Speaker 1: We're back. I'm Drew McCarry and I'm David Roth and
Speaker 1: coming in September a new site we have built together
Speaker 1: called Defect or Defector, and we're gonna have a new
Speaker 1: podcast to go with it, this Verry podcast, which has
Speaker 1: the name The Distraction. It's out right now. It's available
Speaker 1: every rust. Get your podcast at Stitcher, Spotify, Apple, Go
Speaker 1: listen right now to The Distraction everywhere. It's out right now.
Speaker 1: Go listen to see by. When it comes to the
Speaker 1: b word, budgets, my philosophy is budgets are made to
Speaker 1: be broken, really dead as Yes, you know what else
Speaker 1: breaks marriages? Marriages break when you break budgets. Yes, most
Speaker 1: marriages end because of financial issues because of that idea.
Speaker 1: Right there, I guess I could see that dead as
Speaker 1: dead as Okay, I'm Candy and I'm Devil and we're
Speaker 1: You may know us from posting funny videos with our
Speaker 1: boys and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm making need derby most days. And one more important
Speaker 1: thing to mention, we're married, Yes, sir, we are. We
Speaker 1: created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's
Speaker 1: most taboo topics. Things most folks don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about through the lens of a millennium married couple. Dead
Speaker 1: ass is a term that we say every day. When
Speaker 1: we say dead as, we're actually saying facts. One honey,
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: We're about to take Phillow talk to a whole new level.
Speaker 1: Dead as starts now. We had just moved back to
Speaker 1: Brooklyn and I just got released. I wasn't making any money.
Speaker 1: Codeine and I were like, you know, we do need
Speaker 1: to refurnish the apartment because the apartment was terrible. Nobody
Speaker 1: had lived there for years. So I said, listen, we
Speaker 1: have a credit card. Okay, it's fift K on the
Speaker 1: credit card. We can buy what we need on the
Speaker 1: credit card and pay it back. Codine said, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: look at some things. Three hours later, fourteen thousand, nine
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight dollars was spent on the credit
Speaker 1: car and I was like, yo, how you spend all
Speaker 1: this money? One time? She was like, it's on the
Speaker 1: credit card. You said that we could spend it. So
Speaker 1: I didn't go over the limit. De Val, I didn't
Speaker 1: go over the limit. I lost my mind and then
Speaker 1: this is the funny thing. I said, you know, we
Speaker 1: gotta pay this money back, right. She goes, yeah, over time.
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, since you think it's over time,
Speaker 1: that's your credit card now, even though it was in
Speaker 1: my name and she CoA signed. I said, you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta pay that back. She's I find I'm working.
Speaker 1: I can pay it back. Codine put the minimum on
Speaker 1: the credit card every month, maybe like five dollars over
Speaker 1: the minimum. Because I heard that what you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do a little over the minimum? You know, right right,
Speaker 1: that's what you heard. Because what hurt? Who told you that?
Speaker 1: I did not say you put a little bit minimum.
Speaker 1: I said, if you do not want your credit to
Speaker 1: rob if you want to not be late, you have
Speaker 1: to put at least a minimum. I didn't want my
Speaker 1: credit to drop. Here's the kicker, guys. We had a
Speaker 1: year free, a year free of no interest. So I said,
Speaker 1: let's try to get this down under you know, and
Speaker 1: under a year. Right, we're going into the year. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: the credit cards almost done. It's almost July. With a
Speaker 1: credit card that I go to it. Thirteen thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty six dollars were able to put down
Speaker 1: one three hundred dollars on the credit card. I felt
Speaker 1: like I did more than that, though, And that's learned
Speaker 1: that right there started the beginning of the separation in
Speaker 1: our marriage a little bit, because now I feel like
Speaker 1: I had to educate her, and she hates when I
Speaker 1: try to educate her on anything. You know, my parents,
Speaker 1: they took care of their finances on their own, and
Speaker 1: they really didn't like tell me much about it. So
Speaker 1: you had to educate me, guys, And here we are,
Speaker 1: I mean, seventeen years later, I think as of like
Speaker 1: two months ago, I figured it out. Yeah it took
Speaker 1: you what nine nine years? Yeah? Yeah, she still ain't
Speaker 1: playing off that credit card. You have that credit card.
Speaker 1: Now I have the credit card. I said, just give
Speaker 1: it to me, Give it to me. That the guys,
Speaker 1: that is of my life, one of many the microcosm.
Speaker 1: As you said with your big gass word, she takes
Speaker 1: my money when now I'm yeah, she's a triling friend. Indeed,
Speaker 1: now I'm well over town. That go ahead, Get damn girl,
Speaker 1: geta hey, hey, I'll take that throw it in the bag. Heyme,
Speaker 1: I had that was a special song. You were so
Speaker 1: excited to do karaoke today, Yes, because you pegged that
Speaker 1: song from early once we knew who our guest was today,
Speaker 1: Del was like, oh, we're talking about budgets. I got
Speaker 1: a song. I got a song. This is a perfect song.
Speaker 1: Well I'm not a gold digger. I'm a gold digger
Speaker 1: baby g O A L. Get it right, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: get right? Oh do you see what I did? She
Speaker 1: literally takes everything and twisted around absolutely to be completely
Speaker 1: honest and transparent and to be real. Growing up in
Speaker 1: my household, I really was not educated by my parents
Speaker 1: per se about like, you know, finances and stuff. My
Speaker 1: father would always say, make sure you save your money,
Speaker 1: save your money, but I really would They never really
Speaker 1: broke it down to me in terms of like credit
Speaker 1: card usage or debt or you know, being able to
Speaker 1: establish certain things to make sure that your set up
Speaker 1: investment wise, Like that really wasn't conversations that was had
Speaker 1: with me. And it's not that my parents weren't doing
Speaker 1: it on the back end or you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know why the conversation really didn't take place, but it
Speaker 1: was just kind of like my dad was always like,
Speaker 1: my family is taken care of. I have my investments,
Speaker 1: I have my properties, my kids are good, and that
Speaker 1: was really it. So it wasn't until we met that
Speaker 1: you really had to say, all right, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: be living together, within this relationship, and knowing that financial
Speaker 1: stresses are one of the key contributing factors to divorce
Speaker 1: rates or two people just not staying together, it was
Speaker 1: necessary for us to have those conversations. And those conversations
Speaker 1: unfortunately came by way of you know, mess ups that
Speaker 1: we had with the finances, you know, but it's something
Speaker 1: that we both had to kind of you had to
Speaker 1: educate me on because I didn't know, well this this
Speaker 1: is what's funny, right, and I really think about I
Speaker 1: think about life, I think about my family, my dad, Right,
Speaker 1: my father was very big on finances when he came
Speaker 1: to me and my brother, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: will call him cheap. He's frugal. He's frugal, he's my father.
Speaker 1: My father graduated from high school, got his associate's degree,
Speaker 1: started working directly as a mainframe programmer. So he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any real formal education, but he always made a
Speaker 1: lot of money because he was able to budget and
Speaker 1: get things done. So then he started to make a
Speaker 1: lot more moneys. He got older and started to move
Speaker 1: up in the business, but he always made it a
Speaker 1: point for me and my brother to know finances. He
Speaker 1: put us on credit cards. He explained the details of
Speaker 1: managing money with us. He also didn't allow what For example,
Speaker 1: when I got a car, he bought me a car
Speaker 1: total car called fifts. But then it was my responsibility
Speaker 1: to put gas in the car. So now here's the change.
Speaker 1: And this is where I noticed we also have a
Speaker 1: little sister. He didn't educate my little sister the same
Speaker 1: way he educated my brother and I. And this is
Speaker 1: what's funny, how we educate our young men and our
Speaker 1: young women differently. Because when it came to parties, my
Speaker 1: brother and I weren't allowed to have big, lavish parties.
Speaker 1: We have parties in the backyard. We had barbecues, we
Speaker 1: had basement parties. When my sister had a sweet sixteen,
Speaker 1: she had a huge sweet sixteen, my first car called
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred dollars. My sister's first car course dollars, brand new.
Speaker 1: So my thing is, not only did did they not
Speaker 1: educate her the same way, but they allowed her to
Speaker 1: live a different lifestyle right and I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I'm a dad. I'm probably gonna try to raise my
Speaker 1: daughter's different. Don't don't do that. Don't do that. Now
Speaker 1: we're talking to Today's about budgets. Today, Today's about budgets.
Speaker 1: All right, it's about budgets, all right. I'll speak hypothetically,
Speaker 1: speak hypothetically, as long as I'm not hypothetically broke. No,
Speaker 1: you know, hypothetically broke. But you may be pregnant hypothetically.
Speaker 1: You may have a daughter hypothetically, so that's what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: But I've noticed in a lot of families, not just yours,
Speaker 1: how we as black people educate our daughters and sons differently.
Speaker 1: And I've seen it with my family. I see the
Speaker 1: way my sister spends money and the way me my
Speaker 1: brother does. And when I started dating you, listening to
Speaker 1: some of the things you were saying about your family,
Speaker 1: your dad is very good when it comes to money.
Speaker 1: But you said he never talked to you about it.
Speaker 1: He didn't know, not really. He was always just making
Speaker 1: sure we were good. But being good, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: good within the confines of your household. Is being good
Speaker 1: in terms of putting you out into the world. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's how we we kind of set
Speaker 1: our daughters up and our sons up for failure because ultimately,
Speaker 1: your daughter, if she decides she wants to marry, if
Speaker 1: she decides she wants to marry a man or be
Speaker 1: with a man, now all the things she didn't learn,
Speaker 1: she goes into a relationship not knowing and a guy
Speaker 1: who has been taught this way, because this is how
Speaker 1: it's been. If you man, you gotta do a man thing.
Speaker 1: You're expecting your significant other to be raised the same way,
Speaker 1: and then you realize you're not, and you're like, what
Speaker 1: is wrong with her? I mean, and that's not every family,
Speaker 1: but that's just what I've seen within our community of people, right,
Speaker 1: and I mean ultimately is setting people up to be
Speaker 1: people and individuals too, because those spending habits as individuals,
Speaker 1: then you now come into a relationship, whether you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship or not, you need to learn how to
Speaker 1: budget and sustain yourself if you want to be set
Speaker 1: up for success in terms of getting those things that
Speaker 1: you want, whether it be a house or a condo
Speaker 1: or a business, like being able to have the capital
Speaker 1: to do that. Um so, so yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: important conversations that had to be had, and they want
Speaker 1: to do conversations. They weren't easy conversations. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of tears, a lot of arguing, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of deflecting. There were times when like who's the breadwinner,
Speaker 1: who's making more money? Does a person making more money
Speaker 1: called the shots like then too, then that becomes an
Speaker 1: ego thing. Definitely get compeelings about who's making more money
Speaker 1: and who has the potential. Well, I mean that was
Speaker 1: that was an issue for Cadine and I because when
Speaker 1: I first retired, you know, I had brought in a
Speaker 1: lot of capital to the family and we were both
Speaker 1: building businesses at the time, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: capital that we were using, we're being used to pay bills.
Speaker 1: So for me, I felt like, this is capital that
Speaker 1: I have earned. I do not want to just relinquish
Speaker 1: the use of the capital that had earned to someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't understand finances. And that became a topic of
Speaker 1: contention for us because you felt like, well, I bring
Speaker 1: in money too, and I always felt like, well, the
Speaker 1: money you bring in is not sustaining the lifestyle that
Speaker 1: you want, so we have to take a step back
Speaker 1: and learn. So then we used to take out the
Speaker 1: American Express, go through the itemized list, and sometimes in
Speaker 1: hearing some of the stuff you spent, you used to
Speaker 1: get so pissed. And I'm like, the only way you
Speaker 1: can learn is if you realize you've been to Starbucks
Speaker 1: thirty seven times this month and those little seven dollar Starbucks,
Speaker 1: or thirty seven times almost three hundred dollars you spent
Speaker 1: in a month. But then look, after that conversation, what
Speaker 1: did I do? I bought a coffee pot and started
Speaker 1: making my own coffee. At how you did? And the
Speaker 1: back for that one in the back, I'll pass you
Speaker 1: one time. I'll pass you one time because it took
Speaker 1: us about two years? Are you for you to figure
Speaker 1: that out? Cot? But then now look at us. I'm
Speaker 1: brewing my own, you know, cup of jail in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I'm on my merry way. Look, I still have
Speaker 1: it here, and I've been Michael waving the same cup
Speaker 1: about two or three times just to get through it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know what's funny, You're welcome again. You're always
Speaker 1: thinking yourself, You always thinking yourself? What you just make
Speaker 1: it too easy. I'll make it too easy. You do.
Speaker 1: Can you introduce our guests please so we start talking
Speaker 1: about this. Please please introduce our guests please. All right,
Speaker 1: so today, can you be really broke in bougie at
Speaker 1: the same time you like simultaneously you are? You played yourself.
Speaker 1: I am not queen of broke whatever. Delt I find.
Speaker 1: I find a way, that's my thing. I find a way. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to you. Tiffany the budget Nista Alice
Speaker 1: and she's a personal find nance educator who has written
Speaker 1: Live Richer Challenge series and has given talks all over
Speaker 1: the country centered around financial literacy. So when I first
Speaker 1: saw her name and I was like budget Nieta, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't even know if I could flex
Speaker 1: with her because I don't even really use that word.
Speaker 1: So I was like, all right, whatever, But Devot was
Speaker 1: an advocate for having her on, and I'm all about
Speaker 1: learning more, so I said, you know what's now, it's right,
Speaker 1: I'll let you live and we can have this budget
Speaker 1: girl on and we could saw budgets. You see how
Speaker 1: disrespected you are. It's not the budget girl, it's the
Speaker 1: budget Nisa. Say the whole name properly. No disrespect. Tiffany
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, based on our history and the
Speaker 1: microcosm of Devo's life so far, YadA, YadA, YadA, it
Speaker 1: just kind of made sense to have you on here
Speaker 1: because I am open to after seventeen years, correcting the
Speaker 1: next seventeen and years to come. Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you're seeing the error of your ways, Thank
Speaker 1: you and allowing growth. So I would like to take
Speaker 1: the opportunity to welcome Tiffany the Budget Nesta to the
Speaker 1: show budget a trip I am enjoying myself. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. So you got to hear
Speaker 1: the little banters, you know, back and forth about what's
Speaker 1: been going on with us, and that's just very on
Speaker 1: the surface level. Um as about to the microcosm of
Speaker 1: what goes on in our household when it comes to
Speaker 1: budgeting and financing and lack thereof. Um but just tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about like how you became the
Speaker 1: budget How did this become a thing for you? So
Speaker 1: I was actually the opposite. I grew up learning about
Speaker 1: money at home and so my dad was a CFO
Speaker 1: and an accountant, and so we would literally have but
Speaker 1: I'm one of five girls, and so both My parents
Speaker 1: were born in Nigeria and I was born here in Jersey.
Speaker 1: But I realized that had we had a brother, it
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna be like that. It was like the biggest
Speaker 1: blessing not to have a brother. Especially in African culture.
Speaker 1: You put the onus on men, but girl too. They
Speaker 1: kept trying for the culture. My mom was like, see
Speaker 1: the way my womb was set up, We're not having
Speaker 1: no sixth steps about the boys. So he talked about
Speaker 1: hypothetical doors and I'm like Brett so and so um
Speaker 1: so he really eyes, I'm gonna have to teach my
Speaker 1: daughters the way I would have taught my sons if
Speaker 1: I had sons. And so we would literally have weekly
Speaker 1: family meetings and we would sit down and talk about money.
Speaker 1: I can remember, like I think fourteen, I got my
Speaker 1: first little side job and you have to go to
Speaker 1: like high school, get your working papers right, and so
Speaker 1: every pay period I used to have to sit with
Speaker 1: him and talk to him about where my money went.
Speaker 1: And he wanted to see receipts. And I used to
Speaker 1: pay my sister like let me see, I don't know
Speaker 1: what my money, let me let me even see says
Speaker 1: like what am I gonna use. I'm like, I don't know, girl,
Speaker 1: what this ten dollars or not? You know? So, but
Speaker 1: what it did was it very early on, taught me
Speaker 1: to be mindful of money. You know, I didn't grow
Speaker 1: up with this fear about money because even if we
Speaker 1: didn't have it, it wasn't then He wouldn't say like
Speaker 1: we didn't we wouldn't have it. He would say, this
Speaker 1: is where we are. He was just very factual about it.
Speaker 1: Like I remember one year, my mom had lost her
Speaker 1: her job. She's a nurse, she lost her job, and
Speaker 1: he was like, so we're gonna have Christmas in February
Speaker 1: because she was starting her new job in January. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't I mean, I was a kid, so I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, So we literally put up the tree
Speaker 1: in February, had our presence. So he never made it fearful,
Speaker 1: just factual. And what he really taught me was to
Speaker 1: tie in what was important to me as a kid
Speaker 1: to what was important to him as an adult. So
Speaker 1: he would put he still does this. He would put
Speaker 1: the electric bill on the dining room table where we
Speaker 1: all walked by, and he would show the month before
Speaker 1: and the month now and if we saved, like if
Speaker 1: the if the electric bill went down, he put money
Speaker 1: in our in our fund to go for like as
Speaker 1: a kid, I don't give a damn about the electric bill.
Speaker 1: But but but the thing is he knew that. So
Speaker 1: he said, but you want vacation. So it made us say, oh,
Speaker 1: turn off the lights so we can put more money
Speaker 1: in our vacation at exactly. And I remember, I think
Speaker 1: my earliest earliest lesson, I was like four or five,
Speaker 1: and I used to love to turn on the water
Speaker 1: and like even running, I mean, and I remember short
Speaker 1: of whooping my behind, you know, I was like, bro,
Speaker 1: this water staying on, it's Functually. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I was into. So when we because we were really little,
Speaker 1: we were broken as like a family, and I can remember.
Speaker 1: So it was summer. During the summer, we were only
Speaker 1: allowed to get ice cream on your day. I'm the
Speaker 1: second born, so my day was Tuesday, and so we're
Speaker 1: all playing outside. The ice cream man came around. It's Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I run in the house. Daddy, can I have my dollar?
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday's my day. He was like, the waterman just
Speaker 1: came here. I had to give him your dollar because
Speaker 1: that's what happens every time you run the water. I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to bring it back. You said
Speaker 1: that you knew not having a brother was the best
Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to you. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how we as a society cripple out
Speaker 1: with women because think about the stigma. We don't educate
Speaker 1: young girls about the value of anything because we spoil them.
Speaker 1: Then when they go get married, all the husbands are like,
Speaker 1: my wife don't care about money. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how important this is to educate young
Speaker 1: women and everything. I like, I said, if I would
Speaker 1: have had a brother and my dad had said this,
Speaker 1: that it would have been his job to look after
Speaker 1: his sisters. You know, he would have taught him everything
Speaker 1: that he knew. I mean, I learned to mow the lawn,
Speaker 1: I learned to change my oil. That wasn't something that
Speaker 1: he intended to teach us, because it was his job
Speaker 1: as the man of the household to take care of us.
Speaker 1: And then it he no longer could, then it would
Speaker 1: be your brother's job. We didn't have any brothers. Women
Speaker 1: take care of the sons go out and I see
Speaker 1: this with my brothers, I see this with my brothers
Speaker 1: and mean we go out, we're going. My sister always
Speaker 1: always were just there yesterday making so he's good. My
Speaker 1: mother isn't Chicago looking after my my new niece, so
Speaker 1: he's alone for a month. So every other day, me
Speaker 1: and one of my sisters, it's like tag tea, Yeah
Speaker 1: you send him, did you give him food? Did you
Speaker 1: look in the fridge? But yes, investing. My mother calls
Speaker 1: us her dream girls because she was like, yore, investing
Speaker 1: in y'all was the best investment that we could have made,
Speaker 1: because look how you take care of us. You don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about more, You don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about bills. We got you. My father reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of you that sits down with me and my brother,
Speaker 1: and to this day it's the same. We have a communal,
Speaker 1: a communal in our family. It's just my brother, my
Speaker 1: father and I. My mom isn't there, my sister isn't there.
Speaker 1: And he's like, as long as the three of us
Speaker 1: are together, our family will want for nothing. He says
Speaker 1: to me, you guys are my biggest investment. He doesn't
Speaker 1: invest other things. He invested in our education. He gives
Speaker 1: everything he gives my sister because she's the youngest, she's
Speaker 1: a daughter. But talk a little bit about investing in
Speaker 1: your children in this day and ageing, how important that
Speaker 1: is it is, and it doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 1: have money to invest in them. Really, the best sort
Speaker 1: of investment is education, even if it's not formal. Like
Speaker 1: I said, we would literally sit down. I can't remember
Speaker 1: asking for a bike when I was like nine going
Speaker 1: on ten, and my dad's saying, like, because my my
Speaker 1: African name is Adochi and he still has an accent,
Speaker 1: Like you know, if your parents doesn't matter how many
Speaker 1: years they did. You're like, like, you just got you
Speaker 1: want a bike? And that was like he was like,
Speaker 1: you have to help me pay some bills. And I
Speaker 1: thought he meant I had to hit the block the money.
Speaker 1: And what he meant was he was adding up the
Speaker 1: bills at the dining room table. He wanted me to
Speaker 1: add them up and subtracted from what he and my
Speaker 1: mom made. And this is me at nine, and I
Speaker 1: was like, what does that mean? You know? And I
Speaker 1: didn't know a mortgage that you paid for a house
Speaker 1: over a period of time. I thought you bought it,
Speaker 1: like like a shirt one time, and so all these
Speaker 1: things opened up to me and I realized, Wow, they
Speaker 1: make this, they spend this on us, and this is
Speaker 1: what's really left over for like the fun things that
Speaker 1: I want. And so I made my first real choice
Speaker 1: that day, and I decided not to get the little
Speaker 1: Barbie bike I wanted. That was just my side. I
Speaker 1: decided to get a bike that I could grow into.
Speaker 1: And do you know, that's the only bike I ever had.
Speaker 1: We still have that big blue you know. But but
Speaker 1: it was critical those lessons because what it taught me
Speaker 1: was really figuring out what did I what did I
Speaker 1: really want, and how did I make my money in
Speaker 1: alignment with that, you know? And so like I've learned
Speaker 1: to be like you know what, Like not that there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong with shoes and clothes and everything else, but
Speaker 1: I had to ask myself what did I want out
Speaker 1: of life and align my finances with that. Some folks
Speaker 1: will look at their their debit card statement, their credit
Speaker 1: card statement, the don't even recognize that person. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, because who that we went through that we
Speaker 1: went through that when we started we did. I would
Speaker 1: I would pull out the American Express and be like hey,
Speaker 1: let's go through all of these things. And she like,
Speaker 1: I didn't spend that much money. And I said, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's go through the money how it adds. And
Speaker 1: then at the end she would be like, I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: And sometimes she's being tears because she'd be like, I
Speaker 1: waste so much money, and I'm like, no, it's not waste.
Speaker 1: This is you. You just have to find out how.
Speaker 1: And and even it's not just her, sometimes it's me.
Speaker 1: Now we're very different because before I pull my credit
Speaker 1: card out, I'll check my AMAX, I'll check my I'll
Speaker 1: check my account and be like, do I really need this? Oh?
Speaker 1: This is good, this perfect, perfect, because I actually got
Speaker 1: a little gift for you. Right, these are my budgeteers,
Speaker 1: the braces, one for you you. She got two hands.
Speaker 1: She's ambidextrous with the credit card, you know. So if
Speaker 1: you look at these budget braces, right, these are your
Speaker 1: spending priorities in order, right, first your needs, then what
Speaker 1: you love, then what you like, then when you want
Speaker 1: in order. So before you whip out your card, right,
Speaker 1: you ask yourself or as you do, do I need it?
Speaker 1: Do I love it? Or do I just like and
Speaker 1: want it? And so here's how you really figure out
Speaker 1: this is really living a full life. Right. So my
Speaker 1: friends used to tease me when they were like, um,
Speaker 1: Tiffany with your little ugly car. You know you made
Speaker 1: good money, why don't you get a better car? Used
Speaker 1: to drop this like ninety nine till the camera. But
Speaker 1: I was building my business the bunch of stuff. So
Speaker 1: they would tease me like, girl, you don't you know,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't buy new shoes, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, but this is that wasn't a
Speaker 1: need or love for me. My business was my love.
Speaker 1: And now that my business makes seven figures a year,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't. I can't hear you. But like
Speaker 1: I said, there's nothing wrong with your shoes. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't a need or love for me, especially at that time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it fluctuation and change it as life progressive,
Speaker 1: you know, you just go back. Your business makes seven figures, yes,
Speaker 1: multi seven figures. That's what I'm talking about. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. You are a black woman, your parents
Speaker 1: are immigrants, self made and I used to be a
Speaker 1: preschool teacher for ten years. That's what I thought I
Speaker 1: was gonna do for the rest of my life be
Speaker 1: a pre school teacher. But then the recession happened in
Speaker 1: my school, which was a nonprofit based school, closes doors,
Speaker 1: and I the hand, what am I gonna do? So
Speaker 1: I took the skills that I learned from home, and
Speaker 1: you see that my parents invested in me, and I
Speaker 1: was like, ooh, I could teach people how to budget saving.
Speaker 1: That's what I do. And so I started teaching one
Speaker 1: on one and then I got hired at like the
Speaker 1: United Way to teach a class. I wrote it for them,
Speaker 1: and then I started putting stuff online. You found your name,
Speaker 1: and then and then it started growing. I started an
Speaker 1: online school called the Literature Academy. I wrote books and
Speaker 1: before I knew it, like, I was like wow, Like,
Speaker 1: but look at what my dad. I mean, he doesn't
Speaker 1: listen to this. So but he is short by five,
Speaker 1: I was. We're all like tall, So I'm almost like
Speaker 1: this one real short man. Look, and now my audience
Speaker 1: is nearly a million strong. Look one man investing in
Speaker 1: his daughters. Look look at the many women and daughters
Speaker 1: he's affected as a result. Investing your kids, men, girls
Speaker 1: or boys. You know, it's critical. We all went to college.
Speaker 1: We all three of us. I was a business major
Speaker 1: and have my masters in education. Very nice. So, I guess,
Speaker 1: giving all of the examples you've given so far, what
Speaker 1: are some of the major pitfalls that you see in
Speaker 1: working with communities of color or just just couples in general.
Speaker 1: Are there any, like in personal story about someone who's
Speaker 1: like had a major pitfall that you had to really
Speaker 1: turn around? Yeah? So, I mean, well, when it comes
Speaker 1: to couples in general, it's just not being on the
Speaker 1: same page. And so even me, so two years married
Speaker 1: next month, right, and so I called my husband Superman.
Speaker 1: That's like his nickname. So I'm like, so when I
Speaker 1: first met him, like I'm direct, Like, I was looking
Speaker 1: at my credit on my on my app, just looking
Speaker 1: at it, and then I looked at him. I was like,
Speaker 1: what's your credit score? He was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know who knows credit sets? Me?
Speaker 1: He was like, and it was a six thirty hits.
Speaker 1: When I say, I'm like, oh, well, booty. And but
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I had to create a safe environment
Speaker 1: for for it to be that and be like okay.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, do you know why? He
Speaker 1: said no, and I was like, do you pay your
Speaker 1: bills on time? We look, he wasn't late, and I
Speaker 1: was like, he didn't have a bunch of debt. He
Speaker 1: had one credit card, a secured card, which is a
Speaker 1: credit card where you put the security down right. So
Speaker 1: he had one credit card is a five hundred dollar limit,
Speaker 1: and there was a four fifty um four fifty balance.
Speaker 1: He thought to himself, he didn't know. He said, I
Speaker 1: ran it up on purpose so I could show I
Speaker 1: could make monthly payments. And I was like, who told
Speaker 1: you that? I know they told her. That's what It's
Speaker 1: a lie. It's the lie the credit card companies put
Speaker 1: out there because if you leave a balance, you paid. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I told him. I was like, do you have
Speaker 1: the four fifty? He was like yeah. So he paid
Speaker 1: off the fourth fifty. His credit score jumped from a
Speaker 1: six thirty to seven fifty in three months. And then
Speaker 1: he put a ring on and I was like, whatnot.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something, brothers know, when a when
Speaker 1: a woman can upgrade you and make you see something
Speaker 1: in a different light. This is what I need to
Speaker 1: hold onto. And I hope vice versa for women. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But I know for a fact
Speaker 1: all of the brothers I know they are married. When
Speaker 1: you look at their wives, their wives made them better
Speaker 1: or made them smarter, because you're that's really what you're
Speaker 1: you're here for. So I told him, and I realized
Speaker 1: that he's not a big, big spender, but when he spends,
Speaker 1: he spends big, like for the longest he wanted. When
Speaker 1: I met him, he had like is that the only
Speaker 1: that's the big old well he's six six, He had
Speaker 1: like a big truck, you know, like and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's your what's your monthly payments? He was like nine hundred,
Speaker 1: nine hundred American dollars? Sorry, do you live in this trut?
Speaker 1: Like golden eggs? And I'm gonna wear I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of money. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: you're in shut insurance. I was like, bro, that's a
Speaker 1: whole mortgage payment, you know. And so I told him,
Speaker 1: you need you need to um, you need to give
Speaker 1: up the truck. And he was like, nah, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I was like no, because if something switches
Speaker 1: at your job, you're not gonna be able to afford
Speaker 1: the truck. So so he did he um um, I
Speaker 1: mean he was okay. He was like a safe to spender.
Speaker 1: You know, people who like they saved a thousand and
Speaker 1: they use it for something else. He wasn't like a
Speaker 1: saved the saver, you know, So he gave up the truck. Um.
Speaker 1: He ended up getting like a like a like a cat,
Speaker 1: like a used catalok for like thirty five dollars and
Speaker 1: he paid cash for and then um. But then every
Speaker 1: time I saw him, he was like, dang, like I
Speaker 1: really want my truck back. Like yo, when you next
Speaker 1: time you go on your next vacation, show a trip
Speaker 1: tip and you're coming back to a new truck in
Speaker 1: that drive. Can I tell you to tell you something
Speaker 1: honestly because k K will tell you. I'm not a
Speaker 1: big spender, but it does feel good to work for
Speaker 1: something and go out and get it. And even when
Speaker 1: you got to pay that bill. Just know because I
Speaker 1: when I turned thirty, I bought in a seven. When
Speaker 1: I was playing in the NFL, I had a nice car.
Speaker 1: Then when we were building out business, I got rid
Speaker 1: of my car started taking the train. So once I
Speaker 1: got back to a point that you want to say,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something for me. I had an
Speaker 1: A seven my payment was nine forty nine a month,
Speaker 1: and I'll know forget it because every time I looked
Speaker 1: at that ninety nine, I was like, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I spend this much money on this car. But there
Speaker 1: is something about working hard and having that. How do
Speaker 1: you deal with that knowing that I got one life? Well,
Speaker 1: I want to budget, but you prioritize. So that's why
Speaker 1: I said your needs first. So that's like food, shelter, clothing, water, Right,
Speaker 1: you have to take anything that sustains life. You take
Speaker 1: care of that first obviously, right. Then your loves. So
Speaker 1: the loves are I always say, if you had Oprah's
Speaker 1: bank account, what would you do or what would you
Speaker 1: do more of? Meaning things that actually make your life
Speaker 1: bet better? So meaning but it doesn't It could be
Speaker 1: shoes for you. Your loves could be traveled, mind you,
Speaker 1: it could be here. So I'm not saying don't, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: take the lesser things out so you could afford you know.
Speaker 1: So my girlfriend used to ask me all the time
Speaker 1: to go to go with them to brunch, and I
Speaker 1: used to, but I hadn't been in vacation in a while.
Speaker 1: And then um, and then one day I stopped going
Speaker 1: to brunch and started putting my bunch of money in
Speaker 1: an online only savings account because you get more interests
Speaker 1: because they don't have bricking mortars, and it takes about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours to get your money back to a
Speaker 1: regular bank where you can spend it. So it was
Speaker 1: like this delay of spend. Yeah, so I was like, um,
Speaker 1: so I started putting my money there, and um I
Speaker 1: stopped going to brunch. And then one day my my
Speaker 1: girlfriend to Wanna called me, was like, girl, we're going
Speaker 1: to brunch, but I know your cheap ass thet want
Speaker 1: to go. I was like, man, I'm actually in a
Speaker 1: hot air balloon and Albuquerque, New Mexico, canty my tire life.
Speaker 1: She was like you listen. I was like, I was,
Speaker 1: this is where my brunch money goes, by girl, And
Speaker 1: so so you see, it wasn't that she thought I'm
Speaker 1: living less of a life because I'm not brunching. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, that's your idea of love and more.
Speaker 1: I'm living more of my idea of what my loves
Speaker 1: are and what my more looks like. You see. Was funny.
Speaker 1: A lot of I go through this with a lot
Speaker 1: of my millennial friends right. Social media has created this
Speaker 1: idea that if you're not living like the people you
Speaker 1: see on so you're not living. So even if you
Speaker 1: don't like doing something. For example, my young man who
Speaker 1: just graduated from college, I have a bunch of men
Speaker 1: mentor and I asked them all time, are you saving money?
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, I've been saving a little bit,
Speaker 1: but you're not go out. So I'm like, what do
Speaker 1: you go where? You go to strip club? You go
Speaker 1: to club. I'm like, you don't like clubs, you don't
Speaker 1: like strip clubs, why do you go? Well, everybody out
Speaker 1: doing it. And then I go to this Instagram and
Speaker 1: you just want to take pictures doing stuff that you
Speaker 1: think other people want to see you do. And then
Speaker 1: I have a couple of kids who just like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't do that. And then when you
Speaker 1: see them there on vacations somewhere. Because of the recession,
Speaker 1: I became a super hoarder of money. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to spend nothing because I was so scared. I lost everything.
Speaker 1: I went through foreclosure, I lost all the money by
Speaker 1: retiring to I went through the same thing. Let's played
Speaker 1: three years in the NFL I invest in the stock
Speaker 1: market because everybody told me this what you do. I
Speaker 1: bought property because that's what everybody told me you do.
Speaker 1: Recession came and then I got cut the same year,
Speaker 1: and so I couldn't even sit in it and let
Speaker 1: it grow. So I had to take the little bit
Speaker 1: of capital I had left, and I'm like, yo, I
Speaker 1: can't believe everything I work for. And people would have thought, oh,
Speaker 1: developing broke. He probably was in the strip club buying
Speaker 1: change my car. No. I did everything I was supposed
Speaker 1: to in the recession. How do people avoid that? There's
Speaker 1: really nothing you can do with avoid making financial mistakes
Speaker 1: because you don't know everything. You know, you just have
Speaker 1: to take yourself like that exactly. And can you want
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're not placing your money all
Speaker 1: in just one place, so you know, like investing in
Speaker 1: in stocks and in real estate. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Having your retirement account, that's a good thing, you know.
Speaker 1: But then you also want to have some emergency savings
Speaker 1: so if something does hit hard, you have some backup
Speaker 1: so you don't have to dip in to your investments.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. Let's just say you would have
Speaker 1: bought a house ten years ago. Now you can'ke in
Speaker 1: now you like literally, like I mean, like exactly Manhattan
Speaker 1: been done. You can't afford that, right, Um, Brooklyn, Then
Speaker 1: do you want this one story? Okay? So when we
Speaker 1: moved back from Michigan after he retired, we were engaged,
Speaker 1: newly engaged, and it was just like, you know, the
Speaker 1: wedding versus the house situation. And at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess I was a little spoiled in that. I
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, he was playing ball. He says he's retired,
Speaker 1: but he's not really retired. We can have the wedding
Speaker 1: and we'll get the house too. So I asked her,
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I get a severance pay from the
Speaker 1: NFL and out I'm going to retire. I have some
Speaker 1: savings left. We have enough funds where we can buy
Speaker 1: a property, or we can get the dream wedding, I
Speaker 1: asked her. And I was like, but if we do
Speaker 1: go with this wedding, we're gonna have to live in
Speaker 1: this apartment for a couple of years. And she said,
Speaker 1: I'll take the wedding, okay. And her thought process was
Speaker 1: we did own two other properties, so it's not like
Speaker 1: we weren't homeowners, right, so I get to see that
Speaker 1: if we had no homes at all, But we had
Speaker 1: these two other properties. So I was like, we have
Speaker 1: the investments there. We can always sell one of those
Speaker 1: and buy another house. And you know, so that was
Speaker 1: my mindset. I wanted to live in that moment of
Speaker 1: give me all the things, you know, the wedding and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But this one we had the opportunity. Like you said,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, around the corner from my apartment, they
Speaker 1: had all of these gutted brownstones. They were going for
Speaker 1: a quarter million dallas, quarter million dallas. All I would
Speaker 1: have had she was the first time home by, she
Speaker 1: would have put down if that were not even right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and right now those were going for like
Speaker 1: what to three million millions instant million were not instant
Speaker 1: because it took ten years, but still those are those
Speaker 1: long term investments. And so you know, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's okay. I mean, we don't make every move right now,
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to move to New York because they can't
Speaker 1: afford um um New York anymore. But you know, and
Speaker 1: so you know, everybody has so much to say about Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey Drive, but like try to buy now. My
Speaker 1: husband I purchased two properties last year. It was like
Speaker 1: the last kind of like Hurrah, and I was like,
Speaker 1: they we have to purchase something. Someone called me yesterday asking, hey,
Speaker 1: I drove by your property and I looked at City Hall.
Speaker 1: I was like, click, brother, you want them, you want
Speaker 1: you know. But I think this is that financial choices.
Speaker 1: You can't make them all right, right, but if you're
Speaker 1: you know, but if you're still alive, you have the
Speaker 1: chance to rebound. The key is getting the education because
Speaker 1: once you know better, you can always do better when
Speaker 1: you're ready, you know. I was negative three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in debt at one point. School not just it
Speaker 1: was school, it was credit card debt. It was my mortgage, right,
Speaker 1: And so I thought to myself and I had to
Speaker 1: be I think it was like twenty nine and I
Speaker 1: was like, yo, I don't. I was sleeping on my
Speaker 1: sister's couch until she was like, uh, it's been nine months.
Speaker 1: I'm getting birth to this baby. You need to get out,
Speaker 1: and then I had to go to my parents house.
Speaker 1: I remember I was turning thirty and I was in
Speaker 1: my middle school SCHMIDI in bed looking up at the
Speaker 1: smith ceiling, like, damn, it's this life. I'm thirty thirties
Speaker 1: grown and I'm here, you know. And but I had
Speaker 1: the education. My dad would always say that people could
Speaker 1: take away your wealth, your half ship, but they can
Speaker 1: never take away your education. And so I was activity,
Speaker 1: so you know better less slowly, but surely do better.
Speaker 1: Let go back to budgeting, and let's save, let's fix
Speaker 1: this credit score, and let's slowly pay down your dad.
Speaker 1: And I did, And then I invested in myself through
Speaker 1: my business, and I lived frugally for a number of years.
Speaker 1: Even at one point I could have paid off my
Speaker 1: student loan day. I just paid it off last year.
Speaker 1: I could have paid it off way before that. But
Speaker 1: I was like, do I look, I was deferring it.
Speaker 1: I said, do I put this money towards student loan? Dad,
Speaker 1: that's not investing because when you're investigating debt free, I
Speaker 1: saw you get debt right. Or do I take this
Speaker 1: money and invested into my business. At that time it
Speaker 1: was six figures, and I took the money and invested
Speaker 1: into the business. And now were then once I got
Speaker 1: my seven figures, I was like boom, here's your fifty
Speaker 1: two dollar salarly mad because I got it now, like
Speaker 1: you know, and so just even rethinking the way we
Speaker 1: think about money and positioning ourselves, it's critical. I want
Speaker 1: you to speak a little bit about because Conna and
Speaker 1: I talked about this. We own the two properties we
Speaker 1: sold them. People constantly asked us, now, why do you
Speaker 1: live in an apartment and you don't buy a home.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason why we didn't buy into a
Speaker 1: home was because, like you said, we invested in our
Speaker 1: big business and a lot of millennials don't understand just
Speaker 1: buying a home it's not a sound investment, is not
Speaker 1: if you don't have capital. And it's not even just millennials.
Speaker 1: My father for so long it was like what the
Speaker 1: hell are y'all doing? Because he's an older West Indian
Speaker 1: man that needs to own his things. He owns his
Speaker 1: car that he's been driving since. I mean, he has
Speaker 1: his home and if you're not owning something, he's totally
Speaker 1: thad and looking like what are you doing with My
Speaker 1: daughter is still renting in leasing cars? Like why he
Speaker 1: asked me? He asked me, He's just like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you guys do for a living.
Speaker 1: You don't own a property and you lease cars. And
Speaker 1: I had to explain to him, like, just only something
Speaker 1: and put down down payment. And I broke it down
Speaker 1: from the buy a house for six hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: I gotta put down You're looking at a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thou dollars cash one time. And I still have
Speaker 1: a mortgage of about four thousand dollars a month, which
Speaker 1: is dead. And he was kind of like, but you
Speaker 1: own it, I said, after thirty yards, it's a long
Speaker 1: term and then it's only if you buy. I always
Speaker 1: tell people just because you're buying a house in itself
Speaker 1: is not an investment unless you do it wisely, meaning
Speaker 1: that one you get the house at a discount. So
Speaker 1: the house my husband I bought in a newer in
Speaker 1: the Forest Hill section is beautiful. It was a foreclosure
Speaker 1: and the bank wanted um to something, but we got
Speaker 1: it for one eight so it's worth yeah, exactly, So
Speaker 1: it's worth about four hundred thousand, so we are So
Speaker 1: that was an investment, right? Or is your mortgage rentable?
Speaker 1: Meaning you get a house and let's just say, if
Speaker 1: you look around in the neighborhood. The camps say, this
Speaker 1: house can rent for your mortgage and your P and
Speaker 1: I if you have it and your insurance and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. It's two thousand, so that means if ship
Speaker 1: gets tight, that means that you could rent it out
Speaker 1: for and your mortgage is two thousand. So those are
Speaker 1: the two ways that if you're gonna buy a property
Speaker 1: to keep that if not. Like my husband, he lives
Speaker 1: where we live is where he works really close. So
Speaker 1: I was like, you don't have to You don't have to,
Speaker 1: um uh to buy a car if you don't want to, baby,
Speaker 1: we cant least because it makes sense because you're not
Speaker 1: gonna do a lot of driving. You could you explain, really,
Speaker 1: patri center, Um, what's the PNE Just so I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: P m I is private mortgage insurance. So typically if
Speaker 1: you don't put down at least twenty percent down in
Speaker 1: your house, they're going to charge you in insurance because
Speaker 1: they feel like you don't have enough skin in the game,
Speaker 1: so they're gonna it's like anywhere, it's like about one
Speaker 1: half percent to one percent of the value of the loan.
Speaker 1: So if you bought a house for a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars your p and if it's one percent, it's an
Speaker 1: extra thousand dollars. Just go on. Now, there are some
Speaker 1: ways that you can kind of get around it, you know,
Speaker 1: but ideally, if you like, really, if you don't put
Speaker 1: down twenty percent, that's what you're looking at. And so
Speaker 1: that's just And sometimes they won't even let you, like,
Speaker 1: let's just say you finally work up to getting like
Speaker 1: equity in your house. Sometimes PM you can't get get
Speaker 1: rid of you here for the life of the loan.
Speaker 1: That is crazy. I think people don't they don't heed
Speaker 1: enough and and tell them realize that every choice matters,
Speaker 1: Like a choice I made when I was ten. That
Speaker 1: bike is still in the garage. Like, it's not just
Speaker 1: a shoe. It's not just where you get your hair cut,
Speaker 1: it's not just where you live, it's everything. It all
Speaker 1: adds up, is it is your life adding up to
Speaker 1: what you wanted to be when it comes to finances,
Speaker 1: How do we foster more open communication with a spouse,
Speaker 1: for example, or even just with a parent child relationship.
Speaker 1: But that was a struggle. Yeah, it was just like
Speaker 1: trying not to offend but trying to also be transparent.
Speaker 1: And also trying to make a plan. The first thing
Speaker 1: that CASE always say to me because funny you said,
Speaker 1: the parent child situation cause to say to me all
Speaker 1: the time, I'm not your child. I'm talking to my
Speaker 1: husband and that, you know, For me, it was hard
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I'm trying to educate you. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to belittle you. How do you created to me?
Speaker 1: I feel kind because I felt like, why are you
Speaker 1: attacking me as if I'm not contributing to this household?
Speaker 1: At the time it was not as much as you,
Speaker 1: but I'm still contributing, you know, So what are your
Speaker 1: what's your tips for people who trying to have those conversations.
Speaker 1: So it was hard because I definitely was a bully,
Speaker 1: like this is what we've been to do, because I
Speaker 1: know Betther taught me my husband like before you got here, bro,
Speaker 1: like I was running things, so you're not running things
Speaker 1: like say that everybody's not a budget, needs to do
Speaker 1: what you want to do over there. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do over here. And I realized, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is this bull leading trying to get him over
Speaker 1: to my side is not working, and so what work
Speaker 1: was I had to find a common denominator. So before
Speaker 1: my had um, I met my husband. He has he
Speaker 1: has a daughter, she's nine, Supergirl, that's what I call her.
Speaker 1: So I realized that that was a common denominator that
Speaker 1: if I wanted him to save I could say something like, Wow,
Speaker 1: you spent two thousand dollars for Supergirl on for Christmas.
Speaker 1: That's dope. You know she's a lucky little girl. Did
Speaker 1: you also put two thousand dollars in her savings account?
Speaker 1: No father is ever gonna say, well, the presidents are worried.
Speaker 1: He was like, you know what, I will. So every
Speaker 1: time I wanted him to make a good financial choice,
Speaker 1: I started going through, well, why don't we put this
Speaker 1: in Supergirl's account? Why don't we do this for super Why?
Speaker 1: And so after a while he got used to good
Speaker 1: financial habits as related to her. You know, my husband
Speaker 1: didn't really wasn't fully on board. We've been together six
Speaker 1: years total until last year because every time I went
Speaker 1: on a business trip, I was always like, please, don't
Speaker 1: want me come home to a new truck in that drive,
Speaker 1: you know. But last year when the house came up
Speaker 1: and the bank was like, we only want cash as
Speaker 1: a do eighty thou dollars and we only want cash,
Speaker 1: like that, said you, I mean. And it was a
Speaker 1: beautiful home from the nineteen twenties in the Forest Hill section,
Speaker 1: which is like the rich Carlton of Newark, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to buy there before. And I was just like, dang.
Speaker 1: He was like, dangn won eighty cash, babe, I guess
Speaker 1: we ain't getting the I'm like, do you even look
Speaker 1: at the bank accounts? And he was like no, he's
Speaker 1: just deposits his money and I automate the bill paid,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't see, you know. And so I was like, bro,
Speaker 1: we we have that. He's like, we don't want eighty.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we got a lot more than one. Look
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, he probably trusts you at this point
Speaker 1: and he's probably look at my bill, but it's joint
Speaker 1: and so we we created a system because I believe
Speaker 1: couples should have joint and separate money. So our system
Speaker 1: is that so his So for him, he was like
Speaker 1: he was adamant that I want to pay the bills,
Speaker 1: you know. And I was like, He's like, I know,
Speaker 1: everybody probably thinks you pay the bills because you make
Speaker 1: more than me but I want to pay the bills,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, So we have a a separate
Speaker 1: bills account where um he like, his money is separated
Speaker 1: from his like where he works. He works for the
Speaker 1: city money lands and the bill's account. Then some of
Speaker 1: his money lands and his personal savings, and then some
Speaker 1: lands to our our Jordan saving, but very little lands
Speaker 1: to the joint saving because my money is to go
Speaker 1: for investing in saving. So the money that I make
Speaker 1: goes into savings and goes into investment. The money that
Speaker 1: he makes goes into our bills. But even so I
Speaker 1: still have personal savings and so does he. So that
Speaker 1: means that similar So when you have new Jordan's or whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm not I know it wasn't build money. I might
Speaker 1: not like it, but I'm like, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do exactly because that's his money. So
Speaker 1: having that kind of autonomy with your money, like absolutely
Speaker 1: it allows people to be free and buy what they want,
Speaker 1: knowing that it's not negatively affecting the family's goals. Can
Speaker 1: we talk a little bit about how weddings were supposed
Speaker 1: to be utilized when they first started, well in the beginning,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we can't. I'll be miss if I
Speaker 1: don't say this. Women were considered property, which is why
Speaker 1: even the idea of marriage is still so far fetched.
Speaker 1: But women were considered the property. And if you're marrying
Speaker 1: your daughter off, that was property. You had to bring something. Yes,
Speaker 1: we do that Nigerian. My um not not my husband
Speaker 1: because he's American, but my sister she married Nigerian. God.
Speaker 1: He had to bring the dowry. He had to bring
Speaker 1: all this stuff to be like basically like they still
Speaker 1: ceremoniously to be like I can afford your daughter. Here
Speaker 1: is literally made a list of all that I need this,
Speaker 1: I need this, I need this, I need this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, bro, we're not doing that.
Speaker 1: But you know what's funny, people don't understand that that's
Speaker 1: what weddings were. Weddings were a financial decision and it
Speaker 1: was a way to help the family grow together. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: people just see weddings as a party. So you want
Speaker 1: to have this eight hundred person party, but no one
Speaker 1: keep bringing the spring they like. And so my sister
Speaker 1: made like thirty thou dollars at her wedding. I can't
Speaker 1: hypothetically say you can have a baby, but you can
Speaker 1: hypothetically your life Nigerian in cultures, Indian weddings, Jewish weddings,
Speaker 1: Italian weddings, and Nigerian weddings. I've been at these weddings
Speaker 1: where the host weddings they always brought stuff, guests always brought.
Speaker 1: It was always you paid for your plate and and
Speaker 1: what happens in this culture culture, I'm going to the
Speaker 1: wedding to drink. Oh, and they can throw a good party.
Speaker 1: They can afford to throw a good party, so that's
Speaker 1: their business. And so I didn't I didn't want even
Speaker 1: though I knew all that my sister had a big wedding.
Speaker 1: My other sister had a medium size, which is like
Speaker 1: two hundred people. That's a medium sized wedding for us.
Speaker 1: We really are small for my mother, and she's like,
Speaker 1: that's it. I was like so like, So I was like,
Speaker 1: I didn't want that so much. Their horror, they didn't
Speaker 1: know how much I was making um and so I
Speaker 1: I We're gonna go to just to the piece. And
Speaker 1: a girlfriend of mine had this really cute soul food
Speaker 1: restaurant and she shut it down for us. My mother
Speaker 1: was like, this is where you're going to Maddie, do
Speaker 1: you need money. I'm like, ma'am, I make seven figures
Speaker 1: because you only have choices. You could be a doctor, lawyer, pharmacist,
Speaker 1: or drug deal everything else there so the dealing Like
Speaker 1: I just I'm a teacher. They want they want the prestigious,
Speaker 1: and they're coming my father every day. Don't know what
Speaker 1: He's like, y'all be on your phone all day. He
Speaker 1: thinks it's some sort of like on his phone and
Speaker 1: his laptop all day. That's not work. He doesn't clock
Speaker 1: in nine, seven to three. He's not Wealth can be
Speaker 1: grown in so many we have access to the for
Speaker 1: the ability to grow wealth. And I'm telling you, but
Speaker 1: even still in America, there's an access crisis, especially for
Speaker 1: women and especially for people of color, meaning that there
Speaker 1: are there is this information, but it's behind the door
Speaker 1: with no door knob on the at and only someone
Speaker 1: from the inside can open the door. And so I
Speaker 1: consider myself a door. I'm like, I want to be
Speaker 1: the sojourn the truth, Harriet Tubman of money. You know,
Speaker 1: it's to take what I learned. You're hired, and then
Speaker 1: like I don't even do one on one because I
Speaker 1: tell people that's too I have online classes for free.
Speaker 1: I have this thing called the Literature Challenge, which is
Speaker 1: totally free every single year where in our fifth year,
Speaker 1: and all of them are online and they're free. I've
Speaker 1: got my Literature Academy, which is the next level. So
Speaker 1: not just basic budgeting and and um and saving and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's investing in real estate, it's retirement, it's starting a business,
Speaker 1: is writing a book. All of these next level classes
Speaker 1: taught by the friends that helped me to do all
Speaker 1: these things. And so that's in the Literature Academy. That's
Speaker 1: a month. That's it, you know. And then I'm I
Speaker 1: do at most people, I ain't paying hunters on me
Speaker 1: that she could just tell me that, And honestly, I
Speaker 1: think that's what's wrong a lot. It's changing though America. No,
Speaker 1: we'll spend money on the things that don't read any benefits.
Speaker 1: But then a lot of times when when people ask
Speaker 1: to be paid for their knowledge, people don't want to pay.
Speaker 1: And I've seen that with and and and people say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's black people, that's a lot of people. That's just
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Do happen, and sometimes people need
Speaker 1: to be That's why I have I would say eight
Speaker 1: percent of what I do, I give a way for
Speaker 1: free because it's it is my legacy I want to
Speaker 1: leave behind, is that people are better because I was here.
Speaker 1: Education is key, is key, because once you know better,
Speaker 1: you can do better. Absolutely, it's knowledge. To me, it's knowledge, access,
Speaker 1: and community. Those are the three. It's so funny. I
Speaker 1: was going to ask one of the top three things
Speaker 1: that you would like to give us takeaway. You said
Speaker 1: it right there. One more time to ask learning something
Speaker 1: right there again, You're welcome, be glad that I am
Speaker 1: sitting here, very engaged in this conversation, taking away the
Speaker 1: gems and putting them in my podcast. So it's education, knowledge, access,
Speaker 1: community community. So now it's because when you know better,
Speaker 1: you do better because you just can't do what you
Speaker 1: don't know. So you have to engage in knowledge, whether
Speaker 1: that's YouTube videos, whether that's books, maybe it's the literature challenge,
Speaker 1: maybe it's my academy, maybe it's maybe it's a conference.
Speaker 1: You know, whatever it is, you have to you have
Speaker 1: to actively seek knowledge. So that's one right, and then
Speaker 1: access access is something that someone else has to grant you.
Speaker 1: So that means you have to make connections with folks.
Speaker 1: You know, networking, putting yourself to an environment where you
Speaker 1: know you're you're gonna meet new people. Um. Facebook groups,
Speaker 1: there's like great Facebook groups about for money. I have
Speaker 1: one called dream Catchers where it's like four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: women all of them. And then community community. We work
Speaker 1: best in community. Think about when you work out, think
Speaker 1: about when you're trying something new, when you have somebody
Speaker 1: there beside you. It normalizes the process going through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the community, Yeah, it normalizes the process. They push you forward,
Speaker 1: they introduce you to new people. I feel like I
Speaker 1: found me a new best friend. Whatever you want to
Speaker 1: have to read some books, business lunch on the budget,
Speaker 1: But honestly, I love I love to see people excited
Speaker 1: about talking about money and not get afraid about it.
Speaker 1: Just like like Developed likes to say, like one thing
Speaker 1: we don't know is what we don't know? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: we are. Really this is very insightful. I mean, so
Speaker 1: we normally will do our listener letters on our own,
Speaker 1: but it just so happens that one of our listener
Speaker 1: letters it kind of coincided with the topic today. So
Speaker 1: we're like, you know what, let's have the budget needs
Speaker 1: to answer this question? Do we need to take a
Speaker 1: quick break and get into some ads, but we will
Speaker 1: be right back with a budget needs to who's going
Speaker 1: to be helping to answer some of these listener letters.
Speaker 1: This for the record, there it is a win for
Speaker 1: the ages. Tiger Woods is one of our most inspiring
Speaker 1: sports icons. In his story, it comes with many chapters.
Speaker 1: I am deeply sorry from my irresponsible and selfish behavior,
Speaker 1: but here it is the return to glory. This is
Speaker 1: All American, a new series from Stitcher hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jordan Bell. You realize Tiger Wis doesn't know who he
Speaker 1: is in the history of golf, no question in my mind.
Speaker 1: And this season, with the help of journalist Albert Chen,
Speaker 1: we're asking what if the story of Tiger Woods that
Speaker 1: the media has been telling, what if it's been completely wrong?
Speaker 1: All American Tiger is out now Listen and Stitcher, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. So we're gonna go
Speaker 1: into listener letters now, folks, um, which is one of
Speaker 1: our favorite times where we get to hear from you
Speaker 1: all and what's on your mind? Um, And you can
Speaker 1: probably get some advice today. So do val you want
Speaker 1: to ahead and read that? Yes? The first one says,
Speaker 1: I want to start off by saying, I love y'all,
Speaker 1: and I think y'alla uplifting everyone by letting us in
Speaker 1: just a little bit about your personal life and being wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, But my issue right now is with my
Speaker 1: boyfriend going on almost six years. We have two girls,
Speaker 1: one is three and our newest edition is three months.
Speaker 1: Our life hasn't been easy. We both fault, were both
Speaker 1: fault in a lot with things, but we're working on
Speaker 1: ourselves now for a better future for our girls. We're
Speaker 1: both turning twenty five, and I want to be married
Speaker 1: because I know that the only I only want him
Speaker 1: and no one else, and that we only want each other.
Speaker 1: We've been through, all that we've been through is like
Speaker 1: I want to really feel that's the long last question
Speaker 1: that we're one. But he says that we want to
Speaker 1: wait for the right time quote unquote money issues, But
Speaker 1: I'm telling him I just want his last name. I
Speaker 1: don't care about the materialistic things. No, we're not financially stable,
Speaker 1: but why can't we get married? Why can't we get
Speaker 1: married and established instead of waiting until things are right
Speaker 1: or spend however much money we can spend to just
Speaker 1: be married. This has been an ongoing argument and advice
Speaker 1: from y'all can help us. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: you would agree right that for men women just like
Speaker 1: I just want to get married. For men, you're like,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to take care of my wife.
Speaker 1: So I can understand. I don't think he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to marry you. You know. I think that he's looking
Speaker 1: at it like marriage means I am saying to the
Speaker 1: world I got her and the responsible and so he
Speaker 1: is struggling with that. So I don't think and you
Speaker 1: don't want to undo that there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: So instead I would put all this time and effort
Speaker 1: into let's get right, you know, for real, let's get right.
Speaker 1: Let's get our finances together. It's it. Is it a
Speaker 1: debt issue, is it your credit score? Is it savings?
Speaker 1: Let's sit down and start with pen and pad and
Speaker 1: write down. You know, here are the challenges we're facing
Speaker 1: with our finances, and this is what we're gonna work on. First.
Speaker 1: Let's get our budget together, you know. And there are
Speaker 1: a ton of free resources, Like for real, I'm not
Speaker 1: even just pushing, but that's the reason why I the
Speaker 1: literature challenge is completely free, No gotcha? Gotcha. It is
Speaker 1: my gift back to my community because so much we
Speaker 1: have been left out of that conversation and it's made
Speaker 1: to be so hard and complicated. I don't the way
Speaker 1: I'm talking nowt is the way I talk in the
Speaker 1: in the challenge. So sign up together. I've had couples
Speaker 1: sign up for one of the literature challenges, and you
Speaker 1: can choose the fundamentals the credit edition, the savings edition,
Speaker 1: the net worth of this in the homebind edition, and
Speaker 1: work through it together and make it your goal that
Speaker 1: once we have this much said and our debt is
Speaker 1: to this amount, you don't have to be debt for you,
Speaker 1: our credit scores are this, then we're gonna get married.
Speaker 1: So set the goals according to that. So that way
Speaker 1: he feels comfortable and you feel comfortable knowing that you're
Speaker 1: working towards the same thing. There's there's something you touched on,
Speaker 1: and I think that in our community we really don't
Speaker 1: speak on enough. And it's what's expected of a man
Speaker 1: and a woman when you go into this thing called marriage. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not just about getting the last name, because she says,
Speaker 1: I just want his last name. I don't care about
Speaker 1: the material things but it's not just the last name,
Speaker 1: the first thing, the extremely young. So so often now
Speaker 1: people feel like, oh, if I'm not where I want
Speaker 1: to be at five, I'm failing. And they say thirties
Speaker 1: a new twenty, but realistically, thirty is the new twenty.
Speaker 1: To be able to do the things you want to
Speaker 1: do in life now, it takes education, it takes time, experience.
Speaker 1: You know, back in the day, you graduate from high school,
Speaker 1: you meet somebody, you get married. That happens when you're twenty.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen like that. Secondly, when you're a man
Speaker 1: trying to get trying to prepare to be married, that
Speaker 1: idea of I have her is a lot and I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of women understand that. When you
Speaker 1: go to a woman and say, will you be my wife?
Speaker 1: Not that your property anymore, but I want to be
Speaker 1: able to protect and provide. My father told me that
Speaker 1: my father's I don't care how much money your mom makes,
Speaker 1: I don't care how much your wife makes. You have
Speaker 1: to pay the bills. And I was just kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: he said, what if your wife has children in the side,
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to work anymore. You can't depend on
Speaker 1: her to go to work and raise the kids and
Speaker 1: have babies. That's on you. You can't have children. You
Speaker 1: have to be able to protect and provide for your family.
Speaker 1: So for a lot of women, they don't understand, like
Speaker 1: why is he not ready? If you don't feel like
Speaker 1: you can secure and take care of a family, that's
Speaker 1: the daunting task for a man. And I think if
Speaker 1: she hears that from people saying, it's not that he
Speaker 1: don't love you, but that's what he's thinking about. And
Speaker 1: the fact that they're young. But like you said, if
Speaker 1: they put them finances together and they build, it will
Speaker 1: be a lot easier for him to make that decision.
Speaker 1: It was like, hey, we're working together. We're no longer
Speaker 1: in debt. Definitely some time, the Superman said, he said,
Speaker 1: I want you to be able to walk away from
Speaker 1: the budget. And he said, you if you want to.
Speaker 1: He said, so, whatever house you we buy, I have
Speaker 1: to be able for that mortgage. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: mean if it's a it's a one bedroom, oh well
Speaker 1: that's what we're getting. And I respected that and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, because he's right, I want to be able
Speaker 1: to know that you got me, no matter what because
Speaker 1: my dad always had us, you know, like I was
Speaker 1: never one of those girls and we dated. When guys
Speaker 1: would be like, you know, you know what you I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm actually good. Thanks for rel you know, like my
Speaker 1: daddy got me so okay, I remember we like back
Speaker 1: at it. They remember path Finders used to be like
Speaker 1: the jam. We had a brand new path finder in college.
Speaker 1: Dudes was like, oh, that's you. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's me and Randie and my daddy got this for me,
Speaker 1: you know, because I didn't need and that's what you
Speaker 1: wanted to. You don't want your children to have to
Speaker 1: look outside of themselves for for things that like, no,
Speaker 1: I got me, you know, I got me. As long
Speaker 1: as you got you together will be stronger. But I
Speaker 1: understand the need for a man to provide, and I
Speaker 1: think we do have to understand that. I mean, we
Speaker 1: are entering into an age now where women's rights are
Speaker 1: huge and women empowerment huge, but also there are certain
Speaker 1: things that as a man you want you just want
Speaker 1: to do for your your woman. It's not that you're
Speaker 1: trying to her, You're not trying to oppress her. It's just, man,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to take care of my girl?
Speaker 1: Can I just take care of my girl? And we
Speaker 1: have to find that balance to where you're not being controlling,
Speaker 1: you're not oppressive, but you're still letting her know like yo.
Speaker 1: I got you together absolutely, and we talked about generational wealth,
Speaker 1: legacy and things like that. What you're trying to build
Speaker 1: for you know, your family and your children and stuff.
Speaker 1: So our second question, which we might as well keep
Speaker 1: you in on it um it says, help me out.
Speaker 1: Can you give us three key steps to building a
Speaker 1: family legacy, or at least where to start? I have
Speaker 1: an idea. My man has ideas everywhere, but I have
Speaker 1: an action plan and he doesn't. I'm a teacher of
Speaker 1: five years and he has yet to keep a job
Speaker 1: for a year. Part of me is annoyed he isn't
Speaker 1: further in life, but the other part wants to give
Speaker 1: him space to grow into the man he wants to be.
Speaker 1: Three key steps to identify that family legacy? Where to start? Maybe?
Speaker 1: So identify what? What? What What does that look like? How
Speaker 1: what you know what I mean like? When you are
Speaker 1: no longer here? What do you want? What do you
Speaker 1: want people to say? Or how do you want people
Speaker 1: to be changed as a results. So one identifying what what?
Speaker 1: What is that? Exactly a family mission statement? So like
Speaker 1: I look at my parents and they give money um
Speaker 1: to my cousins in them in Nigeria. Right, But when
Speaker 1: when I went, I was um the first time when
Speaker 1: I was twenty one, and I was so shocked for
Speaker 1: someone to be like, oh we see the see the
Speaker 1: electricity and the church. Your parents did that. Oh we
Speaker 1: see the school here, your parents did that up until then.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was like in high school, my
Speaker 1: dad asked me five dollars. I was like why and
Speaker 1: he was like, it's for the village and I was like,
Speaker 1: that seems like a lot of money. He wanted to
Speaker 1: build a fresh water well. People were still walking two
Speaker 1: miles to the stream, and you know who walks to stream? Girls?
Speaker 1: And you know what, girls go back and forth to
Speaker 1: the stream. They don't go to school. So we built
Speaker 1: this stream and this this well like that they could
Speaker 1: get fresh water from. That means one girls can go
Speaker 1: to school and two usually people charge you for that
Speaker 1: fresh water. Now, don't that go back to what we
Speaker 1: were talking about about how it's not important to educate
Speaker 1: young girls because it's like the same thing. It's very
Speaker 1: common country. They don't need to learn because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: marry you off. Anyway. Your very value is in the
Speaker 1: dowry you can bring to the family. But man, their
Speaker 1: value is what they can earn, you know, and so
Speaker 1: changing that. But now look at the legacy that that's
Speaker 1: been left behind. So as a result, so I say,
Speaker 1: first identifying what is our family mission statement, what do
Speaker 1: we want to do exactly? And then to start really
Speaker 1: figuring out, you know, what steps can we take now.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants to make these big, grandiose like things,
Speaker 1: but that you don't have to necessarily do that, you know.
Speaker 1: I call my husband Mr Rogers of the neighborhood because
Speaker 1: on Fridays he like buys pizza for the kids. We
Speaker 1: live in like what I call our new house where
Speaker 1: we're renovating, so it's done in like a week or so.
Speaker 1: But where we live now is where he lived, which
Speaker 1: I call the halfway hood. Like this side like yeah,
Speaker 1: and then this side it's like downsound, but we live
Speaker 1: in the halfway hood, right, So like it's all these
Speaker 1: kids that you know, and so they're always playing outside
Speaker 1: and so they know that like they like he teaches
Speaker 1: them telling him his name is King and they really
Speaker 1: believe it. Hi King. I'm like, yeah, they buy him
Speaker 1: pizza on Fridays when I first seeds to come over
Speaker 1: at the doorbell ring all the time, kids with their bikes,
Speaker 1: Mrs Dress so I can get the bike pump, Mrs Dress,
Speaker 1: I can get some Apple songs. Mr Drells said, I mean,
Speaker 1: why I'm saying his name or whatever, But you know,
Speaker 1: but I thought, now, that's a legacy he he doesn't
Speaker 1: impression he's making on this. So I want you to
Speaker 1: identify what things can you do currently without the strong
Speaker 1: financial base to start building legacy. Now is the pizza
Speaker 1: for the kids? Is it looking after you know, an
Speaker 1: elderly woman in your neighborhood, what does that look like now?
Speaker 1: And then then third thing is really starting to write
Speaker 1: down what does it look like in the future and
Speaker 1: what what steps do you have to take? So planning
Speaker 1: is everything. I always start with writing stuff down, like
Speaker 1: identifying what what do I want? What what action do
Speaker 1: I have to take? And what's the next best step?
Speaker 1: What do I want? What action do I have to tape?
Speaker 1: And right now, what is the next best step? Is
Speaker 1: it a Google search? A phone call, is it, you know,
Speaker 1: withdraw from my bank to help out somebody's kids? What
Speaker 1: does the next best step? Op actually has a book
Speaker 1: I think called The Next Best Step. And we get
Speaker 1: so wrapped up and figuring out how to go from
Speaker 1: New York all the way to California that we don't
Speaker 1: realize that if we were getting the car and turn
Speaker 1: on the lights, you see that the headlights shine like
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's like say fifty ft in front
Speaker 1: of you, right, and you're like, dang, I can't see
Speaker 1: all the California. I'm not going because I can't see
Speaker 1: the whole way. But when you close that fifty gap
Speaker 1: the next and you only knew that, like, don't win
Speaker 1: that the next step? You know, you close that gap
Speaker 1: next fifty ft and before you know you're in California.
Speaker 1: Take the next best step? That was? That was that
Speaker 1: was so dope? That did I take the next best
Speaker 1: steps when we leave here? But it's very necessary, you
Speaker 1: know what. We can't answer though. She's said that she
Speaker 1: has a ton of ideas and she's an action She
Speaker 1: puts things into action, and he's not, like, how do
Speaker 1: you deal with that? This is funny because Kadin and
Speaker 1: I are the opposite, right. I put things into action,
Speaker 1: But she's an organizer. Sometimes when you have someone who
Speaker 1: is not like you but has a different part of
Speaker 1: the puzzle, that can make you, guys both better, you
Speaker 1: work better together, you know. And I think she has
Speaker 1: to realize that maybe since he's just not exactly like you,
Speaker 1: that may not be a bad thing. You put the action.
Speaker 1: You said he has ideas put his ideas are just
Speaker 1: not good with coming up with ideas and having the plan.
Speaker 1: But once they know the plan, they can execute it.
Speaker 1: That happened with you and your brother, even with him
Speaker 1: and his brother. De Val was like the mastermind behind it,
Speaker 1: and his brother was like, well, I can't come up
Speaker 1: with no programs and ideas, but tell me what to do.
Speaker 1: He's on time, he's early and able to build a
Speaker 1: huge business. You and I are exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: I come up with ideas. I'm horrible at planning my
Speaker 1: organizational skills. There's a bunch of me to everywhere. But
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for this woman right here, who can say, listen,
Speaker 1: let's take this brain, let's put on the laptop, let's
Speaker 1: get everything in order, and then we can execute. So
Speaker 1: sometimes don't look at your partner and say what they're
Speaker 1: not doing. Let's look at my partner and see how
Speaker 1: could I help them do what they want to do?
Speaker 1: And then it'll be with suprocated as you grow together.
Speaker 1: So that's how we can help them out a little bit. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you want to investing you for you don't want to
Speaker 1: look and be like this guy over here. People can
Speaker 1: feel that absolutely value in all types of people. So
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and then I used to be like
Speaker 1: this when I was like, well the way I do
Speaker 1: it is just better. But I'm like, what lesson am
Speaker 1: I really sending? You know what I mean? Because what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is I'm better than you? And then how
Speaker 1: is someone supposed to respond to that and grow your love? Respond?
Speaker 1: We had an argument about three days ago probably or yes,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you deal with that? Because what's
Speaker 1: your sign area? Libra? Yeah? And so yeah, I'm always
Speaker 1: you know, And it's hard because I do think I'm
Speaker 1: always right. You know, I'm not gonna like so do
Speaker 1: I but I just do because I try to for
Speaker 1: everybody else. You know, what I learned is that there
Speaker 1: are more than one ways to be right and so,
Speaker 1: and I found that I had this bad mistake where
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you do this, and you might do
Speaker 1: this that that. Like, so my husband will say something like, oh, babe,
Speaker 1: we should um, we should paint this wall yellow. Let's
Speaker 1: just say. And I'm like, no, let's and every somebody else.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend be like, oh, you don't be cute yellow.
Speaker 1: You know what, girl? Yellow is a girl idea. He's like,
Speaker 1: so I have to that's a Really. What I'm really
Speaker 1: not doing is I'm not valuing what he brings to
Speaker 1: the table. And so what I try to do daily
Speaker 1: is ask myself, you know, um, how how what's what's
Speaker 1: awesome and amazing about him that's different than me, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I mean everybody where we live like it's so
Speaker 1: respectful and like even the block boys because of him,
Speaker 1: I don't beak. I'm one of those like I just
Speaker 1: go in the house. I don't always say nothing. But
Speaker 1: literally one day, like at night, this this man is
Speaker 1: banging on the door. I want the door. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's one of these bark boys doing outside? Um? Miss you? Um,
Speaker 1: you left your lights on in the car. I just
Speaker 1: didn't want you have dead battery. That's all for him,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was right. I was like work
Speaker 1: because he probably have been like, oh well, I a
Speaker 1: dead battery. Just accepting and acknowledging the magic that everyone
Speaker 1: brings to the table, and knowing that we couldn't be
Speaker 1: magical together if we were exactly the same. That what
Speaker 1: he does and what I do makes us better. So
Speaker 1: one year, your husband, I'm sure he's just not feeling
Speaker 1: good about himself. You know, what can you do to
Speaker 1: to help fill him? You know what can you do
Speaker 1: to say you know what? You know? Glasses have fully Yes,
Speaker 1: when I started dating my husband, I was like, because
Speaker 1: I have a college degree, I've got my masters, and
Speaker 1: I was like, we'll put out the door at all times,
Speaker 1: just so you know, I could always you know, you
Speaker 1: don't make it feel like, yeah, definitely feel like it
Speaker 1: wasn't good. We have that. We have that issue dealing
Speaker 1: with women of color because I think women of color
Speaker 1: are the second most educated people in the country behind
Speaker 1: white men. So black men often feel like you always
Speaker 1: have to prove to me that you're doing better, and
Speaker 1: that's something that happens a lot in our relationships. You
Speaker 1: have to work on that. So finally I had to
Speaker 1: say Tiffany, like you have one foot out the door
Speaker 1: at all times. How do you expect to build a
Speaker 1: home together when you're not even all the way in
Speaker 1: the house that you're in now, you know? And that's
Speaker 1: that that does feel like, that's something that does feel
Speaker 1: like we usually at the end of the episode, like
Speaker 1: a moment of truth take away from the entire episode,
Speaker 1: and man, I have so many but what you said,
Speaker 1: just that committed, fully committed to each other, to other,
Speaker 1: that is that is the moment of truth being fully committed,
Speaker 1: a jointment of truth. I like Jaden Wilson something that
Speaker 1: thought was so powerful. I remember saying, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: us that he said. Someone asked how did they last
Speaker 1: all through the ups and downs? She They both said
Speaker 1: that once they decided, they took divorce off the table.
Speaker 1: It's not an option. It's not We don't no matter
Speaker 1: what happens. Divorce is not even an option. I don't
Speaker 1: care what happens, they said. Once they took that off
Speaker 1: the table. It could be we we sleep in different
Speaker 1: houses for a year. It could be that like right now,
Speaker 1: I'm a zimbabwe for six months, whatever else we have
Speaker 1: to do. But divorces. It's not there's nothing, We're not
Speaker 1: doing that. And so once they did that, it forced
Speaker 1: them to find a solution that was not divorced. And
Speaker 1: I remember telling, um, you know Superman, that that like,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's take that off the table. That
Speaker 1: like not that we ever, because there's only been two years,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to take that off the table. So
Speaker 1: we'll be forced that no matter what happens, to deal
Speaker 1: with it and figure it out. I love that so much.
Speaker 1: I have nothing else to add. Tiffany, Yes, blessing. Can
Speaker 1: you just tell us really quick what's the name of
Speaker 1: your podcast? So Brown Ambition is myself and my friend Mandy.
Speaker 1: We talked about money, career, and just life in this
Speaker 1: brown skin and where can people find you? And finally
Speaker 1: your your goodies and all your gyms. Where can we
Speaker 1: find that? So you can find me on social I
Speaker 1: am the Budget needs to everywhere Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and you can find me at The Budget needs to
Speaker 1: dot com if you need a ton of freebees because
Speaker 1: you just really want to get on track, and I've
Speaker 1: got the five classes that's rich or Challenge dot com.
Speaker 1: But if you're ready to level up and to work
Speaker 1: with the people who work with me. You can go
Speaker 1: to join l are a dot com. That's the Literature Academy.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm gonna be in school. There you go.
Speaker 1: I'm about to grab your phone on every platform notifications
Speaker 1: on so you can be aware. I'm gonna do it
Speaker 1: too because I know what I don't know and I
Speaker 1: don't know everything. Thank you. We appreciate thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming in from Newark because we know Jersey
Speaker 1: and so comes to me. I was like, I look,
Speaker 1: I was like, what am I going to way? I
Speaker 1: appreciate you and listeners out there. If you want to
Speaker 1: be featured as one of our listener letters, email us
Speaker 1: at dead As Advice at gmail dot com. That's dead
Speaker 1: Ass Advice at gmail dot com, and be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on social media. That's I Am Devout and
Speaker 1: Cadine I Am. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: be sure to rate and subscribe absolutely dead Ass. Dead
Speaker 1: Ass is a production of Stitcher. Is produced by T Square,
Speaker 1: Stephanie Karauke and Dinora Opinion. Our executive producer as Chris Manning,
Speaker 1: and we'd like to give a special thanks to our
Speaker 1: recording engineer Jared O'Connell, our sound designer Brendan Burns and
Speaker 1: studio manager Ashley Warren. We'll back. I'm Drew McCarry and
Speaker 1: I'm David Roth. We have a podcast scoring on right
Speaker 1: now as part of the stitchen Net. We're called Substraction
Speaker 1: that's available everywhere. Get a podcast at Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Go.
Speaker 1: Listen right now to the Distraction, right now, it's out.
Speaker 1: Do it please,