Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, watch it. Ah, this is Tiffany and Mandy.
Speaker 2: I didn't have coffee today. I couldn't handle it extra
Speaker 2: octave and we are around ambition round.
Speaker 1: Ohday is Q two tax day for me?
Speaker 2: Ooh exciting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really was. I was like, so that's when
Speaker 1: for those of you who are business owners, you know that. Well,
Speaker 1: even if you're not a business owner, you know you
Speaker 1: might know that the taxier for business owners is split
Speaker 1: in two quarters, and a quarter is just three months
Speaker 1: at a time. So first three months out of the year,
Speaker 1: I paid my taxes and now the second three months
Speaker 1: out of the year, which is what is that? So,
Speaker 1: Jenny Fevry March, April, May June. So I have to
Speaker 1: pay taxes on the income that I earned minus expenses
Speaker 1: on April, May and June. So I met with my
Speaker 1: my big accountant, Carlos. And Carlos and I were just
Speaker 1: going over the numbers. It was you know, the business
Speaker 1: is doing, you know well, but it's like one, paying
Speaker 1: taxes it's not fun, but two as business grows. Manday,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, so for those who know, you know
Speaker 1: I have three well, yes, three companies. I've got the
Speaker 1: budgetist to the original company. I've got the Liverature Academy,
Speaker 1: you know, my online school, and then I have a
Speaker 1: marketing company. And so because I have three companies and
Speaker 1: I have like folks that work for me that kind
Speaker 1: of do work on all of the companies, payroll was
Speaker 1: getting really crazy. And so Arloso, just give me some
Speaker 1: really good advice about how to manage that.
Speaker 2: It's the next level of your business man, your media empire,
Speaker 2: your bud just needs to empire.
Speaker 1: What is.
Speaker 2: Yeah interested about quarterly taxes? Because you know, I've always
Speaker 2: heard that it's a good practice for entrepreneurs, small business owners,
Speaker 2: self employed people basically to pay taxes quarterly. So what
Speaker 2: do you do to prepare for that? Because even just
Speaker 2: every three months, if you don't prepare for it could
Speaker 2: be a lot of money. So, like, what are you
Speaker 2: doing month to month to make sure you're ready for
Speaker 2: that quarterly tax bill? And what is that?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What does that actually entail? Do you keep it in
Speaker 2: a separate account, does your accountant keep it? Do you
Speaker 2: do automatic debits? How do you even like calculate? Oh?
Speaker 2: So many questions.
Speaker 1: All right, So, honestly, three years ago, well the first
Speaker 1: three or four, maybe even five years of business. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I didn't have all of this, but now I have
Speaker 1: my profit and laws statement for each of my three businesses.
Speaker 1: And then what Rachel does is that when it's time
Speaker 1: for me to meet with Carlos every quarter, she combines
Speaker 1: them into the quarterly statement and then that's what I bring. Literally,
Speaker 1: it's usually like like a one to two page paper
Speaker 1: where it just looks like just like a I don't know,
Speaker 1: not an Excel spreadsheet, but just like like a word
Speaker 1: doc in three columns, where it's like, this is how
Speaker 1: much Tiffany made, this is how much she spent each
Speaker 1: of these months, and this is what's left over, and
Speaker 1: this is what kind of like the category she spent on.
Speaker 1: And Carlos will review it. If something looks off, he
Speaker 1: might say, you know you're missing this or something is
Speaker 1: off or whatever, and then from that Carlos says, well,
Speaker 1: based upon what you've made, this is what your taxes are.
Speaker 1: And then he gives me some paper that basically says,
Speaker 1: because my tax is the way I pay them, I
Speaker 1: pay them as an individual, so my companies passed through
Speaker 1: me and I because I own es Corpse, so well,
Speaker 1: my companies are LLCs but I'm taxed as an X
Speaker 1: corpse or an es corp is your tax like kind
Speaker 1: of allocation, and so that means that I'm not self employed.
Speaker 1: I actually work for my companies and so as a result,
Speaker 1: I pay my taxes. And you really, once you reach
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money, you have to pay requarter.
Speaker 1: So what Carlos having to do when I first started
Speaker 1: is I used to set aside twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: every every time my companies paid me because that was enough.
Speaker 1: And then when it wasn't enough, I had to set
Speaker 1: up thirty five percent, and most recently, as of this year,
Speaker 1: I had to start setting inside thirty five percent in
Speaker 1: order to cover. And I honestly like I say that
Speaker 1: in like an ALLY savings account, I'm not super fancy.
Speaker 1: They have, you know, a decent interest rate for their savings.
Speaker 1: And I look at my ALLY savings and I'm like, yep,
Speaker 1: there's money there, Thank goodness, because I've been saving. And
Speaker 1: then I pay online and that way the IRS doesn't
Speaker 1: come for me.
Speaker 2: Is that ALA account set up with your business entity
Speaker 2: or do you personally? Is like your personal ALLY account.
Speaker 1: My personal because one, this is money that been already
Speaker 1: paid out to me so, and I don't. I actually
Speaker 1: asked called the ally decease they had an allied business account,
Speaker 1: they did it? They yeah, no they didn't. So it's
Speaker 1: just my person because like I'm at this point, I'm
Speaker 1: paying these are this is personal taxes that I'm paying.
Speaker 1: So now that I'm married, my husband no longer gets
Speaker 1: a tax refund because our taxes are now jointly done together.
Speaker 1: And so because because I'm married and because of him working,
Speaker 1: he actually helps me save money on taxes. So I
Speaker 1: asked Carlos what's better should we do? Married filing separately
Speaker 1: or married filing jointly, and Carlos running both numbers and
Speaker 1: found that I could save Like last year, I saved
Speaker 1: like almost fifteen thousand dollars in real money and taxes
Speaker 1: by filing jointly. And so we filed jointly. But he
Speaker 1: doesn't get a tax refund anymore. So instead I know
Speaker 1: what his refund would only be. So instead I just
Speaker 1: break him off a little bit and was like, you know, babe,
Speaker 1: this is you know you said.
Speaker 2: You're nicer than me. I don't do that stuff.
Speaker 1: Well what we do is like he because now my
Speaker 1: husband's getting good at it, where he has, So I
Speaker 1: think normally his refund might be like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars, so I would just be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's three thousand dollars. And he typically is like a
Speaker 1: thousand for Supergirl, a thousand for savings, five hundred for fun,
Speaker 1: and another five hundred for like paying down bill, so
Speaker 1: he has like his own system. So but yeah, but
Speaker 1: I'm like at this, you know, but you saved me money,
Speaker 1: so I don't mind, you know, because if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for him, I'd be paying an additional fifteen thousand and
Speaker 1: real money, like actually writing an additional check for fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars because I pay taxes, doesn't get withdrawn from
Speaker 1: my paycheck.
Speaker 2: Do you watch a profit?
Speaker 1: Do I have one?
Speaker 2: Do you watch the profit on SANBC?
Speaker 1: I've watched some of it, like I've watched like everyone
Speaker 1: and why, I've caught a show or two.
Speaker 2: What it's good Marcus lamonas he's just like this billionaire
Speaker 2: who goes around helping struggling businesses while he scoops up
Speaker 2: like forty to fifty percent of the equity in the process.
Speaker 2: But now it's fascinating. It's like you get to watch
Speaker 2: these businesses fail and he shows them what they're doing wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I learned a lot to learn a
Speaker 2: little bit more about business. I like it better than
Speaker 2: Shark Tank. I feel like it really shows you the
Speaker 2: day to day operations of running a business and what
Speaker 2: can go wrong when people let themselves get in the way.
Speaker 2: Shame No. I like I free Plug.
Speaker 1: I've seen like. I saw this one where it was
Speaker 1: like a cookie lady and her son and that was
Speaker 1: so good. I remember that one. I felt bad for
Speaker 1: he because she said like a bad deal where someone
Speaker 1: was going to own ninety percent of her company and
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, how is that legal? You know
Speaker 1: that you signed away ninety percent and she didn't know,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I remember that one. Okay, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: watch it more to get some more inspiration.
Speaker 2: There was a recent one where it was a Atlanta
Speaker 2: based company, so shout out to them. It was what
Speaker 2: are they called Southern Comfort Foods or something they do
Speaker 2: like Southern foods prepared and it's this it's a young
Speaker 2: African American woman and her mom together running this business
Speaker 2: out of the Squarehouse and they were part of Oprah's
Speaker 2: favorite things and they had all this early sex and
Speaker 2: then they were all of a sudden struggling, and turns
Speaker 2: out that she has signed up for these short term
Speaker 2: business loans, which I've been learning a lot more about recently.
Speaker 2: Do you, I don't know if you've ever been in
Speaker 2: a place, hopefully not where you've had to consider short
Speaker 2: term business loans. They're terrible products. I mean, they are
Speaker 2: really expensive. First of all. Sometimes the repayment terms are
Speaker 2: like a week, a month, two months, six months. They're
Speaker 2: really short term. And because there are such short term loans,
Speaker 2: they put crazy interest rates on them, like double digit,
Speaker 2: you know, forty percent. She had a forty percent loan
Speaker 2: that she took out originally for fifty thousand dollars. I
Speaker 2: had a balloon to like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2: And it's nuts. And these products are out there, man, Like,
Speaker 2: the more that we write about small business loans or
Speaker 2: business loans in general, the more I'm just like, man,
Speaker 2: I've been wasting my time writing about payday loans like
Speaker 2: business loans and merchant cash advances, these nasty products. That's
Speaker 2: where it's at. So if you're out there and you're considering,
Speaker 2: you know, or if you have or you're considering, you know,
Speaker 2: taking out a business loan. I would love to get
Speaker 2: more questions about that kind of stuff, because that's where
Speaker 2: I feel like young entrepreneurs can easily make like really
Speaker 2: expensive mistakes that can haunt them forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I could see that I have.
Speaker 2: I have it.
Speaker 1: I mean the only one I ever took out was
Speaker 1: from my ex boyfriend. He was the worst because.
Speaker 2: You took out a business loan for your ex.
Speaker 1: Well, look though, this is like when I very first started.
Speaker 1: We had just broken up, Like I broke up with
Speaker 1: him because I was like I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: pursue more in life, and I knew that he wanted
Speaker 1: to be like barefoot and pregnant. But we tried to
Speaker 1: remain cool for like two years, two or three years
Speaker 1: after breaking up, and so he lent me money, like
Speaker 1: to like buy like a laptop and stuff cause I
Speaker 1: had lost my job at the time, so and then
Speaker 1: to also helped me stay afloat with my with my
Speaker 1: my my condo at the time. But meanwhile, I mean,
Speaker 1: really is it lending money because or is it payback?
Speaker 1: Because I for six years we were together, I was
Speaker 1: young and foolish and he was younger than I was,
Speaker 1: so while he was in school, I was working, So
Speaker 1: I used to pay for all the bills, so he
Speaker 1: lived with me. I bought a condo, pay no mortgage,
Speaker 1: pay no electricity, no water. I mean it was to
Speaker 1: a point where he was literally like my child. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I broke up with him is
Speaker 1: because I remember one day we went to go get
Speaker 1: like ice cream, and like, he ordered his ice cream
Speaker 1: and walked away, and I remember thinking, like, what is happening.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was like twenty eight or something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, did I just bring my son
Speaker 1: to get ice cream?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I thought like wow. I remember it was such
Speaker 1: a good lesson because it wasn't all his fault. I
Speaker 1: had turned it into this, you know, because I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a little older than him. I was like two
Speaker 1: or three years older than him. I'm a little older
Speaker 1: than him, and I'm more established, and when he gets
Speaker 1: more established, he's gonna contribute. And it got to be
Speaker 1: I mean, it got to be bad. I mean it
Speaker 1: was so bad, only the only kind of bad that
Speaker 1: you could do when you're in your twenties. I mean, Mandy,
Speaker 1: we used to go out to dinner, and I would
Speaker 1: put money on the dining room table so he could
Speaker 1: put in his wallet so we'd go out to eat.
Speaker 1: He looked like he paid. It was I know it was,
Speaker 1: and I told myself, never eva again. So you imagine
Speaker 1: my shock and surprise, you know. So he quote unquote
Speaker 1: let me money after we broke up for you know,
Speaker 1: like a laptop, and maybe it was like three or
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars, And of course I'm struggling to pay
Speaker 1: it back because you know, I'm broke, I don't have
Speaker 1: a job, so I you know, the business is doing
Speaker 1: was doing. I can't even say okay. But then he
Speaker 1: kind of like demanded his money back because his new
Speaker 1: girlfriend needed a purse and he wanted to buy it
Speaker 1: for her. Can you imagine it took everything in me
Speaker 1: to be like kick Rocks, dude, like you owe me
Speaker 1: your life, like you lived with me like a child
Speaker 1: for like four years, and I paid for everything. But
Speaker 1: you know what I said, I didn't want him to
Speaker 1: have any tie to me, so I gave him a
Speaker 1: little punk four hundred dollars back. But yeah, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure he and her get to enjoy watching me skyrocking
Speaker 1: my way to the top. But no, but I just
Speaker 1: can't believe that he asked for the money back and
Speaker 1: had the nerve to tell me he was going to
Speaker 1: use it to buy her a coach bag. And I
Speaker 1: just remember being like, yo, I'm like eating and you
Speaker 1: want you want your four hundred dollars back. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just it just was another like confirmation of
Speaker 1: why he was not the one, the two, or the three,
Speaker 1: and now Superman is the exact He's the exact opposite. Like,
Speaker 1: although I make more, we live off his income and
Speaker 1: save and invest. Mind, So it feels nice to have
Speaker 1: someone who is a giver and not a taker.
Speaker 3: Amen, right, Yes, you know what?
Speaker 1: We forgot to hit up the social street.
Speaker 2: Oh you're right, okay.
Speaker 1: So actually just one really cute one which I thought
Speaker 1: was great. This young woman tweeted us. Her name is
Speaker 1: Mish and her Twitter name is at the Underscore Tamish
Speaker 1: and she said, praise report, I just made a final
Speaker 1: payment on a personal loan. Exclamation, exclamation, so thankful for
Speaker 1: the resources. An inspiration game from the b A podcast
Speaker 1: cash Haag is a journey. I love that. And she
Speaker 1: has this meme of like her with like this money
Speaker 1: bag on her back and it says payment. I just
Speaker 1: thought that that was awesome. Now paying off a loan
Speaker 1: is it's honestly, it's awesome and so and then she
Speaker 1: shout us out. She was like, if you're looking to
Speaker 1: increase your financial literacy to be in a community with others,
Speaker 1: you know, check out the Buganista and Brown Ambition. So
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: What was her name or her handle?
Speaker 1: Her handle was at the Underscore t a m I s.
Speaker 2: H tell me at girlfriends, yes, and if you.
Speaker 1: Want to go to the Praise Report or just you know,
Speaker 1: you want to tell us it was so awesome. You
Speaker 1: just want to say whatever. You know, you can tweet us.
Speaker 1: We are at the b a podcast on Twitter.
Speaker 2: And on Instagram. We're at brann Ambition podcast all one
Speaker 2: word and I wanted to give a shout out to
Speaker 2: our Instagram follower nothos and a not Chosen Day. Okay,
Speaker 2: she says. She shouted us out. On another podcast page.
Speaker 2: She was asking for people to list their favorite podcasts,
Speaker 2: and she says more hashtag brown Boost for the Budgetnista
Speaker 2: and Mandy on at Brown Ambition podcast. Their podcast is
Speaker 2: so beautiful and the Black Girl magic is so real.
Speaker 1: I think that I was like, thank you, you love us.
Speaker 2: I love when they brag on us to other on
Speaker 2: other people's pages.
Speaker 1: That's I know. That is kind of fun. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I didn't write it, she wrote it. I'm just here
Speaker 1: to gloat.
Speaker 2: And one more from if this Instagram slash listener If
Speaker 2: These Kinks Could Talk, she says, she posted her own
Speaker 2: post shouting us out. She said, has should I get
Speaker 2: your Financial Life Brand and Vision podcast. Thank you, Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you for creating this podcast. I learned something new
Speaker 2: every day. If you're looking for financial guidance, check out
Speaker 2: this podcast. Too Beautiful Soul sharing great information for free
Speaker 2: ninety nine. That's how you know she listens because she
Speaker 2: quotes one of your sayings.
Speaker 1: You know, I love the silmory love it now. That's awesome. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: this is a good little transition into brown boosts or
Speaker 1: brown break. What's your finna do?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna boost this week me, So you want to
Speaker 2: go first? Very optimistic? Yeah, I'm late. I'm late to
Speaker 2: the party, but I'm going to do my boost this
Speaker 2: week for YELP cash back. Oh I never heard of that, right,
Speaker 2: It's been around since twenty seventeen, I started doing some
Speaker 2: research because I wondered how long it's been since I've
Speaker 2: been out of the loop. But Yelp, if you order
Speaker 2: food on Yelp, because you know, you can actually order
Speaker 2: takeout or delivery through the app, I think in most cities,
Speaker 2: definitely in New York, and if you get enrolled, you
Speaker 2: can earn up to ten percent cash back just for
Speaker 2: ordering through the app. You link a credit card and
Speaker 2: they just once a month deposit money into your account,
Speaker 2: which is just awesome. So it's kind of like ebates,
Speaker 2: but specifically for Yelp, and I've been using it ever
Speaker 2: since we moved to our new neighborhood. A couple of
Speaker 2: restaurants near us participate, And yeah, I just made like
Speaker 2: five bucks cash back on our dinner the other day.
Speaker 2: And I just checked my bank statement and I made
Speaker 2: another two dollars cash back from Yelp. So it adds up.
Speaker 2: And the beauty of it is that, at least in
Speaker 2: my experience, so I have a cash back credit card
Speaker 2: where I earn three points when I order from restaurants,
Speaker 2: when I when I go to restaurants, and I was
Speaker 2: sometimes these these like restaurant and food apps can be tricky,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they do trigger the three points for restaurants
Speaker 2: spending with credit cards, and sometimes they don't. So I
Speaker 2: was just double checking because I was thinking, Man, if
Speaker 2: I make five percent cash back by using Yelp cash
Speaker 2: back plus three percent cash back by using this rewards
Speaker 2: credit card, then I'm just almost saving ten percent of
Speaker 2: my dinner, which is pretty dope. So I double checked
Speaker 2: with my credit card and my Yelp grub Hub. They yeah,
Speaker 2: it counted as three points for every dollar I spent,
Speaker 2: so I basically earned eight percent cash bag. Just dope.
Speaker 1: That is dope. Honestly, cash back is like it's like
Speaker 1: the chocolate icing on a yellow cake. It's just it's
Speaker 1: just get any better than that. It's the extra chocolate
Speaker 1: chip in the chocolate chip cookie, an extra chocolate chunk
Speaker 1: in a chocolate chip cookie.
Speaker 2: It's the pineapple jam and a Dominican birthday cake.
Speaker 1: Whoa, it is the.
Speaker 2: Girl on your on your ding dong.
Speaker 1: It is the strip in your in your in your payea. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like, I don't know when when people
Speaker 1: don't decide it for cash back programs, I'm like, so
Speaker 1: you just don't like money, so you just don't you know,
Speaker 1: you don't like money. Oh okay, No, it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't even require that much work exactly.
Speaker 1: It's just so awesome cash back programs like ebays, this
Speaker 1: Yelp cash back. It's just literally live your life like
Speaker 1: link whatever you have to link, and they live your
Speaker 1: life and enjoy the fruits of your labor. So that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dope. And it's not something that I'm not shopping
Speaker 2: to get the cash back. It's just like one I'm
Speaker 2: if I'm gonna order from this trushaurant anyway, maybe I'm
Speaker 2: gonna use Yelp to do it, and maybe I'll get
Speaker 2: a little money back.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying exactly. Well, my Brown booths are
Speaker 1: two people, one Brown Boosts for Damon Young. You know,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of Very Smart Brothers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I love that website. They're really funny.
Speaker 1: They are really funny. And he is I guess I
Speaker 1: don't want to say he's the CEO, but anyway, he's
Speaker 1: got a memoir coming out like he's super smart, super funny,
Speaker 1: super woke, young Brown ambition and young man. And his
Speaker 1: book is called What Doesn't Kill You Makes you blacker,
Speaker 1: which I'm like, thank god, I a memoir in Essays
Speaker 1: by Damon Young. Honestly, I feel like this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a New York Times bestseller and it's going to
Speaker 1: be everything. So I'm excited. He is. It's going to
Speaker 1: be on HarperCollins and so yeah, so fun facts, which
Speaker 1: you know what, you know what I'm gonna say it.
Speaker 1: So remember I told you that the doctors the TV
Speaker 1: show reached out to me.
Speaker 2: The doctors, no, but yes, okay.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I said it maybe like an
Speaker 1: episode or two ago. So anyway, the doctors reached out
Speaker 1: to me, which is like, you know, one of these
Speaker 1: daytime talk shows and like, you know, my dad loves it, right,
Speaker 1: so why do they reach out? And they said, hey,
Speaker 1: Damon Young, we saw your article in the New York
Speaker 1: Times about post traumatic broke syndrome. Would you like to
Speaker 1: come on? I said, my name is not Daman Young.
Speaker 2: But wait you snatched it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but you know, I said, my name's not
Speaker 1: Dami Young, but you know, like I mean, you're free
Speaker 1: obviously to go with Daman Young. But this is Tiffany,
Speaker 1: but I too talk about financial education. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: grandma on girl. So the lady wrote me back. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a DreamCatcher. I knew about you. She's like, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about both of you and him, and I
Speaker 1: guess when I press enter to you, you know, And
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, so thanks Damon.
Speaker 2: So is that why you're giving him the brown boos
Speaker 2: because you feel guilty?
Speaker 1: I do, and I'm like, sorry, but David honestly is fine.
Speaker 1: He is like or slaying and yeah, just like living
Speaker 1: his best life. But I just thought that was funny
Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, I didn't write that article,
Speaker 1: but I could certainly speak to it.
Speaker 2: And then you know, we need to have him on
Speaker 2: the show because I think post traumatic broke syndrome is
Speaker 2: a is. I don't even know what it is, but
Speaker 2: I feel like I suffer from it, so I would
Speaker 2: like to talk to him about it.
Speaker 1: I don't, but you know what, I know people who
Speaker 1: know him, so you never know. Maybe I'll reach out
Speaker 1: to my connects and the thing to think I do.
Speaker 1: And my second of brown booth is a the first
Speaker 1: black woman to earn her PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT.
Speaker 1: Did you see this?
Speaker 2: No? No?
Speaker 1: So her name is Maria Marina Robinson Snowden. She became
Speaker 1: the first black woman to earn a PhD in nuclear
Speaker 1: engineering at MI T. MIT is like the smarty smarty
Speaker 1: smarty school. It's like the school for the smarty smarties.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just like like, According to her, her
Speaker 1: degree was a culmination of eleven years a whole secondary study.
Speaker 1: She was often the only black woman or a black
Speaker 1: person in her nuclear engineering classes, but she took them
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to represent and shine. And she actually,
Speaker 1: which I thought was so sweet, this is why representation matters.
Speaker 1: She said, I had a picture of Catherine Johnson on
Speaker 1: my wall right after Hidden Figures came out because she
Speaker 1: was one of the women. I don't know who played
Speaker 1: Catherine Johnson and Hidden Figures Hudson, right, I think so,
Speaker 1: And she said, because she was a role model for me,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, and I just thought that that was awesome.
Speaker 1: And she was like, people asked who her mole model was,
Speaker 1: and she was like, you know, you pick and choose
Speaker 1: from different places, and she was like, now she has
Speaker 1: a tangible woman, Catherin Johnson, who was a mathematician and
Speaker 1: a black woman killing it. So I just want to say,
Speaker 1: go ahead, and Marina Robinson and she is fly. So
Speaker 1: you go ahead being the first black woman to earn
Speaker 1: a PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what you do with it, but I'm sure you used
Speaker 1: to lay the world.
Speaker 2: I mean it sounds dangerous, so I'm glad that you're
Speaker 2: on our side exactly.
Speaker 1: Don't forget that. SI cool. So that's my two great,
Speaker 1: my two booths.
Speaker 2: How positive we are today?
Speaker 1: I know right, I don't know why because this weather
Speaker 1: has be irritated. Question on, I'm sure we have some
Speaker 1: great ones in the inbox. Anything good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get some questions. So if you guys want
Speaker 2: to email us a question, you can hit us up
Speaker 2: directly at Brand Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com, or
Speaker 2: you can go to brand Ambition podcast dot com and
Speaker 2: click that ask us anything tab and leave us a
Speaker 2: question there. Let me know if you want me to
Speaker 2: say your name or if you want to be anonymous.
Speaker 2: We love getting your questions, and this week we have
Speaker 2: two great questions from some listeners. Question number one comes
Speaker 2: from listeners Simone. Simone says, if you close your credit
Speaker 2: card account and start to pay it off, does it
Speaker 2: still add interest? My mom has a heavy balance on
Speaker 2: a closed credit card and she needs to stop paying
Speaker 2: the interest.
Speaker 1: Oh child, if it was that easy, we'd all be
Speaker 1: closed back right. No, girl, you will still have to
Speaker 1: pay interests on that credit card. What it does do
Speaker 1: is means that you can't continue to add charges, which
Speaker 1: is good. But yes, like the credit card companies would
Speaker 1: never because that's their bread and butter. They get paid
Speaker 1: by charging you for still having a balance.
Speaker 2: A better thing to do if your mom wants to
Speaker 2: give herself extra time to pay off the card and
Speaker 2: to save money on interest, is to look and see
Speaker 2: if she qualifies for any good balance transfer options because
Speaker 2: a balance What a balance transfer does is you open
Speaker 2: up a different credit card with a zero percent intro
Speaker 2: APR for twelve months or however long, and you use
Speaker 2: that new credit card to pay to transfer the balance
Speaker 2: from your old credit card onto it, and then you
Speaker 2: have that period of time to pay it down without
Speaker 2: having any interest. Because interest is what kills people because
Speaker 2: you're trying to get one step ahead, but then interest
Speaker 2: is piling up and you're not actually making any progress.
Speaker 2: So I would say look into balance transfer options. I can.
Speaker 2: I can send you a link to a good page
Speaker 2: with zero percent intro APR balance transfers. Just read the
Speaker 2: fine print, because sometimes they say you have to you
Speaker 2: have to actually complete the transfer within a certain number
Speaker 2: of days, like forty five or sixty days in order
Speaker 2: to qualify for the intro APR and then watch out
Speaker 2: for deferred interest balance transfer options.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of sneaky. So they say we'll give
Speaker 2: you zero percent for twelve months, what they mean is
Speaker 2: in the fine print it'll say if you so much
Speaker 2: as miss a single payment during that year, or if
Speaker 2: you don't pay off the full balance by the end
Speaker 2: of the twelve months, we're actually going to charge you
Speaker 2: interest as if you were earning it for the full
Speaker 2: year and tack it on to you to your transfer.
Speaker 1: That sense don't make ident But honestly, I found my
Speaker 1: very first well maybe not my very first, but I
Speaker 1: found at the time of my balance transfer card actually
Speaker 1: from magnify money dot com Woo woo, where Mandy works.
Speaker 1: So it's a great resource, honestly because you get to
Speaker 1: kind of I think I last time I remember, there
Speaker 1: was like this sliding little like scale where you could
Speaker 1: put in your your credit score and they would say
Speaker 1: basically what you would be like cards that would be
Speaker 1: good for you for balance trenchs or like you can
Speaker 1: literally just a drop down menu like credit cards, which
Speaker 1: credit card you are you looking for? You choose balance transfer,
Speaker 1: you put in your your score, and literally sometimes Magna
Speaker 1: Fund of Money will play you and be like, girl,
Speaker 1: ain't nobody giving you a balance tres for card? Which
Speaker 1: I think is how Larry's But I love that.
Speaker 2: Because I don't think that's the exact language, but that's not.
Speaker 1: But it's so funny. I was like, you know, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you got that, and then you know, but then if
Speaker 1: your score is good, then you know, then it'll tell
Speaker 1: you like what cards would be more most likely to
Speaker 1: get the yes from. So it's a really good resource.
Speaker 2: I want to add a pop up video that comes
Speaker 2: up every time someone has bad credit and puts their
Speaker 2: puts their info, just of like your voice saying.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, it would not be fun.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's a good point. Though. A lot of
Speaker 2: balance transfer cards do you require decent credit, you know,
Speaker 2: mid six hundreds to get approved, So if you have
Speaker 2: poor credit already, your options are more limited. But one
Speaker 2: thing that you can do is look into personal loans
Speaker 2: and use them to consolidate credit card debt, and I'll
Speaker 2: also send a link because personal loans can be great,
Speaker 2: but there's some bad ones out there, bad ones that
Speaker 2: are almost as bad as payday loans. So we do
Speaker 2: a lot, a lot, a lot of reviews of different
Speaker 2: personal loan companies, like every single one you can imagine.
Speaker 2: So and we've actually found some good options for people
Speaker 2: who have poor credit to so I'll I'll try and
Speaker 2: post something in there too, But definitely, someone closing your
Speaker 2: credit card is not going to fix it. It's only gonna,
Speaker 2: you know, put it out of sight, out of mind,
Speaker 2: probably for you, but it's still going to be accruing.
Speaker 2: So tell your mom to see if she qualifies for
Speaker 2: any balance transfer options. And over and one last thing
Speaker 2: with the balance transfer, So let's say it's only twelve months.
Speaker 2: What you can do is set a reminder on your
Speaker 2: calendar for eleven months and then say, okay, see if
Speaker 2: you can qualify for another balance transfer option, and then
Speaker 2: transfer that balance onto the new card, a different balance
Speaker 2: transfer card. If you're approaching that twelve month period and
Speaker 2: you look like you're not going to pay it off,
Speaker 2: that's something that you can do as long as you're
Speaker 2: not transferring funds to the same to a credit card
Speaker 2: from the same bank. A lot of banks don't let
Speaker 2: you do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, say, we got your girl, Well, we got your mama. Yep.
Speaker 2: When I learned about balance transfers, I was like, oh, hallelujah,
Speaker 2: where was that when I was, you know, had my
Speaker 2: little one thousand dollars student credit card and kept getting
Speaker 2: eleven dollars finance charges every month. You can never pay
Speaker 2: it down. Didn't know what I was doing then, But
Speaker 2: when I know better, I.
Speaker 1: Tell you better exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, how about one more question real quick? Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: do it, Okay, listener, James, Oh hey, James, got a
Speaker 2: man up in here.
Speaker 1: What was our fake What was our guy name that
Speaker 1: we had for Jamal?
Speaker 2: Jamal? Yeah, we forgot about Jama. Yeah, I love that
Speaker 2: named James. Okay. So, James says, I have almost fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of student loan debt that I'm working to
Speaker 2: get rid of. My wife and I have saved about
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, mostly saved by my
Speaker 2: wife prior to our marriage. Other than our mortgage, this
Speaker 2: is the only debt in our household. While discussing an
Speaker 2: unrelated financial topic, my wife mentioned that she would be
Speaker 2: hesitant to dip into one hundred and sixty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: long term saving for fear of weakening our long term
Speaker 2: security to pay off that fifty thousand dollars of student
Speaker 2: loan debt paying the student loan. If we paid our
Speaker 2: student loan at the current pace we're on, we would
Speaker 2: actually end up spending almost one hundred thousand dollars on
Speaker 2: the loan after interest charges. Should we a fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars check and get that cleared up? Or just our
Speaker 2: saving amount to pay it in installments? But attack it
Speaker 2: with ferocity? This is an excellinquish it is.
Speaker 1: I'm like, ooh, Jane, you sound like you're married to me,
Speaker 1: So I too, I too, am a money hoarder because
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in cash and depending
Speaker 1: on like what your lifestyle looks like. But for the
Speaker 1: average person, that's really a lot of money to have
Speaker 1: in a savings account.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's if and he didn't specify, but
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's like in a regular savings account,
Speaker 2: or if he's including their retirement money in with that,
Speaker 2: because it's not you know, I mean, unless I mean
Speaker 2: by all means you know, you can have that much
Speaker 2: saved for the average person, I think it'd be a
Speaker 2: little hard to imagine having that much in the bank.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's like, you know, a four one K,
Speaker 2: but that that would change the answer a little bit differently.
Speaker 2: But maybe just for our questions, for our answers, we
Speaker 2: can let's just let's just say that it's regular savings,
Speaker 2: just like a regular checking a savings account versus a
Speaker 2: four to one K.
Speaker 1: So, well, one thing, I will so remember one thing
Speaker 1: that we learned from Angela that she said, if you
Speaker 1: have the money to pay off an alump sum member,
Speaker 1: you can negotiate down like up to fifteen fifteen one
Speaker 1: five percent yep, saying hey, I've got it, So what
Speaker 1: is what is fifteen percent? All fifty thousand? You know
Speaker 1: how to do the massa good? Let me see, let
Speaker 1: me get.
Speaker 2: The five hundred. Ooh, did I do it right? I
Speaker 2: seventy five hundred, seventy five hundred.
Speaker 1: So you could potentially save seventy five hundred by negotiating
Speaker 1: saying I have a lump sum amount. So that's instead
Speaker 1: of paying fifty thousand, you'd be paying minus seventy five hundred.
Speaker 1: I'm doing on my part four forty two five, so
Speaker 1: you'll be paying forty two thousand, five hundred dollars. So one,
Speaker 1: you're saving that way, right. But two, my assumption is
Speaker 1: that your student loan interest rate in this way you
Speaker 1: can share with your wife is large. It's likely greater
Speaker 1: than the interest that you're earning from your savings accoun
Speaker 1: So let's say, for the sake of an argument, that
Speaker 1: you have one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in a
Speaker 1: savings account and it's yielding you right. I think right now,
Speaker 1: allies giving you like well one point seventy five. I
Speaker 1: think that's like their interest rate and your student loans,
Speaker 1: even on the low end, I highly doubt they're giving
Speaker 1: you your interest rate with lower than this. So let's
Speaker 1: just say it's four percent. So that means that you
Speaker 1: are your student loans are costing you four percent while
Speaker 1: your savings is only making you let's say about two percent.
Speaker 1: So you're losing on that account. And then, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: by the time you pay off your student loans that
Speaker 1: you really have well have paid double So honestly, you
Speaker 1: can share if you to me someone like your wife,
Speaker 1: because I hold money too, because I'm I'm we have
Speaker 1: way too much money in savings and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: let go of that. But what would help me is
Speaker 1: to see the numbers in comparison, like, if we keep
Speaker 1: the money here and work on and stay on your track,
Speaker 1: this is what will actually be spending and have. And
Speaker 1: if we if we make this decision and pay down
Speaker 1: the student loan, that this is what we'll actually spend
Speaker 1: in half. And what might help her is how quickly
Speaker 1: can you get back to the one sixty because that
Speaker 1: would help me a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, that's the question that our financial planners started
Speaker 2: asking to help me get over that hurdle. Yes, I'm
Speaker 2: a hoarder. You know, this was the thing right before
Speaker 2: we got Wait, when did I last summer? The summer
Speaker 2: before we paid off and we paid off my husband's
Speaker 2: student loan debt, it was about twenty thousand dollars and
Speaker 2: that was you know, it was a joint effort, but
Speaker 2: I was in the same position as his wife. And
Speaker 2: that's and that's also a layer here that we haven't
Speaker 2: talked about yet, is the fact that he says, it's
Speaker 2: basically her money that she's say prior to their marriage,
Speaker 2: and I think that that might be contributing to maybe
Speaker 2: the little bit of a hesitancy, because when we paid
Speaker 2: off my husband's debt, we were using money that I
Speaker 2: had accumulated myself.
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a huge mental block
Speaker 2: for me using my need to pay off his student
Speaker 2: loan debt, because I really do believe, you know, when
Speaker 2: you're married, you're you're you're merging finances, and his debt
Speaker 2: was holding me back all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 2: so I wanted to pay it off, and you know,
Speaker 2: I was eager to. But yeah, my our financial planner,
Speaker 2: she started asking that question. Okay, well, let's be realistic. Yes,
Speaker 2: it will put a dent in your savings now, but
Speaker 2: how much longer? How much? How long would it take
Speaker 2: you to get back to a place where you're replenishing
Speaker 2: that And then she laid it out, oh, three months
Speaker 2: to you know, six months or whatever, And then I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's not that bad. It's not like we're never
Speaker 2: going to start saving again. And if you got here once,
Speaker 2: you can get there again. And I mean, you guys
Speaker 2: would still have one hundred and ten thousand even if
Speaker 2: you didn't get a fifteen percent discount, you know, if
Speaker 2: you weren't able to you know, negotiate it down, although
Speaker 2: you probably can, you'd still be left with over one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in savings, which is phenomenal. And it's
Speaker 2: and you don't you know, it's like TIF said, you
Speaker 2: don't want to let the psychological hang up get in
Speaker 2: the way of the pure math of it, which is
Speaker 2: that it's costing you more money to keep the stet
Speaker 2: on your balance sheet than it would be to pay
Speaker 2: it down.
Speaker 1: And you know, move along, mass her to death. Just
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, babe, honestly, here's some math. Here's some
Speaker 1: more math. Here's a maths on top of math that
Speaker 1: will help significantly. A friend of mine helped me with
Speaker 1: that decision when we were deciding to buy the house cash,
Speaker 1: because my husband was kind of like, well, it's up
Speaker 1: to you, because you know, we were still really newly married,
Speaker 1: so it was like, that's your money. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: even though we were living off of his income, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, no, not really, because although it might
Speaker 1: be my money we save and invest, Like if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for a living off your income, we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: this money to save an invest But basically he left
Speaker 1: it up to me, and so I called him a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Mark who owns he's a business owner
Speaker 1: and owns several launder matchs in Charlottees and other businesses,
Speaker 1: and I said, what do you think you know? I
Speaker 1: was asking my other like friends who are trusted their
Speaker 1: financial advice, and he mastered me to death. Basically, he
Speaker 1: was like, well, how quickly could you replace the cost
Speaker 1: of your house, because I know you're nervous, And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, we did the math and I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I could have this money back in my account in
Speaker 1: under eight months, maybe sooner if I have a really
Speaker 1: good month or two. And I said, he was like, well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it makes sense. It's not like it
Speaker 1: would take you five years to get this money back
Speaker 1: that within a year you'd be right back where you were.
Speaker 1: And it helped me make the decision to yes, let's
Speaker 1: let's buy this home cash. So yeah, math is your
Speaker 1: friend when you're afraid and you are suffering from post
Speaker 1: traumatic broke syndrum, like me and Mandy math is going
Speaker 1: to be your.
Speaker 2: Friend, and consider if you don't, because sometimes when it's
Speaker 2: coming from the person who wants some money, it's you know,
Speaker 2: I understand it, it's it's you love each other. But
Speaker 2: it can be awkward and it can cause arguments when
Speaker 2: you try to talk about money, even if you are
Speaker 2: completely right, because I've been there, I'm always right about money, right,
Speaker 2: but hiring a financial planner for a couple hundred bucks,
Speaker 2: you know, for you know, a couple hundred bucks, you know,
Speaker 2: to have someone look at our finances and then basically
Speaker 2: tell husbe what everything that I had been saying. It
Speaker 2: helped because it got it helped get have a third
Speaker 2: party who was objective, independent, who you don't really know
Speaker 2: so well, so you're not going to talk over them
Speaker 2: and you listen like I feel like there was. It
Speaker 2: really helped us communicate better, and we had someone who
Speaker 2: was directing us versus us kind of arguing with one another.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you guys feel if you feel
Speaker 2: like you're not really if he's not really hearing you,
Speaker 2: even when you bring the bring the math to the table.
Speaker 2: After what Tiff and I have said, you know, consider
Speaker 2: that as an option, you don't have to hire a
Speaker 2: financial planner for forever. Get a fee only planner, you
Speaker 2: know who charges you an hourly rate just to have
Speaker 2: the same kind of conversation and see if that helps.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, so yeah, I think that's a really good
Speaker 1: idea too. It is. That's why I ask you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, I asked more because sometimes you're right.
Speaker 1: It is hard to get past your own kind of
Speaker 1: like wall, and it's hard to hear from someone. I
Speaker 1: feel like around the world are like rolling their eyes
Speaker 1: because like somebody will tell me something and I'll come
Speaker 1: home and be like, oh my god, superman. So I
Speaker 1: was thinking we should do this. He's like, I just
Speaker 1: I just I'm like, did you you know I'm the
Speaker 1: worst of that. I'm like, did you say that?
Speaker 2: So were sounded better when someone else said it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Ah so yeah, so maybe you need to, like if
Speaker 1: you are cool with her family, like tell my wife.
Speaker 1: So no, but yeah, those are really good. That was
Speaker 1: really good advice. Manby.
Speaker 2: Thank you all right, well, thank thank you James, thanks
Speaker 2: for listening, get your wife to listen, bring her on
Speaker 2: to the Brown Mission train. And to Simone, thanks for
Speaker 2: your question too. Again, you guys hit us up at
Speaker 2: Brownambission podcast dot com with your questions. We love taking them.
Speaker 1: I just feel like you guys have been asking really
Speaker 1: great questions. Sometimes I am always afraid every week, like
Speaker 1: are they going to be like the same questions? But nope,
Speaker 1: you know, all these years later, you guys bring dope
Speaker 1: and awesome questions.
Speaker 2: So keep them coming, keep them coming, especially more. I
Speaker 2: want more questions from small business owners and entrepreneurs. I
Speaker 2: think that that's some of the most those are. That's
Speaker 2: what I want to answer. That's what I want to
Speaker 2: get into.
Speaker 1: Because that's oh yeah, yes, bring it on, all.
Speaker 2: Right, miss Tiff, another fabulous show.
Speaker 1: Yes, and now it's signed to say goodbye to all
Speaker 1: our companies. Name name that show, Mandy, let's see millennial.
Speaker 1: Name the show.
Speaker 2: This is Mickey Mounce Club. This is why we need
Speaker 2: insurance because you're gonna get a sued for the rights
Speaker 2: for singing these songs I.
Speaker 1: Don't belong to us. Well, you know what, I only
Speaker 1: did a line, and I think as long as you
Speaker 1: sing it and we're not playing the actual recording, we
Speaker 1: should be fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, put me in my place.
Speaker 1: Guy, I'm saying that, but I have no idea.
Speaker 2: It sounds smart though, and you're not married to me,
Speaker 2: so you obviously I trust you.
Speaker 1: What I just said, that this is not from me,
Speaker 1: well no,