Speaker 1: Hey ba fam.
Speaker 2: Please follow us on Apple Podcasts and keep our audience growing.
Speaker 2: If your iPhone recently upgraded to iOS fourteen point five,
Speaker 2: head to Apple Podcasts, search for Brown Ambition and click
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Speaker 2: Do that and you'll be following our show. You can
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Speaker 2: And Android users, we didn't forget about you. You can
Speaker 2: find us on Google Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Now have the time of my life. Okay, just kidding.
Speaker 2: I've really miss Tiffany, but we made it, y'all, and
Speaker 2: I can't thank my guest co host enough for joining
Speaker 2: me and holding.
Speaker 1: My hand through this period of separation.
Speaker 2: While Tip has been on a much needed rest and
Speaker 2: recharge of AKA. I want to thank Chris Browning of
Speaker 2: Popcorn Finance, Berna and Nat from Hey Berna, Jamilas Soufran
Speaker 2: from Journey to Launch, and last but not least, Janice
Speaker 2: Torres Rodriguez from Yo Kioto Dineto Podcast for joining me
Speaker 2: this past month. Y'all.
Speaker 1: I can't believe we made it.
Speaker 2: I had such a good time getting to know these
Speaker 2: guys better, and I feel like I've got four new
Speaker 2: financial besties.
Speaker 1: Already.
Speaker 2: Now, this reference is strictly for the millennials, so boomers
Speaker 2: and gen zers, sorry, not sorry. Do y'all remember those
Speaker 2: old episodes of Saved by the Bell where they meet
Speaker 2: up at the Max and they reminisce about the school
Speaker 2: year and they look longingly at nothing in particular in
Speaker 2: the distance, and then it happens the screen goes all
Speaker 2: squiggly and you realize it's one of those episodes. A
Speaker 2: recap of some of the best moments from the season's past. Well,
Speaker 2: here we go, Bayside Tigers, I mean, ba fam, I
Speaker 2: am about to walk down memory lane and replace some
Speaker 2: of the most memorable moments from our summer co host series.
Speaker 2: This is the greatest hits over the last month, and
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoy them as much as I
Speaker 2: did getting to relive some of these conversations when I'm
Speaker 2: in the co host chair. Honestly, sometimes I told Berna
Speaker 2: this when we had lunch last week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we like hang out now, I told her that.
Speaker 2: Honestly, sometimes I feel like I had these conversations and
Speaker 2: I semi blackout and I have a hard time remembering.
Speaker 2: So it was really fun to walk back down memory lane.
Speaker 2: And pick out what I thought were some of the
Speaker 2: really poignant and powerful moments that I had recording with
Speaker 2: these amazing co hosts.
Speaker 1: So sit back and.
Speaker 2: Relax and enjoy this look back Q the Squiggly Dreamy
Speaker 2: music Cali.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Our first trip down memory Lane starts with my conversation
Speaker 2: with the wonderful Chris Browning. He and I took a
Speaker 2: question from listener Lachine, who was asking about the difference
Speaker 2: between having a budgeting problem in an income problem. Lachine says,
Speaker 2: I just found your podcast after buying Tiffany's book, and
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed in her book, which is I will add
Speaker 2: here you guys called Get Good with Money, which you
Speaker 2: can get at get goodwith Money dot com. It's an
Speaker 2: eight week national wait, eight week New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 2: At this point, it's insane anyway, So Lachen found us
Speaker 2: through her book. She says, in the book, Tiffany talked
Speaker 2: about determining if you have a budgeting problem or an
Speaker 2: income slash earning problem, and I think I have an
Speaker 2: earning problem. When I wanted to get y'all's opinion, I
Speaker 2: make fifty thousand dollars a year after taxes and insurance
Speaker 2: and my retirement retirement savings. I'm left with about twenty
Speaker 2: nine hundred dollars per month. I can comfortably pay my bills,
Speaker 2: save for travel, and add money to my IRA, but
Speaker 2: that's about it. I want to save more, but there's
Speaker 2: nowhere else in my budget. I feel like I can
Speaker 2: slice and dice. What do you guys think? So, what's
Speaker 2: your take on like a budget versus an income problem?
Speaker 3: Chris, This is a great questquestion here, and I think
Speaker 3: sometimes we do get trapped in they Okay, let's let's budget,
Speaker 3: let's cut and let's save where we can. Which is
Speaker 3: good to go through and evaluate your budget and see
Speaker 3: where you're maybe wasting money. But the only thing is
Speaker 3: you can only cut so much. If you've already you
Speaker 3: got your stuff under control, and you're really diligent with
Speaker 3: how you spend, you're going to get to a point
Speaker 3: where you just can't cut anything else. And if you
Speaker 3: want to increase your or increase the money available to
Speaker 3: invest and do other things with, yeah, you have to
Speaker 3: make more, which is it's much harder than cutting, but
Speaker 3: it's way more impactful in the long run.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you guys need to hear it here first,
Speaker 2: although I'm pretty sure we've said it before, you cannot
Speaker 2: budget your way to wealth building. You can't do it.
Speaker 2: You cannot become rich by budgeting. You can get part
Speaker 2: of the way there, certainly you can, and it's certainly
Speaker 2: a good starting point, and I think most levels you
Speaker 2: should have at least an idea of what's going in
Speaker 2: and what's going out and what's left over. Budgeting is amazing,
Speaker 2: but it ain't going to get you there, and I
Speaker 2: think I think it definitely sounds like if you're to
Speaker 2: the point where you want to put more money away
Speaker 2: and you just don't have it and you can't. Literally
Speaker 2: you've looked at the budget and you're like, what am
Speaker 2: I gonna do? Like live in my car? You can't,
Speaker 2: you know, there's nothing else to slice and dice, like
Speaker 2: you say, so it is time to start looking at
Speaker 2: a couple different things. I am huge about the impact
Speaker 2: your career. I'm very passionate about the impact that your
Speaker 2: career choices can have in helping you accumulate wealth. And
Speaker 2: I'm also huge on looking for additional income streams on
Speaker 2: top of, you know, outside of your nine to five
Speaker 2: job or whatever work you happen to do so that
Speaker 2: you diversify the income streams that you have. After a
Speaker 2: year like this, it certainly feels like a lot of
Speaker 2: people were turning to side hobbies or side hustles as
Speaker 2: they say, you know, you're starting their own businesses to
Speaker 2: bring in extra money. Because it was a real kick
Speaker 2: in the ass, you know, to realize how vulnerable we
Speaker 2: all were, especially those of us who were tied to
Speaker 2: a nine to five job that either you had layoffs
Speaker 2: sort of cut back hours. I mean, it all felt
Speaker 2: very like scary and a good reminder about the importance
Speaker 2: of having those different income streams. So, I mean, Chris,
Speaker 2: both and I You and I both have podcasts. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't think either of us is rolling in the
Speaker 2: dough from the podcast life, but especially not that you're
Speaker 2: getting all the upgraded equipment that it sounds like you're accumulating.
Speaker 2: But you know, talk about like the podcast and what
Speaker 2: other what do you what do you think about different
Speaker 2: income streams and how someone could you know, bring in
Speaker 2: extra wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm I'm a fan of doing
Speaker 3: other things and building other streams of income and businesses
Speaker 3: and just things you own on your own because one,
Speaker 3: I just enjoy the process of making something and having
Speaker 3: it something that I've created is just it's just a
Speaker 3: cool experience. It just I don't know, it makes you
Speaker 3: feel good, like, look, I've made this thing. I've put
Speaker 3: my time and sweat into this, and it's here. So
Speaker 3: I'm definitely for finding things that you're you're passionate about,
Speaker 3: that you enjoy doing, that you see an opportunity to
Speaker 3: have a viable business doing and pursuing those because, like
Speaker 3: you said, you know, jobs are secure until they're not
Speaker 3: until something happens where they need to move on from you.
Speaker 3: You know, things could change overnight. But just like you,
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of growing within your career. That
Speaker 3: was one of the biggest things that helped us get
Speaker 3: out of debt when my wife and I kind of
Speaker 3: got serious about our finances. We had about twenty seven
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in credit card debt and we were taking
Speaker 3: home like forty five thousand dollars between the two of us,
Speaker 3: which was not enough money and not especially not in
Speaker 3: southern California. It is not much.
Speaker 2: Did you do that?
Speaker 3: Wow? It was rough. We were living in a tiny house,
Speaker 3: a very small studio, for several years, and really we
Speaker 3: cut our budget down to like nothing, like we were
Speaker 3: not having any fun, Like nothing was getting spent that
Speaker 3: didn't need to be spent, and it still was going
Speaker 3: so slow. It was it was such a long journey.
Speaker 3: And so for me, that's what I went and I
Speaker 3: looked at, Okay, this is how much I'm making. I
Speaker 3: think at the time, I've got how much I was
Speaker 3: making by myself, but it wasn't. I clearly wasn't a lot.
Speaker 3: What do I need to do? And so that's when
Speaker 3: I started saying, all right, what professional organizations can I join.
Speaker 3: I started joining these different groups for bookkeepers, and I
Speaker 3: would go to conferences and I would help organize as speakers,
Speaker 3: and then I would meet other people from other places,
Speaker 3: and I would find out about new openings and build
Speaker 3: up my resumes. When I applied for the next job,
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, you did all of this, Like oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, you can kind of pump yourself up. And
Speaker 3: so doing things like that it allowed me to increase
Speaker 3: my income so much faster than if I would have
Speaker 3: just stayed at my one job and hoped for a
Speaker 3: nice raise, which wasn't going to gum.
Speaker 2: What were you doing at the time. Your backgrounds in accounting.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, like accounting and bookkeeping work. So at the time,
Speaker 3: I was a payroll supervisor. I was running a perill
Speaker 3: department at a school district actually, and.
Speaker 2: You're managing paychecks and trying to get a bigger one exactly.
Speaker 3: I would see everyone who was making more money than
Speaker 3: me and be like, all right, I need to do
Speaker 3: something about this.
Speaker 2: That's going to be really depressed.
Speaker 1: Were desperational?
Speaker 3: You don't when you see some of those payeests, You're like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what these people are doing right now,
Speaker 3: but I need to make some changes and get one
Speaker 3: of these because it's.
Speaker 5: Way more than I'm reading.
Speaker 2: You know, it's bad if you're like jealous of a
Speaker 2: like a I don't know what kind of school teachers
Speaker 2: these were, but I'm feeling like a middle school math
Speaker 2: teacher is making more. It's like, ooh, okay.
Speaker 1: It's time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was like, because we all know teachers aren't
Speaker 3: paid that well, and I was getting paid a lot
Speaker 3: less than than the majority of teachers.
Speaker 2: That's a crime. Yeah, I've I love that, you know.
Speaker 2: I was recently celebrating with my husband because we've really
Speaker 2: been focused on increasing our net worth, and we did
Speaker 2: the math with our planner and realized that we have
Speaker 2: increased our net worth by tenfold in the last five years.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I was I was sitting down and we're gonna
Speaker 2: do I'm gonna do a specific show about it. But
Speaker 2: as I was sitting through and working through, you know,
Speaker 2: how did we do this? I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't by budgeting the most significant, the biggest reasons.
Speaker 2: And I part of me almost feels a lot, or
Speaker 2: used to feel a little, not ashamed. But I think
Speaker 2: people want to hear that we just pulled ourselves up
Speaker 2: by our bootstraps and you know, we coopon clipped and
Speaker 2: we were good people and we just worked real hard.
Speaker 2: They want to hear that kind of story. But the
Speaker 2: truth is was that I was super ruthless with pursuing
Speaker 2: new opportunities when two things were true. When I could
Speaker 2: earn significantly more and when I could challenge myself professionally,
Speaker 2: So when I could when I was offered, when I
Speaker 2: was offered I was in other jobs, and when I
Speaker 2: was offered opportunities to move to a different company. As
Speaker 2: long as the opportunity was professionally rich like I could.
Speaker 2: I was learning a new skill, I was getting to
Speaker 2: try a new position or something like that, and it
Speaker 2: came with additional income. I was definitely willing to take it.
Speaker 2: And I was very risky with some of my career choices,
Speaker 2: and they could have gone the other way entirely, you know,
Speaker 2: without with risk comes rewards or you know, disaster. But
Speaker 2: it was because of those choices I was able to negotiate,
Speaker 2: you know, thirty percent fifty percent raises equity in companies
Speaker 2: that I was joining, which opened me up to even
Speaker 2: additional opportunities to build wealth as long as that stock
Speaker 2: price in that company went up, which I was fortunate
Speaker 2: enough to have that happen sometimes. So like, those are
Speaker 2: the types of things that that I'm I'm ready to
Speaker 2: just be honest about it because there's.
Speaker 1: No shame in it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I had to do it. I'm a black
Speaker 2: woman in America, you know, like we don't make that
Speaker 2: much money. We make sixty percent of what a white
Speaker 2: man earns. So for me, I just always thought about
Speaker 2: when I went into like a salary negotiation or when
Speaker 2: I was approached by a competitor or a different company
Speaker 2: to come work for them. I really looked at that
Speaker 2: as an opportunity. It's often the best opportunity you can
Speaker 2: get to negotiate a higher salary and staying at the
Speaker 2: same place for a long time.
Speaker 1: It ain't it, y'all. It is not it in terms of.
Speaker 2: In terms of salary growth, especially if you came in
Speaker 2: entry level, that is not the way to increase your
Speaker 2: income unless. I mean, you can stay there if you
Speaker 2: love your job. But then you got to start side hustling,
Speaker 2: you know, get a side business or take a hobby
Speaker 2: and start bringing in cash, you know, on top of
Speaker 2: your earnings. But loyalty does not pay in corporate America.
Speaker 2: It doesn't.
Speaker 1: I'm proof of that.
Speaker 2: I really had to make those big, scary leaps to
Speaker 2: get to where I am today, to get those bigger paydays.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I love that so much because I've
Speaker 3: seen it where in a situation no one I won't
Speaker 3: name a place so no one can figure out what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, But that was the place.
Speaker 2: We'll leave Chris alone. Don't get in, don't get them
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 3: Don't get me a trouble. Please don't go research this place.
Speaker 3: But I was working at this place. There's a woman there.
Speaker 3: She was amazing at her job. She was amazing, and
Speaker 3: she just wanted She didn't I didn't think she was
Speaker 3: asking for a race, just wanted a better title than
Speaker 3: what she had. And they're like, no, we can't do that.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, it's something so easy. They were like, no,
Speaker 3: we can't do that, but but you're great. So she's like,
Speaker 3: you know what, all right, I'm out of here. So
Speaker 3: she left, got a better job, got the title she wanted,
Speaker 3: and got to pay raise the person they brought in
Speaker 3: to replace her. They gave the title that she wanted
Speaker 3: and more money, and it was like they could have
Speaker 3: done it all along, but it was just like, well,
Speaker 3: they think we have you here, you're not going to leave,
Speaker 3: so we're not going to do anything. And that's where
Speaker 3: you like, I mean, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: That's That's the only way you're going to make these
Speaker 3: significant leaps sometimes is to define better opportunities outside of
Speaker 3: where you are, because they have no incentive to make
Speaker 3: your pay jump significantly.
Speaker 2: And you may think that they're the nicest people. You know,
Speaker 2: they've come to your house warming parties, they gave you
Speaker 2: a nice little gift when you had a baby or
Speaker 2: you got married. It does like they're not going. It
Speaker 2: takes a lot of effort. I was that manager who
Speaker 2: really fought for raises and promotions for my people when
Speaker 2: I didn't have to because I wanted to retain them.
Speaker 2: I and there were plenty of people who just don't
Speaker 2: do that because it takes a lot of time. It
Speaker 2: takes effort. You got to like do your research. You
Speaker 2: got a bat for people. It's just not in a
Speaker 2: lot of people's best interests to go to bat for folks.
Speaker 2: That's work. So yeah, I love that example. I mean,
Speaker 2: I hate it, but it's a really good example of
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. Loyalty does not pay, y'all.
Speaker 2: But I want to talk a bit about before we
Speaker 2: get to the next question about starting a new business.
Speaker 2: Like I literally I'm at a point where I just
Speaker 2: started a new business. Hello guys, I'm I'm the CEO
Speaker 2: and founder of Mandy Money Media, which is a independent
Speaker 2: content consulting firm and editing and writing business.
Speaker 1: Yay, do I get the kind of thanks? You know,
Speaker 1: do my own thing.
Speaker 2: After a long, well like a decade of experience, I'm
Speaker 2: striking out on my own and what's so fun for
Speaker 2: me has been doing these things. Like I filed for
Speaker 2: an LLC. It's shockingly easy to do this, y'all. You
Speaker 2: just need a little bit of money and like Google,
Speaker 2: like you just had a Google. If you go to
Speaker 2: your state's Department of Labor website or just google your
Speaker 2: state LLC, it'll have a very easy to fill out form,
Speaker 2: pick your name, give them your little coins. I had
Speaker 2: it within minutes. I got approved and got my my
Speaker 2: LLC established, and then it's what the irs do? Did
Speaker 2: you do this yet? We get a taxpayer or an
Speaker 2: employee ID number through the i RS dot gov.
Speaker 3: That's such an easy process. And then you don't have
Speaker 3: to give people your Social Security number either. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I think I might have to like get it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it took. I was I was shocked. It
Speaker 2: was instantly, Oh, here's your e I N. Here you go.
Speaker 2: And once I had that EI N, what did I do?
Speaker 2: I went and got a business bank account, just did
Speaker 2: some googles to find the best one. Although I will say,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you have a business bank account
Speaker 2: or credit card yet, do you? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do have the credit card. I've not gone
Speaker 3: the banking route. I'm still I mean, I probably shouldn't
Speaker 3: be saying this out loud, but yeah, maybe you lessnings
Speaker 3: and personal accounts as business accounts right now.
Speaker 1: You know, that's cool.
Speaker 2: It depends on how you. I did learn that, you know,
Speaker 2: when I was trying to decide whether to do an
Speaker 2: LLC or work as a sole proprietor. It's very different,
Speaker 2: like in terms of how how you can commingle your
Speaker 2: personal versus professional expenses and things like that. But definitely
Speaker 2: I got a the one with my CPA and he
Speaker 2: was like, LLC is the way to go. So that's
Speaker 2: what I did. And yeah, but the EI N it
Speaker 2: took seconds. And the oh, the business bank account. What
Speaker 2: I was going to say, is I because that's I wanted.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get paid soon, hopefully hopefully soon from clients.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm manifesting it like my husband installing his
Speaker 2: Tesla charger five months before he actually had a Tesla.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get this.
Speaker 2: I got a bank account through a online bank, and
Speaker 2: it was kind of hard to find a fee free
Speaker 2: business bank account. It seems like a lot of them
Speaker 2: charge They either have a minimum required balance, which I
Speaker 2: don't know if I'm gonna make I'm gonna make money,
Speaker 2: but like I can't, I can't commit right now that
Speaker 2: I'm going to be making a certain amount. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: it took a lot of comparing and contrasting, but I
Speaker 2: definitely I was able to get one. And you have
Speaker 2: to have your EI N in order to get one
Speaker 2: set up. And then I got approved for a personal sorry,
Speaker 2: a business credit.
Speaker 1: Card, which was exciting. So it's it.
Speaker 3: You can do it.
Speaker 2: And look, I'm a business who. You can't tell me nothing.
Speaker 2: I'm a business owner, right, I don't need a storefront.
Speaker 2: I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: It's so different than what people thought of, Like what
Speaker 3: people I think we have a much different image in
Speaker 3: our head of what it takes to be a business owner.
Speaker 3: It's it's so it's such an easy process these days.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: So I hope that that motivates y'all and inspires you
Speaker 2: to to look at you know, if you if you're
Speaker 2: like me and you've been doing something for a long time,
Speaker 2: you know, and you realize you've got a certain set
Speaker 2: of skills that companies would pay to take advantage of
Speaker 2: or leverage you know, that's a way of like let's
Speaker 2: say I was still doing my you know, had a
Speaker 2: nine to five job, I could I could feasibly do
Speaker 2: this on the side and just bring in some extra income,
Speaker 2: and that's the beginning again to true wealth building. So
Speaker 2: I love that Tiffany covered that in her book Get
Speaker 2: It with Money dot Com. Y'all check out the book.
Speaker 2: I love that she covered that in the book because
Speaker 2: it really is like it's the next level from just
Speaker 2: basic budgeting, really focusing on your income.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is such a great idea. And you know,
Speaker 3: what I've started to discover too, is that the bar
Speaker 3: is actually very low for a lot of what people
Speaker 3: consider good work. I'm very shocked for whatever it's right
Speaker 3: in my mind, it's like people are like, if you're
Speaker 3: going to do something for a company, it's like it
Speaker 3: has to be the best thing that's ever been made.
Speaker 3: But I've I've I'm not gonna again, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to name any companies, but I've I've witnessed some some
Speaker 3: businesses doing work that I'm like, that's all it took
Speaker 3: for you to get paid, And well, I guess I
Speaker 3: need to step it up and do some other things.
Speaker 2: I know well in my career, I've employed people like myself,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I know exactly how much mediocrity there
Speaker 2: is out there. I'm going to go out there and
Speaker 2: be the best and it's not going to be that
Speaker 2: hard because it's a lot of medio group. Okay, not
Speaker 2: the shade anybody. But it's a really good point. It
Speaker 2: truly is, and I yeah, I'm excited about this new journey.
Speaker 2: And thank you Lashen for your question and for checking
Speaker 2: out our podcast. I love that. All right, Next up,
Speaker 2: we have a snippet. It was really hard to pick
Speaker 2: a favorite nugget from my conversation with Berna A. Natt,
Speaker 2: but I did think that this particular part of the
Speaker 2: conversation when we were taking a question from a listener
Speaker 2: wanting to know whether or not they shou you go
Speaker 2: for a traditional or a wroth for a one K,
Speaker 2: it really unlocked and interesting point that Berna made about
Speaker 2: this key part in our young adulting lives. So let's
Speaker 2: check in and see how Berna tackled this topic. I
Speaker 2: was recently hired at a university and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: determine if it's better for my future self to have
Speaker 2: money taken out of my paycheck and put into my
Speaker 2: four oh one K pre.
Speaker 1: Tax or after tax.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't I have a tax advantage if it's taken from
Speaker 2: my paycheck after tax. Listen, there's not really a wrong
Speaker 2: answer here, and I do so, and I this is
Speaker 2: a specific question that I definitely think you know it's
Speaker 2: worth talking to a the only financial planner about because
Speaker 2: it's never just about your your four oh one K
Speaker 2: or in your case, you probably have an educator account
Speaker 2: which is like a four or three B but still similar,
Speaker 2: so you probably want to get more personalized advice than this.
Speaker 2: But just to break it down, you know, when you
Speaker 2: contribute to a traditional four one K or traditional IRA
Speaker 2: or sorry at four oh one K, you're putting dollars
Speaker 2: in pre tax, which means you put the money in
Speaker 2: and you don't get tax until you take it out
Speaker 2: when you're old and gray or hopefully not so old
Speaker 2: and gray in retirement. And the benefit there is that
Speaker 2: your money grows tax free. It's it's wonderful. It's an
Speaker 2: incentive to get people to put money away for retirement.
Speaker 2: The WROTH for one K is different in the sense
Speaker 2: that you pay taxes upfront, and typically what some financial
Speaker 2: advisors will say, is this is also a tax benefit.
Speaker 2: It's just a little bit more indirect because you're paying
Speaker 2: taxes now. Let's say you're earning a lower income today
Speaker 2: than you plan to be earning later when you get
Speaker 2: to retirement age. You could be saving money by paying
Speaker 2: your lower tax rate now than when you start withdrawing
Speaker 2: from your funds later. Another benefit that I think is
Speaker 2: overlooked what the ROTH is that you can actually withdraw
Speaker 2: your contributions so it's not actually as tied up as
Speaker 2: a traditional retirement account, where like if you take an
Speaker 2: early withdrawal and it's just to pay for something or
Speaker 2: to pay off some debt, it can be tax penalties
Speaker 2: that you have to pay and then income tax on
Speaker 2: top of that on what you withdraw with a ROTH.
Speaker 2: Like let's say you put in five thousand dollars over
Speaker 2: a couple of years you wanna, and you've gained you know,
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars on that five k, so you've got
Speaker 2: seven k in there right now. You could arguably go
Speaker 2: in there and withdraw some of that principal amount that
Speaker 2: five thousand that you put in and pocket that without
Speaker 2: the penalties of a traditional four oh one K. But
Speaker 2: now that we got all that like jargonique goodness, mum
Speaker 2: out of the way, burna talk to me about I mean,
Speaker 2: this is like a common This is like a common
Speaker 2: you know, one of the first adulting type decisions that
Speaker 2: happened when you get a new job. For me, I
Speaker 2: was so like ignorant about all this mess. I had
Speaker 2: a four to one K match at my first job.
Speaker 2: I was there for fifteen months, never opened, never put
Speaker 2: a dime in it, left all the money on the table.
Speaker 1: It'd be fair.
Speaker 2: I had no dimes to put in there. But what
Speaker 2: was what was it like for you when you start
Speaker 2: to you know, you went from freelancing to like, oh
Speaker 2: benefits like a four oh one K?
Speaker 1: What was that like for you? And how did you decide?
Speaker 5: Yes, actually trying to figure out what in the GD
Speaker 5: hell as a four oh one K was one of
Speaker 5: my first financial kind of Google entries. Ever, when I
Speaker 5: you know, like you said, we go through HR and orientation,
Speaker 5: they're like, here's your four oh one K. Before you
Speaker 5: could even ask like why is it even named a
Speaker 5: four oh one? And they're like, I'm onto the next
Speaker 5: and then they're like, we can't give you advice or
Speaker 5: HR or not a financial so you get very little
Speaker 5: answers in the first place. It was amazing to find
Speaker 5: out through Googles, not the HR representatives, which typically they
Speaker 5: should be more helpful about a lot of the times
Speaker 5: they are not. It was amazing to find out that
Speaker 5: for a lot of young people, especially in your very
Speaker 5: first jobs, your four oh one K is like the
Speaker 5: first time you're actually your money is getting invested, often
Speaker 5: invested for you, and you have no idea. Like it
Speaker 5: was many months into my job, like you said, Mandy,
Speaker 5: when I realized that money was being taken out for
Speaker 5: my four oh one K for my paychecks and things
Speaker 5: were happening to it. I guess I had like blacked
Speaker 5: out and signed papers when I enduring orientation, agreeing to something,
Speaker 5: and I didn't understand it until many months afterwards, and
Speaker 5: like couldn't actually change things. So it was amazing to
Speaker 5: find out that, first of all, money won money was
Speaker 5: already being taken out of my paycheck what without my
Speaker 5: maybe like kind of unconsensually, without my understanding of how
Speaker 5: it happened. Two, I learned about what you just said,
Speaker 5: four o one K matching. My company was a company
Speaker 5: that does that. They did four o one K matching,
Speaker 5: which meant when I put certain amount of money into
Speaker 5: my four oh one K, my company was like, cool,
Speaker 5: me too, Simon says, I'm going to do the same
Speaker 5: thing up to a certain degree. We love to say
Speaker 5: as financial you know, mouth holes, that's free money. That's
Speaker 5: money on the table, right, I give money, and you're
Speaker 5: I move, you move like Ludacris. I move the money
Speaker 5: and then the company says me too, unmoved the money.
Speaker 5: So that was amazing to find out. And then you
Speaker 5: get into the Okay, so what's the difference between four
Speaker 5: o one K and ira? You learn about all the
Speaker 5: things that man you just said about, like the tax differences.
Speaker 5: That's around when even if, like if you had held
Speaker 5: on to this point of like trying to learn, that's
Speaker 5: around when people's brains start to tune out and it
Speaker 5: starts to the butterfly out the window, gonna go get lunch.
Speaker 5: But they are really important differences when you're kind of
Speaker 5: looking at things. But I think the most important thing
Speaker 5: is whichever path you choose. Sit yourself or an HR
Speaker 5: representative or if financial advisor down until you and like
Speaker 5: ask all the questions until you fully understand the differences
Speaker 5: between the two. Don't go blindly into it like me
Speaker 5: and be like, it looks like the guy to my left,
Speaker 5: just check the box and and so it makes it
Speaker 5: that like I literally left money on the table for
Speaker 5: the first year, I left free money out of my
Speaker 5: own damn retirement account for the first year because I
Speaker 5: was just blindly following. There's so much pressure in the process.
Speaker 5: Don't be afraid to sit down and like, ask all
Speaker 5: the damn questions, google all every single phrase, every single
Speaker 5: thing that you can so that you understand both ways.
Speaker 5: And like Mandy was saying, it's not like there's a major, giant,
Speaker 5: like big mistake difference between the two. Honestly, I don't
Speaker 5: think there really is. It's especially when to say, first
Speaker 5: sort of investing foray, but understand the crap out of it.
Speaker 5: You really, you deserve to understand the crap out of
Speaker 5: everything happening to every dollar. And it's tiring. But until
Speaker 5: a retirement expert comes in and starts doing a dance
Speaker 5: at every like orientation, this is how we got to
Speaker 5: do it, it'll be me it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they pay big, big dollars for
Speaker 2: you to come tell their employees about their benefits, which
Speaker 2: is one of like the incentives to keep them there.
Speaker 1: I don't know why companies.
Speaker 2: I mean literally at previous job when one of the
Speaker 2: benefits was rsu's restricted stock units literally stock in the company,
Speaker 2: and I had a staff of young people who had
Speaker 2: never so much as heard of an RSU before, and
Speaker 2: I'd have to do their performance reviews and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: and you're going to get you know, five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: worth of RSUs and they would have these blank stares
Speaker 2: and finally I was like, do you know what this is? No,
Speaker 2: or they would say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh
Speaker 2: it's like the thing you know, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: here's what it is. And then their eyes would get why.
Speaker 2: They're like, whoa, this is great, this is great. But
Speaker 2: you don't know until you ask those questions. So and
Speaker 2: a lot of people aren't like me. They don't have time,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't take the time. So definitely ask.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, they're lucky to have an
Speaker 5: employer that's like, let me tell you exactly what it is.
Speaker 5: Because I remember learning about RSUs in my former job
Speaker 5: too and being like, this is a huge tech company
Speaker 5: with so many resources. I can't believe I have to
Speaker 5: google this shiz on my own to find out that
Speaker 5: I'm being given equity in the company. But the equity
Speaker 5: works like this, It's got all these rules. It's like,
Speaker 5: bless you and every other employer that actually looks out
Speaker 5: for the young people like that. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's where you're saying, you know, how what is it?
Speaker 1: What is hella?
Speaker 2: The personal finance world's hella mal hellapale, Hella stale, health stale.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is true of businesses too.
Speaker 2: It's really the structure is built for I think people
Speaker 2: who don't need to have a sit down and talk
Speaker 2: about RSUs because their uncle or their father or their mother,
Speaker 2: you know, their mentor tells them those types of things.
Speaker 2: But a lot of folks, especially brown and black black
Speaker 2: people and women, you know, we don't go into the
Speaker 2: corporate world with those extra benefits and those you know,
Speaker 2: advisors and little evil parrots on our shoulders to tell
Speaker 2: us these types of things that we have to seek
Speaker 2: it out for ourselves, and companies need to do the
Speaker 2: extra work to do all that. But now I'm in
Speaker 2: my soapbox now about one of my favorite subjects, which
Speaker 2: is how businesses fail their employees.
Speaker 5: I love that subscribe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I do want to say thank you to
Speaker 2: this question and just to take it home. The only
Speaker 2: bad decision here is to not invest, to not save
Speaker 2: for retirement. That's the only bad decision you can make.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, to your point burnet about getting
Speaker 2: knowledge for me, the best thing I did at twenty
Speaker 2: four was just start saving before I even knew everything
Speaker 2: I thought I needed to know. I just did the
Speaker 2: easiest option, you know, check the box for automatic withdrawals
Speaker 2: into a target date fund. And then I was like, cool,
Speaker 2: you're cute. I'll come back to you when I'm ready
Speaker 2: to dive in more and do more things. And that
Speaker 2: was the smartest decision I ever made, putting me on
Speaker 2: my path to a tenfold increase in my net worth
Speaker 2: over the past.
Speaker 5: You know, decades, and I huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just don't want people to hold themselves
Speaker 2: back because they don't think that they know enough. There
Speaker 2: are some small steps you can take today that will
Speaker 2: put you on the right path and you'll, you know,
Speaker 2: you'll accrue that knowledge over time. Just don't wait until
Speaker 2: you're you know, you can recite, and don't wait until
Speaker 2: you have to stop googling the different terms.
Speaker 1: I still google sometimes me too, all the time. It's fine.
Speaker 5: I mean, we aren't like raised with these pockets of
Speaker 5: knowledge in our heads, and so we have to keep relearning.
Speaker 5: We have to keep shoving them intoor heads because it
Speaker 5: doesn't come naturally to so many of us. And I
Speaker 5: love to also tell young folks like you have something
Speaker 5: that every older Hella male paial Stale investor wishes they had,
Speaker 5: and that's time. It's time you have that freakin in
Speaker 5: bags all all around you. And that's the most important
Speaker 5: thing for retirement investing specifically. So just get or done,
Speaker 5: get her done in any which way, and confuse yourself
Speaker 5: with the terms once there's already money in the pot.
Speaker 2: I love that. Okay, for those of y'all who've been
Speaker 2: following Brown Ambition even from the beginning, but even if
Speaker 2: you tuned in last week for the first time, I
Speaker 2: guarantee you at some point we mentioned either Husban my
Speaker 2: husband Enrique or Superman Tiffany's husband Jarelle. Now, when we
Speaker 2: first started the show, neither one of us was actually
Speaker 2: married yet, and these guys have been through it all right.
Speaker 2: We love to talk about how Superman constantly opens the
Speaker 2: door when Tiffany's recording, or how my husband decided it
Speaker 2: would be really neat to spend one thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: get in line for a tesla when he and I
Speaker 2: just started dating and saving for our wedding. We give
Speaker 2: these guys a lot of grief. But during my conversation
Speaker 2: with Jamila Sufront from Journey to Launch, she and I
Speaker 2: had a really wonderful sort of reflection on the importance
Speaker 2: that the partner that you choose in life can have
Speaker 2: when it comes to your own wealth building and your
Speaker 2: own career journey. So I want to take a moment
Speaker 2: to replay this segment from my conversation with Jamila from
Speaker 2: Journey to Launch.
Speaker 6: This is so important because he was He looked at
Speaker 6: me like I was crazy, because he is a very
Speaker 6: simple man and he's very easy going.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: So, and you know again, when I came to him
Speaker 6: a few years ago and I'm telling him about all
Speaker 6: these stories on podcasts I'm hearing people retiring and quitting
Speaker 6: their jobs, He's just like, really, because I don't what
Speaker 6: are we gonna do? Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 6: And it really took some conversations to get him to
Speaker 6: kind of see. And one of the things I always
Speaker 6: say with couples is like, don't like I had to
Speaker 6: show him one the numbers, the numbers for him, even
Speaker 6: for me, like I had to believe the numbers, meaning
Speaker 6: I had to map out, really is this possible? Will
Speaker 6: I be able to one day quit my job early?
Speaker 6: How much money can we save and invest if we
Speaker 6: aggressively do this, if we cut back, if we become
Speaker 6: more optimized in our finances, how much money can we have?
Speaker 6: So I literally when I came home and told him
Speaker 6: the first time, he looked at me like, what are
Speaker 6: you talking about? And then over time what I did
Speaker 6: was I didn't push him to this is really important.
Speaker 6: Just because you come up with a realization or have
Speaker 6: an epiphany doesn't mean like your partner will they have
Speaker 6: they have They're on a whole another timeline. So I
Speaker 6: respected that, but also started to show him like the numbers,
Speaker 6: Like I created this spreadsheet and it showed like if
Speaker 6: we do this, like, first of all, step back from
Speaker 6: the spreadsheet, what does a life look like now that
Speaker 6: we enjoy and what does the life look like now
Speaker 6: in like twenty years, right when the kids are this age,
Speaker 6: and like they're at the house and we can travel,
Speaker 6: and how can we balance that now? So we started
Speaker 6: with the dream of our lives, what they are now
Speaker 6: and what we want them to be, and then we
Speaker 6: like did numbers around it, and I showed him, well,
Speaker 6: if we do this, make these changes in our finances,
Speaker 6: save and invest this much over time, we can have
Speaker 6: you know, over a million dollars in twenty years, and
Speaker 6: we can do all these things. And that started to
Speaker 6: get him excited because instead of me just saying it
Speaker 6: and talking, he saw the numbers. And then the other
Speaker 6: thing I really was important to say was yeah, I
Speaker 6: want to do this, so I quit my job. But also,
Speaker 6: like you know, I'm the mom. I'm I'm the one
Speaker 6: giving birth and having three kids. I also have the
Speaker 6: crazy commute. See my husband his job is maybe like
Speaker 6: ten minutes away from our house. So he also knew
Speaker 6: the pressure of just like my life, and he wanted
Speaker 6: me to be happy. And so I made sure that
Speaker 6: like own not only like we were going to pursue
Speaker 6: what I wanted, like in terms of a career or
Speaker 6: quitting my job, but what is it that you want?
Speaker 6: So I definitely we made sure that include his wants
Speaker 6: and hopes, like into what we were doing. You know,
Speaker 6: I don't really care about having a nice car. We
Speaker 6: used to have nice cars quote unquote back in the
Speaker 6: day before kids and getting a little bit more optimized
Speaker 6: with our finances. But I say, look, if I can,
Speaker 6: I want to buy you a car, you know, Like
Speaker 6: it was things like that that got him excited. So
Speaker 6: that way we both were.
Speaker 1: That was my way into baby. I said, save for
Speaker 1: a Tesla. Let's that's for a Tesla. Yeah, let's investing
Speaker 1: for a Tesla.
Speaker 6: It's so important because he is a little bit more
Speaker 6: like fancier I would say, than me right, like I'm
Speaker 6: good with kind of just like bare minimum, but sometimes fancy.
Speaker 6: He's like, if I could do it fancy all the time,
Speaker 6: I would, So talking about it in that term really
Speaker 6: helped to let him know that this is a team effort.
Speaker 6: It's not just about what Jamila wants. And also like,
Speaker 6: if I'm miserable because I'm working and driving all this time,
Speaker 6: like those whole families, is not going to be like happy,
Speaker 6: So let's work to a place that we can get to.
Speaker 6: And so he eventually got on board with that. But
Speaker 6: he's very easy going and laid back. Thank God for
Speaker 6: that in terms of he pretty much trust me. We
Speaker 6: have the open conversations about it, and even when it
Speaker 6: came to quitting my job, because that was huge, like
Speaker 6: my income was more than half of the family's combined income,
Speaker 6: and so like it would have almost been better if
Speaker 6: I was a teacher and then he had his career
Speaker 6: because then like you know, he can kind of stay
Speaker 6: on his trajectory. But for me to walk away, it
Speaker 6: was like a big step because what does that look
Speaker 6: like as a family. We have three kids, We have
Speaker 6: a mortgage, like, so we literally had to save up
Speaker 6: enough money to cover our expenses while journey to launch
Speaker 6: like started to you know, become more stable, and that
Speaker 6: was scary, but we did it together. We had the
Speaker 6: conversations and it's it's working out so far.
Speaker 2: So that's no, that's wonderful. I also have always been
Speaker 2: it's so funny how the you know, in no shade
Speaker 2: to your husband. I always talk to my husband. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: you work for the government and you have the boogiest
Speaker 2: taste of like where do you come off with this?
Speaker 2: Like what he's like, I must he has like this
Speaker 2: very specific t shirt brand. He gets custom shirts. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm the one shopping in the clearance track at H
Speaker 2: and M.
Speaker 1: But the same as you. I I we I was.
Speaker 2: I was earning probably like two three x what he
Speaker 2: was earning at the at my peak earning career in
Speaker 2: you know, corporate America, so to speak. But that's so
Speaker 2: that's so funny, And it's also you know, shouts out
Speaker 2: to shout out to partners. You know, I don't put
Speaker 2: genders on and put partners who are willing to maybe
Speaker 2: maybe they have their doubts, but they just you know,
Speaker 2: have those in the shower alone. They they support and
Speaker 2: they you know, have faith in their partners to to
Speaker 2: really bet on themselves and to take their career to
Speaker 2: a different place. That's really wonderful that he's been supportive
Speaker 2: to you, and I I appreciate you talking about the
Speaker 2: whole the values you know, and how you as a partner.
Speaker 2: I've struggled with this too, probably a little bit more
Speaker 2: than it sounds like you did. But I was like,
Speaker 2: it was very hard for me to start to share
Speaker 2: in the values based investing, Like so for example, you know,
Speaker 2: I had no problem spending money on values or experiences
Speaker 2: that I particularly wanted to have. But when it came
Speaker 2: to a you know, if it was a car or
Speaker 2: you know, uh, I don't know, concert or something that
Speaker 2: you know, Enrique really wanted it was, it was like, hmmm,
Speaker 2: it's not really worth it. And I had to had
Speaker 2: to learn to share in that I was. That was
Speaker 2: probably my one of the more difficult challenges for me
Speaker 2: financially and like mentally as a spouse was bringing them
Speaker 2: in and being open to you know, they're what they
Speaker 2: value and not not discounting it and making that a
Speaker 2: part of the overall plan.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's important, just like and
Speaker 6: for me, I think as growing up without really you know,
Speaker 6: I didn't have a father in my life or had
Speaker 6: father figures, I didn't really have a close relationship with them,
Speaker 6: and so I was like for me, the value based
Speaker 6: things like the simple even though I say he's fancy,
Speaker 6: like the other things that he's about, which is like family,
Speaker 6: and he's very grounded and supportive. Like it's like one
Speaker 6: of the first signs like I saw in him, like
Speaker 6: when we first started dating years ago, that I said, like,
Speaker 6: out of all the things I want in someone, it
Speaker 6: would be the opposite of what I knew my.
Speaker 5: Dad to be, and so I think, whatever that is.
Speaker 6: I know some people meet people like that and they
Speaker 6: do not they don't turn out to be this way eventually.
Speaker 2: But he that's what he is and who he is.
Speaker 6: And so even as an entrepreneur and now, like I know,
Speaker 6: like having three kids, like he's an equal partner in
Speaker 6: the house and in parenting. I still feel like I
Speaker 6: do a little bit more, but I feel like he
Speaker 6: is as much equal as outside of my controlling self
Speaker 6: he can be in terms of how I like things done.
Speaker 6: And it's been when people say how do you do this?
Speaker 6: Like how did you manage all that stuff when you
Speaker 6: were working and commuting and the kids, and how do
Speaker 6: you even do it now as like a business owner
Speaker 6: with the kids, It's like, well, because I leave, he's
Speaker 6: an equal partner in this, and that has a lot
Speaker 6: to do with I think how it allows me to
Speaker 6: make money and be happy, and how our household lives
Speaker 6: and how we choose to spend money. So I'm proud
Speaker 6: of the fact that I chose I chose him as
Speaker 6: my husband.
Speaker 2: Isn't Jamila the best and shout out to her husband
Speaker 2: Woodie as well. To close out this walk down memory Lane,
Speaker 2: I chose a very special part of the conversation that
Speaker 2: I have with Janice Torres Rodriguez from the Jokio Dinero podcast.
Speaker 2: Janie is a bad ass.
Speaker 1: First of all.
Speaker 2: I love the way that she talks about how she
Speaker 2: built her confidence in a very male dominated world in
Speaker 2: her fields of engineering, and how she flipped all the
Speaker 2: stereotypes on their head, becoming very used to being one
Speaker 2: of the only, if not the only, female in a room.
Speaker 2: And she even talks about how she actually got used
Speaker 2: to being man's plained to the point where it became
Speaker 2: an asset to her that she could actually stomach it.
Speaker 2: So let's round out our walk down memory lane with
Speaker 2: a look back at my conversation with Janie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, as an engineer and a Latina like, I
Speaker 4: think that the career experience has definitely served me well
Speaker 4: in the sense that, like, I'm so used to being
Speaker 4: mansplained that now when it happens in like the personal
Speaker 4: finance sphere, which yes it absolutely does, Yeah, it kind
Speaker 4: of doesn't bother me. I'm just like, man, it's like, what,
Speaker 4: like we are the same, So I'm not even here
Speaker 4: to like I don't need your explanations, sir, thank you.
Speaker 4: And because that came so much from like my corporate experience.
Speaker 4: I was usually the youngest woman in the room. I
Speaker 4: was usually the only woman of color, and there was
Speaker 4: a lot of like that, just you know that girl,
Speaker 4: that girl gets like the project that nobody else wants
Speaker 4: to work on and just gets talked down to, gets
Speaker 4: told that I'm aggressive when you know the men are
Speaker 4: quote unquote being assertive blah blah blah. So I think
Speaker 4: from that perspective, like, I'm grateful for the fact that
Speaker 4: it gave me a thick skin, because right, I don't
Speaker 4: take any shit from anybody at this point, and I
Speaker 4: think my career has a lot to do with that.
Speaker 2: But I think I.
Speaker 4: Followed my father's footsteps when it comes to an engineering background,
Speaker 4: because he is an engineer as well. He works on
Speaker 4: like automating production lines for manufacturing companies, and so I always,
Speaker 4: like was surrounded by technology and curiosity in science, like
Speaker 4: that was always the vibe that was in my house.
Speaker 4: I was always wanting to find out what my dad
Speaker 4: was working on. So I think, you know, I saw
Speaker 4: him being financially successful, and I wanted to mimic that.
Speaker 4: But then I also realized, like, after a while, I
Speaker 4: just don't care about this. This is not what lights
Speaker 4: me up. Yes, I was making great money, like I
Speaker 4: was twenty five years old, making like seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: I started making six figures before I turned thirty. And
Speaker 4: you know, the monetary aspect of it is what kept
Speaker 4: me in the field for so long, because I had
Speaker 4: all these thoughts about like, well, what the hell else
Speaker 4: am I going to do? It's actually gonna be able
Speaker 4: to pay me this type of money. But at some
Speaker 4: point I just realized, like, I can't go through life
Speaker 4: just living with the excitement of a paycheck because it's
Speaker 4: not it's not worth it to me. I can't wake
Speaker 4: up every day with anxiety about going to work and
Speaker 4: doing something that literally just like drains me and I
Speaker 4: don't care.
Speaker 2: About I'm setting with that for a moment because I
Speaker 2: want people. You don't You guys don't have to do it.
Speaker 2: There's another way. There's another way. You mentioned therapy earlier.
Speaker 2: Now I talk to my husband about therapy because I've
Speaker 2: been in therapy ever since I got pregnant a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago. I just knew it's well, first of all,
Speaker 2: I know, it's really hard to find a therapist that
Speaker 2: you jive with. And I was, I was looking for
Speaker 2: therapists before you know, better help and talk space and
Speaker 2: all these new apps and stuff. But I whenever I
Speaker 2: kind of bring it up, I can feel the air
Speaker 2: in the room changed around. My husband and his family
Speaker 2: their Dominican American and you know, first generation in this country,
Speaker 2: and there's just there's a bit of a stigma about it.
Speaker 2: It's very much like not from him, but like from
Speaker 2: some of his extended family. You know, why won't you
Speaker 2: just talk to God about that? And by the way,
Speaker 2: I come from a very uh southern Black family in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and it's the same damn thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh no, we talked to Jesus when we
Speaker 1: have problems.
Speaker 3: We know what.
Speaker 1: So what was that like for you?
Speaker 2: Was it easy for you to turn to therapy in
Speaker 2: your journey or did you have did you have any
Speaker 2: like internalized stigmas against it as well?
Speaker 4: I definitely had internalized stigmas. My husband went to therapy
Speaker 4: before I did, and so I actually followed his example
Speaker 4: because mental health was something that was very common in
Speaker 4: his family, like to talk about and I was the
Speaker 4: complete opposite. So he actually gave me like the courage
Speaker 4: to even pursue this. And you know, at some point
Speaker 4: I wanted to talk about it to my family too,
Speaker 4: And when I first told them, of course, they're just like, girl, like,
Speaker 4: what do you have to complain about? Like, you have
Speaker 4: a perfect life, get over it. Your anxiety is made up,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. But at some point, you know, you
Speaker 4: kind of have to just brush that stuff aside and realize, like,
Speaker 4: your feelings are your feelings. You don't need somebody else
Speaker 4: to validate them, and if you need help, like, that's
Speaker 4: what it's there for. So whoever approves or doesn't, they
Speaker 4: got to get over that shit because it has nothing
Speaker 4: to do with you.
Speaker 1: I love that your husband.
Speaker 2: I've never heard an anecdote from someone saying my my
Speaker 2: male partner, my husband encouraged me to get into therapy.
Speaker 2: I want to hear more stories like that. I think
Speaker 2: that's amazing. Yeah, okay, well we don't have that much time,
Speaker 2: but I want to. So we haven't even gotten to YO.
Speaker 2: But before her, you've lived like twelve lives in the
Speaker 2: past decade. It feels like, but you you didn't start
Speaker 2: with jokto di Nato while you were working. You've launched
Speaker 2: your food blog, right, Delish Delights, which is to this
Speaker 2: day one of your ten income sources, which we're gonna
Speaker 2: talk to Genie about how she has ten streams of income,
Speaker 2: which is like major goals, But talk to me about
Speaker 2: Delish Delights how it is making money for you today.
Speaker 2: And then when did you pivot from food blogging to
Speaker 2: money blogging and money advice?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the food blog is definitely like a creative
Speaker 4: outlet that I started because of this frustration that I
Speaker 4: had around my career. I had a typical quarter life
Speaker 4: crisis where I'm like I wake up, like I'm like
Speaker 4: twenty seven years old.
Speaker 1: What the hell is my life?
Speaker 4: Like why is this the thing that we all have
Speaker 4: to do? Like why do we just have to go
Speaker 4: to work every day and work till we're sixty five
Speaker 4: and then like go and enjoy life. So I was
Speaker 4: convinced that like maybe I should just quit my job
Speaker 4: and go to culinary school and I'm going to be like,
Speaker 4: you know, Gordon Rams or something. But then I realized, okay, wait,
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna take like a massive pay cup because
Speaker 4: we all know the restaurant industry doesn't pay. I'm going
Speaker 4: to get into more student loans debt when I'm still
Speaker 4: paying off like my master's degree. Hold on, maybe this
Speaker 4: is not the route to go. So then I discovered
Speaker 4: the world of online blogging. So I started finding websites
Speaker 4: like skinny Taste dot com and The Pioneer Woman, and
Speaker 4: I realized, oh, this love of cooking that I have
Speaker 4: can actually be something that I can do from home
Speaker 4: and I can create like this website, and maybe I
Speaker 4: can actually monetize this, and so I dove in like
Speaker 4: head first. I created my blog. I started sharing recipes.
Speaker 2: Every day.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, my husband would come home,
Speaker 4: I'd be like on top of the kitchen table, like
Speaker 4: taking pictures every dish in the you know, kitchen sink,
Speaker 4: all the pots would be used. And then I got
Speaker 4: laid off like six months after I started the blog
Speaker 4: and have this free time to myself to really just
Speaker 4: pretend like what would it be like if I was
Speaker 4: a self employed person making a living off of a
Speaker 4: food blog. So I took the opportunity to take some
Speaker 4: courses in food blogging, which was just becoming like a
Speaker 4: thing that people were actually teaching you how to do
Speaker 4: that you could actually make money on. And I started
Speaker 4: implementing what I was learning into my journey as a blogger.
Speaker 4: And so here we are, like eight years later. I
Speaker 4: started monetizing the blog maybe two years after I started it,
Speaker 4: because those two years were basically a huge learning curve
Speaker 4: where I was starting to understand, like how you actually
Speaker 4: monetize a brand that you create online. And eight years later,
Speaker 4: the blog is earning anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand
Speaker 4: dollars a month in passive income from ads, from traffic
Speaker 4: that is coming to my website. I reach about four
Speaker 4: million visitors a year now with my website. Thank y'all
Speaker 4: so much for rocking with me this past month during
Speaker 4: our summer co host series. I missed TIF She will
Speaker 4: be back next week, so check out our episode coming
Speaker 4: up next week on July. Let me look at my calendar,
Speaker 4: because y'all know, mom brain is a real affliction. July fourteenth,
Speaker 4: we are back with a fresh episode with Tiffany. She
Speaker 4: is going to be back in the co host chair.
Speaker 4: I cannot wait.
Speaker 2: But again, thank you so much to our listeners for
Speaker 2: rocking with me this past month and to our co host,
Speaker 2: Chris Berna, Janie Jamila. Thank y'all so so much from
Speaker 2: the bottom of my heart for joining me and opening
Speaker 2: up about your financial journeys.
Speaker 1: They have been.
Speaker 2: Inspiring, hilarious, thought provoking. I can't wait. Can't wait for
Speaker 2: you guys to catch up and listen to all of them.
Speaker 2: Check out our podcast wherever you get them Apple podcasts,
Speaker 2: Google podcast, Amazon podcasts, oh Lord, Stitcher, tune in, wherever
Speaker 2: you want to get them. Check out these episodes, and
Speaker 2: don't forget to hit us up on Instagram. Let us
Speaker 2: know what you liked about an episode. Send us your questions,
Speaker 2: y'all know we love to answer them. We are at
Speaker 2: Brown Ambition Podcast on Instagram, so tweet us at the
Speaker 2: BA podcast or send us an email where Brown Ambition
Speaker 2: Podcast at gmail dot com.