Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm Mandy.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hey hey, It's Tiphany and this is Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: I've been a reporter in New York City for five years.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm a writer at Yahoo Finance. I write
Speaker 3: about money, business, career, basically anything to do with the
Speaker 3: world and.
Speaker 1: How it impacts your wallet.
Speaker 4: And I am Tiffany but much better known as the
Speaker 4: Budget Lista and I'm a financial educator, best selling author, speaker, teacher,
Speaker 4: all things personal finance. Basically, on this podcast, we're going
Speaker 4: to be talking about career, relationships, life and living in
Speaker 4: this brown skin.
Speaker 3: We work, we start businesses, we help one another. We
Speaker 3: do everything we can to make a better life for ourselves.
Speaker 3: And that's what Brown Ambition is all about. So here
Speaker 3: are some topics you might hear us talk about on
Speaker 3: the podcast.
Speaker 2: How to deal with office bullies and microaggressions.
Speaker 1: Coping with being the only one in the office.
Speaker 4: Yes, how to get money for a new business even
Speaker 4: when you have no idea what you're doing. Should you
Speaker 4: care if people think you have resting bitch base guilty?
Speaker 1: What to do when by earns less.
Speaker 2: Than you guilty guilty?
Speaker 4: Whether or not we should use the word bay in
Speaker 4: everyday conversation.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts about this. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Guys. We're going to start off the podcast by talking
Speaker 3: about some buzzworthy headlines that are cropping up in our lives,
Speaker 3: and we want to talk.
Speaker 2: More about.
Speaker 1: This week's buzzworthy.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm excited about this one.
Speaker 3: I think, I know I'm excited to have a lot
Speaker 3: of opinions about this, and so does the rest of America. Yes,
Speaker 3: so many opinions on how a young woman today decides
Speaker 3: the right time to step into motherhood. Yes, baby limbo,
Speaker 3: baby limbo this you know, I kind of came up
Speaker 3: with this terminology for a story I did on young
Speaker 3: people millennials eighteen up to their mid thirties who are
Speaker 3: stuck between.
Speaker 1: Do I have this college debt or do.
Speaker 3: You know, pay that off and focus on my career
Speaker 3: or do I also have a baby or you know,
Speaker 3: what should come first? And honestly, it's such a difficult
Speaker 3: question because mother nature doesn't wait for you to pay
Speaker 3: off your student loved debt, and I think that women
Speaker 3: have to recognize that fact. And it's maybe not so
Speaker 3: comfortable because you know, obviously, we want to talk about
Speaker 3: how much control we should have over our own bodies,
Speaker 3: which is absolutely true. You should, you know, be your
Speaker 3: own body's boss. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: like that clock is ticking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4: So I'm thirty five and I turned thirty six in October,
Speaker 4: which is not far away, and I mean, I've been
Speaker 4: thinking about it a lot because I am in a
Speaker 4: serious relationship, me and my boyfriend Superman.
Speaker 2: He already has a daughter. She's eight. She's great.
Speaker 1: Day a man with a daughter. That's some grown up dating.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I love it honestly, because one, I'm at
Speaker 4: an age now and because I work for myself, I
Speaker 4: realize I don't necessarily want a huge family. I came
Speaker 4: from a family there was five girls. My mom and
Speaker 4: dad raised all five of us, and I don't know
Speaker 4: that I want a big family, but I at least
Speaker 4: think I'm pretty sure I want at least one kid
Speaker 4: of my own. I mean, according to my mom, I
Speaker 4: really need to get on it. And I kind of
Speaker 4: feel like that too. My best friend just had a baby,
Speaker 4: and my sister just had a baby, and so their
Speaker 4: babies are all under a year old, and so I've
Speaker 4: been like, yeah, a little bit, but sometimes you're over
Speaker 4: more so that I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be thirty six,
Speaker 4: so when are you gonna make a choice. A friend
Speaker 4: of mine had she made her choice at thirty six
Speaker 4: and had her baby at thirty seven, and she said,
Speaker 4: I wish I would have started sooner.
Speaker 1: That's what I hear. I'm afraid, yeah, sooner would be.
Speaker 3: I'm twenty eight right now, and I feel like, am
Speaker 3: I going to regret not having a baby now?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it seems like I just don't
Speaker 1: want to do it.
Speaker 4: The her reason for saying she wished she would have
Speaker 4: started sooner is that she wished She really wants to
Speaker 4: have a second, and she doesn't know if she can't. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she can, So that's why I don't know that I
Speaker 4: want to have a second. I mean, I would want
Speaker 4: to have two kids, but between his one and my one,
Speaker 4: I'm like, well then it goes one plus one mixed
Speaker 4: two for three. Yes, she's the bonus kid and so
Speaker 4: and plus I do so much work and I really
Speaker 4: want to and I know this might sound a little selfish,
Speaker 4: but I want to maintain my individual personality and maintaince
Speaker 4: is okay, you know, as long as you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think selfish would be more so having ten kids
Speaker 4: and still wanting to fly around the country and speak
Speaker 4: and teach, and you don't have enough time for your children.
Speaker 4: So I don't want to spread myself super thin, right
Speaker 4: m hm.
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully you just have one kid to start.
Speaker 2: I know, Well, my boyfriend's are twins, so he is,
Speaker 2: oh g I'm like, yo, he told me. I already
Speaker 2: likes so I'm aiming for this.
Speaker 3: Does that gene come from the mail line or that
Speaker 3: I don't which is more likely to go somebody?
Speaker 4: Somebody email us at Brown Ambition Podcasts, yes and tell
Speaker 4: us how exactly are twins formulated? Does that come from
Speaker 4: the male line the female line?
Speaker 1: Is that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is it hereditary or is that like some sort of
Speaker 2: random I.
Speaker 1: Do think it skips a generation. So you might be good. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you're If you have a daughter, then she's got
Speaker 1: to worry.
Speaker 4: But you're good, So so you say, And so I
Speaker 4: come back to the next podcast and I'm like, so, y'all,
Speaker 4: I'm having twins.
Speaker 3: Thanks Manny, I can talk well, you know, I'm twenty
Speaker 3: eight and I don't necessarily feel pressure to have a baby. Okay,
Speaker 3: but I feel I guess that's not true. I don't
Speaker 3: feel pressure for myself, Okay, I don't. I look at
Speaker 3: puppies and I feel my my ovaries twins, like I
Speaker 3: really want a puppy very badly. Babies not so much,
Speaker 3: but they're cute. What I do feel is intense pressure
Speaker 3: from you know, I'm dating. I've been dating my partner
Speaker 3: boyfriend for through over three years now, which is my
Speaker 3: longest relationship, and you know, we live together and we're
Speaker 3: kind of we're kind of playing it as we you
Speaker 3: know by ear. His family, however, is not waiting, especially
Speaker 3: his mother. He comes from a very traditional, close knit
Speaker 3: community and family. I guess it's not giving away too
Speaker 3: much if I say. He's Dominican, so I'm in a
Speaker 3: mixed race relationship. And his mother is very Catholic and
Speaker 3: very old school, and she is like the mother of mothers.
Speaker 3: She lives to nurture her son's two sons. They are
Speaker 3: schooled rotten. But you know, I feel her looking at
Speaker 3: me and wondering. Not just feel, but I hear it
Speaker 3: because she tells me, Mandy, Amanda, why why no baby yet?
Speaker 1: Why? Her English isn't very good? But she can.
Speaker 2: She gets her point.
Speaker 1: Where's the baby yet? Where it's been three years?
Speaker 3: I asked her, you know, uh, don't she want us
Speaker 3: to get married first and get married and do all
Speaker 3: that and you know, the right order of events.
Speaker 1: And she's like, no, just have a baby. Wow?
Speaker 2: Would this be her first grandchild?
Speaker 1: This will be her first grandchild? There's so much pressure.
Speaker 4: I know, what how about you come from a family
Speaker 4: of five girls and no one has kids. My mother
Speaker 4: every day on the phone, so my my Nigerian name
Speaker 4: is Adochia and my mother would call me and say
Speaker 4: it's so she's still not mad. It still no baby,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, good old no second oldest.
Speaker 2: So they're just like so somebody.
Speaker 4: The oldest is married and she's working on it, and
Speaker 4: I'm the second. The third is not married, the fourth
Speaker 4: is married and she just had a baby. So we're
Speaker 4: like whoo. And but just watching her. She's literally like
Speaker 4: the milk machine. So she's only allowed to take ten
Speaker 4: paces away from the baby before the milk machine has
Speaker 4: to return and dispense milk.
Speaker 3: You mean, it's not glamorous and she's not like Blake
Speaker 3: Lively taking selfies of herself, you know, breastfeeding and a
Speaker 3: field of sunflowers.
Speaker 4: That is a straight beacuse. Honestly, She's like, I'm so tired.
Speaker 4: Her feet are swollen, and she's just like, how can
Speaker 4: I My mom is like, my mom is a nurse
Speaker 4: and her my mom was telling her you need to
Speaker 4: put your feet up.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, when when I'm being the milk machine.
Speaker 3: I work for a company, and obviously Y'allhoo has very
Speaker 3: generous maternity and paternity benefit programs, which isn't the norm nationwide.
Speaker 3: It's actually America's one of the only developing nations that
Speaker 3: doesn't have a federally mandated paid maternity or paternity lead law.
Speaker 3: But I'm lucky enough to work for Yahoo and we
Speaker 3: have sixteen weeks off. That's awesome, and dads get eight
Speaker 3: weeks off, and at least I know I have that yeah,
Speaker 3: sort of if I'm still working, you're gonna have a baby,
Speaker 3: have that kind of cushion. But can you talk about like,
Speaker 3: I'm curious as an entrepreneur's self, you know, you own
Speaker 3: your own business, how are you going to plan your leave?
Speaker 4: So I've been like, honestly like kind of like planning
Speaker 4: now because I'm going to be thirty six, like I said,
Speaker 4: and I mentioned, and my boyfriend and I have been
Speaker 4: talking about marriage and kids. So right now, the way
Speaker 4: my business is is that I start off at zero
Speaker 4: basically like every month, meaning like my income, I never
Speaker 4: know what's going to come in. People would just email
Speaker 4: me and call me and say we want you to
Speaker 4: speak or teach or whatever. And so as a month
Speaker 4: rolls on, I make money. I cannot do that and
Speaker 4: the kid because one, you know, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 4: be home. I do a lot of speaking around the country,
Speaker 4: you know, So that's a worry for me. So I thought, well,
Speaker 4: how am I going to make this work. So one
Speaker 4: of the things I'm implementing is I'm looking for other
Speaker 4: ways to make passive income.
Speaker 2: So I have two books that do fairly well.
Speaker 4: I'm coming out with a children's book hopefully that will
Speaker 4: boost up my income. In two I'm launching this academy
Speaker 4: called the Live Richer Academy, where it's going to be
Speaker 4: like a monthly fee and you can take classes on
Speaker 4: investing and business and all this kind of stuff. And
Speaker 4: so the Live Richer Academy will definitely help to put
Speaker 4: regular income into my stream. Without me having to leave
Speaker 4: the house because I'm not going to be able to,
Speaker 4: at least not for a while. So I'd love to
Speaker 4: hear what the BA audience has to say. Tweet us
Speaker 4: at the BA Podcast. You can find us on Facebook
Speaker 4: at Brown Ambition and you can email us at Brownambitionpodcast
Speaker 4: at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Let us know. Are you and Baby Limbo? What is
Speaker 2: your story? We'd love to hear it, maybe share it
Speaker 2: next time we're on.
Speaker 4: So next up, this is one of my favorite segments.
Speaker 4: It is is brown break, brown break?
Speaker 1: Some music?
Speaker 2: Yes, like.
Speaker 4: Mandy's gonna really how about you share? Like what what
Speaker 4: is a brown bak?
Speaker 2: Many?
Speaker 3: A brown break is just something in your life that
Speaker 3: you are tired of having to deal with or explain
Speaker 3: as a person of color.
Speaker 1: And this week, my brown break is white feminism.
Speaker 3: This is a very uncomfortable issue and I we like
Speaker 3: to keep things light and fun as much as we can,
Speaker 3: but white feminism is something that I'm starting to learn
Speaker 3: a little bit more about and just to give some
Speaker 3: background on what brought me to this necessary break in
Speaker 3: my life. So two of my favorite authors, for very
Speaker 3: different reasons. These authors couldn't be more different. Erica Jong,
Speaker 3: amazing author, very popular in the seventies and popular even now.
Speaker 3: She's a new book coming out. She was seen as
Speaker 3: sort of like one of the first female writer to
Speaker 3: really embrace women's sexuality, writing about a woman who's having
Speaker 3: sex and saying curse words and sleeping around with no apology.
Speaker 3: And she did a talk recently at the Decatur Book
Speaker 3: Festival Shout Out to Atlanta, my hometown, with Rox Sane Gay,
Speaker 3: another one of my favorite authors. She's the author of
Speaker 3: Bad Feminist. And someone asks Erica Jong how she feels
Speaker 3: about white feminism and the concept of white women generally
Speaker 3: speaking about feminists in a way that can sometimes exclude
Speaker 3: women of color. And this is not a new issue.
Speaker 3: It's been around since the seventies, when the first or
Speaker 3: not even the seventies, but you know, when women were
Speaker 3: trying to get the right to vote, cut to the seventies,
Speaker 3: when women were fighting for equal pay and things like that,
Speaker 3: and generally white women would speak of feminism as if
Speaker 3: it only applied from their point of view, and we
Speaker 3: weren't hearing so much from black and brown women. So
Speaker 3: this is something that I care a lot about, and
Speaker 3: I have to say as someone who really respects Erica John,
Speaker 3: Erica John from the bottom of my heart, and I
Speaker 3: love her writing.
Speaker 2: The way that she.
Speaker 3: Handled it wasn't I think the best way she could
Speaker 3: have handled things. She got really defensive, and I can
Speaker 3: understand why you'd be defensive, because if you identify as
Speaker 3: a feminist. And I give her so much respect. She
Speaker 3: has done so much for the cause for feminism in
Speaker 3: America and supported so many women, but she immediately was
Speaker 3: discounting the whole white feminism thing. Oh no, of course not.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, We've done so much for all women
Speaker 3: of color, all women of color. You know, everything I've
Speaker 3: done has been through this lens of you know, all women,
Speaker 3: all women. And it just seemed like a second iteration
Speaker 3: of the whole all lives matter thing. And you know,
Speaker 3: we kind of saw this play out with the whole
Speaker 3: Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift beef on Twitter, where Nikki's
Speaker 3: trying to make a statement about how black women are
Speaker 3: treated in the music industry, and then Taylor comes in
Speaker 3: and talks about, why are you trying.
Speaker 1: To make it about you?
Speaker 3: All women in music industry are marginalized and you know,
Speaker 3: sexualized in different ways and disenfranchised. But no, Taylor, No,
Speaker 3: and women of color are way more likely to be
Speaker 3: marginalized in the music industry. And not just there. Let's
Speaker 3: talk about in terms of like the wage gap. That's
Speaker 3: a huge cornerstone of the feminist movement today is the
Speaker 3: fact that women are still earning less than eight eighty
Speaker 3: cents on the dollar for a man. What gets lost
Speaker 3: when you stop the conversation there is the fact that
Speaker 3: Latina and black women are much more likely to make
Speaker 3: less than that. And yeah, I'm just over I'm over
Speaker 3: people stopping the conversation at here's what it looks like
Speaker 3: for all women, because all women don't have the same
Speaker 3: stait exactly.
Speaker 4: So you need a brown break for the white So
Speaker 4: my brown break is this whole debate of perm versus
Speaker 4: natural apage.
Speaker 3: So I am sitting with my fed up like my
Speaker 3: half perm, half relaxed awkward transition face.
Speaker 4: So many's half and half right, And here I am
Speaker 4: fully natural. I have locks for the last like seven years.
Speaker 4: But honestly, I've been natural since I want to say,
Speaker 4: two thousand and one. I don't math good, so don't
Speaker 4: know how many years I does.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was honestly natural. For the majority of my
Speaker 4: life I had a perm. Yeah, I was like totally
Speaker 4: like the natural girl before it became cool when I
Speaker 4: went natural. At first I had honestly here's where I
Speaker 4: went natural. So all throughout high school I had I
Speaker 4: had a natural hair. I had braids, the Brandy braids
Speaker 4: for those of you who can remember Brandy Norwood. M h,
Speaker 4: I want to be down. So I had the braids
Speaker 4: because I played sports. I played tennis, and so it
Speaker 4: didn't make sense for me to have a PERM and
Speaker 4: have permed hair and played sports. And so I was
Speaker 4: natural mostly all my life. And then when I went
Speaker 4: away to college, I was like, oh, I want a PERM.
Speaker 4: I felt like perm was like the next level of
Speaker 4: like womanhood for black women, and so I got a
Speaker 4: PERM and two years in my hair started to fall out,
Speaker 4: like I had alopecia. So alopecia is really weird.
Speaker 1: Putting a very toxic coming your hair wasn't good.
Speaker 4: For it, I know, And so my stylist was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, Tiffany, your texture of hair, It's just
Speaker 4: like I have really really tightly coiled hair and it
Speaker 4: just was not blending well with the perm. So literally
Speaker 4: the side started good go first, and then the back
Speaker 4: and the front, and then finally she was like, you're
Speaker 4: just gonna have to let the perm go, and so
Speaker 4: I cut off all of the perm and I was
Speaker 4: left with this spiky fro, and I realized it was
Speaker 4: too short to get braided, so I was kind of
Speaker 4: forced to walk around with spike fro and I had so.
Speaker 2: It started to grow out and I kind of liked
Speaker 2: the fro. It was cute.
Speaker 4: It was a cute little afro mini afro. But women
Speaker 4: and older black women started stopping me in the street
Speaker 4: and literally saying, why would.
Speaker 2: You do that to yourself?
Speaker 4: My my wasn't my mother and my father either, one
Speaker 4: of them. One of them said to me, so you
Speaker 4: don't plan to, Maddie. I'll translate, so you never want
Speaker 4: to get married. I was like, excuse me, So you
Speaker 4: don't want to, Maddie. That's what this hair is seen,
Speaker 4: that's what this.
Speaker 1: Is what my so you're putting out there, Yes, so
Speaker 1: this is what I was.
Speaker 4: So I couldn't believe how. I don't know, just like
Speaker 4: how politicized my hair was. I literally just stopped getting
Speaker 4: a perm because I was going bald. I wasn't trying
Speaker 4: to make a statement. I wasn't trying to I don't know,
Speaker 4: trying to like prove my blackness. It was, hey, I'd
Speaker 4: like not to be bald. Let me go back to
Speaker 4: the where.
Speaker 2: My hair was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very practical.
Speaker 4: But what I found was with time, as time went on,
Speaker 4: I found that people were politicizing it. For me.
Speaker 2: I would go to like Harlem or New York and
Speaker 2: people would.
Speaker 4: Say, hey, sister, like they would treat me differently than
Speaker 4: my friends who I was walking with who had a
Speaker 4: perm You know, I wasn't When men even would approach me,
Speaker 4: it wasn't the same like hey, shorty, what up? You know?
Speaker 4: It was like Hi, I just want to tell you
Speaker 4: that you're so beautiful. And it was different, and I
Speaker 4: thought that was so yeah, so strange, And but now
Speaker 4: what's happened. At first it was like I was so
Speaker 4: happy to see that people were embracing their natural hair,
Speaker 4: and I was like, yeah, yeah, yay. But now what's happened.
Speaker 4: It's like there's two camps. There's the perm camp and
Speaker 4: there's their natural camp. And sometimes I find that each
Speaker 4: camp is like looking down on each other, right, And
Speaker 4: I'm like, to me, it's just hair. It's just a
Speaker 4: choice like a dress or pants or shoes, and you
Speaker 4: should be able to make your choice. And you shouldn't
Speaker 4: be shamed for having a perm. You shouldn't be shamed
Speaker 4: for being natural. When to me, it should just be
Speaker 4: an expression of like just how you want to look today, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, or even if you want to make it,
Speaker 4: if you want to make it pull, that's fine, But
Speaker 4: that's just not me. And we're here and we're back
Speaker 4: and we are going to give you some tips brand
Speaker 4: ambition tips for today.
Speaker 1: So what are your tips for today? Tips?
Speaker 4: So my main tip for today really is for those
Speaker 4: of you who are starting a business. If this is
Speaker 4: a very first kind of stage of your business, you
Speaker 4: have to make a decision of whether or not you
Speaker 4: want to.
Speaker 2: Be a business or look like a business. Right, so
Speaker 2: this is a business.
Speaker 4: There's a fourteen year old girl on your block who
Speaker 4: babysits and she gets paid to She has a business,
Speaker 4: you know, very informal, but a business nonetheless, because a
Speaker 4: business is just when you have a product or service
Speaker 4: that somebody.
Speaker 2: Wants to buy and they do.
Speaker 4: Now, if you look like a business, looks all fancy,
Speaker 4: you have your business cards and pens and everything, but
Speaker 4: haven't made a sale.
Speaker 2: The fourteen year old has a business. You do not.
Speaker 4: So here's how I can help you get to a
Speaker 4: place where you can actually make money on your business. First,
Speaker 4: you want to make sure that that your return on
Speaker 4: there's a direct return on investments in the things that
Speaker 4: you buy. So what that means is this that anything
Speaker 4: that you're buying in the beginning stages of your business
Speaker 4: should directly make you money. So let's just say you
Speaker 4: want to be a baker. If you want to be
Speaker 4: a baker, getting a bakery is not going to directly
Speaker 4: make you money. Having business cards is not going to
Speaker 4: directly make you money. That looks like a business. That's
Speaker 4: not a business. Eggs, flour, sugar shortening, vanilla seasoning, whatever,
Speaker 4: those things will directly make you money because you can
Speaker 4: bake them, to make bake goods and sell them.
Speaker 2: So in the beginning I.
Speaker 4: Really urge new entrepreneurs to really only put your money
Speaker 4: into things that you can directly repackage and make you money.
Speaker 1: You're speaking to my dad right now. I think, Hey,
Speaker 1: Manny's big al who also does photography.
Speaker 3: Matt Alton Wodriff Dot com excellent.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's a great tip.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk about how to save on
Speaker 3: rent and make rent more affordable, and these are tried
Speaker 3: and true tips that I've actually done to lower my rent.
Speaker 3: In fact, I moved into a new place about a
Speaker 3: year and a half ago and I managed to save
Speaker 3: It will be twelve it'll be two four hundred dollars
Speaker 3: once we hit our two year mark, because I got
Speaker 3: them to shape one hundred bucks off their asking price
Speaker 3: for the rent, which I was really proud of. And
Speaker 3: again it's just like I said, those little asks. Just
Speaker 3: ask for the little stuff. You never know what they're
Speaker 3: gonna say. My first tip to save on rent is obviously,
Speaker 3: don't be afraid to negotiate, especially if you know that
Speaker 3: maybe you're moving to a place where there's not as
Speaker 3: much demand for rental places.
Speaker 1: Ask your landlord.
Speaker 3: You know, let's say you know, for example, your rent
Speaker 3: is sixteen hundred dollars a month, you have excellent credit,
Speaker 3: you have references, you come correct with references, and you're
Speaker 3: ready to show your landlord what a responsible tenant you are.
Speaker 3: If you can show them how responsible you are, then
Speaker 3: ask them for one hundred dollars or ten percent dedunction
Speaker 3: in the rent. It can work, but again you have
Speaker 3: to come prepared with those references and with that good credit.
Speaker 2: A tenant of mine did that once.
Speaker 4: Oh really Yeah, she was twenty six years old, and
Speaker 4: I remember I was like, I don't know, but because
Speaker 4: she came so prepared with everything, and she actually pre
Speaker 4: wrote the checks a year in advance to me, so
Speaker 4: when she asked for less, I was ahead, but she
Speaker 4: was like, amazing, No, but that works because I'm a
Speaker 4: I used to be a landlord, and her coming so prepared,
Speaker 4: I was willing to offer her less just to have
Speaker 4: a good tenant in there.
Speaker 3: Offering months in advance rent payments. That's a good tip,
Speaker 3: a good strategy. And I don't know if it's so
Speaker 3: common outside of New York, but a lot of landlords
Speaker 3: asked for first and last month's rent plus security, to
Speaker 3: which I know is hard to come up with. But
Speaker 3: if you can, if you can offer to pay two
Speaker 3: or three months, maybe even half a year's rent in
Speaker 3: advance upfront, they'll be willing to shave money off your
Speaker 3: rent if you ask them. They might be at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, a landlord has a product that
Speaker 3: he's trying to sell and he wants someone who's going
Speaker 3: to be living there and be responsible and not going
Speaker 3: to move out, you know, and break your lease early.
Speaker 3: And if you show that kind of commitment, paying in
Speaker 3: advance can really help you. Another strategy that I've used
Speaker 3: is picking a good time of year to rent. Studies
Speaker 3: show and my experience shows that the winter, winter and
Speaker 3: early spring are some of the more dry seasons, and
Speaker 3: as a landlord, there's less competition out there, which means
Speaker 3: that they're more desperate to rent their place out. And
Speaker 3: I think that's probably a lot of the reason why
Speaker 3: I was able to negotiate my rent.
Speaker 2: On top of having when was it you good credit?
Speaker 1: I moved in.
Speaker 3: We were looking for an apartment in February, moved in
Speaker 3: March first, so it was a great time. It's way
Speaker 3: more difficult to negotiate a rent because there's so many
Speaker 3: people for places in May and in September, end of
Speaker 3: college and beginning of the school year exactly definitely, So
Speaker 3: think about your timing and if you can time it
Speaker 3: around winter time. It sucks to move in the cold,
Speaker 3: but money keeps me.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say that what I wear a money jackets.
Speaker 3: And my last tip would be protect your belongings. This
Speaker 3: is like please eat your vinum, meet your vitamins, and
Speaker 3: like eat your vegetables and stuff. But seriously, renters insurance
Speaker 3: is no joke. You need to have it. It costs
Speaker 3: like ten to fifteen dollars a month. You can easily
Speaker 3: get a policy. If you have car insurance, call your
Speaker 3: I'm sure your insurance company probably offers a renter's insurance policy.
Speaker 1: You can go through your bank.
Speaker 3: You can go to just a random bank and ask
Speaker 3: them like USAA has a great RENTERSS policy and get
Speaker 3: Renter's insurance. Here is why if something were to happen
Speaker 3: to your apartments, say a fire or a flood or
Speaker 3: the spring you know, someone's bathtub overflows up above, which
Speaker 3: has happened to people before that I know, and it
Speaker 3: drips down and ruins all your firm. Sure your landlord
Speaker 3: is going to definitely pay to repair the structure and
Speaker 3: to repair the floor in the ceiling. But he has
Speaker 3: or she has no obligation to take care of your stuff,
Speaker 3: which is why you have to have renter's insurance. And
Speaker 3: one of the perks of renters insurance is that it
Speaker 3: won't just cover the stuff in your apartment. If you
Speaker 3: take your laptop computer, you leave it at a friend's
Speaker 3: place or in your car and it gelts stolen.
Speaker 1: Really it'll still cover it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, awesome. Yeah, and it's not even all that expenses.
Speaker 3: It's literally ten to twelve dollars. You can do estimates online.
Speaker 3: You can go to Traveler's Insurance. They have a cool
Speaker 3: tool that you can use. Bank Rate has a cool
Speaker 3: I think rent as insurance calculator you can use just
Speaker 3: call and.
Speaker 2: Get a quote.
Speaker 3: All you have to do is go through your apartments,
Speaker 3: start with your closet and work you through each room
Speaker 3: and get a rough estimate of how much you think.
Speaker 3: Like I think for our place, I have a policy
Speaker 3: for fifteen thousand dollars. Okay, you know, just something that'll
Speaker 3: cover your stuff. Yeah, in the event of an accident
Speaker 3: renchest of insurance excellent return on the best.
Speaker 2: Yes, I like that tip.
Speaker 4: So hopefully if you like our tips, you will let
Speaker 4: us know. Tweet us the BA podcast at the BA
Speaker 4: Podcast at the BA Podcast, Facebook.
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition and Email Ambition podcast at Gail.
Speaker 2: We should be a Singing Girl.
Speaker 4: So we are closing out this week's podcast with Our Winds.
Speaker 2: All I do is win, win, win, no matter what.
Speaker 2: Do you like that one?
Speaker 3: Right, let's save that for every every single segment we
Speaker 3: do of the Winds.
Speaker 4: Oh, we should let me practice my notes first, but
Speaker 4: you know what's good? So this wind is near and
Speaker 4: dear to my heart. We talked about baby Limbo. I
Speaker 4: am a first time auntie and we have a little
Speaker 4: boy and a family full of women who are ready
Speaker 4: to spoil.
Speaker 2: She told me, she told me before the baby came.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not buying anything, right, and true to form,
Speaker 4: she didn't have to, not with four aunties who are
Speaker 4: just doting on this little baby. He's the cutest and
Speaker 4: I love my little peanut, that's my nickname for him.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so that's my win for the week.
Speaker 1: Good for her, good for you. New babies are great.
Speaker 3: Yes, if you're ready for that, Yes, okay, my win
Speaker 3: of the week. I need to call out Ah. I
Speaker 3: would say this associate to mine.
Speaker 1: We went to college together.
Speaker 3: And you know how you go to school with someone
Speaker 3: you know them well, and then you leave school and
Speaker 3: then you kind of drift apart and you go do
Speaker 3: your own thing, and but you still follow each other
Speaker 3: on social media, Like I still kind of social media
Speaker 3: stock her and have been following her career, and I'm
Speaker 3: really proud of her. I think she's doing our school proud.
Speaker 3: Her name is Macy Peterson and she has this app
Speaker 3: which is pretty genius. It's called on Second Thought. It's
Speaker 3: for Android users, and this is going to solve one.
Speaker 3: It pretty much solves the problem all of us have
Speaker 3: faith with our texting. It allows you to take back
Speaker 3: a text. Really yeah, not take it back in the
Speaker 3: sense that you send it and you can get it back.
Speaker 3: But I think how it works is that you send
Speaker 3: a text through the app and then you have like
Speaker 3: an hour delay or a twenty four hour delay, like
Speaker 3: if you think you might regret sending it in the morning. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's say you had a couple glasses of wine. You're
Speaker 3: not toasted, but like you're just needing. Maybe I'll send
Speaker 3: it to second and like a five second delay. Nice
Speaker 3: feeling nice and you feel like you feel some kind
Speaker 3: of way about your what your mom said to you
Speaker 3: about you know, your hair last week, and you want
Speaker 3: to let her know how you feel. You can send
Speaker 3: it to on Second on Second Thought the app and
Speaker 3: have a day or an hour delay before the app
Speaker 3: the text actually gets sent.
Speaker 1: Okay, pretty smart idees.
Speaker 3: So she presented this at I think it started at
Speaker 3: south By Southwest last year, and in just a year's time,
Speaker 3: she's raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and she's moving
Speaker 3: the app and her startup from DC to Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: She's like living the entrepreneur's dream.
Speaker 3: She's a brown girl, and she's a brown girl in tech,
Speaker 3: which is so rare and so necessary, and it's awesome
Speaker 3: to see her doing so well.
Speaker 1: So I just want to give Macy a shout out.
Speaker 2: Yes, Macey Color, Yeah right.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll stop just stalking her, let her know.
Speaker 2: How I really feel. Now, that's awesome, Macy.
Speaker 1: We should have her on one day. I'm sure she
Speaker 1: has lots of tips to share.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 4: So hope you enjoyed this week show Me and Mandy
Speaker 4: enjoyed being here with you. If you'd like to find us,
Speaker 4: where can they find us?
Speaker 3: You can find us on Twitter at the BA podcast,
Speaker 3: on Facebook at Brown Ambition, or please send us emails, compliments, complaints,
Speaker 3: send us your wins of the weeks, your brown breaks.
Speaker 3: So email us at Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: See you soon.