Speaker 1: Well, it's time for the b A keep a Hey
Speaker 1: keep a okay a q A. What you say the
Speaker 1: b a q A with manday tip today? Oh you
Speaker 1: don't gonna forget that next week? So yeah, commit that
Speaker 1: to memory. It's starting for the Brown ambition question and answer.
Speaker 1: You have questions. We have some answers to smart brown
Speaker 1: girls who are not your financial advisor, not an attorney,
Speaker 1: not let's.
Speaker 2: Set the expectation right, we just talked about that job.
Speaker 1: But what we are as smart and so you take
Speaker 1: what did we say with a grain of salt and
Speaker 1: certainly lean into those people in your life, like your
Speaker 1: financial advisor, people you pay money to for professional advice.
Speaker 1: I well, if you have a question you'd like answered,
Speaker 1: where can they go manager to get questions answered? Oh?
Speaker 2: So many options, but y'all's favorite seems to be Instagram.
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Speaker 2: dot com, click ask us anything or contact us and
Speaker 2: you can submit your question that way. Looking forward to
Speaker 2: hearing from y'all. Yeah, we got some juicy money questions
Speaker 2: this week. Let's start with our first question. Who would
Speaker 2: like to remain anonymous? Which is fine? So she or
Speaker 2: he or they say, Mandra and tif I need help,
Speaker 2: but I, oh, she's a little dramatic with lots of emojis. Truly,
Speaker 2: I do need your help. I started my private dining
Speaker 2: business several years ago, but was never really able to
Speaker 2: grow and groom it because of all of my responsibilities
Speaker 2: at my nine to five corporate job. As I'm approaching
Speaker 2: forty years old in just two years and have experienced
Speaker 2: an unfortunate amount of death of close loved ones over
Speaker 2: the past two years, I've reflected and decided I do
Speaker 2: not want to be in my sixties, saying I wish
Speaker 2: I would have chased this dream or that dream. That said,
Speaker 2: I've decided to level up the business I started and
Speaker 2: take a leap of faith to invest in a food trailer.
Speaker 2: This is going to literally take my business to the
Speaker 2: next level and give me the tools I really need
Speaker 2: to go full force. The problem is I don't have
Speaker 2: a ton of cash on hand, and because I want
Speaker 2: to go full in on this, I'm considering taking money
Speaker 2: out of my retirement account to cover the startup expenses.
Speaker 2: I'm looking into grants and start up funding options, but
Speaker 2: going directly to my retirement account would give me quicker access.
Speaker 2: My plan would be to pay myself back as my
Speaker 2: business grows and scales. What are y'all's thoughts on this?
Speaker 1: Well, First, I want to say, let's give you a name.
Speaker 1: We're going to call you thouty, Foody, so foody. I
Speaker 1: just want to say one, I just want to, you know,
Speaker 1: acknowledge that you have death of some close ones in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. You know, I know that.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't imagine what losing a number of
Speaker 1: people must be like. So I just want to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to acknowledge that. And Two, you
Speaker 1: are doing something that my therapist who tapped me through
Speaker 1: my grief is doing, which is a good thing. Which
Speaker 1: is she said, grief. You have two choices with grief,
Speaker 1: Tiffany grief can let you can constrict you. And you
Speaker 1: know those are the folks who someone passes away, they
Speaker 1: just decide never to leave their house. They're just basically
Speaker 1: almost like waiting to die themselves, or they do less
Speaker 1: and less and less or. She said, grief can expand you,
Speaker 1: and it makes you look around and say, I'm acknowledging
Speaker 1: my humanness and my humanity and that we are here temporarily,
Speaker 1: and so I'm going to make the most of it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to expand. And it sounds like to
Speaker 1: me that you are expanding. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: celebrate that awareness that you're like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be sixty and not happen live my life.
Speaker 1: So I just want to be like, kudos to you
Speaker 1: for allowing grief to expand you. I'm saying those goods.
Speaker 1: I'm doing the sandwich because girl, you better leave never
Speaker 1: tire money alone. Because well, here's the thing. My concern
Speaker 1: is this. She said something like she said, I'm looking
Speaker 1: into grants and started funding, but to go directly to
Speaker 1: my retirement account would give me quicker act quicker that girl,
Speaker 1: I read that says foodie. Yep, girl, come sit down
Speaker 1: next to me, man, right between those right between this foodie.
Speaker 1: This is like in church when you act you guys
Speaker 1: sit right between your parents and you're like you said, now,
Speaker 1: if you said I have applied to ten different grants,
Speaker 1: I have da da da I have and I can't
Speaker 1: find any funding, then maybe I might be like, huh,
Speaker 1: but quicker access is not better access. It's just now.
Speaker 1: And so I want you to do this food truck
Speaker 1: thing because it sounds amazing and you sound awesome, but
Speaker 1: I don't want you to do it to the detrite
Speaker 1: of your future. I'm gonna just give you a I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let many jump in, but I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: a tool that's really helpful. They help folks. If there's
Speaker 1: this company called Rising Tide Capital, if you go to
Speaker 1: Rising Tide tidecapital dot org or rg I used to
Speaker 1: teach with them. They have like a six week course
Speaker 1: from what I remember, where they teach onto Norse entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: And it's also on a sliding scale, so you don't
Speaker 1: have to pay for price. I mean some people totally
Speaker 1: go for free. And they also help to open you
Speaker 1: up to grants and funding and things at the end
Speaker 1: of that. So you get to learn everything from business
Speaker 1: finance to marketing to all the things they teach you
Speaker 1: in the six week program damn near for free. And
Speaker 1: then like I said, you have access to potential funding
Speaker 1: at the end. So I want you before you jump
Speaker 1: into taking money that should be the last, last, last
Speaker 1: case scenario, not your first jump in because it's.
Speaker 2: Quicker, and so like, you know, girl, Yeah, that struck
Speaker 2: me too, because I understand as someone who's also really impatient,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I just want the thing that I
Speaker 2: want now, and when I decide I want to do something,
Speaker 2: I'm like, so, what's the quickest way to point B?
Speaker 2: Now that I'm at point A and I want to
Speaker 2: get there? So that really resonated with me. But I agree,
Speaker 2: I think that the fact that you haven't the one
Speaker 2: thing about grants and looking for like other funding options,
Speaker 2: even if you were to do a friends and family
Speaker 2: round of funding, you know, I would say the benefit
Speaker 2: of going those yes, slower routes to get some funding
Speaker 2: is that it kind of forces you to put together,
Speaker 2: you know, a case for why they should invest in you.
Speaker 2: And I think ultimately that work of writing down a
Speaker 2: business plan, a strategy, how are you going to cover
Speaker 2: your expenses, what are your long term ongoing cost you know,
Speaker 2: what kind of labor needs? Like having to actually explain
Speaker 2: all of that is I think really good business practice
Speaker 2: in and of itself to better prepare you. And so
Speaker 2: my fear if you were to just kind of go
Speaker 2: the easy route and raid your retirement fund to buy
Speaker 2: this trailer, is that then you're going to have the trailer,
Speaker 2: But then what about like executing on that And are
Speaker 2: you even ready for that trailer yet? You know, and
Speaker 2: we don't know much about you. I don't know much
Speaker 2: about your business. Maybe you are really ready and there's
Speaker 2: just not that stuff that I don't know. But I
Speaker 2: feel like sometimes when we go to ourselves first, it's
Speaker 2: almost like we fear asking for help and we fear
Speaker 2: asking for outside resources. But that is how so many
Speaker 2: businesses are founded, you know, through friends and family rounds
Speaker 2: of investing, through private investments, you know, through even funding
Speaker 2: through traditional financial institutions. Like I wouldn't want you to
Speaker 2: skip these other ways of investing and like seeking that
Speaker 2: additional help versus, you know, putting your entire livelihood and
Speaker 2: your future on the line. It doesn't necessarily have to.
Speaker 1: Be that way. Yeah, all right, foody, thank you for
Speaker 1: your question. Yes, hopefully you know you take that with
Speaker 1: the you know, with the love intended.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a quick break out and be
Speaker 2: back with another of your baq and A's.
Speaker 1: Next up. We have Ken with the question on all right, Ken,
Speaker 1: Ken says, Hi, my name is Ken, twenty five years old. Oh. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: I need your help badly. I feel like I'm drowning
Speaker 1: in debt and it's causing me to be depressed. I'm
Speaker 1: making eighty thousand dollars a year, but my car note
Speaker 1: is seven hundred dollars. I'm financing and my insurance is
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars. I live in New York City, which
Speaker 1: explains everything you need to know. I pay two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars a month for parking. Due to my
Speaker 1: new role, I no longer need my car. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about giving my car back since I don't use it.
Speaker 1: I also max up my credit card. I currently owe
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred dollars and I have thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in student loans. I currently live with my parents, so
Speaker 1: I don't pay much for rent. Can you please give
Speaker 1: me advice on hacker role and my debt? Do you
Speaker 1: suggest me giving back my car and also make a
Speaker 1: settlement with my credit card. I eventually have to find
Speaker 1: my own apartment, but I feel like I won't get
Speaker 1: approved of my credit SCRD, which is a five to
Speaker 1: fifty and I would barely be able to afford it.
Speaker 1: I would literally do anything and everything you tell me
Speaker 1: to do. Oh I can we love a listening A
Speaker 1: listening abe man, right, we love a listening, man, man.
Speaker 1: I know. So first, let's just acknowledge that, Like on
Speaker 1: the surface, Ken says I make eighty thousand dollars, and
Speaker 1: you're like ooh. And then Ken says I live in
Speaker 1: near city. You're like, oh, so, Manny, you have lived
Speaker 1: in New York. Tell us what eighty thousand dollars really looking?
Speaker 1: Have you lived in New York? Ve you lived in
Speaker 1: New York?
Speaker 2: I lived in New York and I made eighty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars at a certain point. Purpose yes, I'm an expert
Speaker 2: at being underpaid in a very expensive city. But listen, Like,
Speaker 2: the thing that stands out for me is, first of all,
Speaker 2: you live in New York City. Why do you have
Speaker 2: a car that's seven hundred dollars? I'm confused. Well, when
Speaker 2: he said when he said his car note is seven
Speaker 2: hundred a month, my immediate thought was, damn, his credit
Speaker 2: score is probably on the lower side because people with
Speaker 2: lower credit And turns out it is it's five point fifty.
Speaker 2: When you when you have a low credit score and
Speaker 2: your goal for when you go to finance a car,
Speaker 2: you end up with like really long term loans very expensive,
Speaker 2: and the interest prices, the interest rates are just so
Speaker 2: high that it makes financing get really expensive. I would
Speaker 2: say like, And he also says he may not even
Speaker 2: need the car anymore because his job has changed or
Speaker 2: something like that. So I would say, yes, I would
Speaker 2: get rid of that car asap, a up so that
Speaker 2: you can free up some cash. What kind of insurance
Speaker 2: is six hundred dollars a month? Is that that can't
Speaker 2: be auto insurance?
Speaker 1: I think that's what I mean annual? No, he has
Speaker 1: per month. Yeah, well that happens if you have low
Speaker 1: credit and he has a brand new car, so you
Speaker 1: have to get like the max insurance. And they probably
Speaker 1: maybe have taken advance of him, because I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: lie when Jirel is here. When I met him, between
Speaker 1: his car note and his insurance, it was over one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month. I was like, Brah, it was
Speaker 1: the first thing that made him.
Speaker 2: Get thank God. Yeah, yeah, well, Ken, we'll do anything
Speaker 2: you tell him to do right now. Tiffany. So we're saying,
Speaker 2: get rid of the car, can so?
Speaker 1: Can?
Speaker 2: I will take me a month for parking on top
Speaker 2: of that, Like that's easily, that's well, that's almost two
Speaker 2: thousand a month, girl a la.
Speaker 1: So that getting rid of the car. But now it
Speaker 1: might not be as easy because you know you're financing.
Speaker 1: So look what it looks like to sell the car
Speaker 1: back or maybe selling the car and then paying it
Speaker 1: off because I mean, used cars are still being sold
Speaker 1: at a premium days because this ise you know. So
Speaker 1: because here's the thing, because at the time I had Jirell,
Speaker 1: he basically surrendered his car and they gave him whatever
Speaker 1: cast value and he still owed like a couple thousand
Speaker 1: on it. But that's that was before. That was like
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say, like maybe like four years ago. But
Speaker 1: it's different now because used cars go for a Remember, Mandy,
Speaker 1: you guys sold your car right and you got damnar
Speaker 1: what you paid for because right now, you know, parts
Speaker 1: are slow to come by, and so you can sell
Speaker 1: youth car for much more and that will save you. Listen,
Speaker 1: So what's seven plus seven is fourteen fifteen fifty? Is
Speaker 1: that what he's like? So right now, that would save
Speaker 1: you fifteen fifty a month. That's great. Okay, So now
Speaker 1: your credit card, I don't necessarily think you need to
Speaker 1: do necessarily like a settlement on your credit card. You don't.
Speaker 1: I know, it seems like because you're twenty five that
Speaker 1: you owe a lot. Relatively speaking, thirty thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: student loans is not that bad. I know it sounds bad,
Speaker 1: but it's not that bad. And seventy five one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars on a credit card is also not that bad relatively,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm like, oh, y'all, try what I owed
Speaker 1: A good hundred thousand, so it's not that bad. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily settle my credit card debt. I think you
Speaker 1: can pay that off because look, if you are not
Speaker 1: paying this car note, the insurance and parking, you can
Speaker 1: put that toward your credit card and honestly have that
Speaker 1: paid off in a few months. That's what I would
Speaker 1: lean toward doing, and then so doing. By paying it off,
Speaker 1: you're going to see your credit score jump, like Jordan, Okay,
Speaker 1: also you might want to consider it. So credit cards
Speaker 1: are what they call revolving debt, and so that is
Speaker 1: one type of credit to pay back what you're already
Speaker 1: doing with your credit card. If you divert some of
Speaker 1: that car note money towards your credit card, you can
Speaker 1: get that paid off in a year. I would also
Speaker 1: consider there's a company called They ust be called self lender,
Speaker 1: but I think they just call themselves self now. And
Speaker 1: the way self works is that you quote unquote borrow money,
Speaker 1: but they don't give it to It's like I think
Speaker 1: I always tell people, choose the least amount of money.
Speaker 1: It's like five hundred dollars. I think it's the smallest.
Speaker 1: You borrow five hundred dollars, but they keep it in
Speaker 1: a in a money market account basically a savings account
Speaker 1: for you, and then every month you pay that money back.
Speaker 1: And so instead of evolving credit, you're showing creditors and
Speaker 1: the credit reporting agencies that I know how to pay
Speaker 1: off a installment loan. That's a different type of credit.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes credit agencies like to see that you
Speaker 1: have that you know how to do both. You know
Speaker 1: how to do credit cards, you also know how to
Speaker 1: do loans, and so it's like I think it was
Speaker 1: like I want to say, it's like forty one bucks
Speaker 1: a month if you to borrow five hundred it's like
Speaker 1: forty one bucks a month, give or take. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the year you get your five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars back because you know they never gave it to
Speaker 1: you and you paid it off, plus a little bit
Speaker 1: of the interest whatever the interest grew to. But it
Speaker 1: allows you over that year span, so you're gonna be
Speaker 1: paying down your credit card debt doing this like fake
Speaker 1: fake out loan with with self lender, So two ways
Speaker 1: to show that you know how to manage credit. So
Speaker 1: you should end the year credit card debt free and
Speaker 1: hopefully a much stronger credit score, so you will be
Speaker 1: ready then to get your own apartment in a year,
Speaker 1: you know, which might seem like a long time, but
Speaker 1: it's not. I moved there. I moved that around the
Speaker 1: same age you were, because same I wasn't making much
Speaker 1: money and I was like, how can I afford this?
Speaker 1: So that's what I would lean into. Ken is doing
Speaker 1: those things and trying not to get into any additional debt.
Speaker 1: You know, And if you have student loans that are
Speaker 1: federal right now, I mean they're still because what is
Speaker 1: the moratorium up, Mandy? Is it October?
Speaker 2: Did they push in October end of September.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so you might not and we'll see what.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's gonna happen. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have private student loans. It sounds like they
Speaker 1: might be federal because they're not super high. So if
Speaker 1: you have federal student loans, you're probably not making payments
Speaker 1: on that now anyway, which is which is great. Don't
Speaker 1: be afraid to pay just the minimum to that as
Speaker 1: you take care of this credit card debt and then
Speaker 1: bump it up, you know, as you as you can
Speaker 1: pay more, and so don't you know, stay home with
Speaker 1: the parents. I would give myself a year work this plan.
Speaker 1: By then I would be looking on a mandy if
Speaker 1: I was you. So you can make more money through
Speaker 1: your career. Okay, again, you.
Speaker 2: Know I'm worried for ken, Like, I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 2: living at home eighty k a year. You should be
Speaker 2: stacking like you should be stacking your coins like this
Speaker 2: is the time I remember when I was making eightyk.
Speaker 2: You got me thinking back in my memories. Now, that's
Speaker 2: when husband and I decided to move back in with
Speaker 2: his parents in New York.
Speaker 1: Oh God help us.
Speaker 2: But to save money so we can save money. Oh
Speaker 2: my god. The in laws anyway lived with them so
Speaker 2: that we could purposefully save money so that we wouldn't
Speaker 2: have to take on debt for our wedding. And it
Speaker 2: was one of the smartest things we did. And it's like, Ken,
Speaker 2: You're like, you're getting such a huge benefit of living there.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they charge you rent. You don't
Speaker 2: say that they do. So let's say they're like a
Speaker 2: little bit, so a little bit of rents. Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 2: And if you can get this, if you can get
Speaker 2: that huge expense of the car off your plate, and
Speaker 2: you know, you can cut whatever other expenses you can
Speaker 2: cut and get that credit card debt paid down. You're
Speaker 2: still so young, but this is a really this is
Speaker 2: a really crucial moment, Like when you're twenty five. The
Speaker 2: financial choices you can make today will can dictate whether
Speaker 2: or not you will reach like millionaire status down the line,
Speaker 2: and they can dictate whether you'll be able to buy
Speaker 2: a house of your own someday. You're talking about renting,
Speaker 2: but think bigger, like, you can make choices today by
Speaker 2: getting rid of the car, paying down your debt, saving
Speaker 2: and investing your surplus money and not letting it, you know,
Speaker 2: run away from you.
Speaker 1: That could set you up.
Speaker 2: Like New York is really hell expensive, but you're twenty five.
Speaker 2: Like if you start saving and investing now for home purchase,
Speaker 2: like in your thirties, like that may be enough time
Speaker 2: for you to accumulate the amount of money that you
Speaker 2: will need. So like, think bigger than just what's in
Speaker 2: front of you. And I feel like in New York
Speaker 2: it's such a damn grind and it's also you do
Speaker 2: have those influences from people around you too, Like I
Speaker 2: get it, like you want to get out of your parents' house.
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying think bigger. I'm kind of giving
Speaker 2: you the same pep talk that I gave Husby back
Speaker 2: in the day when you know he had he moved
Speaker 2: out of his parents' house like a Dominican household in
Speaker 2: the heights. Like that's something you just didn't do until
Speaker 2: you were like in your thirties because of how expensive
Speaker 2: it is, Like people live with their parents for a
Speaker 2: long time. But he move that onto his own and
Speaker 2: he also found himself in a lot of debt, living
Speaker 2: paycheck to paycheck. I just found out recently that he
Speaker 2: used to really go hungry in between paychecks because he
Speaker 2: was so proud, like he didn't want to go home.
Speaker 2: And I was like, your mom would be pissed.
Speaker 1: What especially husby is like you said, the Dominican Dominican girl,
Speaker 1: not if they're Dominican baby going hungry, that's one thing.
Speaker 2: No, she would kill him, but that's how you know.
Speaker 2: But he was really thinking, like I want to get
Speaker 2: my own place, and so he got his own place,
Speaker 2: and it was like more.
Speaker 1: Than he could afford.
Speaker 2: And like there's also the pressure to get a car,
Speaker 2: because if you're not going to leave your parents' house,
Speaker 2: you at least want to be able to like go
Speaker 2: do your own thing on the weekends and like have
Speaker 2: a little bit of freedom. But like I had to
Speaker 2: help him think even bigger than that too, Like what's
Speaker 2: the opportunity here. You can really become wealthy if you
Speaker 2: take some steps today, and of course also increase your
Speaker 2: ergings at the same time. But I'm just like, come on, Ken,
Speaker 2: take advantage of this gift that you have. And yeah,
Speaker 2: your credit is crappy now, but like Tiffany said, once
Speaker 2: you pay off this debt, you know, get rid of
Speaker 2: that car, like jump like Jordan, I mean, I have
Speaker 2: no doubt that your credit will bounce back, and then
Speaker 2: it's about okay, let's keep it there and recognize how
Speaker 2: do we get in the situation in the first place,
Speaker 2: and like, let's try not to do that. Let's try
Speaker 2: to do that again. Ken, we can help it and
Speaker 2: then find your wife like me, and then you know
Speaker 2: you'll be good.
Speaker 1: Or partner. We don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right, find yourself a partner who will help
Speaker 2: be level up. All right, Ken, thank you for the question.
Speaker 2: You can take every single piece of advice that we
Speaker 2: gave you, but just remember we're your financial besties, not
Speaker 2: your financial advisor or financial planner, so you know, take
Speaker 2: our advice with a huge fat grain of salt right
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. But thank you again
Speaker 2: for your question.
Speaker 1: Yes, and if you have questions, please ask us and
Speaker 1: we will see you next week for more b a
Speaker 1: QA and just regular Brown Ambision on our regular Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: I see y'all, ba fam, hey, ba fam. We could
Speaker 2: not do this show without your support or the support
Speaker 2: of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Emission podcast
Speaker 2: is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network. It's edited by the
Speaker 2: Wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennis Stimplinsky
Speaker 2: is our in house tech curu, and I am Bandy
Speaker 2: Woodard Santos, your co host, and I will see y'all
Speaker 2: next week