Speaker 3: and just say, hey, I'm just here for the food.
Speaker 3: Whatever the drama was going on, I'm not a part
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: Do you. Is your family like into family reunions? Is
Speaker 2: that a thing, sir? A Browning family reunion every year somewhere.
Speaker 3: My family's from the South, so barely anybody is out
Speaker 3: here in California. Uh so I only went to work,
Speaker 3: right right? You just how there are you're from? So
Speaker 3: my dad's from Arkansas, my mom's from Louisiana.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's real, real Southern. Yeah, I'm from Georgia. I'm
Speaker 2: from Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you're from a major city. Where are my
Speaker 3: dad's from? They they got a Walmart and that's pretty much.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say that is real, real southern those two
Speaker 2: states right there. Yeah, so we're both Southern transplants on
Speaker 2: the coasts. Yeah. So this is a big deal for
Speaker 2: me to even and I'm not gonna lie, there's been
Speaker 2: family reunions that I haven't gone to just because you know,
Speaker 2: it was in Georgia and I'm here in New York,
Speaker 2: and there's always an inconvenient time. But this time, after
Speaker 2: the pandemic, I think it just helped me realize, you know,
Speaker 2: how important it is. Like my uncles, God bless them,
Speaker 2: they survived this pandemic. My great uncles, they're all in
Speaker 2: their eighties and nineties, it feels like, and so it's
Speaker 2: really just like a celebration of you know, that side
Speaker 2: of the family. So I'm excited to you know, all
Speaker 2: the drama aside, I'm excited to get us together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, if anything, the past year, it kind
Speaker 3: of does make you appreciate family, especially your old family,
Speaker 3: because a lot of people don't have family that they
Speaker 3: had at this start of the pandemic. So it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know, I need to make it more
Speaker 3: of a point to you know, see my parents and
Speaker 3: be around these people who you know you're only gonna
Speaker 3: be around for so long.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, well awkward. I mean, honestly, I've been thinking
Speaker 2: a lot about awkward money conversations lately because for my
Speaker 2: husband and I, one of the ongoing arguments. I don't
Speaker 2: know if i'd call it awkward as much as just
Speaker 2: just a complete difference of opinion about how to spend
Speaker 2: our money. Really has has always been for maybe the
Speaker 2: ninety percent of our relationship, we have spent arguing back
Speaker 2: and forth about whether or not to get a Tesla. Oh,
Speaker 2: are you familiar with Tesla's, Chris.
Speaker 3: I'm very familiar with Tesla's. I've been. I've been stalking
Speaker 3: Tesla's for many years. I've not I've not met one
Speaker 3: and brought one into my home yet, but I've been
Speaker 3: watching them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so was my husband. I mean, this was one
Speaker 2: of the first huge fights we ever had. Was when
Speaker 2: we were it was twenty sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 2: We had moved in with his parents to pay no
Speaker 2: rent so that we could save up for our wedding.
Speaker 2: And you know, and me, I'm the personal finance expert
Speaker 2: in our relationship, so I like to say, and I'm
Speaker 2: kind of uptight and maybe a tiny bit of a
Speaker 2: control freak about our whole saving and plan, you know,
Speaker 2: especially at that time when we were really working hard
Speaker 2: to set something aside and pay for the wedding in cash,
Speaker 2: and at the time you could reserve a Tesla. I
Speaker 2: forget which model. It was like the one, two, three,
Speaker 2: X y Z. Who knows, And I you know, he
Speaker 2: said he talked about Tesla's but I just you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like sports. I just just in one
Speaker 2: year out the next like, yeah, he's into that thing.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't be get a Like yeah, sure, that sounds like
Speaker 2: a luxury car. We could never afford, so why even
Speaker 2: you know, entertain that. But one day I got the
Speaker 2: mail and there was this letter in it and it
Speaker 2: was like, congratulations, we've we've gotten your thousand dollars commitment
Speaker 2: and you're in line to get a Tesla. And I sat,
Speaker 2: oh what, oh man, I was mad. I mean, looking
Speaker 2: back on it now, a thousand, I mean it was
Speaker 2: it was a lot of money, especially when we were
Speaker 2: literally just putting ourselves so in such an uncomfortable situation
Speaker 2: living with his parents with one bathroom in a teeny
Speaker 2: tiny apartment with like no air conditioning and the warst
Speaker 2: summer in New York. You know, we were struggling. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, but you spent, like you put down it,
Speaker 2: not even to get the car, just to get in
Speaker 2: line for the car. So that is how far back
Speaker 2: our Tesla you know, our Tesla debate has gone, or battle,
Speaker 2: I should say. And for how many years has it been?
Speaker 3: Chris?
Speaker 2: For five, six, seven years? I have held him. I
Speaker 2: have held it at Bay. We got the we did
Speaker 2: the wedding, we did the honeymoon, we got our house,
Speaker 2: we did the renovation. We had a baby, we had
Speaker 2: a pandemic, and finally I ran out of excuses, Chris,
Speaker 2: I ran out of reasons not to get a Tesla.
Speaker 2: That is what happened, and we took the We took
Speaker 2: our baby Tesla home today from the Tesla, the Tesla
Speaker 2: cabbage patch factory thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, well, congratulations on the car. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's that's some patience to stick it out all of
Speaker 3: that time, through all those life events and just like
Speaker 3: hold out hope. Man, I know, I know one day
Speaker 3: that Testa's gonna make it home.
Speaker 2: He really, I mean, he's the underdog in any like
Speaker 2: sports and sports movie, except instead of sports. It's like,
Speaker 2: I just really want to get this this Tesla. And
Speaker 2: the number of people we haven't told a lot of
Speaker 2: people but friends and family who he's told. I mean,
Speaker 2: everyone knows what it means to him, because that is
Speaker 2: how obsessed this man has been with this car. But
Speaker 2: he's very consistent. I mean he literally installed Are you handy?
Speaker 2: I know, do you guys have a house? Are you renting?
Speaker 3: We're renting, so, I mean I can. I can only
Speaker 3: do so much, but I can. I can use a
Speaker 3: power drill. I can say I can do that much.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's pretty impressive. Well, we were renting. We rented
Speaker 2: for so long before we got the house, and he
Speaker 2: literally he went to the library took out a book
Speaker 2: on how to do his own electric and he has
Speaker 2: been doing all these little electrical projects and he actually
Speaker 2: installed the charging station for the Tesla, like he made
Speaker 2: it himself before he even had a Tesla, Like he
Speaker 2: has been manifesting this Tesla for such a long time.
Speaker 2: And to see his face, it was actually I was
Speaker 2: excited too. It's not like I don't like nice things,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I love electric vehicles. They're the way,
Speaker 2: the future, all that stuff. It was. It's a cool car,
Speaker 2: but it's just so not anything I had ever, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of like my values. It's never I was
Speaker 2: never going to spend a lot of money on a car.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't a part of my personal I don't
Speaker 2: know idea of what my values are when it comes
Speaker 2: to money. Do you in your do you and your
Speaker 2: wife do y' all have those types of like stalemates
Speaker 2: where it's just about are your value my value? For example,
Speaker 2: I would I would choose travel over everything, and Enrique
Speaker 2: was like, I really want this car, and that's where
Speaker 2: we kind of came to head. So do you guys
Speaker 2: have any of those big like disagreements.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we definitely have. I mean, I want
Speaker 3: to say too, but that that's some dedication. He was like,
Speaker 3: its just prepping. He was prepping. He put his own
Speaker 3: charger in there in advance. He just knew it was
Speaker 3: gonna happen. I just, man, that's I'm impressed we've had
Speaker 3: those for sure. Like I think I'm more on your
Speaker 3: side where I'm like, Okay, I have these financial goals.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing anything else until I get to where
Speaker 3: I'm going on this. And I'm also I'm not a
Speaker 3: big spender, Like I'll spend occasionally, but I don't. It
Speaker 3: doesn't bother me not to, like, you know, say all right,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do this because it costs money
Speaker 3: and I'll just I'll be fine. And I think that's
Speaker 3: where we butted heads because for my wife, she's like, well,
Speaker 3: look we need if we need this for the house
Speaker 3: or we need to do this, and it's important, it's
Speaker 3: worth the money, and I'm like, what, But is it though?
Speaker 3: Really is it really worth the money? Because I'm kind
Speaker 3: of liking seeing the savings account to actually grow. Is
Speaker 3: it really worth it? Like I can give up a
Speaker 3: lot just for the satisfaction of seeing that I have
Speaker 3: something in savings, That's what I'm saying. So we've definitely
Speaker 3: what's the money?
Speaker 2: Therefore, if not to just see it like I see it,
Speaker 2: I want to feel it. I want to like play
Speaker 2: and roll around in it digitally. Of course, it's really
Speaker 2: hard to give it up. It's really hard, it is.
Speaker 3: It almost it almost hurts a little bit. There's been
Speaker 3: times where stuff has come up and we've had to
Speaker 3: pull a big chunk from the savings and I feel
Speaker 3: like I was physically in pain when I went and
Speaker 3: pulled the money out, Like it hurt me, and I
Speaker 3: was like, maybe I shouldn't care this much, But you know,
Speaker 3: it's just one of those things where it's like this.
Speaker 3: It's like my example of my hard work. Like I
Speaker 3: seeing that balance is like, look, we did that, we
Speaker 3: made it. We made it to this point, and it's
Speaker 3: hard to give it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I felt anytime we've like we paid
Speaker 2: off the last bit of our home renovation last summer
Speaker 2: and it was like a twenty thousand dollars hit all
Speaker 2: at once because we had finance something zero percent and
Speaker 2: which was great for the eighteen months we had at
Speaker 2: zero percent, but then you had to the way the
Speaker 2: low of course, the way the loan worked was that
Speaker 2: you were never going to pay it off if you
Speaker 2: just did the minimum payments until the end of the
Speaker 2: eighteen months. And then of course they yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: and they had the like deferred interest clause, which basically says,
Speaker 2: if you leave even one penny left on this loan
Speaker 2: after this promotional period's over, oh we're going to pretend
Speaker 2: like you always paid interest on this huge loan and
Speaker 2: we're going to attach it. We're going to add it
Speaker 2: right on top of what's left. So we you know,
Speaker 2: had that big kind of lump sum payment that went
Speaker 2: out and yeah, it's been but that's always been my
Speaker 2: excuse I'm always like, Okay, you know we're going to
Speaker 2: get this house. That's a big chunk for the down payment,
Speaker 2: then the renovation. Okay, let's get that out of the way.
Speaker 2: And then I literally just ran out of things and
Speaker 2: he's yeah, and it's but I have to say, as
Speaker 2: painful as it can be, at least it has brought
Speaker 2: him joy, you know. I think that's where I was
Speaker 2: really too stubborn a little bit was And I apologize.
Speaker 2: I really did apologize to him. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just because for him, and he really sat down and
Speaker 2: he's like, look, look, it's almost as if you're saying
Speaker 2: what I value doesn't matter. You know. What I value
Speaker 2: is amazing technology, safe travel. You know, I want to
Speaker 2: be a part of you know, clean technology, like this
Speaker 2: electric vehicle. He and he's an expert in this car
Speaker 2: and the company. He's read the damn book, you know
Speaker 2: on what's his face, the CEO, Elon Musk, like he's
Speaker 2: read his memoir. He's he's all in. You know, we
Speaker 2: even own Tesla stock. And he had been saving this
Speaker 2: past year. He had an investment account and then he
Speaker 2: also was putting aside money to save for his Tesla so,
Speaker 2: and he's like, honestly, it's starting to really get ridiculous
Speaker 2: the fact that you're not willing to budge here. And
Speaker 2: but yeah, I was just so single minded and it
Speaker 2: feels good to just like get over myself a little
Speaker 2: bit and have some damn fun with the money that
Speaker 2: we've you know, work so hard for.
Speaker 3: You know, it's one of those things where you kind
Speaker 3: of can get the tunnel vision almost and you just
Speaker 3: forget that there is some enjoyment that comes with enjoying
Speaker 3: the money that you've worked hard to earn. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: you kind of just I don't know, and especially like
Speaker 3: I think too. For me, it was hard seeing from
Speaker 3: my wife's point of view the things that she values
Speaker 3: that sometimes you know, if it does cost money, it's
Speaker 3: worth it because it's meaningful, it had, it brings joy,
Speaker 3: it adds to your life, to her life having these things.
Speaker 3: And it's not just so, you know, I just want
Speaker 3: to spend money. It's like, no, these are things I
Speaker 3: value doing and just because I don't value them doesn't
Speaker 3: make them valuable to some woman else. And that's it's
Speaker 3: hard to it's kind of hard to reprehen hit your
Speaker 3: head around that.
Speaker 2: I mean what's your guilty pleasure. Don't you have like
Speaker 2: a tiny house addiction? I do kind of come home
Speaker 2: with a tiny house one day.
Speaker 3: You know, if I could, if it wasn't so hard
Speaker 3: in California, I might have bought one. At this point,
Speaker 3: I would say, I don't. That's the thing. I don't
Speaker 3: really buy too many things. But technology is probably my
Speaker 3: weakness when it comes to like gadgets and devices and
Speaker 3: computers and tablets and microphones things like that. But I
Speaker 3: kind of can hide that behind the podcast. So I
Speaker 3: think that's how I convinced myself, Well, I'm not really
Speaker 3: spending Yeah, this is a business expense, right, that is
Speaker 3: for sure. My weakness is like anything that connects to
Speaker 3: the internet. I'm eyeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I told him. I was like, I feel like
Speaker 2: a real hypocrite when I start thinking about all the
Speaker 2: money we spend on Broadway, and I mean the things
Speaker 2: that I've enjoyed doing vacations and stuff. And he's like,
Speaker 2: can I have something? So we got and you know what,
Speaker 2: the Tesla purchase, I have to say, was made possible
Speaker 2: in part by this crazy, ridiculous economy that we have
Speaker 2: right now that has somehow made used cars more valuable
Speaker 2: than they were a year ago, which is insane. So
Speaker 2: we actually, yeah, we ended up selling our We had
Speaker 2: a twenty sixteen Mazda some CX five. I think we
Speaker 2: ended up listing that on a Facebook marketplace to sell it,
Speaker 2: and kind of we weren't necessarily going to sell it,
Speaker 2: but when we actually looked at what we could get
Speaker 2: for it. I think Enrique, my husband, he had checked
Speaker 2: a year ago and saw that the car was valued
Speaker 2: at thirteen thousand dollars on the resale market. Today it's
Speaker 2: valued us It was valued at sixteen thousand dollars, or
Speaker 2: at least that's what we sold it for.
Speaker 3: That makes no sense.
Speaker 2: It's crat craz We bought it for nineteen thousand, like
Speaker 2: five years ago. You know, that's just not a thing
Speaker 2: that cars do. I thought, so by selling it, we
Speaker 2: definitely were able to eat away some of the cost
Speaker 2: of upfront cost of a Tesla, and you know, that
Speaker 2: felt good and kind of take advantage of this topsy
Speaker 2: turvy economy right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, funny enough, I had a friend yesterday
Speaker 3: I met it with him for the first time since
Speaker 3: the pandemic started, and we were talking about the used
Speaker 3: car market, and I told him, yeah, my car. I
Speaker 3: bought a used car. It was a twenty fourteen Hondai.
Speaker 3: I bought it in twenty seventeen, and I'm sorry, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: I bought it and it all. I bought it for
Speaker 3: twenty one thousand, and it's now worth nineteen thousand, five
Speaker 3: hundred and I've had this car for three years. And
Speaker 3: he's like, you just need to sell it. And I
Speaker 3: was like, but then I got to buy another car.
Speaker 2: You got to buy another car, yep.
Speaker 3: But really he was really pushing me. He's like, we'll
Speaker 3: just buy a new car. Then I was like, well, hey,
Speaker 3: it's easy for you to make decisions with my money.
Speaker 3: But I'm he's really getting into my head.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, I don't know, because I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna lie that I have not also been looking
Speaker 3: at Teslas.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing. I mean, if this is
Speaker 2: the rationale, and believe me, we were just at a
Speaker 2: friend's house yesterday and Enrique has now become that friend
Speaker 2: at the cookout who had a really lucky set of
Speaker 2: circumstances happened, and he's like ready to tell everybody to
Speaker 2: follow in his footsteps. Listen, don't be that person at
Speaker 2: the cookout. Not everybody like can do the things that
Speaker 2: worked out specifically for you in your situation. But he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: youhould sell your car, you know, to our cousin. Sell
Speaker 2: your car and then you can get enough something else.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is like, do you own that
Speaker 2: cart right or do you still have a loan on it?
Speaker 3: That's the thing. It's completely paid off and it's been
Speaker 3: paid off for a year now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well then see our car was paid off too,
Speaker 2: and that's where that's really where you can get the value.
Speaker 2: So if you have a lean on your car, so
Speaker 2: if you own or sorry, if you owe anything on
Speaker 2: a loan or are you're still financing it, it's really
Speaker 2: tricky to then try and sell that car. It's especially
Speaker 2: if you do it yourself, like as a private seller.
Speaker 2: I guess you have to like pay the loan back
Speaker 2: and then get the title and then sell it to
Speaker 2: someone else. But that's a you know, may not be
Speaker 2: something that someone's willing to do. But for us, it
Speaker 2: really did make sense to just go ahead and sell it.
Speaker 2: We owned the title, owned it outright. We could have
Speaker 2: traded it in Tesla offered us fourteen thousand, but then
Speaker 2: our financial planner was like, you know what, I really
Speaker 2: think you guys should post it. I've sold all my
Speaker 2: cars on Craigslist and I get way more And sure
Speaker 2: enough we got it sold within like ten hours for
Speaker 2: sixteen thousands.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, And I mean it just goes to show
Speaker 3: you too. Like these dealers, I mean I've to see
Speaker 3: their business. So they're trying to get this car from
Speaker 3: you as cheap as possible because they know how much
Speaker 3: more it's worth.
Speaker 2: You know who bought it from us, a used car dealer, really,
Speaker 2: so even he's planning to sell it for more than that,
Speaker 2: I'm like, good, good, good luck, my friend, good luck.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a it's a Craig Cray world out there.
Speaker 2: So I guess for y'all, I mean, how close are
Speaker 2: you to is your rationale? Like, Okay, you know the
Speaker 2: car is worth a lot more now, so if I
Speaker 2: do sell it, I would have more money in the
Speaker 2: bank for a nicer car, maybe a new car. That's
Speaker 2: how you're feeling?
Speaker 3: Well? How I before my friend bombarded me with this
Speaker 3: his argument for why I should sell my car, my
Speaker 3: mind was like, well, look, I don't have a car
Speaker 3: payment right now, and I'm really liking this is the
Speaker 3: first time in my life I've not had a car payment.
Speaker 2: It's a good life, it is.
Speaker 3: And I was like, it's just like, man, there's just
Speaker 3: so much more money in my bank account. So I've
Speaker 3: been like a hard set on. I'm never selling this car.
Speaker 3: I'm only gonna sell it when it breaks down on
Speaker 3: the side of the road and I can't get it
Speaker 3: started again. But he was making good arguments, So that's
Speaker 3: the hard part. When your friends make arguments that are
Speaker 3: actually legit about spending money. It kind of like it
Speaker 3: started rattling my mind a little bit. So I haven't
Speaker 3: made any decisions. I'm just trying to forget that he
Speaker 3: talked to me about this, but it's in the back
Speaker 3: of my mind. I'm thinking I may make a spreadsheet
Speaker 3: and run some numbers.
Speaker 2: Is it because rates are also really low right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that's the thing too, is to finance it.
Speaker 3: It would be so cheap to finance a difference right now,
Speaker 3: and it wouldn't even be like I don't even feel
Speaker 3: guilty about it.
Speaker 2: But free money. Well, I mean our rate was two
Speaker 2: point four and we have near perfect credit. I really
Speaker 2: wanted like a one point nine, but it just wasn't
Speaker 2: going to happen. I think you can get those rates
Speaker 2: as low if you look at credit unions and stuff.
Speaker 2: But anyway, didn't happen for us. But yeah, that that
Speaker 2: kind of did it for me too. So now we
Speaker 2: have a car note for the first time in five years,
Speaker 2: and I don't love it. But but here's the thing,
Speaker 2: chris By not find By. We could have paid cash
Speaker 2: for the whole thing. That's the thing. My and my
Speaker 2: planner was like, Mandy, you know what the right you
Speaker 2: know what the rationale is right, you can invest that
Speaker 2: money instead, and you're gonna make more than that little
Speaker 2: two percent, most likely in an investment account. So I'm
Speaker 2: trying to level up my I'm trying to go to
Speaker 2: the next level. You know, there were certain like protective
Speaker 2: strategies and mindsets that definitely got us where we are today.
Speaker 2: But like for that next level wealth building, we gotta
Speaker 2: think a little different. We gotta like think think rich. Literally,
Speaker 2: we meaning me and my husband. You know, you do
Speaker 2: your thing, but no, you're.
Speaker 3: Right, you're right, because it's one of those things where
Speaker 3: it's hard to let yourself like you're thinking kind of change.
Speaker 3: It feels like wrong, say, look I did this, it worked,
Speaker 3: I just keep doing this forever. But you going to
Speaker 3: like there's different stages to life. Is if everyone's in
Speaker 3: a different position, and something that worked for you, you
Speaker 3: know will work for me five years ago doesn't mean
Speaker 3: something different will work now. It's like you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's it's getting your mind open to changing and thinking
Speaker 3: about different ways of building wealth and not just like
Speaker 3: I don't I find myself being stuck in the oh,
Speaker 3: I'm paying off debt mindset that I was in for
Speaker 3: years and not in the Hey, now I want to
Speaker 3: build wealth and really look for the future.
Speaker 2: When you think about building wealth, what does that look
Speaker 2: like for you?
Speaker 3: You know? For me, I think the first thing that
Speaker 3: always pops into my mind is freedom and having choice
Speaker 3: and options. And I really like the idea of being
Speaker 3: at a point where it's like if I want to
Speaker 3: do something different like career wise, because I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily want to get to a point like
Speaker 3: where I'm younger and I'm not working at all, but
Speaker 3: where I can just choose, you know what, this is
Speaker 3: meaningful for me? This project, or working with this organization,
Speaker 3: or just doing something completely different. It's okay because I'm
Speaker 3: not bound by the need to have to have a
Speaker 3: certain amount of money, because I've already accumulated enough wealth
Speaker 3: to have those that freedom. And I think that's just
Speaker 3: something really like power powerful about saying, look, I have choices.
Speaker 3: I can make the decision because I want to debt
Speaker 3: because I'm looking at my bank account and I got
Speaker 3: obligation sitting there for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for me it's also I mean, it's
Speaker 2: definitely freedom. But I'm trying to be more specific now.
Speaker 2: I think I've gotten to the point now where it's okay,
Speaker 2: what's the number? You know, what is what's the new goal?
Speaker 2: I was similar to you, you know, I'm well, now
Speaker 2: are you a I consider myself now. I think we're
Speaker 2: supposed to be like called geriatric millennials now here. I
Speaker 2: know it's so terrible, but that's like the new thing
Speaker 2: older millennials who've got you know, we got a little
Speaker 2: we've paid out the student loan debt or it didn't
Speaker 2: really have that much, and now we've got like kids
Speaker 2: and a mortgage and all that kind of stuff. Just uh,
Speaker 2: old fuddyduddy millennials, and for me, it's like, Okay, the
Speaker 2: next step is, you know, maybe getting a lot more
Speaker 2: specific and like and you know, the the tried and
Speaker 2: true rules of thumb that I abided by in the past,
Speaker 2: I've got to come up with new rules. I got
Speaker 2: to figure out how did the uber healthy, how do
Speaker 2: they operate? And I need to start being on that level.
Speaker 2: And it's scary, but it's also kind of it's exciting.
Speaker 2: And for me, you know, I don't have a ton
Speaker 2: of I don't have any anyone in my family necessarily
Speaker 2: to look to for tips. I do have a financial planner,
Speaker 2: but I'm trying to find you know, maybe even like
Speaker 2: different podcasts or different books I can start reading just
Speaker 2: to like literally think how the wealthy think. In my mind,
Speaker 2: I was like, I want to. I want to invest
Speaker 2: till I have two million dollars and I want to
Speaker 2: be there and you know, the next five years. And
Speaker 2: someone was like, why don't you make a million dollars
Speaker 2: like in a weekend if you learn to trade stocks?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't. It does not compute. I
Speaker 2: don't want to, but people are doing it, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's exciting slash really really intimidating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. And I think that's the hard
Speaker 3: part right now too, is there's there's so many people
Speaker 3: in the news making a bunch of money from all
Speaker 3: the time, different things going on right now. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it's I don't know, it's very tempting. I'm what I'm
Speaker 3: finding more and more about myself is I'm very risk averse.
Speaker 3: I'm very like, hey, you know what, I would like
Speaker 3: to do some things, but I'm not comfortable risking what
Speaker 3: I've worked so hard to save up. And it's a
Speaker 3: hard mindset shift for me to make. It'd be like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know what, maybe I should I have
Speaker 3: my emergency fund, I'm investing for retirement. Maybe I should
Speaker 3: look at other opportunities. But I'm always like, hey, I
Speaker 3: this took a long time. Let me let me let
Speaker 3: me slow down on any of these other ideas people
Speaker 3: are throwing at me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just exactly. You're like in the protect phase, which
Speaker 2: is fine. You know, you want to protect what you've built.
Speaker 2: But we'll see, I mean, you know, not too uh
Speaker 2: not to pure pressure. But the Tesla does ride really
Speaker 2: really nice to the Starbucks. But you know, what we
Speaker 2: got caught in a huge traffic jam, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: it's still gets stuck in traffic just like another car does.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't have any magical like traffic avoiding properties
Speaker 2: that would really be value to me.
Speaker 3: I know. But then they can drive itself though, as
Speaker 3: your husband like trying to talk about his plans to
Speaker 3: take a nap while he's like commuting or anything like that.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that that's a feature we're going
Speaker 2: to be turning on. I don't even know if but
Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Can it drive itself?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Chris, I just don't know. I had
Speaker 2: a hard time figuring out how to turn the air
Speaker 2: conditioning on earlier, let alone auto pilot.
Speaker 3: That's true, Baby.
Speaker 2: Steps, Baby steps. Well, it's really fun to have you
Speaker 2: on the show. Why don't we take a quick break
Speaker 2: and we'll be right back to answer some of y'all's questions.
Speaker 2: All right, we are back, and yes I am joined
Speaker 2: by the one and only Chris Browning, who is filling
Speaker 2: some very big budget needs to shoes. How's it going, Chris?
Speaker 2: How are you feeling so far?
Speaker 3: I was fine, and now you may be nervous Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm just joking, joking.
Speaker 2: Okay, I should have made you do the hey hey hey,
Speaker 2: oh god. Well, we are here to answer your questions
Speaker 2: and never fear even without Tiffany here, we have Chris
Speaker 2: from the Popcorn Finance here to help me tackle y'all's
Speaker 2: personal finance and career questions. Okay, so we've got some
Speaker 2: excellent questions from ig. First one comes from listener Lachene.
Speaker 2: Lachine says, I just found your podcast after buying Tiffany's book,
Speaker 2: and I'm obsessed in her book, which is I will
Speaker 2: add here you guys called Get Good with Money, which
Speaker 2: you can get at get goodwith Money dot com. It's
Speaker 2: an eight week national wait, eight week New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 2: At this point, it's insane anyway, So Lachine found us
Speaker 2: through her book. She says, in the book, Tiffany talked
Speaker 2: about determining if you have a budgeting problem or an
Speaker 2: income slash earning problem. And I think I have an
Speaker 2: earning problem. When I wanted to get y'all's opinion, I
Speaker 2: make fifty thousand dollars a year. After taxes and insurance
Speaker 2: and my retirement retirement savings, I'm left with about twenty
Speaker 2: nine hundred dollars per month. I can comfortably pay my bills,
Speaker 2: save for travel, and add money to my IRA. But
Speaker 2: that's about it. I want to save more, but there's
Speaker 2: nowhere else in my budget. I feel like I can
Speaker 2: slice and dice. What do you guys think? So, what's
Speaker 2: your take on like a budget versus an income problem?
Speaker 3: Chris, This is a great question here, and I think
Speaker 3: sometimes we do get trapped in they Okay, let's let's budget,
Speaker 3: let's cut and let's save where we can, which is
Speaker 3: good to go through and evaluate your budget and see
Speaker 3: where you're maybe wasting money. But the only thing is
Speaker 3: you can only cut so much. If you've already you
Speaker 3: got your stuff under control, and you're really diligent with
Speaker 3: high spend, you're gonna get to a point where you
Speaker 3: just can't cut anything else. And if you want to
Speaker 3: increase your or increase the money available to invest and
Speaker 3: do other things with, yeah, you have to make more.
Speaker 3: Which is is it's much harder than cutting, but it's
Speaker 3: way more impactful in the long run.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you guys need to hear it
Speaker 2: here first, although I'm pretty sure we've said it before,
Speaker 2: you cannot budget your way to wealth building. You can't
Speaker 2: do it. You cannot become rich by budgeting. You can
Speaker 2: get part of the way there, certainly you can, and
Speaker 2: it's certainly a good starting point. And I think at
Speaker 2: most levels you should have at least an idea of
Speaker 2: what's going in and what's going out and what's left over.
Speaker 2: Budgeting is amazing, but it ain't going to get you there,
Speaker 2: And I think I think it definitely sounds like if
Speaker 2: you're to the point where you want to put more
Speaker 2: money away and you just don't have it and you can't.
Speaker 2: Literally you've looked at the budget and you're like, what
Speaker 2: am I gonna do? Like live in my car? You can't,
Speaker 2: you know, there's nothing else to slice and dice, like
Speaker 2: you say, so it is time to start looking at
Speaker 2: a couple different things. I am huge about the impact
Speaker 2: your career. I'm very passionate about the impact that your
Speaker 2: career choices can have in helping you accumulate wealth. And
Speaker 2: I'm also huge on looking for additional income streams on
Speaker 2: top of, you know, outside of your nine to five
Speaker 2: job or whatever work you happen to do, so that
Speaker 2: you diversify the income streams that you have After a
Speaker 2: year like this, it certainly feels like a lot of
Speaker 2: people were turning to side hobbies or side hustles as
Speaker 2: they say, you know, you're starting their own businesses to
Speaker 2: bring in extra money. Because it was a real kick
Speaker 2: in the ass, you know, to realize how vulnerable we
Speaker 2: all were, especially those of us who were tied to
Speaker 2: a nine to five job that either you had layoffs
Speaker 2: or cut back hours. I mean, it all felt very
Speaker 2: like scary and a good reminder about the importance of
Speaker 2: having those different income streams. So I mean, Chris, both
Speaker 2: and I You and I both have podcasts. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't think either of us is rolling in the
Speaker 2: dough from the podcast life, but especially not if you're
Speaker 2: getting all the upgraded equipment that it sounds like you're accumulating.
Speaker 2: But you know, talk about like the podcast and what
Speaker 2: other what do you what do you think about different
Speaker 2: income streams and how someone could you know, bring in
Speaker 2: extra wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm I'm a fan of doing
Speaker 3: other things and building other streams of income and businesses
Speaker 3: and just things you own on your own. Because one,
Speaker 3: I just enjoy the process of making something and having
Speaker 3: it something that I've created is just it's just a
Speaker 3: cool experience and just I don't know, it makes you
Speaker 3: feel good, like, look, I've made this thing. I've put
Speaker 3: my time and sweat into this and it's here. So
Speaker 3: I'm definitely for finding things that you're you're passionate about,
Speaker 3: that you enjoy doing, that you see an opportunity to
Speaker 3: have a viable business doing and pursuing those because, like
Speaker 3: you said, you know, jobs are secure until they're not
Speaker 3: until something happens where they need to move on from you. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, things could change overnight. But but just like you,
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of growing within your career. Uh.
Speaker 3: That was one of the biggest things that helped us
Speaker 3: get out of debt. And when we my wife and
Speaker 3: I kind of got serious about our finances, we had
Speaker 3: about twenty seven thousand dollars in credit card debt and
Speaker 3: we were taking home like forty five thousand dollars between
Speaker 3: the two of us, which was not enough money and
Speaker 3: not especially not in southern California. It is not much.
Speaker 2: Did you do that?
Speaker 3: Wow? It was rough. We were living in a tiny house,
Speaker 3: a very small studio for several years, and really we
Speaker 3: cut our budget down to like nothing, like we were
Speaker 3: not having any fun. Nothing was getting spent that didn't
Speaker 3: need to be spent, and it still was going so slow.
Speaker 3: It was such a long journey, and so for me,
Speaker 3: that's why I went and I left it. Okay, this
Speaker 3: is how much I'm making. I think at the time,
Speaker 3: I've got how much I was making by myself, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't I clearly wasn't a lot. What do I
Speaker 3: need to do? And so that's when I started saying,
Speaker 3: all right, what professional organizations can I join. I started
Speaker 3: joining these different groups for bookkeepers, and I would go
Speaker 3: to conferences and I would help organize the speakers, and
Speaker 3: then I would meet other people from other places, and
Speaker 3: I would find out about new openings and build up
Speaker 3: my resumes. When I applied for the next job, it's like,
Speaker 3: whoh you did all of this, Like, oh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: you can kind of pump yourself up, and so doing
Speaker 3: things like that it allowed me to increase my income
Speaker 3: so much faster than if I would have just stayed
Speaker 3: at my one job and hoped for a nice raise,
Speaker 3: which wasn't going to gum.
Speaker 2: What were you doing at the time your backgrounds in accounting? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like accounting and bookkeeping work. So at the time
Speaker 3: I was a payroll supervisor. I was running a peril
Speaker 3: department at a school district actually, and so.
Speaker 2: You're managing paychecks and trying to get a bigger one exactly.
Speaker 3: I would see everyone who was making more money than
Speaker 3: me and be like, all right, I need to do
Speaker 3: something about this.
Speaker 2: That's got to be really depressed.
Speaker 3: You know, when you see some of those paychecks, you're like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what these people are doing right now,
Speaker 3: but I need to make some changes and get one
Speaker 3: of these because it's way more than I'm geting.
Speaker 2: You know what's bad if you're like jealous of a
Speaker 2: like a I don't know what kind of school teachers
Speaker 2: these were, but uh, I'm feeling like a middle school
Speaker 2: math teacher is making more. It's like, ooh, okay.
Speaker 3: It's time. Yeah. I was like, because we all know
Speaker 3: teachers aren't paid that well, and I was getting paid
Speaker 3: a lot less than than the majority of teachers.
Speaker 2: That's a crime. Yeah, I've I love that, you know.
Speaker 2: I was recently celebrating with my husband because we've really
Speaker 2: been focused on increasing our net worth and we we
Speaker 2: did the math with our planner and realized that we
Speaker 2: have increased our net worth by tenfold in the last
Speaker 2: five years.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I was I was sitting down and we're gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do a specific show about it. But as
Speaker 2: I was sitting through and working through, you know, how
Speaker 2: did we do this? I'll tell you one thing. It
Speaker 2: wasn't by budgeting the most significant the biggest reasons. And
Speaker 2: I part of me almost feels a little or used
Speaker 2: to feel a little, not ashamed. But I think people
Speaker 2: want to hear that we just pulled ourselves up by
Speaker 2: our bootstraps, and you know, we coopon clipped and we
Speaker 2: and we we were good people and we just worked
Speaker 2: real hard. They want to hear that kind of story.
Speaker 2: But the truth is was that I was super ruthless
Speaker 2: with pursuing new opportunities when two things were true. When
Speaker 2: I could earn significantly more and when I could challenge
Speaker 2: myself professionally, so when I could when I was offered,
Speaker 2: when I was offered I was in other jobs, and
Speaker 2: when I was offered opportunities to move to a different company,
Speaker 2: as long as the opportunity was professionally rich like I could,
Speaker 2: I was learning a new skill, I was getting to
Speaker 2: try a new position or something like that, and it
Speaker 2: came with additional income. I was definitely willing to take it.
Speaker 2: And I was very risky with some of my career choices,
Speaker 2: and they could have gone the other way entirely, you know,
Speaker 2: without with risk comes rewards or you know, disaster. But
Speaker 2: it was because of those choices I was able to negotiate,
Speaker 2: you know, thirty percent fifty percent raises equity in companies
Speaker 2: that I was joining, which opened me up to even addition,
Speaker 2: no opportunities to build wealth as long as that stock
Speaker 2: price in that company went up, which I was fortunate
Speaker 2: enough to have that happen sometimes. So like, those are
Speaker 2: the types of things that that I'm I'm ready to
Speaker 2: just be honest about it because there's no shame in it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I had to do it. I'm a black
Speaker 2: woman in America, you know, like we don't make that
Speaker 2: much money. We make sixty percent of what a white
Speaker 2: man earns. So for me, I just always thought about
Speaker 2: when I went into like a salary negotiation, or when
Speaker 2: I was approached by a competitor or a different company
Speaker 2: to come work for them, I really looked at that
Speaker 2: as an opportunity it's often the best opportunity you can
Speaker 2: get to negotiate a higher salary and staying at the
Speaker 2: same place for a long time. It ain't it, y'all.
Speaker 2: It is not it in terms of in terms of
Speaker 2: salary growth, especially if you came in entry level, that
Speaker 2: is not the way to increase your income unless. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can stay there if you love your job, But
Speaker 2: then you got to start side hustling on, you know,
Speaker 2: get a side business or take a hobby and start
Speaker 2: bringing in cash, you know, on top of your earnings.
Speaker 2: But loyalty does not pay in corporate America. It doesn't.
Speaker 2: I am proof of that. I really had to make
Speaker 2: those big, scary leaps to get to where I am today,
Speaker 2: to get those bigger paydays.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I love that so much because I've
Speaker 3: seen it where in a situation no one I won't
Speaker 3: name a place so no one can figure out what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, but that was the place.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll leave Chris alone. Don't get it, don't get them
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 3: Don't get me in trouble. Please don't go research this place.
Speaker 3: But I was working at this place. There's a woman there,
Speaker 3: she was amazing at her job, she was amazing, and
Speaker 3: she just wanted She didn't didn't eve think she was
Speaker 3: asking for a raise. She just wanted a better title
Speaker 3: than what she had. And they're like, no, we can't
Speaker 3: do that. I'm sorry, it's something so easy. They were like, no,
Speaker 3: we can't do that, but what you're great? So she's like,
Speaker 3: you know what, all right, I'm out of here. So
Speaker 3: she left, got a better job, got the title she wanted,
Speaker 3: and got a pay raise. The person they brought in
Speaker 3: to replace her, they gave the title that she wanted
Speaker 3: and more money, and it was like they could have
Speaker 3: done it all along, but it was just like, well,
Speaker 3: they think we have you here, you're not going to leave,
Speaker 3: so we're not going to do anything. And that's where
Speaker 3: you like, I mean, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: That's that's the only way you're going to make these
Speaker 3: significant leaps sometimes is to define better opportunities outside of
Speaker 3: where you are, because they have no incentive to make
Speaker 3: your pay jump significantly.
Speaker 2: And you may think that they're the nicest people. You know,
Speaker 2: they've come to your housewarming parties, they gave you a
Speaker 2: nice little gift when you had a baby or you
Speaker 2: got married, it does like they're not going It takes
Speaker 2: a lot of effort. I was that manager who really
Speaker 2: fought for raises and promotions for my people when I
Speaker 2: didn't have to because I wanted to retain them. I
Speaker 2: and there were plenty of people who just don't do
Speaker 2: that because it takes a lot of time. It takes effort.
Speaker 2: You got to like do your research, you got to
Speaker 2: bat for people. It's just not in a lot of
Speaker 2: people's best interests to go to bat for folks. That's work.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I love that example. I mean, I hate it,
Speaker 2: but it's a really good example of what we're talking
Speaker 2: about here. Loyalty does not pay all mm hmm. But
Speaker 2: I want to talk a bit about before we get
Speaker 2: to the next question about starting a new business. Like
Speaker 2: I literally I'm at a point where I just started
Speaker 2: a new business. Hell guys, I'm I'm the CEO and
Speaker 2: founder of Mandy Money Media, which is a independent content
Speaker 2: consulting firm and editing and writing business. Yay, do I
Speaker 2: get the pendant? Thanks? You know, do my own thing.
Speaker 2: After a long, well like a decade of experience, I'm
Speaker 2: striking out on my own and what's so fun for
Speaker 2: me has been doing these things, Like I filed for
Speaker 2: an LLC. It's shockingly easy to do this, y'all. You
Speaker 2: just need a little bit of money and like Google,
Speaker 2: like you just had a Google. If you go to
Speaker 2: your state's Department of Labor website or just google your
Speaker 2: state LLC, it'll have a very easy to fill out form,
Speaker 2: pick your name, give them your little coins. I had
Speaker 2: it within minutes. I got approved and got my my
Speaker 2: LLC established. And then it's what the i RS do?
Speaker 2: Did you do? Piet? We get a taxpayer or an
Speaker 2: employee ID number through the i RS dot gov.
Speaker 3: And that's such an easy process. And then you don't
Speaker 3: have to give people your Social Security number either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think I might have to like
Speaker 2: get it, but yeah, I was. I was shocked. It
Speaker 2: was instantly, Oh, here's your e i N. Here you go.
Speaker 2: And once I had that ei N, what did I do?
Speaker 2: I went and got a business bank account, just did
Speaker 2: some Googles to find the best one. Although I will say,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you have a business bank account
Speaker 2: or credit card yet, do you?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, I do have the credit card. I've not
Speaker 3: gone to the banking route. I'm still I mean I
Speaker 3: probably shouldn't be saying this out loud, but yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: you lessonings and personal accounts as business accounts right now.
Speaker 2: You know, that's cool. It depends on how you. I
Speaker 2: did learn that, you know, when I was trying to
Speaker 2: decide whether to do an LLC or work as a
Speaker 2: sole proprietor. It's very different, like in terms of how
Speaker 2: how you can commingle your personal versus professional expenses and
Speaker 2: things like that. But definitely I got a phone with
Speaker 2: my CPA and he was like, LLC is the way
Speaker 2: to go. So that's what I did. And yeah, but
Speaker 2: then it took seconds and the oh the business bank account.
Speaker 2: What I was going to say, is I because that's
Speaker 2: I wanted. I'm gonna get paid soon, hopefully, hopefully soon
Speaker 2: from clients. You know, I'm manifesting it like my husband
Speaker 2: installing his Tesla charger five months before he actually had
Speaker 2: a Tesla. I'm going to get this. I got a
Speaker 2: bank account through a online bank, and it was kind
Speaker 2: of hard to find a fee free business bank account.
Speaker 2: It seems like a lot of them charge. They either
Speaker 2: have a minimum required balance, which I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make I'm gonna make money, but like, I can't,
Speaker 2: I can't commit right now that I'm going to be
Speaker 2: making a certain amount. Yeah, so it took a lot
Speaker 2: of comparing and contrasting, but I definitely I was able
Speaker 2: to get one. And you have to have your EI
Speaker 2: N in order to get one set up. And then
Speaker 2: I got approved for a personal sorry, a business credit card,
Speaker 2: which was exciting. So it's it. You can do it.
Speaker 2: And look, I'm a business who. You can't tell me nothing.
Speaker 2: I'm a business owner, right, I don't need a storefront.
Speaker 2: I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: It's so different than what people thought of, like what
Speaker 3: people I think. We have a much different image in
Speaker 3: our head of what it takes to be a business owners.
Speaker 3: It's so it's such an easy process these days, it
Speaker 3: really is.
Speaker 2: So I hope that that motivates y'all and inspires you
Speaker 2: to look at you know, if you're like me and
Speaker 2: you've been doing something for a long time, you know,
Speaker 2: and you realize you've got a certain set of skills
Speaker 2: that companies would pay to take advantage of or leverage
Speaker 2: you know. That's a way of like let's say I
Speaker 2: was still doing my you know, had a nine to
Speaker 2: five job. I could I could feasibly do this on
Speaker 2: the side and just bring in some extra income, and
Speaker 2: that's the beginning again to true wealth building. So I
Speaker 2: love that Tiffany covered that in her book, Get It
Speaker 2: with Lenny dot Com. Y'all she got the book. I
Speaker 2: love that she covered that in the book because it
Speaker 2: really is like it's the next level from just basic budgeting,
Speaker 2: really focusing on your income.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is such a great idea. And I've
Speaker 3: started to discover too, is that the bar is actually
Speaker 3: very low for a lot of what people consider good work.
Speaker 3: I'm very shocked for whatever it's right in my mind,
Speaker 3: it's like people are like, if you're gonna do something
Speaker 3: for a company, it's like it has to be the
Speaker 3: best thing that's ever been made. But I've I've I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna again, I'm not gonna name any companies, but
Speaker 3: I've I've witnessed some some businesses doing work that I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's all it took for you to get paid, And well,
Speaker 3: I guess I need to step it up and do
Speaker 3: some other things.
Speaker 2: I know well in my career I've employed people like myself,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I know exactly how much mediocrity there
Speaker 2: is out there. I'm gonna go out there and be
Speaker 2: the best, and it's not going to be that hard
Speaker 2: because it's a lot of mediocrep. Okay, not to shave anybody,
Speaker 2: but it's a really good point. It truly is, and
Speaker 2: I yeah, I'm excited about this new journey. And thank
Speaker 2: you Lachene for your question and for checking out our podcast.
Speaker 2: I love that. Well, let's take one other question. This
Speaker 2: one is a juicy one because as Jerry millennials, Chris, I'm.
Speaker 3: Really not liking this title. I'm really not.
Speaker 2: As old ass millennials like we. Life insurance is like
Speaker 2: what we talk about at cookouts now right, it's what
Speaker 2: you know. Maybe at my cookouts we talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about life insurance, but I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: But that's what our next question is about. So let's
Speaker 2: get in it all right. This one's from anonymous, and
Speaker 2: they say, my husband and I are getting ready to
Speaker 2: buy life insurance. We have a three year old, a house,
Speaker 2: we have good jobs, we're working on wealth and building
Speaker 2: our or getting our life secure. Do you guys recommend
Speaker 2: whole or term life insurance? Very sexy, interesting question, but
Speaker 2: an important one. Let's talk about the difference between whole
Speaker 2: versus term life insurance, Chris, anything you want to jump into.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, So term life is kind of like what
Speaker 3: it sounds like, it's it's good for us set term.
Speaker 3: So you normally say how many years you'd like this
Speaker 3: policy to be good for, so you know, ten, twenty
Speaker 3: plus years, and you typically go with this to you know,
Speaker 3: cover a period of time where you're like, hey, if
Speaker 3: something were to happen, we would definitely need some support
Speaker 3: for other people in the family who I'm leaving behind.
Speaker 3: Whereas whole life policy, it's as long as you're still
Speaker 3: paying your premiums, it's good for your whole life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And is that the kind where you can maybe
Speaker 2: get some annuities later on where it kind of pays
Speaker 2: you out in retirement.
Speaker 3: Well, with the whole life policy, you can build up
Speaker 3: like a cash balance almost in it as you put
Speaker 3: more and more money into these policies. So there are
Speaker 3: situations where you can pull money out of these policies
Speaker 3: or pass them on just depending on the type of
Speaker 3: a whole life insurance you go with.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, And this is big business for a lot of
Speaker 2: financial planners out there, especially if you're working with traditional
Speaker 2: financial advisors because a lot of them are in the
Speaker 2: business of literally selling insurance products to their customers, and
Speaker 2: that's why it's important to vet your financial advisor. I mean,
Speaker 2: no shade, I mean obviously, insurance is a very important product.
Speaker 2: You want to you want your family to be taken
Speaker 2: care of if you were to pass away. That's literally
Speaker 2: what it's for. But because they can be really lucrative,
Speaker 2: like like especially whole term whole insurance, like Chris was
Speaker 2: talking about, Like you're talking about someone paying you monthly
Speaker 2: for their entire life. So that's like a especially if
Speaker 2: you're someone who works on commission, that's a cash cow. Baby,
Speaker 2: that's a cash cow. So they, like the financial planner
Speaker 2: is getting an annuity out of you, you know, basically
Speaker 2: when you sign up for a whole insurance Yah. And
Speaker 2: so you do have to think about that. Now, do
Speaker 2: you have life insurance? Chris? Like, have you bought a
Speaker 2: policy for you and your your wife outside of what
Speaker 2: your work might offer you?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we have term life insurance. And I think
Speaker 3: for the reason you mentioned that, like whole life, there's
Speaker 3: there's definitely circumstances where people could utilize that and it'd
Speaker 3: be useful for what they have going on. But oftentimes,
Speaker 3: like those commissions are very nice for those whole whole
Speaker 3: life policies. That's why they often get pushed as an
Speaker 3: alternative to you in best on your own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and that's for me, that was the deciding factor.
Speaker 2: So I just had a baby too, So like our listener,
Speaker 2: she has a young child three years old, my son's
Speaker 2: eighteen months. When I finally had the baby, that's when
Speaker 2: I was like, oh god, my life matters now. I mean,
Speaker 2: of course that mattered before, but like my earning. You know,
Speaker 2: my husband, he's gainfully employed, he's young, but my son,
Speaker 2: you know that that was my wake up call really
Speaker 2: to get my own policy. And also a colleague of
Speaker 2: mine in the past had told me, you know, you
Speaker 2: really ought to get your own life insurance policy beyond
Speaker 2: what you're At the time, I was working for an employer,
Speaker 2: and most employers provide free life insurance or it's like
Speaker 2: a dollar or two dollars or something like that, because
Speaker 2: it's not enough coverage to really last the life of
Speaker 2: your child. And like, for example, I think in the past,
Speaker 2: I've had life insurance through work that's like two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and maybe like some short term disability coverage.
Speaker 2: But you know, I ended up getting a policy that
Speaker 2: was valued at a million dollars and I came to
Speaker 2: that at the time. It could have been higher. There's
Speaker 2: a rule of thumb that says to ten x your
Speaker 2: salary to get your your policy. But I think I
Speaker 2: was earning like two hundred thousand at the time, so
Speaker 2: two million dollars seemed like a lot of money. So
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, let me just start with one,
Speaker 2: see how that goes. But yeah, I ended up doing
Speaker 2: a twenty I think a twenty five year term because
Speaker 2: for me, it's not just about it is about, of course,
Speaker 2: providing a financial windfall for your family so that they
Speaker 2: can move on without you and still you know, maintain
Speaker 2: the same quality of life. But it's also you know,
Speaker 2: how likely am I to make it to my I'm
Speaker 2: thirty three now, how likely am I to live till
Speaker 2: I'm sixty, you know? Or how much how long do
Speaker 2: I want them to be covered? Basically, and I figure
Speaker 2: by the time I'm sixty, if I'm still around, they'll
Speaker 2: the kids if I have more than one, they'll be
Speaker 2: you know, adults and will be able to take care
Speaker 2: of themselves and by then I will have like saved
Speaker 2: invested for their college expenses or whatnot. So I felt
Speaker 2: very comfortable just doing the twenty five year term for
Speaker 2: my life insurance for that and then like you said,
Speaker 2: like you could do the whole life insurance and put
Speaker 2: a bunch of money away and then have your cash balance.
Speaker 2: But you could also just do that in a brokerage
Speaker 2: account and put money away and potentially make even more
Speaker 2: over time to create wealth for yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask you too, like so
Speaker 3: for you and your husband, was that a difficult conversation
Speaker 3: to have because I know people who do not like
Speaker 3: talking about the possibility of dying, and so that's why
Speaker 3: they never look into life insurance.
Speaker 2: It really you really have to not think about what
Speaker 2: you're doing. It's very depressing. And yes, and especially you know,
Speaker 2: if I would do anything differently, I might have done
Speaker 2: it before I had the baby, like while I was pregnant,
Speaker 2: or even like a little bit before that, because I
Speaker 2: do think you know, if you have a kid, of course,
Speaker 2: it's very very much worth it because you have the child,
Speaker 2: like I said, and if you don't have a child.
Speaker 2: Then really it's about your spouse. Can they provide for
Speaker 2: themselves without you? Et cetera. But it was a very
Speaker 2: emotional conversation. As soon as I had that baby and
Speaker 2: my husband saw me as a mother, he became very
Speaker 2: afraid of me dying. It was a weird and I
Speaker 2: think and me too, I became as a new mom.
Speaker 2: I was afraid of everybody dying. Like I was, like,
Speaker 2: he could die, the baby could die. I could die more.
Speaker 2: Life is so fragile, why are we doing it? Like
Speaker 2: what have we done? There's so much to lose, you know,
Speaker 2: it is really scary to think about it. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a fun conversation, but it was a really
Speaker 2: easy process to just go compare some options. You know,
Speaker 2: a very nice doctor person came to my house because
Speaker 2: it was the pandemic at that point, did a house
Speaker 2: called did my blood and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: And it wasn't that if you just forget about why
Speaker 2: you're doing it and pray that you know, you know,
Speaker 2: just just just do it for peace of mind for
Speaker 2: your children, and then pray you never really have to
Speaker 2: use it. It's like any insurance product, right, you hope
Speaker 2: you don't have to use it, but you're grateful if
Speaker 2: if it comes in handy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It's one of those things like I think
Speaker 3: people avoid it because, like you said, you kind of
Speaker 3: go into that spiral of thinking about what happens if
Speaker 3: you or someone you care about is that here anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's kind of like it's like it's almost one
Speaker 3: of the nicest things you can do for the people
Speaker 3: in your life. Yes, who are part of your family.
Speaker 3: You're gonna end up who you so I help support.
Speaker 3: It's like, look, I don't want them to be, you know,
Speaker 3: on the street because I'm not here anymore, and everything
Speaker 3: got too expensive and overwhelming for them. So I almost
Speaker 3: had to reframe it so that way. I didn't so
Speaker 3: you don't get stressed out about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you I feel like it's always a
Speaker 2: plot point in movies, like where someone gets killed for
Speaker 2: your life insurance policy. So it's never exactly like the happy,
Speaker 2: go lucky kind of topic to get brought up. But
Speaker 2: think about how once the grief, of course, everyone's going
Speaker 2: to miss you and they'll never you know, my husband
Speaker 2: will never find anyone like me. I'll haunt him for life.
Speaker 2: If he even tries, but at least he'll be able
Speaker 2: to provide, you know, a good life for our kid
Speaker 2: and my dog. And we had a guest on there's
Speaker 2: a really good episode of Brown Ambition. Maybe we can
Speaker 2: find the link to it where we had a life
Speaker 2: insurance expert on and I'm like, forgetting on her name,
Speaker 2: damn it, what's her name? Anyway, she came on and
Speaker 2: one of her points was, especially for black and brown communities,
Speaker 2: even if you don't have children, consider getting a policy
Speaker 2: because you can make a nonprofit your beneficiary. And this
Speaker 2: is another way of potentially passing down wealth in communities
Speaker 2: that don't have a lot of you know, wealthy benefactors
Speaker 2: for example. So you know, even if you're single and
Speaker 2: you don't have any children, take a life an insurance
Speaker 2: policy out term life insurance. It's really not that terribly expensive,
Speaker 2: especially if you're younger, and look at it as a
Speaker 2: way of passing on wealth, you know, to a good
Speaker 2: cause if you were to pass away. I thought that
Speaker 2: was really interesting point that she made.
Speaker 3: That is such a great idea that never even crossed
Speaker 3: my mind either. That would be such a great way
Speaker 3: to help out a cause, like if there's no one
Speaker 3: you need to worry about supporting after you leave. I mean,
Speaker 3: that'd be a great way to help out an organization
Speaker 3: you care.
Speaker 2: About, or just like get one of those cool benches.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered, like how do people get those benches
Speaker 2: in Central Park?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm always looking like these donors are who
Speaker 3: are these people who are donating these money and getting
Speaker 3: their names on stuff? Like what's going on? What's this
Speaker 3: process they did?
Speaker 2: That's all you need to know. They had some money
Speaker 2: and they died. That's what happened. Chris, all right, Well
Speaker 2: that was fun. See you're doing it. You're doing it.
Speaker 2: I'm talking more to myself than to you. I'm the
Speaker 2: one who's like Tiffany, what am I going to do
Speaker 2: without her? But so far, so good.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely not trying to replace Tiffany and live up
Speaker 3: to those standards because she's she's and I won't get
Speaker 3: into it, but she's an amazing speaker. I always love
Speaker 3: both of you. Are I love listening to both of you.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you. Well, it's been really wonderful having you on.
Speaker 2: But you're not off the hook yet. My friend, my
Speaker 2: new financial friend, because we have to do our favorite segment,
Speaker 2: Second favorite segment after questions brown boost and brown Break,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing any of the musical things that Tiffany
Speaker 2: usually does either. I'm sorry, y'all. What does she usually
Speaker 2: do for brown boost? Brown Boost, brown break, brown Boost,
Speaker 2: star break? What you're gonna do? She always puts it
Speaker 2: on me. Whatever she's singing, it always has to rhyme
Speaker 2: with Mandy, so that I'm the one who has to
Speaker 2: go first, which is fair. I will go first. Do
Speaker 2: you need me to revisit the rules of brown boost
Speaker 2: or brown breaking? Chris?
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 2: Okay, So brown boost, it's really an important choice. Okay,
Speaker 2: It's either like, do we want to leave the show
Speaker 2: in a high note or do we want to leave
Speaker 2: the show on a funny slash kind of a down note.
Speaker 2: So a brown boost we're talking about something that we're
Speaker 2: excited about that's positive in our lives or careers or
Speaker 2: finances or whatnot. And then a brown break is something
Speaker 2: that's really been getting us down financially, career wise, personally.
Speaker 2: We just want to call out because sometimes it feels
Speaker 2: good to put a name to something that's bothering you,
Speaker 2: and other people tend to relate to it. So that
Speaker 2: is the choice which one of those speaking to you
Speaker 2: at this particular time.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't want to put end it on
Speaker 3: a negative note. I can make it less negative, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I'll go with the brown break because that's
Speaker 3: what's bothering me here at these people.
Speaker 2: Investment. Okay, so we're both going to do a break, y'all. Okay,
Speaker 2: so get ready, double breaker. We don't often have a
Speaker 2: back to back break. This is going to be It's
Speaker 2: going to be fun. All right, Chris, do you want
Speaker 2: to go first? Yeah?
Speaker 3: All right, I can hop in here. Okay. So my
Speaker 3: brown break is I've been I've been getting more messages
Speaker 3: than I care to receive from friends are who are
Speaker 3: investing in all kinds of things in AMC, in cryptocurrencies
Speaker 3: and all this stuff, and it's just like, look at
Speaker 3: how much money I made, and you sure you don't
Speaker 3: want to get in on this, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: I don't. I really don't want to do this. I
Speaker 3: try not to be mean when I get the messages
Speaker 3: and tell them to stop sending these things to me,
Speaker 3: but I'm more so nervous for the other people in
Speaker 3: the group. Chats because I can be like, oh whatever,
Speaker 3: I just ignore it and kill about my day. But
Speaker 3: I'm like, I can see how some of other friends
Speaker 3: are like, well, maybe I need to go and pull
Speaker 3: some money out of my retirement account. I hop in
Speaker 3: on this this AMC thing, and I'm like, please don't
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, out of your four one Okay.
Speaker 3: No, please don't do that. And I'm like, that's the
Speaker 3: thing that people get caught up in the hype of
Speaker 3: all of this, and it can lead to some people
Speaker 3: to make really quick, bad decisions. And so that's why,
Speaker 3: that's why, that's what I'm choosing for today.
Speaker 2: Oh God, yeah, I feel you. And especially I remember
Speaker 2: the story of my dad. My dad drives a he
Speaker 2: drives for the public transit service in Atlanta called Marta,
Speaker 2: And one day he's like, Mandy, one of my pastors
Speaker 2: was telling me about penny stocks he lives. He used
Speaker 2: he used to be a stockbroker in New York, and
Speaker 2: he's like, you need to get all these penny stocks
Speaker 2: because they're worth pennies today, but they can be worth
Speaker 2: millions tomorrow. And I said, Dad, you're going to take
Speaker 2: advice from a very nice man. But he used to
Speaker 2: be a stockbroker, and now he's riding your bus, and
Speaker 2: that's the man that you want that you're trying to become.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no no no no no. But if
Speaker 2: it's not something on the bus, it's like the guy
Speaker 2: at the now. I keep using the cookout analogy, but
Speaker 2: really it is the group text now group text or
Speaker 2: Facebook groups, investing clubs, you know like elon, musk tweets
Speaker 2: and bitcoin tanks or sores whatever. Like people, it's just
Speaker 2: so crazy out there right now. I don't know how listen.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't feel like I would take investment
Speaker 2: advice from friends either, But what what would get you
Speaker 2: to maybe like listen to a stock pick from one
Speaker 2: of those group texts, or has any of them ever
Speaker 2: worked out for you from.
Speaker 3: A group text? I don't know if there's anything that
Speaker 3: any of my friends could do to make me take
Speaker 3: one of their pieces of advice the text message. You know,
Speaker 3: this is probably like a trust issues. So I had
Speaker 3: a friend who he was really into like buying and
Speaker 3: selling shoes when we were younger. He was a sneaker head,
Speaker 3: so he would buy you buy shoes. He would go
Speaker 3: to these releases and He's like, hey, Chris, you got
Speaker 3: to do this. Man, I'm making so much money doing this.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, let me do this. And
Speaker 3: I went with them and I bought these shoes. I
Speaker 3: remember there were these Sinco de Mayo nikes. They had
Speaker 3: the Mexican flag on the side.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's very specific.
Speaker 3: He's like, you get this, man, you're gonna be able
Speaker 3: to flip this. I was like, great, long story short,
Speaker 3: I did not make any money.
Speaker 2: You didn't make any money on for Sinkle the Myo sneakers.
Speaker 3: No, I did not. And I think ever since then,
Speaker 3: I've had trust issues with people giving me random advice
Speaker 3: through text messages. But yeah, no, it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think for me, you really got to understand something
Speaker 3: Like I'm sure he knew what he was doing and
Speaker 3: he could flip those shoes and be great. I was
Speaker 3: sure some of these people I've spent hours studying these
Speaker 3: these stocks, and they have good data to back up
Speaker 3: their decisions. But I don't. And I think that's the
Speaker 3: part that's it's to be cautious. Was like, if you
Speaker 3: don't feel comfortable, don't just jump into this just because
Speaker 3: somebody else feels comfortable doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred per I mean for me, for you,
Speaker 2: it was single to MYO sneakers. For me, it was
Speaker 2: beatie babies. Oh man, Yeah, I'm still waiting for my
Speaker 2: millions aunties and friends at school who told me to
Speaker 2: get all of them and we would like spend money,
Speaker 2: we would protect them at all costs. I think I
Speaker 2: put one in the time capsule, like you know, I
Speaker 2: was thirteen when y uk came along, or didn't come
Speaker 2: along rather, And yeah, I buried my millennium beanie baby,
Speaker 2: thinking wow, I'm really just like burying my nest egg
Speaker 2: right now. I can dig this up in the after
Speaker 2: and cash it out of the bank. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, my mom has a garage full of beanie babies
Speaker 3: still in their protective cases.
Speaker 2: Oh no she has. Oh that's so funny. Well, you
Speaker 2: know better hope, and she's going to hang on to
Speaker 2: my bet they're.
Speaker 3: Not going anywhere. I mean, hey, like Pokemon cards for
Speaker 3: some reason gone wild, Maybe beanie babies will circle back around. Dude.
Speaker 2: My husband was just like, he just went home to
Speaker 2: his parents to go try and dig up his whole
Speaker 2: Pokemon cards. He couldn't find them. He was so mad,
Speaker 2: I don't about Pokemon cards.
Speaker 3: I did the same thing. I called my dad. I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, are those Pokemon cars still in the garage,
Speaker 3: because I wouldn't need those. He could not find them.
Speaker 3: They were nowhere to be found. I was very disappointed.
Speaker 2: But the beanie babies were okay, yeah babies.
Speaker 3: No, they're still on their shelf. They've been on the
Speaker 3: same shelf for I think ten years, just sitting there
Speaker 3: in their nice clearcases.
Speaker 2: Oh lord, all right, well that's really funny. Okay, so
Speaker 2: my break is going to be it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: big one. I'm gonna try it to go on too long.
Speaker 2: But as I said, I'm from the state of Georgia,
Speaker 2: which has a lot of great things going forward. You know,
Speaker 2: world of coke, black people thrive in Atlanta. It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: We saved the Senate this year with John Osoff and
Speaker 2: Rafael Warnocks win and the Senate race. You know, we
Speaker 2: also saved the election. If you guys don't remember black
Speaker 2: women and Lena did, we did that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm like taking credit. I don't even live there, and
Speaker 2: I don't vote in Georgia anymore anyway. But Georgia still
Speaker 2: has a lot of craziness happening, and I couldn't believe
Speaker 2: this headline, but it's something that I wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about because it's just showing how important local elections are
Speaker 2: beyond the presidential election. And I will continue harping on this,
Speaker 2: y'all because look at the Shenanigans. My state is up
Speaker 2: to my God. So the Georgia Education Board has passed
Speaker 2: a resolution just a few days ago to limit the
Speaker 2: ability of teachers in schools where they educate children who
Speaker 2: will go out into the world in the future and
Speaker 2: be citizens in this country, limit them from talking about
Speaker 2: race and the history of racism in this country. Like
Speaker 2: that's the thing that the Board of Education could do.
Speaker 2: And the governor a Brian Kemp, who by the way,
Speaker 2: stole the election from Stacy Abrams a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: That's Stacy Abram's whole you know, launch into this Fair
Speaker 2: Fight Action nonprofit that she's built to expand voting rights
Speaker 2: and voting access across the country, but especially in Georgia.
Speaker 2: Brian Kemp was one of the reasons why, and he
Speaker 2: himself was the one urging the Board of Education to
Speaker 2: take quote immediate steps to ensure that critical race theory
Speaker 2: and its dangerous ideology do not take root in our
Speaker 2: state standards and curriculum, and it passed. So this is
Speaker 2: I'm just like, oh, I mean, I remember in school
Speaker 2: talking about like people getting really fired up about Georgia
Speaker 2: state flag because it had the Confederate emblement it and
Speaker 2: they were going to change it. I remember that being
Speaker 2: being really confused by how intensely debated that was in
Speaker 2: class and stuff. And I was in class when we
Speaker 2: were reading Huckleberry finn In. One of my white female
Speaker 2: classmates asked, why can't we say the N word? And
Speaker 2: she said the N word? Like, what's wrong with it?
Speaker 2: They say it in the book? Why can't we say it? So,
Speaker 2: as a kid who used to be one of the
Speaker 2: only ones in her class, I can't. I can't conceive
Speaker 2: that we could be going backwards like this. It's really
Speaker 2: scary to me, and I just want to raise awareness
Speaker 2: of this thing that's happening in Georgia, and I hope.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a way to to vote
Speaker 2: this away or to undo it, but it's scary that
Speaker 2: so simply and easily you can deny children who are
Speaker 2: supposed to be educated. This discussion is about this very important,
Speaker 2: very bloody, very tragic, you know, chapter or book in
Speaker 2: our nation's history that is still impacting them today. It
Speaker 2: just it like boggles my mind that this is even happening.
Speaker 3: I don't understand it. I saw the same article, and
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not like there are they currently were
Speaker 3: teaching like in depth history of what was really happening
Speaker 3: in America over the years. I remember, there's so many
Speaker 3: things I didn't learn about until I was in college
Speaker 3: or or you just learned about on my own, including
Speaker 3: like the Tulsa massacre, Like that was something that people
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma don't even know about that because they weren't
Speaker 3: taught about it in school. And it's like to then
Speaker 3: even say we can't even mention the factual history and
Speaker 3: the discrimination that's occurred in the state and in the country.
Speaker 3: It's it really makes you think, like why, why is
Speaker 3: that even possible to do something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I will give a shout out to a
Speaker 2: teacher named Tracy Penley. She was named the state Teacher
Speaker 2: of the Year, and she unfortunately doesn't have a vote
Speaker 2: on the on the board. Despite being state Teacher of
Speaker 2: the year, but she also spoke out against it and
Speaker 2: says to say that we're not a racist state flies
Speaker 2: in the face of all the research that I've been
Speaker 2: taught and that I've looked at. And it's true. I mean,
Speaker 2: racism is alive and well in Georgia, despite how there
Speaker 2: are so many is an amazing it can be an
Speaker 2: amazing place to live, and I I'm proud to be
Speaker 2: up and raised there. But until we can't become a
Speaker 2: better state or better country, until we're willing to acknowledge
Speaker 2: these flaws in ourselves, and racism is very much alive
Speaker 2: and well in Georgia. I don't know what the breakdown is,
Speaker 2: but I can guarantee you Georgian's made up a fair
Speaker 2: few number of state rioters at the capitol back in January.
Speaker 2: And beyond that, I'm just a person who knows there's
Speaker 2: freezes people in my home state. And as a mom, like,
Speaker 2: I'm already like my son that are get ready, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be investigating all of his textbooks. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be like, where's the chapter on slavery? What do
Speaker 2: they talk about? You know, what are their references? And
Speaker 2: I think it's really important as parents today to just
Speaker 2: be woke about, really engaged with what our children are
Speaker 2: being taught in school so that we can listen at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. If it's definitely easy for
Speaker 2: obviously boards of education capacities to source of resolutions, but
Speaker 2: it's also easy to take your kids to the library.
Speaker 2: It's also easy to talk about things at the dinner
Speaker 2: table that maybe aren't maybe when I was growing up,
Speaker 2: weren't considered polite conversation. But we've got to educate ourselves
Speaker 2: and make sure our kids are educated. And thankfully there's
Speaker 2: a million different ways to get that education. And it's
Speaker 2: still really troubling, but I'm at least heartened by the
Speaker 2: fact that, you know, you have some schools, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, who are teaching critical race theory and teaching
Speaker 2: sixteen nineteen project by Nicole Hannah Jones from The New
Speaker 2: York Times, Like, so there's education out there. We just
Speaker 2: have to be really, you know, on top of it
Speaker 2: and just make sure that kids are getting a very like,
Speaker 2: realistic and honest, factual telling of our country's history, good
Speaker 2: and bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, I mean, and I mean this this goes
Speaker 3: back to your point of saying how important these local
Speaker 3: elections are because these people making the decisions they really
Speaker 3: want to keep their jobs. They really want to keep
Speaker 3: those positions. And if they're pressed, and if the people
Speaker 3: are vocal about their like, their displeasure with what they're doing,
Speaker 3: the decision they're making, you can vote them out or
Speaker 3: you can put the pressure in them to make different decisions.
Speaker 3: But if they feel comfortable like they're never going to
Speaker 3: get pushed out, then they'll continue to make these horrible decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you can get so mad at an article,
Speaker 2: but you know where were you there at the polls
Speaker 2: when you had a chance to vote. So all right, well,
Speaker 2: that was definitely a heavy note to end on Chris
Speaker 2: that I had to do what I had to do it.
Speaker 2: But listen, this has been such a pleasure having you
Speaker 2: joined the show. I'm so glad that you're out there
Speaker 2: doing what you're doing. I hope Popcorn Finance, you guys
Speaker 2: got to go check it out, subscribe or sorry you
Speaker 2: follow it now on Apple.
Speaker 3: Podcast and they have changed the language everything yet it's
Speaker 3: following this.
Speaker 2: Follow popcorn Finance, leave a review, go find Chris. He's
Speaker 2: on all the socials at popcorn Finance. And then also
Speaker 2: check out his other show, This is Awkward. Who is
Speaker 2: your co host?
Speaker 3: It's Allison, Alison Baggerley.
Speaker 2: Alison Baggerley, awesome. Thank you, Chris. Any last words for
Speaker 2: the BA.
Speaker 3: Fan, I want to say, thank you so much for
Speaker 3: having me. Mandy was greggin and talked with you on here,
Speaker 3: and I just I appreciate you just letting me join
Speaker 3: you here while Tiffany's off for a little bit of
Speaker 3: a break. But it's been so great talking with you
Speaker 3: in all of your audience here.
Speaker 2: Thank you. You made it less scary for me to
Speaker 2: be without Tiffany for the first time ever. I feel
Speaker 2: so crazy to do it without her, but this was great.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much. It's a great talking with you.