Speaker 1: Hey, now it's time for the b a q a.
Speaker 2: A me a q a.
Speaker 1: What is saying the b a q a with Manda,
Speaker 1: the b a q a with Toda b a q a.
Speaker 3: I love the an sync pronunciation of the why.
Speaker 1: I'm getting on my Mary jay Blie my dancery somebody, y'all.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what that means, child, go listen
Speaker 1: to some Mary. Yes, it's time for the b a
Speaker 1: q a where you have questions and we have some answers.
Speaker 1: Although we are not your attorneys, your financial advisors, but
Speaker 1: we are two smart brown girls when it comes to
Speaker 1: your money, when it comes to your business, and when
Speaker 1: it comes to your what do we do career? I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: what's career? So let's crack over b a q a.
Speaker 1: If you have any questions, you can always send them
Speaker 1: to us.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 1: If you want to be on BAQA and sitting the
Speaker 1: hot seat and ask us some questions, you can send
Speaker 1: an audio note to us on Instagram. We are Brand
Speaker 1: and Mission Podcasts. On Instagram. You can go to Branipision
Speaker 1: podcast dot com and click like the contact us button
Speaker 1: or whatever and ask a question that way. We'd love
Speaker 1: to have you whether it's here in person, when the
Speaker 1: digital studio, or we just answer your question.
Speaker 2: So we've got somebody name, do we want to use
Speaker 2: her name? Because what does she doys want that to
Speaker 2: be her name?
Speaker 3: She should have used a pseudonym, Isabella. Let's go with Isabella.
Speaker 2: That's my Okaya.
Speaker 1: So Isabella says, Hey, Mandy and Tiffany, I recently found
Speaker 1: your show and I've been obsessed.
Speaker 2: We love that Isabella.
Speaker 1: My partner and I have a goal of buy a
Speaker 1: house in five years. I have an HYSSA. But when
Speaker 1: I'm doing my research or what is the best place
Speaker 1: to save the best way to save for a down payment,
Speaker 1: I've been getting overwhelmed with all of these ways to save.
Speaker 1: Should I be using an HSA, HYSA investment or open
Speaker 1: ACD account? Currently working on paying down my loans and
Speaker 1: credit card debt while building an emergency fund. Once I
Speaker 1: get all of these things taken care of and debt free,
Speaker 1: my goal is to start saving toward a future home.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much in advance, Love you girls, Ea Saba.
Speaker 3: La all right, okay, so high Yield Savings account is hyssay?
Speaker 3: I mean the good news is that High Yield Savings
Speaker 3: accounts are actually high yield again because the FED has
Speaker 3: been raising rates. I think I'm more up to like
Speaker 3: over two percent in online only banks. Yeah, two whole pennies, yes,
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars yep, or one dollar, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it's been I mean, you got five years, which
Speaker 3: is a long time horizon. So the good news is
Speaker 3: that you do have these other options you could you know,
Speaker 3: there could be a case for a semi aggressive ish
Speaker 3: investment account to save for that to invest for that house.
Speaker 3: You do have to look at the economy, of course.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you were gonna drop money into an
Speaker 3: investment account, would now be the worst time? No, it
Speaker 3: depends on what happens in the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: But the market has gone down, down, down, down, downtwntown,
Speaker 3: So there could be the expectation that you could put
Speaker 3: some money in there and then if you weather the
Speaker 3: recession that's coming, that it would grow five years from now.
Speaker 3: History would tell you that that is probably the case.
Speaker 3: But you know, I feel uncomfortable predicting the future, So
Speaker 3: there's that. So it depends on like your level of risk,
Speaker 3: you know, aversion are you or risk tolerance? Can you
Speaker 3: handle the idea that you may lose some money if
Speaker 3: you sink it into investment account or do you want to
Speaker 3: know that every penny you sock away will remain there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and if that's the case, then a CD could definitely
Speaker 3: be a nice little alternative. With the CD, you do
Speaker 3: have to lock up your money for a certain amount
Speaker 3: of time, but in return for locking it up, they
Speaker 3: will give you a much higher interest rate than what
Speaker 3: you make it from, even the high yield savings accounts.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's definitely an option to what do you think?
Speaker 1: Well, for sure, the number one thing, Isabella is that
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that wherever you're checking, is
Speaker 1: this money ain't because lord knows, if you're like me
Speaker 1: at Target like ooh, checking is like sis, now you
Speaker 1: know you.
Speaker 2: Don't have it.
Speaker 1: Savings is like, well we have it, girl, And then
Speaker 1: you hitch your finger on the button and transfer from
Speaker 1: checking the savings and in two point two seconds you
Speaker 1: have your money available. So that's number one for Isabella
Speaker 1: or anyone listening. Any money that you want to have saved,
Speaker 1: you have to make your money inconvenient, because inconvenient money
Speaker 1: gets saved. So that's first and foremost and a highild
Speaker 1: savings account is inconvenient as long as you don't have
Speaker 1: a checking account at that same bank. And investment account
Speaker 1: definitely inconvenient. That means it's not super liquid, and a
Speaker 1: CD is definitely inconvenient if it was me. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm reading in this is she wants
Speaker 1: to pay off her credit card debt.
Speaker 2: So here's the here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Because of the way the market is, I mean, things
Speaker 1: are down like woof, like the market is down bad.
Speaker 1: But as Mandy said, it doesn't ever stay down bad.
Speaker 1: It has yet to stay down in history. But then again,
Speaker 1: we haven't had a pandemic in one hundred years, so
Speaker 1: we don't know.
Speaker 2: If it was me.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Isabella, because you know, I
Speaker 1: can't give you investment advice. But if it was me,
Speaker 1: I probably would be putting some in an investment account
Speaker 1: and then some in either high yield savings or a
Speaker 1: CD because I would want to try my luck a
Speaker 1: little bit. Like let's just say, if I was aside,
Speaker 1: if I'm paying off my credit card debt, I told myself,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save like say, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars a month towards the house. I might
Speaker 1: do like one hundred in my investment account or one fifty,
Speaker 1: no more than that, and then the other one any
Speaker 1: of their like you know, in a higal savings and
Speaker 1: then save up enough until like you know, had enough
Speaker 1: to put like a good amount into a CD for
Speaker 1: like a year or two years, whatever, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever length of CD that you're looking for. The longer
Speaker 1: the length of the CD, the more money that they
Speaker 1: will pay you an interest. That's probably what I would do,
Speaker 1: is a mix of the two if it was me.
Speaker 1: Because I cannot give you financial I cannot give you
Speaker 1: investment advice.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Tiffany.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I will say this, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much your what your interest ran in your credit card
Speaker 1: debt is. If the interest on your credit card debt
Speaker 1: is double digits, then you need to double down on that.
Speaker 1: If the interest is under double digits, then I would
Speaker 1: be saving for the house at the same time as
Speaker 1: paying off my credit card debt. Because you basically have
Speaker 1: to say, ask yourself, will the cost of the credit
Speaker 1: card debt, meaning the interest, wipe out any returns that
Speaker 1: you might get on your investment because on average, you know,
Speaker 1: you're looking at a ten percent return annually on investments.
Speaker 1: I mean some years you'll get more than ten, some
Speaker 1: year less than ten, but it'll average out to be
Speaker 1: about ten. So if your credit cards cost you more
Speaker 1: than ten, even if the market gives you ten, the
Speaker 1: credit card debt will credit card interest rate will wipe
Speaker 1: that way those gains.
Speaker 2: I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So if your credit card debt interest rate is twenty percent,
Speaker 1: thirty percent, pay that off, do not pass go, do
Speaker 1: not collect two hundred dollars. If it's eight percent, nine percent,
Speaker 1: six percent, seven percent, I'll be doing both credit card
Speaker 1: debt and and setting aside for the house. And when
Speaker 1: I say set aside for a house, I mean like investing,
Speaker 1: so that way I could take advantage of these these
Speaker 1: of the market being down. But that's about with Tiffany,
Speaker 1: not if I was Isabella, because the Sabella got to
Speaker 1: decide for herself.
Speaker 2: You see see what I did there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, assue me. I mean the more I think about it,
Speaker 3: I feel like, because she wants to build up her
Speaker 3: emergency fund too, I think AHIL savings accounts a great
Speaker 3: place for an emergency fund. It is like Tiffany said,
Speaker 3: harder to get to, but it's still you're able to
Speaker 3: get to it, you know, because it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: really easy to get to. And if you wanted that separation,
Speaker 3: I like the separation of accounts for your goal. So
Speaker 3: if you wanted that separation for your your down payment fund,
Speaker 3: then you've got five years or more. So open that CD.
Speaker 3: You know, get a long term CD. You can even do.
Speaker 3: You can google and you'll probably find an old article
Speaker 3: that I edited at Magnify Money on how to do
Speaker 3: a CD ladder, because I'll never forget it the labor
Speaker 3: of love. So you know, if you don't like the
Speaker 3: idea of getting like a five year CD and putting
Speaker 3: everything in there, you could, you know, kind of stagger
Speaker 3: it so you can get a twelve month CD and
Speaker 3: then like an eighteen month and a twenty four month
Speaker 3: and like, you know, work your way up. But but
Speaker 3: I like that. It's it's really hard to get to
Speaker 3: and it's your home fund. And you know, when you
Speaker 3: can choose how much you want to put into those
Speaker 3: CDs and just kind of set them to the side
Speaker 3: and they'll grow at a higher rate than they would
Speaker 3: and your you know, your high he oled savings.
Speaker 2: I know, hopefully I know those. It's like that that's
Speaker 2: what I ask you, guys. I'm like, I know.
Speaker 1: Basically what we're saying is there's no wrong answer, as
Speaker 1: long as you make your money inconvenient do.
Speaker 3: A little bit about all of it. She's like, just
Speaker 3: tell me the one thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yes, It's like, that's probably what I would do. I
Speaker 1: probably would do a little mix.
Speaker 3: Helpful all the info. Good luck on saving for the
Speaker 3: house though, very exciting, and thank goodness you're not in
Speaker 3: a rush because I don't know. This is a tough
Speaker 3: time to buy it is. Should take a quick break
Speaker 3: and come right back with another question from Carolina.
Speaker 1: Carolina Catalina. That was my best friend from elementary school.
Speaker 1: That was her name, Carolina.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get into this question number two. I
Speaker 3: forgive you. You put a y at the end of
Speaker 3: my name. It does not belong there, but I forgive
Speaker 3: you Ktalina. Catalina says, Hi, Mandy and Tiffany, I love
Speaker 3: your podcast. I hope you can give me advice. I
Speaker 3: am thirty and I'm in a divorce process after five
Speaker 3: years of marriage. I'm walking out with empty pockets. Due
Speaker 3: to many wrong decisions I took. I was living Inmany
Speaker 3: and now I've moved back to my mom's and sister
Speaker 3: in Canada. I need help finding out what I can
Speaker 3: do to plan ahead for my retirement, a house, or
Speaker 3: just to have a good life. I'm debt free, but
Speaker 3: I have no savings at all. Please girls advise me here.
Speaker 3: You're a Latina fan, you can call me Catalina.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, Darlena. Well forst of starting over, don't beat
Speaker 1: yourself up. Talking about many wrong decisions doesn't sound wrong
Speaker 1: to me. You don't moved back with moms smart and
Speaker 1: you have no debt, super smart, So you sound smart
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Sis, So let's start there.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, I don't you didn't say anything about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what you do for a living, or if
Speaker 1: you have income coming in, if.
Speaker 3: You are living probably starting all the way over coming
Speaker 3: from Germany to Canada after a bad marriage. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think all roads stem from your career, you know, like
Speaker 3: financial roads. So what I'm hoping is that your mom
Speaker 3: and your sister, if you live with's or just one
Speaker 3: of them, that they can give you some some freedom
Speaker 3: and some space to like build yourself back up. Which
Speaker 3: is a gift in and of itself, and shout out
Speaker 3: to all the families who are that soft place to
Speaker 3: land for us. And I would just focus on to
Speaker 3: having a fresh start in your career and finding a
Speaker 3: job that you really enjoy that pays you well, and
Speaker 3: investing in some time to you know, dust off that resume,
Speaker 3: get it spruced up, have someone look it over. I
Speaker 3: don't know if English is your first language. I know
Speaker 3: that you said that you were living in Germany. I
Speaker 3: don't know, but yeah, maybe getting that spruced up and
Speaker 3: making sure that you're like positioning yourself best for the
Speaker 3: opportunities that you want. And as far as like starting
Speaker 3: to build up your savings, I would start like priority
Speaker 3: You can't do it all, yeah at once, So like
Speaker 3: what do you need to prioritize for you? It may
Speaker 3: be like saving up enough to pay your first few
Speaker 3: months of rent if you wanted to move out on
Speaker 3: your own and have that independence back. Or it could
Speaker 3: be you know, you could live with your mom for
Speaker 3: a long time time and just focus on building up
Speaker 3: your emergency fund. I'm just really sorry what happened in this.
Speaker 3: In this case, it's I mean, my my mom really
Speaker 3: struggled financially after her divorce, In fact, both of them did.
Speaker 3: It was a hot mess. But I feel like the mistakes,
Speaker 3: or you know, the mistakes you may perceive to be mistakes,
Speaker 3: you're still so young. You have so much time to
Speaker 3: learn from them and do everything differently this time, and
Speaker 3: you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be amazing.
Speaker 1: I just want to like encourage you, Catalina to first
Speaker 1: start with like it's gonna sound kind of like cheesy,
Speaker 1: but like I want you to forgive yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: because I promise you you're probably like kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, like being really harder on yourself than you
Speaker 1: ought to. I want you to think of yourself and
Speaker 1: ask yourself. Okay, let's pretend like this is my sister
Speaker 1: and you know, she after a divorce, is back with me.
Speaker 2: And mommy, Like, would you would you? I know you are.
Speaker 1: You're talking to yourself in your head, and I bet
Speaker 1: you're being harsh.
Speaker 2: Would you talk to your.
Speaker 1: Sister like that? You wouldn't, you'd be like on, I'm
Speaker 1: just so glad you're here. I'm glad that you decided that,
Speaker 1: like it was so smart of you to come back
Speaker 1: home to where you're safe and where we can help you. Like,
Speaker 1: I want you to talk to yourself, nice girl, right,
Speaker 1: I want you to lean in and because if you don't, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you got a chance to watch
Speaker 1: Get Smart with Money on Netflix, the documentary that I
Speaker 1: did on Netflix. And one of the things that really
Speaker 1: I worked with Adriana on she's like this amazing Dominican
Speaker 1: woman who I helped on the show, is that she
Speaker 1: was so hard on herself. And because she was hard
Speaker 1: on herself, she experienced a lot of shame and she
Speaker 1: couldn't get past the shame because shame shields solutions. And
Speaker 1: so even though it was like a yo yo diet,
Speaker 1: even though she would budget a little bit, she would
Speaker 1: go right back to overspending and she would get her
Speaker 1: credit card bills down, and she would go right back
Speaker 1: because it was that mental thing that she had not
Speaker 1: addressed first. So it's going to be very hard, Catrolina,
Speaker 1: to fix whatever you want to fix financially if you're
Speaker 1: being really hard on yourself. So I want to give
Speaker 1: you the permission to say I did the best that
Speaker 1: I could with what I had before me, and now
Speaker 1: that I'm in a better place, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: even better. That's what I want you to say, right
Speaker 1: when that other Catalina reads and rears her head and says, girl.
Speaker 2: You should have done.
Speaker 1: I did the best that I could with the situation
Speaker 1: that I was in, and now that I'm in a
Speaker 1: better situation, I'm doing even better because look at you
Speaker 1: writing it to Branhambischion listening to Brian ambition that speaks
Speaker 1: volumes about like what type of person you are that
Speaker 1: you're like, oh no, no, no, no, I am going
Speaker 1: to have a better life, and you will. And so
Speaker 1: I just want you to start there, and shameless plug,
Speaker 1: I want you to work on financial wholeness. I want
Speaker 1: you to work on the ten core sets, especially the
Speaker 1: first five of your personal finances. So that's budgeting one,
Speaker 1: savings two, debt three, but your debt free, which is
Speaker 1: great credit for and then learning to earn five. That's
Speaker 1: those the first five of the ten steps of financial hollness.
Speaker 1: And so you can you can get help. I wrote
Speaker 1: a book Get Good with Money, and you can get help.
Speaker 1: I get Good with Money dot Com and work through
Speaker 1: those steps. But I just want you to forgive yourself
Speaker 1: because I can hear I can almost hear you through
Speaker 1: your writing that you're harding yourself and we wish you
Speaker 1: look and keep up if you get I we love updates.
Speaker 1: So if you anyone listening is like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you answered my question and I listened or I didn't,
Speaker 1: or it worked or it didn't, we'd love some updates.
Speaker 2: Just make sure you let us know, like what name
Speaker 2: we used.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh my gosh, I was in whatever
Speaker 1: episode and you know, you guys called me, you know,
Speaker 1: silky savvy or whatever, So not what we know, because
Speaker 1: we'd love to know.
Speaker 2: Remember we had who was a guy with whose wife?
Speaker 2: Kevin McKidd girl.
Speaker 1: Kevin was like, my wife needs y'all help me, while
Speaker 1: it was Kevin the need a.
Speaker 3: Little bit of help, but we hi Kevin.
Speaker 2: Hi, Kevin.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: But we love the updates, So you know, we hope
Speaker 2: that you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: If you have questions, if you want to be in
Speaker 1: the live digital studio with us and ask us your
Speaker 1: questions about career, about business, about personal finance, go to
Speaker 1: our Instagram, Brandovich and podcast. Leave us a voice note
Speaker 1: via the message and you know we'll listen and we'll
Speaker 1: amani are our producer will listen and will help choose.
Speaker 1: And if you don't want to be in but you
Speaker 1: still want your questions answered, you can go to brandibitchapodcast
Speaker 1: dot com and ask us a question there via the contact.
Speaker 3: We're just sun a regular role text dm ye really quick.
Speaker 3: I did want to mention cut Alina. There is an
Speaker 3: incredible podcast you mentioned there Latina. My girl Jannise Torrez
Speaker 3: just went through a divorce and she's been incredibly brave
Speaker 3: and courageous and all the things. And she has this
Speaker 3: episode with her sister, her little sister, and it was October.
Speaker 3: It's episode one seventy nine of her podcast You Okada Dnato.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's called two Sisters, Two Survivors. They
Speaker 3: both came out of abusive relationships and talk about it
Speaker 3: and it is the most like realistic sister chat about
Speaker 3: to force love it and like Janis is the older
Speaker 3: one and you can tell and like her little sister
Speaker 3: for her name now is like really sassy Lianne Leanne.
Speaker 3: So and also it's a great podcast to check out
Speaker 3: if you're looking for a Latina perspective. I love Jennie
Speaker 3: and she's phenomenal, So.
Speaker 2: Go awesome that's good. That's a good tool of the sources.
Speaker 2: We love y'all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank y'all so much for your questions, and we'll
Speaker 3: see you next week on the ba qa.
Speaker 4: Hey ba fam. We could not do this show without
Speaker 4: your support or the support of our team behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: The Brown Ambission Podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network.
Speaker 4: It's edited by the wonderful Emani Crosby and produced by
Speaker 4: Tanya Bustos. Dennistimplinsky is our in house tech guru, and
Speaker 4: I am Bandy Woodrid Santos your co host, and I
Speaker 4: will see y'all next week